Topic: BatzS - Suez 1915
Suez Canal Attack
Egypt, January 28 - February 3, 1915
Official British History Account, Pt 1
The following is an extract from:
MacMunn, G., and Falls, C., Military Operations Egypt & Palestine - From the Outbreak of War with Germany to June 1917, London, 1928, pp. 19 - 22.
Chapter II
NOVEMBER AND DECEMBER 1914.
ON the 9th November the German commerce raider Emden was destroyed at Cocos Islands. Remote though the scene was, the effect of her disappearance was at once felt in Egypt. As soon as her menace to shipping east of Suez was removed a number of warships urgently required in Mediterranean waters were ordered westward and passed through the Canal. In the Indian Ocean there remained only one small group on the East African coast and another assisting the Persian Gulf Expedition. The Admiral of the East Indies station had in these circumstances little to occupy him, and the Admiralty decided that he could do better service in Egypt and on the Syrian coast. Vice-Admiral R. H. Peirse therefore rehoisted his flag in the Swiftsure at Suez on the1st December. On an average about four ships, British and French, were available for the defence of the Canal, being changed from time to time as circumstances required.
Meanwhile, on the 16th November, the Indian troops destined for the defence of Egypt reached Suez, and battalions were moved as quickly as possible to Ismailia and Port Said. Major-General A. Wilson, arrived from India, was appointed G.O.C. Canal Defences. The Sirhind Brigade was relieved and sailed on the 23rd to rejoin its division in France. At the same time Sir J. Maxwell was informed of Lord Kitchener's project of bringing the Australian and New Zealand contingents to Egypt for war training. The intention was to send them later to France, but temporarily they would be available as reserves in Egypt, where their appearance would undoubtedly impress public opinion.
On the 20th November occurred the first hostilities. A patrol of 20 men of the Bikanir Camel Corps, under Captain A. J. H. Chope, was attacked at Bir en Nuss, 20 miles east of Qantara, by 200 Bedouin, who approached it under a white flag. The party extricated itself creditably, though with casualties amounting to more than half its numbers. Unfortunately this affair proved that the loyalty of the camel troopers of the Egyptian Coastguard, several of whom accompanied the Bikanirs as guides, was extremely doubtful, since they allowed themselves to be made prisoners in a manner virtually amounting to desertion.
There was for a considerable period no further contact with the enemy, and for the rest of the year the headquarters of the Force in Egypt and of the Canal Defences had time to prepare defences and organize the troops. The Australian and New Zealand contingent, a magnificent but still only partly trained force, landed early in December. [The original Australian contingent consisted of one light horse brigade and one infantry division complete with artillery; that of New Zealand of 2,500 mounted troops, 5,000 infantry and one field artillery brigade.] The Indian troops were organized into two divisions, the 10th and 11th.
Lord Kitchener discussed with Sir J. Maxwell the possibility of some action against the Turkish communications with Syria. It was at this time that a diversion in the Gulf of Iskanderun, a project that was to reappear more than once in the course of the war, was first considered and rejected, after some preliminary preparations had been made. ["If any diversion is contemplated, I think the easiest, safest and most fruitful in results would be one at Alexandretta. There we strike a vital blow at the railways and also hit German interests very hard. Alexandretta would not want a very large force. All other places - Rafah, Jaffa, Acre, Beirut - are too far from the Turkish lines of communications." Sir J. Maxwell to Lord Kitchener, 4th December, 1914.] The importance of Alexandretta at this period is not made clear by a first glance at the map, because the railway line to this town from west of the Amanus Mountains is a dead end. This branch line represented the originally planned course of the Baghdad Railway, which had been altered for strategical reasons. Turkey was still a great military, but no longer a great maritime Power, and the line following the shore of the Gulf of Iskanderun was peculiarly vulnerable from the sea. The railway was therefore carried over the Amanus and then, via Islahie, to Aleppo. At the outbreak of war the Bagche tunnel, west of Islahie, was not pierced. Some eighty miles further west, in the Cilician Taurus, was another gap in the line. Troops and supplies from Constantinople had to be detrained at Bozanti, west of the Taurus gap, and moved down by road to Tarsus, whence they were railed to Alexandretta. There they took to the road again and moved by it to Aleppo or a station just west of it before returning to the railway. The alternative to the Alexandretta route was to continue along the main line to the Amanus gap, there detrain, follow the mountain road to Islahie, and again entrain for Aleppo. The Alexandretta route was the better and quicker. [The Amanus road was not suitable for wheeled traffic till the German engineer Klinghart had finished work on it in 1916 ("Sinai", Kress, i, p. 19). A traveller who crossed in January 1915 states that the mud was over his ankles and that there was no transport on the road but pack-mules and camels.]
