NZHistory, New Zealand history online - egypt

'Sphinxing' in Egypt

‘Sphinxing’ they called it. The Maheno’s personnel make the most of the sights in Egypt.

In the lower photograph the ship's senior army officer, Colonel Collins (left), and the Union Company master, Captain McLean, pose with General Godley.

Credit:

Liverpool, Lord (compiler), The New Zealand Hospital Ship ‘Maheno’: the first voyage, July, 1915, to January, 1916, Whitcombe & Tombs, Auckland, 1918-9

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Sinai campaign 1916 map

See enlarged version of this map here. You can also download a hi-res copy as a pdf (2 mbs).

While most of New Zealand’s military units were transferred to the Western Front in early 1916 after withdrawing from Gallipoli, the 1800-strong New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade joined the Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF) in the Sinai campaign. The goal was to prevent Ottoman attacks on the Suez Canal, a vital transport link between Britain and its empire.

The EEF’s commander, Lieutenant-General Archibald Murray, argued that the canal could best be defended by going on the offensive and seizing control of the Sinai Peninsula from the Ottoman Turks. He proposed building a railway and water pipeline (the black dotted line on the map above) from the canal eastwards to a forward staging base at El Arish. This engineering feat, begun in April 1916, would facilitate the transportation of forces required for a campaign against the Ottomans, and provide necessary supplies in the arid desert environment.

The only major battle of the Sinai Campaign occurred in early August 1916 near the oasis town of Romani, where a 16,000-strong force from the Ottoman Fourth Army attempted to destroy the advancing railhead. The failed attack is depicted by the broken green line. British aerial reconnaissance and effective defensive preparations proved decisive in winning the battle, and from then on the EEF advanced across the desert without further serious opposition.

El Arish was abandoned by its Ottoman defenders in December 1916, and from there the Anzac Mounted Division and the Imperial Camel Corps Brigade launched an audacious and successful attack on the garrison at El Magdhaba. Following this defeat the Ottomans withdrew from all remaining outposts on the Sinai Peninsula except Rafa on the Sinai-Palestine border. After a day of fierce fighting on 9 January 1917 Rafa was captured, and the entire Sinai Peninsula was in the hands of the EEF.

Credit:

Map produced by Geographx with research assistance from Damien Fenton and Caroline Lord.

It originally appeared in Damien Fenton, New Zealand and the First World War (Penguin, Auckland, 2013)

BY-NC

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egyptian expeditionary force

NZEF in Egypt 1914-16 map

See enlarged version of this map here. You can also download a hi-res copy as a pdf (3 mbs).

In December 1914, the convoy carrying the Main Body of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF) steamed north through Egypt's Suez Canal into the Mediterranean Sea. Men and horses disembarked at Alexandria and travelled by train to Cairo. Based at nearby Zeitoun Camp, they trained in the surrounding desert for operations against the Ottoman Empire that were expected to be fought in similar terrain.

The Ottoman attack on the Suez Canal that was launched across the Sinai Desert in February 1915 briefly reinforced this expectation. New Zealand soldiers saw their first combat of the war when they helped defend the Canal during this attack, the site of which is marked on the map with an orange cross. Private William Ham was severely wounded and became the NZEF’s first combat fatality.

The failure of the Ottoman Empire to succumb to the Anglo-French naval assault on the Dardanelles in February–March 1915 saw the New Zealanders join the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, which was hastily cobbled together on the ill-conceived assumption that the Ottoman Army would fail to resolutely defend the Turkish homeland.

A number of hospitals and a convalescent home in Alexandra and Cairo served the needs of New Zealand soldiers evacuated from Gallipoli. These hospitals were disbanded in early 1916 once most of the NZEF left Egypt for the Western Front. The New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade, however, moved to Moascar Camp, near the Suez Canal, to prepare for what was to be a tortuous advance north-east across the Sinai Desert during the Sinai Campaign.

Credit:

Map produced by Geographx with research assistance from Damien Fenton and Caroline Lord.

It originally appeared in Damien Fenton, New Zealand and the First World War, Penguin, Auckland, 2013.

BY-SA

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Mistreatment of horses letters

Letter from the secretary of the New Zealand Society for the Protection of Women and Children and Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to the Minister of Defence enclosing letters the Society had received regarding the mistreatment of the horses left behind in Egypt. The second letter is a response from the Minister of Defence to a letter on the same subject from the Society of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Auckland.

New Zealanders at home and at the front appear to have accepted the reasons the horses couldn’t be returned from Egypt. But they expressed concern when they learnt that they might be sold locally and mistreated.

