With Our Army in Palestine Part 1

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.

Not that the question of food interested any one very much just then, for by this time sea-sickness was taking its dreadful toll. Men were lying about the wave-washed decks too ill even to help themselves; indeed, the only thing possible was to seize the nearest firm object and hang on.

Watering and feeding the horses was a horrible nightmare, but somehow it was done. The former was carried out by means of horse-buckets--an interminable business, interrupted at frequent intervals when the men were shaken and torn by awful bouts of sickness as they staggered or crawled along the foul, evil-smelling hold. Feeding was rather easier and quicker, for there was little to give the poor brutes, even had they wanted it. So it went on for four ghastly days.

On the fifth day, rations, water, and even those blessed oranges had almost given out, and to add to our joy the skipper, who was afterwards discovered to be a Bulgarian, had not the remotest notion of our whereabouts and lost his nerve completely. A big Australian actually did take the helm for a time and made a shot for the right direction. We had almost given up hope of reaching the land when, in a smother of foam and spray, there appeared a patrol-boat, the commander of which asked in his breezy naval way who we were and what the blazes we thought we were doing. On being informed he told us we were steering head-on for a minefield, and that if we wanted Mersa Matruh we must alter course a few points and we should be in before nightfall. Also, he added a few comments about our seamans.h.i.+p, but we were much too grateful to mind--besides, they really applied to the Bulgarian skipper.

It sounds rather like an anti-climax to say that we landed safely. True, men and horses were too apathetic and ill to care a great deal whether they were landed or no. Many felt the effects of that turbulent trip for weeks after, and certainly no one wished to renew acquaintance with the _Missa_!

The only pleasing feature about the business was, if report be true, that the Bulgarian skipper died suddenly from a violent stoppage of the heart.

Those of us who expected to find a great camp seething with activity and alive with all the pomp and circ.u.mstance of war were disappointed to see a mere collection of tents scattered about promiscuously, as it were, within handy reach of the sh.o.r.e. Here and there were piles of timber, R.E. stores, and the beginning of the inevitable ration dump; it was, in fact, a typical advanced base in embryo. n.o.body seemed more than mildly interested in our arrival, with the exception of a supply officer who was making agitated inquiries about a consignment of forty crates of oranges which he said should have been on board.

When we were sufficiently recovered to sit up and take notice of every-day matters again, we learnt that there had been some very heavy fighting during December, culminating in a fine show on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, when the Senussi, although they took full advantage of the extraordinarily difficult country, were trounced so severely that more fighting was unlikely for some weeks. Curiously enough, this cheerful news rather damped our enthusiasm. We had come expecting to find a large and exciting war on the beach waiting for us. Instead, we found battery-drills innumerable for the better training of our bodies and the edification of our minds. Also, there were fatigues, long and strenuous, which our souls abhorred. It is curious how the British soldier loathes the very word "fatigue." He will make the most ingenious excuses and discover that he has extraordinary and incurable diseases in order to dodge even the lightest.

Possibly the authorities, who sometimes see more than they appear to, had this in mind when later they changed the word to "working-party." There is a more dignified sound about it, though I don't know that it made the work any more acceptable.

In the evening we forgathered in an aged marquee used as a canteen, and cultivated the acquaintance of our new comrades, the Australian Light Horse, of which splendid corps more in the proper place. They were an independent but friendly crowd. Indeed, the word "friendly" is not quite enough; the Army one "matey" expresses so much better our att.i.tude towards each other, after the first tentative overtures had been made. And this "matey" feeling animated the whole campaign against the Senussi, to a greater degree, I think, than any other. Perhaps the conditions drew us closer together, for they were deplorable.

It rained all day and almost every day; tents were water-logged and one moved about in a slough of sticky mud. We ate mud, we drank it in our tea, we slept in it, for our wardrobes had been left behind in Cairo.

Harness-cleaning was another bugbear, but even that succ.u.mbed to the mud after a time; and as the weeks flew by and inspections, infallible finger-posts to a "sc.r.a.p," became more frequent we knew that all was not in vain and that very soon we should have the chance of justifying the long, arduous days of preparation. And quite suddenly it came.

One evening in the canteen the whispered news--"straight from the horse's mouth"--was pa.s.sed round that we should be in action in two days! It was laughed to scorn. How often had we heard that tale before! There had certainly been an inspection of field-dressings in the morning, which usually meant something, yet even that had been done before and nothing had come of it. We were frankly sceptical. However, this time the doubting Thomases were wrong, for the very next day we were roused at a depressingly early hour by the guard, who told us in a hoa.r.s.e whisper that we were "for it."

We were sufficiently experienced in turning out to get the preliminaries over quickly and without the amazing chaos that usually attends the efforts of the beginner. It is indeed remarkable how soon one becomes accustomed to working in the dark. Breast collars seem to slide into their places and buckles and trace-hooks find their way into one's hands of their own volition. By sun-up we were well on our way across the desolate, dreary waste.

