PRISONERS FROM THE EMDENPRISONERS FROM THE "EMDEN" ON THE FLAGSHIP GUARDED BY SENTRY AS THEY TAKE EXERCISE ON DECK.The group, from the left, is the German Doctor Captain Finklestein, Captain Debussy (in charge of prisoners), the Prince of Hohenzollern, Captain Gordon Smith, who is talking to Captain Müller, hidden behind sentry.
PRISONERS FROM THE "EMDEN" ON THE FLAGSHIP GUARDED BY SENTRY AS THEY TAKE EXERCISE ON DECK.The group, from the left, is the German Doctor Captain Finklestein, Captain Debussy (in charge of prisoners), the Prince of Hohenzollern, Captain Gordon Smith, who is talking to Captain Müller, hidden behind sentry.
PRISONERS FROM THE "EMDEN" ON THE FLAGSHIP GUARDED BY SENTRY AS THEY TAKE EXERCISE ON DECK.
The group, from the left, is the German Doctor Captain Finklestein, Captain Debussy (in charge of prisoners), the Prince of Hohenzollern, Captain Gordon Smith, who is talking to Captain Müller, hidden behind sentry.
THE DIRK OF PRINCE FRANCIS JOSEPH OF HOHENZOLLERNTHE DIRK OF PRINCE FRANCIS JOSEPH OF HOHENZOLLERN.It was beautifully embossed but greatly damaged by the fire on the "Emden."To face p. 56.
THE DIRK OF PRINCE FRANCIS JOSEPH OF HOHENZOLLERN.It was beautifully embossed but greatly damaged by the fire on the "Emden."To face p. 56.
THE DIRK OF PRINCE FRANCIS JOSEPH OF HOHENZOLLERN.
It was beautifully embossed but greatly damaged by the fire on the "Emden."
To face p. 56.
On theSydney'sdecks the men were laid out side by side and their wounds attended to as far as possible. The worst cases were given accommodation below, the doctor of theSydneywith the German surgeon working day and night to relieve the men of their pain. The heat from the ship and from the tropical sun made the conditions dreadful. The prisoners had in most cases nothing but the clothes they stood up in. One man, who had received a gash in his chest, had tied a kimono in a knot and plugged the wound with it by tying round a piece of cord. Otherwise he was naked. The death-roll on the cruiser had been appalling. There were 12 officers killed and 119 men. The wounded taken on board numbered 56, while there were 115 prisoners, including 11 officers. Many of the wounded subsequently died of their wounds. The prisoners were placed in the bows, with a small guard over them. The cruiser, at no time meant to carry extra men, was horribly congested. The less seriously wounded were removed to theEmpress of Russia, which had passed the Convoy, hastily summoned from Colombo, about 60 hours' steam from that port, and this gave some relief.
It was only after close inspection that I realized thefull extent of theSydney'sscars, which her crew point to now with such pride. A casual glance would hardly have detected a hole, about as big as a saucer, on the port side. This was the result of one of the high trajectory shots that had made a curious passage for itself, as I described earlier. This tracing of the course of the shells was most interesting. I saw where the paint had been scorched off the fire-control station, and where the hammocks that were used to protect the men from flying splinters had been burned brown, or black, or dyed crimson with blood. I saw, too, the shape of a man's leg on a canvas screen where it had fallen. Looking in at the door of one of the petty officers' mess-rooms below, I was told I was just in the same position as one of the crew who had been standing there when a shell struck the side of the ship opposite him and tried to pierce the armoured plate, though he himself had not waited long enough to see the great blister it raised, almost as large as a football, before it fell back spent into the sea. The men were below, writing home, when I went through to the bows to see the damage done by the shells that had torn up the decks. They laughed as they pointed to places now filled up with cement, and laughed at the notice board and draught-flue, riddled with holes. So far as the interior of the ship was concerned, there was nothing else to suggest the stress she had been through. The only knowledge the engineers had of the action was a distant rumbling of the guns and a small fragment of shell that tumbled down a companion-way into the engine-room. And I wonder if too great praise can be bestowed on the engineers for their work in this crisis. From 9.20 a.m., which was when the cruiser sighted theEmden, until noon, when she left theEmdena wreck, theSydneysteamed 68 miles at speeds varying between 13 and 27 knots.
As I grew accustomed to look for the chips off the portions of the ship, I marked places where shells must have just grazed the decks and fittings. All the holes had been filled with cement till the cruiser could get to Malta to refit. Stays had been repaired and the damaged steam-pipe was working again. The only break had been a temporary stoppage of the refrigeratingmachinery, owing to a shell cutting the pipe. So I went round while the officers accounted for fourteen bad hits. I wondered how many times theEmdenhad been holed and belted. Our gunners had fired about 650 rounds of ordinary shell, the starboard guns firing more than the port guns. The German cruiser had expended 1,500 rounds, and had practically exhausted all the ammunition she carried.
I am unwilling to leave the story of the battle without reference to the action of a petty officer who was in the after fire-control when it was wrecked, at the beginning of the fight. It will be recalled that there were two shells that got home on this control, and the five men stationed there were injured, in some extraordinary way, not seriously. The wounds were nearly all about the legs, and the men were unable to walk. Yet they knew their only chance for their lives was to leave this place as soon as possible. Shells were streaming past, the ship was trembling under the discharge of the guns. Less badly damaged than his mates, a petty officer managed to stand, and though in intense pain, half-fell, half-lowered himself from the control station to the deck, about 5 feet below. The remainder of the group had simply to throw themselves to the deck, breaking their fall by clinging to the twisted stays as best they might. All five of them pulled themselves across the deck, wriggling on their stomachs until they reached the companion-way. They were all making up their minds to fall down this as well, as being the only means of getting below, when the gallant petty officer struggled to his feet and carried his mates down the companion-way one by one. As a feat alone this was no mean task, but executed under the conditions it was, it became a magnificent action of devotion and sacrifice.
