VICTORY IN EGYPT

Feilding Star, Volume XII, Issue 3022, 17 August 1916, Page 1

VICTORY IN EGYPT

HOW THE TURKS WERE PRE-

PAHED FOR.

DESCRIPTION OF DEFENCES

Describing tho defences of tho Suez Canal recently, Mr. Alussey, tho London Daily Telegraph's war correspondent, wrote: Tho works have been continued ivt a speed highly creditable to tho troops, ami while the big defences aro being completed positions are being taken up so far out in the doBert that there is not much chance of the enemy having the limited satisfaction of casting longing eyes on tho waterway. A vast system of road ami railway communication, as well as of animal transport, is in being, and deep across the eastern side of the Canal, where voyagers wero accustomed to look over miles of sand trembling under tho blistering rays of the sun, with scareo a palm tree to relieve a picture of utter desolation, ono sees tho eivil- > ising influence of military hands. A few months have indeed wrought a wondrous change. Late last year a 1 post here and there on the Canal banks seemed to indicate that the highway of tho world's ships was to be defended on the water. No ono has that illusion to-day. Scan the horizon with your glasses find you can _pick up evidenco that a long way ahead towards tho enemy's base an army is making great efforts. | White stono roads aro covered with fine sand, and are. indistinguishable till motor-lorries raise clouds of powdered limestone, tho rail tracks arc visible only when an engine scarcely bigger tluvn a toy winds its load of tiny truck's from bank to railhead, and you get another sign of activity when a camel convoy, moving at a slow, untiring pace, shows itself black against the yellow background. But passengers arc always seeing these tilings, and they go to tell the peoplp of distant parts how security is being purchased at tho price of much human effort. The Army is making a good bargain for the Empire, but how sound the bargain is only those know who have been out there along tho whole line won back for Egypt, tho Empire* and civilisation. Of all tho trenches in tho Canal zono those of Oyirn Musa are the most orderly. It is duo to the soldier toilers of other parts to say this is becauso tho sand hereabouts is wet, and there is no drift when tho Khamseen blows. ,But Nature- deals out her trials with an oven hand, and here, when relieving tho commander of sand difficulty, she gives him what other commandors sigh for and cannot get —water. There is wator trouble at Musa. It comes -just whero it is not expected. Dig a hole at a, low level and not a drop percolates into it. That is just where a trench is not wanted; on or about tho ridge is where the ground must bo opened. There, two spades deep, the wator bubbles up with abominablo energy. The more drainage is arranged for the more copious is the flow. That necessitates a new device; bub war has sharpened man' 3 cunning, and tho new scheme has much to recommend it. A battalion of Indians, wonderful men. who, coming from France a remnant of its former Kolf, with a V.C as proof of high soldierly qualities, have spent three months in making Musa impregnable. They have worked wonders, not merely whore there was water trouble, but in other parts, about which I w.iil bo silent, and they arc so modest they endeavour to hide thoir handiwork from inquisitive eyes. The Indians have sand-bagged and excavated fire trench, communication trench, support trench, dug-out, and gun "emplacement with infinite perseverance and skill. They have tunnelled under strata of rock to preserve tho strongest of head-cover. Gebel Murr stands some ton miles north of Musa, a gaunt, stern sentinel guarding the approaches to the Canal on a far-flung line. It is the Gibraltar of the southern end of tho zone, a mass of rod stone as hard as granite, and with a surface polished by tho sands drifted across it through the ages. With the assistance of fifty blasts a day arranged by skilful English miners and quarrymen, Indian soldiers have prepared that inhospitable top, and thoir officers are satisfied the fortress will stand the tests of war. An eiieiny marching westward must como through one of two passes, from which he would debouch in full view of Gebol Murr, who rears a head nearly 400 ft above the sand, yet looks low and unimposing compared with the jagged ridges of Gebel Raha away to tho west. Through the slits of Raha the enemy must come forth. Even when the setting sun illumines with a delicate pink glow the rough saw-like fringe of that stony upland, Gebel Raha is forbidding. But the garrison of Gebel Murr wish for nothing better thnn to show tho Turk and his Hun leaders that that desolate crest is as Paradise to the hell that awaits them on the rolling bosom o tho desert sand. Gebel Murr will take toll of any column that issues from the passes, and would welcome as soft music the bursting of high explosive against its face as a preparation for infantry attack.