Lawrence and the Arabs

by Robert Graves

The next morning Lawrence was up early and walking by himself among Feisal’s troops. He was anxious to find out what they were worth as fighters by the same means that he had used the night before with their chiefs. There was not much time to spare for getting the information he wanted and he had to be very observant. The smallest signs might be of use for the report which he was to make to Egypt, one which perhaps might rouse the same confidence in the Revolt that he had always had. The men received him cheerfully, lolling in the shade of bush or rock. They chaffed him for his khaki uniform, taking him for a Turkish deserter. They were a tough crowd of all ages from twelve to sixty, with dark faces: some looked half negro. They were thin, but strong and active. They would ride immense distances, day after day, run barefoot in the heat through sand and over rocks without pain, and climb the jagged hills. Their clothing was for the most part a loose shirt with sometimes short cotton drawers and a head shawl usually of red cloth, which acted in turn as towel, handkerchief or sack. They were hung with cartridge-bandoliers, several apiece, and fired off their rifles for fun at every excuse. They were in great spirits and would have liked the war to last another ten years. The Sherif was feeding them and their families and paying two pounds a month for every man and four pounds extra for the use of his camel.

There were eight thousand men with Feisal, of whom eight hundred were camel-fighters: the rest were hill men. They served only under their own tribal sheikhs and only near their own territory, arranging for their own food and transport. Each sheikh had a company of about a hundred men. When larger forces were used they were commanded by a Sherif, that is, a member of the Prophet’s family, whose dignity raised him above tribal jealousies. Blood feuds between clans were supposed to be healed by the fact of the national war and were at least suspended. The Billi, Juheina, Ateiba and other tribes were serving together in friendship for the first time in the history of Arabia. Nevertheless, members of one tribe were shy of those of another and even within a tribe no man quite trusted his neighbour; for there were also blood-feuds between clan and clan, family and family; and though all hated the Turk, family grudges might still be paid off in a big attack where it was impossible to keep track of every bullet fired.

Lawrence decided that in spite of what Feisal had said the tribesmen were good for irregular fighting and defence only. They loved loot and would tear up railways, plunder caravans and capture camels, but they were too independent to fight a pitched battle under a single command. A man who can fight well by himself is usually a ‘bad soldier’ in the army sense and it seemed absurd to try to drill these wild heroes. But if they were given Lewis guns (light machine-guns looking like overgrown rifles) to handle themselves, they might be able to hold the hills while a regular army was built up at Rabegh. This regular army was already being formed under command of another Arab deserter from the Turkish army, somewhat of a martinet, called Aziz el Masri. In the British prisoners-of-war camps in Egypt and Mesopotamia were hundreds of Syrians and Mesopotamians who would volunteer against the Turks if called upon. Being mostly townsmen and therefore not so independent, they were the right material for Aziz to train. While the desert fighters harassed the Turks by raids and sudden alarms, this regular force could be used to do the regular fighting. As for the immediate danger, the advance through the hills—Lawrence had seen what the hills were like. The only passes were valleys full of twists and turns, sometimes four hundred, sometimes only twenty yards across, between precipices; and the Arabs were fine snipers. Two hundred good men could hold up an army. Without Arab treachery the Turks could not break through; and even with treachery it would be dangerous. They could never be sure that the Arabs might not rise behind them, and if they had to guard all the passes behind them they would have few men left when they reached the coast.

The only trouble was that the Arabs were still terrified of artillery. The fear might pass in time, but at present the sound of a shell exploding sent the Arabs for miles round scuttling to shelter. They were not afraid of bullets or, indeed, of death, but the manner of death by shell-fire was too much for their imagination. It was necessary then to get guns, useful or useless, but noisy, on the Arab side. From Feisal down to the youngest boy in the army the talk was all of artillery, artillery, artillery. When Lawrence told Feisal’s men that howitzers were being landed at Rabegh that could fire a shell as thick as a man’s thigh, there was great rejoicing. The guns, of course, would be no military use; on the contrary. As fighters the Arabs were most useful in scattered irregular warfare. If they were sent guns they would crowd together for protection, and as a mob they could always be beaten by even a small force of Turks. Only, if they were given no guns, it was clear that they would go home, and this would end the Revolt. Artillery, then, was the only problem; the Revolt itself was a real thing, the deep enthusiasm of a whole province.

