MILITARY OPERATIONS EGYPT PALESTINE 1917-18 Arab Revolt

Military Operations

Egypt & Palestine

From June 1917 to the End of the War

Part II

The Arab Campaign

The Last Half of 1917.
 

In the first volume of this history the record of the Arab campaign against the Turks was sketched from the outbreak of revolt at Mecca and Medina in June 1916 to the capture of 'Aqaba on the 6th July 1917. It will be recalled that by the latter date the Turks were confined to the Hejaz Railway itself, which they held by means of a series of blockhouses at the stations, and to its terminus, the town of Medina, where they had a considerable garrison. The capture of 'Aqaba was the first important news which greeted Sir Edmund Allenby on his arrival in Egypt, and he at once realized that it would alter the conditions of the desert war. The Arabs now had a base over two hundred miles north of Wejh, the northernmost Arabian port hitherto in their possession. Their raiding of the railway could therefore be extended, and in the event of a general British offensive it would be possible to enlist the tribes of eastern Syria for operations against the Turkish railway communications with Palestine. They might be able to capture—or at least interrupt traffic at—vital points on the railway such as Der'a, which were beyond the reach of the British. From the time of the capture of 'Aqaba and the almost simultaneous arrival of Sir Edmund Allenby there was at G.H.Q. a greater interest in the Arab operations, which resulted in fuller sympathy and support and in a more lavish provision of munitions and supplies. The assistance given by the Navy was as valuable as ever, Captain W. H. D. Boyle, Senior Officer Red Sea Patrol, being as enthusiastic and resourceful as Admiral Wemyss had been in the first stage of the campaign.

 

Another effect of the possession of the new base was to put the Hejaz, the original scene of the Arab revolt, into the background. In 1916 it had been hoped to capture Medina, but it was becoming less and less likely that the town, defended by a strong and well-armed force under a dour commander, would ever fall to the Arabs, who lacked the training, equipment, and resolution necessary to storm it. The most that could be expected from their pressure or the tightening of their slack blockade was that they would compel the enemy to evacuate it. That would be far from desirable unless they could cut off and capture the garrison, and there was small prospect of their doing so. The Turkish retirement northward might be seriously delayed by raids on the railway; but discipline and determination, backed by superior resources, would assuredly force a way through in the end.

Now the appearance in Palestine of the Medina garrison would have been unwelcome. To anticipate a little, it would have been most damaging in the summer of 1918, when the E.E.F. was in course of reorganization and over half its infantry was unfit to take the field. Even the wholesale capture of the Turkish forces would hardly have been advantageous, since it would have lifted from the enemy's shoulders the weight of the Hejaz. To allow the railway just, but only just, to remain working and never to frighten the enemy so seriously as to induce him to evacuate Medina was for the time being the best policy from the British point of view. That in 1917 they ever consciously acted upon that principle is improbable ; at least it is not put forward in any contemporary appreciation. But the principle was followed none the less, because it represented the measure of their power and resources. In the spring of 1918, when the railway was destroyed near Ma'an so thoroughly that the Turks were unable to withdraw from Medina whether or not they desired to do so, one of the reasons for the attack was the news that Turkish G.H.Q. was seriously considering the evacuation of the Hejaz. At least it was recognized from the moment of Sir Edmund Allenby's arrival that the Hejaz was a secondary theatre of the Arab campaign.

Aqaba was only 130 miles from the British position on the Wadi Ghazze, but it was 700 miles from Mecca ; also it was to be the base for expeditions which would bring Arab forces still more closely in touch with the British and remove them still further from the control of King Hussein. The Hejaz had not only lost its early importance ; its capital and government were as far from the scene of projected operations as London from Petrograd. It was therefore decided that the Emir Feisal should become, in effect, an army commander under Sir Edmund Allenby's orders. All Arab operations north of Ma'an were to be carried out by him under the direction of the British Commander-in-Chief. South of Ma'an the High Commissioner, Sir Reginald Wingate, was still to act as adviser to the Emirs Ali and Abdulla and to be responsible for their supply. In November 1917 the " Hejaz Operations Staff " was formed in Cairo, and through it was exercised the general supervision of operations and administration in both spheres. It must not be supposed, however, that the guerilla warfare on the Hejaz Railway was or could have been controlled from Cairo in the sense that British campaigns were controlled from Whitehall. That was prohibited not only by the slowness of communication, but by the nature of the fighting and of the men who were here Britain's allies. The British officers in Arabia had a general programme before them; if they could not engage the Arabs to carry it out, they endeavoured to accomplish part of it, or take some action as a substitute. Frequently there was no time or opportunity to consult Cairo ; then they were thrown entirely on their own initiative. Their relation to the central authority resembled that of British commanders in " small wars" before the days of the electric telegraph, except that their position was that of advisers rather than of commanders.

