The shock of this disappointment, coming after a long period of strain, seems to have given Lawrence a desire to be quit of the whole business. And he felt that he had now an excuse. The frustration of his military plans was a reflection on his power over the Arabs, on his judgment of men, and it nullified the very purpose for which Allenby was employing him. With the thought of offering his resignation, he set out westward to see Allenby.
After a ride of nearly eighty miles he reached Beersheba, where he was greeted with the news that Jericho had been captured. Then he went on to Allenby’s headquarters and luckily met Hogarth on the station platform. Here was a man to whom he could relieve himself. He blamed himself for Zeid’s moral failure. He declared that he was sick of responsibility. He complained of the free hand he had been given—and taken. By offering him a choice, instead of giving him an order, his chiefs in Cairo had put on him the moral responsibility for buoying up the Arabs with promises that might never be fulfilled, and that if fulfilled militarily might be hollow politically. Worse still, small as was his faith in British promises, he had lost his faith, through experience, in the Arabs’ power to consolidate in peace the goal to which he had led them in war. Thus, for his own part, he wanted to go back and become a cog in the military machine, with things comfortably arranged for him. The harness of obedience was better than the self-applied spur of command.
THE “BLUE MIST” IN WADI ITHM
“TULIPS” EXPLODING ON THE RAILWAY NEAR DERAA
LAWRENCE’S “GHAZALA,” AND FOAL
JA‘FAR PASHA AND SHERIF NASIR AT SHOBEK
The state of his body partly explained this attitude of mind—“I was a very sick man: almost at breaking point.” But there was more behind it. Undoubtedly the few days he had spent with the armoured cars, in ordinary British soldier company, had shown him the attractions of this carefree, subordinate existence. Even its comforts made appeal to his racked body—cars were better vehicles than camels for the fighting spirit to preserve its energy. The impression of those days, reinforced by later experience, was to affect his postwar choice of occupation.
Hogarth did not attempt to argue with Lawrence, but took him to breakfast. Over breakfast Clayton made a new call on his services, sweeping aside his protests on the score of necessity. General Headquarters had been trying for days before his unwarned arrival to get in touch with him, and aeroplanes had been sent to fetch him.
This call for Lawrence was the sequel to a fresh call on Allenby from the West. And by a paradox Lawrence’s double shame at Tafila had done far more towards answering it than he realized, now or later.
CHAPTER XVI
MORE AND MORE REGULAR
March–July, 1918
The next stage beyond Jerusalem—Lloyd George’s vision of Aleppo—Allenby’s shorter-range aim is upset by the British disasters in France, which drain his strength—The Turks’ weakness
A call to Lawrence—The Arabs are to follow up a British move into Trans-Jordan—The British failure reacts on the Arab cause—The Arab Regulars, in Lawrence’s absence, suffer a check at Ma‘an, but the effect is redeemed by Dawnay’s stroke below it which permanently severs the rail connection with Medina—The British, in Lawrence’s absence, go into Trans-Jordan again: to chase a shadow
This fresh failure paralyses them for the time and exposes the Arabs at Ma‘an to danger—The Arabs avert the danger by breaching the railway above Ma‘an—Allenby’s gift of 2,000 camels inspires Lawrence to his boldest design—The need for it is forestalled by the rapid recovery of Allenby’s offensive power
IMMEDIATELY after the capture of Jerusalem, Allenby, in practical reward, received the promise of a further reinforcement. He was asked in return to outline his further plans. His reply emphasized the handicap of the wet season, but intimated that during it he would operate against the Hejaz railway to isolate the 20,000 Turks south of Amman. Later, after pushing forward his left gradually, he would prepare another large-scale offensive with naval co-operation.
These designs seemed far too narrow to Lloyd George, when he saw them. His desire was to see Turkey knocked out of the war. To this end he would like to see Aleppo gained, cutting off the Turkish forces in Mesopotamia, or at the least Palestine fully occupied. Allenby was asked what extra force he would need for the alternative goals.
