THE CAPTURE OF KING SOLOMON’S ANCIENT SEAPORT
Lawrence had left El Wejh, hundreds of miles to the south, with
but two months’ rations. After giving a part of his supplies to
the captured Turks, the food situation became critical. Nevertheless
the half-starved Arab army, led by this youngster, continued its
march through the jagged, barren mountains that bite the North
Arabian sky. The news of their victories traveled ahead of them,
and when Lawrence arrived at Gueirra, a Turkish post in King
Solomon’s Mountains, twenty-five miles from Akaba, at the entrance
to an extremely narrow pass known as the Wadi Ithm, the Gueirra
garrison came out and laid down their arms without firing a shot.
He then proceeded to march his Bedouins on, down the Wadi Ithm to
Kethura, another outpost guarding the only land approach to Akaba.
There Lawrence charged another garrison and captured several
hundred more men. Trekking through the gorge they came to an
ancient well at Khadra, where two thousand years before the Romans
had constructed a stone dam across the valley, the remains of which
can still be seen. The Turks had massed their heavy artillery
behind that ruined wall. It constituted the outermost defense of
Akaba. By the time the Shereefian army arrived in front of this
final barricade the Bedouins of the Amran Darausha and Neiwat
tribes, who lived in the desert near Akaba, had heard of the great
victories at Fuweilah and Abu el Lissal and were scampering across
the lava mountains by the hundreds to join the advancing Arab
forces.
The overwhelming defeat of the Turkish battalion at Abu el Lissal
was really the first phase of the battle of Akaba. The second
consisted in the spectacular manœuver when Lawrence accomplished
what the Turks thought impossible and succeeded in leading his
scraggly, undisciplined horde of Bedouins through the precipitous
King Solomon Mountains, over the old Roman wall, right past the
bewildered Turkish artillerymen, and down into Akaba on the morning
of July 6, 1917. But to save the Akaba garrison from massacre
Lawrence and Nasir had to labor with their fierce followers from
sunset to dawn. They would not have succeeded then, had not Nasir
walked down the valley into No-Mans’-Land and sat on a rock to make
his men quit firing.
Akaba is picturesquely located at the southern end of the wide Wadi
Araba, perhaps the driest and most desolate valley in the world,
which runs down from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Akaba. Up this
same wadi Moses and the Israelites are believed to have made their
way toward the Promised Land, and down this valley rode Mohammed,
Ali, Abu Bekr, and Omar. It was here that Mohammed preached many
of his first sermons. Beyond a narrow semicircle of date-palms
which fringe the shore, lie the blue waters of the now deserted
gulf where Solomon’s fleets, Phenician galleys, and Roman triremes
rode at anchor. Behind Akaba loom jagged, volcanic, arid mountains.
Like most of the smaller towns of the Near East the place itself
is a chaotic jumble of mud huts. Awnings cover the narrow streets,
and the stalls in the bazaar are filled with brocades, shabby
prayer-rugs, cones of cane-sugar swarming with flies, piles of
dates, and dishes of glistening brass and hammered copper.
The Turks and Germans were so paralyzed and bewildered by the
unexpected achievement of the Arabs in getting across the mountains
and through the passes that they surrendered without further ado.
Immediately after the entrance into Akaba a German officer stepped
up and saluted Lawrence. He spoke neither Turkish nor Arabic and
evidently did not even know there was a revolution in progress.
“What is all this about? What is all this about? Who are these
men?” he shouted excitedly.
“They belong to the army of King Hussein”—the Grand Shereef had by
this time proclaimed himself king—“who is in revolt against the
Turks,” replied Lawrence.
“Who is King Hussein?” asked the German.
“Emir of Mecca and ruler of this part of Arabia, was the reply.
“Ach Himmel! And what am I?” added the German officer in English.
“You are a prisoner.”
“Will they take me to Mecca?”
“No, to Egypt.”
“Is sugar very high over there?”
“Very cheap.”
