The British gamble on winning a quick and daring victory at Gaza in March 1917 had failed. The commander of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF), Lieutenant-General Sir Archibald Murray, now drew up a more cautious plan for a second attempt to take the town, three weeks later.
Three of the EEF’s infantry divisions, the 52nd (Lowland), 53rd (Welsh) and 54th (East Anglia), would attack together in a set-piece frontal assault, supported by as much firepower as Murray could scrape together. Extensions to the British railhead from El Arish allowed him to add 16 heavy guns to his artillery brigades’ 92 18-pounder field guns and 24 4.5-inch howitzers. Gaza’s proximity to the Mediterranean coast enabled naval support from the French coastal defence ship Requin and two Royal Navy monitors. Murray also managed to get a shipment of eight tanks and 4000 gas shells from the United Kingdom. This would be the first time that gas was used in the Middle Eastern theatre.