VIII

Later Lawrence saw Feisal again and promised to do what he could. Stores and supplies for his exclusive use would be landed at Yenbo, a hundred and twenty miles north of Rabegh, and about seventy miles from where he now was at Hamra. He would arrange, if he could, for more volunteers from the prisoners’ camps. Gun-crews and machine-gun crews would be formed from such volunteers, and they would be given whatever mountain-guns or light machine-guns could be spared in Egypt. Lastly, he would ask for British Army officers, a few good men with technical knowledge, to be sent to him as advisers and to keep touch for him with Egypt. Feisal thanked Lawrence warmly and asked him to return soon. Lawrence replied that his duties in Cairo prevented him from actual fighting, but perhaps his chiefs would let him pay a visit later when Feisal’s present needs were satisfied and things were going better. Meanwhile he wished to go to Yenbo and so on to Egypt as quickly as possible.

Feisal gave him an escort of fourteen noblemen of the Juheina tribe and in the evening he rode off. The same desolate country as before, but more broken, with shallow valleys and lava hills and finally a great stretch of sand-dunes to the distant sea. To the right, twenty miles away, was the great mountain Jebel Rudhwa, one of the grandest in the country, rising sheer from the plain; Lawrence had seen it from a hundred miles away from the well where Ali ibn el Hussein and his cousin had watered. At Yenbo Lawrence stayed at the house of Feisal’s agent, and while waiting for the ship which was to take him off, wrote out his report. After four days the ship appeared; the commander was Captain Boyle, who had helped in the taking of Jiddah. Captain Boyle did not like Lawrence at first sight, because he was wearing a native headcloth which he thought unsoldierlike. However, he took him to Jiddah, where he met Sir Rosslyn Wemyss, the British Admiral in command of the Red Sea Fleet, who was just about to cross over to the Sudan.

The Navy under Sir Rosslyn had been of the greatest assistance to the Sherif, giving him guns, machine-guns, landing parties and every other sort of help; whereas the British Army in Egypt was doing nothing for the Revolt. Practically no military help came except from the native Egyptian Army, the only troops at the disposal of the British High Commissioner. Lawrence crossed over with the Admiral and at Port Sudan met two English officers of the Egyptian army on their way to command the Egyptian troops which were with the Sherif, and to help train the regular forces now being formed at Rabegh. Of one of these, Joyce, we shall hear again: the other, Davenport, also did much for the Arab army but, working in the southern theatre of Revolt, was not with Lawrence in his northern campaign. In the Sudan, at Khartoum, Lawrence met the commander-in-chief of the Egyptian army who a few days later was made the new High Commissioner in Egypt. He was an old believer in the Revolt and glad to hear the hopeful news Lawrence brought: with his good wishes Lawrence returned to Cairo.

In Cairo there was great argument about the threatened Turkish advance on Mecca: the question was whether a brigade of Allied troops should be sent there: aeroplanes had already gone. The French were very anxious that this step should be taken, and their representative at Jiddah, a Colonel, had recently brought to Suez, to tempt the British, some artillery, machine-guns, and cavalry and infantry, all Mohammedan soldiers from the French colony of Algeria, with French officers. It was nearly decided to send British troops with these to Rabegh, under the French colonel’s command. Lawrence decided to stop this. He wrote a strong report to Headquarters saying that the Arab tribes could defend the hills between Medina and Rabegh quite well by themselves if given guns and advice, but they would certainly scatter to their tents if they heard of a landing of foreigners. Moreover, on his way up from Rabegh he had learned that the road through Rabegh, though the most used, was not the only approach to Mecca. The Turks could take a short cut by using wells of which no mention had been made in any report, and avoid Rabegh altogether; so a brigade landed there would be useless anyhow. Lawrence accused the French colonel of having motives of his own (not military ones) for wishing to land troops, and of intriguing against the Sherif and against the English: he gave evidence in support of these charges.

The Commander-in-Chief of the British Army was only too glad of Lawrence’s report as he still had no wish to help the ‘side-show.’ He sent for Lawrence. But first the Chief of Staff took Lawrence aside, talked amicably and patronizingly to him about general subjects and how jolly it was to have been at Oxford as an undergrad—he apparently thought that Lawrence was a youngster who had left for the War in his first year at college—and begged him not to frighten or encourage the Commander-in-Chief into sending troops to Rabegh, because there were no men to spare on side-shows. Lawrence agreed on condition that the Chief of Staff would see that at least extra stores and arms and a few capable officers were sent. The bargain was struck and kept. The brigade was never sent. Lawrence was much amused at the change in the attitude of the staff towards him. He was no longer a conceited young puppy, but a very valuable officer, of great intelligence, with a pungent style of writing. All because, for a wonder, his view of the Revolt was agreeable to them. It is recorded that the Commander-in-Chief was asked, after Lawrence’s interview with him, what he thought of Lawrence. He merely replied: ‘I was disappointed: he did not come in dancing-pumps.’