The Modern Crusaders

R. E. C. Adams

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780367258283
• eBook ISBN: 9781000697377
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Historiography
• Index: History

Originally published in 1920. The 231st Infantry Brigade, with which this diary is chiefly concerned, came into extence in January 1917, at a time when its compoent parts were engaged in the campaign against the Senussi, distributed in the Western Desert of Egypt and the Oases, from Sollum to Dakhala. The diary opens on October 1st 1917, when the preparations for the simultaneous attacks on Beersheba and Gaza were nearing completion.

THE MODERN CRUSADERS

Oct. 1st, 1917. Regent’s Park.—Wrestled throughout the day with much literature from Division concerning the forthcoming operations; every letter more than the last assumes the form of a cryptogram; they will undoubtedly end by reaching such a state of obscurity as to be intelligible only to a man reading them beneath a crescent moon with his right foot on a dead lizard, his mouth full of soap and straw in his hair.

Victor was rather off-colour to-day, chiefly noticeable at breakfast, when he is generally so fresh that the General has been driven to breakfasting half an hour before the barrage lifts and the rest of us get into line, as anything in the nature of heartiness in the early morning is most distasteful to him.

Oddly enough, the native name for the place wherein G.H.Q. have dumped themselves—having been uprooted by the C.-in-C. from their haunts in Cairo—is, being interpreted, “The House of Dogs.” This was unfortunately not discovered until many thousands of pounds worth of sandbags and other material had been expended on its beautification, and, of course, it was too late to move then. Presumably Sennacherib had his G.H.Q. there also, and the place was named by his admiring army. There must be some reason to account for these topical names.

2nd.—Set out in a box-car with the General and Victor for a reconnaissance of the Turkish position covering Beersheba, our particular objective in the next show.

The roads, or rather the cross-country wheel-marks that do duty for roads, are perfectly awful. Victor and I, sitting in the back of the car on the floor, were thrown about like peas in a box, and felt the last thing we wanted to do was to go for a long ride when we picked up our horses, which had been sent on ahead to El Buggar.

At the latter spot, consisting of two trees, a small well and a dead ox, we called a halt and waited for the cavalry screen, behind which the reconnaissance was to be carried out, to make good its line. This country is held by Turkish cavalry, and when these shows take place, our mounted troops have to push the enemy’s horsemen back and confine them beyond the line up to which the reconnaissance is to be carried, namely, the line on which the infantry will deploy for battle.

Two mounted brigades were employed on the job to-day, one of Yeomanry and one of Australian Light Horse.

Having reached this halting-place, the awful discovery was made that we had left our lunch behind, which was almost too much for our waning moral. However, we procured a tinned tongue and some dog biscuits, but even then had some difficulty in tackling it, as we hadn’t an eating-iron among us.

After riding on for about five miles, we crossed the Wadi Saba, on which, four miles further east, Beersheba is situated. It is a broad wadi full of round boulders, enclosed between tall cliffs of white stone and earth. The country eastward of the wadi is extraordinarily broken and wild, row upon row of steep rounded hills covered with stones and hard as iron.

Dismounting and leaving the horses a mile or so east of the wadi, we worked forward beyond the cavalry pickets to a hill from which there was a good view of the enemy’s works.

I have never seen such a commanding position; the line runs along the top of a chain of hills dominating all those west of them and approached over the most difficult country imaginable. The trenches showed up glaring white with the sun full on them; we could see the enemy’s mounted patrols retiring through them, his infantry patrols coming out, and a general air of watchfulness and activity prevalent in all the works.

We managed to get much closer to the enemy’s line than last time, and succeeded in working up to within two thousand yards before being pulled up by snipers and a few whizz-bangs. There were a great many officers out, and from the amount of movement the Turks probably thought the real thing had begun.

The screen remained out until 8.30 p.m. to enable people to see the ground by moonlight, as they will see it when moving into position for the battle. We reached home about midnight, by which time I never wanted to see a car again.