Before concluding this account, let me say that Major-General Bridges was anxious that theSydneyshould be suitably welcomed as she steamed past the Convoy on her way to Colombo, and sent a request to Captain Glossop asking that she might steam near the fleet. The answer was: "Thank you for your invitation. In view of wounded would request no cheering. Will steam between 1st and 2nd Divisions." The same request to have no cheering was signalled to Colombo, and ittouched the captain of theEmdendeeply, as he afterwards told us. But the Convoy were denied the inspiring sight, for it was just 4.30 in the morning and barely dawn when theSydneyand theEmpress of Russia, huge and overpowering by comparison with the slim, dark-lined warship, whose funnels looked like spars sticking from the water, sped past in the distance. Once in port, however, when any boats from the fleet approached theSydney, hearty, ringing cheers came unchecked to the lips of all Australasians.
At Colombo the Australian troops found the sight of quaint junks, and mosquito craft, and naked natives, ready to dive to the bottom for asou, very fascinating after coming from more prosaic Southern climes. Colombo Harbour itself was choked with shipping and warships of the Allied Powers. There was the cruiserSydney, little the worse for wear, and also several British cruisers. There was the five-funnelledAskold, which curiously enough turned up here just after theEmdenhad gone—the two vessels, according to report, had fought one another to the death at the very beginning of the war in the China seas. There was a Chinese gunboat lying not far from the immense Empress liners, towering out of the water. The Japanese ensign fluttered from theIbuki(now having a washing day), her masts hung with fluttering white duck. There were transports from Bombay and Calcutta and Singapore, with ships bringing Territorials from England, to which now were added the transports from Australasia. Most of these latter were lying outside the breakwater and harbour, which could contain only a portion of that mass of shipping.
So after two days' delay the great Convoy, having taken in coal and water, steamed on, and a section waited by the scorched shores of Aden for a time before linking up again with the whole.
On the evening of the 27-28th November the destination of the Convoy, which was then in the Red Sea, was changed. A marconigram arrived at midnight for Major-General Bridges, and soon the whole of the Staff was roused out and a conference held. It had been then definitely announced from the War Office that the troops were to disembark in Egypt, both the Australians and New Zealanders, the purpose being, according to officialstatements, "to complete their training and for war purposes." The message said it was unforeseen circumstances, but at Aden I have no doubt a very good idea was obtained that Egypt was to be our destination, owing to the declaration of war on Turkey, while it seems quite probable that the G.O.C. knew at Albany that this land of the Nile was most likely to be the training-ground for the troops. The message further announced that Lieut.-General Sir William Birdwood would command. He was in India at the time.
That the voyage was going to end far sooner than had been expected brought some excitement to the troops, though most had been looking forward to visiting England. None at this time believed that the stay in Egypt would be long. It was recognized that the climatic conditions would be enormously in the army's favour, which afterwards was given out as one of the chief reasons for the dropping down like a bolt from the blue of this army of 30,000 men, near enough to the Canal to be of service if required. There, too, they might repel any invasion of Egypt, such as was now declared by the Turks to be their main objective, and which Germany, even as early as October, had decided to be their means of striking a blow at England—her only real vulnerable point.
But I hasten too fast and far. Arrangements, of course, had at once to be made for the distribution of the ships and the order of their procedure through the Canal (Alexandria was to be the port of disembarkation owing to lack of wharf accommodation at Suez). At the last church parade on Sunday the troops began to appear in boots and rather crumpled jackets that had been stowed away in lockers, and the tramp of booted feet on deck, with the bands playing, made a huge din. But the troops were looking marvellously fit—such magnificent types of men. The Flagship hurried on, and was at Suez a day before the remainder of the Convoy, so as to disembark some of the Staff, who were to go on to Cairo to make arrangements for the detraining and the camp, which of course was already set out by the G.O.C. in Egypt, General Sir John Maxwell. On 30th November, in the early morning, theOrvietoanchored at Suez, and during the afternoon the rest of the ships began to come in, mostly NewZealanders first, and by three o'clock our ship started through the Canal. By reason of the nearness of the enemy an armed party was posted on deck with forty rounds each in their belts, for it was just possible that there might be raiding parties approaching at some point as we went slowly through, our great searchlight in the bows lighting up the bank. Before it was dusk, however, we had a chance of seeing some of the preparations for the protection of the Canal and Egypt, including the fortified posts and trenches, which are best described in detail when I come to deal with them separately when discussing the Canal attack.
THE FIRST TENTS IN THE MENA DESERT CAMPTHE FIRST TENTS IN THE MENA DESERT CAMP ON 4TH DECEMBER, 1915.
THE FIRST TENTS IN THE MENA DESERT CAMP ON 4TH DECEMBER, 1915.
THE FIRST TENTS IN THE MENA DESERT CAMP ON 4TH DECEMBER, 1915.
VIEW OF MENA CAMPVIEW OF MENA CAMP (COMPLETED) LOOKING ACROSS THE ENGINEER TO THE ARTILLERY LINES.To face p. 62.
VIEW OF MENA CAMP (COMPLETED) LOOKING ACROSS THE ENGINEER TO THE ARTILLERY LINES.To face p. 62.
VIEW OF MENA CAMP (COMPLETED) LOOKING ACROSS THE ENGINEER TO THE ARTILLERY LINES.
To face p. 62.
