TALES OF THE SECRET CORPS
Although none played quite so spectacular a part as Lawrence, there
were at least a score of other dashing officers who distinguished
themselves in Arabia, and a volume might well be, and in fact
should be, written about the exploits of each.
All of Britain’s coöperation with the Arabs was arranged by a
secret service department, the Near Eastern Intelligence Corps,
created in the days when Sir Henry McMahon was still high
commissioner for Egypt. Upon his retirement the control of this
branch of the service passed on to his successor, Sir Reginald
Wingate, and to Sir Edmund (now Field-Marshal Viscount) Allenby.
Although these three distinguished men each personally encouraged
the Arabs and took an active interest in the Shereefian revolt, no
man among those who did not actually visit Arabia deserves more
credit for the success of the revolution than Sir Gilbert F.
Clayton, the organizer of this secret corps.
During the early days of the operations in the Near East, General
Clayton made his headquarters in Cairo. There he gathered together
a group of brilliant men who were each intimately acquainted with
some corner of the Near East and with some one particular group of
its bewildering mosaic of peoples. Among them were students of
political affairs, men like Mark Sykes and Aubrey Herbert; then
there was Hogarth, the famous antiquarian and geographer; Cornwallis
and Joyce, veterans from the Sudan; Woolley and Lawrence, who were
engaged in archæology in Mesopotamia; and many others, including
an engineer-adventurer of reckless daring by the name of Newcombe,
whom Lawrence described to me as “the most devastatingly energetic
person in the world.”
Although Colonel Lawrence had more train demolitions to his credit
than any one else, he was not the man who first introduced the
gentle sport of tulip-planting in Arabia. That honor must go to
Lieutenant-Colonel S. F. Newcombe, who might even have exceeded
Lawrence’s record as a train-wrecker and railway-demolisher had
not his fearless spirit and love of fighting resulted in his
spending the final stages of the war in a Turkish prison.
Prior to 1914 Newcombe had earned the reputation of being the
ablest engineer in the British army. The railway line which crosses
the Sudan Desert from the valley of the Nile to the Red Sea was
one of his efforts. Always a pioneer, he had surveyed and blazed
trails in Abyssinia, Persia, and various other regions that are
mere blobs on the map to most of us.
So engrossed did he become in each job that he also gained renown
for his forgetfulness as well as for his daring. After the capture
of El Wedj, in the early days of the Hedjaz revolt, he was placed
in temporary command of that port. Living with him were several
other officials, but as the colonel happened to be the only one
who had a servant they were all obliged to depend upon him for mess
arrangements. But Newcombe attended to this unimportant phase of
his day’s activity in the most casual manner, if at all, and when
one o’clock came around and some one suggested, “Now for a bit of
lunch,” it usually developed that Newcombe had forgotten to give
instructions; and as a result they would have to compromise by
telescoping lunch and tea at two o’clock.
Colonel Newcombe played a meteoric part in Arabian affairs for
seven months and initiated the methods of railway destruction which
Lawrence afterward applied so effectively. Although he donned Arab
garb he was utterly un-Oriental in his ways and plunged headlong
into his work both day and night at such a furious pace that no
one could keep up with him. Then at the end of seven months in the
desert he rejoined the British army in Palestine and in the attack
on Beersheba carried out one of the most daring actions of the war.
Allenby’s cavalry and infantry were closing in on Beersheba from
the west, south, and east. But to the north of that ancient home
of Abraham runs the Beersheba-Hebron-Jerusalem Road, in those days
the main artery of the Turkish line of communications. Newcombe,
and one hundred Australians who had volunteered to follow him,
crept through the Turkish lines by night just before the attack on
Beersheba was launched. Their job was to attempt to cut the Hebron
Road and hold up all Turkish supplies and reinforcements until
Allenby and his army had routed the Turkish forces and taken
Beersheba. It was a desperate thing to attempt, but for three days
and nights Newcombe and his band of Australians remained astride
that road and outfought fifty times their number. Eventually they
were surrounded on a hill-top, and the few lucky enough to be still
alive were captured.
It happened that Colonel Newcombe was the highest ranking British
officer whom the Turks had thus far captured in Palestine, and so
they made quite a fuss over him when he was paraded through the
streets of Jerusalem on his way to prison in Anatolia.
But months later, after having survived smallpox and all of the
other luxuries of Turkish prison life, the colonel escaped from
his cell in Constantinople through the aid of a beautiful Syrian
girl, who then concealed him in her home. This was shortly before
the Turkish collapse, and Newcombe, preferring the thrills of life
in disguise in Constantinople to the monotony that might follow
complete escape from Turkey, remained in Stamboul in order to start
an underground bureau of propaganda right in the heart of enemy
territory. So successful was he that eventually he got into touch
with a group of prominent Turks who were opposed to the pan-German
policy of Talaat and Enver, and he even helped them arrange the
Armistice which resulted in Turkey’s dropping out of the war. Then,
as any born hero of melodrama would be expected to do as the climax
to his romantic career, he married the beautiful Syrian girl who
had helped him escape—and we hope lived happily ever after.
