page_title: Raid on the Beersheba to Hafir el Auja railway
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Raid on the Beersheba to Hafir el Auja railway / Background
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo of Asluj bridge in 1917 Other information First published in 1922 in New Zealand
context_page_description: The Raid on the Beersheba to Hafir el Auja railway took place on 23 May 1917 after the Second Battle of Gaza and before the Battle of Beersheba during the Stalemate in Southern Palestine in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign of World War I.
  Substantial sections of the Ottoman railway line which ran south from Beersheba to Hafir el Auja were attacked and demolished by working parties of the Royal Engineers of the Anzac and Imperial Mounted Divisions and the Imperial Camel Corps Brigade reinforced with men from the 1st Light Horse Brigade. They destroyed bridges, and rails between Asluj and the main Ottoman Desert Base at Hafir el Auja also known as Auja al-Hafir in the south. While the demolition force completed their work, the Imperial Mounted Division demonstrated against Beersheba covered by the Anzac Mounted Division on their right.
context_section_description: Although the railway bridge at Irgeig north-west of Beersheba was bombed by aircraft on 22 December 1916 when the bombs hit their target, the solid, strongly built bridge was found to be virtually indestructible from the air.
  During a raid on the wells south of Beersheba between 7 and 14 May 1917, Nos. 2 and 16 Companies, Imperial Camel Brigade, a detachments of field troop and two motor ambulances, attacked the railway line between Beersheba and Hafir el Auja. The camels rode out from the Lines of Communication Defences Force via Kossaima when they blew up wells and a stone bridge. They also attacked a train near Hafir el Auja when five Ottoman railwaymen were captured. These prisoners said they had orders to pick up rails south of Hafir el Auja for use on "a new branch [railway line] from Et Tine to supply the front at Gaza," leaving the railway between Hafir el Auja and Beersheba intact. The line south from Hafir el Auja had almost reached the Wadi el Arish by December 1916.
  While the railway line south from Beersheba to Hafir el Auja remained intact, it represented a constant threat to the long British Empire lines of communication stretching from Egypt, across the Sinai via El Arish to 5 miles (8.0 km) south of Gaza. Meissner, who had been involved with the building of the Baghdad Railway, constructed the railway, which crossed numerous wadis on "fine, arched bridges of dressed stone."  This railway could very quickly at any time, be used to transport large numbers of Ottoman troops to Hafir el Auja which remained available for use as a base. The early May patrol had found well built stone buildings, barracks, a hospital and a large water reservoir at Hafir el Auja, which Kress von Kressenstein had been forced to abandon in January as the EEF advanced up the coast to Rafa. From their base at Hafir el Auja a substantial attacking force could be supplied by the railway and housed many miles behind the Egyptian Expeditionary Force front line.
caption: Eighteen Arch Ashlar Bridge at Asluj
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