They
realized (I soon found out) that they had little hope of bringing a big
army through the Egyptian desert and making a successful campaign there.
Their object was to immobilize a great force of British troops around
the Canal, to keep the Mohammedan population in Palestine impressed with
Turkish power, and to stir up religious unrest among the natives in
Egypt. It must be admitted that in the first two of these purposes they
have been successful.
The Turks were less far-sighted. They believed firmly that they were
going to sweep the English off the face of the earth and enter Cairo in
triumph, and preparations for the march on Suez went on with feverish
enthusiasm. The ideas of the common soldiers on this subject were
amusing. Some of them declared that the Canal was to be filled up by the
sandbags which had been prepared in great quantities. Others held that
thousands of camels would be kept without water for many days preceding
the attack; then the thirsty animals, when released, would rush into the
Canal in such numbers that the troops could march to victory over the
packed masses of drowned bodies.
The army operating against Suez numbered about one hundred and fifty
thousand men. Of these about twenty thousand were Anatolian
Turks--trained soldiers, splendid fighting material, as was shown by
their resistance at the Dardanelles.
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