THE SUEZ CAMPAIGN
I have already spoken of the so-called "requisitioning" that took place
among our people while I was working at Saffêd. This, of course, really
amounted to wholesale pillage. The hand of the Turkish looters had
fallen particularly heavy on carts and draught animals. As the Arabs
know little or nothing of carting, hauling, or the management of horses
and mules, the Turks, simply enough, had "requisitioned" many of the
owners--middle-aged or elderly men--and forced them to go south to help
along with the tremendous preparations that were being made for the
attack on Suez. Among these were a number of men from our village. In
the course of time their families began to get the most harrowing
messages from them. They were absolutely destitute, no wages being paid
them by the Turks; their clothes were dropping off them in rags; many
were sick. After much excited planning, it was decided to send another
man and myself down south on a sort of relief expedition, with a
substantial sum of money that had been raised with great difficulty by
our people. Through the influence of my brother at the Agricultural
Experiment Station, I got permission from the _mouchtar_ to leave
Zicron-Jacob, and about the middle of January, 1915, I set out for
Jerusalem.
To Western minds, the idea of the Holy City serving as a base for modern
military operations must be full of incongruities. And, as a matter of
fact, it _was_ an amazing sight to see the streets packed with
khaki-clad soldiers and hear the brooding silence of ancient walls
shattered by the crash of steel-shod army boots. Here, for the first
time, I saw the German officers--quantities of them. Strangely out of
place they looked, with their pink-and-whiteness that no amount of hot
sunshine could quite burn off. They wore the regular German officer's
uniform, except that the _Pickelhaube_ was replaced by a khaki
sun-helmet. I was struck by the youthfulness of them; many were nothing
but boys, and there were weak, dissolute faces in plenty--a fact that
was later explained when I heard that Palestine had been the
dumping-ground for young men of high family whose parents were anxious
to have them as far removed as possible from the danger zone. Fast's
Hotel was the great meeting-place in Jerusalem for these young bloods.
Every evening thirty or forty would foregather there to drink and talk
women and strategy. I well remember the evening when one of them--a
slender young Prussian with no back to his head, braceleted and
monocled--rose and announced, in the decisive tones that go with a
certain stage of intoxication: "What we ought to do is to hand over the
organization of this campaign to Thomas Cook & Sons!"
However, the German officers were by no means all incompetents. They
realized (I soon found out) that they had little hope of bringing a big
army through the Egyptian desert and making a successful campaign there.
Their object was to immobilize a great force of British troops around
the Canal, to keep the Mohammedan population in Palestine impressed with
Turkish power, and to stir up religious unrest among the natives in
Egypt. It must be admitted that in the first two of these purposes they
have been successful.
The Turks were less far-sighted. They believed firmly that they were
going to sweep the English off the face of the earth and enter Cairo in
triumph, and preparations for the march on Suez went on with feverish
enthusiasm. The ideas of the common soldiers on this subject were
amusing. Some of them declared that the Canal was to be filled up by the
sandbags which had been prepared in great quantities. Others held that
thousands of camels would be kept without water for many days preceding
the attack; then the thirsty animals, when released, would rush into the
Canal in such numbers that the troops could march to victory over the
packed masses of drowned bodies.
The army operating against Suez numbered about one hundred and fifty
thousand men. Of these about twenty thousand were Anatolian
Turks--trained soldiers, splendid fighting material, as was shown by
their resistance at the Dardanelles. The rest were Palestinian Arabs,
and very inferior troops they were. The Arab as a soldier is at once
stupid and cunning: fierce when victory is on his side, but unreliable
when things go against him. In command of the expedition was the famous
Djemal Pasha, a Young Turk general of tremendous energy, but possessing
small ability to see beyond details to the big, broad concepts of
strategy. Although a great friend of Enver Pasha, he looked with
disfavor on the German officers and, in particular, on Bach Pasha, the
German Governor of Jerusalem, with whom he had serious disagreements.
This dislike of the Germans was reflected among the lesser Turkish
officers. Many of these, after long years of service, found themselves
subordinated to young foreigners, who, in addition to arbitrary
promotion, received much higher salaries than the Turks. What is more,
they were paid in clinking gold, whereas the Turks, when paid at all,
got paper currency.
Beersheba, a prosperous town of the ancient province of Idumea, was the
southern base of operations for the advance on Suez. Some of our
villagers had been sent to this district, and, in searching for them, I
had the opportunity of seeing at least the taking-off place of the
expedition. Beyond this point no Jew or Christian was allowed to pass,
with the exception of the physicians, all of whom were non-Mohammedans
who had been forced into the army.
