The Wazzir pictured after the riots and fires on Good Friday.

April 2 1915, Cairo–Today was Good Friday in 1915, and as such many soldiers away from the front lines were given leave. This was especially true in Cairo, where many ANZAC and British forces were stationed before the planned Gallipoli invasion. As a result, there was an unusually large crowd in Cairo’s red light district, the Wazzir, that evening. It is not entirely clear how the disturbance started, but the most commonly cited factor was a soldier from Manchester finding his sister working in one of the establishments; she had apparently been abandoned by her former employers in Egypt. When attempting to rescue her, the soldier was thrown out of a window by the proprietors. On Friday, a group of soldiers, already quite drunk, “stormed” the building in question, rescued the soldier’s sister, then set fire to the building. The riot then spread to other soldiers and many other buildings were set on fire. Over 2500 soldiers were involved, 50 of whom were eventually arrested several hours later.

It is quite possible that the pretext of saving a woman from “white slavery” was invented; there are no records of the woman in question, and the men had plenty of other grievances against the pimps of the area that could have induced (and certainly helped spread) the riot. These included high prices, watered-down drinks, and recent outbreaks of venereal disease among the clientele. Charles Laseron, an American-born Australian soldier (and veteran of the Mawson Antarctic Expedition), was in Egypt at the time (though not present at the riot) and reacted thusly: “It is a great pity for the name of Australia, but it is a comfort to think that there was a goodly proportion of New Zealanders and Territorials among the crowd, and the blame is not wholly ours.”

Sources include: Randal Gray, Chronicle of the First World War; news.com.au