The Battle of Magdhaba took place on 23 December 1916 during the Defence of Egypt section of the Sinai and Palestine Campaign in the First World War. The attack by the Anzac Mounted Division took place against an entrenched Ottoman Army garrison to the south and east of Bir Lahfan in the Sinai desert, some 18–25 miles (29–40 km) inland from the Mediterranean coast. This Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF) victory against the Ottoman Empire garrison also secured the town of El Arish after the Ottoman garrison withdrew.
In August 1916, a combined Ottoman and German Empire army had been forced to retreat to Bir el Abd, after the British victory in the Battle of Romani. During the following three months the defeated force retired further eastwards to El Arish, while the captured territory stretching from the Suez Canal was consolidated and garrisoned by the EEF. Patrols and reconnaissances were carried out by British forces, to protect the continuing construction of the railway and water pipeline and to deny passage across the Sinai desert to the Ottoman forces by destroying water cisterns and wells.
By December 1916, construction of the infrastructure and supply lines had sufficiently progressed to enable the British advance to recommence during the evening of 20 December. By the following morning, a mounted force had reached El Arish to find it abandoned. An Ottoman Army garrison in a strong defensive position was located at Magdhaba, some 18–30 miles (29–48 km) inland to the south east, on the Wadi al-Arish. After a second night march by the Anzac Mounted Division (Australian and New Zealand Mounted Division), the attack on Magdhaba was launched by Australian, British and New Zealand troops against well-entrenched Ottoman forces defending a series of six redoubts. During the day's fierce fighting, the mounted infantry tactics of riding as close to the front line as possible and then dismounting to make their attack with the bayonet supported by artillery and machine guns prevailed, assisted by aircraft reconnaissance. All of the well-camouflaged redoubts were eventually located and captured and the Ottoman defenders surrendered in the late afternoon.
Background
At the beginning of the First World War, the Egyptian police who had controlled the Sinai Desert were withdrawn, leaving the area largely unprotected. In February 1915, a German and Ottoman force unsuccessfully attacked the Suez Canal. After the Gallipoli Campaign, a second joint German and Ottoman force again advanced across the desert to threaten the canal, during July 1916. This force was defeated in August at the Battle of Romani, after which the Anzac Mounted Division, also known as the A. & N. Z. Mounted Division, under the command of the Australian major general Harry Chauvel, pushed the Ottoman Army's Desert Force commanded by the German general Friedrich Freiherr Kress von Kressenstein out of Bir el Abd and across the Sinai to El Arish.
By mid-September 1916 the Anzac Mounted Division had pursued the retreating Ottoman and German forces from Bir el Salmana 20 miles (32 km) along the northern route across the Sinai Peninsula to the outpost at Bir el Mazar. The Maghara Hills, 50 miles (80 km) south west of Romani, in the interior of the Sinai Desert, were also attacked in mid-October by a British force based on the Suez Canal. Although not captured at the time, all these positions were eventually abandoned by their Ottoman garrisons in the face of growing British Empire strength.
Consolidation of British territorial gains
The British then established garrisons along their supply lines, which stretched across the Sinai from the Suez Canal. Patrols and reconnaissances were regularly carried out to protect the advance of the railway and water pipeline, built by the Egyptian Labour Corps. These supply lines were marked by railway stations and sidings, airfields, signal installations and standing camps where troops could be accommodated in tents and huts. At this time the Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF) had a ration strength of 156,000 soldiers, plus 13,000 Egyptian labourers.
Ottoman positions in the Sinai
The Ottoman Army's Desert Force commanded by Kress von Kressenstein which operated in the Sinai region was sustained and supported by their principal desert base at Hafir El Auja, located on the Ottoman side of the Egyptian-Ottoman frontier. Hafir el Auja was linked to Beersheba, Gaza, and northern Palestine by road and railway.
This major German and Ottoman base in the central Sinai desert, supplied and supported smaller garrisons in the area with reinforcements, ammunition and rations, medical support, and periods of rest away from the front line. If left intact, the Ottoman forces at Magdhaba and Hafir el Auja could seriously threaten the advance of the EEF along the north route towards Southern Palestine.
Problems with the advance to El Arish
Water
The area of oases which extended from Dueidar, 15 miles (24 km) from Kantara along the Darb es Sultani, along the old caravan route, and on to Salmana 52 miles (84 km) from Kantara could sustain life. But from Salmana to Bir el Mazar, (75 miles (121 km) from Kantara) there was little water, and beyond the Mazar area there was no water, until El Arish was reached on the coast 95 miles (153 km) from Kantara.
Before the British advance to El Arish could begin, the 20-mile (32 km) stretch without a water supply between El Mazar and El Arish had to be resolved. By mid-December 1916, the pipeline's eastward progress made it possible to store sufficient water at Maadan and it was also possible to concentrate sufficiently large numbers of Egyptian Camel Transport Corps camels and their drivers to carry water forward from Maadan in support of an attacking force.
Conditions
The campaign across the Sinai desert required great determination, as well as conscientious attention to detail by all involved, to ensure that ammunition, rations and every required pint of water and bale of horse fodder was available when needed. While the Ottoman Empire's main desert base at Hafir el Auja was more centrally located, the British Empire base was some 30 miles (48 km) to the west of El Arish; almost at the limits of their lines of communication. Mounted operations so far from base in such barren country were extremely hazardous and difficult.
For these long-range desert operations, it was necessary for all supplies to be well-organised and suitably packaged for transportation on camels, moving with the column or following closely behind. It was vital that the soldiers were well trained for the conditions. If a soldier became isolated, they might die in the burning desert sun during the day, or bitter cold at night. If a water bottle was accidentally tipped up or leaked, it could mean no water for its owner, for perhaps 24 hours in extreme temperatures.