Allenby replied that he hoped to achieve the lesser task by midsummer with his present force, but for the larger he would require at least sixteen infantry divisions—more than double his present force. And, even if he had them, he doubted whether he could supply them. He made it clear to the Government that he preferred to continue the steady step by step advance previously outlined than to follow Lloyd George in airy flights of imagination. And his reply makes it clear to the historian that his horizon was still bounded by siege-war views of mobility, strategic and tactical. He was justified in so far as mobility is dependent on its instrument.
MAP 9
Robertson was, naturally, strong among the spokesmen of “impossibility.” But his influence was waning, his supersession coming, and on January 21st die Military Representatives on the new Supreme War Council of the Allies took the decision, under Lloyd George’s pressure, to stand on the defensive in France, Italy and the Balkans, and to “undertake a decisive offensive against Turkey with a view to the annihilation of Turkish armies and the collapse of Turkish resistance.”
To arrange it, the British Government sent out General Smuts, an old exponent of mobility at Britain’s expense, on a mission to examine the position of the Palestine and Mesopotamia forces. In the consultations that followed Smuts found that he had to adapt Lloyd George’s desires to realities: of which perhaps the grimmest were not concrete obstacles—Turkish or geographical—but ideas. He had to descend from Boer to British conceptions of mobility.
The final scheme was that Allenby should be reinforced with one British and one Indian infantry division from Mesopotamia, and an Indian cavalry division from France. Thus he would have ten infantry and four mounted divisions. With this Allenby promised to make an offensive as vigorous as the progress of his railway would permit. His plan was to begin with the steps he had already suggested, and then extend them northward, up the coast, keeping step with the advance of the railway. A smaller column would try to advance inland on Damascus and occupy the Hauran with the aid of the Arabs and Druses.
Only the first part of the plan was ever put into operation, because of the break in the Western Front that followed the German offensive of March 21st. The crisis in France led not only to a cancellation of Allenby’s instructions but to the draining of his force. Two complete divisions were taken away, while nine yeomanry regiments and twenty-three infantry battalions were also drawn out of the remaining divisions. Their places were filled by Indian troops, who were fitted into the original framework as far as possible, and despite the difficulties the result reflected great credit on those responsible for the organization and training. The reconstituted force had seven infantry divisions, as in the original, and four mounted divisions instead of three. Ultimately, these disturbing reductions proved the proverbial blessing in disguise, for they compelled the British command to develop both its means and ideas of mobility, while freeing them of the threatened incubus of numbers too large for supply while in movement. And in September that force achieved a rapid and sweeping triumph that the double-sized force proposed in January would never have attempted.
To quote the verdict of the Official History, Allenby’s spring plan was “sound, but stiff and mechanical, and it made transport master instead of servant. By reflection during the summer Sir Edmund Allenby so transformed it that it achieved in less than a fortnight what its original would have taken many months to perform.” An unofficial historian might dispute the plan’s claims to the qualification “sound.” For history has many lessons to tell us that a plan which seeks security at the expense of surprise and mobility is the depth of unsoundness.
In view of the reasonable excu
se that the conditions, of enemy resistance especially, had changed vastly by September, it is interesting to have a look on “the other side of the hill.” Liman von Sanders, the successful defender of Gallipoli, who took over the supreme command of the Turks in Palestine in February, was informed on arrival by von Falkenhausen that “the British were so superior along the entire front, that they could pierce the front at any time and place they might select.” Liman von Sanders agreed after inspecting the front.
Falkenhausen was chief of staff of the so-called Seventh “Army” in the inland sector facing Jerusalem—according to Liman von Sanders it had only 3,900 rifles available for the defence of a sixteen-mile front. The Eighth “Army” held the coastal sector. The Fourth “Army” east of the Jordan comprised all the troops guarding the Hejaz railway down to Ma‘an. The ten divisions of the two armies facing the British between the Jordan and the sea were reduced to an average strength of about 1,300 rifles. Ration strength was about three times as large. But in the fighting strength should be included the machine-gunners, who averaged about 800 a division. The Turks, indeed, had a higher number of machine-guns than the British—60 to a division—and here lay their real defensive strength. Mobility was the means to overcome it. And here the British had long handicapped themselves.