Alexandretta, therefore, though a railhead, was a vital point on the improvised Turkish line of communications. If it were held by an enemy, Turkish troops moving to Syria would have to scramble and struggle over the Amanus road. Traffic between Turkey and Syria would be virtually stopped between January and March, and relatively small quantities of munitions could be brought through at any time of the year. The objections to the scheme were, however, at least at this period, very great. An organized field army, with modern means of transport and equipment for the landing of stores, would have been required and could have ill been spared, even if it could have been found. The Navy would have been called upon to make the bay secure against submarines and protect the sea route thereto. The landing of a British force for any operation greater than a raid would probably have resulted in risings of Armenians and of tribes such as the Nasariyeh and Ismailiyeh in the Amanus, so that, once embarked upon the enterprise, Britain would have found it almost impossible to withdraw, however urgent the reasons, and leave friends to Turkish vengeance. These considerations, the first above all, convinced Lord Kitchener and the Cabinet that in existing circumstances the passive defence of the Canal itself, on the line of the Canal, was the only possible method of protecting Egypt from attack by land.
It seemed, however, that the expected Turkish invasion was a long time brewing. Admiral Peirse was therefore instructed to employ light cruisers to harry Syrian ports particularly Alexandretta, Beirut and Haifa, with a view to stopping the movement of supplies. Early in December he had available the Doris and the Russian Askold, which had been put at his disposal. The Askold cleverly cut a German ship out of Haifa, while in the latter part of the month the Doris had a series of remarkable adventures. She began on the 13th by bombarding earthworks at El Arish and landing a party. She next landed a party at Sidon, which cut telegraph wires running along the coast and inland towards Damascus. But her most notable exploit was in the Gulf of Iskanderun, when she landed parties which blew up bridges, derailed trains, cut telegraph lines. Finally at Alexandretta, under threat of bombardment of the station, she forced the Turks to blow up two locomotives, lending them gun-cotton for the purpose. The torpedo-lieutenant sent ashore by Captain Larken to supervise their destruction was solemnly given Turkish rank for that day to preserve Turkish dignity. The end of the comedy is said to have been a claim by the Baghdad Railway Company against the Turkish Government for wanton and malicious damage to the former's property by a Turkish officer.
The raids, though justifiable by the usage of war, were afterwards discontinued in view of reprisals threatened by the Turks against Allied subjects in their hands, and it was left to the enemy to take the next step. News of the occupation of El Arish, within the Egyptian border, caused Lord Kitchener to enquire if it were not possible, with the aid of the Navy, to carry out a landing and strike at the Turks. Sir J. Maxwell replied that shallows and a choppy sea made such action difficult, adding that the force at El Arish consisted mainly of Bedouin, who would retire inland at the first appearance of British warships.
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Next Chapter: Suez Canal Attack, Egypt, THE CANAL DEFENCES, Official British History Account, Pt 2
Further Reading:
Suez Canal Attack, Egypt, Contents
Where Australians Fought, Sinai, 1916-1917
Battles where Australians fought, 1899-1920
Citation: Suez Canal Attack, Egypt, Official British History Account, Pt 1