It was terribly heavy going, over fetlock-deep in mud, as hour after hour we toiled along. Beyond small bodies of cavalry dotted here and there on the desert, there did not appear to be any signs of a battle. Men were riding at ease, smoking and talking, when, almost unnoticeably, the plain became alive with soldiers. Infantry appeared from nowhere in particular, the cavalry seemed suddenly to have increased considerably in numbers and to be ma.s.sing as if for a charge, and before we realised it, we were unlimbering the guns and the horses were struggling through the mud back to the waggon-lines. In a few seconds the roar of an explosion proclaimed that the guns were firing their first shots against an enemy, and presently over the waggon-lines came a persistent whining sound indicating that the enemy had a few remarks to make on his own account.

The Senussi of course had the advantage of ground, but fortunately for us they had only light field-pieces which did little damage. They made astonis.h.i.+ngly good use of their machine-guns, however, and soon had the cavalry, who had made an impetuous charge, in difficulties. So serious did the situation become that a gun had to be swung round--and extremely difficult it was to move in the mud--until it was almost at right angles with its fellow, in order to prevent our being surrounded. For some hours the Senussi made desperate attempts to outflank us, and both cavalry and infantry suffered considerably, nor did the artillery have much time for rest and reflection, for at one stage in the proceedings they were firing over open sights--and as any artilleryman knows, when that happens the enemy is quite near enough.

It is of course impossible for one to describe an action like this in detail or say exactly when the turning-point came. There was the general impression of the infantry at long last heaving themselves out of the mud and going forward in real earnest, of the cavalry on the flanks speeding the heels of the retreating Senussi hors.e.m.e.n, and of the artillery firing as fast as they could load at any target they could pick up.

The whole engagement seemed to last only a few minutes, yet the artillery alone had been firing steadily for some five hours. When it was all over we were rather astonished to find ourselves still alive, somewhat dazed with the excitement and noise and with the cantankerous whine of machine-gun bullets still in our ears. A violent desire for a smoke was the first real sensation, but that desire was not destined to be gratified for some time, for our troubles were only just beginning.

The sticky mud had completely beaten the horses and mules, which latter had made a very praiseworthy attempt to stampede earlier in the day, and almost all the vehicles had to be man-handled along. Rain was coming down in a pitiless downpour and we had to face the prospect of a bitterly cold night with neither blankets nor greatcoats, for everything had been left behind to enable us to travel as light as possible. The plight of the wounded was pitiable. There were practically no medical comforts for them, most of the transport being stuck in the mud a considerable distance away.

Some of the slightly wounded men rode on the gun-limbers, others with more serious hurts in such ambulances as had managed to get up, a few on camel-back, while the remainder were actually carried in stretchers by their unwounded comrades. That these men with their heavy loads ever managed to lift their feet out of the mud was a miracle. I do not know what system of reliefs was adopted, but by the time the wounded were safely brought in, a whole battalion must have taken its turn merely to carry its own few casualties.

It was a magnificent example of devotion and dogged fort.i.tude; and withal, the outstanding feature of the whole affair was the incorrigible cheerfulness of everybody, rising superior to all discomforts.

It may be thought that undue prominence has been given to an affair which after all was one in which a few thousands only took part--little more than a skirmish, perhaps, judged by European standards. It has been done partly because this was the first time most of us had been under fire, but chiefly because the battle was so typical of many in the subsequent desert fighting.

As will be seen later, the c.u.mulative effect of these minor victories was out of all proportion to the numbers engaged. Moreover, this particular action again rammed home the lesson that native guerilla troops cannot hope to tackle with success, well-armed, well-disciplined white troops supported by artillery.

Well, we had been blooded--lightly, it is true--and we were ready for the next job. We had learnt one or two lessons, for no one goes into his first action and comes out exactly the same man. He is rather like the good, but young and untried cricketer nervously going in to bat. The bowler looks about seven feet high and the stumps seem absurdly large; but the moment he is in the crease the mist clears away from his eyes and he is ready to set about his business. So it is with war: it is the fear of showing fear that makes many a good man unhappy in his first action; until he finds that he is not there merely to be shot at but to do a little shooting on his own account. After that he has little time to think about himself; he is too busy.

A plethora of fatigues occupied the next few weeks. A column started on a sweeping drive towards Sollum, but for us, beyond dropping a few sh.e.l.ls into a native village, there was no further artillery action. Life resolved itself into an affair of G.S. waggons and patrol-duty, which latter chiefly concerned the cavalry.

There were lines of communication to be formed, contact with the railhead at Dabaa to be established and maintained, which meant, amongst other things, a constant carting of telegraph-poles out to unlikely spots in the desert, and dumping them there for "Signals," who immediately decided they would like them taken somewhere else even more remote and inaccessible.