THE MOUNTED WAR IN PALESTINE

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 241, 5 July 1919, Page 9

THE MOUNTED WAR IN PALESTINE

CAMPAIGN IN SINAI

PRELIMINARY BOUTS WITH

THE TURK ~

(By "Ala Ake.")

Comprehension .of the Sinai campaign i- 1916-17' will be facilitated by a brief ascription .of the country. Egypt's •asternmost province, Sinai, is in rough utlino an inverted triangle, of which the baso is formed by the Mediterranean, shore, the western side by the Suez Canal and the Gulf of Suez, and the eastern by the other prong of the Bed Sea. the Gulf 'of'Akaba, with the long, straight, artificial boundary between Egypt and Palestine running nt an angle from its head to the : Mediterranean coast, at a point 120 miles due east of Port Said. A few miles inland . lies Rafa. a small police post, right on tho frontier; The southern portion of the Sinai Peninsula is a" jumble of high, rugged mountains, the..wilderness of the Israelites; tho northern portion, is the flat, sandy Sinai Desert, flat by comparison, but in most places broken up into, hummocky sandhills. . Lack of water is its greatest curse.. Such ns there is lies scattered, in odd wells in various oases. The camel caravans, that traded in ' peace time into Egypt from the East, could follow ..only three routes linking up the watering-places scattered across tho desert; namely, the southern route, ending.at Suez, tho middle Toute ending at Ismailia, and the cooler northern, route that followed the coastline, wells from. R-afa to Romani, and then dipped south-west to reach ths canal at Kantara. In. their first attack on Egypt in February, 1915, tho Turks used all three routes, but' chiefly the northern and middle ones. Their defeat at the .canal is. memorable to this country, as constituting the."bloodinn" of the New Zealand troops in tho war. Foiled in this attempt, the Turk ■withdrew to. the depths of the province, and Gallipoli kept, him far too busy to try again until April, 1916, when he boRan his second attack, this time by the northern route alone. , First Signs of Activity. The first signs of his activity were the cutting up of a Yeomanry post nt Oghratina, 6ome forty miles'from the canal, and a simultaneous attack on Dueidar, thirty miles nearer. Diieidar was most gnllantly and successfully defended by companies of the Eoyal Scols Fusiliers, who gave the enemy such a drubbing-that the N.Z.M.R..' Brigade, rushed up from the other, side of canal, arrived to find hini in full re'treat.

Aerial reconnaissance, however, showed the Turk to.be in groat strength, indicating that the second attack on Egypt proper, was to be a much more 6erions effort , than the first. He " had collected large ; reserves of stores nnd water, and Had brought down heavy artillery. His : force was well equipped and' well led. The scarcity of water and' the' difficulty of marching through heavy sand in Egypt's: record 6ummer—the nottcst for ■ twenty yearsmeant that our infantry were limited in their radius of action by the rate of progress of the railway construction, These factors threw upon the cavalry the chief burden of the fighting that led to the expulsion of:the- Turk from Sinai. His 6econd attack on Egypt-was definitely and decisively checked at the battle of liomanl, August 8 and i, 1916. New Zealand's attack on. Mount Koystoh and "vvel : lington Ridge turned < the scale, in that battle. ■■'Prom it the Turk withdrew, to be defeated wherever he'made a stand in his forced withdrawal to Palestine. Immediately following .up the advantage of the victory, the defeated Turk waspurHiied to Kiitia oasis,',on the of which he had prepared, positions at Hamisnh. 'Throughout his retreat lie moved fiom one' prepared defensive position to another: ho always had guns and an amazing supply-of ammunition. After a stiff resistance at Kalia, taothwnll day, he fell back on the night of the sth to his advanced base','"Bir-el-Abd.■■••. Here he made tremendous efforts to beat us hack. Ho threw GOOD men in one violent coun-ter-attack after another against our containing lines, but finally drew off with heavy loss. Hard pressed by our fire, the enemy burnt tno remainder of his stores, and finally was forced to evneuato.his position on the 12th, being chased as far as Salmana. Our victory was complete. Th» total, enemy casualties from August 3 to August 12 were estimated as 9000, and prisoners captured numbered 4000. ■

Moving on El Arish.

