Aftermath

The whole Agagia operation, including the Dorset Yeomen's charge was reported to be a 'model of desert warfare', leading to the destruction of the Senussi force, the capture of its leader Gaafer Pasha and his staff, and the relief of Sidi Barrani. On 9 March 1916 General Peyton's force pursued the remnants of the enemy fifty miles west, with a force including the Dorset Yeomen and a company of the Australian Camel Corps. Three days later, the force secured the Medean Pass and approaching the Libyan boarder, the determined pursuit by the British forced the Senussi to evacuate Sollum without a fight. The Duke of Westminster led the final pursuit.

The Duke's armoured cars, now dug out of the soft sand, rounded up the enemy stragglers. They captured no less than forty enemy guns and machine guns, took three Turkish officers and about forty other prisoners, while they killed a further fifty Senussi and wounded many more in an attack on the enemy camp at Bir Asiso, twenty-three miles west the British base.

Spearheaded by the Duke of Westminster and the Cheshire Yeomanry the British dashed west, covering some 120 miles across hostile territory without support to Bir Hakkim. In less than a month, Peyton's force, including the Dorset Yeomanry, whose charge at Agagia had made a highly significant contribution to the defeat of the Senussi, had driven the enemy back 150 miles. As a result, they all but eliminated the threat to Egypt and the Suez Canal from the Turkish supported attacks from the west.

Related Image Gallery

Prisoners Of War	Cammell Corps	The Grave of the Dorset Yeomanry
Mena Matruh	Sunusi Prisoners	PWs in Cairo
The Agagia Yeomen

Click on an image to enlarge

Click here to view the full Western Desert / Agagia Campaign Image Gallery

<< Previous

Next >>