TURKISH MENACE TO EGYPT.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIX, Issue 12, 15 January 1915, Page 2

TURKISH MENACE TO EGYPT.

AWAITING THE • ENEMY

EASTERN EGYPT, Nov. 29. | "Do you think they will come on?" I is a q lies Lion which one hears most ! often from British officers in this region, especially when ona is known recently to have left Constantinople. Though not so waterless as is usually believed, the Sinai Peninsula' . offers | lew lines for westward advance which 5 an army can follow without eventu- | ally finding too much water on its j front and too little in its rear. The northern-road which has been followed by all previous armies which have attacked Egypt from the east is by (no means ideal for artillery, sea ! power prevents the use of Akaba as I an advanced base, and the Birsaba- | Kossaima route is supposed to be | lioritV too wtll supplied with water in jits lower stages. The Irregulars, I mostly Sawarka Terabin and Howeytat Beduin, who were engaged with the Bikanirs on November 20, seem, after sending a- patrol within a short distance of the Canal, to have evacuated Katia and retired towards El Arish. . •' Gspcain Chope, whose men accounted for at least 60 of _ the enemy in the recent fight at Bir el Abd, had several narrow escapes. A bullet sJrvered his sword hilt and another his camera, while his camel was wounded by a shot from a Martini rifle. Luckily i'or his little force, the enemy hung back every time the Bikanirs dismounted to fire during their retirement. One of our wounded, a marksman, acocunted for five of the Beduin. Another man, who was at first missing and was picked up wounded, reported that the enemy, after stripping him, found he was a Moslem, and contented themselves with gashing his neck,; apparently with a blunt sword, inflicting a painful but not a dangerous wound. The Turks do not seem to have participated in the encounter. — London j Times correspondent.