War in the Garden of Eden

by Kermit Roosevelt

I was fortunate enough to run into some old friends, and through one of them met General Sutton, who most kindly and opportunely rescued me from the dreary "Rest-Camp" and took me to his house. While I was waiting for a chance to get a place on a transport, he one morning asked me to go with him to Zobeir, where he was to dedicate a hospital. Zobeir is a desert town of ten thousand or so inhabitants, situated fifteen miles inland from Busra. The climate is supposed to be more healthful, and many of the rich and important residents of the river town have houses there to which they retire during the summer months. To an outsider any comparison would seem only a refinement of degrees of suffocation. The heat of all the coastal towns of the Persian Gulf is terrific.

Zobeir is a desert town, with its ideals and feelings true to the inheritance of the tribesmen. It is a market for the caravans of central Arabia. A good idea of the Turkish feeling toward it may be gathered from the fact that the inhabitants were exempt from military service. This was a clear admission on the part of the Turk that he could not cope with the situation, and thought it wisest not to attempt something which he had no hope of putting through. It was, therefore, a great triumph for the British and a sure wedge into the confidence of the desert folk when the hospital was opened, for any people that can introduce so marked an innovation among the hidebound desert communities must have won their confidence and respect in a remarkable degree. Ibrahim, the hereditary Sheikh of Zobeir, himself contributed largely to the fund for the endowment. It was arranged that Doctor Borrie, who among his other duties ran the civil hospital at Busra, should periodically include Zobeir in his rounds. The Sheikh showed us over the building. It was cool, comfortable, and very sanitary. The Indian who was to be resident physician had every appearance of intelligence and proficiency. Old Ibrahim gave us a large banquet of the orthodox type. There was a sheep roasted whole, and dishes of every sort of meat and vegetable marshalled upon the table, which fairly groaned beneath their weight. We had innumerable speeches. General Sutton made an excellent address, which an interpreter translated into Arabic. Our Arabian hosts were long-winded, and the recognized local orator was so classical in his phrases and forms and tenses that it was impossible to do more than get the general drift of what he said. Luckily I had in my pocket a copy of the Lusiads, which I surreptitiously read when the speeches became hopelessly long drawn out.

I was allotted space on a British India, boat, the Torrilla, that was to take to Egypt a field artillery regiment of the Third Division. As we dropped down-stream and I watched a disconsolate Yusuf standing on the dock, I felt that another chapter had closed—an interesting one at that. I was not left long to muse on what the next would bring forth before there was a cry of "fire"; and from where I was standing in the smoking-room I could see, through the open hatchways, the soldiers hurrying about below decks. As the ship was well ballasted with ammunition, anything that happened would, take place quickly, and only those on the spot could hope to control events, so I stayed where I was. A few minutes later the fire was reported out.

The long two weeks' trip through the Persian Gulf and round to the Red Sea was monotonously peaceful. Being "unattached," I had no regular duties. Occasionally I attended "stables," and wandered around the horse lines. The great heat below decks had far less effect upon the horses than would be supposed. Of course, they were well cared for, and many were seasoned veterans that had taken more than one long sea voyage. If I am not mistaken, only one was lost on the trip.

Most of the time I lay back in my rhoorkhee chair and read whatever I could find in the ship's library. The wireless broke down a few days after we left Busra, so we got no news whatever of the outer world, and soon ceased to speculate on what might be happening in France.

At length, on the morning of June 4, we dropped anchor in Suez harbor. We had hoped that the Torrilla would run through the canal to Port Said, but the disembarkation officer told us that we were all to be unloaded at Suez and proceed by rail. When I reached Alexandria I learned that a convoy had just sailed and there would not be another for two weeks at earliest. Sir Reginald Wingate, who had long been a family friend, was the British High Commissioner. Lady Wingate and he with the utmost hospitality insisted on my moving out to the residency to wait for my sailing.

When I left for Mesopotamia Lord Derby had given me a letter to General Allenby which I had never had an opportunity to present. Sir Reginald suggested that I could not do better than make use of this enforced delay by going up to Palestine. The railway was already running to Jerusalem and you could go straight through from Cairo with but one change. At Kantara you crossed the canal and entered the military zone. Leaving there at half past eleven in the evening the train reached Ludd, which was general headquarters, at seven the following morning.

Every one that I had ever met who knew General Allenby was wildly enthusiastic about him, and you had only to be with him a few minutes to realize how thoroughly justified their enthusiasm was. He represented the very highest type of the British soldier, and more need not be said. On the morning on which I arrived an attack was in progress and we could hear the drumming of the guns. The commander-in-chief placed a car at my disposal and I went around visiting old friends that I had made in Mesopotamia or still earlier in England, before the war. Among the latter was Colonel Ronald Storrs, the military governor of Jerusalem. With him I spent several days. Life in the Holy City seemed but little changed by the war. There was an interesting innovation in the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem. The different Christian religious sects, in particular the Greek and Latin Catholics, were prone to come to blows in the church, and bloodshed and death had more than once been the result. To obviate this it had been the custom to have a regular relief of Turkish soldiers stationed in the church. Their place was now taken by British and French and Italians. Each nationality in rotation furnished the guard for a day. At the festival of the distribution of the Sacred Fire from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem there were usually a number of accidents caused by the anxiety to reach the portal whence the fire was given out. The commander-in-chief particularly complimented Colonel Storrs upon the orderly way in which this ceremony was conducted under his régime. The population of Jerusalem is exceedingly mixed—and the percentage of fanatics is of course disproportionately large. There are many groups that have been gathered together and brought out to the Holy Land with distinctly unusual purposes. One such always had an empty seat at their table and confidently expected that Christ would some day appear to occupy it. The long-haired Russian and Polish Jews with their felt hats and shabby frock coats were to be met with everywhere. In the street where the Jews meet to lament the departed glory of Jerusalem an incongruous and ludicrous element was added by a few Jews, their bowed heads covered with ancient derby hats, wailing with undefeated zeal.

A street in Jerusalem