His thoughts had turned to Damascus when the thoughts of others were still fixed on Mecca and Medina. His sense of realism had long since rejected the notion that the Hejaz, barren and isolated, could rule or even share the future of the fertile and populous lands in the north. The Hejaz revolt had served its purpose as a lever by which to raise an Arab Revolt. And now “by a momentary miracle we had truced all the feuds for this month, so that from Akaba up to Damascus all was clear going.” He had removed the obstructions and paved the way. The rest would depend on his success in exploiting the opportunity. Already there was enough of reality, of individual accomplishment, to warrant a mood of exultation.
* * *
1 Lawrence has given me a significant sidelight on the methods of communication that were used:
“Allenby every morning for breakfast had a log of Turkish signals over the preceding 24 hours: we read their every message—and I presumed they read all ours. To keep our moves secret we used air-mail or word of mouth. To keep the Turks’ public, one of my cares was to distribute wire-cutters over their rear, and cut their telegraph at least daily.”
1 Malory’s Morte d’Arthur with two other books—the comedies of Aristophanes and the Oxford Book of English Verse—made up Lawrence’s campaigning library. During earlier months he had carried-none, but when he set out on his Yarmuk Valley raid (in October, 1917) with the idea of wintering at Airak, he chose these three for companionship.
1 Lawrence’s explanation of this episode sheds light on his care for information as a basis of calculation;
“Before making my Deraa scheme I had taken the trouble to look at the country—and before settling to go there in August and September, I had studied the pasture and water. So (pace Young) I knew:
Where the pasture was rich enough for 2,000 camels, and therefore the routes we would have to take to.
Where the flood-pools lay (there is no natural water between Azrak and Mezerib—only rain-pools). These pools are filled by floods down whichever valley runs in the Spring—and they entirely conditioned our halting-places. Had Umtaiye not filled we should not have gone that way—of course.
As for retreat—had we met disaster there was all Wadi Sirhan open to us, and Aqaba afterwards, at our leisure. Sirhan was (in Sept.) full of sheep and dates and flour. Also we had 2,000 camels, each affording a meat meal for 200 men.
I knew my Arab soldiery, in and out, and they were much more self-sufficing and easier to feed than Englishmen. Young was treating them like an army: I wanted to treat them like the uniformed peasantry they were.”
1 Buxton’s force rejoined the British at Beersheba on September 6th, having covered over 900 miles in 44 days, of which 6 had been rest days and the equivalent of 14 had been spent in watering. The difficulty of the conditions increases the significance of this feat of mobility and endurance.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE FINAL STROKE—EXECUTION
September, 1918
Allenby’s plan is enlarged—Lawrence’s plan of distraction in aid of Allenby—The Arab move begins—By successive strokes the Turkish communications are cut around Deraa—The Turks’ attention being drawn to Trans-Jordan, Allenby’s attack up the coast is launched—Two Turkish armies are destroyed, but the Fourth Army remains—Its Arab foes are interrupted by a menace from the air
THE great British offensive was to be launched on September 19th. Lawrence had promised Allenby that the Arab force would envelop Deraa on the 16th and cut the railway on which the Turkish armies depended. Since the promise was given, Allenby had enlarged his plan and so reduced the risk of hitches. It was still, by force of circumstances, rigid in initial aim, but elastic in potential development. Lawrence’s had more initial variability but was more rigid in ultimate aim.
Returning from a ride one day in mid-August, Allenby sprang upon his staff the announcement, more dramatic because of its crisp directness, of his decision that the cavalry should sweep straight up the coastal plain, cross the Carmel Range near Megiddo, descend into the Plain of Esdraelon and seize the road and rail centres of El Afule and Beisan. Thus they would be astride the lines of retreat of the Turkish Seventh and Eighth Armies, and so far to their rear that there would be little chance of their escape. The only outlet would be the extremely difficult one across the Jordan eastward, into a desolate region where the Arabs would be buzzing like wasps and now armed with a sting.
Deraa was an even more vital point, for there centred the rail communications of all three Turkish armies, and the line of retreat of the Fourth. But it was beyond the range of any cavalry bound, even as now extended. Only the Arabs could reach it. Upon them much depended if the Turkish dispositions were to be paralysed before Allenby’s stroke descended, and while it developed.
