Lawrence’s stay in camp was brief. It was more urgent to see if the defences of Yanbo were progressing. But Feisal followed close on his heels. The Turks had attacked again soon after Lawrence’s departure and after a long-range exchange which offered the illusion of success, the men of the Juheina tribe on Feisal’s left wing had suddenly careered off the battlefield. Their subsequent excuse was that, being tired and thirsty, they had dashed back to camp to make themselves a cup of coffee. An Arab battle had certainly a flavour of comic opera, but the humour of this could best be appreciated in retrospect. The disappearance of the Juheina had led Feisal to fall back hurriedly on Yanbo. Lawrence had telegraphed to Captain Boyle for Naval aid, but the question was whether it could arrive in time. “Our war seemed entering its last act.” He did not miss the opportunity of taking “a fine photograph,” from the parapet of the Medina gate, of the fugitive army as Feisal led it into Yanbo.
This was a good place to defend if only the weapons were available. Built on a coral reef, some twenty feet above the water, the little town was half-encircled by the sea while the land approaches ran across a lat expanse of sand that could be raked by machine-guns from the walls and also by ships’ guns from the sea. These arrived with reassuring promptness. Boyle concentrated five ships within twenty-four hours, sending one of them, the shallow-draught monitor M31, up to the end of the south-eastern creek of the harbour, where she by across the Turks’ probable line of approach, dominating it with her six-inch guns. As darkness fell her searchlight rays crossed with those of the Dufferin on the plain outside the town, flood-lighting the approach.
The air was tense that night. About eleven there was an alarm when a Turkish reconnoitring patrol encountered the outposts, and Garland called out the garrison to man the defences, which had been hastily wired and buttressed with earth. All the ships’ searchlights were turned on to traverse the plain with their beams. But nothing more happened. When Lawrence himself woke, after a good eight hours’ sleep on board the Suva, the plain was deserted. “Afterwards, we heard die Turks’ hearts had failed them at the silence and the blaze of lighted ships from end to end of the harbour, with the eerie beams of the searchlights revealing the bleakness of the glacis they would have to cross. So they turned back: and that night, I believe they lost their war.”
So it may well have seemed to those at Yanbo at that critical moment. Yet, with a longer horizon, the Idea of a single dramatic turning point seems questionable. It does not accord with the nature of the Arab war, diffuse in time and space. In such a war, ideas that gradually evolved into a changed state had a more decisive significance than any particular act. If the change that was now about to develop might be dated from the passive pyrotechnic display at Yanbo, a discussion which took place on New Year’s Day, 1917, has a greater claim, because it gave birth to the Idea that made an old project practicable.
Back in October Feisal had proposed an advance along the coast to occupy Wejh, 180 miles north of Yanbo, and form a new base there from which to operate against the Hejaz railway, threatening the life-line of the Medina Garrison. But the project was postponed and its prospects undermined by the Arab reverses in December. The Sherifian. forces had been thrust back on the defensive, and were clinging precariously to Yanbo and Rabegh. It was only Feisal’s personal hold over the tribes that was keeping them together. If he were to move away, his departure might easily spell the fall of both Yanbo and Rabegh, for neither All nor Zeid had the same power of personality and their performances hitherto had diminished such prestige as they had enjoyed. Yet if Feisal remained the end was almost as probable. The immobilization of the Arabs, if it continued, would soon mean the demobilization of their forces.
Wilson came up to Yanbo, on his way to Egypt, and urged on Feisal the necessity of the move to Wejh, as well as its value. He promised that the Fleet would support the advance and also safeguard Rabegh until Wejh had been occupied. Feisal was fully alive to the advantages, but still dubious about the risks. The cloud was dispersed by the light of a new idea, which promised to distract the attention of the Turks from the coast in the south while Feisal was moving north. It originated with Lawrence, although completed by Feisal’s local knowledge in the choice of the best sites.
