Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 6, 2025
Korosko was proposed as a site, but was rejected for cogent reasons, and apparently Shellâl was the only possible place. Further, no serious person, who places the greatest good of the greatest number above considerations of the picturesque and the 'interesting, will deny that if it is necessary to sacrifice Philæ to the good of the people of Egypt, Philæ must go.
In that way supplies, stores, and ammunition were taken up to our right flank. Shellal was a position of great strategic importance. At one time it appeared as if we should have to fight hard to gain it.
Water-abstinence training lasted three weeks, and the maximum of half a gallon a man for all purposes was not exceeded, simply because the men had been made accustomed to deny themselves drink except when absolutely necessary. But for a systematic training they would have suffered a great deal. To ease the supply problem a spur line was laid from Rafa to Shellal, on the wadi Ghuzze.
Elsewhere I have mentioned, perhaps too frequently, the remarkable speed with which the railway followed the troops. On the fourth day after our arrival, it reached Tel el Fara. This was the branch line running eastwards across our flank from Khan Yunus to Shellal, on the extreme right.
On the evening of October 30 the Anzac Mounted Division was at Asluj, the Australian Mounted Division at Khalasa, the 7th Mounted Brigade at Esani, Imperial Camel Brigade at Hiseia, and the Yeomanry Mounted Division in reserve at Shellal.
While the XXth Corps was moving against this section of the enemy line, Desert Mounted Corps was to bring up the mounted division left at Shellal, and passing behind the XXth Corps to march on Nejile, where there was an excellent water supply, and the wadi Hesi, so as to threaten the left rear and the line of retreat of the Turkish Army.
General Barrow's Yeomanry Mounted Division was to remain at Shellal in the gap between XXth Corps and XXIst Corps in case the enemy should attempt to attack the XXth Corps' left flank.
There already existed a branch from the Kantara military railway; which branch, leaving the main line at Rafa, ran to Shellal and Gamli, supplying the right of our line. No Man's Land being some 10 or 12 miles wide in this sector, railway construction was carried on in front of our front line under cover of yeomanry outposts.
Had he done so the 10th Division and the Yeomanry Mounted Division would have seized the opportunity of falling on him from Shellal, and the Turk chose the safer course of allowing the Beersheba garrison to stand unaided in its own defences. The XXth Corps' captures included 25 officers, 394 other ranks, 6 guns, and numerous machine guns.
There is no dustier journey by rail, or one of an altogether more uncomfortable nature, than from Cairo to Shellal. It is bad enough in the so-called winter season, for you have to breathe an atmosphere of dust the whole way, and are powdered and almost suffocated before you reach Luxor.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking