The authorities entrusted with holding Egypt and the Suez Canal were sorely troubled in early December in reference to the Turks proclaiming a Holy War. The Nationalists were active, but with the arrival of the colonial troops the anxiety of those responsible was greatly relieved. The suspected civilians and Turkish officers holding high command in the Egyptian Army were deported to Malta. The Egyptian understands armed strength and despises weakness. Being aware of this, it was deemed advisable to parade the troops as strong as possible and march through the most populous parts of the city.
The New Zealanders were ordered to march through Cairo three days after the coronation. Leaving the camp early in the morning, the parade moved down the beautiful asphalt roads; past processions of camels laden with sugar-cane; past old women with their herds of predatory flocks of sheep and goats; past Pont Limoun and Bab-el-Hadid barracks to the Opera Square, where the General Officer Commanding His Majesty's Forces in Egypt took the salute. This far was plain sailing, but presently the head of the column dived down a narrow bazaar where four men could hardly ride abreast. Into this dark slum went the mounted men; the glistening guns of the artillery; the collapsible boats of the Field Troop; the cable waggons of the signallers; then the long line of desert-trained, sun-tanned infantry, with the ambulance and some more mounted men bringing up the rear. In the bazaars it was almost dark, and in the narrower streets, where the projecting balconies seemed to meet overhead, it was not much better. It was a relief to get to wider streets and less foul air. Lining the streets were thousands of people, all seemingly in a good humour. In the open workshops, old men working at primitive loom and lathe never even looked up. Down past the schools and colleges, where hot-headed young Nationalists were wont to air their grievances, the cavalcade clattered on its noisy way; here, perhaps, there was a little scowling. The common people—the men clad in their many-coloured robes and each wearing the red, flat-topped fez worn by every male from the Sultan to the donkey driver—made quite a splash of colour as they crowded on the sidewalk in the shade of the trees and cheered and clapped with apparent earnestness. Even as the fellaheen appreciates the fact that under British rule he has to pay his taxes only once, so the poor and working class of Egypt recognized that since these bloodless conquerors arrived from overseas, even the beggar and the seller of Turkish delight had accumulated a little hoard of piastres. The disturbances of 1919, however, show that the Egyptian of the cities is a very gullible person.
[Photo by the Author
An Egyptian Ploughman.
The wooden plough is shod with a metal point. The furrow is not turned over. The earth is merely broken and pushed aside.
Christmas Eve saw the arrival of the British section of the New Zealanders, a contingent of six officers and 234 other ranks who had enlisted in England. These were men who were away from New Zealand when war broke out—some were gold-dredging in the East; some were working in the copper mines in Spain; but wherever they were—Pernambuco, Sarawak or the Andes—when the call came they hastened to the Old Country and enlisted. Engineers, sailors, painters, actors and gentlemen of leisure, they banded together in England and were organized as a machine-gun corps for France, but were eventually sent out to Egypt. Smart and well drilled, they made an excellent impression, and were just the men wanted for the nucleus of the new engineer and transport services, between which two branches they were equally divided.
The Christmas dinner was eaten out of doors in the hot sun, as the new dining huts were not ready. New Year was ushered in by festivals in the city, while out on the desert the regimental bands played all the old familiar tunes, the men meanwhile holding impromptu dances under the silent desert stars.