This vital suggestion was that Abdulla, who had advanced from Mecca in December to the neighbourhood of Medina with four or five thousand irregulars, should move to the Wadi Ais some fifty miles north of Medina. From this well-watered valley amid the hills he could not only be an immediate menace to the railway but could intercept the caravans that were bringing supplies to Medina from Hail in Central Arabia. The Turks were making slow progress towards Rabegh, hampered by the raids of the Harb tribe in their rear, and they would hardly fail to react to this greater menace to their life-line.
Once adopted, the plan was put into operation with remarkable promptness. On January 2nd Lawrence carried out a preliminary move to gain experience in raiding and help cloak the departure from Yanbo. With a party of thirty-five Arab camel-men he rode south-east to a valley near the Turkish lines of communication, climbed over the precipitous ridge, and opened fire on the tents of a Turkish post. Satisfied with the panic they had caused, Lawrence’s party crawled back over the ridge, regained their camels, and rode back to Yanbo, bringing in two stray Turks whom they had run across.
The same morning, January 3rd, the Arab army made a preliminary bound to Owais, a group of wells fifteen miles inland from Yanbo, and about ten miles north of Mubarak. Here they could still cover Yanbo and yet have taken a stride on their way to Wejh, while awaiting a reply from Abdulla. For simplicity of organization Feisal made up the mass of his expedition from the Juheina tribe, in whose territory he was now operating, although he added a sprinkling of the Harb, the Ateiba, and the Billi—in whose territory Wejh lay—to give it “a many-tribed character.” He also took his Ageyl bodyguard, twelve hundred dashing camel-men, who had been originally raised by the Sheikh of Russ from the peasants of the Central Arabian oases for service in the Turkish Army, and had come over to Feisal complete when the Revolt took place.
Lawrence accompanied Feisal on the march out to Owais, a colourful procession. When the starting signal was given Feisal and his bodyguard mounted, while the other contingents, standing beside their couched camels, lined the road waiting to follow in his wake. As he passed each in turn they gave a silent salute, to which he responded with a “Peace upon you.” Once the column was on the way the drums struck up and the whole broke into a song in honour of Feisal and his family. Lawrence rode on his left and Sharraf on his right, while immediately behind came three banners of faded crimson silk with gilt spikes. “It looked like a river of camels, for we filled up the Wadi to the tops of its banks, and poured along in a quarter of a mile long stream.”
Lawrence himself rode back from Owais to Yanbo to settle details of the naval co-operation in the advance on Wejh. As a precaution against any sudden Turkish spring on Yanbo, he took the opportunity of moving the accumulated stores aboard the Hardinge. The problem of loading them quickly without civilized port facilities was solved by a happy expedient. The Hardinge had large square ports on her lowest troop-deck along the water-level; these were opened and a thousand tons of rifles, ammunition, food and other supplies were pushed straight in “like posting letters in a box.” And when Boyle arrived in the Suva, he generously promised to allow the Hardinge to be used as a floating base throughout the northward march. Thus of old had the Persian host been victualled in their invasion of Greece.
Meantime Ali, under pressure from Wilson and the Sherif, advanced some forty miles out from Rabegh, while the British aircraft bombed the Turkish encampments. This drew Fakhri’s attention effectively and led Ali to push raids almost to Medina. Indeed, he became so emboldened that he telegraphed back to say he was about “to take up dispositions for the siege of Medina!” He had actually moved a few miles nearer, when a Turkish air-raid on his own camp caused a fresh recoil. But by that time Feisal was in Wejh
.
Abdulla for his part had continued his march north as planned. It had led the Bedouin to rally to his cause; they surprised and destroyed a Turkish battalion posted south of Medina. On January 13th Abdulla himself attacked and captured a Turkish convoy bound for Medina and laden with gold—nearly half the Bedouin then disappeared with their loot. On January 19th Abdulla established himself safely in the Wadi Ais.
As soon as Feisal had received news that Abdulla was moving, he had begun to slip by stages behind the coastal hills to Bir el Waheidi, where he was nearly half way to Wejh and only four miles from the coast, at Umlej. Lawrence went thither by sea, with Boyle, to await him. They were joined on the 16th, the day after their arrival, by Major Vickery, of the Royal Artillery, who was the forerunner of the newly-formed British Military Mission under Newcombe.
