Start of the Battle of Romani

On the night of 3–4 August 1916 the Ottoman-German expedition of Colonel Friedrich Kress von Kressenstein, which had been advancing across Sinai for two weeks, struck at the British position at Romani, some 35–40 kilometres east of the Suez Canal. Kress, as he later described his plan himself, intended to bombard the British infantry redoubts with heavy guns and attack them only with weak detachments, while throwing his main force from the south, across the dunes, against the right flank and rear of the camp. The British expected exactly that. According to their official history (MacMunn and Falls, Military Operations: Egypt and Palestine), General Archibald Murray had even ordered preparations for an attack of his own on the Turks around 13 August, at full moon, should they not attack earlier. British monitors lay off the coast, an armoured train waited at Kantara, and every aircraft in Egypt had been brought up to the canal.

Night on the dunes

The night was mild and still, and in the light mist the sand gleamed so that movement could be seen at a hundred metres. On the flank, west of the Katib Gannit dune, stood the 1st Brigade of the Australian Light Horse, the old brigade of the divisional commander, Major-General Harry Chauvel, with which he had fought at Gallipoli. Shortly before midnight the outposts saw large forces in front of them. After an hour of silence the Turks opened fire along the whole line and in places came within 50 metres. At 2.30 a.m., with loud shouts, they rushed the Mount Meredith dune. According to the official history their ranks, visible against the silvery sand, were an easy target, and the first assault broke down with heavy losses, the dead rolling down the steep slope. The pressure on the flanks of the hill was too strong, however, and at three o’clock the Australians abandoned it; half an hour later they mounted and fell back to the second line.

Chauvel also had the 2nd Brigade at hand, but he did not want to throw it into the fight in the dark before it became clear what was really happening. Dawn showed that the enemy was outflanking the Australians from the west. The two brigades, neither of which had more than 800 rifles for dismounted action, fell back troop by troop to Wellington Ridge, and at about seven o’clock abandoned that too. When the Turks appeared on the ridge an hour later, a few hundred metres from Etmaler camp, the fire of the Ayr and Leicester horse batteries quickly drove them off it. Meanwhile the Ottoman infantry was attacking the redoubts of the Scottish 52nd Division. According to the official history, No. 4 Redoubt alone was hit by 108 shells that day and its wire by another 61, but the assault broke down 150 metres short of it.

Mount Royston

By ten o’clock the Australian front had been turned to face south, and the enemy’s left flank reached the Mount Royston dune, about 4 kilometres west of Wellington Ridge, threatening the railway to Kantara. The outflanking move was halted for the time being by a squadron of the Gloucestershire Hussars, which set off without orders from Pelusium station, and then by a regiment made up of yeomanry from the counties of Gloucester and Worcester. The official history observes that although the situation looked dangerous, the Turks were in fact already losing: two Australian brigades had upset their plan, they were tired from night marches, and they had drunk the water in their bottles and had no more in the rising heat.

At about 2 p.m. Brigadier-General Edward Chaytor’s New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade advanced on foot across the loose sand against Mount Royston. Progress was slow, under fire from an almost invisible enemy. At 5 p.m. a squadron of the Gloucestershire Hussars and two troops of the Worcestershire Yeomanry galloped onto the southern ridge of the dune, and the defenders did not wait for the charge. The yeomen shot down the horses of a pack-gun battery in the hollow and the Turks began running up onto the ridge with their hands raised. By 6 p.m. the New Zealanders and yeomen, supported by battalions of the 127th Brigade of the 42nd Division, just brought up by rail, had taken the whole dune. They captured about 500 prisoners, a battery and two machine guns.

In the evening the Turks made a last attempt to cross Wellington Ridge, but were repulsed by artillery. After dark two battalions of the Scottish Rifles came up to within a hundred metres of the ridge and halted there. Their commander ordered them to keep the enemy under fire all night and wait for dawn, reckoning that in the morning he would take more prisoners than if he scattered the Turks in the dark. The Australians spent the night on the battlefield after twenty hours of fighting. Kress’s attack had failed, but his soldiers still stood on the ridge overlooking the camp, while the British had five mounted brigades for the next day, one of them entirely fresh.