THE SUEZ FIGHT.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVI, Issue 63, 15 March 1915, Page 11 (Supplement)

THE SUEZ FIGHT.

ATTACK BY THE TURKS.

TWO DAYS' FIGHTING.

ENEMY BEATEN OFF.

Commonwealth Official Correspondent.) {Published in the Sydney 'Daily Telegraph" o£ March 11.)

Cairo. February 10.—The attack on tire Suez (anal liar; come and passed—perhaps for -ever. The following may be taken as a fairly accurate account of the manner in which the canal was attacked. It will be told in two articles—the first describing the main attack, the second explaining the previous brushes and the two attacks made in other places on the same day a** the main attempt, and which were subsidiary to it. There arc only three stretches of tbe Suez Canal which can be attacked by land, because the rest of it now runs through water. The northernmost of thes=e stretches begins at Kantara. Kantara is 2S miles south of the northern end of the canal. This first stretch reaches from Kantara as far as Ismailia, about 18 miles in all. South of the old Ballah Lakes the land rises in sandhills, and for the rest of the way to Ismailia the caatal runs through a deep cutting, which suddenly opens out where the canal widens into Lake Timsah. At this point is the Ismailia ferry, where tin? canal can be crossed by a punt. The opeu waters

clear that an attacK was going to Be made either against the stretch of land defence, north of I-ake Timsah. or else against that to the south of it. On Tuesday, February 3, just a week after the first brush at Kantara, the Turkish artillery opened against the British positions near Ismailia. It was fiercely kept up, but had practically no effect. That afternoon there came down a very severe sandstorm, which put an end to both rifle and gun fire. THE MAIN ATTACK. On Tuesday night there should have been a bright moon. But. as a matter of fact, the sandstorm had left the ai r as impenetrable as in a thick fog. Midnight was passpd in perfect quiet. It was about 3 o'clock in the morning when a sentry on the western bank of the canal, just south of Thussoum station, saw some men on the other bank in the act of launching a boat. He fired at once, and immediately after other troops, who were on the alert on the western bank, let fly. There was an instant uproar of sound. Several machine guns and hundreds of rifles broke the silence with continuous fire. Other dark objects could be seen putting off into the canal. An Egyptian battery which was near b\- ran two rounds of case shot into one boat at point-blank range. A naval picket boat, with a quick-firing gun in the bows, -s said to have sunk a boat by ramming it. and oneneil fire with its gun at close range. Twenty boats were afterwards found, but only two of them reached the weste-n bunk. In one of these only four out of 25 survived. They reached the western bank, and after two had been killed the remaining two surrendered. The other boat bysome chance managed to reach the land intact. But it was seen by a British officer commanding some of the troops on the bank above. He immediatelycharged down upon it. and either killed or made prisoners of the whole crew. Several other boats were sunk, and although about ten seem to have been afterwards floated in the canal, all except two were sn riddled as to be useless. Two of them were intact, and the Australian engineers have since been •musing themselves by constructing an pontoon, put of them*

The attempt to cross the canal in boats was thus for the moment beaten I back. But a fierce rifle ,fire was still raging from the top of the eastern bank of the canal. Clearly there were Turkish troops lining the top of that bank, and they must have been firing at the flashes of th e Indian rifles along the western bank of the canal. WHAT HAD HAPPENED. IMiat had happened was as follows:' The Turkslbeyoud question intended to make a serious concerted attempt to cross the canal. Orders were issued to their troops that the Suez Canal was held weakly, and that if they could only succeed the Egyptians would receive them with open arms. Of nearly 30,000 men who hat! come by the central route, a certain number men-ed towards Kantara, but the main body of the 20,000 was ordered to make the main attempt to cross the canal between the two British posts at Toussoum and Serapeum. That is to say, the main attack was to be made against the northern part of the second stretch of land defences above mentioned—the eight-mile stretch! between the south of Lake Timsah and ' | the north of the large Bitter Lake. The i banks of the canal throughout the northern part of this stretch are high—' I they must be 30 or 40 feet high in many 'places— and the canal runs between them like a railway through a cutting. At the northern end of this cutting where the canal issues from Lake Timsah is the Suez Canal Company's station at Toussoum. Between the post of Serapeum and the British post of Toussoum stretches continuously a broken, hummocky sandhill. A little way farther to the east, however, these sandhills give way to the plain, and a wide open desert basin intervenes between the broken sandhills on the caual bank and the distant spurs of sandy hills which form the horizon. Probably troops coming across this stretch of desert would be visible in daytime to anyone standing on the high canal bank; but once they reach the brokr-n surface near the canal they have the advantage of a certain amount of cover in the folds and behind the hummocks and the sandhills. It was into this broken ground that the Turkish snipers had been making their way, and it was here that they decided to make this attempt to cross." TURKS FAVOURED BY DARKNESS. They were exceedingly fortunate in the night chosen for their attack. The march must have started at about nightfall. One brigade was to attack and

