THE 52nd and 74th Divisions entrained at Ludd in April and embarked at Kantara on the Suez Canal on their way to France. Their replacements had already begun to arrive – though these had originally been intended not as replacements but as reinforcements. The 7th Indian Division was sent by sea from Mesopotamia and had arrived in the Suez area in early January. It surrendered its artillery component to the departing 52nd Division, receiving that division's guns in their place. Much of this change had been arranged by early April, but the actual movement of units meant that the disruption of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force continued for much longer.

The infantry divisions were more deeply affected than the cavalry, but almost all were changed. Only two of Allenby's divisions, the Anzac Mounted and the 54th East Anglian, remained as they had been; and the two new Indian divisions, the 7th Meerut and the 3rd Lahore, sometimes simply called the 7th and 3rd Indian, were imported whole, except for their artillery. Others suffered more or less changes. Further, this was not a matter of one change, but several taking place over a number of months, largely as a result of the changing state of the fighting in France, where the successive German attacks between March and July led to repeated demands for more troops from Palestine, not to mention changes of mind at the War Office.