Camel troops

A camel could carry about 145 kilograms and go several days without water, so in the desert it did better than a horse. Camel troops usually fought on foot, like mounted infantry. In January 1916 the British raised the first camel companies in Egypt from Australians back from Gallipoli, to fight the Senussi in the Western Desert. On 19 December 1916 they were formed into the Imperial Camel Corps Brigade: a British, a New Zealand and two Australian battalions, between 3,000 and over 4,000 men according to different figures, and nearly 4,000 camels. It fought at Magdhaba, Rafah, Gaza, Beersheba and Amman.

Before it there were already the Egyptian Army's Camel Corps, which fought in Darfur in 1916, and the Camel Corps of the Indian princely state of Bikaner, which defended the Suez Canal in 1915. The Turks also had camel regiments, in Sinai and in Mesopotamia, and Arab camel riders took Aqaba in 1917. In June 1918, when the front moved into the hills and valleys of Palestine, the brigade's Australians were put on horses and formed into light horse regiments; the last British companies were disbanded in 1919.