to the water's edge. They intended to row them across, for they were fitted with rowlocks and carried oars. When they found the fire too heavy for them, some of them must have scuttled back up the cuttings, clown which they had brought them, and flung themselves down amongst the tussocks. Others who had carried their boats some way along the water's edge found themselves caught like rats in a trap on a narrow ledge at the water's brink. They dug themselves practically into the bottom of the bank, with our" rifles looking right down into their hopeless dugouts. A few who could swim threw themselves into the water, swam across, and were captured. Many were drowned. Only four got away, and they have since given themselves up. THE FIGHT FROM THE SANDHILLS. The first attack had thus failed. The supports behind heard the firing, and perhaps learnt of the check from fugitives. They were at once pushed up to the edge of the canal through the tussocks, amongst the remnants of the first party, and from here with three Maxim guns" they kept up a hot lire at the crest of the opposite bank. Their positions can be clearly traced by the shallow trenches which they dug themselves in the crest —each a separate little square hole with the sand roughly thrown up in a breast work. The supports must have been scattered through nearly two miles of broken country along the top of the east bank of the canal from Toussoum to within half a mile of the Scrapcum. Indeed, they were extraordinarily close to Toussoum. When day dawned the men holding the Toussoum post found a number of them crowded into a depression not 100 yards from the trenches of their own post. There happened here to be a depression leading down to the Canal, and the Turks in the darkness had actually stumbled into this depression and brought some of their boats down through it into the Canal. The dust storm had prevented their seeing or beino seen, and when our rifle fire broke out about 150 of them gradually collected here, imagining it to be sheltered. As a matter of fact, it was open to our rifles, and of the crowd that huddled together here 50 were killed and at least 60 wounded. At 11 o'clock in the. tnorn-

ing two small parties-of our troops were ] sent out on either side of Toussoum post. The officer in charge of one signed to the crowd in this gully to throw < their rifles down and hold up their hands, which they immediately did, and were taken prisoners. TURKISH RESERVE FAILS. But from the sandhills farther south . a desultory fvre was kept up all day across the Canal. It was here that our troops on the opposite bank established I one of those vague relations which have been often talked of in this war as an "ascendancy" over the other side. Our troops on the west bank had their •heads over their trenches all the time. I do not think that at any time were they even approximately equal iv numbers to their opponents. But the Turk had to keep bis head bidden, and would only pop up a moment to fire and disappear again. The moment his head appeared our troops were waiting for it. and twenty or thirty rifles let a volley at it together. That was the way in which the trops on the western banks spent the witole of this Wednesday. The Turk in tbe sandhills could neither advance nor retire. That lasted from three o'clock on Wednesday morning until midday on Thursday. The Turks had six batteries of artillery and a big gun of not larger than ({-inches calibre supporting their attack. These were out ■in the folds of the desert east of Lake Timsah, in a position which seems to have been screened from the warships in the lake. But they were seen by other observers, possibly from aeroplanes, with the gun teams waiting in a hollow behind the guns. They were -horse and mule team, 10 horses —5 pairs to each gun. They directed a heavy fire against | the position on the bank of the Canal near Toussoum. That was the main attack on the ' Suez Canal. It was supported by two | other attacks made at the same time farther north; one was against KanEara.