History of the World War : $b An authentic narrative of the world's greatest warMarch, Francis A., Jr.
History
History of the World War : $b An authentic narrative of the world's greatest war
March, Francis A., Jr.
World War, 1914-1918
Supported by land and naval artillery the Indian troops took the
offensive, the Serapeum garrison, which had stopped the enemy
three-quarters of a mile from the position, cleared its front, and the
Tussum garrison, by a brilliant counter-attack, drove the enemy back.
Two battalions of Anatolians of the Twenty-eighth regiment were thrown
into the fight, but the artillery gave them no chance, and by 3.30 in
the afternoon a third of the enemy, with the exception of a force that
lay hid in bushy hollows on the east bank between the two posts, were in
full retreat, leaving many dead, a large proportion of whom had been
killed by shrapnel. Meanwhile the warships on the lake had been in
action, a salvo from a battleship woke up Ismailia early, and crowds of
soldiers and some civilians climbed every available sand hill to see
what was doing, till the Turkish guns sent shells sufficiently near to
convince them that it was safer to watch from cover.
At about eleven in the morning two six-inch shells hit the Hardinge near
the southern entrance of the lake. They first damaged the funnel, and
the second burst inboard. Pilot Carew, a gallant old merchant seaman,
refused to go below when the firing opened and lost a leg. Nine others
were wounded, one or two merchantmen were hit but no lives were lost. A
British gunboat was struck. Then came a dramatic duel between the
Turkish big gun, or guns, and a warship. The Turks fired just over, and
then just short, at 9,000 yards. The warship sent in a salvo of more
six-inch shells than had been fired that day.
Late in the afternoon of the 3d there was sniping from the east bank
between Tussum and Serapeum, and a man was killed on the tops of a
British battleship. Next morning the sniping was renewed and the Indian
troops, moving out to search the ground, found several hundred of the
enemy in the hollow previously mentioned. During the fighting some of
the enemy, either by accident or design, held up their hands, while
others fired on the Punjabis, who were advancing to take the surrender,
and killed a British officer. A sharp fight with the cold steel
followed, and a British officer killed a Turkish officer with a sword
thrust in single combat. A body of a German officer with a white flag
was afterward found here, but there is no proof that the white flag was
used. Finally all the enemy were killed, captured or put to flight. With
this the fighting ended, and the subsequent operations were confined to
the rounding up of prisoners, and the capture of a considerable amount
of military material left behind. The Turks, who departed with their
guns and baggage during the night of the 3d, still seemed to be moving
eastward.
So ended the battle of the Suez Canal.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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