SINCE 1914 Egypt had been the main base in the eastern Mediterranean for the British forces. It was the base to which the defeated army from the Dardanelles had retreated to lick its wounds. Alexandria and Port Said were the essential naval bases to patrol the local seas. It was the base where forces from Australia and New Zealand and India landed. It was the base from which the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, first under Murray, then under Allenby, had come to campaign into and conquer Palestine and Syria. In December 1918 it became the base to which those forces were withdrawn to prepare for their repatriation.

It was also the source of essential military supplies: cotton, camels, grain, even water (through the pipeline), and above all, manpower. Much of the labouring work for the army – road-making, transport, landing goods from the sea, and so on – was done by the Egyptian Labour Corps, the Camel Transport Corps, the Donkey Transport Corps, and other groups. By 1918 135,000 men were employed, on six-month contracts, all through Palestine and as far north as Homs. But from December these men were paid off and discharged, returning home to Egypt. None of them got rich, but all of them experienced a taste of life outside their villages, and all gained a greater understanding of the system under which they lived – and probably the majority came to dislike it intensely.