The first Christmas on active service was celebrated in traditional style, plum-puddings and other Christmas fare being sent out by friends at home. The old hymns and carols at the Morning Service stirred the emotions deeply, and thoughts of home and memories of bygone Christmas gatherings became poignant. Dining huts and messes, rooms and verandahs, were garlanded with palm branches, flowers, lanterns, and chains of coloured paper. Nothing was omitted to make the day a memorable and happy one, and one to look back upon. Still, there were some decidedly novel features, chief of which, perhaps, was the after-dinner swim in the sea, indulged in by a number of Manchester men in Alexandria. On Boxing Day a great sports meeting was held at the Gezireh Sporting Club, Cairo, and many Lancashire men were successful competitors. They were, however, outshone by the men of the Ceylon Planters Rifle Corps, whose prowess was hailed with enthusiasm by their Territorial and Yeomanry rivals.
Casual mention only has been made of the 7th Manchesters. As the greater part of this battalion occupied a position of splendid isolation its very interesting experiences must be referred to separately and all too briefly. B Company had been dropped at Alexandria to take over the duties of a company of the Suffolk Regiment in that town and in Cyprus, and the other three companies remained on board the troopship. Port Sudan was reached on September 30 after a five days’ voyage, and the warm reception given them by the Suffolks and the British officials was very welcome after four weeks at sea. Half of C Company was left to garrison Port Sudan and, later, among other duties, to patrol the Red Sea in H.M.S. Enterprise, and to run an armoured train. The rest of the battalion entrained for Khartoum, a journey of 600 kilometres, where, on October 2, they were welcomed by the Sirdar, Sir F. R. Wingate, and his Staff.
Khartoum and the Sudan furnished a succession of novel experiences to the men from Burlington Street, but no surprise quite equalled that conveyed to them by the intimation that they were at once, without preliminary coaching, to supply a half-company to form the British Camel Corps. The two platoons of C Company were detailed for this duty. The departing O.C. Camel Corps had little time in which to impart information to his successor, and there were many documents to sign, some of these being in Arabic. He seemed grieved that Manchester men should be ignorant of Arabic and of the customs, habits, and requirements of camels, but volunteered as much information as could be crammed into five minutes. Captain C. Norbury and his subalterns gazed upon their new pets, seventy in number, without affection, and sat down the better to enjoy the humour of their predicament before sampling its difficulties. In despair and not in hope, expecting rather to provoke merriment than to elicit information, the new O.C. Camels asked his half-company if any man among them had had experience of camels. Forth stepped the former camel-keeper of Bostock’s menagerie. The Hour had brought forth the Man. The 7th Manchesters now felt that they were equal to any emergency, and soon they provided piano-tuners for the Sirdar’s palace, trained gardeners for the barracks gardens, and skilled artisans for every variety of job for which an expert was demanded.
The Camel Corps was soon proficient enough to be sent by the Sirdar on a two-weeks’ trek through villages where white men had rarely been seen, and their presence gave the lie to reports circulated by Turco-German emissaries that all white troops had been recalled from Egypt and the Sudan to defend their home country from the enemy at its gates. Incidentally they had the opportunity of seeing the wonderful results of Manchester enterprise in the great cotton-growing areas through which they passed. Not only had Khartoum been transformed from a collection of mud huts into a town of imposing buildings, shops, and public works, but the savage Sudan of a few years ago was in process of transformation into a land of peace and prosperity.
Training proceeded under the same trying conditions of climate experienced by their comrades in Egypt; the same games and sports were enjoyed with similar zest; and fitness and efficiency prevailed. The conduct of the men received and merited high praise from the Sirdar—who paid the battalion the distinction of becoming its honorary Colonel—and from all with whom they came in contact. Relations with the natives were excellent, and a firm friendship was formed with the Egyptian regiment in Khartoum. The first of all active service periodicals, The Manchester Sentry, was published in Khartoum, the Sirdar and Lady Wingate contributing. The three companies rejoined their comrades of the Manchester Brigade in Cairo on April 23, 1915.
