A PAGE for EX-SERVICEMEN

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 303, 23 December 1939, Page 8 (Supplement)

A PAGE for EX-SERVICEMEN

"TROOPER" LOOKS BACK BELLIGERENT SENUSSI

WHEN a man set? out to be a soldier he little knows where military exigencies and international politics will take him ere he is done with uniform. Many and strange are the places on which his footsteps may tread. Those men who left New Zen land's shores in the Inter months of IOI.i might have quite reasonably assumed that thai;- services would he used on CalliP°li> in the same manner that those who left in the early months of the Great War thought they would go to the central theatre in Europe, and did not. I do not know, but I can imagine some #mrpri«e amongst the men of the N.Z.K.B. when they were ordered out into the Libyan Plateau to round up a wily leader, one Sayed Ahmed, or "The S«nussi, ' and his followers, who were creating a spot of bother in the western frontier districts of Egypt. The Senussi aact was founded by Mohammed Ali el Senussi, born in Algeria in I"H7. This first Senussi settled in Cyrenacia and gained a rather formidable following for his religious teachings, which were a reversion to the law of the Koran in its simple f<>rm. His -grandson, Ahmed el Hherif, attained the leadership of this sect in the year

1002. Between this date and the timo of the X.Z.H.B. dealings with him the Sen us si had several brushes with Italy in Tripoli, where he sided with Turkey. During this period he also established himself as friendly to the Egyptian Government, Kgypt at this period being a British protectorate, as most will remember. However, on the outbreak of the Gremt War matters remained apparently satisfactory in the western Egypt region, until November, IS)1.~>, when friend Ahmed el Sherif invadtvl our territory with a hostile force. This was a serious matter, much more so than even the Turkish attempt on Suez in the earlier part of 191.'>. Trouble is this western i-egion would involve political and religious disorders; and what worse than this mixture? The Germans, who were no doubt at the bottom of the Sayed's defection, opened the affair in si.iking His Majesty's auxilary cruiser Tara off Solium, on November 5, and tha following day shelled this most westerly Egyptian |»ost. Later on in the month the Senussi occupied a monastery and coastguard station some 50 miles inside the frontier, on his way east. About this time, on November 10 to l>e exact, the Ist and 2nd Battalions of the N.Z.R.B. disembarked at Suez, and were at Cairo. Orders came'to send the

2nd Battalion aa part of the composite force being formed to check the advance of the delinquent Senussi. So, in less than a week from the day of disembarkation these Xew Zealanders were on their way, into action, but not as immediate as they expected, and no doubt hoped for, as this chronicle hopes to tell in due course. Lieutenant-Colonel A. E. Stewart, C.0., 2nd Battalion, now appointed to command the line of communication to the west, ordered a company of rifleme.ii to the railhead at Dabaa, and the remainder to posts along the line; Colonel Stewart himself set-ting his headquarters at the railhead. These posts were put into a state of defence, and stories can, I be.lieve, l>e told of the intense rivalry that existed amongst these, as yet, unblooded soldiers in their efforts to outdo each other in these operations. But old Saved Ahmed, despite the forces at his command, estimated at the beginning of hostilities at not less than

20,000, did not seem anxious to come on —just yet. The troops engaged, in watching for him became "fed up" with nothing more exciting than desert patrols, stopping an occasional suspicious looking character, and watching mounted troops, Australian Light Horse and Yeomanry, artillery and general transport on their way further west to Mersa Matruh. The New Zealanders were relieved of their task and went back to Alexandria. From here they did a tour of guard duty on the railway, and on January 18 tliey proceeded to Moascar Camp, Ismailia, where all New Zealand troops were now in course of reiorganisation after the evacuation of the Peninsula. In the meantime the Ist Battalion was having rather a more interesting time. It had reached Mersa Matruh, some 200 miles west of Alexandria, by sea, on December 22. Sorry, boys, but what you did there, and you did your stuff, will have to be told next week.