3rd.—Wrote a weighty report in the morning on yesterday’s reconnaissance in conjunction with Victor, an undertaking that was not rendered any easier by our differing on practically every point. However, we were both agreed that it will be a ticklish job for the Brigade to cross the yawning chasms, precipitous mountains and slippery goat tracks that form the country east of the Saba. The difficulty will be added to by the approach march taking place in the middle of the night, with nothing between us and brother Turk but our own advanced guard to cover the deployment which must be complete by dawn.

The whole movement will be a very large one. The 53rd Division is to be on the left, ourselves in the centre and the 60th Division on the right with the Desert Mounted Corps on their outer flank.

It is to be hoped the business will be successfully conducted and will not lead to the issue of any more Bowler Hats. There have been a good many going of late. It is said there is a quick-change office at G.H.Q. with two doors through which a constant stream of general officers passes smartly, handing in their brass hats at the first door and emerging from the second each with a Bowler in lieu. Probably this has been found an improvement on the old method of interviewing them at odd hours during the day.

4th.—Took the Signalling Officers of the Brigade to the Big Tree at Belah and assisted at a demonstration of communication with contact aeroplanes. It was jolly interesting, and the pilot descended and gave us a few well-chosen words afterwards. Personally I thought he was extraordinarily polite, considering that he had been monotonously buzzing round one spot for half an hour, sounding a Klaxon horn and acknowledging receipt of the letters X, Y, and Z, which seemed to be all the ground experts could produce.

Our office has lately blossomed out into a typewriter again, which has become an absolute necessity of late owing to the terrific number of epi- mono- dia- and crypto-grams that the Division lays before us.

It is also probably a help to the regiments, as Roberts is the only one of our clerks whose handwriting is legible to the naked eye; our Mr. ’Ughes, Victor’s clerk, apart from supporting his trousers with two pairs of braces and three belts, has few virtues as a scribe. His real future lies in the department of the C.I.D. where they practise the Bertillon system.

5th.—To-morrow night we leave our pleasant quarters at Regent’s Park and move to Apsley House. I devoted a considerable time in the morning to perfecting the march order, as last time we moved, by some mischance the battalions all got off the mark at the same time and the Brigade moved smartly to its destination in column of chunks.

Colonel Robertson, who commands our affiliated Artillery Brigade, having heard rumours of our typewriter having rejoined, turned up to tea bearing in his hand his well-known essay entitled “Guns, Field, C.R.A.’s for the use of, co-operation with,” which he desires to print for wider circulation amongst the infantry.

6th.—The General developed a bad attack of sandfly fever this morning and was quite flattened out by midday; however, he wisely refused to go to hospital, but intends to take a few days’ leave when he is better.

This is rather awkward as we have a double move before us, to-night to Apsley House and the following night to Sheikh Nakhrur. The difficulty was surmounted by sending him straight on to Sheikh Nakhrur in a sand-cart, where the Brigade in occupation have undertaken to look after him until we arrive.

We trekked at dusk and reached our destination without mishap, always a matter for congratulation in this country of wadis and no roads.

Victor with the H.Q. transport was less successful; he divided it up into four echelons to avoid a working party that had camped on the starting-point, and in the clouds of dust lost them all. He was a little peevish when we suggested he might find some more suitable march formation next time. However, the kit rolled up in time for us to sleep in it. Personally I was very comfortable, as I came in for the General’s rush hut in his absence.

7th.—A pretty uncomfortable day. Victor took away our kits in the morning and sent them on to Sheikh Nakhrur, leaving us with nothing to do but sit in an empty sandbag mess and straf flies.

We moved at 5 o’clock in the evening and fetched up without a check, to find the General looking fairly bad and not taking much interest in life.

The bivouac is not a bad one, well up in the hills with plenty of air, but of course very dusty, like every other place in this country now. There is not a spot of green or even brown to be seen anywhere, it is all dust and in this particular spot flies galore.

