“ This climate is going to rather suit me I think.”
RI MS RCB/A/06
15th July 1915 to Gwendoline Bragg
The letter is started while docked in Alexandria, they arrived to no orders and eventually decided to take the horses off the ship. They camped on the wharf for two or three days before being ordered to Zahrich military camp. The crowded boat and the heat have obviously taken its toll.
He continues from the camp in a much better frame of mind. The camp is about five miles out of Alexandria and he gives a bit of a description of the different areas they pass through on the way showing the contrast between poorer native quarters and the colonial district where even the roads are watered.
Having access to water to bathe regularly and time to recover from the boat seem to have made all the difference, Robert is now much more optimistic about the climate and has overcome his problems with the glare, although he’s reluctant to wear sunglasses.
A Battery, 58th Brigade
July 15th
Dear Mum
I am starting a letter but it is almost too hot to write & the files are something horrid. We are not at the front yet. We got in about three days ago and found no orders for us so far the last few days we have been sleeping on board with the horses picketed out on the wharfe [sic]. Everybody was jolly glad to get the horses off the ship I can tell you but not half so glad as the horses themselves.
The last few days on board were almost unbearable. Well as I say we got in last Monday at about 10 AM. We hung around for hours and at 6 pm we started taking off the horses. Mine were all off by 8 p.m & we then started cleaning out & finished that night. Next day we gently unloaded, exercised the horses & looked over the harness. That night Bill & I went into the town. It is quite a long drive first through the native part and then into the better part of the town. The native quarter was absolutely filthy; swarms of men squatting all over the place.
Sunday
I didn’t get this letter finished the other day not that it would have gone any sooner as the post closes to night. Since I started this letter it has been decided that secrecy is not necessary. The mysterious port into which we sailed is Alexandria & you can guess that the port at which we touched was Malta. We are now at Zalina Camp about 5 miles out of Alexandria.
We marched out last Thursday & By Jove it was hot. The horses stuck it remarkably well, it was a good 9 miles, as we were about 4 miles the other side of Alexandria to begin with. At first we went through the native quarter with people squatting all over the road then through a decidedly middle class quarter & finally to the fas[h]ionable. Here the road widened out & there were cool trees on each side & the road was watered. We passed a race course and a polo ground where some people were playing.
The little Arab ponies are simply topping as pretty as pictures with lovelly [sic] glossy coats arched necks & tails that brush the ground. They are topping I am longing to get hold of one. The dodge would be to buy a few here when we go home take them with me & sell them at about 100% profit in England.
We are camped in the fashionable suburb of Alexandria which is rather a boon. We bathe every day, mixed bathing too! It is just like the bathing out in Australia the water as hot as anything. The men simply love the bathes. This climate is going to rather suit me I think. I feel very fit now for the first few days I had awful eye ache from the glare but it is better now. I have some coloured glasses but I am rather anxious not to be dependent on them so so [sic] far I haven’t used them. My two mares are very well. I have never known the bay mare so fit she never turned a hair on board & both of them have come through without a scratch. On the march from the boat she was prancing and bucking all the way. They are both as fat as ever so I hope they will do me rather well.
I am just off for a bathe so Cheer Oh.
Give my love to the rest of the family & also to Mrs Bidder I hope she is better now. Also Mrs Gott & Cecily. Longing for some home letters. Don’t write to the Camp address but to
A/58 Bgde RFA
11th Div
B. M. E. F.
Your loving Son
Bob
Photos courtesy of the Royal Institution of Great Britain. RI MS RCB/A/06
Notes and General Information
Robert has now been officially assigned to A Battery and any letters to him should be addressed to this as, in theory, they should be forwarded on to him wherever the Brigade is. In practice there are problems with this process meaning that he only gets post very occasionally with a delay of several weeks in between.
Alexandria was used as the main base for the army to assemble on their way to Gallipoli. Initially the plan had been to use islands closer to the peninsula but the lack of resources and fresh water there meant it wasn’t possible to support large numbers of men for a long period of time. So instead they went to Alexandria which was further away but had the space and resources needed.
These images show the Middlesex Yeomanry disembarking in April 1915 but probably not much had changed by July when Robert and his brigade arrived.
