Item 01: Eric Susman war diary, 1 January 1915-4 April 1916 - Page 99

[Page 99]

Tuesday 16 March 1915

After yesterday's pleasant day in the sand, they had the "cheek" to order reveille for 2 a.m. After a great deal of shaking and other persausive efforts the officers and N.C.Os eventually aroused the men. Sick parade was at 2.30, morning tea and biscuits at 3, and by 4 a.m., the Battalion moved off for a little stroll of ten or twelve miles. At break of day, we were half-way and by 8 o'clock, we had reached our concentration point. The "advance on Cairo" then began, the infantry being assisted by a howitzer battery and some mounted infantry. The whole affair however, was a failure. The "enemy", consisting of the other half of the division, were strongly entrenched on very favourable ground, our advance was shockingly carried out, and in the real thing, we would have been completely obliterated – wiped clean off the map. Our infantry is just beginning to get too much of this – they are getting stale. And except for occasional patches of brillant skirmishing, there has certainly been no improvement – rather the contrary. We did not even have any energy enough to make the culminating bayonet charge. To put it shortly, we were fairly "in the soup". After our decisive defeat, we formed up and returned to camp, weary and irritable, which we reached at 2 in the afternoon, after exactly 12 hours hard going.