transferred to Palestine from the Caucasus. Indeed, at the end of the Jerusalem campaign the Ottoman soldiers appeared the toughest, most obdurate and most professional of fighters. Training continued and in early February, the 20th Infantry Regiment at regimental level received intensive training in day and night fortification and battle drill. While Enver Pasa and the Ottoman General Staff remained focused on the offensive, the Ottoman armies remained aggressive and confident. Their front line was held by the Eighth Army with headquarters at Tul Keram defending the Mediterranean coastal sector, the Seventh Army with headquarters at Nablus defending the Judean Hills sector while the Fourth Army with headquarters at Amman (until after the first Transjordan attack on Amman when its headquarters was moved forward to Es Salt) defended the Transjordan sector. But German air superiority ended with the arrival of the S.E.5.a and Bristol fighters, one of which destroyed three German Albatros scouts on 12 December. From January 1918 these British planes increasingly dominated the skies. The Ottoman high command was dissatisfied with von Falkenhayn, the commander of the Yildirim Army Group in Palestine. He was seen to have been responsible for the defeat at Beersheba and his refusal to allow Ottoman staff officers to participate in planning combat operations rankled. Enver Pasa replaced him on 19 February with General Otto Liman von Sanders and under this new leader, the established 'active, flexible defence' style was changed to a more unyielding defence. Arrival of a new German commander Liman von Sanders took over command of the Ottoman Army in Palestine from von Falkenhayn on 1 March 1918. On arrival it was apparent to him that the Ottoman front line was particularly weak west of the Jordan and he took immediate action to strengthen both flanks by a redistribution of his forces. In May 1918, during the lull in fighting after the two Transjordan attacks, from his headquarters at Nazareth, Liman took the opportunity to reorganise the Ottoman army forces in Palestine. The Eighth Army, which was headquartered at Tul Keram under the command of Djevad Pasha (Kress von Kressenstein's successor), consisted of the XXII Corps (7th, 20th and 46th Divisions) and the Asiatic Corps (16th and 19th Divisions, 701st, 702nd and 703rd German Battalions). This army held a line running eastwards from the Mediterranean shore for about into the hills at Furkhah. Mustafa Kemal Pasha's (Fevzi's successor) Seventh Army, whose