After men bought home stories of such mistreatment in 1919, individuals, and organisations such as the New Zealand Society for the Protection of Women and Children and Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, asked the government for an explanation. The official response that fit horses had gone to the Imperial Remount Depot failed to mention that the Depot had found itself with far too many horses, or that the New Zealand authorities had not objected to its proposal to sell horses locally.

Credit:

Archives New Zealand
Reference: R22436471
Permission of Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga must be obtained before any reuse of this image.

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Major Claude Weston and Billy

Major Claude Horace Weston (sitting), 1st Battalion, The Wellington Regiment, with his horse Billy in Egypt, February-March 1916. The two other soldiers in the picture are Billy’s groom and Weston’s batman (servant). In his wartime memoir, Three years with the New Zealanders (1918), Weston describes how he acquired Billy:

As a Company Commander, I was entitled to a horse, and I was rather concerned as to the animal I should be able to get. Seeing that the horse that Major Brunt, the first Commander of the Taranaki Company, had ridden was dead, I was, literally, in the air. Having a horse that you like makes a great difference, and I was very delighted when I was given the opportunity of trying Lieutenant-Colonel Malone’s second charger, a pony of about fourteen hands called Billy, that he brought from Taranaki. Billy and I agreed to be friends, and we remained so until I had to part with him on joining the 2nd Battalion in April, 1917. He is still the charger of the Taranaki Company, 1st Battalion.

Credit:

Archives New Zealand
Reference: WA10/6/23, R3/2/8
Permission of Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga must be obtained before any reuse of this image.

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Wellington mounteds loading camels, Egypt

Troopers of the Wellington Mounted Rifles load supplies onto camels in Egypt, 1916.

Credit:

Alexander Turnbull Library
Reference no: PA1-q-604-32-5
Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image

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Mounted troops beside Suez Canal

These troopers of the New Zealand Mounted Brigade or the Anzac Mounted Division riding along an embankment beside the Suez Canal, Egypt, were probably photographed by Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Guy Powles in 1916.

This photograph was probably taken after the New Zealand Mounted Brigade moved from Zeitoun to Serapeum, near the Suez Canal, in January 1916. They continued training and the Anzac Mounted Division was formed on 15 March 1916. The division moved to Kantara on 23 April 1916 after an Ottoman Turkish force attacked the Suez Canal. The Sinai campaign had begun.

Credit:

Alexander Turnbull Library
Reference no: 1/2-178913-F
Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image

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Horses at Zeitoun Camp, Egypt

Horses of the Wellington Mounted Rifles at Zeitoun Camp, Egypt in 1915. Most of these horses spent the year in Egypt and were never landed on Gallipoli.

Credit:

Alexander Turnbull Library
Reference no: PAColl-0184-1-031
Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image

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Farriers at Zeitoun Camp

A mounted rifleman in uniform and an Egyptian man sit among a group of farriers in the First World War military camp at Zeitoun, Egypt. The farriers are holding equipment for shoeing horses, including hammers and bars.

Small crews of farriers, along with other experienced horsemen and Egyptian labourers, were responsible for keeping the horses in top condition at Zeitoun while most of the NZEF were serving on Gallipoli. In November 1915, Farrier Sergeant William E. Hawke of the Wellington Mounted Rifles wrote home about the year he had spent caring for the horses in Egypt:

December 3rd will make up the 12 months for us here, and when we get to shift on is another question…. The horses are looking splendid, and are ready and fit, waiting for the time when they will be of use. We have shelters for protection from the sun, and the natives (one to every three horses) do the work of cleaning or exercising.

Credit:

Alexander Turnbull Library
Reference no: PA1-o-308-10-3
Photographer: Laurie Mackie
Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image

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NZ horses and carts at Alexandria

New Zealand military transport at the camp in Alexandria, Egypt, 1915. Rows of horses are feeding behind horse-drawn vehicles in the foreground, with buildings and tents in the distance.

Many horses taken to Gallipoli were shipped back to Egypt without landing on the peninsula because of the unsuitability of the conditions. Sapper Alfred S. Ayrey of the Divisional Signal Company wrote to his mother about the return to Egypt:

We arrived at Alexandria in record time, unloaded the wounded, and went straight back to land the horses, but instead we got 600 more wounded and came back to Alexandria again. We had now been on the boat five weeks, and the horses were in poor condition, and not fit for hard work. Accordingly, we were told to take them ashore and go into camp, and we would be sent for when wanted. And so here we are, camped on a nice sandy beach, like New Brighton, with four horses to look after each. We have been here four weeks, and we have been told that we may be here for some time yet with the horses.

Credit:

Alexander Turnbull Library
Photographer: Laurie Mackie
Reference no: PA1-o-309-04-1
Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image

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