With Lawrence in Arabia

by Lowell Thomas

One of the most important Turkish strongholds on the border of the Arabian Desert was the town of Kerak, near the south end of the Dead Sea. One night Lawrence, disguised as a Bedouin, went through the Turkish lines with Sheik Trad Ibn Nueiris of the Beni Sakr tribe and found that there happened to be only three hundred Turks in the garrison at the moment. Lawrence and the sheik banqueted that evening with one of Trad’s Kerak friends. In honor of their distinguished visitors the Arab villagers dragged sheep and goats into the streets, built large fires, and feasted and circled in wild war-dance until the witching hour. The members of the Turkish garrison were so frightened by this bold demonstration that they locked themselves in their barracks! After the celebration, Lawrence and his companion left Kerak and returned to Akaba. The result of this unimportant little episode was that two thousand more Turkish troops were withdrawn from the forces opposing Allenby in Palestine and sent down to Kerak. Lawrence had attained the two objects that he had in mind in making this extended and adventurous tour of enemy territory: he had spread broadcast propaganda for the cause of Arabian nationalism among the tribes that were still under Turkish jurisdiction, and he had obtained information enough to fill a book regarding the plans of the German High Command. He went over the territory behind the Turkish lines so thoroughly that during the final drive of the campaign he knew that part of the country almost as intimately as the Turks themselves.

CHAPTER XXII

THE GREATEST HOAX SINCE THE TROJAN HORSE

With the capture of the ancient seaport of Akaba, which transformed the Shereefian revolt into an invasion of Syria, and with the official recognition of the Hedjaz army as the right wing of Allenby’s forces, it became imperative that all Lawrence’s movements should fit in with Allenby’s plans.

Allenby by this time was in possession of all southern Palestine up to a zigzag line extending across the country from the Jordan Valley to the shores of the Mediterranean just south of Mount Carmel, the peak which since earliest times has been known as the Mountain of God. His first drive in the autumn of 1917 had resulted in the liberation of Beersheba, the ancient home of Abraham and Lot, of Gaza, the capital of the Philistines where Samson was betrayed by Delilah, and of Hebron, where Abraham, Isaac, Sarah, and Rebecca were buried in the cave of Machpelah. It had also resulted in the deliverance of Jaffa, the chief port of Palestine since the days of David and Solomon three thousand years ago, of the Plains of Philistia and the Plains of Sharon, and, more important still, had resulted in the liberation of the sacred cities of Bethlehem and Jerusalem from the Ottoman yoke. But the ancient land of Samaria, the city of Nazareth and all Galilee, the coastal plain of northern Palestine and all of Syria still remained in the hands of the Turks, so that the campaign was only half completed. There were now two courses open to Allenby, either to push the Turks north by degrees, or to crush Turkish power in the East with one sweeping blow. The commander-in-chief elected to take the big risk, and he chose the latter.

He decided to launch his final attack north of Jaffa and Jerusalem in July, 1918; but in June, when Ludendorff was making his last drive toward Paris and the Channel Ports, the Allies were so hard pressed in Western Europe that they were compelled to call upon Allenby to send many of his divisions to reinforce them in France.

This completely disrupted all Allenby’s plans. It now became necessary for him to create a new army. The unexpected necessity for a complete reconstruction of the forces in the Holy Land was a staggering blow, but England’s modern Cœur de Lion was not in the least disheartened and immediately set to work to form a new army made up largely of Indian divisions from Mesopotamia hitherto untried in the war, and from his veteran Anzac cavalry under Light Horse Harry Chauvel, the Australian general whom he had placed in command of the largest body of mounted troops that ever participated in modern warfare. Instead of attacking the Turks in northern Palestine in June or July, it now seemed impossible for him to launch his final thunderbolt before October or November. Lawrence was convinced that such a long delay would make it difficult for him to give much assistance on the right flank. By then his restive Bedouins would be wanting to migrate with their flocks to their winter pastures on the Central Arabian plateaus, and, in addition, his many years’ experience in the country led him to believe that autumn rains would impede any military operation attempted during that season.

He explained this to the commander-in-chief, who immediately grasped the situation and by super-human effort whipped his new army into shape so that his new divisions were ready to take the field within eight weeks from the date of their arrival from Mesopotamia! Toward the end of August he despatched an aëroplane to Arabia with a welcome message for Lawrence, the announcement that he would be ready for a joint attack early in September instead of October or November.

Allenby, fully aware of the inexperience of most of his new troops, realized that the Turks would have to be defeated by strategy rather than by force. So he decided to dupe the Turks with a colossal hoax, a sort of moving picture of the British Army pushing straight up along the Jordan River from the Dead Sea toward Galilee. But it was to be a bogus army! In preparing this hoax Allenby’s first move was to shift all his camel-hospitals from southern Palestine to the Jordan Valley within fifteen miles of the Turkish lines. Next, he had hundreds of condemned and worn-out tents shipped up over the Milk and Honey Railway from Egypt, and pitched them on the banks of the Jordan. Then he hauled all his captured Turkish cannons down into the Jordan Valley and started them blazing away in the direction of the Turks encamped in the hills of Moab. Ten thousand horse-blankets were thrown over bushes in the valley and tied up to look like horse-lines. Five new pontoon-bridges were flung over the river.

The sacred valley of the Jordan was filled with all the properties for a sham battle of the ages. Never since the Greeks captured Troy with their famous wooden horse has such a remarkable bit of camouflage been put over on a credulous enemy.