In these extreme and difficult conditions, mounted troops of the EEF worked to provide protective screens for the construction of the infrastructure, patrolling the newly occupied areas and carrying out ground reconnaissance to augment and verify aerial photographs, used to improve maps of the newly occupied areas.
British War Office policy
The British War Office's stated policy in October 1916 was to maintain offensive operations on the Western Front, while remaining on the defensive everywhere else. However, the battle of attrition on the Somme, coupled with a change of Britain's prime minister, with David Lloyd George succeeding H. H. Asquith on 7 December, destabilised the status quo sufficiently to bring about a policy reversal, making attacks on the Central Powers' weak points away from the Western Front desirable. The commander of the EEF, General Sir Archibald Murray, was encouraged to seek success on his eastern frontier, but without any reinforcements. He thought that an advance to El Arish was possible, and that such an advance would threaten forces in the southern Ottoman Empire and, if not prevent, at least slow the transfer of German and Ottoman units to other theatres of war from the Levant.
Creation of Eastern Force and Desert Column
After the victory at Romani, Murray moved his headquarters back from Ismailia on the canal to Cairo. This move to Cairo was to enable him to be in a more central position to carry out his duties and responsibilities which extended from the Western Frontier Force, waging a continuing campaign against the Senussi in Egypt's Western Desert, to the Eastern Force in the Sinai. Another consequence of the victory was that Major General H. A. Lawrence, who had been in command of the Northern Sector of the Suez Canal defences and Romani during the battle, was transferred to the Western Front.
As a consequence of pushing the German and Ottoman forces eastwards away from the canal, during October, Lieutenant General Charles Dobell was appointed to command the newly created Eastern Force. With his headquarters at Kantara, Dobell became responsible for the security of the Suez Canal and the Sinai Peninsula.
Yesterday we were inspected by General Chauvel who is just back from his trip to England. We were all pleased to see him as he is well liked by both officers and men. A chap feels pretty safe with a leader like him. I saw him riding backwards and forwards under heavy fire at Romani and Bir-el-Abd and it seemed that he did not know what danger was. Now that he is back we don't think it will be long before we are at the Turks again.
— Trooper Ingham
Dobell's Eastern Force consisted of two infantry divisions, the 42nd (East Lancashire) Division commanded by Major General W. Douglas and the 52nd (Lowland) Division commanded by Major General W. E. B. Smith, as well as the Anzac Mounted Division, a mounted infantry division commanded by Chauvel, the 5th Mounted Brigade commanded by Brigadier General E. A. Wiggin and the Imperial Camel Brigade commanded by Brigadier General Clement Leslie Smith. Murray considered this force to be under strength by at least a division for an advance to Beersheba, but felt he could gain El Arish and form an effective base on the coast, from which further operations eastwards could be supplied.
In October Chauvel was granted six weeks' leave, and he travelled to Britain on 25 October, returning to duty on 12 December 1916. While he was away Desert Column was formed and on 7 December 1916, five days before Chauvel's return, Murray appointed the newly promoted Lieutenant General Sir Phillip Chetwode commander of the column. As a major general, Chetwode had been in command of cavalry on the Western Front, where he was involved in pursuing retreating Germans after the First Battle of the Marne.
On formation, Chetwode's Desert Column consisted of three infantry divisions, the 53rd (Welsh) Division, currently serving in the Suez Canal Defences and commanded by A. E. Dallas, and the 42nd (East Lancashire) and the 52nd (Lowland) divisions. Chetwode's mounted force consisted of the Anzac Mounted Division, the 5th Mounted Brigade and the Imperial Camel Brigade.
Prelude
By early December 1916, construction of the railway had reached the wells at Bir el Mazar, the last water sources available to the EEF before El Arish. Bir el Mazar was about halfway between Kantara on the Suez Canal and the Egyptian-Ottoman territorial border. British intelligence had reported Ottoman Army plans to strengthen the garrison at Magdhaba, by extending the railway (or light rail) south east from Beersheba (and Hafir el Auja) towards Magdhaba.
Advance to El Arish
Mounted patrols to the outskirts of El Arish discovered 1,600 well-entrenched Ottoman troops holding the town, supported by forces based 25 miles (40 km) to the south-east on the banks of the Wadi el Arish at Magdhaba and Abu Aweigila.
On 20 December, a week after Chauvel returned from leave, the advance to El Arish began when the Anzac Mounted Division left Bir Gympie at 21:45. They moved out without the 2nd Light Horse Brigade, which was in the rear assisting with patrolling the lines of communication stretching 90 miles (140 km) back to Kantara on the Suez Canal. So it was the 1st and 3rd Light Horse Brigades, the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade, the 5th Mounted Brigade and the newly formed battalions of the Imperial Camel Brigade with the mountain guns of the Hong Kong and Singapore Camel Battery which made the 20-mile (32 km) trek to El Arish.
On the day they set out, Australian airmen reported that the garrisons at El Arish and Maghara Hills, in the centre of the Sinai, appeared to have been withdrawn.
As the Anzac Mounted Division approached Um Zughla at 02:00 on 21 December, a halt was called until 03:30 when the column continued on to El Arish. At 07:45, the advanced troops entered the town, unopposed, to contact the civil population and arrange water supplies for the mounted force. One prisoner was captured, while lines of observation were set up, which maintained a close watch over the country east and south of the town. By 16:00 the 1st and 3rd Light Horse, the New Zealand Mounted Rifles and the Imperial Camel Brigades were in bivouac at El Arish, the only casualties during the day being two members of the 1st Light Horse Brigade, who were blown up by a stranded mine on the beach.