Pan-Islam

sed that the widespread organisation which Germany had grafted on to the original Tu

ous newspaper called El'-Ghadr, which means treachery or mutiny. This was particularly directed at our Indian Army, but Egypt was not forgotten. A gifte

asted effort, as anyone who knew the type could have told them; the effendis abstained from the crudities of personal service and confined themselves to stirring up the town riffraff, who wanted a safer form of villainy than open riot, and the fellahin, who wanted a safe market for their produce and easy taxation, bot

called him a huckstering profligate, they mourned for his deposal by wearing black ties, especially the students. Some of these enthusiastic young heroes even went so far as to scatter chlorate of potash

y as far as possible, and diverted his fluid assets through various channels beyond the reach of his sorrowing subjects and the Egyptian Government. When an official inventory was taken in Abdin Palace at the accession of the late Sultan Husein, it was ascertained that the famous inlaid and begemmed coffee-service, which, like our Crown jewels, was not supposed to leave

d everything provided for in advance with their usual thoroughness. From the documents and prisoners that came through our hands we learnt that the hotel in Cairo where the victors were to dine after their triumphant entry had actually been selected, and some enthusiasts went so far as to insist that the menu had bee

y man-handled their pontoons to the edge of the Canal. These craft were marvels of lightness and carrying capacity, but, of course, no protectio

with a cigarette while I questioned him. He had been in charge of a pontoon manned by his party and said that they had got halfway across the Canal in perfect silence when "the mouth of he

of India. The astute propagandists had a pamphlet or two aimed at Sikhism, which they seemed to consider a nation, as they spoke of their national aspirations, though an elementary study of the s

side. "I fought," he said, "because it was my duty as an officer of the Ottoman Army. I know that men were invited to join as for a jihad, but we officers did not deceive ourselves. Par exemple, I think myself a better Moslem than any Turk, but what would you?" I consoled the little man while concealing my satisfaction at the feeling displayed against him. An extraordinaril

tans who had been roped in on the Palestine seaboard while trying to get a passage home, a Moor who tried to embrace my feet when I spoke of the snow-crowned Atlas above Morocco City (Marraksh) and told him that he would be landed at Tangier in due course-Inshallah. Of course we released, and repatriated as fa

ning churches indicated the creed that was being so harried and gave the scene a stimulating background. From their appearance I should say these pictures were originally engraved to commemorate Balkan or Armenian atrocities, but their possessors, on being closely questioned, admitted that the impression conveyed to them was of the joyous licence which was to be theirs among the Frankish civilians after forcing the Canal. One Kurdish gentleman had among his kit fancy socks, knitted craftily in several vivid colours, also ornate slippers to wear in his promised palatial billet at Cairo. There were some odd articles among

cy rations too which we found on the earlier batches of prisoners had a distinctly Teutonic flavour-they were so scientifically nourishing in theory and so vilely inedible in practice. They were a species of flat gluten cake rather like a dog-biscuit, but much harder. An amateur explosive expert of ours tested one of these things by attempting detonation and ignition before he would let his batch of prisoners retain them, which, to do their intelligence justice, they were not keen on doing, but offered any quantity of the stuff for cigarettes. W

languages they spoke-Arabic or Turkish. It was not an easy task in the open on a pitch-black night, but he did it with soldierly promptitude and flung his glowing cigarette e

mauled than we thought at first. The dead in the Canal were kept down by the weight of their ammunition for some ti

r fleet, one ship had sunk, one had been set on fire, and the rest had fled. Two heavy howitzers, as a matter of fact, had managed by indirect fire from a concealed position to land a couple of projectiles on the

r and forgo the defensive advantage. There are some who, in their military ardour, would have had him pursue the enemy into the desert, forgetting that to leave a sound position and pursue a superior force on an ever-widening front in a barren country which they know better than you do and have furnished with their own supply-bases is just asking for trouble. Our few aeroplanes in those days coul

credence among quite intelligent Egyptians. It was to the effect that the Turks had commandeered an enormous number of camels and empty kerosene tins. This was quite true so far, but the yarn then rose to the following flight of fancy: These empty tins were to be filled with dry cement and loaded on camels,

uch detestation and final ruin in Arabia, but it seems to have fascinated the Egyptian like a rabbit in the presence of a python. Quite early in the Turkish invasion of Sinai a detachment of Egyptian camelry, operating in conjunction with the Bikanirs, deserted en masse to the enemy. It

about the Turks, and will fight them at sight, but there will always be a few misguided bigots to whom a specious and dogmatic argument will appeal. Th

