CHAPTER XIV WHEN, on the Night of December Zoth, the Brigades
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CHAPTER XIV MAGDHABA WHEN,on the night of December zoth, the brigades moved to encircle El Arish, Chauvel was still without information as to the direction taken by the Turks in their retirement. Two routes were open to thcm. They could fall back along the beach by Rafa towards Gaza, or, travelling up the Wady el Arish, march by Magdhaba towards the railway at El Auja. Aiming to block both routes, if only temporarily, to the feared Anzac horsemen, they divided their El Arish garrison, and proceeded to improve two selected defensive positions, one at Magdhaba about twenty-three miles south-south-east of El Arish, and the other at El Magruntein, close to the Rafa Police Post, twenty-six miles east of El Arish along the coast. Early on the morning of the zIst the airmen discovered a force at work on a string of sangars around Magdhaba, and Chauvel pushed out strong patrols for ten miles along both routes to reconnoitre, and also to sound the country for water. At IO o’clock on the morning of the ~2ndSir Philip Chetwode, the Commander of Desert Column, landed on the bcach at El Arish, having come by sea from Port Said. After consultation with Chauvel, he decided io take up the pursuit at once. Chauvel’s men were then eating the last of their rations ; but Chetwode, with a view to immediate operations, had arranged that a convoy with supplies should reach El Arish from railhead that evening, wliile the Navy was to co-operate immediately in landing stores from the sea. During the day ten Australian airmen raided Magdhaba and dropped 120 bombs about the settlement. The Turks retaliated hotly with rifles and machine-gunq and on their return the pilots reported that the place was held by a considerable force, supported by a number of light guns. Chetwode, who had been preparing a simultaneous advance towards both Magdhaba and Rafa, then decided to send all his available mounted strength against Magdhaba, temporarily suspending operations to the east. The infantry brigades of the 52nd Division were now marching into the El Arish area, and so 214 ~2nd-rgrdDec., 19161 MAGUHABA 215 secured the new base of operations in the absence of the horsemen. Anzac Mounted Division, less the 2nd Light Horse Brigade and the Ayrshire and Leicester Batteries, but supported by the new Imperial Camel Corps Brigade (then three battalions strong) and its Hong Kong and Singapore Mountain Battery, was in the early hours of the night concentrated at a point four miles up the wady. The intention was to cover before dawn the nineteen miles between this point and Magdhaba, and to encircle and surprise the enemy. As, however, me of the infantry brigades became entangled with the camel convoy of Chauvel’s force, the concentration was delayed, and it was not until nearly an hour after midnight that the column, with a squadron of the 1st Light Horse Brigade as advance-guard, commenced its ride up the wady. The Wady el Arish, which with its tributaries drains a large area of central and eastern Sinai, contains water only for brief periods in the rare seasons of heavy rains on the barren highlands. A brown, muddy flood then pours down, overflows the actual course of the shallow wady, and spreads out over the wide level flats on either side. In December, 1916, the wady was dry, and the flats deep in dust from the movement of enemy troops. The main track hetween El Arish and hlagdhaba follows the eastern side of the watercourse. Chauvel’s column had the wady and the sand-hills of Sinai on its right, and on its left the smaller sand-hills of the extreme edge of the desert region, which divide the wady from the fertile country of southern Palestine. At this time the Turkish railway had been extended from Beersheba south- wards through Auja and across the Siiiai frontier towards El Kossainia, whence it was to have been carried to Magdhaba and down the wady to El Arish. The wisdom of Murray’s insistence on an advance across Sinai was clear. Had he been content to rest on the Canal, it is highly probable that during 1917 the enemy would have laid the line westwards across the desert to Katia, and the defence of the Canal would have demanded the presence of a great British force. The advance-guard marched fast, and it was interesting to notice that the horses, moving for the first time since they came to Egypt on really firm and level ground, frequently over- 216 SINAI AND PALESTINE [njrd Dec., 1916 reached and stumbled. Speech and smoking were forbidden. The long column of ghostly horsemen was