Hence, when the Divisional Commander,
Major-General Sir W. Douglas, had the 127th Brigade paraded for him at
Gilban, and when he complimented Brigadier-General Ormsby upon the fine
turn out, we gathered that our long period of waiting for the Turk was
over. He told us to husband our water, and these words I am sure rang
through many an officer's head in the following days. The 42nd Division,
he said, were expected to make a great coup, and many prisoners were to
be taken. Two days later the preliminary rumbles of the Battle of
Romani were heard, for the Turk had commenced an artillery and bombing
attack upon the garrisons there.
ROMANI AND KATIA.
The Turkish force, estimated at about 16,000, and much better equipped
than the flying column which had made the first attempt to cross the
canal in March the previous year, had been promised that they should
overwhelm the "small" British garrisons before the Feast of Ramadan.
They would then meet with no resistance and would enter victoriously
into Egypt, a sort of promised land after their hardships across the
desert. Many of them did enter Egypt and reached Cairo, but not in the
way they wished. They were marched through the city as prisoners, and
their presence as such undoubtedly created a profound impression upon
disloyal Egyptians.
Inspired by a number of German officers, however, they fought well and
vigorously in the early stages of the attack upon Romani. They had been
told that once they got on the hills in the neighbourhood of the British
positions they would see the Suez Canal stretched out below them, and
this probably urged them on to make almost superhuman efforts.
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