By Margie MaccollHow the Anzacs saved the British Empire in WWI was the topic when in the lead up to Anzac Day the Cooroy-Noosa Genealogy Group hosted guest speaker Neil Dearberg, Chief Historian for the Desert Anzacs and President of the Military Historical Society of Queensland. “If the British lost the Suez Canal they would have lost the war,“ he said. In 1896 the Ottomans defaulted on their repayments on the Suez Canal and Britain took charge of it. During WWI Britain declared the Suez Canal a protectorate preventing the Germans from sailing through it. The Australian forces at Romani included the Australian Light Horse, the Australian Flying Corps and the Imperial camel corps.
