Selkirk"s Reivers are a fictional unit; they did not exist yet the idea of a small irregular unit follows a pattern that has occurred in British military history for centuries and continues with the Royal Marine Commandoes and the SAS in the present day.
There is a great deal of fact in the background of this story. In 1914, the Ottoman Turks did attack the Suez Canal. The British repelled them, but the Ottomans captured and retained the peninsula of Sinai. The campaign in Gallipoli did include the attack on Fir Tree Spur, the first action of 52 Lowland Division which took terrible losses in a daylight attack.
The district of Wazza in Cairo was indeed the scene of a major riot involving British and Anzac soldiers where some of the Military Police, the redcaps, were roughly handled.
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