A Warm Route March

Tuesday 21st March 1916: We have heard that the 1st/5th Battalion, stationed at Mena Camp in the shadow of the Pyramids, went on a route march yesterday towards Cairo and back. On a pleasant spring day in England that would be no chore, but they were on a road that is not far from the desert on either side. The temperature is often around 75 degrees and had get as high as 100 on exceptional occasions. Yesterday was in the low 70s, quite enough to raise a sweat in full kit.

Sources: X550/6/8

Inspected by the GOC

Wednesday 9th February 1916: The adjutant of the 1st/5th Battalion, currently at Mena Camp near the Pyramids, tells us that yesterday they, along with the rest of 54th (East Anglian) Division were inspected by the General Officer Commanding, Egypt, Lieutenant-General Sir John Maxwell. The inspection took place in the cool of the morning – at 8.15 am “with excellent results”. The division was congratulated on its excellent appearance after the hardships it had undergone at Gallipoli.

Source: X550/6/8

(1) Sir John Maxwell spent most of the early war in Egypt and had fought under Kitchener at the battle of Omdurman in 1898. He is best remembered as military governor in Ireland during the Easter Rising of April 1916 when he had fifteen of the ringleaders executed. After this he served as General Officer Commanding Northern Command at York.

1st/5th Bedfords Move Again

The Giza pyramids - photograph by Ricardo Liberato

Wednesday 2nd February 1916: the 1st/5th Battalion has been at Sidi Bishr a coastal area of Alexandria but yesterday moved to Mena Camp in the shadow of the pyramids at Giza south of Cairo. The journey took most of the day – leaving Sidi Bishr at 9.30 am and reaching Cairo at 6.45 pm, the Battalion having tea at Cairo Station. The great pyramids have gazed down on mortals for nearly 4,500 years and, to them, this war, however long it lasts, must be a very fleeting thing indeed

Source: X550/6/8