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

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the Capital city, capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, List of ...

and 75 kilometres south of Port Said on the edge of the Egyptian desert at the altitude of 29 m. Administratively, it is a part of the

Ismailia Governorate Ismailia Governorate is one of the Canal Zone governorates of Egypt. Located in the northeastern part of the country, its capital is the city of Ismailia. It was named after Ismail Pasha, who as Ottoman Viceroy of Egypt, oversaw the country dur ...

. 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 Israel

The

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...

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 (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, Tell El Kebir was a training centre for the

First Australian Imperial Force The First Australian Imperial Force (1st AIF) was the main expeditionary force of the Australian Army during the First World War. It was formed as the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) following Britain's declaration of war on Germany on 15 Au ...

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

prisoner of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is 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 w ...

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 Embarkment (sometimes embarcation or embarkation) is the process of loading a passenger ship or an airplane An airplane or aeroplane (informally plane) is a fixed-wing aircraft that is propelled forward by thrust from a jet engine, prop ...

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 the ...

many

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

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

Russian Civil War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Russian Civil War , partof = the Russian Revolution and the aftermath of World War I , image = , caption = Clockwise from top left: {{flatlist, *Soldiers ...

from what used to be southern

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

Second World War

During the North African campaign of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

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

military hospital A military hospital is a hospital owned and 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 ...

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 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 m ...

.CWGC Tel el Kebir War Memorial Cemetery
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Citations and notes

References