Fragment, The Finding of Moses, Anon.
Never in the cinema of all time have there been such films to record as on the stage of Egypt. Certain localities are preordained to attract the come and go of the world, and before all others the Nile delta has this property. Its strategical location in the world’s assembling has compelled the holders of power and might and majesty and dominion to crowd therein. No decay of empires can affect the significance of geographical siting. Mena and Cheops and Khefren give place to Amenemhats and Thotmes and a host of Rameses, who yield in turn to such modernities as the Ptolemies, but the Nile remains the Nile, and the Red Sea the waterway from East to West.
As Darius and Xerxes and Alexander were compelled by the call of strategical law, so came Salah-ud-Din and Napoleon and Ferdinand de Lesseps and Sir Garnet Wolseley. And here, too, would come William of Hohenzollern, boasting to break the spine of the British Empire, in the vertebræ that Chesney planned and De Lesseps made.
Between Alexander the Great and William of Hohenzollern the host of moderns has been legion, but it was for Napoleon and his dreams of Eastern Empire to bring the British into the scene to short circuit their sea routes. Since the Corsican brought his legions, his savants, and his artists to the Pyramids, the English have entered into the joint control of the Levant, and to help them have brought the armies of India. With Abercromby came David Baird and his sepoys. Sir Garnet Wolseley, in Egypt and in the Soudan, had Indian troops to help him, and now, lest William of Hohenzollern and his Ottoman allies should ‘break the British spine,’ and disturb the peace and plenty of Egypt, not only has India sent troops, but all elements of the Empire far and near. Never, even in the days of Alexander’s armies, had so many varied contingents garrisoned Egypt, as came when the Hun threatened the Canal in force.
In the late autumn of 1915, what time Serbia was broken on the wheel, the Hun determined to overrun Egypt and Sinai and Goshen, breaking thereby the British spine. But the Mistress of the Sea said No. The army of Gallipoli was conjured back from the Hellespont and the outer Empire sent its levies, and the great plans of the All-Highest were ‘postponed.’
The force gathered in Egypt was the most wonderful combination of the Empire that can be imagined. To the gathering came first and most famous a division of the old army, the army that has held the line from the Yser to the Aisne, and lies in a grave and lives in a memory for its guerdon, the world round. With them were Territorial divisions, and divisions of the new army, brigades of yeomen, divisions from Australia and New Zealand, the Maoris cheek by jowl with the white, a model in this respect to the rest of the Empire. Not only was the Indian army proper there—Gurkha, Sikh, and Pathan in due and ancient form—but the armies of the protected states, those imperial service contingents, the wisdom of their conception yearly more apparent. But the tally of Empire ended not with Gwalior, Mysore, and Bikaneer. Hospitals from Canada, Sambo from the West Indies cleaning his rifle to Moody and Sankey hymns, and the Afrikander corps of Dutch and English added to that pageant of Empire, standing four-square with the troops of the Sultan himself.
Strategically to the world’s power and commerce, the situation of Egypt is as favourable now as in the days of Alexander, and troops are as well placed there against emergency as anywhere, and as the danger to Egypt lessened were ready to be sent by those who rule the sea North, South, East, or West. Troops can come and go and be switched back quicker than foes can assemble.
The defending of the canal, a waterless tract, void of roads in its immediate vicinity, is no easy matter and a subject of much controversy, the manner of its defence depending, like that of most other localities, on the troops available and the strength of the enemy threat. The difficulties have been overcome by a herculean effort. Atkins bathes happily in its water, and watches the ships of allies and of neutrals—those lesser breeds who wait—pass us safely.
To most of the English the canal has seemed a desert track dotted with lonely gares, akin in their solitude to a Red Sea lighthouse. A further acquaintance with them has dispelled many imaginings. The gares, the friendly chefs de gare, and their brimming quivers have assumed a different aspect from their ancient one of milestones on the road to India.