British Military Innovations
Railway – During the build up to the battle at Tel-el-Kebir the specially raised 8th Railway Company RE operated trains carrying stores and troops, as well as, repairing track. On the day of the battle they ran a train into Tel-el-Kebir station at between 8-9am (13 September) and "...found it completely blocked with trains, full of the enemy's ammunition: the line strewn with dead and wounded, and our own soldiers swarming over the place almost mad for want of water…" (extract from Captain Sidney Smith's diary), Once the station was cleared they began to ferry the wounded, prisoners and troops with stores to other destinations.
Telegraph – In the wake of the advancing columns, telegraph lines were laid on either side of the Sweet Water canal. At 2 am (13 September) Wolseley successfully sent a message to the Major General Sir H Macpherson VC on the extreme left with the Indian Contingent and the Naval Brigade. At Tel-el Kebir a field telegraph office was established in a saloon carriage, which Arabi Pasha had travelled in the day before. At 8.30 am (13 September) after the victory at the battle of Tel-el-Kebir, Wolseley used the telegram to send messages of his victory to Queen Victoria; he received a reply from her at 9.15 am the same day. Once they had got connected to the permanent line the Section also worked the Theiber sounder and the telephone.
Army Post Office Corps – The forerunners of Royal Engineers (Postal Section) made their debut on this campaign. They were specially raised from the 24th Middlesex Rifles Volunteers (Post Office Rifles) and for the first time in British military history, post office clerks trained as soldiers, provided a dedicated postal service to an army in the field. During the battle of Kassassin they became the first Volunteers ever to come under enemy fire.
Read more about this topic: Anglo-Egyptian War (1882)
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