A remnant force of Yildirim Army Group managed to escape Damascus, to concentrate at Rayak before retreating through Homs and Hama towards Aleppo.

[3] Otto Liman von Sanders transferred his headquarters to Baalbek and ordered the remnants of Yildirim Army Group from Haifa and Deraa to concentrate at Rayak.

Only the remnants of von Oppen's Asia Corps and the 146th Regiment marching to Homs remained "disciplined formations" by 2 October.

[6] Remnants of the Seventh Army commanded by Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) which had escaped Megiddo, Damascus and Aleppo, were now deployed to the north and north-west of that city.

[7][8] This force which conducted the pursuit was made up of Prince Faisal's Sherifial Force; one column of fifteen hundred commanded by Colonel Nuri Bey and a second column of fifteen hundred commanded by Sherif Nasir,[9] the 2nd, 11th and 12th Light Armoured Motor Batteries and the 1st (Australian), 2nd and 7th Light Car Patrols consisting of 24 armoured cars,[10] and the 5th Cavalry Division's 15th (Imperial Service) Cavalry Brigade which accompanied the armoured cars to Hamma on 21 October,[11] while the 13th and 14th Cavalry Brigades followed in support.

Column "A" consisted of Major-General Henry Macandrew's division headquarters, all the armoured cars and the 15th (Imperial Service) Cavalry Brigade.

The brigade was ordered to occupy a position on the Aleppo-Alexandretta road and to clear Turkish trenches on the ridge to the west of Aleppo.

[20] Intelligence from locals suggested that a force of one thousand men with two small artillery guns were heading north out of Aleppo, so the brigade set off in pursuit.

At 11:00 the leading two Jodhpur Lancers squadron and a machine-gun section reached a position overlooking Haritan to the north of Aleppo, when they came under Turkish small arms fire.

The Mysore Lancers had also started their advance but discovered the Turkish line was longer than expected and had to move further east, out of range of their supporting machine-guns, to get into a position to charge.

[21] The extent of which had not until then been fully appreciated and was now estimated to be held by a force of three thousand infantry, four hundred cavalry, up to twelve artillery guns and between thirty and forty machine-guns.

[27][28] The Armistice which ended fighting between the EEF and the Yildirim Army Group was negotiated at Mudros and "signed on the deck of the battleship Agamemnon on October 30, 1918.