First Battle of Gaza 1917
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Date | 26 March 1917 | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1917 | Wikidata P585 (point in time) |
| Era | World War I era (1914–1918) | derived from year |
| Location | Palestine | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Asia | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | Middle Eastern theater of World War I | Wikidata P361 |
| Participants | Ottoman Empire, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland | Wikidata P710 |
| Coordinates | 31.4893, 34.4737 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The First Battle of Gaza was fought on 26 March 1917 during the first attempt by the Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF), which was a British Empire military formation, formed on 10 March 1916 under the command of General Archibald Murray from the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force and the Force in Egypt (1914–15), at the beginning of the Sinai and Palestine Campaign of the First World War. Fighting took place in and around the town of Gaza on the Mediterranean coast when infantry and mounted infantry from the Desert Column, a component of the Eastern Force, attacked the town. Late in the afternoon, on the verge of capturing Gaza, the Desert Column was withdrawn due to concerns about the approaching darkness and large Ottoman reinforcements. This British defeat was followed a few weeks later by the even more emphatic defeat of the Eastern Force at the Second Battle of Gaza in April 1917.
In August 1916, the EEF victory at Romani ended the possibility of land-based attacks on the Suez Canal, first threatened in February 1915 by the Ottoman Raid on the Suez Canal.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article First Battle of Gaza (revision 1370618661), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
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Other battles of the Middle Eastern theater of World War I
- Battle of Robat Karim 1915
- Battle of Bir el Abd 1916
- Battle of Katia 1916
- Battle of Romani 1916
- Battle of Ayun Kara 1917
- Battle of Buqqar Ridge 1917
- Battle of Mughar Ridge 1917
- Charge at Huj 1917
- Raid on Bir el Hassana 1917
- Raid on Nekhl 1917
All 27 battles of the Middle Eastern theater of World War I →
Browse more: battles in Palestine · Asia · World War I era battles