CHAPTER XVI the Battle of Romani Had Changed the Whole Character of the Campaign. the Signal Turkish Failure There Had Thrown Th
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CHAPTER XVI TOWARDS CAZA THEBattle of Romani had changed the whole character of the campaign. The signal Turkish failure there had thrown the enemy at once upon the defensive, and in the two years which followed he did not rally again to a definite advance upon Egypt. Murray’s movement across Sinai had, nevertheless, been of a progressive defensive nature rather than an ambitious aggression; and it was not until after the capture of El Arish and the sparkling little victories at Magdhaba and Rafa that the Commander-in-Chief ventured upon a concrete plan for the invasim of Palestine. IJis condition and immediate prospects at that time were calculated to awaken the ambition of any military leader. The railway was rapidly approaching El Arish, and, with supplies coming in from the sea, communi- cations were highly satisfactory. The weather was cool, and four months were available for operations before the return of the summer; his troops were hard and fresh, and elated by the Magdhaba and Rafa victories; his infantry was rapidly increasing in numbers and would soon be four divisions strong, while a second division of mounted troops was in process of formation. At last on the rolling plains of southern Palestine he had ground suitable for his infantry; it hitherto had been merely a force behind which the Anzac Mounted Division might find shelter in the event of the enemy attempting a dangerous counter-attack. At last, moreover, there was country on which wheels could move without sinking to their hubs. The cumbersome pedrails were stripped from the guns, the horse-teams were reduced from eight (and even ten) to six, and the artillery was promised its normal battle-activity. At the same time the “general service ” waggons re-appeared, and enormously lightened the transport work of the divisions. The huge camel-trains, which during the Sinai advance were the only means of carrying supplies, had made the campaign possible, and had done all that cotild be expected of them. But at best camel-transport is exceedingly slow, and like a snow- 244 Jan.-Feb., 19171 TOWARDS GAZA 245 ball in its operation. It entails excessive handling of supplies, the feeding of thousands of camels and their drivers-which in themselves impose heavy additional work upon the railway -and the employment and maintenance of a further large number of animals and their attendants. Until the very end of the campaign at Aleppo camels were always extensively used, atid were sometimes the sole means of transport; but wherever possible they were displaced by motor-lorries and horse-drawn waggons and limbers. In the ambulances the change to hard ground led to the abandonment of the sand- sleighs. and the use of motors and horse-vehicles became general, though unhappily the camel cacolets had to be retained for use in the hills. But perhaps most important of all the changes brought about by the deliverance from the desert was the increased mobility given to the mounted troops. Prodigious things had been done by the horses on Sinai. They had revealed a capacity to endure without water scarcely inferior to that of the camels, to which as a means of transport for mounted rifles they had proved incomparably superior. Nevertheless they had been painfully restricted by the heavy sand. Frnm the Canal to El Arish they had rarely moved beyond a walking pace. The slowness of their marching and the increased carrying of supplies which it had entailed, as in the expedition against Maghara, had prolonged all operations and necessitated the employment of many thousands of extra camels and great numbers of drivers. Sir Archibald, again, was well pleased with the conduct of recent operations by his two new lieutenants, Dobell and Chetwode, and might well have believed that he now possessed generals to whom he could safely entrust the translation of his Cairo strategy into vigorous and successful action. But, as at Romani, one vital essential was still lacking in his force at El Arish. The army was without the inspiration of robust leadership. Murray, directing the campaign from Cairo, was in almost the same position as a minister of war at Whitehall who sometimes insists in meddling with the tactics of a distant army. The Commander-in-Chief was quite unable from his headquarters at the Savoy Hotel to master in detail the conditions in southern Palestine ; nor was he disposed, or 246 SINAI AND PALESTINE [Jan.