Battle of Romani - Background

Background

At the beginning of the First World War, the Egyptian police controlling the Sinai Peninsula had withdrawn, leaving the area largely unprotected. In February 1915, a German and Ottoman force unsuccessfully attacked the Suez Canal. Minor Ottoman and Bedouin forces operating across the Sinai continued to threaten the canal from March through the Gallipoli Campaign until June, when they practically ceased until the autumn. Meanwhile, the German and Ottoman Empires supported an uprising by the Senussi (a political-religious group) on the western frontier of Egypt which began in November 1915.

By February 1916, however, there was no apparent sign of any unusual military activity in the Sinai itself, when the British began construction on the first 25-mile (40 km) stretch of 4-foot-8-inch (1.42 m) standard gauge railway and water pipeline from Kantara to Romani and Katia. Reconnaissance aircraft of the Royal Flying Corps and seaplanes of the Royal Naval Air Service found only small, scattered Ottoman forces in the Sinai region and no sign of any major concentration of troops in southern Palestine.

By the end of March or early in April 1916, the British presence in the Sinai was growing; 16 miles (26 km) of track, including sidings, had been laid. Between 21 March and 11 April, the water sources at Wady Um Muksheib, Moya Harab and Jifjafa along the central Sinai route from southern Palestine were destroyed. In 1915, they had been used by the central group of about 6,000 or 7,000 Ottoman soldiers who moved across the Sinai Desert to attack the Suez Canal at Ismailia. Without these wells and cisterns, the central route could no longer be used by large forces.

German General Friedrich Freiherr Kress von Kressenstein's raiding force retaliated to this growing British presence, by attacking the widely dispersed 5th Mounted Brigade on 23 April, Easter Sunday and also St George's Day, when Yeomanry were surprised and overwhelmed at Katia and Oghratina east of Romani. The mounted Yeomanry brigade had been sent to guard the water pipeline and railway as they were being extended beyond the protection of the Suez Canal defences into the desert towards Romani.

In response to this attack, the British Empire presence in the region doubled. The next day, the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade and the 2nd Light Horse Brigade which had served dismounted during the Gallipoli Campaign, of the Australian Major General Henry G. Chauvel's Anzac Mounted Division reoccupied the Katia area unopposed.