The camp is just above the Sheikh Nakhrur well, said to be the cavity into which Joseph was inserted by his family. It is a fine well and used to produce excellent water until the doctors got at it with chlorate of lime, but now you can’t even make decent tea with it. On the hill above it is rather a superior tomb, where Mr. Nakhrur is buried, though nothing but bats and a very ancient smell remain to-day.

8th.—Was occupied all day with operation orders and training programmes in considerable discomfort. Writing under a bivouac sheet with the wind blowing one’s literary efforts in every direction and the dust from the paper sticking to your hand is not attractive. There is no office and no mess up here, but the R.E., with whom we always maintain kindly relations, have undertaken to put this right. However, it is rather a come down after Regent’s Park, where we had a palatial mess complete with sandbag roof, sea view and Vie Parisienne tapestry.

The General has got over the fever and reached the stage where one is merely miserable; but he is going on leave in a day or two and will probably have worked it off by the time he returns.

There is a positive mania for counterespionage these days, chiefly directed against a gentleman known as Fictitious Frank. Further accounts of his activities and details concerning him have just come in. He is a distinctive-looking individual possessing one green eye and one brown, a grey stubbly moustache, is of foreign appearance and rides an unbranded horse. And yet curiously enough we can’t catch him.

9th.—A very disturbed night. The General woke up about half-past ten and shouted to me—my bivouac is only a few yards from his hut—to go and shoot a pie dog that was yowling round the camp. I tried to get out of it by saying that I had lost my revolver, which was quite true, it fell out of the holster during the last reconnaissance.

However, the General at once turned out his servant and I was supplied with a weapon with which I wandered aimlessly round the country. Of course, the tripe-hound had pushed off directly the pow-wow began. But when I was getting up, about five o’clock this morning, I saw the animal, a large white one, just behind my bivouac and let drive at it. I made quite a nice group, but the hound is still at large.

Went over to the Belah neighbourhood in the morning with about four hundred members of the Brigade for a Divisional scheme of communication with contact aeroplanes. It was not awfully successful as it was a filthy day with clouds of dust which prevented the observer seeing the infantry at all. The dust grew worse in the afternoon and covered everything in my bivouac, to add to which, as soon as the wind got up, the wretched thing was blown down.

10th.—The General set off for Cairo in the evening for a week, also Frank Beavan, now my understudy instead of Bim Freeman, who returned to his regiment while I was in hospital. Colonel Spence-Jones came up to Brigade H.Q. and took command. It is a pity the General has to go away at the present moment, as we are just changing our attack formation to bring ourselves up to date with France, and a guiding hand is required.

I noticed this morning that the Dumbell Hill and Mendur works which we dug in such a hurry immediately after the battle last April, are now tenanted by the Mixed Vermouths, the French and Italian contingent who are here to divide up Palestine when the simple Britisher has conquered it.

11th.—Rode round with Colonel Spence-Jones to see the regiments engaged in their matutinal pastime of attacking imaginary Turks through clouds of far from imaginary dust. The latter is becoming a great nuisance, the wind gets up regularly at midday and always brings dust with it. Towards evening and in the early morning now it is quite chilly, but the temperature during the rest of the day is splendid, just right for campaigning, and I suppose we shall shortly take an active part in the Great War again.

The Division has not held any part of the line since July, which may seem extraordinary, but we are actually in contact with the Turk only from the sea to Mansura, about five miles, and by cavalry patrols towards Beersheba. The rest of the line is thinly held by strongly wired detached posts, and this enables most of the force to be kept out of the line undergoing what the great ones call Intensive Training. Some Divisions which arrived after the last battle have not been in the line at all.

12th.—There was intermittent unpleasantness in front of Gaza throughout last night; altogether there has been a good deal lately, presumably to prepare the Infidel for the concentrated hate that will be handed him in a few weeks’ time.

The R.F.C. having been largel...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Orginal Title Page
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Composition of 231st Infantry Brigade: Brigade Head-Quarters
• The Modern Crusaders