‘The British officers who were helping the Arabs were at first all under political control, but as soon as the revolt took definite military shape a special liaison staff was formed at Allenby’s Headquarters to deal with what were known as the Hejaz operations and a number of officers were attached to the Arab forces. Dawnay was officially the chief staff officer of the Hejaz liaison staff (the telegraphic name for which was “Hedge-hog”), just as Joyce was officially the senior British officer with Feisal’s army. But Lawrence really counted more than either of them with Allenby and Feisal. He used to flit backwards and forwards between the two as the spirit moved him.
‘Besides being helped with munitions and rations Feisal was lent five armoured cars, a flight of aeroplanes, two 10-pounder guns mounted on Talbot cars, a detachment of twenty Indian machine-gunners, a section of French Algerian gunners armed with four “65” mountain-guns, an Egyptian Army battalion for guard duties at Akaba, and later on a detachment of the Egyptian Camel Corps and a company of the Egyptian Camel Transport to help him with his transport. All these were under the command of Joyce ... whose staff consisted of a chief staff-officer, a base-commandant for Akaba, a combined supply and ordnance officer, two medical officers and a works officer. Others drifted in and out helping with demolitions, ciphering and deciphering telegrams, landing stores, pegging down wire roads in the sand and doing a hundred other odd jobs.
‘Mr. [Lowell Thomas]’s cinema pictures were a triumph of journalistic composition. But they depicted only the earlier Lawrence of the heroic period and wrongly credited him with doing single-handed the whole of the later work of “Hedge-hog” and of Joyce and the British staff. I came too late, so that I practically never saw the real Elizabethan Lawrence who characteristically drew back into his shell during that long period of preparation after the taking of Akaba. Like the Bedouin with whom he rode he held aloof from regular soldiers and everything that they did. At the same time it is bare justice to give him the chief credit for the whole series of Arab operations which ended in the setting up of Arab rule in Damascus.’
MULE TRANSPORT NEAR ABA EL LISSAN
Copyright French Army Photo Dept.
To this account it should be added that Colonel Joyce, the senior British adviser to Feisal since Newcombe had been captured on a raid in Southern Palestine, was officially Lawrence’s superior officer throughout the campaign. He acted as commandant at Akaba until the work at the port became too heavy to be combined with his front-line duties, when he appointed a major from Egypt, Scott, to take on the duty. The Arab affair was run with great economy of British helpers; it was Lawrence’s policy to let it be managed with only one-twentieth of the staff that a more formal side-show would have expected. It was Joyce who decided on the main policy of the Revolt when Lawrence was off on raids or making plans for advances. Lawrence acted as his chief source of intelligence.
The supply and ordnance officer was Captain Goslett (who took one or two of the photographs in this book). His view of the Arab campaign was a very different one from Lawrence’s. The supply-question covered all Feisal’s supporters for hundreds of miles around, and was enormous. There were also huge trade-imports at Akaba, not directly concerned with the campaign, for the carriage and regulation of which he was responsible. Goslett was (and is again) a London business-man, whose organizing ability and patience were put to a most severe test. There were some hundreds of English at Akaba, but except for the Armoured-Car men they were not there for fighting. They suffered no casualties, except for the death of a corporal who was accidentally killed while doing amateur police-work on his own.
To encourage the regular Arab officers by recognizing their great services in the fighting about Maan and against the railway, Allenby distributed decorations. Jaafar, the commander-in-chief, was given a C.M.G., and Allenby delighted him by providing, as a guard of honour for the ceremony, the same troop of Dorset Yeomanry that had gained great credit two years before by galloping him down in the Senussi desert and taking him prisoner. Jaafar had also won the German Iron Cross in 1915. This double event in a single war is possibly a unique performance.
During these months of planning, Lawrence had not (in spite of Major Young’s account) interrupted his active adventures. One strange ride in July took him to Kerak, Themed and Amman, all held by Turkish troops. He was inspecting the ground for the coming Arab advance to Jericho. At Kerak, where he arrived at midnight with a party of camel-men, the Turks were terrified and locked themselves into their barracks, expecting the worst. But nothing happened. The sheikh with Lawrence merely swore that he was hungry and had a sheep killed and cooked for him by the villagers. Later, in the pitch-dark, they stumbled over some Turkish cavalry watering at a stream, and were fired on. Lawrence protested with fluent Turkish curses and the Turks replying bad-temperedly with a few more shots drew off.