Tell El Kebir التل الكبير | |
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  Tell El Kebir Location in Egypt | |
| Coordinates:30°32′44″N31°46′41″E / 30.54556°N 31.77806°E /30.54556; 31.77806 | |
| Country |  Egypt |
| Governorate | Ismailia |
| Time zone | UTC+2 (EET) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC+3 (EEST) |
Tell El Kebir (Arabic:التل الكبير lit."the great mound")[1] is 110 km north-north-east ofCairo and 75 kilometres south ofPort Said on the edge of the Egyptian desert at the altitude of 29 m. Administratively, it is a part of theIsmailia Governorate.
In the ancient times the city ofOn (modern Matariyah) mentioned in Genesis 41:45[2] was identified by some as located south-west of the mound, which according to the Egyptian legend was the first place where cotton was cultivated.
The location is famous for theBattle of Tell El Kebir which was fought in 1882 between the Egyptian army led by Ahmed 'Urabi and the British military. The ancient ruins of On were fortified into an entrenched camp by the Egyptian troops
TheEgyptian troops ofIbrahim Pasha captured the city of Jaffa and its environs following a battle with the forces of the Ottoman Empire in 1832. Though Egyptian rule over this area continued only until 1840, Egyptian Muslims settled in and around Jaffa, founding among others the village ofAbu Kabir. Many of the Egyptians who populated it came from Tell El Kebir and named it for their hometown.[3][4]
During theGallipoli landings and theSinai and Palestine Campaign of theFirst World War, Tell El Kebir was a training centre for theFirst Australian Imperial Force reinforcements,No 2 Australian Stationary Hospital, and also a site of a largeprisoner of war camp. Some 40,000 Australians camped in a small tent city at Tell El Kebir of six miles in length.[5] A military railway was eventually constructed to take troops from the camp to their vessels in Alexandria and elsewhere forembarkation to Gallipoli landings.
The Tell El Kebir village was described by an Australian soldier in 1916 as
a very dirty little place with a few dirty shops in it[6]
The AlliedWar Memorial Cemetery is situated about 175 metres east of the railway station and theIsmailia Canal. The War Memorial Cemetery was used from June 1915 to July 1920, and was enlarged after theArmistice manygraves were transferred in from other temporary interment sites. The camp was converted for use as a holding camp forrefugees fleeing theRussian Civil War from what used to be southernRussian Empire.
During theNorth African campaign of theSecond World War, Tell El Kebir was a site for theEighth Armyvehicle park, amilitary hospital and a largeordnance depot, with many military mechanical and electrical repair workshops[7] including the RAOCBase Vehicle Depot Tell El Kebir BVD(E) which remained for several years after the war as part of theTell El Kebir Garrison which was surrounded by a perimeter wire and minefield, and heavily guarded due to the tense atmosphere in Egypt at the time,[8] that supplied every type of vehicle used by the British Army in the Middle East Theatre until theSuez Emergency was declared, and fought in the Canal Zone.[9]
The cemetery now contains 65Commonwealth graves from the First World War and 526 from the Second World War. There are also 84 military graves of other nations in the cemetery. It is maintained by theCommonwealth War Graves Commission.[10]
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