After Abd-eame Mazar, rushed at dawn, md afterwards, in December, to l'orin the mmping-ol'f place for tho advaneo on El .irish. All these places, Eoma.ni, Katia, Bir-cl-Abd, El Arab, Sheikh Zonraid. and I?afa, are strung, aloug tlio northern route. Hitherto they have doubtless raero names to the New. "ealdnd public, but they are burned indelibly in tho memories of men of tho Mounted Brigade, who.had so-valued a share in expelling the Turlyfrom Sinai. Tttll description of their work at this is not, for the moment,, intended. This brief skclch of the enmpaign is intended to bo merely.", rapid preliminary survey of the operations as a whole. They may ( be summed'up by saying that the' Turk, advanced by the northern route, and was successively defeated at various points on that route as he mado his forced withdrawal by the way lie had come. All tho. actions were, roughly, in one straight line from Knnlnm to ,Eafa, and all cloro to the Mediterranean coast. The Battle of Magdaba, 30 miles inland- from El Arish, was the only digression. With the exception of El Arish, these places aro of little importance from- tho nonmilitary point of-view. A.few mud huts, sometimes only a few palms clustered round tho wells, nestling among the eahd dunes: that is all thero is to eav of them. -El Arish is the only "township" along the route, and a poor one at that. Of roads there are none. E) Arish lies near the mouth of the Wadi el Arish, tho "River of Egypt" of Biblical days, some, twenty milo3 from the Turkish frontier: The wndi is dry in summer, but is a. torrent for a few'days in winter, when it drains the rain-llopn from the southern mountains to tho sea. On its banks. .10 miles inland to tlm eoutb, is Magdaba. whither the Turkish garrison had withdrawn on our threatening El Arish, which was occupied without resistance on December 21, 1916. The Fight at Magdaba. On the night of the '22nd mounted troops moved jout to round up tho force at Magdaba, some 2000 men. After an allnight, march tho attack was made a* dawn, and after a solid day's fighting tho position was taken by assault, anil the Toturn with the prisoners made to El Arish. Magdaba was o, notable achievement. Two nights of marching, a battle in which again tho attack of tho N.Z.M.K. was tho turning point, and then the lontt night march home. In the limits of this article it is impossible to do.justice to tho work of the lirisade. It was not a mere matter of skipping from point to point with the Turk on the run nil the time. Of tho daily round, let an impartial observer, Mr. W. T. Mas-sey, official British correspondent, speak:—"Tlia mounted troops were always ahead of the infantry, searching tho country for scores of miles for Turks or marauders (Bedouins), who Tenuired as nvueh careful 'attention a* the Turks themselves. Eatijrutng marches fell to the cavalry's IoV almost daily, and they guarded not only our front, but often went into tho hilly broken country to the south for a day or two at a time, to ascertain at close quarters if the cunning of the enemy had enabled him to hide himself from the eyes of the observers in the flying machines." And anain:-

''It was a delightful ride we had with a New Zealand convoy, and I am gUH I made it in daylight, for one could never cct 0 proper, appreciation of the. difficulties of the nighb march if (he rou!e "Hid been crossed tn darkness. Tlio last five miles into El Arish is over a sucession of lofty sand dunes ( whoso casern and southern slopes are so precinitoiis'.ns to approach the perpendicular. Up and down over this perilously steep and yielding ground the intrepid horsemen from Enprlish shires ana Australian and New Zealand runs never faltered for n moment. There were their tracks to provo thev had ridden, almost glissaded, down giddy slopes of shifting sandhills, in the inky darkness of a moonless night. It reminded me of films showing how trained Italian cavalry detachments take .a hillside, and it was a pity the neoessi-

ties of the' moment did not allow of a kinomatograph picture being taken to show our people throughout the Empire that a whole-division of Britons could do.these things on service." Now Zealand Patrol Work. In tho patrol work and in the battles that cleared Sinai the New Zcalanders played a prominent putt. Of the coinparativo value of their work it is not for one of.them to speak, tor self-praise is poor recommendation. It was commonly reported that the then Comman-der-in-Chief, Sir Archibald Murray, had declared that "if the Anzac Division was taken from him, ho declined to be responsible' for tho safety of Egypt,"' and thp N.Z.M.K. was,not the least valuable brigade in that division, ft fact that received unmistakable proof at the .Battle of Rata, tho victory that finally broke i'ns Turk in Egypt and opened the door 'Into Palestine.