The necessary speed and range for this “distant war” could be attained through the frugality of the Arabs, and their efficiency in handling that “intricate animal,” the camel, which, like a tank, has a remarkable performance in skilled hands and easily breaks down in unskilled. The Arabs were free from the encumbrance of an elaborate supply system—this has cramped the strategic mobility of modern armies as the machine-gun has crippled their tactical mobility. Each man was self-contained, carrying on the saddle six weeks’ food for himself—a half-bag of flour, of forty-five pounds weight, which he baked for himself. “This gave us a range of over a thousand miles out and home, and that . . . was more than ever we needed, even in so large a country as Arabia.” And the camels themselves served as an emergency ration, if so tough a one as to deserve the title of “iron ration.” The camels lived on grazing as they marched. Thus after their six weeks on the road they would be worn thin and would need to be sent to pasture for a long rest, which meant the replacement either of the camels or of the raiding tribe by another.
The new strategy was well adapted to tribal conditions. “It was impossible to mix or combine tribes, since they disliked or distrusted one another. Likewise we could not use the men of one tribe in the territory of another.” For concentration of force this would have been a ruinous handicap. But it suited the principle of the widest distribution of force, enabling the Arab command to have the greatest possible number of raids in course at the same time. And “by using one district on Monday, another on Tuesday, a third on Wednesday,” fluidity could be added to mobility.
* * *
1 A remark that T.E. made to me is worth quotation here:
“I have always been a realist and opportunist in tactics: and Arab unity is a madman’s notion—for this century or next, probably. English-speaking unity is a fair parallel. I never dreamed of uniting even Hejaz and Syria. My conception was of a number of states.”
CHAPTER XIII
SECURING THE BASE
August–September, 1917
Lawrence’s persuasion secures the transfer of Feisal’s forces to Aqaba, for operations in the north as Allenby’s mobile wing—Liquid funds—The Turkish threat to Aqaba is paralysed by pricks—Lawrence begins to operate against the railway
LAWRENCE’S first definite proposal towards the new campaign was that Wejh should be abandoned, and Feisal’s whole force transferred to Aqaba. When the authorities in Cairo hesitated before this bold suggestion, Lawrence increased its boldness, urging the withdrawal from the Yanbo-Medina area of all the stores and money that were being used to sustain the operations of Ali and Abdulla. While Feisal was at Aqaba far up the flank of the Hejaz railway, and Allenby was before Gaza threatening an advance into Palestine, the Turks were not likely to strengthen the garrison of Medina. The important thing was to prevent them weakening it, and trying to withdraw their forces northward. A little encouragement, through a further slackening of effort in the south, might aid this purpose without involving any serious danger to the Arabs in the Hejaz.
Here, however, Lawrence was donning the mantle of Robertson and pressing a military theory beyond the limits of political expediency. But the stiffening of opposition to this further suggestion brought with it a relaxation of caution towards his first. Thus Lawrence’s political instinct was justified, and he promptly exploited the weakening.
Aqaba was only 130 miles from the British position at the Wadi Ghazze, whereas it was 700 miles from Mecca. He suggested that, as a logical consequence, Feisal’s force should be transferred from Hussein’s sphere of control to Allenby’s and become an autonomous army with Feisal its commander, under Allenby’s supreme command. Their future lines of operation ran in the same direction.
Before this proposal could be adopted, three potential human obstacles had to be overcome—Feisal, Wingate, and Hussein. Lawrence was able to give the assurance that Feisal would accept—they had talked this matter over in Wejh months before. Would Wingate hand over to another the care of the now sturdy infant he had done so much to nurse? Clayton sounded him; he found him willing to see the larger issue and relinquish Feisal’s force for Allenby’s use. Thus of the possible obstacles, only Hussein remained. Lawrence offered to go down and persuade him.
The Dufferin had just returned from Aqaba, and she was ordered to carry Lawrence to Jidda. On the way she called at Wejh; here he disembarked and travelled by aeroplane to Jeida, a hundred miles distant, the advanced base to which Feisal’s army had moved early in July in order to operate more effectively against the railway. The air way of travel was a pleasantly quick contrast to his last inland ride in this region, and on arrival at Jeida it was a joy to meet again his old comrades, themselves now crowned with the laurels of many successful railway raids. From him they heard fragments of his experiences in the north, and from them he gathered news of what had happened in the past three months.
