Part 1 (1/2)

With Our Army in Palestine.

by Antony Bluett.

FOREWORD

Little has been said, and less written, of the campaigns in Egypt and Palestine. This book is an attempt to give those interested some idea of the work and play and, occasionally, the sufferings of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, from the time of its inception to the Armistice.

Severely technical details have been reduced to a minimum, the story being rather of men than matters; but such necessary figures and other data of which I had not personal knowledge, have been taken from the official dispatches and from the notes of eye-witnesses.

Here I should like most cordially to thank the following old comrades for their generous help: Capt. B. T. Hinchley, R.A.S.C., late of the Egyptian Camel Transport Corps, and L. Allard Stonard, Esq., late of ”A” Battery, the Honourable Artillery Company, for permission to print their excellent photographs, which will, I am sure, add materially to the interest of the book; and R. Arrowsmith, Esq., late of ”A” Battery, the Honourable Artillery Company, whose admirable notes have been of the greatest a.s.sistance to me in compiling some of the later chapters.

ANTONY BLUETT.

HIGHGATE, _July 1919_.

WITH OUR ARMY IN PALESTINE

CHAPTER I

MERSA MATRUH AND THE SENUSSI

It is a little difficult to know the precise place at which to begin this narrative. There are, as it were, several _points d'appui_. One might describe the outward voyage, in a troops.h.i.+p packed to three or four times its normal peace-time capacity; where men slept on the floors, on mess-tables, and in hammocks so closely slung that once you were in it was literally impossible to get out until the whole row was ready to move; and where we were given food (!) cooked and served under conditions so revolting as to turn the stomach at the bare sight of it. And there were other things....

But I do not think any useful purpose would be served by such a course. It was an unspeakably horrible voyage, but most of the troops travelling East experienced the same conditions; moreover, the praise or blame for those responsible for the early chaos will doubtless be meted out at the proper time and in the proper place.

Again, as far as most people at home are concerned, the Great Crusade began with the taking of Jerusalem and ended when the Turks finally surrendered in the autumn of 1918. This view, entirely erroneous though it be, is not unreasonable, for a thick veil shrouded the doings of the army in Egypt in the early days, and the people at home saw only the splendid results of two years' arduous preparation and self-sacrifice.

Now the tale of these weary months ought to be told that justice be done to some of the biggest-hearted men who ever left the sh.o.r.es of Great Britain and Australasia, and that the stupendous difficulties confronting them may be properly appreciated. It is no tale of glamour and romance; it is a tale of sheer, hard graft, generally under terrible conditions--for a white man.

Before we could even think of moving eastwards towards Palestine we had to set our own house in order. Egypt was seething with sedition, and the flame of discontent was sedulously fanned by the young excitables from Al Azhar, who probably were themselves stimulated by Turko-German propaganda--and ”baksheesh.” These had to be suppressed; and the task was not easy.

Further, as far south as Aden there were Turkish garrisons, and troops in considerable numbers had to be detached to overcome them; this, too, was no small undertaking. Finally, a flowery gentleman called the High Sheikh or the Grand Sheikh of the Senussi had ideas above his station--and he had to be disillusionised.

This was a more serious matter, for the Senussi were the largest native tribe in Egypt, and Turkish and German officers had been very busy amongst them. Some account of the operations against them has already been published, but I believe it concerns mainly the Duke of Westminster's spirited dash with his armoured cars to rescue the s.h.i.+pwrecked survivors of the _Tara_, who were grossly ill-treated by the Senussi. Yet right up to the end of 1917 they were a source of trouble, and in 1915 the situation became so serious that a strong punitive force had to be sent to Mersa Matruh, on the Western Frontier of Egypt, to cope with it.

Here, I think, is where we must make our bow, for we had some small place in these operations; it was, in fact, our introduction to actual fighting, though we had already spent many torrid weeks on the Suez Ca.n.a.l. And no better _mise en scene_ could we have than the old _Missa_, for the story of the campaign would be incomplete without mention of her; she was unique.

Besides, everybody in Egypt knows the _Missa_. Those who had the misfortune to know her intimately speak of her with revilings and cast slurs upon her parentage.

Far back down the ages, possibly about the time when the admirable Mr.

Stephenson was busy practising with his locomotive, the _Missa_ might have been a respectable s.h.i.+p, but her engines had been replaced so many times by others more pernicious and evil-smelling, and new boards had been nailed so frequently and promiscuously about the hull, that she resembled nothing so much as an aged female of indifferent repute decked in juvenile and unseemly clothes; and her conduct matched her looks.

Most men in the army will have noticed that the authorities nearly always order a move or begin a ”show” on the day of rest. I am no statistician, but if the tally of these lost hours in bed of a Sunday morning were kept, the army would have a few weeks' arrears of sleep to make up. On this particular occasion we went one better than Sunday; we began on a day when normally peace and goodwill go ringing round the world: Christmas Day, 1915. If there was any peace and goodwill about we failed to notice it, for it was blowing and raining hard, and we had to get half a battery of horse-artillery on board that deplorable s.h.i.+p.

It is no joke at the best of times embarking horses and mules; and as, in addition to the weather, we had the _Missa_ to deal with, the humour of the proceedings did not strike any one--except the onlookers. For she rolled and pitched and plunged and dived as she lay there at her moorings. She was never still a moment, and, in a word, behaved like the graceless, mercurial baggage she was. But she was beaten in the end.

By dint of that curious mixture of patience and profanity characteristic of the British soldier when doing a difficult job, horses and guns were at length safely stowed away. Just before we sailed an old salt on the quay kindly proffered the opinion that it would be dirty weather outside. He was right. If the old _Missa_ had behaved badly in Gabbari docks, she was odious once we got out to sea. She did everything but stand on her head or capsize--and did indeed nearly accomplish both these feats.

Normally the journey from Alexandria to Mersa Matruh, whither we were bound, occupies about sixteen hours. On this occasion the _Missa_ took five days! A few hours after we left harbour the pleasing discovery was made that some one had mislaid a large portion of the rations for the voyage, though by a fluke several crates of oranges had been put on board--”in lieu,” perhaps.