The "Unofficial History of the A.I.F. - As Told by the Diggers Themselves" was a series that ran in the Smith's Weekly (Sydney) for 30 years and encompassed two world wars. It featured cartoons and stories contributed by returned soldiers about the war. The column helped reinforce the image of the Aussie "digger"; a good bloke, easy-going, with a healthy disrespect for authority.
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The Capture of Sollum
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The Capture of Sollum
This is the hitherto unpublished story of the capture of Sollum in early 1916, by a Welsh lorry driver, when the whole machinery of an extensive campaign with two mounted brigades, one infantry brigade, and one Australian camel company had been put into operation for the job.
For the benefit of those who have never heard of the name, Sollum is, or was before the war, a tiny frontier village on the Mediterranean coast, 500 miles west of Alexandria.
It was garrisoned by a few Soudanese (sic) soldiery, under British supervision of course, and marked the spot where the Egyptian-Cyrenican border touched the sea.
When war broke out and relations with the Senussi threatened to become strained, the British agent sought to avoid a rupture with an elaborate series of presents, mainly gramophones — to the head of the sect — a truculent and wily old gentleman whose headquarters were in the holy city of El Gerabub, known to all readers of Mrs. Rosita Forbes fascinating book.
Gramophones and records went well for a time until a German agent mysteriously got a piano ashore, with a corresponding rise in El Senussi's appreciation of the prestige of the Hun.
Thereafter the British agent's job was not an enviable one, since the old gentleman bid for higher stakes than gramophones.
The whole thing was solved by the appearance one fine morning of a Hun submarine. A few shells, and Britain's representative retired to Alexandria.
Thereafter it was real war.
El Senussi threatened a rising in Egypt, formations were hastily ordered to all quarters of the province and the High Command set out to retrieve England's prestige with men and guns — thousands of them.
There were a few preliminary skirmishes on the coast road to the frontier, the most notable of which was one where, I think it was a regiment of Dorset Yeomanry, charged the enemy guns, but before reaching them galloped headlong over a 20ft. bank, and broke the necks of most of their men and horses. Honour being more or less satisfied, they retired to lick their sores and bruises until reinforcements arrived — that was somewhere about Xmas, 1915.
Two months later a force was got together under General Peyton, who I think ultimately commanded a corps in France, and this is where the Welsh lorry driver comes into the picture.
The force concentrated at a place called El Barani, some 50 odd miles from Sollum.
The plan for the recapture of the village, which had since become a German submarine base, was a simple one.
Two monitors on zero day were to shell the old fort from the sea.
A mounted brigade was to attack along the coast road and an infantry brigade, that magnificent South African unit of General Lukin's that was afterwards destroyed at Delville Wood, along with a company of Australian camelry were to make a detour inland and close the exits from the town to the south.
The Duke of Westminster with a fleet of armoured cars was to round up the fugitives.
I was in command of the vanguard of camelry the second day out from El Barani.
Our specified destination that night was a place called Bag Bag. On the map it looked quite as important as Newcastle.
It turned out afterwards that it consisted only of a well, so that it was not surprising that by nightfall we wore still looking for Bag Bag or at least some sign of the Casino or the main hotel.
Things were becoming a little desperate when I saw a service motor lorry coming towards us from the direction of Sollum, which by the way was about 26 miles distant.
I halted the lorry and questioned the driver.
"Where have you come from?" I asked.
He was a Welshman, "I'm looking for Bag Bag, sir."
"Have you found it?"
"No, sir, I haven't. I set out early this morning, sir, with some material for the wells, sir, with instructions to stop at Bag Bag.
"I went on looking for a town, sir, until I came across a village at the foot of some big hills.
"When I drove up, sir, a lot of native soldiers there ran away, and I asked an old man where Bag Bag was.
"He pointed back this way. So I turned round and drove till I met you, sir. I must have come 30 miles since, sir."
That settled it. The whole scheme fell to the ground.
Two days later, in the early morning, monitors, cavalry, infantry, camelry and the Duke with his cars, closed on the prize, but the Welshman had done his work.
There was not a single soldier, man, woman or child in the town.
It's not on record what General Peyton had to say about it, but the capture of Sollum is writ large in the official histories of the war.
Perhaps the Yeomen display the name on the banners of their regiments.
They ought to, for one of their ranks captured a town by himself — and never know it!
— P.G.
Source: Unofficial History of the AIF (1924, September 13). Smith's Weekly (Sydney, NSW : 1919 - 1950), p. 25.
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