Lawrence’s plans were “a feint against Amman and a real cutting of the Deraa railways; further than this we hardly went, for it was ever my habit, while studying alternatives, to keep the stages in solution.” Lawrence had studied to his profit the teaching of Bourcet who, from the practical experience of twenty campaigns, had taught Napoleon so well that this pupil’s first campaign had been his best.
Lawrence shrewdly calculated that by the mere fact of establishing the Arab force at Azrak, dead opposite Amman, “the first part of our plan, the feint, was accomplished.” “We had sent our “horsemen of St. George,’ gold sovereigns, by the thousand to the Beni Sakhr, purchasing all the barley in their threshing floors, begging them not to mention it, but we would require it for our animals and for our British allies, in a fortnight. Dhiab of Tafileh . . . gossiped the news instantly through to Kerak.”
This brief account does not unfold the full subtlety of Lawrence’s measures to persuade the Turks, for Allenby’s benefit, that Amman was the target of the coming offensive. He had sent several buyers to the threshing floors, and had bought for hard cash all the piles of feed-barley for horses that the Beni Sakhr could spare. The terms were that they should hold it for Lawrence until warned at what camp, within a day’s march, it was to be delivered. Also he had had a census taken of all available sheep and, through four local agents, made provisional contracts for the sheep, “delivered to camp.” On these he paid commission but bought none outright.
Furthermore, he himself visited the Madeba area shortly before the offensive, and there marked two large landing-grounds for aircraft, hired Arabs to camp by them on watch, and left smoke signals and landing signs, with instructions for use. “Of course I chose people sitting carefully on the fence for my confidence.” He also took advantage of being in touch with Arab staff officers of the 4th Army. “I warned these of a thunderbolt shortly to fall on them at Amman, from east and west, and conjured them to so dispose their troops as to be ineffective on the day, both ways.”
The same deep note of double-bluff had inspired him in composing a project of attack on Madeba by Hornby with the Zebn tribesmen. “I had put all my influence behind Hornby’s push, personally attaching to him all the Beni Sakhr sheikhs, and telling them that he would roll up Moab from the south while I cut it off from the north and east. I had also given him Dhiab of Tafileh, an old wind-bag, and two of the Majalli sheikhs of Kerak, who notably had a foot in each camp.” But while thus ensuring that its purpose as a distraction should be fulfilled, Lawrence took care that it had the power of conversion into a reality, by endowing it with guns, money, troops, explosives, part of his own bodyguard—even Sherif Zeid.
For, underlying the distraction, lay the idea of variability. A feint in the event of Lawrence’s success at Deraa, in the case of failure it could be converted into “the old second string to our bow,” through the Deraa force moving south to reinforce it. The fact that the Turks had now forestalled this move by their new move against Tafila not only showed that they had swallowed the bait, but was an indirect testimony to the value of having alternatives. Moreover, the alternative could be revived, for as soon as the Deraa force struck, the Turkish Tafila force was likely to be withdrawn hurriedly northward.
Lawrence’s attack on the Hauran would then be Hornby’s opportunity. A plan so beautifully fitted and yet so flexible must wring an ecstatic sigh from the most jaded connoisseur of military art.
The Deraa plan also comprised an hots d’œuvre and three alternative courses.
“As preliminary we determined to cut the line near Amman, thus preventing Amman’s reinforcement of Deraa, and maintaining its conviction that our feint against it was real. It seemed to me that (with Egyptians to do the actual destruction) this preliminary could be undertaken as a night operation by the Gurkhas, whose detachment would not distract our main body from the main purpose.”
“This main purpose was to cut the railways in the Hauran and keep them cut for at least, a week; and there seemed to be three ways of doing it. The first was to march north of Deraa to the Damascus railway, as on my ride with Tallal in the winter, and cut it; and then cross to the Yarmuk railway. The second was to march south of Deraa to the Yarmuk, as with Ali ibn el Hussein in November, 1917. The third was to rush straight at Deraa town.”
“The third scheme could be undertaken only if the Air Force would promise so heavy a daylight bombing of Deraa station that the effect would be tantamount to an artillery bombardment, enabling us to risk an assault against it with our few men. Salmond hoped to do this; but it depended on how many heavy machines he received or assembled in time. Dawnay would fly over to us here [at Azrak] with his last word on September the eleventh. Till then we should hold the schemes equal in our judgment.”