Another significant point is that the Turkish strength was actually weaker in the spring, when Allenby was to have attacked, than in the autumn when he wrought their collapse. In September eight fresh Turkish battalions had arrived as well as ten thousand men as drafts to fill the gaps caused by casualities. In addition three picked German battalions were added to the three already there. But these as well as four of the Turkish battalions were sent to the Fourth Army, the Arab zone. Indeed, when Allenby’s blow fell in September there were almost as many Turks pinned down inactive east of the Jordan as faced the British west of the Jordan.
The visit from Smuts was the cause of the call to Lawrence in February. Allenby wanted to know what aid the Arabs could give in the large offensive plan which he had now been encouraged to undertake. If he was to push northward he needed the Arabs to cover his eastern flank by drawing off the attention of the Turkish Fourth Army. This meant that instead of the creeping paralysis over the widest possible area of Lawrence’s strategic theory, Feisal’s army would have to concentrate on producing a more sudden local paralysis in the Amman area, in order to fit in with Allenby’s plan. To do this it would itself have to be relatively concentrated—another violation of irregular principles.
Thus out of loyalty to Allenby, Lawrence was now drawn to propose what he had hitherto opposed—the capture of Ma‘an: “We should have to take it before we could afford a second sphere.” With more transport—he asked for seven hundred baggage camels—as well as more firepower, they “could take a position some miles north of Ma‘an and cut the railway permanently, so forcing the Ma‘an garrison to come out and fight them; and in the field the Arabs would easily defeat the Turks.” it was a highly regular conception—of the highest quality.
To attempt it the Arab army would need assurance against the Turks coming down the railway from Amman, and catching them between pincers. Allenby replied that this would be fulfilled by his own coming preparatory move against Amman, during which he intended to put a garrison in Es Salt. He also sent to Aqaba two camel transport units which enabled the Arab Regular Army to maintain itself eighty miles from its base.
At a conference on February 28th it was settled that the Arab army should move at once to the Ma‘an plateau, to take Ma‘an and that the British should move across the Jordan, occupy Es Salt, and destroy the railway south of Amman. Allenby’s Chief of Staff, Bols, wanted the Arabs in the north to help in the British advance, but Lawrence did not regard such close co-operation as practical—It was too much “like mixing oil and water.” He argued that it would be better to wait until the raid on Amman was over and Es Salt permanently occupied, as the deliberate retirement from the railway might easily be misinterpreted as an enforced retreat, and so cause a reaction among the Arabs.
“Chetwode, who was to direct the advance, asked how his men were to distinguish friendly from hostile Arabs, since their tendency was a prejudice against all wearing skirts. I was sitting skirted in their midst and replied, naturally, that skirt-wearers disliked men in uniform. The laugh clinched the question, and it was agreed that we support the British retention of Salt only after they came to rest there.”
It was also decided that when Ma‘an was captured, the Arab Regulars would be moved up and based on Jericho. Thence they would act on Allenby’s flank in the intended drive to the north.
But all these plans were doomed to go awry, although the path to success had been cleared by Lawrence’s self-despised success at Tafila. By it he had achieved a strategic effect that he seems neither to have calculated nor subsequently appreciated at its due value.
For the Turks, who could understand a smack in the face better than a creeping paralysis, were stirred by their defeat at Tafila to avenge It. For this purpose they dispatched the bulk of the garrison at Amman on an expedition to regain Tafila—just as the British were preparing to advance on Amman! From that moment everything turned on time.