The base for what was known as the Northern Army, under the Emir Feisal, was therefore shifted to 'Aqaba. Here Ja'far Pasha 1 took command of a small organized force, consisting of two partially trained infantry battalions with a small number of automatic rifles and mountain guns, and of mobile troops mounted on camels and mules. The men were for the most part either Meccans or Arab prisoners and deserters from the Turkish Army. Some of the officers had actually been captured in Mesopotamia. Similar forces were formed for attachment to the commands of the Emirs Ah and Abdulla ; but, partly owing to the personality and experience of Ja'far, partly, perhaps, because he got the pick of the troops, those in the southern area never equalled his in efficiency.

An important Arab ally of the Turks had now appeared in this quarter of Arabia : Ibn Rashid, the young and hotheaded Emir of Hail. In April 1917, while moving westward with a huge convoy of supplies for the use of the Turks, he had been defeated near Hanakiye, 80 miles northeast of Medina, by the Emir Zeid. The Sherifial forces took 250 prisoners, mostly Turks, four mountain guns, some three thousand camels laden with food and clothing, and three thousand sheep. Merchants from Koweit were with the convoy, which represented a vast sum of money and was a very serious loss to the enemy. Ibn Rashid with about a thousand of his followers then joined the Turks on the railway at Medain Salih, 200 miles north-west of Medina. His assistance, as head of one of the greatest ruling houses of Arabia, had some moral value, but he had lost influence in his own dominions and was from the Turkish point of view a burden rather than a source of supply. He himself became disgusted by his treatment. It is believed that he would gladly have thrown in his hand, returned to Hail, and perhaps changed sides, had not the Turks detained him as a hostage for the good behaviour of his Shammar tribesmen.

While Captain Lawrence was engaged in the capture of 'Aqaba, attacks on the railway by no means ceased. In July Lieut.-Colonel S. F. Newcombe and Major W. A. Davenport raided Cjal'at Zumrud, 140 miles north of Medina, destroying three miles of line by means of explosives. This was one of the most successful raids of the whole campaign, and was carried out by detachments of Egyptians, French Algerians, and Indian cavalrymen. The Arabs cooperated at Zumrud, and also by a very spirited attack upon the station immediately north, which they captured with its garrison. A series of raids a little further south at Toweira under the orders of Major P. C. Joyce, commanding a mixed force of Egyptian troops, French Algerians, and Arabs, resulted in the destruction of 2,000 rails and several large culverts. When Captain Lawrence returned to 'Aqaba after a visit to Egypt, the raiders transferred their attentions further north to the neighbourhood of Ma'an, as the best means of preventing a Turkish counter-offensive from that quarter. By the beginning of September the enemy had a ration strength of 6,000 in Ma'an or west of it, with some sixteen guns, and was joined there by the 7th Cavalry Regiment1 on the 25th. He was well aware of the importance of the threat represented by the establishment of the Arab base at 'Aqaba, and had begun to make preparations to recapture that place by forming a camp at Abu el Lasan, the scene of the Arab victory on the 2nd July. This was on the best route between 'Aqaba and Ma'an, but there was another up the great Wadi el 'Araba, and thence eastward along the Wadi Musa; and this the Arabs employed to harass and threaten the garrison of Ma'an, while part of their trained force moved up to Quweira to oppose the advance of the Turks on 'Aqaba.

Little enough could they have done to stop the enemy had he come forward with determination, but so harried was he that he never could muster nerve for the attempt. The flight of the R.F.C., which had been first at Rabegh, then at Wejh, had been brought back to Egypt, owing to the severe strain imposed on both men and machines by the summer heat of Arabia; but long-distance bombing raids were possible, and a series of attacks was made on the enemy at the end of August. The machines made use of a temporary landing-place at Quntilla, 40 miles N.N.W. of 'Aqaba. Eight direct hits were obtained on the engine sheds at Ma'an on the 28th; on the following day the Turkish camp at Abu el Lasan was effectively bombed. Raids on the railway were continued under the leadership of Major H. Garland and other British officers. On the 17th September Captain Lawrence, who had with him two < British sergeant-instructors from Zeitun, one with a section of Lewis guns, the other with one of Stokes mortars, carried out one of his most notable exploits near Mudauwara Station, 72 miles south-east of Ma'an. A train with two engines was destroyed by a mine, and about seventy Turkish soldiers who were travelling in it were killed. On the 6th October he accounted for another train near Ma'an, capturing 70 tons of food intended for Ibn Rashid at Medain Salih. Meanwhile the Bedouin cut off supply columns from Ma'an, ambushed weak parties of the enemy, and distracted him by all the means in their power.