It would be difficult to find a more masterly plan, or one as well expressed, in the records of war. Quality of art does not depend on size of canvas. One may also find finer picture-battles reflected in history’s mirror, where flaws of execution are not easily visible. But as a conception adjusted by consummate calculation to the uncertainties of foreseen reality, this plan is a masterpiece, and none the less for being a miniature.
The expected aeroplane from Palestine duly landed at Azrak on the 11th. But instead of Dawnay, who was sick, it brought another staff-officer whose air-sickness seems to have affected a memory that can hardly have been good at the outset. For having left behind the notes he had been given to bring, he now forgot to mention the important change in Allenby’s plan—the extension of his encircling move to El Afule and Beisan.
Perhaps his confusion may have been aggravated by the shock he suffered when he inquired, in a highly professional tone, about the defence scheme for their “advanced base.” With the irritatingly casual air that covered an impish depth Lawrence replied: “We haven’t any; you see, the Turks will never come and look for us here.” The Staff Officer did not linger. Winterton remarks that “he retired gracefully on his ’plane, escorted by another ’plane, fully convinced, I feel sure, that the ‘whole outfit,’ as Australians say, would inevitably end in prison at Constantinople.”
From the pilot, however, Lawrence and Joyce discovered obliquely that Salmond’s resources in bombing-machines would be inadequate to cover an assault on Deraa. Hence this alternative was dropped. They decided to adopt the northern move, above Deraa, to make sure of cutting the “trunk” line to Damascus.
Next day Peake was dispatched with his Egyptian detachment and the handful of Gurkhas to make the preliminary break near Amman.
At dawn on the 14th the main body, about twelve hundred strong, marched forth from Azrak, heading for Umtaiye, a great pit of rain water fifteen miles below Deraa and five miles east of the railway to Amman. Round the Regular core was now woven a gathering force of picked Bedouin, Auda with some of his Abu Tayi, and the sheikhs of the Zebn and Serahin. Nuri Shalaan, cutting his ties with the Turks, had brought 300 Ruwalla horsemen; he had also offered the services of two thousand camelry, but had been asked to hold them in reserve in the Sirhan, lest they scare the villagers of the Hauran before the supreme moment, for the Arabs, had come.
Lawrence had stayed behind in Azrak, settling affairs with Nuri and Feisal, but next morning he came racing after them in a Rolls-Royce most appropriately named the “Blue Mist,” which was henceforth his super-mobile headquarters. Bad news, as usual, formed his greeting. Peake had returned with his mission unfulfilled. His party had run into a large encampment of local Bedouin who were being paid by the Turks to protect the railway. As he had neither Lawrence’s persuasive tongue nor gold-bags to induce them to transfer their allegiance he had been forced to turn back.
Lawrence was bitterly annoyed at the news. If Deraa was to be cut off from the north and west as arranged, it must, for the security of the operation, be previously cut off from the south. Also, he wanted Amman to be “the nervous place” for the next two days. But it was too late to send another detachment from the slow-moving Regular force, which had no time to spare if it was to reach its objective in time. Quickly he summed up the points of the problem—and decided to execute the task himself, with motor mobility.
He had pushed on to Umtaiye ahead of the force and had made a preliminary reconnaissance of the railway on camelback before dark, discovering not only a good motor-route but a suitable bridge for demolition. After his return to camp he told the others of his plan, and suggested that this solo effort would be rather amusing. As Young remarks—“To one at least of his hearers it did not sound at all amusing, it sounded quite mad. But this was again the Lawrence whose madness had taken Akaba, and his madness on this occasion cut the Deraa-Amman railway.”
Next day, the 16th, while the main body continued its march toward Tell Arar, north of Deraa, Lawrence ran down westward to the railway near Jabir in a tender “crammed to the gunwale with gun-cotton and detonators.” Joyce and Winterton accompanied him with a second tender, and an escort of two armoured cars. On reaching the cover of the last ridge before the railway, Lawrence transferred himself and 150 lbs. of guncotton to an armoured car. In this he drove down to the bridge, while the other car moved to engage the defending redoubt. The Turks surrendered after a brief resistance and Lawrence set to work while Joyce hurried down in a tender with more guncotton.
