The Australian training camp at Tel el Kebir was set up after the evacuation of troops from Gallipoli back to Egypt. At first the site was a meagre settlement where troops were camped besides the railway tracks and were sleeping beneath water proof sheets. But in time the site became a well set up ‘tent city’ hosting tens of thousands of Australian and New Zealand troops.
There were a number of reasons the training camp was located at Tel el Kebir, just on the outskirts of the 1882 battlefield. Firstly, its landscape, Charles Bean described a ground that was ‘gently undulating, with a hard surface very different from that around Mena, and therefore specially suitable for the encampment and training of troops’.
Tel el Kebir was also an appealing site for its remoteness. Being so far away from the larger cities meant that troops would not be tempted by activities, like those found in bars and brothels, that would lead to indiscipline.
But the isolation of Tel el Kebir meant camp life could quickly become monotonous. As Trooper De Rome wrote home, the daily routine left troops with much spare time, ‘Reveille sounds at 4 a.m., and we drill until 8 a.m. Then we rest until 4 p.m. and drill from then till 6 p.m. So you see in the hottest part of the day we do nothing’.
Without the exploration or leisure options that Cairo or Alexandria offered, men were forced to find alternative entertainment. Sport were a popular way to pass the time and Tel el Kebir camp hosted many competitions from boxing, Australian Rules football to egg and spoon races and donkey polo.
Image: A boxing match during the sports carnival that was part of the Anzac Day celebrations at Tel el Kebir camp in 1916.
Source: Australian War Memorial C00267.
Sources
James Maxwell Fergusson
Service Dossier
B2455
FERGUSON J M
National Archives of Australia
John Mathieson
Service Dossier
B2455
MATHIESON JOHN
National Archives of Australia
James Maxwell Fergusson
Circular, Roll of Honour
Australian War Memorial
Chronicle, Adelaide, 18 March 1916, p. 41
The Casterton News, 10 April 1916, p.4
The Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate, 5 August 1916, p.2
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
www.cwgc.org
‘Egypt 1882’
British Battles: From Crimea to Korea
The National Archives
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/battles/egypt/
Bean, Charles, ‘Chapter I – Preparations in Egypt – The Desert Line’, Volume III – The Australian Imperial Force in France, 1916, Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918, 12th edition, (Angus and Robertson: Sydney, 1941).
Brugger, Suzanne, Australians and Egypt 1914-1919 (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 1980).
Featherstone, Donald, Tel El-Kebir 1882 : Wolseley's conquest of Egypt (London: Osprey, 1993).
Gullett, H S, ‘Appendix – The Egyptian Rebellion in 1919’, Volume VII – The Australian Imperial Force in Sinai and Palestine, 1914–1918, Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918, 10th edition (Angus and Robertson: Sydney: 1941).