RENEWED TURKISH ATTEMPTS

The leaders of the Turkish troops had been hard at work arousing the fanaticism of the Turkish soldiery against the British foe before the next day's battle began. It is due these noisy "Holy Warriors" that sentries of the Fifth Egyptian Field Battery were warned of the near presence of the enemy.

The Indian troops now took the offensive, supported by the warships and mountain and field artillery. The Serapeum garrison, consisting of Ninety-second Punjabis and Rajputs, now cleared its front of the enemy who had been stopped three-quarters of a mile away. A counterattack made by the Sixty-second Punjabis of the Tussum garrison drove the Turks back. Two battalions of the Turkish Twenty-eighth Regiment now joined the fight, but the British artillery threw them into disorder, and by 3 p. m. of February 3, 1915, the Moslems were in retreat, leaving behind them a rear guard of a few hundred men hidden in the gaps among the brush along the eastern bank.

The warships on Lake Timsah had been in action since morning, and the sand hills near Ismailia were at first crowded by civilians and soldiers eager to witness the fight, until the Turkish guns to the east and southeast of the Ferry post drove them in cover.

About 11 a. m. an old unprotected Indian Marine transport, H. M. S. Hardinge, was struck by two 6-inch shells. One carried away the funnel and the other burst inboard doing much damage. Two of the crew were killed and nine wounded. George Carew, the pilot, lost a leg, but continued on duty and helped to bring the injured vessel into Ismailia. The French coast guard battleship Requin came now under the Turkish fire, but her 10.8-inch guns soon silenced the enemy's batteries.

The morning of February 3, 1915, the Turks advanced on the Ismailia Ferry, then held by Sikhs, Punjabi Rifles, a battery of Indian mountain artillery and Australian engineers, digging shelter pits as they moved forward, covered by two field batteries. Their advance was stopped by the British guns when they had come within 1,000 yards of the outpost line. During the afternoon the Turks kept up some desultory firing that was ineffective; they also engaged in some reconnoitering of British positions during the dark night that followed, but when morning broke they had all disappeared.

Meanwhile, at El Kantara the struggle had reached much the same conclusion. The Indian troops had repelled an advance from the south, in which two Turkish regiments, the Eightieth and Eighty-first of the Twenty-seventh Division, were engaged. H.M.S. Swiftsure, which had taken the place of the disabled Hardinge, aided by Indian and Territorial artillery, did effective work in covering the British positions. The nature of the ground here was so marshy that in places the Turks sank to their waists in muddy ooze, and foredoomed their attack to failure. Again it was demonstrated that they are poor strategists and fail to make careful observations of the terrain before advancing to attack. At El Ferdan, where some Turks made a demonstration with a battery about this time, there were no losses, though the gunboat Clio was hit several times. At El Kantara, where a part of General Cox's brigade of Gurkhas, Sikhs, and Punjabis were engaged, there were thirty casualties.

Between Tussum and Serapeum there was some sniping during the late afternoon of February 3 from the east bank of the canal, during which a British sailor was killed on H.M.S. Swiftsure. The desultory firing continued during the night and through the early morning of February 4. A deplorable incident occurred this day in which a brave British officer and several of his men were the victims of Turkish treachery. Several hundred Turks had been discovered by half a battalion of Ninety-second Punjabis sent out from Serapeum. In the encounter that followed, some of the Turks held up their hands as a sign of surrender, while others continued to fire. Captain Cochran of the Ninety-second company, who was advancing with his men to take the surrender, was killed. A few of his soldiers also fell, and some others were wounded. The British took a prompt and complete revenge for the loss of these men. After being reenforced by Indian troops they overpowered the enemy in a hand-to-hand struggle, in which a Turkish officer was killed by a British officer in a sword combat. The Turks had lost in this brisk engagement about 120 killed and wounded, and 6 officers and 25 men were captured with 3 Maxim guns.