A general impression I shall give, though, indicative of the feelings of many Australians travelling for the first time this great waterway. Not half a mile from the entrance to the Canal, with the town of Suez lying squat and white on the left, is the quarantine station of Shat. It was surrounded by deep trenches, out of which now rose up Indian troops, Sikhs and Gurkhas, and they came running across the sand to the banks of the Canal, where they greeted us with cheers and cries, answered by the troops, who had crowded into the rigging and were sitting on the ships' rails and deckhouses. Close beside the station was a regular, strong redoubt, with high parapets and loopholes and trenches running along the banks of the Canal, connected up with outer posts. About 20 miles farther on we came across a big redoubt, with some thousands of men camped on either side of the Canal. They belonged to the 128th Regiment, so an officer told us, as he shouted from a punt moored alongside the bank. It was just growing dusk as the transport reached this spot. The hills that formed a barrier about 15 miles from the Canal were fading into a deep vermilion in the rays of the departing sun that sank down behind a purple ridge, clear cut, on the southern side of the Canal outside of the town of Suez. Between it and the Canal was a luxurious pasturage and long lines of waving palm-trees. It was deathly still and calm, and the voices broke sharply on the air. "Where are you bound for?" asked an officer, shouting through his hands to our lads.
"We're Australians, going to Cairo," chorused the men eagerly, proud of their nationality.
"Good God!" commented the officer; and he seemedto be appalled or amazed, I could not tell which, at the prospect.
Then there came riding along the banks a man apparently from a Canal station. A dog followed his ambling ass. "Get any rabbits?" shouted the Australian bushmen, and the man with the gun laughed and shouted "Good luck!"
The desert sands were turning from gold into bronze, and soon nothing but the fierce glare of the searchlights lit up the banks. The bagpipes were playing, and this seemed to rouse the instincts of some of the Indian tribesmen, whom we saw dancing, capering, and shouting on the parapet of trenches as we swept slowly and majestically on. The troops on shore cheered, and our troops cheered back, always telling they were Australians, and, in particular, Victorians. We came across a sentinel post manned by Yorkshiremen, who spoke with a very broad accent. One such post, I remember, had rigged up a dummy sentry, and a very good imitation it was too. Out in the desert were hummocks of sand which had been set up as range marks for the warships and armed cruisers which we began now to pass anchored in the lakes. We asked one of the men on the Canal banks, who came down to cheer us, were they expecting the Turks soon to attack across the desert, and the answer was in the affirmative, and that they had been waiting for them for nights now and they had never come. Various passenger steamers we passed, and the Convoy, which closely was following the Flagship (almost a continuous line it was, for the next twenty hours), and they cheered us as we went on to Port Said, reached just after dawn.
In those days Port Said was tremendously busy; for there were a number of warships there, including the French ships theMontcalm,Desaix, andDuplex. The strip of desert lying immediately to the north of the entrance to the Canal, where there had been great saltworks, had been flooded to the extent of some 100 square miles as a safeguard from any enemy advancing from the north by the shore caravan route. Beside which protection there were patrol and picket boats, which we now saw constantly going up and down the coast and dashing in and out of the Canal entrance. On the 1st December I watched the transports as they tied up oneither side, leaving a clear passage-way for the late arriving ships that anchored further down towards the entrance to the Canal, near the great statue of De Lesseps that stands by the breakwater overlooking the Mediterranean. Amongst the transports were the warships, and a few ordinary passenger steamers outward bound to India. I remember that they were landing hydroplanes from a French "parent" ship, and we could see three or four being lifted on to a lighter, while others were tugged, resting on their floats, up to the hangar established at the eastern end of the wharves. Coaling was an operation that took a day, and gave the troops plenty to occupy their time, watching the antics of the Arabs and causing endless confusion by throwing coins amongst them, much to the distress of the chief gangers, who beat the unruly lumpers until they relinquished their searchings.
TheDesaixandRequiemwere lying just opposite to theOrvieto, and also an aeroplane ship, so M. Guillaux, a famous French aviator, who was on board, told me. It carried only light guns, but had stalls for camels on the forward deck and a workshop amidships. It was altogether a most curious-looking vessel. TheSwiftsurewas a little further down, and one of the "P" class of naval patrol boats, with Captain Hardy, of the Naval Depôt, Williamstown, curiously enough, in charge. As I went on shore to post some letters, for the first time I saw at the Indian Post Office written "The Army of Occupation in Egypt," and proclamations about martial law and other military orders, rather stern to men coming from the outskirts of Empire, where such things were unnecessary as part and parcel of dread war. I heard here rumours of the approach of the Turkish Army to the Canal, and it was in this spirit, and amidst thoughts of a possible immediate fight, that the troops looked forward to disembarking.
It is impossible, almost, to describe the excitement amongst the troops on board (steadily growing and being fomented during the 1st and 2nd December) as the transports came past one another close enough for friends to exchange greetings. Each ship saluted with a blare of trumpets, and then the bands broke into a clatter. Never shall I, for one, forget the departure for Alexandria, twelve hours' steam away.
The men, to add to their spirits, had received a few letters, one or two scattered throughout the platoons, and, as soldiers will in barrack life in India, these few were passed round and news read out for the general company. On the afternoon of the 2nd December the Flagship drew out and passed down between lines of troopships. Bugles challenged bugles in "salutes"; the bands played "Rule Britannia," the National Anthem, and the Russian Hymn, while the characteristic short, sharp cheers came from the French and British tars on the warships, in appreciation. We must have passed eight or ten ships before the entrance was cleared. The men, so soon as the salute had been duly given, rushed cheering to the sides to greet their comrades and friends, from whom now they had been separated some seven weeks.
Early next morning the Flagship reached Alexandria Harbour, and by the tortuous channel passed the shattered forts (that British guns had smashed nearly forty years before), and at length, at eight o'clock, the long voyage came to an end. The men, their kitbags already packed and their equipment on, rapidly began to entrain in the waiting troop trains. It was the 5th—I call them the Pioneer 5th Battalion, under Lieut.-Colonel Wanliss, who landed first, while at adjacent wharves theEuripidesdisgorged New South Wales Battalions and the New Zealand transports landed their regiments. Thus I saw three troop trains away into the desert before, with the officers of the 5th, I boarded one for the camp at Cairo.
