Djemal Pasha
The British captured Basra in November 1914, and marched north into Iraq. Initially Ahmed Djemal Pasha was ordered to gather an army in Palestine to threaten the Suez Canal. In response, the Allies—including the newly formed Australian and New Zealand Army Corps ("ANZACs")—opened another front with the Battle of Gallipoli. The army led by Ahmed Djemal Pasha (Fourth Army) to eject the British from Egypt was stopped at the Suez canal in February 1915, and again the next summer. The canal was vital to the British war effort. In addition, the 1915 locust plague broke out in the Palestine region; the Ottoman military hospitals record the period as March–October 1915.