speedily blanketed in a heavy cloud of fine clayey dust; the only sound was the pounding of hoofs, the clank of stirrup against stirrup, and the occasional neighing and snorting of the horses. Each hour was (as is the cavalry practice) divided into forty minutes’ riding, ten minutes’ leading, and ten minutes’ halt. Such nursing of the horses on this short night-ride might seem strange to the Australian countryman, until it is remembered that each animal carried from eighteen to twenty stone, and that the only way in which horses can be kept fit for operation after operation over a number of years lies in ceaseless thought for their welfare. The December night was bitterly cold, and the men, aching in their saddles, appreciated the spells of walking. Shortly before 4 o’clock the camp fires of the unsuspecting Turks at Magdhaba were seen by the advanced screen, and an hour later the head of the column was checked in an open plain four miles from the position Chauvel had intended to march nearer to the enemy garrisons before halting for the deployment of his brigades; but he and his staff were deceived by the brightness of the enemy’s fires. As each brigade arrived, the men were dismounted and breakfasted and the horses fed, while Chauvel, accompanied by his staff and brigadiers, rode forward to make a personal reconnaissance of the position. Dawn was now touching the heavens over Palestine eastwards, and the dark upland of Judza could be descried to the north-east. As the enemy’s bivouac fires faded, the valley about Magdhaba was concealed under a heavy bank of smoke, which made the reconnaissance slow and difficult. But with the assistance of Major Barlow, an Imperial officer who knew the ground and who was attached to the staff, the few huts and larger stone buildings recently erected by the Turks and used as a hospital were located, and the plan of attack was decided upon. So far, however, Chauvel was in ignorance of the position of the enemy’s defences; as all the brigades had not yet arrived, he decided to wait for the appearance of his aeroplane? before committing his force. At about 6.30 the airmen arrived and, flying low, began to bomb the Turks. who, aiming at the pi!ots with machine-gun and rifle-fire, disclosed the position of their 23rd Dec., 19161 MAGDHABA 217 redoubts. Shortly before 8 o’clock the first aeroplane report was received, giving the location of one redoubt, and also the satisfactory intelligence that no enemy reinforcements were in sight as far as five miles beyond El Ruafa-a well some four miles south of Magdhaba-while at Ruafa itself only a few men were seen. Half-an-hour later all the brigades were moving into position for the assault. The position of the Turks at Magdhaba was well designed to frustrate any attack by which at that time it could be threatened. Having destroyed the wells at Lahfan, nine miles up the wady from the coast, the enemy knew that assaulting troops must be dependent upon the El Arish water, twenty-three miles away, and that, if he could resist for more than a few hours, the thirst of Chauvel’s men and horses must terminate the engagement. Moreover, the ground strongly favoured the defenders. The few buildings of the settlement stood on the east side of the wady, which about Magdhaba had worn a rugged, complicated gorge some twenty or thirty feet deep in the clay, and was freely broken on either side by short rough bays affordingthe best of cover to troops. On the Sinai side, immediately opposite the settlement, the desert came down close to the edge of the wady in a rolling slope broken with many little ridges a few feet high, and thickly sprinkled with sandbanked bushes which gave good protection to rifle- men. On the east, extending north and south, a flat a few hundred yards across flanked the wady; this was cut up by a number of small dry watercourses, splashed with bushes, and now, in the winter season, gay with anemones and hyacinths and other short-lived desert flowers. Beyond this flat to the east was a prolonged ridge dotted with large ant-hills and many bushes; this must be crossed by the attacking force. The enemy, with the heart of his position about the buildings, had constructed a system of redoubts, each capable of covering the next, at a radius of about half-a-mile from the buildings. Of these, two were on the east side of the wady, and the remainder on the sand-ridges to the west. Knowing that the British would probably approach up the flat on the east, the Turks had ensured that, before the main redoubts could be captured, the British must involve themselves in the crossing of the wady under fire.