-Feb., 1917 authorised by his Government, to delegate a proper measure of responsibility to his subordinates. As a minister for war he was far too active; as a commander-in-chief he was not nearly active enough. To make matters worse, Murray was from Romani onwards an unpopular leader with his troops. Officers and nien of Anzac Mounted Division interpreted his unfortunate despatch concerning that engagement, and the consequent issue of awards, as an active demonstration of prejudice. The extreme measures of discipline imposed on both his mounted troops and his infantry, during their rare and brief periods of leave in Cairo and Port Said, caused General Headquarters as a whole to be looked upon in a spirit far from cordial. The men cheerfully accepted as part of their voluntary service all the disciplinary measures which had any conceivable bearing upon the efficient conduct of the war, But the degree to which the nien visiting Cairo and Port Said were angered by exclusion from the reputable hotels, and worried about formalities-while at the same time no sane steps were taken to safeguard their welfare in other directions-engendered a feeling of bitterness which did not contribute to the success of operations, All British soldiers are hero-worshippers, and Murray was not in their eyes a hero. The front was without any sense of the presence of a great leader. In February Murray decided, as a preliminary to his general advance, to clean up the remaining Turkish garrisons in Sinai. Columns were sent against El Hassana, which lies in the hills some thirty-three miles south-south-west of Magdhaba, and against Nekhl, the old seat of British adminis- tration. The 2nd Battalion (British) of the Camel Brigade, under Major Bassett, marched from Magdhaba on February 17th and, travelling by night, surrounded Hassana at dawn on the following morning. On the appearance of the force the Turks surrendered without resistance. Throughout the campaign the extremely unsanitary conditions under which the Turks lived and fought were a constant source of amaze- ment to the British army. The Hassana post was indescribably filthy. A dead camel lay in the middle of the camp, and a dead cow in a building close beside the house occupied by the Commandant, who, however, appeared quite indifferent to its 17th-18th Feb., 19171 TOWARDS GAZA 247 presence. While the post was being surrounded, Lance- Corporal AIacGregor was shot and severely wounded by arnied Bedouins; it was found impossible to evacuate him on a camel cacolet, and he was therefore carried back to El Arish in one of the aeroplanes which had been co-operating with the force. Three columns were employed for the conquest of Nekhl. A yeonianry force marched from Suez by the Mitla Pass and the Darb el Haj; Lieutenant-Colonel Grant led the 11th Australian Light Horse Regiment and one conipany of the Camel Brigade out from Serapeum by the Wady um Muksheib, Bir el Giddi, and the Baha Pass; while Bassett, after securing Hassana, was to endeavour to block the escape of the enemy towards the east. The garrison was known to be insignificant, and the use of so much strength by the British was intended to make a clean and final sweep of the enemy from Sinai, and also to impress the Bedouins. Nekhl, with its few stone houses, a mosque, and a well, situated on the heights of the forbidding desert ranges, was entered on February 17th-three days after Grant’s force left the Canal-by a squadron of the 11th Light Horse, riding with fixed bayonets, under Captain C. A. R. Munro. Grant on his approach learned from a British airman that the garrison was evacuating, and accordingly pushed in without waiting for the arrival of the column from Suez. A few Turks and armed Arabs were taken, and the espedition definitely marked the expulsion of the Turks from the Peninsula; but it is chiefly to be remembered because of the fine marching accomplished by the camel- transport which accompanied Grant’s column. The camels, led by Egyptians on foot, covered 150 miles in seven con- secutive days-a wonderful feat of endurance over a route which ran most of the way along steep and narrow mountain tracks, rocky and difficult. Sinai was tiow clear ; but much preliminary work was still necessary before the army could be directed towards Palestine. IIaving allowed Chauvel’s horsemen to debouch f roni the desert without opposition and secure a foothold on the firm soil of the plains, the Turks were obliged to fall right back to the Gaza-Beersheba line in order to secure a strong defensive position based on an adequate supply of water. For some weeks they left a garrison of about 4,000 troops in a carefully 248 SINAI AND PALESTINE [Jan.-Mar., 1917 prepared position at Weli Sheikh Nuran, a few miles west of Shellal; but the fate of Magdhaba and Rafa had made them heartily respect the Anzac brigades and the Camels, and early in March this force was withdrawn. This left the country ahead of the British clear for about thirty miles, from El Arish to the Gaza-Beersheba gateway of Palestine.