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Updated: June 2, 2025
I had been in these bombing raids and knew how accurately the German airmen dropped their eggs, and had this Intelligence officer taken the trouble to inquire he would have found that between thirty and forty casualties were inflicted by one bomb at El Arish itself when railhead was being constructed. This critic imagined that the Turk knew only what the English papers told him.
The path must be followed until it drops into the road leading to the landward village. Correctly Arish Mel. "Gap" and "Mel" are synonyms in Dorset. Lulworth bids fair, or ill, to become a "resort" apart from the descents from Bournemouth or Weymouth, which are only of a few hours' duration.
On December 4th we moved forward again to Salmana, three days later to Abu Tilul, and the next day to Bir el Mazar, twenty-five miles west of el Arish. Part of these mobiles lay over Sabkhet, where it was possible to keep step and the pipers attached to each company could amaze the desert rats with alien music.
Well, they did not find it all. People who like bacon shouldn't leave it lying in deserts in front of hungry Scotchmen. Our own orders to advance were cancelled, and we stopped on at Maadan. The evacuation of el Arish was rather an anti-climax. No one wants another war, and it would not be honest to pretend that we were all fire-eaters living for nothing but the joy of a scrap.
After the waste of misshaped lumps of limestone and volcanic looking boulders, which were the only decoration of the Western Desert, this sort of landscape seemed positively verdant. At El Arish we were camped some three miles from the station, and a very long three miles it seemed, as a large part of the way was over the softest of sand and most exhausting marching, especially with a heavy pack.
I reminded him there was a G.H.Q. censorship in Egypt which dealt with my cablegrams, and asked the nature of the valuable information which should have been concealed. 'You sent a telegram that the railway had reached El Arish when the Turks did not know it was beyond Bir el Abd. Abd is fifty miles nearer the Suez Canal than El Arish.
But since the enemy had again placed a small detached garrison within striking distance of our mounted troops, the temptation was held out for a repetition of the Maghdaba success at Magruntein. Accordingly, a flying column, composed wholly of mounted troops and artillery, moved out from El Arish on the evening of the 8th/9th January, 1917.
The enemy realized that the swiftness of our final preparations had been too much for him. Knowing that his reinforcements could not arrive in time, he hurriedly withdrew his troops from El Arish. This retirement was reported by the R.F.C. on the 20th December, and our mounted troops, supported by infantry, were ordered to move on El Arish the same night. The town was found to be evacuated.
Desaix, although deeply grieved, was swept along by the torrent of popular opinion, gave way to it himself, and affixed his signature on the 28th of January to the convention of El Arish. Meanwhile preparations were being made for departure; Sir Sidney Smith had returned to his ship.
It was a bigger and noisier 'show' than the Royal Scots had had some months before, when in a 'silent' raid they killed with hatchets only, for the Scots had seen the condition of some of their dead left in Turkish hands and were taking retribution. Not many Turks in El Arish Redoubt lived to relate that night's story.
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