Defence of the Suez Canal
On January 19, 1915, the Manchester Brigade was transferred from Alexandria and Cyprus to Cairo, and the 5th and 8th Lancashire Fusiliers were sent to Alexandria. Reports of renewed activity on the part of the Turks pointed to an attempt to seize the Suez Canal and invade Egypt. On January 20 the 1st and 3rd Brigades, R.F.A., were despatched to the Canal zone, to be followed a few days later by the 1st Field Company, R.E., which had recently been brought back to Cairo in order to take part in divisional training. The artillery was posted on the west bank of the Canal at El Kubri, Serapeum West, Ferry Post (Ismailia), El Ferdan, and Kantara, most of the guns being concealed among the pines that grow within a hundred yards of the bank. The Field Companies assisted the garrisons of Indian troops in the strong points of the east bank to improve their defences.
The expectations of hostile attack were realized in the early hours of February 3, when a force of 12,000 Turks and Germans attacked, and made an attempt to cross the Canal midway between the east bank strong points of Serapeum and Toussoum. Heavy rifle and machine-gun fire developed between those places about 3 a.m. The guns of the Egyptian Mountain Battery had, by happy chance or remarkable intuition, been mounted on the west bank within 400 yards of the main crossing-place selected by the Turks. The chanty of the enemy, as, unaware of the battery’s proximity, he attempted to launch the heavy steel pontoons, was much appreciated by the gunners, who opened fire in the dark at point-blank range. When daylight came the Battery Commander was able to congratulate himself on some accurate “spotting,” several holed pontoons and many dead Turks being found at the water’s edge. One of these pontoons is now in possession of the Manchester Corporation.
Two sections of the 1st Field Company had been detailed to hold the west bank at this point, and in the course of the fighting on February 3 they lost one man killed and two wounded. The 19th Battery, under Major B. P. Dobson (which had already been in action on the previous day against the Turkish Camel Corps), played a conspicuous part in the enemy’s defeat. They had hauled one 15-pounder through a wood to the bank of the Canal and had fired point blank into the Turks as they vainly attempted to launch their iron boats. Another gun was man-hauled to a hill behind the wood, and this found good targets as the enemy approached the Canal. Captain P. K. Clapham did some good spotting for the battery from a precarious and exposed position in a tall fir tree. The 18th Battery, at Ismailia, fired on the enemy positions with good effect from 2000 to 3000 yards, and every battery of the two brigades shared in the victory. The 20th Battery, at El Ferdan, had the distinction of being the first Battery of the Division—and probably the first of any Territorial unit—to open fire upon an enemy. The total casualties of the East Lancashire Artillery were five men wounded, four of these belonging to the 19th Battery. The men of the Signal Company, who had done good work in this sector, also received their baptism of fire.
The attempt to invade Egypt had failed. The Punjabis (upon whom fell the brunt of the fighting), the Rajputs and Gurkhas on the east bank were fully prepared both to meet the attack and to assume the offensive, inflicting a serious defeat and making important captures. The Divisional Yeomanry arrived at Ismailia on the 4th of February in time to co-operate with Indians, Anzacs, and the 5th Battery in following up the enemy’s retirement. More than 1600 prisoners were taken. On the 10th General Douglas visited the posts on the Canal, held by units of his Division, to congratulate his men on their good work. The 2nd Field Company reached Ismailia on the 6th, and for the greater part of the month the sappers were kept busy strengthening the Canal defences, making entanglements, trenches and bomb-proof shelters, and laying mines. Another attack upon the Canal was made on the 22nd of March, when the 5th Battery was again in action, and the next day the Battery accompanied a column which attacked the Turks in the Sinai Desert about nine miles N.E. of El Kubri. While the East Lancashire Batteries remained in the Canal zone Brigadier-General A. D’A. King, Divisional C.R.A., assumed command of the artillery of the Canal defences.