Battle of Ayun Kara 1917
![Powles, C. Guy (1872-1951) and A.H. Wilkie (1878-1941) [2]](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Powles_pp.144-5_Ayun_Kara_map.jpg){kind=link}
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Date | 14 November 1917 | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1917 | Wikidata P585 (point in time) |
| Era | World War I era (1914–1918) | derived from year |
| Location | Israel | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Asia | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | Middle Eastern theater of World War I, World War I | Wikidata P361 |
| Participants | Ottoman Empire, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland | Wikidata P710 |
| Coordinates | 31.9483, 34.7756 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The Battle of Ayun Kara (14 November 1917) was an engagement in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign during the First World War. The battle was fought between the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade and a similar-sized rearguard from the Turkish 3rd Infantry Division, which was part of the XXII Corps of the Ottoman Eighth Army under Kress von Kressenstein.
Following their success in the battles of Beersheba, Gaza, and Mughar Ridge, the Egyptian Expeditionary Force was pursuing the retreating Turkish forces north. The New Zealanders, part of the ANZAC Mounted Division, were on the division's left heading towards Rishon LeZion, when nine miles (14 km) south of Jaffa they encountered the Turkish rearguard on the edge of sand dunes to the west of the villages of Surafend el Harab and Ayun Kara. The Turkish forces consisted of around 1,500 infantry, supported by machine-guns and artillery.
The battle started in the afternoon with the New Zealanders caught in the open. Despite Turkish artillery, machine-gun fire, and infantry assaults, the New Zealanders gradually fought their way forward.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Battle of Ayun Kara (revision 1373369756), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
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Browse more: battles in Israel · Asia · World War I era battles