“Good.” And he marched off, happy to be out of the war, and happier
still to be heading for a place where he could have plenty of
sugar.
This time the plans of Emir Feisal’s youthful British adviser went
through true to form. From now on the Turks were kept on the
defensive. They were obliged to weaken their army by splitting it
into two parts; one half remained in Medina, and the other defended
the pilgrimage railway. If he had wanted to do so Lawrence could
have dynamited the railway in so many places that the Turks would
have been completely cut off at Medina; then, by bringing up a few
long-range naval guns from the Gulf of Akaba, he could have blown
Medina off the map and compelled the garrison to surrender. But he
had an excellent reason for not attempting this, as we shall soon
see. In his mind he had worked out a far finer and more ambitious
scheme, the successful carrying out of which demanded that the
Turks should be inveigled into sending down more reinforcements to
Medina, and as many guns, camels, mules, armored cars, aëroplanes,
and other war materials as they could be compelled to part with
from their other fronts. He hoped they would keep a huge garrison
there until the end of the war, which would mean so many less Turks
opposing the British armies in Palestine and Mesopotamia; and the
supply-trains which would necessarily have to be sent down from
Syria might be made a constant source of supply for the Arabs. If
Medina were captured and the Turks all driven north, it would
deprive Lawrence of this magnificent opportunity of maintaining
his army on Turkish supplies. That was far more to his advantage
than occupying Medina.
After the capture of Akaba, Lawrence and his men lived for ten days
on unripe dates and on the meat of camels which had been killed in
the battle of Abu el Lissal. They were compelled to kill their own
riding-camels at the rate of two a day to save themselves and their
hundreds of prisoners. Then in order to keep his army from starving,
Lawrence jumped on his racing-camel and rode her continuously for
twenty-two hours across the uninhabited mountains and desert
valleys of the Sinai Peninsula. Completely worn out after this
record ride, which came at the end of two months’ continuous
fighting and a thousand miles of trekking across one of the most
barren parts of the earth and living on soggy unleavened bread and
dates and without having a bath for more than a month, he turned
his camel over to an M.P. at one of the street corners in Port
Tewfik, Suez, walked a little unsteadily into the Sinai Hotel, and
ordered a bath. For three hours he remained in the tub with a
procession of Berberine boys serving him cool drinks. That day, he
declares, was the nearest approach to the Mohammedan idea of
paradise that he ever expects to experience. From Suez he went on
to Ismailia, the midway station on the canal.
Lawrence’s arrival in Arabia had been unheralded; even G.H.Q. in
Cairo were ignorant as to his movements. His exploits first became
known when he met General Allenby at Ismailia on the arrival of
this new leader who had just been assigned to take over command of
the Egyptian Expeditionary Forces.
The incident was dramatic in its simplicity. Allenby had been sent
out from London to succeed Sir Archibald Murray as commander-in-chief.
He had just landed and was at the railway station in Ismailia
walking up and down the platform with Admiral Wemyss. Lawrence,
standing near-by in Arab garb, saw the important-looking general
with the admiral.
“Who’s that?” he asked of Wemyss’s flag-lieutenant.
“Allenby,” was the reply.
“What’s he doing here?” queried Lawrence.
“He has come out to take Murray’s place.” Lawrence was frightfully
pleased.
A few minutes later Lawrence had an opportunity to report to
Admiral Wemyss, who had been the godfather of the Arab “show.” He
told him that Akaba had been taken but that his men were badly in
need of food. The admiral immediately promised to send ships, and
a moment later he told Allenby what Lawrence had said. The general
sent for him at once. The station was crowded with staff-officers
and a throng of vociferous natives who were welcoming Allenby, when
out of the mob stepped this bare-footed, fair-faced boy in Bedouin
garb.
“What news have you brought,” asked Allenby.