That particular demolition gave Lawrence great joy of craftsmanship—“In the drainage-holes of the spandrils six small charges were inserted zigzag, and with their explosion all the arches were scientifically shattered; the demolition being a fine example of that finest sort which left the skeleton of its bridge intact indeed, but tottering, so that the repairing enemy had a first labour to destroy the wreck, before they could attempt to rebuild.”
As they finished, enemy patrols were approaching. The demolition party drove away hurriedly and then, to their horror, Lawrence’s tender broke a spring at a bad bump when they had only gone a few hundred yards. It was peculiarly bitter that their first structural accident in eighteen months of desert travel should have occurred at this moment. “A Rolls in the desert was above rubies,” yet there seemed no choice between losing one and losing all. The driver’s ingenuity, however, proved equal to the emergency, and by a high-speed improvisation with wedges of wood, lashed together, they got out of range and then made a more secure repair.
Next morning, the 17th, they caught up the main body just as it was launching its attack on the redoubt that guarded the bridge at Tell Arar. The Ruwalla raced for the line but neglected the redoubt, and then stood in the middle of the permanent way in the attitude of conquering heroes, until bullets suddenly began to spurt about them. Then, however, one of Pisani’s guns was brought up and under cover of its fire the Arab Regulars quickly stormed the redoubt. “So,” as Lawrence wrote, “the southern ten miles of the Damascus line was freely ours . . . It was the only railway to Palatine and Hejaz and I could hardly realise our fortune; hardly believe that our word to Allenby was fulfilled so simply and so soon.
“I wanted the whole line destroyed in a moment but things seemed to have stopped . . . I rushed down, to find Peake’s Egyptians making breakfast. It was like Drake’s game of bowls and I fell dumb with admiration.” However, with some energetic encouragement, the process of demolition got under
way, only to be threatened with interruption by the appearance of eight Turkish aeroplanes, hastily sent up from Deraa. Although untrained in air precautions the Arabs’ instinct taught them the right action, and they scattered so effectively that after an hour’s rain of bombs and bullets there were only two casualties. Then, providentially, the Arab Army’s one surviving aeroplane, an obsolete B.E.12 piloted by Junor appeared on the scene and drew off the attention of the Turkish machines, although at the sacrifice of itself. The pilot had a lucky escape and celebrated it by borrowing a Ford to carry out a ground-raid on his own against the railway.
Advantage had already been taken of the air diversion. Collecting 350 of the Arab Regulars. Nuri had started them on the way to Muzeirib station on the Palestine branch, some five miles west of Deraa. The peasantry trickled after them.
Lawrence now set off with his bodyguard to follow, while Joyce stood on guard at Tell Arar and covered the Egyptian demolition party with the remainder of the force. On the way Lawrence was hit in the arm by a splinter from an air bomb, but happily the wound was slight. As he drew near Muzeirib it looked as if the whole countryside was running to join in the attack, and when the station garrison surrendered, after a few point-blank shells from Pisani’s guns, the Haurani peasants had their fill of loot. There was a light interlude when Nuri saved a case of bottled asparagus from their clutches by crying out “pig’s bones” in affected horror. Meantime Lawrence and Young had cut the telegraph, thus severing the main communication between the Turkish armies and their home-base, before proceeding to dynamite the rails and points and wreck the station and its rolling stock.
The question now arose whether they should prolong their westward move and attempt to blow up the bridge at Tell el Shehab in the Yarmuk gorge, the target of Lawrence’s long desire. While they were discussing the problem, the young sheikh of the neighbouring village arrived and told them that the Armenian officer commanding the bridge guard was willing to betray his charge, and his loyal subordinates. The officer himself arrived about an hour later and confirmed the offer. He proposed that a few strong men should hide in his house and that he would then summon his subordinates one by one, to be knocked unsuspectingly on the head. To Lawrence “this sounded in the proper descent from books of adventure,” and he agreed with a delighted chuckle. Young’s reaction was different—“it shocked me to have melodrama brought in to reinforce military operations.” However, he was asleep when the plan was adopted, and so could only fall in with the decision.
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