On the debit side was the detachment of the Billi from the Sherifian cause. Early in May their Sheikh had joined the Turks at El Ala with four hundred of his men, and although he evaded their invitation to attack Feisal, he induced his brother to leave Feisal’s army, bringing away his men and the arms with which they had been supplied. Another accession to the Turkish side, more notable than really influential, was Ibn Rashid, the Emir of Hail. His arrival, indeed, was the sequel to a disaster; for in April, when conveying a large convoy of supplies to the Turks in Medina, he had been trapped and routed by Zeid near Hanakiye, eighty miles northeast of Medina. Zeid had captured three thousand richly laden camels, a similar number of sheep, four mountain guns, and two hundred and fifty prisoners, mostly Turks. This was one of the most important coups of the Hejaz war, and the gain far outweighed the fact that Ibn Rashid himself with about a thousand followers had then joined the Turks at Medain Saleh. His chief effect was to impose an extra strain on their limited supplies.
In the raids on the railway that hampered its working the handful of British officers had continued to play the foremost part. The Arabs, indeed, regarded them as exhausting allies and complained—“Newcombe is like fire; he burns friend and enemy.” And Lawrence, who had strategic reasons for wishing that Newcombe would not press too hard on the railway, remarks that he did four times as much as any other Englishman would have done and ten times as much as the Arabs thought necessary! Their passive resistance had played a part in baulking the original British intention of severing the railway completely, although the Turks had also taken a shrewd step to frustrate a strong concentration of effort—by filling in the wells within reach of their main stations. In the middle of May Newcombe had made several breaks around Muadhdham, between Medain Saleh and Tebuk, slipping away before the forces from these stations could close upon him. He reported that the repairs were being made with old rails, which showed how the Turks were being hit in their weak side—the material side. In July Newcombe and Davenport made a large scale raid, with marked success, on a long section of the line near Qal‘at Zamrad, 140 miles north of Medina, while the Arabs captured the station immediately above it. Joyce carried out a series of raids further south around Toweira with a mixed force of Egyptian, French Algerian, and Arab troops, destroying thousands of rails and several large culverts.
Feisal, however, had moved to Jeida without enthusiasm, under pressure from Wilson and Abdulla. His thoughts wandered ever to the north, to Aqaba and to Syria. Thus he welcomed with delight both the news and the message that Lawrence brought. He accepted the new plan instantly, ordered his camelry to march to Aqaba, and made arrangements that the Arab regulars, now numbering about 1,800 men, should be shipped there as early as possible together with all the stores from Wejh. He also gave Lawrence a letter for Hussein.
Next morning at dawn Lawrence flew back to Wejh, and re-embarked in the Dufferin for Jidda, where he received Wilson’s unstinted promise of moral and material support. Hussein came down from Mecca, and, under Wilson’s influence, agreed to Feisal’s transfer. Lawrence was struck by the similarity bet
ween the two men in the narrow orbit of their thought, their loyalty to a cause, and their intense honesty of purpose, which in Hussein’s case led him, perhaps not without cause, to view everyone else, save Wilson, as potential “crooks.”
Yet Lawrence himself was hardly less disturbed when a telegram from Cairo reported that the Howeitat were in treacherous correspondence with the Turks at Ma‘an, and a second telegram suggested that Auda was in the plot. As he held the keys to Aqaba, the menace was obvious. Lawrence boarded the Hardinge and sailed at once for Aqaba, which he reached on the afternoon of August 5th.
On landing he did not tell Nasir of the report, but simply asked for a swift camel and a guide. He also told Nasir that Hussein had granted him a month’s leave to visit Mecca, a long sought privilege which so delighted Nasir that he sold Lawrence Ghazala, peerless among camels. Riding through the night up the Wadi Ithm Lawrence reached Guweira and found Auda talking with other leaders in a tent. They showed signs of confusion, but he greeted them gaily, and chatted about trivialities until he had a chance of speaking to Auda and his cousin Mohammed el Dheilan alone.