After events on the Canal had simmered down, I was seconded to Cairo to help tackle the movement there: to show how little hold it had over t

iding unnecessary toil or risk (the Sinaitic Bedouin loathes both) and obtaining news of interest for both sides. It was a magnificently simple scheme; its sole flaw was in failing to realise that some of us had played the Great Game before. We used to time our emissaries to their return and cross-check them where their wanderings intersected those of others-all were supposed to be trackers and one or two knew something about it. Of course they were searched and researched on crossing and returning to our outpost line, for they could not be trusted to refuse messages to or from the Turks. It was among this coterie that the brilliant idea originated of shaving a messenger's head, writing a despatch on his scalp, and then letting his hair grow before he started to deliver it. I doubt if any of our folk were thorough

nd I boarded the Port Said express at short notice while he and the "ferret" who had picked him up got into a third-class compartment lower down. As the agent made no signal after the train had pulled out, I knew our man had not got the bulk of his propaganda with him, otherwise I had powers to hold up the express, for it was more important to get his stuff than the man himself. At Port Said he had a chance of seeing me, thanks to the agent's clumsiness, and I had to shave my beard off and buy a sun-helmet in consequence, for I was travelling in the same ship along

urity-it was not our policy to make martyrs of such me

d on the Canal, and the trouble became so acute that I had to spend two or three months in the hills of Cyprus. Before I ha

much alleviated when I heard what the show was. As it had a marked effect on the pan-Islamic

information from Headquarters at Cairo to say that the Turks had invaded th

guerilla warfare, besides being anti-Turk. I had, however, in spite of many years' experience, failed to reckon with Aden apathy. True to the policy of laissez faire which was inaugurated when our Boundary Commission withdrew some twelve years ago, Aden had been depending for news of her

al slumber at Aden; the obvious route for a large force was down the T

unknown to his next-door neighbour, that purblind sultanate at Lahej, unless

s up the Tiban valley; then inertia reasserted itself and they were recalled. Also the Lahej sultanate, in a spasm of economy, started disbanding the Arab le

s to get a free kick at Lahej, just as an ordinary human boy will serve some sneak and prig to whom a slack schoolmaster has relegated his own obvious duty of supervision. To do that inadequate sultanate justice, it tried to bar the way with its own trencher-fed troops and su

the lurch-questions might be asked in the House. On the other hand they had made no adequate arrangements to protect him. Just as a demented hen will leave her brood at

otor-cars were used to convey the infantry of the advanced guard, but the main body had to march in full equipment with ammunition. The casualties from sunstroke were appalling. The late G.O.C. troops in Egypt mentione

s,-and yet unescorted and not even attended by a responsible officer-saunt

he town on fire when they arrived, and fought the Turks hand-to-hand in the streets. They held on all through that sweltering night, and only retired when dawn showed them the hopeless nature of their task and the fact that they were being outflanked. They fell back on the mai

