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CHAPTER XXII on Their Return to Egypt the Australian Formations Were Sent to the Suez Canal Zone and Helped to Form There A

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CHAPTER XXII on Their Return to Egypt the Australian Formations Were Sent to the Suez Canal Zone and Helped to Form There A CHAPTER XXII EGYPT : REORGANISATION OF THE A.I.F. ON their return to Egypt the Australian formations were sent to the Suez Canal zone and helped to form there a new defensive front for Egypt. Simultaneously with this service the force was reorganised : the infantry into five divisions, forming, with the New Zealand Division, two army corps destined for the Western Front ; the light horse into the Anzac Mounted Division and other mounted units which became part of a British force which fought for the rest of the war in Egypt, Sinai, and Palestine. The self-government of the force in all matters of internal administration was established, though not yet entirely recognised by all the authorities that dealt with it; in the medical service the new director, his powers being now confirmed by the Commonwealth Govern- ment but not fully admitted by the War Office, collected the new medical staff of the A.I.F., hastened clearance to Australia, finalised reforms in the dental and nursing services, and carried out in the A.A.M.C. units a reorganisation, which embodied several experiments of interest. * * 8 The closing of the Gallipoli campaign opened for the A.I.F. a new phase in its history, with service in a much wider and more diversified sphere of action. The next Return to three months were occupied in a complete Eemt reconstruction and reorganisation of the force, carried out while the troops were taking their part in the dispositions for the new strategic situation. The mise-en-scine of the reorganisation was the neighbourhood of the Suez Canal. Hither the Gallipoli troops were trans- ferred. The 8th Infantry Brigade, with the 2nd Casualty Clearing Station: was already established at I‘ Ferry Post ” near Ismailia, and, as they arrived from Lemnos, the units -of See #. 519. 472 Jan.-Mar., 19161 REORGANISATION OF THE A.I.F. 473 the two Australian infantry divisions were concentrated in the fine military camp recently constructed at Tel el Kebir for the outgoing Indian divisions now proceeding to India and Mesopotamia. Here, on the edge of the desert, within sight of the historic battlefield, roads had been formed, water laid on from sub-artesian wells, and a sanitary system installed. The New Zealand and Australian Division assembled at “ Moascar,” near Ismailia, and here, on January 4th, Anzac Corps Headquarters was also established under Lieutenant- General Godley. The light horse rejoined their remounts in their old camps at Maadi, Heliopolis, and Zeitoun, where, at the last named, in the Australian and New Zealand Training DBpSt, were now accumulated some 40,000 Aus- tralian unallotted reinforcements and recovered convalescents. The 1st Australian Division at Tel el Kebir was now rejoined by its transport from Mex camp,* and units were brought to strength from reinforcements and men who had recovered. With No. 2 Australian Casualty Clearing Station there had arrived in Egypt, as a line-of-communication unit for the 2nd Division, an Australian sanitary section (“ No. Sanitation of I ”). Authority was obtained by Colonel -Ps Howse as D.D.M.S., A. and N.Z. Corps, for another section (“ No. 2 to be at once formed in Egypt for the 1st Division, and, “in view of the proved value of such a unit on the Peninsula,” for both to be made divisional instead of army troops. The sanitation of the two camps was carried out under the direction of the A.D.M.S., Sanitary for Egypt, and the general supervision of the Medical Advisory Committee. There had been initiated a fly-proof pan system with incineration, carried out by native labourers. The prevalence of relapsing fever among the latter, and the endemicity of typhus in Egypt, made the delousing of the force a pressing concern. This process, however, could not, for the moment, be efficiently carried out, being quite beyond the capacity of During its nine months at Alexandria 20 horse waggons of field ambulances of the 1st Division handled, under orders of the Embarkation Medical Officer, 13,000 sick and wounded, and in doing so travelled over 2,000 miles. ‘Following the British War Establishments laid down in “ Part VII., New Armies,” these consisted of one officer and 25 other ranks. 474 THE GALLIPOLI CAMPAIGN [Jan.-Mar., 1916 the sanitary sections working with I‘ Serbian barrels ” and one ‘I thresh disinfector ” for each division.