Romani were heard, for the Turk had commenced an artillery and bombing
attack upon the garrisons there.


ROMANI AND KATIA.

The Turkish force, estimated at about 16,000, and much better equipped
than the flying column which had made the first attempt to cross the
canal in March the previous year, had been promised that they should
overwhelm the "small" British garrisons before the Feast of Ramadan.
They would then meet with no resistance and would enter victoriously
into Egypt, a sort of promised land after their hardships across the
desert. Many of them did enter Egypt and reached Cairo, but not in the
way they wished. They were marched through the city as prisoners, and
their presence as such undoubtedly created a profound impression upon
disloyal Egyptians.

Inspired by a number of German officers, however, they fought well and
vigorously in the early stages of the attack upon Romani. They had been
told that once they got on the hills in the neighbourhood of the British
positions they would see the Suez Canal stretched out below them, and
this probably urged them on to make almost superhuman efforts. In front
of Romani, in the region of the Katia oasis, mobile outposts furnished
by the Australian Light Horse were driven in after hard fighting, and
they fell back to other positions on the high sand hills to the south of
Romani, covering the right flank of the 52nd Division. Meanwhile a
frontal attack was delivered upon the redoubts occupied by the latter,
and the enemy made many brave attempts to reach the summit of Katib
Gannit, a high hill, in shape similar to the Matterhorn, which dominated
the whole desert. He gained a footing nowhere, however, and exposed to