Mena Camp, when I saw it at daybreak on the morning of 4th December, consisted of a score of tents scattered about in a square mile of desert, and perhaps a thousand men lying in their great-coats, asleep in the sand, their heads resting on their packs. The men of the 5th Battalion—those that are left of them—are not likely to forget that march out from Cairo on the night of the 3rd-4th, and the subsequent days of settling down to camp, and the greetings they gave to regiment after regiment as they came crowding into the camp. On the night the first troop trains came into Abbu Ella station, near Cairo, which was the siding on the southern side of the city, it was cold and sharp, but a bright moon came up towards midnight. Outside the sprinkling of Staff officers present to meet the train was a line of dusky faces and a jabbering crowd of natives. Electric trams buzzed along outside the station yard, and after the men had been formed up and detrained, they had a few minutes to get, from a temporary coffee-stall, some hot coffee and a roll, which, after the journey, was very much appreciated. It was nine o'clock. Guides were ready waiting. Territorials they were, who had been in Cairo for some time, and they led the men out on a long 10-mile march to Mena Camp. Baggage was to go by special tram, and it went out, under guard, later.
Less a company of the 5th which had been sent forward as an advance party from Port Said, the battalion set out, pipes and bands playing, through the dimly seen minaretted city. These Australians will remember the long, hearty cheers they got as they tramped past the Kasr El Nil Barracks, situated on the banks of the River Nile, where the Manchester Territorials turned outto do honour to the new army in Egypt. Across the long Nile bridge and through Gezirah, down a long avenue of lebbock-trees, out on the main road to the Pyramids, the troops marched, singing, chipping, smoking, their packs getting a wee bit heavier at each step. Life on board ship had not made them as hard as they believed, and by the time they left the gem-studded city behind and turned on to the road that ran between irrigated fields they began to grow more silent. Overhead, the trees met in a vast arabesque design, showing only now and then the stars and the moon. The shadows on the path were deep, dispersed for a few seconds only by the passing electric trams, which the men cheered. Then they began, as the early hours of the morning drew on, to see something of the desert in front of them and the blurred outline of the Pyramids standing there, solemn sentinels, exactly as they had stood for over six thousand years. They grew in hugeness until the troops came right to the foot of the slope which led up to their base. Their thoughts were distracted from the sight by the advance party of their own battalion coming to meet them and conduct them through a eucalyptus grove (what memories of a fragrant bush!) along a great new-made white road, and through the sand for the last quarter of a mile to their camp lines. Was it any wonder, therefore, in the face of this, that when at dawn next morning I came amongst the troops they were still lying sleeping, and not even the struggling rays of the sun roused them from their slumber?
How cheery all the officers were! Gathered in one tent, sitting on their baggage, they ate the "twenty-niners," as they called the biscuits ("forty-threes" they had been called in South Africa), with a bit of cheese and jam and bully beef. There was the Padre, Captain Dexter, and the Doctor, Captain Lind, Captain Flockart, Major Saker, Captain Stewart, Lieutenant Derham, and Lieutenant "Billy" Mangar, and scores of others, alas! now separated by the horror of war. That morning their spirits were high, and as soon as possible most of the regiments set out on what might be called an exploration expedition to the ridges of hills that ran along the eastern side of the camp, and above which peeped the Pyramids in small triangles. That day, I must say,little effort was made to settle down to camp, and the 5th, pioneers that they were, was the first Australian regiment to scramble over the ancient holy ground of Mena, the City of the Dead and burial-place of the forgotten monarchs of ancient Egypt. But what could be done? Tents had not yet arrived, and it was, indeed, weeks before all the troops were under canvas, though in the meantime they made humpies and dugouts for themselves in the sand with the help of native matting.
AUSTRALIANS COMING INTO CAIRO FROM THE CAMPSAUSTRALIANS COMING INTO CAIRO FROM THE CAMPS.To face p. 68.
AUSTRALIANS COMING INTO CAIRO FROM THE CAMPS.To face p. 68.
AUSTRALIANS COMING INTO CAIRO FROM THE CAMPS.
To face p. 68.
I turned back from the hill, dotted with whooping Australians, to watch another battalion march into camp, one of the New South Wales regiments of Colonel M'Laurin, and saw the wheeled transport drawn by mules (the horses, of course, being yet unfit for use after so long a sea voyage) almost stick in the sand, until shoulders were put to the wheel and they got the heavy vehicles to the lines. The whole camp had been laid out by the engineers on the Staff of the General Officer Commanding (General Sir John Maxwell) the week before. It must be remembered that barely a week's notice was given of the landing of the great overseas force, and it was one of the happy features of the troops' arrival in Egypt that they found arrangements so far advanced as they were. I remember walking along the white road, which a couple of steam-rollers were flattening, into the desert. The stone was being brought on a string of camels from quarries in the hills. Lines of small white stones marked where the road was going to lead right through the centre of the camp. It was a rectangle at that time, branching off from the Mena road through an orchard belonging to the Mena House Hotel, where the main road ended abruptly at the foot of the Pyramids; hard it was, too, as any cement, and each day lengthening, with cross sections sprouting out further into the desert. A loop of the electric tramway was being run along by one side of it, a water-pipe by the other, to reservoirs being constructed in the hills. Nevertheless, I cannot help commenting that the site of the camp lay in a hollow between, as I have said, two rows of hills running south into the desert and starting from a marsh in the swampy irrigation fields. Later on, the follies of such a site were borne out by the diseases that struck down far too high a percentage of the troops during their four months' residence there.