Now the time drew near for the great British offensive. Captain Lawrence believed that he could raise all the settled Arabs about Der'a, capture the place, and leave the Turkish Armies on the Gaza-Beersheba line entirely without railway communication in face of Sir Edmund Allenby's impending blow. Yet if he did so, unless the British attack resulted in completely destroying the Turkish forces and clearing the whole of Palestine, the peasantry would be abandoned to a fearful vengeance. Even from the most selfish point of view caution was necessary; for the Hauran could be raised once only. Lawrence decided therefore that the best service he could offer at the moment was to blow up one of the bridges in the Yarmuk Valley, the deep gorge through which the railway descended from Der'a to the Ghor at Samakh on the southern shore of the Sea of Galilee. So long were some of the bridges on which the railway crossed and recrossed the river, so difficult of approach, that it was believed the destruction of one would isolate the Turks in Palestine for a fortnight. Sir Edmund Allenby agreed that this should be attempted about the 5th November, five days after the attack on Beersheba.

This extraordinarily difficult venture, beginning with a four-hundred mile camel ride from 'Aqaba, failed by a hair's breadth. The party, with its explosives, was on a hillside above the bridge, when the dropping of a single rifle alarmed a sleepy Turkish sentry, who turned out the guard. The destruction by mining, on the way back, of a train between Der'a and 'Amman was small consolation. But the attempt had at least shown that the section of railway between Der'a and the Jordan Valley was highly vulnerable, and that a more thoroughly organized raid upon it had every hope of success.

Early in October the Arabs occupied Shobek, 21 miles north of Ma'an ; and though they held the place for a few flays only, did valuable work in tearing up rails on a light line from Qal'at 'Aneiza, the second station north of Ma'an, which the Turks used to collect wood fuel for their engines. On the 27st October, three days before Captain Lawrence set out for the Yarmuk, the enemy made his first serious attempt against the regular force of Ja'far Pasha in the Wadi Musa. A detachment of four weak battalions and the 7th Cavalry Regiment, with four guns, advanced from Ma'an against Ja'far's position at Elji, near the ruins of the famous rock city of Petra. The Arab force consisted of two companies of camel corps and two of mule-mounted infantry, with two quick-firing mountain guns and four machine-guns. Its fighting strength was about 350, with less than two hundred Bedouin auxiliaries. The Turks shelled the position for an hour, while an aeroplane dropped bombs upon it; then they advanced and carried the outer defences. Attacked in flank by the Bedouin, they drew off at evening, leaving some prisoners in the hands of the defenders. The ill-trained Arab camel-men behaved badly, but the mounted infantry under Maulud Pasha, a veteran cavalry officer of the Turkish service, was steady enough. Thereafter for some time to come intense cold with heavy falls of snow in the highlands checked the activities of both sides.

The capture of Jerusalem by the E.E.F. in early December gave prospect of closer co-operation between British and Arabs. Sir Edmund Allenby had determined to capture Jericho and drive the enemy across the Jordan; he desired that the Emir Feisal's forces should advance east of the Dead Sea until they gained touch with him in the Jordan Valley. They would occupy in the course of their movement northward between the railway and the Dead Sea country largely sown, with considerable villages or small towns such as Shobek, Tafila, Kerak, and Madeba, and of great value to the Turks as a source of supply. The task allotted to the Arabs was never completely carried out, partly because they were unable to capture Ma'an, which remained a constant threat to their communications with 'Aqaba; partly because the British did not succeed in establishing themselves permanently at Es Salt. Nevertheless, the Arab campaign of the spring of 1918 was a source of irritation to the enemy, and succeeded in completely cutting off the Hejaz Expeditionary Force at Medina from the Armies of Palestine and Trans-Jordan.

 

The First Eight Months of 1918.

 

Late in December 1917 Sherif Nasir with a body of Beni Sakr tribesmen and one mountain gun crossed the railway and camped in the plain of Jafr, east of Ma'an. Thence he surprised Jurf ed Derawish Station, 30 miles N.N.E. of Ma'an, capturing over 200 men and damaging two trains. Cold and lack of supplies forced him to abandon the station after three days, but he made a swift march through the snow and took Tafila, with the whole of its small garrison. He was joined here a few days later by King Hussein's youngest son, the Emir Zeid, but owing to the state of the roads the latter brought with him only about a hundred trained troops and two mountain guns. Tafila was an important centre of the corn country, and the Turks quickly made an effort to recover it. On the 23rd January a force of three weak battalions with a detachment of one hundred cavalry and two mountain howitzers moved out from Kerak, and on the following evening drove the Arab patrols from the Wadi el Hasa, 10 miles northeast of the village. Zeid evacuated the village at midnight to take up a position on the south side of the broad valley in which it stands, while the local peasantry attempted to hold up the enemy's cavalry advanced guard.

Major Lawrence, who had arrived with Zeid, regretted the abandonment of Tafila, if only because it meant the loss of the villagers, sturdy fighting men, as allies. He therefore persuaded the Emir Zeid to send up a couple of light machine guns to support them on the morning of the 25th. This reinforcement had an unexpected result. The villagers drove back the Turkish cavalry screen several miles and established themselves on the edge of a plateau whence the ground dropped gradually to the wide valley of the Wadi el Hasa. Here, however, they came in contact with the main body of the Turks, just breaking camp, who opened heavy fire on them with artillery and machine guns . . .