Fighting begins on the Suez Canal

Before dawn on 3 February 1915 the Ottoman army, which had reached the Suez Canal the day before, tried to cross to the western bank. The main blow fell on the sector between the posts of Tussum and Serapeum, south of Ismailia. The fighting went on all day, and subsidiary attacks also struck Ismailia, Kantara in the north and El Kubri near Suez. By evening the Turks had not gained a scrap of ground on the western bank.

Pontoons in the moonlight

At about 3.30 a.m. an observation post near Tussum heard troops moving towards the bank. By moonlight Turkish soldiers were pushing sheet-metal pontoons and rafts into the water, about 2 kilometres south of the post. On the western bank the men of the 62nd Punjabis and the 128th Pioneers were waiting for them, and a little further north New Zealand infantrymen of the Nelson Company. The rifle and machine-gun fire of the defenders sank most of the boats before they reached the other side. At about 4.20 a.m. the 5th Battery of the Egyptian Artillery opened fire, and soon the two leading pontoons were abandoned. One of its officers, Lieutenant Ahmed Hilmi, was killed at his gun, which was under fire at close range.

Only three pontoons managed to cross the canal under cover of machine-gun fire from the dunes on the eastern bank. The soldiers who landed from them were attacked with the bayonet by small parties of Punjabis and Pioneers. All were killed, wounded or captured, and a dozen or so hid beneath the western bank. According to the British official history, these were the only Turks who crossed the Suez Canal in the whole war other than as prisoners.

The fighting during the day

At dawn the Turks occupied some of the trenches on the eastern bank near Tussum. At about 7 a.m. a counter-attack by the 92nd Punjabis retook some of them and captured 70 prisoners, and in the afternoon, at about 3.30 p.m., the whole position was back in the defenders’ hands. An attack supported by two batteries set out from the direction of Serapeum, but fire and a counter-attack stopped it more than a kilometre from the British lines. Near Ismailia the enemy dug in a few hundred metres from the bridgehead on the eastern bank and did not attack with any great vigour. Near Kantara Turkish troops suffered heavy losses on the barbed wire in front of the outposts of the 29th Indian Brigade, and at El Kubri things went no further than an exchange of fire.

Warships on the canal

The warships played an important part. On the canal and on the lakes lay the British battleship Swiftsure, the sloop Clio, the Royal Indian Marine transport Hardinge, and the French coast-defence ship Requin and the cruiser D’Entrecasteaux. The Turks shelled them with field guns and at least one 15 cm howitzer. Two shells hit Hardinge, damaging her funnel and steering gear, and the ship’s pilot, George Carew, was seriously wounded. The ship had to take shelter in Lake Timsah. According to British accounts, the howitzer was silenced only by accurate fire from Requin at a range of more than 9 kilometres. Before noon two shells also hit the sloop Clio.

By the evening it was clear that the crossing had failed. The British expected the attack to be renewed the next day. Contrary to the defenders’ expectations, however, the Turks began to prepare for a retreat.