After a fierce combat, lasting for nearly a day, resulting in many casualties, the western force was beaten back towards the town, and “The Habun” found himself in danger of being captured. The western women had followed their men out from the town and were watching the battle from the gardens. Habun’s mother, seeing her son in danger, collected a dozen women of his house and managed to get near him. He left his horse and slipped into the gardens where he joined the women. They dressed him as a girl, and with them he escaped to the tomb of Sidi Suliman, where he hid. While in hiding Habun communicated with the Senussi brethren at Jerabub, who intervened and patched up a peace. Nowadays, if one wants to insult one of the Habun family, there is no surer method than by inquiring who it was who escaped from a battle disguised as a woman.
After this the Egyptian Government realized that a stronger force was needed to keep order in Siwa, so they sent some more men and a few cavalry. The Senussi Government also tried to make a lasting peace between east and west. Sheikh Osman Habun, agent of the Senussi in Siwa, was at this time the most wealthy and powerful man in the oasis. He was a large landowner and employed a small army of slaves. He was related by marriage to most of the western sheikhs, and many of the Siwan notables were beholden to him for financial assistance. From his large fortified house in the town he dominated the western faction, and his armoury included some modern weapons which he had stolen from a certain English traveller. In appearance he was a fine, handsome man, with a masterful manner and a commanding presence. When he went abroad a numerous retinue followed him, and he received visitors to his house with almost regal state. He married several times, and had nine sons and daughters.
Several years before the Great War a certain Arab called Abdel Arti, a notorious smuggler of hashish between Egypt and Tripoli, made a raid on some bedouins who camped at Lubbok, a little oasis where there is water and good grazing about eight miles south of Siwa, among the sand-dunes. He called at Lubbok to get water on his way to Egypt via the oasis of Bahrein. One of the bedouins came to Siwa and warned the mamur, who summoned the sheikhs and the people. Osman Habun was at this time an ally of Abdel Arti and knew his plans. The eastern people assembled, but the westerners delayed. Eventually, after many absurd excuses, Osman Habun arrived and accompanied the mamur and an armed party to Lubbok; but they found that the smugglers had escaped, carrying off several women and leaving two of the bedouins dead on the field. The delay caused by Osman Habun had saved Abdel Arti from capture. When they returned the mamur held a court on Osman Habun and threatened to depose him and make another man omda in his place. Habun retired to his house and sulked, refusing to appear again when summoned by the mamur. One of Habun’s sons was ordered to bring his father to the Markaz, but he returned with a message that being the month of Ramadan his father was fasting and could not go out.
Then the mamur, with his few soldiers and some Sudanese camel corps, followed by a shouting mob of Siwans, went up the steep, dark streets that lead to the house of “The Habun.” By the time that they had arrived night had fallen. They found the great wooden door locked and barred, and the house full of armed men, but they managed to break in the door and enter the ground floor. But the stairs were strongly barricaded, so they went outside and lit lanterns while they discussed what to do. Then the soldiers started firing up at the windows, and the defenders fired back, people in the adjoining houses joining in. The soldiers retreated under some buildings across the lane, but as they did this the mamur was shot and left lying in the narrow alley. A Camel Corps man dashed out and dragged him into shelter. Meanwhile Osman Habun had escaped by a private door through the mosque behind the house. Eventually the soldiers entered the building and captured the defenders. Osman Habun attempted to escape through the town to Jerabub, but he was caught by Sheikh Mohammed Said, his rival of the eastern faction, and brought a prisoner to the Markaz where the mamur lay dying. He was tried for the murder of the mamur, found guilty, and hanged, and his eldest son, Hammado, was awarded penal servitude. He is still alive, in prison at Tura.
Osman Habun was one of the biggest men that Siwa ever produced, though he had many bad qualities. The Siwans say that he sacrificed himself for his son, Hammado, being an old man and not willing to see his son hanged, though Hammado is said to have killed the mamur. Abdel Arti, the cause of the trouble, had a fight with some of the Egyptian Coastguard Camel Corps, and killed one of them. They met him again among the desolate sand-dunes south of Siwa, and killed him, together with several of his followers. Their graves are distinguishable—rough stone cairns—on the unmapped desert where a route from Egypt to Tripoli is still called “Abdel Arti’s Road.”
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FOURTH PERIOD
Siwa and the War
The history of the British operations on the Western Desert of Egypt against the Senussi in 1915-1917 has been well described in several books, and by people who were actually present at the various engagements. I was not there at the time, so I am unable to give a first-hand account of it, but no history of Siwa would be complete without a sketch of the principal events of that campaign, which was one of the most brilliant and successful “side-shows” of the Great War, and has left a lasting impression on the Arabs of the Western Desert, which will be remembered for many years to come.
After the war in Tripoli between the Italians and the Turks, in 1911, the suzerainty of Italy over Tripoli was formally acknowledged at the Treaty of Lausanne, but although the whole of the country became an Italian possession only the coastal towns were held firmly. The Arabs in the south, and the Berber inhabitants of the various oases, strongly resented the Italian rule, and for this reason the seeds of propaganda sown by Turkish and German agents found fertile soil among the natives of Tripoli.