Tell El Kebir ( lit."the great mound") is 110 km north-north-east of

Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...

and 75 kilometres south of

Port Said Port Said ( , , ) is a port city that lies in the northeast Egypt extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, straddling the west bank of the northern mouth of the Suez Canal. The city is the capital city, capital of the Port S ...

on the edge of the Egyptian desert at the altitude of 29 m. Administratively, it is a part of the Ismailia Governorate. In the ancient times the city of On (modern Matariyah) mentioned in Genesis 41:45 was identified by some as located south-west of the mound, which according to the Egyptian legend was the first place where cotton was cultivated. The location is famous for the Battle of Tell El Kebir which was fought in 1882 between the Egyptian army led by Ahmed 'Urabi and the British military. The ancient ruins of On were fortified into an entrenched camp by the Egyptian troops

Battle of Tell El Kebir

Relation with Abu Kabir in Palestine

The

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

ian troops of Ibrahim Pasha captured the city of Jaffa and its environs following a battle with the forces of the Ottoman Empire in 1832. Though Egyptian rule over this area continued only until 1840, Egyptian Muslims settled in and around Jaffa, founding among others the village of '' Abu Kabir''. Many of the Egyptians who populated it came from Tell El Kebir and named it for their hometown.

First World War

18th Lancers Indian Army at Tel el Kebir 1918 IWM Q12938

During the Gallipoli landings and the Sinai and Palestine Campaign of the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, Tell El Kebir was a training centre for the

First Australian Imperial Force The First Australian Imperial Force (1st AIF) was the main Expeditionary warfare, expeditionary force of the Australian Army during the First World War. It was formed as the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) following United Kingdom of Great Bri ...

reinforcements, No 2 Australian Stationary Hospital, and also a site of a large

prisoner of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of war for a ...

camp. Some 40,000 Australians camped in a small tent city at Tell El Kebir of six miles in length. A military railway was eventually constructed to take troops from the camp to their vessels in Alexandria and elsewhere for embarkation to Gallipoli landings. The Tell El Kebir village was described by an Australian soldier in 1916 as

a very dirty little place with a few dirty shops in it

The Allied War Memorial Cemetery is situated about 175 metres east of the railway station and the Ismailia Canal. The War Memorial Cemetery was used from June 1915 to July 1920, and was enlarged after the

Armistice An armistice is a formal agreement of warring parties to stop fighting. It is not necessarily the end of a war, as it may constitute only a cessation of hostilities while an attempt is made to negotiate a lasting peace. It is derived from t ...

many

grave A grave is a location where a cadaver, dead body (typically that of a human, although sometimes that of an animal) is burial, buried or interred after a funeral. Graves are usually located in special areas set aside for the purpose of buria ...

s were transferred in from other temporary interment sites. The camp was converted for use as a holding camp for

refugees A refugee, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), is a person "forced to flee their own country and seek safety in another country. They are unable to return to their own country because of feared persecution as ...

fleeing the

Russian Civil War The Russian Civil War () was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the 1917 overthrowing of the Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. I ...

from what used to be southern

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

Second World War

During the

North African campaign The North African campaign of World War II took place in North Africa from 10 June 1940 to 13 May 1943, fought between the Allies and the Axis Powers. It included campaigns in the Libyan and Egyptian deserts (Western Desert campaign, Desert Wa ...

of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, Tell El Kebir was a site for the Eighth Army vehicle park, a

military hospital A military hospital is a hospital owned or operated by a military. They are often reserved for the use of military personnel and their dependents, but in some countries are made available to civilians as well. They may or may not be located on a m ...

and a large ordnance depot, with many military mechanical and electrical repair workshops including the RAOC Base Vehicle Depot Tell El Kebir BVD(E) which remained for several years after the war as part of the Tell El Kebir Garrison which was surrounded by a perimeter wire and minefield, and heavily guarded due to the tense atmosphere in Egypt at the time, that supplied every type of vehicle used by the British Army in the Middle East Theatre until the Suez Emergency was declared, and fought in the Canal Zone. The cemetery now contains 65

Commonwealth A commonwealth is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. The noun "commonwealth", meaning "public welfare, general good or advantage", dates from the 15th century. Originally a phrase (the common-wealth ...

graves from the First World War and 526 from the Second World War. There are also 84 military graves of other nations in the cemetery. It is maintained by the

Commonwealth War Graves Commission The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) is an intergovernmental organisation of six independent member states whose principal function is to mark, record and maintain the graves and places of commemoration of Commonwealth of Nations mil ...

.CWGC Tel el Kebir War Memorial Cemetery
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Citations and notes

References