CHAPTER IX
FIRST SUEZ CANAL BATTLE
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 rather bad; 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 features made 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 in the 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.