At this time no orders had been received as to Aleppo, but it is evident that General MacAndrew had in his mind the probability of an advance to seize that city. At any rate, this organisation of his division enabled him to do so when the time came, and by a piece of sheer bluff.
The march proceeded without incident up the valley of the Orontes, and the armoured cars of Column 'A' entered Homs unopposed on the 15th, where they met a force of Sherifian troops, under Sherif Nasir, who had marched from Damascus by the direct north road. Two days previously the 20th Corps cavalry regiment had occupied Tripoli, where it was joined a few days later by part of the 7th Infantry Division, and arrangements were at once put in hand to land stores at the little port, and send them up by road to Homs. Column 'B' arrived on the 16th.
The Commander-in-Chief now determined to complete the political part of the campaign by seizing Aleppo, and occupying all the Arab-speaking country from the sea to the Euphrates.
The only troops available for the enterprise were the 5th Cavalry Division and the armoured cars. The Australian Division was at Damascus, over 100 miles away, and could not be brought up in time. The 4th Division, reduced in strength and exhausted by disease, was incapable of any work till men and horses had been given a thorough rest and time to recover from sickness. This division and the Australian Division had suffered some 300 deaths from disease since reaching Damascus, a fortnight before. Even the 5th Division, which had suffered far less severely than the other two, was in a deplorable state. The whole division hardly mustered 1500 sabres. The two R.H.A. batteries with the division numbered between them but four officers and eighty men.
It was known that there were about 20,000 Turks and Germans at Aleppo, or south of that place, and it was believed that about half of these were combatants, though probably ill-armed and disorganised. Aleppo is over 100 miles from Homs, and 180 from Tripoli or Baalbek, the two nearest points from which any possible reinforcements could be sent.
In the face of these facts, the boldest of commanders might well have been excused for deciding to call a halt. But the political and moral advantages to be gained by a farther advance into the enemy's country appeared so great that General Allenby determined to accept the risk. On the 19th of October he directed General MacAndrew to advance to Aleppo.