The Turkish attempts at Suez on February 2, 1915, were insignificant, and did not cost the British the loss of a single man. By nightfall, just as their compatriots had done along other parts of the canal, the Turks fled in the direction of Nakhl, Djebel, Habeite, and Katia. On the afternoon of the 4th, when the fighting between Serapeum and Tussum was concluded, Indian cavalry and various patrols captured some men and war materials. At Ismailia preparations were under way to pursue the retreating Turks across the canal. This plan, for some reason, was subsequently abandoned.

During these various fights along the canal, the British had lost 115 killed and wounded, a small number considering the character of the ground and the very numerous attacks and skirmishes. Nine hundred Turks were buried or found drowned in the canal, 650 were taken prisoners, while it is estimated that between 1,500 and 2,000 must have been wounded. The brunt of the struggle fell on the Indian troops, who, in general, fought with great bravery. There were some Australian and Egyptian troops engaged who proved themselves valuable auxiliaries.

In these engagements along the canal the Syrian Moslems displayed even greater bravery than the Turks, who were not lacking in intrepidity, though they showed poor judgment. They had much to learn in the way of taking cover, and would often blindly advance over difficult ground that placed them at a disadvantage.

Djemal Pasha had evidently counted on an Egyptian rising, and perhaps a mutiny of the Indian Moslem troops, but he showed that he entirely misjudged their sentiments, as they displayed great bitterness toward the Turks during the fighting, and attacked them in a thoroughly vindictive spirit. If Djemal had not counted on help from these quarters he would probably not have attempted to break through the British positions covering a ninety-mile front with such a small force. It was estimated that he had about 25,000 men, but not more than half of these were brought into action at any given point where they might have achieved some success. The Turks had burned up some war material and left a few deserters behind them, but they had retreated in good order, and the British commanders had reason to believe that they should soon be heard from again, and that a main attack was contemplated.

On February 6, 1915, British aeroplane observers discovered that the Turks in front of the Tussum-Deversoir section had gathered at Djebel, Habeite, and were strongly reenforced. It appeared that Djemal was now preparing to attack in force. The British were quite ready for them, having been reenforced on February 3 and 4 by the Seventh and Eighth Australian battalions, a squadron of the Duke of Lancaster's Own Yeomanry, and the Herts, and Second County of London Yeomanry. But the British hopes of a decisive engagement were blighted by the general retirement of the Turkish army with their reenforcements.

They crossed the desert successfully, thanks to the organizing skill of Kress von Kressenstein and Roshan Bey, and set off for the Turkish base at Beersheba, spreading the news along the road that they had won a victory and would soon return to Egypt and achieve another, this by way of keeping the Syrians reassured that success was on the Moslem side.

In January, 1915, the commander of Turkish troops at Fort Nakhl, hearing that the Government quarantine station at Tor was undefended, sent a body of men under two German officers to occupy the place. The raiders found on their arrival at Tor that about 200 Egyptian soldiers were in occupation and waited there until they received reenforcements, which brought their force up to 400 men. For the time they occupied a small village about five miles north of Tor, occasionally firing a shot at long range and sending arrogant messages to the Egyptians. On February 11 a detachment of Ghurkas embarked secretly from Suez, and advancing over the hills in the rear of the Turks, surprised their position on the following morning. In the encounter that followed the Turks were annihilated. Sixty lay dead on the field, and over a hundred, including a Turkish officer, were made prisoners. On the British side one Ghurka was killed and another wounded. It was a disappointment that the German officers and a few men had left the camp some days before for Abu Zenaima on the coast, where there was a British-owned manganese mine, which the raiders damaged as best they could, and then stealing some camels, departed for the fort at Nakhl.

The failure of the Turks to win any success at that canal, and their subsequent retreat, had a discouraging influence on the Bedouin levies, who had joined Djemal Pasha and Hilmi Bey, and they now chose the first opportunity to vanish with the new rifles that had been given to them.

For a month the Turks did nothing but keep the British troops occupied by petty raids and feint attacks, which were worrisome, but better than utter stagnation.

