2o8 Egypt
British attempt to encircle the Central Powers by a coup
de main against the Straits was destined to be as un-
successful as had been the German attack to cut British
communications through the Canal, though it was much
harder contested. The facilities offered by Egypt as a
base may indeed be considered to have contributed to
its failure. For, instead of a surprise descent delivered by
an expedition despatched to a secret destination, every-
thing was sent to Egypt for reorganisation and reship-
ment thence. This delayed an attack until the defences
at Gallipoli were complete and the Turkish armies had
been concentrated there (May, 1915). Thereafter, the
choice of an assault on Gallipoli rather than of a war of
manoeuvre on the mainland gave Egypt a second and a
sadder function as a hospital for the holocaust of casual-
ties. Another service of the same sort, as tragic and
far more troublesome, was taking charge of some five
thousand Armenian refugees—the survivors of massacres
picked up by French cruisers on the coast of Syria.
When, later (1917-18), the British wanted accommoda-
tion for five times that number of Armenians evacu#fcfil"
from Palestine and Mesopotamia; the EgyptimTtjrovern-
ment refused to admit them. For by then the enthu-
siasms of th^early war had been exhausted in Egypt, as
elsewhere/"
~Tte failure of the attack on Gallipoli brought the
Turkish armies back to Syria and again made the Canal
an important sector, if not, as some supposed, an im-
perilled salient of the Eastern Front. The bulk of the
survivors of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force was
therefore established in Egypt as the Egyptian Ex-
peditionary Force under Sir A. Murray. The Canal De-
fence Force disappeared, and Sir J. Maxwell left (March,
1916) to face in Ireland a rebellion of Nationalists more