When he mentioned the subject of their correspondence with the Turks they told an elaborate story of a ruse played on the Turks. It was too elaborate to be convincing. Lawrence pretended to enter into the joke, but he perceived that “there was more behind. They were angry that no guns or troops had yet come to their support; and that no rewards had been given them for taking Aqaba. They were anxious to know how I had learnt of their secret dealings, and how much, more I knew. We were on a slippery ledge.” So was Lawrence, as an individual, although he does not emphasize the point. He played on their fears by carelessly quoting, as if they were his own words, actual phrases from the letters they had exchanged with the Turks. And he told them, incidentally that Feisal’s whole army was coming up, and also of the munitions and money that Allenby was sending. Finally he suggested that Auda might like an advance instalment of Feisal’s bounty.
“Auda saw that the immediate moment would not be unprofitable: that Feisal would be highly profitable: and that the Turks would be always with him if other resources failed. So he agreed, in a very good, temper, to accept my advance; and with it to keep the Howeitat well-fed and cheerful.”
Easier in mind, Lawrence set out back to Aqaba after dark. Riding all night, he had a talk with Nasir on arrival and paddled out in a derelict canoe to the Hardinge just as the dawn was coming. He had been gone only thirty-six hours, and had not been expected back for a week. But while he went below to sleep, the ship made full steam for Suez. Thence he telephoned a reassuring report to Cairo, in which he said that the reports of treachery were unfounded.
“This may hardly have been true: but since Egypt kept us alive by stinting herself, we must reduce impolitic truth to keep her confident and ourselves a legend. The crowd wanted book-heroes, and would not understand how more human old Auda was because, after battle and murder, his heart yearned towards the defeated enemy now subject, at his free choice, to be spared or killed: and therefore never so lovely.”
Lawrence here, in half-humorous fancy, throws a veil of romance over Auda which enhances his picturesqueness by unjustly obscuring his business capacity. The Arabs had undoubtedly come to look upon the British treasury as an inexhaustible gold-shower worked by a hand-pressure tap—the more they pressed the more constant the flow. From the highest to the lowest this belief pervaded them, so that they not only expected presents of money but did not even expect to pay for the goods that money could buy. They were continually asking the British officers for presents, and had no false dignity over their scale. One day, for example, hearing that one of the senior officers of the mission was going to Egypt, Nasir asked him to bring back a pair of boots and made it clear that he expected them without payment. The officer, rather astonished, replied that “it wasn’t done” among “people of our station,” adding that he would certainly procure the boots if Nasir liked to pay for them. But Nasir took no pains to hide his annoyance and sense of grievance, saying bitterly: “Lawrence gets me all I ask for.” It is such experiences as these that have given rise to natural, if unjust reflections on the source of Lawrence’s authority among those who have heard of them at second-hand. Without doubt, Lawrence, who had no care for his own money, was prodigal of public money in his efforts to forward the cause. For the military purpose that prodigality showed a far greater wisdom in adaptation of methods to conditions, than any attempt to adhere to financial regulations or English conventions. And it was worth far more than its weight in gold from the military point of view, now and later.
Lawrence, happily, had never been broken in to the departmental harness that placed so tragic a restraint on the development of our resources, and of munition supply in particular. Instead, he acted in accord with Britain’s historic tradition and, free from blinkers, saw that it was a choice between money and men’s lives. Nevertheless, he personally laid out less than half a million pounds up to the end of the war, and the whole of the British payments to support the Arab Revolt amounted only to four million pounds in gold, of which about half came back in purchases of food and clothing.
