Historical records of the Buffs, East Kent Regiment (3rd Foot)

by R. S. H. Moody

I. Formation of 10th Battalion

At the commencement of the year 1917 another battalion was added to the Buffs and from that time onward took a very interesting and important part in the fighting done by the regiment. The first deeds of arms accomplished by this, the 10th Battalion, were in Egypt and Palestine, and it may be as well to state baldly what had been happening in this region from the commencement of the war till the end of the year 1916 and to explain then how the 10th Buffs suddenly came into existence, as they did, on Egyptian soil on the 1st February, 1917.

As early as November, 1914, the Turk, who claimed to be the suzerain of the Land of Egypt and had always been jealous of the practical governorship exercised by the English, had advanced in considerable force on the Suez Canal; and perhaps it was only the arrival in the country, soon afterwards, of strong Australian and New Zealand contingents which had enabled the somewhat meagre garrison to hold its own. Even as it was the enemy had made a determined attempt to cross the Canal in February, 1915, and only retired from its neighbourhood in the following April.

Sir Archibald Murray was appointed to the supreme command in December, 1915, and Sollum, on the sea coast, something over two hundred miles west of Alexandria, was occupied in March, 1916, because of a troublesome tribe in those parts called the Senussi, who had been egged on by our enemies to make themselves a nuisance and who had to be dealt with. In August, 1916, the Turks had attacked at Romani, near the sea and a few miles east of the Suez Canal, but they had been badly beaten, and in September had withdrawn further along the coast to El Arish. On the 21st December the British occupied El Arish and two days later Magdhabar. They also carried the Turkish position at Rafa, near the coast and on the frontier of Egypt and Palestine, on the 9th January, 1917. To follow up these successes and advance on Gaza was now Sir Archibald Murray’s plan of campaign, and the army under his command was carefully prepared and reorganized for the adventure.

There was at this time in Egypt a considerable quantity of dismounted Yeomanry, dismounted simply because of the paucity of horses, and it was determined to form of them the 74th Infantry Division, consisting of the usual number of infantry brigades and infantry battalions, and working entirely on infantry lines, excepting for certain slight matters such as the use of trumpets instead of bugles and the like.

Every decent soldier is proud of the arm to which he belongs and which he deliberately joined of his own free will on enlistment or enrolment, and it is hard on him to ask him to serve in any other, but it has sometimes to be done, and it has been proved once and again that an Englishman of pluck, spirit and average intelligence can serve his country and serve it well under any circumstances. In the Boer War, for instance, thousands of foot soldiers had to take over horses and act as mounted men. In the same campaign, after the Boers had lost their artillery, many of our gunners were formed into battalions of infantry. In the Great War hundreds of all arms took to fighting in the air, and, if the navy wanted them, soldiers would man submarines to-morrow. As a matter of fact, soldiers have in the old days served on the fleet in the capacity of marines. It being recognized, then, that if at any time there be a surplus of one kind of soldier and a deficit of another, that surplus will easily be taught to fight in other guise than he has been trained to do, the bulk of the Yeomanry in Egypt changed on the 1st February, 1917, into infantry soldiers. The county ideas and associations were respected as much as possible, and so it came about that the Royal East Kent Yeomanry then at Sollum was amalgamated with the West Kent (Q.O.) Yeomanry quartered at Matruh, a coast town about 125 miles west of Alexandria; they became the 10th Battalion of the Buffs, under the command of Major A. O’B. ffrench Blake, who was appointed Lt.-Colonel in the absence, due to sickness, of Lt.-Colonel Lord Sackville. The strength of the battalion was 46 officers and 875 other ranks; A and B Companies were men of the East Kent, and C and D West Kent Yeomanry. A period of intensive infantry training now commenced. The 10th Battalion formed part of the 230th Brigade and 74th Division. The other battalions of the brigade were made from the Sussex, Suffolk and Norfolk Yeomanry and became battalions of the same county regiments.

Early in March the battalion moved to Sidi Bishr, near Alexandria, the move taking no less than thirteen days to accomplish, and here the battalion was equipped. Drafts of 2 officers and 140 men joined on the 16th March and these were nearly all Buffs, no fewer than 64 with previous war service. Thus came into being the 10th Battalion of the “Old Buffs.”

Its earlier history is as follows: at this time the Eastern Force under Lt.-General Sir Charles Dobell was concentrated about El Arish, through which the railway ran, on the northern coast of the Sinai Peninsula; whilst the Desert Column, under Lt.-General Sir P. Chetwode, was at Sheikh Zowaid about twenty miles further up the coast towards Palestine. This column was very strong in mounted men, and some of them were in advance of Sheikh Zowaid covering the further construction of the coast railway line, which was being pushed on towards Rafa, the frontier town of Egypt and Palestine. Murray’s plan was to advance slowly and steadily up the coast, moving troops forward just as fast as the railway could be made to supply them. The railhead, by the 16th March, was at Rafa, and now it became necessary to hold the great Wadi[18] Ghuzze in order to protect what had been constructed. The enemy occupied the ground from Gaza through Sheria to Beersheba. Though the Buffs did not arrive on the scene of conflict at Deir el Belah till the 11th April, it is as well to state here that in March an attempt was made on the town of Gaza, and on the 26th of that month it was actually enveloped; but our mounted troops could not keep the field for want of water and had to retire across the Wadi Ghuzze while the enemy was pouring in reinforcements from the north and north-east, so that a second attempt met with such strong opposition that the whole force retired over the Wadi and took up a strong defensive position.