The expedition was dispatched by the Hejaz railway. One column detrained at Qatrani, thirty-five miles to the north-east of Tafila, and another at Jurf ed Derawish, seventeen miles to the south-east. Both converged on Tafila, and although Zeid seems to have put up a stout fight against heavy odds he was forced to evacuate the town on March 6th. The Turks followed him up and drove him back again next day towards Shobek, but he avoided the loss of any guns or material. After this empty parade, the expedition set off on its return journey a fortnight later, and the Arabs promptly reoccupied Tafila.
But before the bulk of the expeditionary force was back the British had begun to cross the Jordan, on the night of March 21st, for the raid on Amman. The Turks had barely a thousand rifles to oppose the British 60th Division, Anzac Mounted Division and Imperial Camel Brigade.
Unfortunately heavy rains confronted the British with Jeremiah’s question—“How wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan?” And the answer was not a happy one. First, the British postponed the attempt for two days, until the 21st, hoping for an improvement. Then a check at one of the crossings caused a long delay while arrangements were made to clear it by a flank attack from the other, so that the passage was not completed until the morning of the 24th. Further time was lost in the advance across the great plateau, owing less to the enemy’s resistance than to the badness of the routes—and to a failure to obtain previous information about them. Es Salt was not occupied until the evening of the 25th, and Amman, about 25 miles from the Jordan, was not reached until the morning of the 27th.
The delays had allowed time for a German battalion and a mule-mounted Turkish battalion to arrive back from the Tafila expedition, and also for Liman von Sanders to hurry down larger reinforcements by rail from Damascus. For the next four days vain attacks were hurled against the Amman defences. Eventually by a finely executed night approach the New Zealanders captured Hill 3039, a dominating height south of the town, early on the 30th, thus gaining what according to the textbooks was obviously the “key of the position.” But the Turks, sadly ill-educated, refused to recognize the fact, and so the key was not turned in the lock. Reluctantly, and perhaps rather late, recognizing the force of impregnable facts, the British began their retirement during the night. And they had done little damage to the railway during the four days it had lain in their hands. Lawrence called it “unpardonable carelessness.” “They went to Amman, not to take the beastly village, but to smash the railway. Miles of the line, from Amman, southward, was in their hands—and they hardly broke a rail.”
The retreat across the muddy plateau, amid crowds of wailing refugees, was as depressing as it was exhausting. And under these conditions the original intention of holding Es Salt permanently was apparently forgotten, the garrison joining in the general reflu
x—on April 1st.
Economically, the “raid” had not been too unprofitable, the capture of nearly a thousand prisoners nearly balancing the British casualties. Morally, the effect was as damaging to the British as it was enheartening to the Turks. The British had not only forfeited the opportunity created by a handful of Arabs at Tafila, but had exposed their numerous Arab supporters around Amman to the Turks’ vengeance.
Lawrence had ridden north ready to take advantage of Allenby’s occupation of Es Salt. He left Abu el Lissal on April 3rd with a convoy of two thousand baggage camels, carrying ammunition and food. The scale of the convoy shows the scale on which he had prepared to act in the Madeba area—“it was equipment for 10,000 irregulars for a month.”
In the passage across the railway he had an amusing little adventure, for as he climbed the embankment a sleepy Turkish soldier suddenly stumbled out of a culvert, saw Lawrence, pistol in hand, found that he was separated from his own rifle, and resigned himself to his fate. He seemed hardly to believe his luck when he heard Lawrence’s cryptic words of reprieve:—”God is merciful.” But his reaction was like that of a London gutter-snipe after a narrow escape from being run over, for Lawrence, glancing back, saw him cocking his fingers to his nose.
On April 6th, after four easy stages, the convoy reached the well-watered Atara district south-east of Amman and here found some of their Beni Sakhr allies encamped. The intended plan was that as soon as the British had taken Es Salt the Beni Sakhr would move westwards across the railway to Themed, the main watering place of the tribe, and then, covered by Allenby’s cavalry, establish their headquarters at Madeba. But all these ideas were dispersed by the British failure at Amman.
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