The tactful tip of a mere thousand pounds to Auda helped to secure the outer defences of Aqaba against a Turkish advance during the critical weeks, while Feisal’s forces were being conveyed to Aqaba. On August 7th Joyce embarked at Wejh with four hundred Arab regulars and a French machine-gun section. Another thousand under Ja‘far followed ten days later, and finally on the 23rd Feisal himself arrived with another four hundred and the Egyptian detachment. Armoured cars were also sent, but the aircraft were not available lor the moment as they had to be taken back to Egypt because of the strain of the summer heat on men and machines alike. While these forces were arriving, Wemyss’ flagship, the Euryalus, had kept a godfatherly watch over Aqaba—the moral effect of her four funnels carried much farther inland than her guns could hope to reach. Her crew, moreover, had built a pier which soon proved of invaluable service when a supply officer arrived in the person of Goslett, who had brought business system into the chaos of Wejh.
These measures of security were a race with time, for the Turks for once had acted with unwonted promptness. By the beginning of September they had concentrated 6,000 men at Ma‘an, with sixteen guns—all from the north. And later in the month they were reinforced by a cavalry regiment taken away from the Palestine front—leaving only two there. A detachment of two thousand men had been pushed out to Abu el Lissal (55 miles N. E. of Aqaba), which it had fortified.
“Little enough could have been done to stop the enemy had he come forward with determination, but so harassed was he that he never could muster nerve for the attempt.” This is the verdict of the British official history of the Palestine Campaign. In this paralysis by pricking, Lawrence’s tactical theory had a new fulfilment. Three means were utilized—distraction from a flank, disturbance from the air, and demolitions of the railway.
As the Turks were, obviously, intending a direct advance on Aqaba, Lawrence concerted an indirect threat against their western lank, with the idea of drawing off their attention, and provoking them into an attack up the Wadi Musa (60 miles N. of Aqaba), “where the natural obstacles were so tremendous that the human defending factor might behave as badly as it liked, and yet hold the place against attack,” This is a noteworthy contribution to defensive doctrine. He had Wellington’s use of the Lines of Torres Vedras in his mind, while intending a characteristic adaptation and development.
“To bait the hook,” the Arabs at Delagha began to worry the Turks and soon drew them into a counterstroke from which they recoiled and left booty in the Arabs’ hands. Lawrence did not fail to impress the financial lesson on the peasants of the Wadi Musa, And, to give them moral support, Maulud went up with his mule-cavalry and posted himself among the ruins of Petra. This encouraged the local tribesmen to give free play to their animal and rifle-stealing proclivities, to the Turks’ increasing irritation.
The a
ir co-operation was arranged with Major-General Geoffrey Salmond, commanding the British Air Forces in the Middle East, and was carried out by a fight from El Arish under Captain Stent. An advanced landing-ground was reconnoitred at Quntilla, in Eastern Sinai, forty miles north-west of Aqaba—Lawrence spent two days’ hard work in choosing and marking this landing-ground, and taking up stores for the flight. On August 28th it arrived over Ma‘an, flying low, and dropped thirty-two bombs. Eight direct hits were scored on the engine-shed, with serious damage, and two on the barracks caused nearly a hundred casualties. The flight spent the afternoon in patching the machines, which had been caught by several shrapnel bursts. Early next morning three of them took off and headed for Abu el Lissal, where they bombed the camp, scattering both the Turks and their horses. They flew so low that they suffered many punctures, but none of the machines were brought down. As a farewell before returning to El Arish, Stent and his pilots went out again during the midday heat, when the Turks were somnolent, and bombed the battery that had annoyed them.
Lawrence then himself took charge of the railway operations. To increase their effect he had decided to experiment with the direct firing of a charge by electricity at the moment the locomotive of a train passed over the chosen spot. He intended also to capture the train thus stopped. For this purpose, in addition to the Howeitat, he obtained two Sergeant-Instructors from the Army school at Zeitun, one of whom, an Englishman, trained a squad of Arabs to handle Stokes mortars, while the other, an Australian, trained a squad of Lewis-gunners. They became known as “Stokes” and “Lewis” after their beloved tools. Although it was not their duty, and neither could speak Arabic, they volunteered to accompany the raiders. Lawrence was delighted to have this help, and his sense of humour was titillated by their reactions to the strange conditions, “Stokes” becoming more English and punctiliously correct, while “Lewis,” treating the Arabs with a free-going familiarity, became rather annoyed when they returned it.
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