Beersheba was swarming with troops. They filled the town and overflowed
on to the sands outside, where a great tent-city grew up. And everywhere
that the Turkish soldiers went, disorganization and inefficiency
followed them. From all over the country the finest camels had been
"requisitioned" and sent down to Beersheba until, at the time I was
there, thousands and thousands of them were collected in the
neighborhood. Through the laziness and stupidity of the Turkish
commissariat officers, which no amount of German efficiency could
counteract, no adequate provision was made for feeding them, and
incredible numbers succumbed to starvation and neglect. Their great
carcasses dotted the sand in all directions; it was only the wonderful
antiseptic power of the Eastern sun that held pestilence in check.
The soldiers themselves suffered much hardship. The crowding in the
tents was unspeakable; the water-supply was almost as inadequate as the
medical service, which consisted chiefly of volunteer Red Crescent
societies--among them a unit of twenty German nurses sent by the
American College at Beirut. Medical supplies, such as they were, had
been taken from the different mission hospitals and pharmacies of
Palestine--these "requisitions" being made by officers who knew nothing
of medical requirements and simply scooped together everything in sight.
As a result, one of the army physicians told me that in Beersheba he had
opened some medical chests consigned to him and found, to his horror,
that they were full of microscopes and gynecological instruments--for
the care of wounded soldiers in the desert!
Visits of British aeroplanes to Beersheba were common occurrences. Long
before the machine itself could be seen, its whanging, resonant hum
would come floating out of the blazing sky, seemingly from everywhere at
once. Soldiers rushed from their tents, squinting up into the heavens
until the speck was discovered, swimming slowly through the air; then
followed wholesale firing at an impossible range until the officers
forbade it. True to the policy of avoiding all unnecessary harm to the
natives, these British aviators never dropped bombs on the town,
but--what was more dangerous from the Turkish point of view--they would
unload packages of pamphlets, printed in Arabic, informing the natives
that they were being deceived; that the Allies were their only true
friends; that the Germans were merely making use of them to further
their own schemes, etc. These cleverly worded little tracts came
showering down out of the sky, and at first they were eagerly picked up.
The Turkish commanders, however, soon announced that any one found
carrying them would pay the death penalty. After that, when the little
bundles dropped near them, the natives would, run as if from high
explosive bombs.
All things considered, it is wonderful that the Turkish demonstration
against the Canal came as near to fulfillment as it did. Twenty thousand
soldiers actually crossed the desert in six days on scant rations, and
with them they took two big guns, which they dragged by hand when the
mules dropped from thirst and exhaustion. They also carried pontoons to
be used in crossing the Canal. Guns and pontoons are now at rest in the
Museum at Cairo.
Just what took place in the attack is known to very few. The English
have not seen fit to make public the details, and there was little to be
got from the demoralized soldiers who returned to Beersheba. Piece by
piece, however, I gathered that the attacking party had come up to the
Canal at dawn. Finding everything quiet, they set about getting across,
and had even launched a pontoon, when the British, who were lying in
wait, opened a terrific fire from the farther bank, backed by armored
locomotives and aeroplanes. "It was as if the gates of Jehannum were
opened and its fires turned loose upon us," one soldier told me.
The Turks succeeded in getting their guns into action for a very short
while. One of the men-of-war in the Canal was hit; several houses in
Ismaïlia suffered damage; but the invaders were soon driven away in
confusion, leaving perhaps two thousand prisoners in the hands of the
English. If the latter had chosen to do so, they could have annihilated
the Turkish forces then and there. The ticklish state of mind of the
Mohammedan population in Egypt, however, has led them to adopt a policy
of leniency and of keeping to the defensive, which subsequent
developments have more than justified. It is characteristic of England's
faculty for holding her colonies that batteries manned by Egyptians did
the finest work in defense of the Canal.
The reaction in Palestine after the defeat at Suez was tremendous. Just
before the attack, Djemal Pasha had sent out a telegram announcing the
overwhelming defeat of the British vanguard, which had caused wild
enthusiasm. Another later telegram proclaimed that the Canal had been
reached, British men-of-war sunk, the Englishmen routed--with a loss to
the Turks of five men and two camels, "which were afterwards recovered."
"But," added the telegram, "a terrible sand-storm having arisen, the
glorious army takes it as the wish of Allah not to continue the attack,
and has therefore withdrawn in triumph."