Vickery, from long service in the Sudan, was a first-rate Arab linguist as well as a most capable soldier. Among other Regulars he was strongly unconventional, both in appearance and outlook, but like others of this stimulating type he was apt to remember his caste and don a conventional mask in face of unprofessional soldiers. His own informal way was affronted by Lawrence’s, and especially by what seemed airy talk of the Arab army “tapping at the gates of Damascus within a year.” Lawrence’s exultant burst of enthusiasm grated on Vickery, who had not felt the depression now magically lifting as Yanbo was left. Vickery, on the other hand, jarred Lawrence by a remark that service in Arabia was professional suicide, and also offended his sense of fitness by wearing a British helmet under his Arab headcloth. An old Arab guide, who saw Vickery riding in front of him, suddenly cried “Mashallah, the head of an ox!” astonished at the spread of his headcloth—and this so tickled Lawrence’s sense of humour that his laughter stung. Thus a needless friction was generated between two men, both exceptional in their own ways. Vickery disappeared from the scene too early to share in the ultimate triumph, or to discover in Lawrence those qualities which made other Regulars such surprising admirers and so surprisingly ready to be guided by the man who was nominally their junior.
Vickery, on arrival, went with Boyle and Lawrence to Bir el Waheidi to confer with Feisal as to the arrangements for the advance on Wejh. The force totalled over ten thousand, of whom 5,100 were camelry, and 5,300 were on foot. Fifty, whom Maulud proudly called cavalry, were mounted on mules and had already proved so useful that Lawrence had telegraphed to Egypt for another fifty mules, which were now landed—they stampeded as soon as they were ashore and caused a hilariously exciting disturbance before they were recaptured and saddled. For its fire-support the force had ten machine-guns and a battery of four Krupp mountain-guns, now manned by Arab crews. It had been found that as long as they were handled by Egyptians, the Arabs, as at Mubarak, were apt to leave the guns to maintain the battle while they took a rest. Another advantage of the transfer was that, instead of the battery having a complement of 360 camels, in the hands of the Arabs this was reduced to eighty, although the same amount of ammunition was carried.
THE KAABA, MECCA
DAWN IN NAKHL MUBARAK (FEISAL’S ENCAMPMENT). DECEMBER, 1916
Indeed, the whole baggage of Feisal’s force was carried by 380 camels, and although so great a reduction was only possible through the aid of the Navy as a floating-base, it threw into vivid relief the Arabs’ relative independence of transport in comparison with any regular force. In moving light lay the key to success, for the stretch of country that the force had now to cross was so barren and waterless that hunger and thirst were serious risks, especially as Feisal was taking along so many militarily superfluous foot for the sake of creating a moral impression of Sherifian power and Arab unity.
The last water before reaching Wejh was at Abu Zereibat in Hamdh, nearly fifty miles short of their goal. It was decided that the army should be split up into sections, leaving Bir el Waheidi on the 18th and moving independently to Abu Zareibat, where they would concentrate on the 20th. And to ease the further problem of the final lap, Boyle agreed to land twenty tons of water two days later at Habban, where there was supposed to be a possible harbour.
The actual attack would be supported by the Navy with six ships, and sea-planes to direct their fire. The Hardinge also took on board a party of five hundred Arabs who were to be landed, with a naval detachment, on the unguarded northern, flank of Wejh, at dawn on the 23rd, by which time it was reckoned that the camelry would have closed all the enemy’s bolt-holes into the interior. Vickery took charge of this landing party.
At noon on the 18th all was complete. Like Sherman’s army at Atlanta in 1864, also famous for its economy of baggage, Feisal’s was about to plunge into the depths of the unknown, but depths known to be more barren, from which they could only hope to emerge if and when they clasped hands with the Fleet at their distant goal. As with Sherman’s army, the telegraph, here a wireless telegraph, brought them as a final comfort good news from the theatre they were quitting—that Yanbo and Rabegh were still secure and Abdulla close to the Wadi Ais.