There are five wells supplying settlements within half an hour's walk of it on either side of the track, but when we remember that the column's field-guns

eplorable blunder. Any intelligent and timely grasp of the enemy's strength and intention would have given the poor man ample time to pack his inlaid hookahs, Persian carpets, and other palace treasures and withdraw in safety to Aden while our troops made good the Sheikh Othman line along the British frontier. I am presuming that Aden was too much taken by surprise to have met the Turks in a position of her own choosing while they were still entangled in hilly country where levies of the right sort could have harried them to some purpose, backed by disciplined, unspent troops and adequate guns. What I wish to impre

een amusing if they were not pathetic. Needless to say th

ccurate account th

S AND

MENT AT

following communiqué last n

frontier of the Aden Hinterland and was advancing towards Lahej, the General Off

er of Arabs and fell back on Lahej, where they were reinforced by the advance gu

rge numbers of Arabs, and maintained its position in face of the enemy artillery's fire until night, when part of Lah

ards Lahej, but was delayed by water difficulties and heavy going. It

ur troops, however, were suffering considerably from the great heat and the shortage of water, and their difficulties were increased by the de

d: names will be communicated later. We took one Tu

t to win over this important tribal unit, which might have been a grave menace on their left flank. Its sultan made frequent representations to Aden for even a gunboat to show itself off his port, but to no purpose. After the Turks had succeeded in alienating those of his tribe they

met it at every turn. It is idle to blame individuals-the whole system is at fault. The policy of non-interference which the Liberal Government introduced, after the Boundary Commission ha

e and up-to-date knowledge of the hinterland would have been invaluable it was not available. The pernicious policy of selecting any one chief (unchecked by a European) to keep her posted as to affairs in her own protectorate has been followed blindly by Aden to

of those mandarins who have had wide control of human affairs and destinies have ignored a situation until it was forcibly thrust upon them and have fumbled with it disastrously. It is difficult to bring such people to book, for they shuffle responsibility from one to the other or take refuge in the truly oriental

blockade the Arabian coast against the Turk while allowing dhow-traffic with foodstuffs consigned to Arab merchants and steamer-cargoes of food for the alleged use of pilgrims to go through. I

ce could spot a doubtful customer as soon as the dhow that carried him came alongside; and irregular but frequent visits at the various ports soon put a stop to the mine-indust

, and if your solution was not approved by the authorities on the beach they lost no time in letting you

ect to the Turks and letting their fellow-countrymen have what was left at the highest possible price. On top of it all India started a howl that her pilgrims in the Hejaz were starving, and we had to defer to this outcry. I have never had to legislate for highly-civilised Moslems with a taste for agitation, but I have always sympathised with those who have, and could quite appreciate India's

the Turks. Dhows bringing cargo from the African coast or from Aden were permitted, provided they did not carry contraband of war; this permitted native cereals, su

t may be mentioned as illustrating t

was some technical point which I could waive, but on this occasion one of the cutters made a signal to the effect that barley in bulk had been found in one dhow. I was puzzled, because all the dhows were from Suakin or further south, quite outside the barley-belt, except on very high ground which rarely exports cereals. However, the signal was repeated, and I had to have the dhow alongside. Meanwhile the "owner" was anxious to get steerage-way, for we were not at anchor and in very ticklish soundings;

re even arms and ammunition were allowed between certain ports to meet the convenience of the Idrisi chief, who was theoretically at w

ich carried no conviction. All they had to help them was the half-educated ship's interpreter, with no knowledge of the political situation, for Aden had not an officer available for this work. To enhance the difficulties of the position, some of these coastal chiefs were importing contraband of war to sell to

whom it was our business to approach as friends if they would let us. The Turks, however, used Arab levies freely against us whose truculence was much increased on finding they could make hostile demonstrati

econnoitring cutter on general principles and then rush off to the nearest Turkish post with the information and a demand for bakshish, and there were several attempts (one successful) to lure a landing party on to a well-manned but carefully h

sea. Their skippers had the sketchiest idea of what constituted proper clearance papers and why such papers must agree with their present voyage. Their confidence too in our integrity, though touching, was often embarrassing. One of our rules was that considerable sums in gold must be given up against a signed voucher realisable at Port Sudan. I was never very brisk at counting large sums of money, and one day when hove to off Jeddah there were five dhows rubbing their noses alongside, with about ￡800 in gold between them and very little time to deal with them, as we w

them with the dregs of one empty water-skin between a dozen men. Not content with putting to sea with a single mussick of water, they had hove to and slept all night, and so dropped the night breeze, which

