The War 205
on our defence of the Canal. One hesitates to imagine
what would have happened had that spinal cord, the
Canal, been cut even temporarily in those early days of
emergency, when the British genius for improvisation
was everywhere fighting forlorn hopes against the
German genius for preparation.
The conquest of Egypt was the main political object
and military objective of Turkish belligerency. The
"precautionary" mobilisation of the Ottoman forces
(August 2, 1914) had been accompanied and indeed
anticipated, by military preparations for an invasion of
Egypt. These preparations were the final cause of the
definite breach with Great Britain and furnished the casus
belli. Our relations with Turkey were definitely broken
off on receipt of a communication from Constantinople
(October 2, 1914) claiming Egypt as an integral part
of the Ottoman Empire. Djemal, the ablest of the Young
Turk triumvirate that had carried Turkey into the German
camp, took command of the army assembled in Syria as
"the Saviour of Egypt." On stepping into the train at
Haidar Pasha to go to the front, he told his friends : '' I
shall return by sea from Cairo." Nor was this mere
braggadocio. The attraction of the wealth of Egypt and
the- alliance with Sheikh Shawish and other Egyptian
extremists would, it was calculated, carry the Turks
across the improvised defences of the Canal and into
Cairo, that would rise to receive them. Thereafter, the
great drive of the German armies into France, then pro-
ceeding, would bring an early conclusion of the war that
would confirm the easy conquest.
The main difficulty for the Turks was one of distance.
From the Straits to the Canal meant one thousand miles
rail transport of a sort. Then two hundred miles of road-
less, waterless desert. The rail communications were