On March 22, 1915, a Turkish column with guns and cavalry appeared near the canal near El Kubri, and their advance guard of about 400 encountered a patrol of nine men under Havildar Subha Singh of the Fifty-sixth Punjab Rifles. The Havildar retired fighting courageously, holding the enemy back until he had got his men to safety, with a loss of two killed and three wounded. The Havildar, who was badly wounded himself, received the Indian Order of Merit and was promoted to Jemadar. He had inflicted on the enemy a loss of twelve men and fifteen wounded.

On March 23, 1915, General Sir G. J. Younghusband set out to attack the Turks who had been under the command of Colonel van Trommer, but owing to delays they had had time to retreat toward Nakhl. In the pursuit that followed, their rear guard lost about forty men and some were taken prisoners. There were about a dozen British casualties.

On April 29, 1915, a raiding party with Maxims attacked a detachment of Bikanir Camel Corps and Egyptian sappers near Bir Mahadet, which resulted in the wounding of a British officer, and five killed and three wounded among the Egyptians and Bikaniris. A punitive expedition sent out to attack the raiders marched through the night to Bir Mahadet only to find that the Turks had fled. The British aeroplane soon after "spotted" the enemy near a well six miles north. The Patiala cavalry, who were leading, came up with the Turkish rear guard in the afternoon and charged. The Turks stampeded, except for a small group of Turkish soldiers led by a plucky Albanian officer, who held their ground and attacked from the flank the advancing British officers and Patiala cavalry. Two British officers and a native officer were killed or badly wounded in the subsequent charge. The Albanian, who had displayed such courage, proved to be a son of Djemal Pasha. He fell with seven lance thrusts, none of which however proved fatal, while all his men were killed or captured. The British had four or five times as many men as the escaping enemy, but they did not pursue.

In June, 1915, Colonel von Laufer and a mixed force attempted a feeble raid on the canal near El Kantara, but were driven off with some loss by the Yeomanry, who had done effective work in keeping the enemy away from the British lines. A mine having been found near the canal about this time, the Porte informed the neutral powers that the canal must be closed to navigation owing to the arbitrary conduct of the British in Egypt. But the Turks were not in a position to carry out their threats, owing to the vigorous attack on the Dardanelles. Troops were hurried from Syria to Constantinople, and by June 6 less than 25,000 Turkish troops remained in central and southern Syria and the Sinai Peninsula. At Nakhl and El Arish there were left about 7,000 veteran desert fighters, but the British air scouts kept a watchful eye on the desert roads, and used bombs with such effect that the Turks were kept in a constant state of apprehension by their attacks.

At Sharkieh, the eastern province of the Delta, there had been some uneasiness when the Turks made their unsuccessful strikes at the canal, but the population gave no trouble. At Alexandria and Cairo some few fanatics and ignorant people of the lower classes displayed some opposition to the Government. The sultan was fired on April 8, 1915, by a degenerate, Mohammed Khalil, a haberdasher of Masoura, the bullet missing the victim by only a few inches. Khalil was tried by court-martial and executed April 24. The attempt on Sultan Hussein's life had the effect of making him friends from among the disaffected in the higher classes who found it wise policy to express their horror of the attempted crime, and to proclaim their allegiance to the Government. On April 9 the sultan received a popular ovation while on his way to the mosque.

As a base for the allied Mediterranean expeditionary force, and as a training ground for Australian, Indian, and British troops, Egypt in 1915 was of the utmost military importance to the British Empire. From the great camps around Cairo and the canal, forces could be dispatched for service in Europe, Mesopotamia, and at the Dardanelles, while fresh contingents of soldiers were constantly arriving to take their places.

On July 5, 1915, a body of Turks and Arabs from Yemen in southwest Arabia made a threatening demonstration against Aden, the "Gibraltar of the East," on the Strait of Perim at the entrance to the Red Sea. They were equipped with some field guns and light artillery, and crossing the Aden hinterland near Lahej, forced the British to retire on Aden.

On July 29, 1915, Sheikh Othman, which had been abandoned by the British on their retreat on the 5th, was again occupied by them, and the Turks and Arabs were expelled. The British troops drove the enemy for five miles across the country, causing some casualties, when the Turks and their allies scattered and disappeared.[Back to Contents]