In even, low tones, without any more expression on his face than
if he were conveying compliments from the Grand Shereef, Lawrence
reported that the Arabs had captured the ancient seaport at the
head of the Gulf of Akaba. He gave all the credit for the victory
to the Arabs, making no reference to the part he himself had played
in the affair. He conveyed the impression that he was acting as a
courier, although, as a matter of fact, the capture of that
important point was due entirely to his own leadership and
strategical genius.
The general was immensely pleased, because Akaba was the most
important point on his right flank and the principal Turkish base
on the western coast of the Arabian Peninsula.
Then when Lawrence explained in more detail the plight of the Arab
troops Admiral Wemyss promised to send a vessel filled with food
to Akaba. But Sir Rosslyn went even beyond that and acted in a way
that will immortalize him in Arabian history. The Arabs were afraid
lest the Turks should return with reinforcements and capture Akaba;
so the admiral moved his office, all his personal effects, and his
staff ashore to a hotel in Ismailia, and sent his flag-ship round
Sinai to Akaba for a whole month to bolster up the morale of the
Arabs. The presence of this huge floating fortress encouraged the
Bedouins and convinced them that they were not going to be obliged
to play a lone hand against the Turkish Empire. The British
flag-ship was more tangible evidence of the strength of Britain
than these desert nomads had ever seen before.
Admiral Wemyss also lent Lawrence and his Arabs twenty machine-guns
from his ships and several naval guns. The latter are still
“somewhere” in Arabia, probably mounted on the roof of Auda Abu
Tayi’s mud palace. Several months after the termination of the war
Lawrence received a letter from the Admiralty asking him kindly to
return one of their long-range guns which had been taken ashore
for the Arab show. He replied that he was very sorry but that he
had “mislaid it.”
As a result of Lawrence’s victory at Akaba and his visit to Egypt,
the British decided to back the Arabs to the limit in their campaign
to win complete independence. The young archæologist was sent back
to Akaba with unlimited resources, and within a few months he had
conducted the campaign in such a brilliant manner that he was
raised in rank from lieutenant to lieutenant-colonel, despite the
fact that he hardly knew the difference between “right incline”
and “present arms.”
The Germans and Turks were not long in finding out that there was
a mysterious power giving inspiration to the Arabs. Through their
spies they discovered that Lawrence was the guiding spirit of the
whole Arabian revolution. They offered rewards up to fifty thousand
pounds for his capture dead or alive. But the Bedouins would not
have betrayed their leader for all the gold in the fabled mines of
Solomon.
The fall of Akaba, next to the capture of the holy city of Mecca,
was the most significant event of the Arabian revolution, because
it unified the Arabs whom Lawrence had already won over to the
cause of the revolution, and gave them confidence in themselves.
After winning his victory Lawrence was shrewd enough to take full
advantage of it. Although his own strategy and personal bravery
had played an all-important part in the success of these operations,
he was astute enough to give all the credit to the principal Arab
leaders under him, such as Auda Abu Tayi and Shereef Nasir. Like
children, these doughty old warriors were not at all reticent about
accepting it, and, of course, from then on they were Lawrence’s
sworn friends.
Anxious to make the most of this initial success, Lawrence sent
couriers to all the tribes of the desert, although news of the
battle of Abu el Lissal and the advance on Akaba seemed to travel
as though flashed about Arabia by radio. He realized the tremendous
importance of propaganda and sent some of his cleverest Arab
lieutenants through the enemy lines to spread the news of the fall
of Akaba far and wide to the remote corners of the Turkish Empire.
So it was that this young Briton, just down from Oxford, away in
a long-forgotten corner of the earth, captured the ancient seaport
of Solomon where a battle had probably not been fought for a
thousand years and more, thereby winning the second important
victory of the war in the Land of the Arabian Nights and paving
the way for an invasion of Syria. From a mere local squabble,
Lawrence’s victory at Akaba transformed the Hedjaz revolt into a
campaign of far-reaching importance directed against the heart of
the Turkish Empire; and from that day his undisciplined rabble of
swarthy desert brigands became the right wing of Allenby’s army,
and from then on this second lieutenant played the rôle of a
lieutenant-general.