“After lunch the tent was struck. We went to our camels, where they were couched in a circle, saddled and loaded, each held short by the slave standing on its double fore-leg. The kettle-drummer, waiting beside Ibn Dakhil, who commanded the bodyguard, rolled his drum seven or eight times, and everything became still. We watched Feisal He got up from his rug . . . caught the saddle-pommels in his hands, put his knee on the side and said aloud, ‘Make God your agent.’ The slave released the camel, which sprang up. When it was on its feet Feisal passed his other leg across its back, swept his skirts and his cloak under him by a wave of the arm, and settled himself in the saddle. As his camel moved we had jumped for ours, and the whole mob rose together.”
The Ageyl, on an order, moved out to right and left as wing. A patter of drums, and the poet of the right wing burst into a song, of Feisal and the delights he would afford them in Wejh. The right wing took up the refrain. A few moments later the poet of the left wing retorted with a similar extempore verse, and then the whole bodyguard burst into their marching song.
The march had not gone far, when two solitary horsemen appeared. They proved to be the Emir of the Juheina and Colonel Newcombe, who had just landed at Umlej, heard the news and galloped to catch the column. He was brimming over with joy at being in time for the adventure, and he brought to it an outlook that accorded with that of both Feisal and Lawrence.
His coming, which might so easily have caused discord, because of his seniority, made for harmony as well as activity. “Skinface” Newcombe was one of those exceptional men who, themselves standing out above the mass, recognize unhesitatingly the superior gifts of another, because they are free from the jealousy which commonly enfolds like a cloud the peaks of mankind’s range. Long sojourn in the desert may have aided Newcombe’s clear sight. He judged men by their worth, not by their rank, and having convinced himself of Lawrence’s qualities his sole idea was to give them full scope. Like a cricketer who comes in to bat late in the innings when his side’s best batsman is master of the bowling, Newcombe sought nothing better than to back up the man who was making the runs. When he joined the expedition he asked Lawrence, “What do you want me to do?”—saying that “seniority didn’t matter a damn.”
One of the first points on which he took Lawrence’s advice was on the question of wearing Arab dress. Lawrence remarked that “if a few Arabs were to go to Wigan in Arab dress, the children would probably throw stones at them.” Newcombe saw the point and from that time on dressed as an Arab as long as he was with Feisal’s army.
The second day’s march was delayed by heavy rain until the afternoon; towards evening progress quickened when the force reached the Egyptian pilgrim road, a broad, well-beaten track that ran beside the shore. More delays were caused by lack of water on the route, and lack of time-sense among the Arabs. The primitive Juheina had no unit of time smaller than the day, or of distance longer than the span or shorter than the stage—itself a variable, according to the rider’s in
clination and his camel. And they could not realize a number larger than the digits. Such condition were a complication to staff work!
The force was two days behind time-table when at last it reached the Wadi Hamdh, a trough fifteen miles wide which was the mouth of a dry river longer than the Tigris. Here was the flood-water pool of Abu Zareibat, where they camped, and were joined by Sherif Nasir of Medina, young and audacious, who had been harassing the Turks at Wejh for weeks past. Many also of the Billi tribes came to swell the advancing host, and to consume more time in talk. Newcombe decided to ride ahead on a fast camel to meet Boyle at Habban, arrange that the Hardinge should return there again with water, and secure if possible a postponement of the naval part of the attack on Wejh. But on reaching Habban, himself delayed by the Arabs’ leisureliness, he found that the Hardinge had left an hour before. So he could do nothing, beyond waiting until she returned—a trying experience for so energetic a leader.
Lawrence, following next day with the army, heard distant firing that suggested the Navy had grown tired of waiting for the Arabs.
When they at least reached Habban on the afternoon of the 24th, they found that the Hardinge had returned and her boats were landing water-tanks in a hazardous sea. They heard also that Wejh had already been attacked, although the Hardinge had come away before the end. After making a heroic speech to the garrison on the importance of fighting to the last man when he heard that Feisal had reached Abu Zareibat, the Governor had slipped off in the night with his few camelry, heading for the Hejaz railway. The two hundred Turkish infantry had stayed to fight, but were subdued by the naval gun-fire, so that the landing party captured the place without much difficulty. Only about a third of the garrison escaped.
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