During the engagement a Turkish relief force was located advancing
from Shalal, sixteen miles east of Rafa. This force was engaged about four miles from Rafa and entirely destroyed. It appears that sixteen hundred unwounded prisoners and four mountain guns were taken, and that the enemy losses in killed and wounded were about six hundred. This does not leave many over, considering that the garrison is only said to have been two thousand three hundred strong. The fighting qualities shown by the Australians and New Zealanders, the British Yeomanry and the Territorial Horse Artillery, who formed the mounted division, deserve the highest praise, and the same may be said of the Imperial Camel Corps, which we gather by its name to have been formed out of the various forces of the Empire now assembled in Egypt. In the course of their night march the troops covered a distance of thirty miles in twelve hours.
Previous page
