HOW THE TURKS CAME.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVI, Issue 63, 15 March 1915, Page 7

HOW THE TURKS CAME.

THE ATTACKS OX KANTARA. Cairo, February 16.—There remains" to be told the earlier operations opposite the northern section at Kantara, and the two attacks on Kantara and Ismailia respectively, which were made for the purpose of holding our attention on the day when tile main attack was being delivered farther south at Toussoum.

It was opposite the Kantara section that the Turks first came into contact with the troops defending the Canal. It had been known for more than a month past that Turkish troops were -moving through Sinai. On January "2, a day on which I previously visited the Canal at Tsmailia. one of our aeroplanes had returned after a long trip right to the heart of the southern portion of the Isthmus of Sinai. The aviator had climbed over the glaring, sandy, red mountains, and then across the endless desert plateau with the main southern caravan route far below him until across the shivering desert surface he sighted, SO miles out. the small solitary Arab town of Nakhl. Outside the town he saw a body of .100 cavalry. He dropped wliat I believed was the first bomb loosed in this area of the war. It missed them by over 100 yards, but the sudden explosion in the heart of the desert startled that unsuspecting party badly. FIRST APPEARANCE OF TURKS. After that time bodies of advanced Turkish troops were known to ba moving, as expected, along the main caravan routes. By the end of tho third week in January these bodies began to show up at our end of the northern and southern roads respectively. I And a column of some size was found about half-way between the two. One of our aeroplanes promptly drop(ped a ibomb on this column. But it seems to have kept well behind the sandhills out of sight of our posts on the canal. A little later observers on the eastern side of the canal at Kantara could see through their glasses the form of Turkish -entries posted on the distant sandhill* to the north-east of them. Those sandhills arc only some 12 miles south of the flat shores of the Mediterranean Sea. 'Here the Turks were, as a matter of fact, digging themselves in behind the dunes for a. long way on both sides of the Syrian caravan road. A little behind these Turkish lines were the wells of Elducidar. And behind these trenches there must have been concentrating any troop, that came along the sea coast. There were said to be troops and a fair number of guns farther back [along the same road, but whether these arrived to take part in the attack here I or farther south I do not know. A large | number of troops was known to have come along a central route between the , northern and southern roads, _nd bad at I this time emerged from a steep gully amongst the hills at Moiva Harab; and several thousands were at the foot of the mountains opposite Suez, at a well called Bir M&beiuk. i FIRST BRUSH AT KAXTARA, I described in a previous article the , three stretches of land along which the course of the Suez Canal has to be defended. It was at the northernmost of these three stretches and with the north'era end at the very important post of El Kantara that the first contact with the oncoming Turks appeared. On January 2b', very shortly after they first appeared, they opened fire with mountain guns on , one of our patrols at lo<g range, and caused a few casualties. The contact with the enemy at Kantara lasted for ten days. The Turks seem to have counted on the chance that our Indian Mohammedans would desert us, for one day at the beginning of affairs four of them walked calmly in with their arms to one of 'our outposts. However, so far, they failed in persuading the/ Mohammiedans to help them that there was some difficulty in preventing the native troops from shooting them, lt was on Tuesday, January 2(i, that this Bret brush occurred. The post was twice afterwards attacked. iThe first time was on the following Thursday. The attack began about 4 o'clock in the morning. At that hour one i of the line of British outposts some miles out along the telegraph line on the road to Syria was attacked. There was a bright moon, but the Turks did not manage to drive the outposts in. The casualties on both sides were small. The second attack was on the following Wednesday, February 3. During all the intervening days the enemy hnd been arriving ' in smaller or larger bodies concentrating either behind the distant i;andhills or at a point in the desert opposite Ismailia. On Sunday, the last day of January. strings of camels and columns of men were seen going southwards continuously opposite the British front at Ismailia. The British, from first to last, remained entirely on the defensive. Only once an encounter occurred, in wliich some of our troops moved out, and it appeared possible that the enemy's guns or some of them might be captured. .But this moveI ment was brought to a sudden end by a sandstorm, which came down so quickly m ta *&*. th a W* -__.-..«■_,: .

PREPARATIONS FOR THE ATTACK. These movements must, of course, have been in preparation for the main attack —the only real attack—upon the Canal, which was eventually made on Wednesday, February .3. The main Turkish force consisted of the 25th Division, and apparently some other troops who had come through the centre of the Isthmus, had been camped for some time in a valley in tho hills 40 miles east of the Canal, and was at this time moving down towards the plain in a depression which brought it out amongst the sandhills about J2 miles east of Ismailia ferry. This point is known as Katib El Khcil. During Monday the movement of troops opposite Ismailia continued. Whether these included Turkish troops sent back from direction of Knnttini, or whether they were part of the force wliich had just come out of the hills and were debouching from behind the foothills and turning southwards, I do not know. Hut troops, guns, and camels could be seen almost continuously crossing parts of the desert in our front, apparently moving from a northerly direction towards tlie low desert, east of Lake Timsah.

On Tuesday, February, 2, there was some rather half-hearted fighting in the neighbourhood of all this movement. Whether the Turks wanted to establish themselves in trenches close to Ismailia ferry, or whether they were merely out to gain information is not clear. *They brought their batteries into action and loosed off a good deal of ammunition, both large and small. The fighting was put an end to by an exceptionally thick sandstorm. It was during the night that followed in the exceptional darkness of that sandstorm that the Turks made their attempt, six miles farther south, to cross the Canal. THE ATTACK O.V ISMAILIA.