then proceeded along the coast. The cutter, still busied with other dhows, presumed that the first craft had reported alongside the ship and been allowed to proceed; the ship naturally regarded her as a craft that had been examined and permitted to continue her journey. And that is all we ever knew for certain of her or the fate of our two men. Their previous record puts desertion out of the question; besides, no sane men would desert to a barren, inhospitable coast among semi-hostile

f the rail at Maan and brought down to the head of the gulf, in section, by camel. I always suspected the existence of a Turkish observation-post, but no signs of occupation had been seen for a long time till H.M.S. "Fox" went up one dark night without a light showing. All dead-lights were shipped, and dark blue electric bulbs replaced the usual ones where a light of some s

town; we had to jump out into four feet of water, as the port has deteriorated a good deal since Solomon used it and called it Eziongeber. A careful search revealed

the flat-nosed soft lead bullets kicked sand and shingle down the backs of our necks. As we had only revolvers-expecting resistance, if any, to be made among the houses-we could not reply, but the ship handed out a few rounds of percussion shrapnel which shook the Turks up enough for us to withdraw. Fortunately for us, they were us

from their using the early pattern Mauser. It gave other useful information, and the men did well to bring it along; but I would have given much to have found some channel through which I could return it. Most of it was private; there were several congratulatory cards crudely illuminated in colours by hand

ejj as containing a well-manned Turkish fort which could be knocked about without damaging other buildings in the town if we were careful. It was

eing the senior ship of the patrol and the only o

was, outside the town, and, having been held a prisoner once in their Customs building, could point that out too. Next morning we stood slowly in for Um-Lejj wi

e ants from an over-turned ant-hill, probably realising that we meant business this time. This was all to the good, as otherwise I should have had to go close in with the steam-cutter, a white flag and a megaphone

battery of four-point-sevens loaded with H.E. and the two six-inchers fore and aft swung out-board and followed suit. The occasion called for fine shooting, as a minare

each gun to fire as it comes to bea

ently; the next instant the bridge shook to the crashing concussion of our forward six-inch, and through a drifti

the bursting shell reverberating like thun

oint-seven fired. I saw him through my glasses duck his head between his arms, then dive panic-stricke

r, only

second four-point-seven spoke, and the minaret d

" came in tones of stern rebuke from the bridge. Luckily the min

or cover, while an Arab in their vicinity, leading a leisurely camel, continued his stroll inland unperturbed. We drove the main body out of their hidden position and into the hills with well-timed shrapnel, and finished up by demolishing the Customs (where a lot of ammunition blew

onger in one of his latest works, that indiscriminate aerial raids on civil

d moved his headquarters to the school-house within the precincts of the mosque-sagacious soul. The object-lesson which we gave the Arabs at Um-Lejj put a check to their irresponsible sniping of boats and landing-parties, though one could always expect a little trouble with an Arab dhow running contraband for the Turks. In these cases their guilty consciences usually

er when she took the ground and sat on the bottom like a dilapidated basket. We broached enough tins to start a conflagration, lit a fuse made of a strip of old turban soaked in kerosene, and backed hard from her vicinity, for the kerosene was low-flash common stuff as marked on the cases, and to play at snapdragon in half an acre of blazing oil is an uninviting pastime. However, she just flared without exploding, and we continued

age and would play "Puss-in-the-Corner" until the cutter lost patience, and a flickering pin-point of light stabbed the velvet black of the middle watch, asking permission to fire; one rifle-shot

by them. Sharif Husein had long chafed under Turkish suzerainty, in spite of his subsidy and the deference which policy compelled them to accord him. He knew that the Hejaz could never realise its legitim

f a brigand than a warrior, as any pilgrim will tell you. Such folk are apt to jib at hammer-and-tongs fighting, and of course we could not land troops to assist them, as it would h

nd so induce the gentle Hejazi to declare himself. The day was fixed, May, 15, on and after which date no traffic whatever was to be permitted with the Arabian coast other than that specially sanctioned by Government. In palaver thereon I managed to get local fishing-craft exempted. The fisher-folk are not combatants either on empty stomachs or full ones, and could be relied on to consume their own f

