Though intolerant of anything in the nature of discipline, and constantly at war among themselves, many of the Arab tribes of the Hedjaz had joined the standard of the old Sherif Hussein, moved thereto by their hatred of the Turks. Under Hussein's energetic son Feisal, they had carried on a successful guerilla warfare against the scattered Turkish garrisons since June 1916. Their operations were directed especially against the Hedjaz Railway. Under the leadership of the daring and beloved Lawrence, train wrecking was elevated among the Arabs to the status of a national sport. Many of the wrecked trains yielded rich booty to the Sherif, and on one occasion the haul included £20,000 in Turkish gold. Eighteen months of this warfare had given the Arabs valuable experience, and numerous minor successes had induced many tribes who were wavering to throw in their lot with the Sherif.
By the end of 1917 the Emir Feisal's forces were strong enough to undertake more serious operations. In January 1918 he seized the high ground a few miles south of Maan, while another force, under a local leader, destroyed a large part of the Turkish light railway which had been built from Kalaat Aneiza on the Hedjaz line to the Hish Forest, and was used to transport wood as fuel for locomotives. Shortly afterwards another force raided a station on the Hedjaz line, some thirty miles north of Maan, destroying the station buildings and some engines and rolling stock. In this raid the Arabs took over 200 prisoners, and killed a large number of Turks. Farther north, Arabs of the Huweitat tribe captured Tafile, which is only fifteen miles south-east of the south end of the Dead Sea. A considerable Turkish force, with guns and machine guns, which was sent, towards the end of January, to recapture this place, was decisively beaten by the Arabs, with a loss of 500 killed and 250 prisoners. In March a larger body of Turkish troops, reinforced by a German battalion, reoccupied Tafile, the Arabs withdrawing to the south.[16]
FOOTNOTES:
[16] See Appendix II. for note on the Arab Movement.
THE FIRST TRANS-JORDAN RAID
In view of the successes obtained by the Arabs, General Allenby now judged the time to be ripe for a raid by our troops on the Hedjaz Railway at Amman, which he had long contemplated. The immediate effect of such a raid would be to compel the enemy to withdraw the force which had recently occupied Tafile. It might, in addition, force him to call on the Turkish troops at Maan for aid, thus weakening the garrison there, and giving the Arabs an opportunity to attack the place with some prospects of success. A further result to be expected from the raid would be to induce the enemy to keep a large part of his army east of the Jordan, thus correspondingly weakening his forces in the Judæan hills. The deep and difficult valley of the Jordan, and the river itself, would, moreover, form a dangerous obstacle to communication between the two portions of his army, a fact which might be expected to assist us materially in our next general advance.
Amman was the one really vulnerable point on the Hedjaz Railway. The Arabs had frequently destroyed portions of the line farther south, but such raids only resulted in interrupting the traffic for a few days at a time. Material for repair was available at every station, and long practice had brought the Turkish engineers to a high state of efficiency in restoring these temporarily damaged places. At Amman, however, the line ran over a viaduct, and through a considerable tunnel. If these two works could be thoroughly destroyed, the resulting interruption of traffic might well be so prolonged as to compel the retirement of the whole of the enemy force in the Maan area. Such a prospect justified the acceptance of greater risks than General Allenby proposed to incur.