Day after day, enthralled, I watched this encampment growing and spreading out on either side of the road, creeping up the sides of the hills, stretching out across the desert, until the furthermost tents looked like tiny white-peaked triangles set in the yellow sand. The battalions filed into their places coming from the seaboard, where twelve ships at a time were discharging their human cargoes; while each day ten trains brought the troops up 130 miles to the desert camps. After the men came the gear, the wagons, the guns, the horses. For this was the divisional camp, the first divisional camp Australia had ever assembled. It was, also, the first time that Major-General Bridges had seen his command mustered together. With his Staff he took up his headquarters in a section of Mena House for use as offices, with their living tents pitched close by. This was the chance to organize and dovetail one unit into another, work brigade in with brigade, artillery with the infantry, the Light Horse regiments as protecting screens and scouts. The Army Service Corps, Signallers, Post Office, all came into being as part of a larger unit for the first time. The troops became part of a big military machine, units, cogs in the wheel. They began to apply what had been learnt in sections, and thus duties once thought unnecessary began to be adjusted and to have a new significance.
Of course, it could not all be expected to work smoothly at first. For some six weeks the horses were not available for transport work, and so the electric tramway carried the stores the 10 miles from the city, and brought the army's rations and corn and chaff for the animals. Donkeys, mules, and camels were all to be seen crowding along the Pyramid road day and night, drawing and carrying their queer, ungainly loads.
Besides Mena Camp, two other sites had been selected as training areas for the army corps, which, as I have said, was commanded now by Lieut.-General (afterwards Sir William) Birdwood, D.S.O. One of these was at Zeitoun, or Heliopolis, some 6 miles from Cairo, on directly the opposite side of the town—that is, the south—to the Mena Camp; while the other was situated close to an oasis settlement, or model irrigation town, at Maadi, and lying just parallel with Mena Camp, but on the other (eastern) side of the river, andsome 12 miles distant from it. Zeitoun was the site of the old Roman battlefields, and later of an English victory over an Arab host. In mythology it is recorded as the site of the Sun City. The troops found it just desert, of rather coarser sand than at Mena, and on it the remains of an aerodrome, where two years before a great flying meeting had been held. For the first month, only New Zealanders occupied this site, both their infantry and mounted rifles, and then, as the 2nd Australian and New Zealand Division was formed, Colonel Monash's 4th Brigade (the Second Contingent) came and camped on an adjacent site, at the same time as Colonel Chauvel's Light Horse Brigade linked up, riding across from Maadi. Then into the latter camp Colonel Ryrie led the 3rd Light Horse Brigade.
As sightseers I am satisfied that the Australians beat the Yankee in three ways. They get further, they see more, and they pay nothing for it. Perhaps it was because they were soldiers, and Egypt, with its mixed population, had laid itself out to entertain the troops right royally. It must not be thought I want to give the impression that the Australian soldier, the highest paid of any troops fighting in the war, saved his money and was stingy. On the contrary, he was liberal, generous, and spoiled the native by the openness of his purse. Some believe that it was an evil that the troops had so much funds at their disposal. It was, I believe, under the circumstances—peculiar circumstances—that reflects no credit on the higher commands, and to be explained anon. It would be out of place just at the moment to bring any dark shadow across the bright, fiery path of reckless revelry that the troops embarked on during the week preceding and the week following Christmas. It was an orgy of pleasure, which only a free and, at that time, unrestrained city such as Cairo could provide. Those men with £10 to £20 in their pockets, after being kept on board ship for two months, suddenly to be turned loose on an Eastern town—healthy, keen, spirited, and adventurous men—it would have been a strong hand that could have checked them in their pleasures, innocent as they were for the most part.
In all the camps 20 per cent. leave was granted.That meant that some 6,000 soldiers were free to go whither they wished from afternoon till 9.30 p.m., when leave was supposed to end in the city. Now, owing to lax discipline, the leave was more like 40 per cent., and ended with the dawn. Each night—soft, silky Egyptian nights—when the subtle cloak of an unsuspected winter hung a mantle of fog round the city and the camps—10,000 men must have invaded the city nightly, to which number must be added the 2,000 Territorial troops garrisoning Cairo at the time that were free, and the Indian troops, numbering about 1,000. The majority of the men came from Mena and from the New Zealand camp at Zeitoun. The Pyramids Camp was linked to the city by a fine highway (built at the time of the opening of the Canal as one of the freaks of the Empress Eugénie), along the side of which now runs an electric tramway. Imagine officials with only a single line available being faced with the problem of the transport of 10,000 troops nightly to and from the camps! No wonder it was inadequate. No wonder each tram was not only packed inside, but covered outside with khaki figures. Scores sat on the roofs or clung to the rails. Generally at three o'clock the exodus began from the camps. What an exodus! What spirits! What choruses and shouting and linking up of parties! Here was Australia at the Pyramids. Men from every State, every district, every village and hamlet, throughout the length and breadth of the Commonwealth, were encamped, to the number of 20,000, in a square mile. An army gains in weight and fighting prowess as it gains in every day efficiency by the unitedness of the whole. Now, the true meaning of camaraderie is understood by Australians, and is with them, I believe, an instinct, due to the isolated nature of their home lives and the freedom of their native land. When the troops overflowed from the trams, they linked up into parties and hired motor-cars, the owners of which were not slow to appreciate the situation. They tumbled ten or twelve into these cars, and went, irrespective of speed limits, hooting and whirring towards the twinkling city. And when the motors gave out, there was a long line of gharries (arabehs), which are open victorias, very comfortable, and with a spanking pair of Arab steeds, travelling the 10 miles to the city.
GENERAL HAMILTON RETURNS THE SALUTEGENERAL HAMILTON RETURNS THE SALUTE OF THE 4TH AUSTRALIAN INFANTRY BRIGADE AT ZEITOUN.Brigadier-General Monash immediately on the left of the Commander-in-Chief.