n early summer in those waters. I joined her from Suez the day after the blockade was closed, and found her keeping guard over a perfect fleet of dhows. There were about three dozen craft with over three hundred people on board, for many native passenger

mplaints from the discontent natural to the situation in which their own slackness had placed them. I insisted on hearing only one complaint at a time, otherwise it would have been pandemonium afloat, for they were anchored close enough together to converse with ea

e much smaller and saucier-looking craft, some fifty to eighty feet long, with a turn of speed and raking masts. All were lugger-rigged with lateen sails, and only the poop and bows were decked, the bulwarks being heightened with strips of matting to prevent seas from breaking in-b

, and sheet round in front of the mast when they come about, instead of keeping the sheet aft and dipping the butt of the gaff with the sail to the other side of the mast, which would be an impossibility for that rig, as the butt of their enormous mainyard or gaff is bowsed permanently down in the bows, while the soaring peak may be nearly a hundred feet above the water. Cooking was done over c

to the ship and letting the dhows beach. This was referred and approved by wireless. The job took us some days, as the weather was rather unfavourable and all the cargoes had to be checked by manifest with a view to restitution later. Each dhow as she was cleared had to make for the shore and di

orate was in Turkish hands, we had spent a most unpleasant Easter in Sinai, and Kut had fallen. Still, the Turks were soon to realise that a wrongly-invo

t the party consisted of Lieut.-Commander von Moeller (late of a German gunboat interned at Tsing-Tao) and five reservists whom he had picked up in Java. They had landed on the South Arabian coast in March, had visited Sanaa, the capital of Yamen, and had come up the Arabian coast of the Red Sea by dhow, keeping well inside the Farsan bank, which is three hundred miles long and a serious obstacle to patrol work. They had landed at Konfida, north of the bank, and reached Jeddah by camel on May 5. Against the advice of the Turks they continued their journey by land, as they had no chance of eluding our northern

an Arab attack which was due then but did not materialise till early next morning, and was then but feebly delivered. We found out later that the rifles and ammunition we had delivered on th

which we had located by glass and the co-operation of friendly fishing-craft who gave us the direction by signal. During the morning the Hejazis made

a party of Indian signallers to maintain closer touch with their operations, provided that Arab

On the 15th it culminated with the arrival of a seaplane carrier and heavy bombing of the Ottoman trenches which our flat-trajectory naval guns cou

red soon after, leaving Medina as the only impo

the rest of this cruise my ship was a sort of parcels-delivery van, and when the

after, as I was invalided from service afloat, but I kept in touch as an

been trained at the Stamboul Military Academy), ably assisted by zealous and skilled British officers as min

been there, if only to have seen the Admiral sail in to the proceedings with a revolver in his fist and the él

on March 11 they lost Baghdad; on November 7 their Beersheba

ian in August, and after a final, victorious British offensive in Palestine the unholy alliance of

it. There had been widespread organisation against us, and the serpent's eggs of sedition and revolt had been hatched in ce

Seyid Muhammed er-Rashid Ridha, a descendant of the Prophet and one of the greatest Arab theologians living, has voiced the verdict of Islam on this unscrupulous and self-seeking adventure in a trenchant article published in September, 1916. He showed up Enver and his Unionist party as an atheist among atheists who had deprived the Sultan of his rightful power an

a Tartar and too little of a Moslem to appreciate the Arab mind, and the German ignored it, rooting with eager, guttural grunts among

boul. The poor man appears to have jibbed considerably and sent his family over the Nejd border to be out of reach of Turkish persecution. Finally he decided to conform, but when he climbed the steps of his "minbar" and scanned his congregation he saw a group of German officers wearing tarboushes

n that worthy man got clear away and joined his family in Nejd. Jihad is incumbent on all Moslems if against infidel aggression. We stood on the defensive when the T

flame of religious fervour, and it shattered against the shield of religious tol

TNO

and of Uz,