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[Page 124]
April 1916
[Note in margin:] Saty
29th – saying, "The Turks will be here in half an hour" & they all cleared for Kantara, leaving their comrades to be annihilated. 5th L.H. captured a German Officer on 23rd or day of scrap. Egyptian Papers press bureau reports state that British victory over Turks on 23rd. That 70 dead Turks were buried & wounded & a few prisoners brought in. Also stated that a LH Regt had been called up to reinforce. Understand British Gen'l & staff escaped leaving beer, whisky & lots of stuff of their officers mess behind. Our chaps collared it. Later after Turks had cleared out, & the Staff returned, they sent over for their whisky etc & they got the reply that 'it was wanted for the wounded whom they cleared out & left.' Wounded were very sore over being deserted. Makes one's blood boil to think of such crass incompetency & neglect costing
29th – so many brave lives & the heads escaping. Turks were humane & left water beside the wounded but those devils of Bedouins were like scavengers after an army, they took all food & water that had been left & in many cases killed the wounded & according to the parson the features of many of the dead were mutilated beyond recognition. Believe in course of a couple of weeks the Anzac mtd division will all be here & our artillery supporting, we will advance clearing the Bedouins & Turks out of Elarisch & district & we may eventually land near or in Palestine. Turks had artillery supports, our men had not. Even now we are greatly inferior in numbers etc to Turks. They seem to have a very healthy respect for Austns. Some expect another swoop & others
[Lt W.E.L. Seeward (actually William Eric Louis Seward, MC (1891-1975) – the exploit mentioned on pg. 174 of this diary is documented in a painting held by the Imperial War Museum: Concise Art Collection Title: The Seward Exploit]