GENERAL HAMILTON RETURNS THE SALUTE OF THE 4TH AUSTRALIAN INFANTRY BRIGADE AT ZEITOUN.Brigadier-General Monash immediately on the left of the Commander-in-Chief.
GENERAL HAMILTON RETURNS THE SALUTE OF THE 4TH AUSTRALIAN INFANTRY BRIGADE AT ZEITOUN.
Brigadier-General Monash immediately on the left of the Commander-in-Chief.
Imagine, therefore, this Pyramid road arched with lebbock-trees that made a tunnel of dark living branches and green leaves. By five o'clock night had fallen, coming so suddenly that its mantle was on before one realized the sun had sunk behind the irrigated fields, the canals, and the waving sugar-canes. Imagine these men of the South, the warm blood tingling in their veins (and sovereigns jingling in their pockets), invading the city like an avalanche!
So much was novel, so much strange and entrancing in this city of Arabian fables. Cairo presents the paradox of the Eastern mind, and the reverse nature of events and incidents amused and excited the imaginations of the Australians.
By midnight had commenced in earnest the return of the troops along that great highway, an exodus starting each night at nine o'clock. Again was the tram service inadequate, nor could the motors and gharries cope with the rush of the men back to the lines before leave expired. Donkey-men filled the breach with their obstinate asses, and the main streets were crowded with wild, shouting troops as a drove of twenty or thirty donkeys went clattering past, whooping Australians on their backs, urging on their speed to a delicate canter. But it was hard work riding these donkeys, and a 10-mile ride brought resolutions not to again overstay leave or, at least, to make adequate arrangements for return by more sober and comfortable means. The main highway such nights became a stream of flickering fire. The motors picked their way at frantic speed through the traffic, past the burdened camels and loaded carts of rations and fodder for the camp. No speed was too high; the limit of the engines was the only brake. By great good fortune no disaster occurred: minor accidents were regarded as part and parcel of the revels.
Whatever may have been the attitude of the military authorities when the troops landed and up till Christmas week, the very first day of the New Year saw a vast change in the discipline of the camp. It was really a comparatively easy matter, had a proper grip been taken of the men, to have restrained the overstaying and breaking of leave that occurred up till New Year's Day. Mena Camp, situated 10 miles from the city in the desert, with only one avenue of practicable approach, requiredbut few guards; but those guards needed to be vigilant and strong. True, I have watched men making great detours through the cotton-fields and desert in order to come into the camp from some remote angle, but they agreed that the trouble was not worth while. Once, however, the guards were placed at the bridge across the Canal that lay at right angles to the road and formed a sort of moat round the south of the camp, and examined carefully passes and checked any men without authority, leave was difficult to break. From 20 it was reduced to 10 per cent. of the force. General Birdwood's arrival resulted in the tightening up of duties considerably, while the visit of Sir George Reid (High Commissioner for the Commonwealth in London) and his inspiring addresses urging the troops to cast out the "wrong uns" from their midst, at the same time bringing to their mind the duty to their Country and their King that lay before them still undone, settled the army to its hard training. He, so well known a figure in Australia, of all men could give to the troops a feeling that across the seas their interests were being closely and critically watched. After a few weeks of the hard work involved in the completion of their military training, even the toughening sinews of the Australians and their love of pleasure and the fun of Cairo were not strong enough to make them wish to go far, joy-riding.
News in Egypt travels like wildfire. Consequently, during the end of January, just prior to the first attack on the Canal and attempted invasion of Egypt by the Turks, Cairo was "thick," or, as the troops said, "stiff," with rumours, and the bazaars, I found from conversation with Egyptian journalists, were filled with murmurs of sedition. It was said hundreds of thousands of Turks were about to cross the Canal and enter Egypt. The Young Turk party, no doubt, were responsible for originating these stories, aided by the fertile imagination of the Arab and fellaheen. So were passed on from lip to lip the scanty phrases of news that came direct from the banks of the Canal, where at one time rather a panic set in amongst the Arab population.
Naturally these rumours percolated to the camps, and, with certain orders to brigades of the 1st Division and the New Zealanders to get equipped and stores to be got in as quickly as possible, it was no wonder that the troops were eagerly anticipating their marching orders. They would at this time, too, have given a lot to have escaped from the relentless training that was getting them fit: the monotony of the desert had begun to pall.
At any rate, on 3rd January the 3rd Company of Engineers, under Major Clogstoun, had gone down to the Canal to assist the Royal Engineers, already at work on trenches, entanglements, and pontoon bridges. To their work I shall refer in detail later on, when I come to deal with the invasion. In the first week of February the 7th Battalion, under Lieut.-Colonel Elliott, and 8th Battalion, under Lieut.-Colonel Bolton, V.D., and the whole of the New Zealand Brigade of Infantry were hastily dispatched to the Canal, and were camped side by side at the Ismailia station. Meanwhile the NewZealand Artillery had already been sent to take up positions on the Canal banks.
During January the Buccaneer Camel Corps, under Lieutenant Chope, met, during reconnoitring and patrol duty, a strong party of Arabs, Turks, and Bedouins, to the number of 300, and he gallantly engaged them and carried on a running fight in the desert for miles, successfully putting to flight the enemy and capturing some of their number, while they left dead and wounded on the sand. For this Lieutenant Chope was decorated with the D.S.O.
