Turkish advance guards on the Suez Canal

On 2 February 1915 the advance guards of the Ottoman army, which since mid-January had been marching across the Sinai desert, arrived near the Suez Canal opposite Ismailia. After several days of minor skirmishes in the north and south of the canal, it had become clear that the main blow would fall on its central section, between Lake Timsah (the Lake of Crocodiles) and the Great Bitter Lake.

Sandstorm

According to the British official history, as early as 1 February airmen had spotted three large Turkish concentrations east of the canal. One, of at least 2,500 infantry with guns, was at Bir Habeita, about 10 kilometres from the Serapeum post. Larger forces waited further back in the desert. On 2 February, however, air observation became impossible. For several days the hot, dust-laden khamsin had been blowing, and during the day the wind grew stronger and raised so much sand that the soldiers on the canal found themselves almost in darkness. The storm hid the enemy’s final movements from the defenders.

Skirmish at Ismailia

That day forward detachments from the Ismailia Ferry Post bridgehead, on the east bank of the canal, ran into the Turks some distance from the post. General John Maxwell wrote in his report of a not very fierce exchange of fire, broken off at about 3.30 p.m. In the evening the enemy dug in roughly 4 kilometres south-east of the British defences. After dark other Turkish units began to approach the Tussum and Serapeum posts, carrying and dragging the pontoons on which they were to cross the canal.

Defenders on the alert

The British reinforced the threatened sector. Command between Lake Timsah and the Great Bitter Lake was taken by Major-General Alexander Wallace, commander of the 11th Indian Division. On the west bank around Tussum and Serapeum stood Punjabi and Gurkha battalions, supported by the 5th Battery of the Egyptian Artillery. On 2 February two platoons of the Nelson Company of the New Zealand Canterbury Battalion, one of the units that had arrived in Egypt in December, were also brought here by rail. British and French warships waited on the canal and the lakes.

The Turkish command hoped to get the first wave of infantry across the canal under cover of night and seize a bridgehead on the west bank. The attack was to begin before dawn on 3 February.