Ottoman offensive across the Sinai

On 19 July 1916 a British reconnaissance aircraft, carrying as observer Brigadier-General Edward Chaytor, commander of the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade, spotted large Ottoman forces in northern Sinai. About 2,500 soldiers had occupied the wells of Bir Bayud, a somewhat smaller detachment stood in the oasis of Gamil, and a similar one at Bir el Abd on the old caravan route along the coast, where tents could be seen among the palms. Some 6,000 camels were moving between Bir el Abd and Bir Salmana. By the next morning 3,000 Turks were already digging in at Mageibra, and a small detachment had reached the oasis of Oghratina, about 8 kilometres east of Katia, the forefield of the British positions at Romani. It was clear that for the second time in this war an Ottoman army was marching across the desert on the Suez Canal.

Did the offensive start from Oghratina?

The British chronology of the war records under 19 July that on that day the Turkish offensive from Oghratina against the Suez Canal began. This date should not, however, be taken literally. 19 July was the day on which the British detected the enemy’s march, and according to the British official history (MacMunn and Falls, Military Operations: Egypt and Palestine) the Turks occupied Oghratina only on 20 July. The departure itself had taken place earlier and far away. According to the British historian Anthony Bruce, the striking force assembled at Shellal north-west of Beersheba and set out into Sinai on 9 July, reaching Bir el Abd and Oghratina ten days later. General Otto Liman von Sanders, head of the German military mission in Turkey, writes in his memoirs that the march began around 14 July. Three columns moved in echelons, because at each halt there was only a little water, and exclusively at night, because of the heat and the British airmen.

The second expedition against the canal

At the head of the expedition was the Bavarian colonel Friedrich Kress von Kressenstein, who had already prepared the first attack on the canal in February 1915 and had since then commanded the Ottoman forces in Sinai. He was subordinate to the commander of the 4th Army in Syria, Djemal Pasha. According to the British official history, the core of the force was the Ottoman 3rd Infantry Division, one of whose regiments had already shown what it could do when on 23 April it routed the British yeomanry at Katia and Oghratina. In addition there was a camel cavalry regiment and a German contingent codenamed “Pascha”: machine-gun companies, anti-aircraft units, heavy artillery with German officers and NCOs, and an air squadron. Austria-Hungary sent two batteries of mountain howitzers. The force numbered about 16,000 men on the ration strength, accompanied by almost 5,000 camels and 1,750 horses. The heavy guns were dragged across the dunes on planks and along ruts dug in the sand and lined with brushwood.

The objective was limited. Kress was not to force the canal, but to take Romani, dig in opposite Qantara and shell the canal with heavy guns so as to paralyse shipping. Liman von Sanders considered these instructions misguided and compared them to washing one’s hands without wetting one’s fingers. Kress himself had no illusions. On 4 July he reported that the British had built, at enormous cost, a whole system of defences east of the canal and were waiting there with forces many times superior to his small corps.

The British wait at Romani

Kress was right. Since the spring the troops of General Archibald Murray, who had commanded all the forces in Egypt since March, had been building a railway and a water pipeline from Qantara deep into Sinai. In May the line reached Romani, about 35–40 kilometres east of the canal, where the infantry of the 52nd Division had fortified a belt of dunes with a series of redoubts. At the beginning of July the British believed that the Turks would no longer attack in the summer heat. From 17 July, however, the skies over Romani swarmed with German aircraft, faster than the British ones, and two days later Chaytor’s flight dispelled any doubts. According to the British official history, Murray’s staff wanted nothing more than a Turkish attack on a prepared position. Reinforcements were sent to Romani, and all available aircraft were brought to the airfields at Ismailia, Port Said and Qantara.

On 20 July the 2nd Australian Light Horse Brigade with two guns struck at Oghratina and took prisoners, from whom the British learned the composition of the enemy force. From then on the 1st and 2nd Brigades took turns riding out towards Katia every night, harassing the Turkish outposts at dawn and returning to camp in the evening. The Turks advanced cautiously, entrenching each successive position, because they were waiting for the heavy artillery, which was getting stuck in the sand. On 3 August they stood before Katia, and during the night of 3–4 August they attacked Romani. The Battle of Romani ended in their defeat. It was the last serious Ottoman attempt to threaten the Suez Canal.