Fresh rumours began now to float into Cairo as to the estimate of the Turkish force and the number of Germans likely to be in it. Djemal Pasha was known to be in command, but it was said that he was under the German General Von der Goltz, who had stiffened the force with about 300 of his barbarians, mostly non-commissioned officers and officers. The Turkish force, which was certainly a very mixed host, was declared to number about 80,000, which was more than four times the number that actually made the raid on the Canal, though I have no reason to doubt that there were that number on the borders of Egypt, ready to follow up the attack were it successful. Some dissent existed amongst the Turkish force, and was faithfully reported to the War Office in Cairo, and many Arabs and some Indians captured on the Canal told how they had been forced into the service and compelled to bear arms. Serious trouble had occurred with a party of Bedouins in Arabia, who brought camels to the order of the Turkish Government, and who found their animals commandeered and no money given in payment. On this occasion a fight occurred, and the Bedouins promptly returned to their desert homes.
Summing up the opinion in Egypt at that time, it appeared tolerably certain, in the middle of January, that the Turkish attack was to be made. In what strength it was not quite known, but it seemed unlikely to be in the nature of a great invasion, as the transport troubles and the difficulties of the water supply were too great. One day the Turks would be said to have crossed the Canal, another that the Canal was blocked by the sinking of ships (from the very outset of the war one of the main objects of the invaders, using mines astheir device). I suppose that British, Indian, and Egyptian troops (for the Egyptian mounted gun battery was encamped on the Canal) must have numbered over 80,000, not including the force of 40,000 Australians held as a reserve in Cairo, together with a Division of Territorials.
If ever troops longed for a chance to meet the enemy, it was these Australians. The Engineers had been down on the Canal, as I have said, since January, and it was rumoured every day towards the end of January that there was to be at least a brigade of Australians sent down to the Canal. Imagine the thrill that went through the camp, the rumours and contradictions as to which brigade it should be. Finally, on the 3rd February the 7th and 8th Battalions, under Colonel M'Cay, Brigadier of the 2nd Infantry Brigade, were dispatched, and encamped outside of Ismailia. I saw these troops go from the camp. They were enormously pleased that they had been told off for the job, not that other battalions did not believe they would soon follow. As they marched out of the Mena lines (and from the desert, for they had to go at a moment's notice right from drill, with barely time to pack their kits) they were cheered lustily by their comrades, who deemed them "lucky dogs" to get out of the "blasted sand." However, they were going to far worse, and no tents; but then there was before them the Canal and a possible fight, and, anyway, the blue sea and a change of aspect from the "everlasting Pyramids." They entrained in ordinary trucks and got into bivouac somewhere about midnight. They found the New Zealanders there, two battalions of them. On the way down they passed a large Indian encampment, which I subsequently saw, where thousands of camels had been collected, ready to go out to meet the invaders or follow them up in the event of their hasty retreat. The camp lay sprawled out over miles of desert, and, just on the horizon, about 4 miles from the Canal, was an aeroplane hangar. I used to watch the aeroplanes going and coming on their reconnaissances out over the desert to the Turkish outposts and concentration camps. The Territorial guns, 15-pounders, were already in position round, or rather to the east of, Ismailia.
On the 2nd February the attack began to develop. It was important enough, rather for its significance than its strength or result, to be treated at length.
The Turkish Army, gathered under the direction of General Liman von Sanders, the German Military Governor of Turkey, was composed of Turks, Bedouins, Arabs, refugees from Asia Minor, and a few Germans. About 20,000 men in all, under the command of Djemal Pasha, they crossed the peninsula, dashed themselves vainly against the defences of the Canal, and fell back broken into Turkey again. Very briefly, or as concisely as is consistent with accuracy, let me review the Canal and the approaches to the waterway, and the troops that the Turks had available. Small as was the operation in actual degree of numbers, its purpose, likely to be repeated again, was to dislocate the machinery of the British Empire. The link that narrow waterway, 76 feet wide, means to Australia, is something more than a sea route. It was, therefore, not inappropriate that Australians should have taken part in its defence then, as well as later.
One day, talking to a British officer who knew well the character of the Sinai Peninsula, he remarked, "This is a race to water for water." He was not sanguine of any success attending an attack, though he remembered the crossing of the desert by 10,000 men under the Egyptian General Ibraham, and without a railway line near the frontier at the end of his journey. But I do not want to convey the idea that the desert tract of 150 miles which lies between the Suez Canal and the borderland of Turkey is waterless, or that it is level. On the contrary. During January and February, when the chief rainfall occurs, there are "wadis," or gorges, where the water runs away in raging torrents until at length it disappears into the sand. So it comes about there are any number of wells, some good, some ratherbad; but if carefully guarded, protected, and additional bores put down, the wells would make a sufficient water supply for any invading host, even up to as many as 40,000 men. Now this figure was, I believe, about the actual number of the army that took part in the attempt to pierce the line of the Canal. It was a quarter of the army stationed in Syria, and contained some of the finest, as it did some of the poorest, of the Turkish troops at that time under arms. It was impossible for the Turkish military authorities to draw away from the coast-line of the Mediterranean all of the army that had to be kept there in anticipation of a British landing at such spots as Gaza and Adana, where the railway to Constantinople runs close to the coast. Nor was the army well trained or well equipped. On the contrary, scouting parties that were captured, were in tattered garments and often without boots. Throughout the army the commissariat was bad in comparison with what it was when the Gallipoli campaign started.
Now, the Canal is approached by caravan routes from three points, a northern, southern, and central zone. Gaza might be said to be the starting-point of the northern route, and it runs just out of artillery range along the coast until El Arisch is reached. It was along this sea route that Napoleon took his 10,000 men in retreat from Egypt. From this last town the route branches south towards El Kantara. The intervening space between that important crossing and Port Said is marshy, and is occupied with saltworks. In order to make Port Said impregnable these were flooded, giving a lake of some 300 miles in area and about 4 feet or 5 feet deep. Kantara therefore remained the most vital northerly spot at which the Canal could be pierced, and next to that, Ismailia. The northern route lies along almost level desert. But the further one gets south, the loftier become the curious sandstone and limestone ridges that, opposite Lake Timsah, can be seen, 12 or 14 miles from the Canal, rising up to 800 feet in height. Southwards from this point there lies a chain of hills running parallel to the Canal, with spurs running towards the central portion of the peninsula, where the ranges boast mountain peaks of 6,000 and 7,000 feet in height. There are gullies and ravines of an almost impassable nature, and the route winds round the sides of mountains, which featuresmade the armies on the march hard to detect, as I learned our aviators reported.
