DIE SANSUI CAMPAIGN

Abstract

EGYPT ON THE OUTBREAK OF WAR 1916

On 6 November 1914, after three months of steadily worsening relations, France and Britain declared war on the Ottoman Empire. This state of affairs found Britain with no comprehensive plan for defending her intorostJ in the Middle East, indeed tho prob- 10m3 posed so suddenly by Germany's onslaught in Belgium and France found the Empire with few trained troops to use elsewhere. Within two months of Britain's entry to the war she had pulled her regular regiments out of Egypt, and replaced them largely with Indian troops, who were eventually to bear the brunt of much of the fighting in this theatre." The defence of the Suez canal was of prime importance if the war effort of the British Empire was to be properly coordinated.