‘ The only other element of importance in the health state at this time was an increased incidence of cerebro-spinal fever, of which twenty-five cases occurred in the two camps during the month. Pending the arrival of the line-of -communication units from Lemnos, cases of serious sickness and of venereal disease were sent to Cairo by “ No. 4” taskHeavy dental ambulance train, which had been handed over by the Egyptian authorities to serve the Australian requirements and manned by an Australian medical staff. During the next two months twenty-one dental sections set to work on the Augean task of cleaning up the accumulations of dental decay. Branches of the Australian Base DQp6t of Medical Stores were established at Tel el Kebir and Ismailia, where the Australian Red Cross Society, now possessing its own staff and transport, also formed centres. On January 29th No. 2 Stationary Hospital arrived from Lemnos and opened at Tel el Kebir with 400 beds. With the evacuation of Gallipoli 250,000 Turks had been set free for an attack on Egypt, the defence of which became at once a matter of urgent concern. The Defence of the Canal M.E.F. was transferred to Egypt, and Sir Archibald Murray (who had replaced General Sir Charles Monro) was placed in command of the “Canal Defences,” his jurisdiction extending five miles west of the Suez Canal. A defensive line was being formed east of that waterway. During the last week in January the 1st and 2nd Divisions entrained to the Canal, and, crossing at Ferry Post and Serapeum respectively, “ route marched” to the line of low sand-hills nine miles from the Canal in the Sinai Desert and occupied the ‘I Central Sector” of the new defensive front for Egypt. Already from Serapeum and Ferry Post light railways and roads, built by Egyptian labour, were bridging the shifting sands of the lines of communication; and the “ pipe-line ” brought daily nearer from the sweet-water canal ‘At Moascar the New Zealand engineers constructed fine baths and a “ delousing ” Cstablishment with laundry. I I v f a it c -N .r: 'i i 4 / 4 J Li ic; i 6 P- /. I. Jan.-Mar., 19161 REORGANISATION OF THE A.I.F. 475 the water of the Nile, treated by sand filtration and chlorina- tion to purify it from the varied pollutions of Egypt. Here, in ptrfect weather, and under health conditions unsurpassed in the history of the A.I.F., the 1st and 2nd Divisions re- created the trenches of Gallipoli, reaching in the process a very high standard of fitness. On March Ist, for example, only one patient was evacuated from the 1st Division and six from the 2nd. Pending the arrival of the road and rail- way, the tent divisions behind the lines ex- ploited for the first time the camel " cacolet " and the sand-cart, clearing to casualty clearing stations at Ferry Post and Serapeum, where on January 29th the 1st A.C.C.S. had opened on the banks of the Canal. From those points serious cases went to Ismailia by ambulance-waggon and hospital-barge respectively. Here on February 1st No. I Stationary Hospital formed in a French nunnery a fine hospital of 400 beds, clearing to Cairo by the " Australian " ambplance train. The four weeksbccupied in these movements in the field formations were a period of great administrative activity and were marked by momentous decisions in Ih " AurtraliPa which the Australian medical service was Imperial intimately concerned. The reorganisation of Fame " the force under General Birdwood (who on his return resumed his position with the temporary title of " G.O.C., Australian and New Zealand Forces ") was associated with the deliberate facing of the question of the status of the A.I.F. in matters not only of administration for maintenance, but also of command for active service, within the military forces of Great Britain. The Gallipoli campaign had caused a break in the internal development of the A.I.F., but a break which greatly influenced the nature and 32 47'6 THE GALLIPOLI CAMPAIGN [Jan.-Mar., 1916 direction of its subsequent progress to self -government. For better or for worse the spirit of nationalism had entered the Australian people and directed the reorganisation of their force in all its branches and services. There could now be no question of the piecemeal absorption of any part of the A.I.F. into the British Army. Though, in respect of the higher command and administration officered almost entirely by British regular soldiers, and dependent to a great extent on Great Britain for arms and even for services other than combatant and front-line units, the force that was organised in the headquarters at Ismailia and Cairo and assembled and trained in the camp at Tel el Kebir and in the Sinai Desert, was a purely Australian one, already with marked character- istics of its own. It is not possible, nor is it -necessary, to follow the course of the negotiations6 that led to the separation of the Australian force from that of New Zkaland an the evolution of the administrative system whereby coalete internal self-government was associated with full subordina- tion to British command for service$;lThis evolution, which extends beyond the period under review, was achieved by the identification of a fighting command with administrative direction, embodied in General Birdwood, with a two-fold staff-(^) fighting headquarters of the I Anzac Corps, and (2) administrative headquarters of the Australian Imperial Force in the field and at the base.
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