Maan may be described as the jumping-off point for the starting of any expedition against the central and southern portions of the Canal. To Maan leads a railway, and it runs beyond down past the Gulf of Akaba, parallel with the Red Sea. From Maan the caravan would go to Moufrak, and from thence to Nekhl, high up in the hills and ranges of the desert. Nekhl is not a large settlement, but, like most Arab and Bedouin villages, just a few mud huts and some wells, with a few palms and sycamore-trees round them. But when the end of January came there were 300 Khurdish cavalry there and a great many infantry troops. Nekhl is exactly half way on the direct route to Suez, but the force that was to attack the Canal branched northward from this point until it came over the hills by devious routes to Moiya Harah, and over the last range that in the evening is to be seen from the Canal—a purply range, with the pink and golden desert stretching miles between. Just out of gun range, therefore, was the camp which the Turkish force made. I am led from various official reports I have read to estimate that Turkish force here at nearly 18,000. A certain number of troops, 3,000 perhaps, came by the northern route, and linked up on a given date with the forces that were destined for the attack on Ismailia, Serapeum, and Suez. That is to say, half the army was making feint attacks and maintaining lines of communication, while the remainder, 20,000 men, were available to be launched against the chosen point as it turned out, Toussoum and Serapeum. But one must remember that, small as that force was, the Turkish leader undoubtedly reckoned on the revolt of the Moslems in Egypt, as every endeavour had been tried (and failed) to stir up a holy war; and that at Jerusalem there must have been an army of 100,000 men ready to maintain the territory won, should it be won, even if they were not at a closer camp.
Therefore, the Turks overcame the water difficulty by elaborating the wells and carrying supplies with them on the march, and they got the support of artillery by attaching caterpillar wheels to get 6-in. and other guns through the sand towards the Canal (I am not inclined to believe the statements that the guns were buried inthe desert years before by the Germans, and had been unearthed for the occasion), and for the actual crossing they brought up thirty or forty pontoons, which had been carried on wagons up to the hills, and then across the last level plain on the shoulders of the men. It was in very truth the burning of their boats in the attack if it failed. They had no railway, such as they had built in the later part of 1915, but relied on the camels for their provision trains. The rainfall in January, the wet season, was the best that had been experienced for many years, and so far as the climatic conditions were concerned, everything favoured the attack.
This brings us down to the end of January 1915. For the whole of the month there had been parties of Turkish snipers approaching the Canal, and in consequence, the mail boats and cargo steamers, as well as transports, had had to protect their bridges with sandbags, while the passengers kept out of sight as far as possible. On all troopships an armed guard with fifty rounds per man was mounted on the deck facing the desert. It was anticipated that the Turkish plan of attack would include the dropping of mines into the Canal (which plan they actually succeeded in), and thus block the Canal by sinking a ship in the fairway.
Skirmishes and conflicts with outposts occurred first at the northern end of the Canal defences, opposite to Kantara. The Intelligence Branch of the General Staff was kept well supplied with information from the refugees, Frenchmen, Armenians, and Arabs, who escaped from Asia Minor. They told of the manner in which all equipment and supplies were commandeered, together with camels. This did not point to very enthusiastic interest or belief in the invasion. By the third week in January the Turkish patrols could be seen along the slopes of the hills, and aeroplanes reported large bodies of troops moving up from Nekhl.
On 26th January the first brush occurred. It was a prelude to the real attack. A small force opened fire on Kantara post, which was regarded as a very vital point in the Canal line. The Turks brought up mountain guns and fired on the patrols. At four o'clock on the 28th, a Thursday morning, the attacks developed.
The British-Indian outpost line waited purely on thedefensive, and with small losses to either side, the enemy withdrew. Minor engagements occurred from this time on till the attack which synchronized with the main attack—40 miles away—on 3rd February. Reinforcements were observed entrenched behind the sand dunes. Now, that night the Indian outposts successfully laid a trap for the Turks by changing the direction of the telegraph line and the road that led into Kantara. They led the Turks, when they eventually did come on, into an ambush. At this post was stationed the 1st Australian Clearing Hospital, and very fine work was performed by it. Sergeant Syme, though contrary to orders, drove a motor ambulance out under fire and brought in a number of wounded.
Never have new troops won quicker appreciation from their officers than did the companies of Australian Engineers, under Major H. O. Clogstoun, who began in January to build up the defences of the Canal. They were a happy, hard-working unit, and showed rare skill and adaptability in making a series of bridges at Ismailia. You would see a large load of them going up the Canal perhaps to improve trenches, and they began a friendship (that Anzac cemented) with the Indian troops, which I doubt if time will do anything but strengthen. There were seventeen to twenty pontoons, or rowing boats, which they applied to the purpose, constructed, while the materials for other floating bridges were obtained from iron casks. In, I believe, eleven minutes these bridges could be thrown across the width of the Canal. Tugs were available to tow the sections to whatever point they might be required. As the traffic of shipping was heavy, the bridges were constantly being joined and detached again. Bathing in the Canal was a great luxury, and the men at the time, and the infantry later on, took full advantage of it. Before passing on, let me give the comment of Colonel Wright, the Engineer officer on General Maxwell's Staff, on a suggestion of removing these Engineers back to Cairo after having completed the bridges:—