Photograph: FEISAL AND LAWRENCE CONFERRING WITH BEDOUIN SHEIKS
Photograph: SUNSET OVER THE MOUNTAIN OF EDOM
Photograph: OUR CARAVAN APPROACHING THE “LOST CITY”
Among the men most actively engaged in arranging British aid for
the Arabs and in advising them on military matters were Colonel C.
E. Wilson, Colonel K. Cornwallis, Lieutenant-Colonel Allan Dawney,
and Commander D. G. Hogarth. Colonel Wilson was the governor of
the Red Sea Province of the Sudan when Shereef Hussein and his sons
first overthrew the Turks in Mecca, and he engineered considerable
surreptitious gun-running to keep the revolt alive until the Allies
had time to make up their minds officially to help the Arabs.
Colonel Wilson loaded British ships with ammunition and rifles at
Port Sudan and then transferred them to sailing dhows in the middle
of the Red Sea. These dhows then landed the supplies secretly along
the Arabian coast, where they were distributed to the Bedouins.
But after the fall of Mecca and Jeddah he left his administrative
work in the Sudan and crossed over to Jeddah, where he remained in
charge of British activities in the southern Hedjaz and as adviser
to Shereef Hussein until the termination of the war. In fact it
was Colonel Wilson, in company with General Clayton and Ronald
Storrs, the Oriental secretary to the high commissioner for Egypt,
who opened up the first negotiations between Britain and the
leaders of the Arab revolt. In spite of poor health Colonel Wilson
did particularly fine work.
Cornwallis, Dawney, and Hogarth spent the most of their time at
headquarters in Cairo at what was known as the Arab Bureau. Colonel
Cornwallis, who after the war was sent to Mesopotamia as one of
the principal British advisers to Feisal when that emir was
proclaimed king in Bagdad, was in charge of the Arab Bureau. He
personally superintended the political side of the work which
coöperation with the Arabs entailed, such as official negotiations
between Britain and the newly established government of the kingdom
of the Hedjaz, and the important business of the subsidy which was
granted to King Hussein to enable him to continue his campaign. In
addition Colonel Cornwallis supervised the extremely important work
of winning recruits for the Shereefian army from the Ottoman troops
of Arab blood who were in the prison-camps of Syria, Palestine,
Egypt, and Mesopotamia. Lawrence often referred to the genius of
Cornwallis and seemed to regard him as indispensable to Arab
success.
Another brilliant officer who divided his time between the Arab
Bureau in Cairo, the desert, and Allenby’s headquarters in Palestine
was Lieutenant-Colonel Allan Dawney of the Coldstream Guards.
Although responsible for putting the Arabian campaign on a proper
and efficient military basis for personnel and service of supply,
Dawney’s main task was that of keeping Emir Feisal, Colonel
Lawrence, and the other leaders in Arabia in constant touch with
Allenby. Lawrence and he were intimate friends and worked in
perfect harmony. Dawney did everything possible to wangle the
equipment and everything else that Lawrence required. He also saw
to it that his own visits to Arabia allowed him enough time to take
part in a few raids, for he too was an ardent tulip-planter.
But so unusual was the nature of the desert war that it required
the diplomatic genius of at least one man to act as an intermediary
between Arabia and the Imperial Government in London. This delicate
task was left to a scholarly man of international renoun whose
suggestions could therefore hardly be disregarded even by a prime
minister and his War Cabinet. Sir Gilbert Clayton here again proved
himself a genius at selecting men by choosing D. G. Hogarth, head
of the Ashmolean Museum of Oxford, for this post, and in Hogarth
he not only picked a man famous as an antiquarian and archæologist
but one who had long been looked upon as the foremost living
authority on Arabia. Here again Lawrence was favored by fortune in
being associated with one who could hardly have been more ideally
qualified, for Commander Hogarth (he was given an honorary naval
commission to increase his official prestige) had known Lawrence
from childhood and had given him his start in the field of
archæology. Throughout the campaign Commander Hogarth was looked
upon by Lawrence and his colleagues as their counselor, philosopher,
and mediator whose delicate task it was to justify the various
steps taken in Arabia to the General Staff and the War Cabinet. He
also edited the secret publication at headquarters in Cairo called
“The Arab Bulletin,” of which only about four copies per edition
were printed: one for Lloyd George and his Cabinet, one for Allenby
and staff, one for Lawrence and associates in the desert, and one
for the file at the Arab Bureau.
Photograph: THE NARROW DEFILE THAT LEADS TO THE “LOST CITY”
Photograph: A ROSE-RED TEMPLE CARVED LIKE A CAMEO
FROM THE FACE OF THE MOUNTAIN