It was in connection with this main attempt to cross tlie Canal at Toussoum that two subsidiary attacks against the Ismailia ferry and against Kantara were made. When dawn broke, about three hours after the attack on Toussoum had begun, the observers at Ismailia ferry made out. about 700 yards across the desert, a line of men entrenching themselves. There seems to have been two battalions of reservists engaged at this point, and they were working remarkably swift. Tho Turks generally mode their advances by night. They advanced by short rushes in open order. The British artillery, which was shelling them, naturally bad comparatively slight effect on the open formations; only occasionally men could be seen left lying on the ground near where a shell had burst. The Turkß seemed to take no notice of these casualties. If they showed fear of anything during their attack on the Canal, it was of the desert behind them.

The trenches of the Turks in this daybreak nttack on Ismailia ferry were exposed along their length to 'a hot fire from another part of the British, and the advance fizzled out without a single casualty on our side. Hut the Turkish artillery continued to shell Ismailia ferry and the lake. Possibly it was in an attempt to keep down the fire of some of our warships. Tt was not far from here that the warship was hit hy a shell from a big Turkish gun—probably a flinch—which wrecked one of her funnels. Shortly after another exploded upon her deck. Ten men were wounded.

Some of our Australian Engineers who happened to have n good view across _.ake Timsah told mc that they spent their time watching the shells constantly plunging into the water near tlie ferry, raising huge geysers of spray. THE ATTACK ON KANTARA. The attack against Kantara, 17 miles farther north, was more serious. Tho posts to the north-east of Kantara were attacked at about 4 o'clock on February 3, and the fighting seemed to be creeping round townrdß the Canal when one of the warships there obtained the range. Our outposts managed to hold them up several miles awaj from the camp, although some of them managed to get right in amongst the barbed wire entanglements in front of our lines of posts. Once in the middle of them they dug themselves in, aud for a time kept up a fairly annoying fire on the outpost. At last tlie officer in the post, judging that they had probably had enough of it, asked them to surrender. The men in tho entanglements did so, and were taken prisoners. It was found that 30 of them had got in amongst the wire. Twenty of these -had been killed. The rest were captured. KANTARA ATTACKED FROM THE SOUTH-EAST. In the meantime everyone in Kantara appears to Jiavn been engrossed by the very pretty play of the warship's guns on the Turks retreating across our north-east front, which they had attacked. This fire was for some time very phickily directed by a seaman up in the tops. He had just noted a shot with which he was particularly pleased—'Oh! well done! That's right into the middle of 'cm.'"—when he himself wag hit by a

sniper. I believe that the Turks on their side never got a shot from one of their guns into Kantara. The outposts managed to hold them up several miles away. So fixed was everyone's attention on the play of our guns that by one of those curious mental occurrences which are often recorded in battles no one in the camp appeared to have noticed another line of the enemy spreading out fast along their south-east front. By tbe time attention was called to them, the Turks were deploying far out in the direction of the Canal on this side also. They could be seen creeping through the line of scrub, and were within about 151)0 yards of the outermost trenches of Kantara. This attack was the only one against Kantara, but it was easily checked. The Turks never crossed the strip of grey plain. They were held up at 1200 yards from our trenches. THE TURKS' RETREAT.

With the failure of these three attacks on February 3 there ended the first attack ever made on the Suez Canal. The Turkish retreat begun at once. The •force wliich had been camped at Kanitara hastened ol! into the sandhills and mountains to the south-east. The troops intended for supporting tbe attack on Toussoum and lsninillia scuttled off in the same direction. Guns, wagons, and camels disappeared into tbe hills along the central road. Our cavalry patrols found the pumps which the Turks had put down in the wells lying 'broken at the wellside; and occasionally tho hide of a dead camel, which had apparently been used for food. Within a week there was not a Turk left within 00 miles of the Canal— is stated in the local Press to be the range of our aeronlanes.

•There is now no question that the Turks intended this to be a serious attack on the Canal. The number of troops within the area of operations, including a force which made one feeble display near Suez and against -he little port of Tor. on tbe coast of the Red Sea, some way down the peninsula of Sinai, amounted to between 30,000 and 40,000 all told. Tlie Turkish losses at _he most cautious estimate must ihave 'been over 3,000, »&l£r_teb!_ _awJ_4 &QQV JBu^

Iso little trouble wag experienced in beating them off that it was almost impossible to believe there was not a more serious attack 'behind. Although the posts wliich faced the main attack must have been outnumbered very many times over, and the Turks had the greatest possible help from the condition oi the weather, our lines were never once in ' any place seriously tried. It was difficult jat first to believe that the whole affair was not merely a reconnaissance; that we might expect a far more serious onslaught just behind it. And that fact possibly did as much as anything else I towards preserving the remainder of the | Turkish army, which eventually made its way back into the mountains. I THE TURKISH LOSSES. I Th« Turkish losees at Toussoum were about 400 killed.and 400 prisoner.. Ours [seem to have been two officers and 13 linen killed and about seventy wounded. One officer of the Egyptian Held artillery land two Egyptian gunners were killed. I the Egyptian artillery being under a heavy .fire most of the time. I At Kantara we lost four killed and [22 wounded. The enemy's loss here was at least 20 killed and CO prisoners. The Turks helped away all the wounded that they could. Possibly they had been told that we should maltreat all who fell into our hands. Some of their dead have since been found in the desert buried hy the Turke themselves under a shallow heap of sand. These are still being discovered, as well as others drowned in the canal, and prisoners are .still coming 'in occasionally. (In the whole operations | the enemy's known loss ie at least 500 dead and COO to 700 prisoners. Allowing four men wounded for each man killed, ithe loss would be between 3,000 and 4,000.

Our total losses seem to be well under 150 all told.