These reports hoodwinked the ignorant natives for a little while, but
when the stream of haggard soldiers, wounded and exhausted, began
pouring back from the south, they guessed what had happened, and a
fierce revulsion against the Germano-Turkish régime set in. A few weeks
before the advance on Suez, I was in Jaffa, where the enthusiasm and
excitement had been at fever-pitch. Parades and celebrations of all
kinds in anticipation of the triumphal march into Egypt were taking
place, and one day a camel, a dog, and a bull, decorated respectively
with the flags of Russia, France, and England, were driven through the
streets. The poor animals were horribly maltreated by the natives, who
rained blows and flung filth upon them by way of giving concrete
expression to their contempt for the Allies. Mr. Glazebrook, the
American Consul at Jerusalem, happened to be with me in Jaffa that day;
and never shall I forget the expression of pain and disgust on his face
as he watched this melancholy little procession of scapegoats hurrying
along the street.
Now, however, all was changed. The Arabs, who take defeat badly, turned
against the authorities who had got them into such trouble. Rumors
circulated that Djemal Pasha had been bought by the English and that the
defeat at Suez had been planned by him, and persons keeping an ear close
to the ground began to hear mutterings of a general massacre of Germans.
In fact, things came within an ace of a bloody outbreak. I knew some
Germans in Jaffa and Haifa who firmly believed that it was all over with
them. In the defeated army itself the Turkish officers gave vent to
their hatred of the Germans. Three German officers were shot by their
Turkish comrades during the retreat, and a fourth committed suicide.
However, Djemal Pasha succeeded in keeping order by means of stern
repressive methods and by the fear roused by his large body-guard of
faithful Anatolians.
[ILLUSTRATION: RAILROAD STATION SCENE BETWEEN HAIFA AND DAMASCUS/CAMELS
BRINGING IN NEWLY CUT TREES, DAMASCUS]
We felt sure that the Turkish defeat would put a damper on the arrogance
of the soldiery. But even the Mohammedan population were hoping that the
Allies would push their victory and land troops in Syria and Palestine;
for though they hated the infidel, they loved the Turk not at all, and
the country was exhausted and the blockade of the Mediterranean by the
Allies prevented the import and export of articles. The oranges were
rotting on the trees because the annual Liverpool market was closed to
Palestine, and other crops were in similar case. The country was short,
too, of petroleum, sugar, rice, and other supplies, and even of matches.
We had to go back to old customs and use flint and steel for fire, and
we seldom used our lamps. Money was scarce, too, and, Turkey having
declared a moratorium, cash was often unobtainable even by those who had
money in the banks, and much distress ensued.
As the defeated army was pouring in from the south, I decided to leave
Beersheba and go home. The roads and the fields were covered with dead
camels and horses and mules. Hundreds of soldiers were straggling in
disorder, many of them on leave but many deserting. Soon after the
defeat at the Canal several thousand soldiers deserted, but an amnesty
was declared and they returned to their regiments.
When I arrived at Jerusalem I found the city filled with soldiers.
Djemal Pasha had just returned from the desert, and his quarters were
guarded by a battery of two field guns. Nobody knew what to expect; some
thought that the country would have a little more freedom now that the
soldiery had lost its braggadocio, while others expected the lawlessness
that attends disorganization. I went to see Consul Glazebrook. He is a
true American, a Southerner, formerly a professor of theology at
Princeton. He was most earnest and devoted in behalf of the American
citizens that came under his care, rendering at Jerusalem the same sort
of service that Ambassador Morgenthau has rendered at Constantinople. He
was practically the only man who stood up for the poor, defenseless
people of the city. He received me kindly, and I told him what I knew of
conditions in the country, what I had heard among the Arabs, and of my
own fears and apprehensions. He was visibly impressed and he advised me
to see Captain Decker, of the U.S.S. Tennessee, who was then in Jaffa,
promising to write himself to the captain of my proposed visit.
I went to Jaffa the same day and after two days' delay succeeded in
seeing Captain Decker, with the further help of Mr. Glazebrook, who took
me with him. The police interfered and tried to keep me from going
aboard the ship, but after long discussions I was permitted to take my
place in the launch that the captain had sent for the consul.
Captain Decker was interested in what I had to say, and at his request I
dictated my story to his stenographer. What became of my report I do not
know,--whether it was transmitted to the Department of State or whether
Captain Decker communicated with Ambassador Morgenthau,--but at all
events we soon began to see certain reforms inaugurated in parts of the
country, and these reforms could have been effected only through
pressure from Constantinople. The presence of the two American cruisers
in the Mediterranean waters has without any doubt been instrumental in
the saving of many lives.