Pan-Islam

The situation at Aden has had a marked effect in bolstering up the Turkish campaign of spurious pan-Islamism, and those of us who have been dealing with chiefs in other parts of Arabia have 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of non-interference which the Liberal Government introduced, after the Boundary Commission had finished its task and withdrawn, has been over-strained by the Aden authorities to such an extent that they would neither keep in direct personal touch themselves nor let anyone else do so.

As an explorer and naturalist whose chief work has lain for years in that country, I have made every effort to continue my researches there until my persistency has incurred official persecution. The serious aspect of this attitude is that at a time when accurate 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 disaster. The excuse in official circles there is that the Haushabi sultan had been suborned by the Turks without their knowledge and he had prevented any information from getting through Lahej to them. Can there be any more damning indictment of such a system?

The Aden incident is similar to the Mesopotamian medical muddle, both being due to sporadic dry-rot in high places which the test of war revealed. The loyalty of its princes and the devotion of its army prove that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with British rule in India to command such sentiments, but some 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 pose of heaven-born officialdom. Such types should be obsolete even in India by now, but this war has proved that they are not, and when their inanities fritter away gallant lives and trail British prestige in the dust they need rebuke. I hope some day, if I live, to deal faithfully with Aden's hinterland policy.

In the autumn of 1915 I was fit enough to join the Red Sea maritime patrol as political officer with the naval rank of lieutenant. Our duties were to harry the Turk without hurting the Arab, to 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. Incidentally we had to keep the eastern highway free of mines and transportable submarines, prevent the passage of spies between Arabia and Egypt, and fetch and carry as the shore-folk required.

Taking it all round, it was not an easy job, but I think the blockade presented the most complex features. You knew where you were with spies – anyone with the necessary experience 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-industry and prevented any materialisation of the submarine menace except in reports from Aden which caused me a good many additional trips in an armed steam-cutter to "go, look, see."

But the problems presented by the blockade required some solving with very little time for the operation, and if your solution was not approved by the authorities on the beach they lost no time in letting you know it – usually by wireless, which was picked up by most ships in the patrol by the time it reached you.

The basic idea was that if in doubt it was better to let stuff through to the Turks than pinch Hejazi bellies and get ourselves disliked. In theory this was perfectly sound, for we wanted the Hejaz to like us well enough to fight on our side, and only the Huns think you can get people to love you by afflicting them. In practice, however, we soon found that the Hejazi merchants were selling direct 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 position in the matter. Still, after comparing her relief cargoes with the number of her pilgrims in the country and finding that each had enough to feed him for the rest of his natural life, I ventured to ask that this wholesale charity might cease, more especially as these big steamer-cargoes were dealt with much as the dhow-borne cereals and chiefly benefited the Turks and local profiteers.

As regards dhows, our rule was to allow coastal traffic from Jeddah and empties returning there, as it tended to distribute food among the Arabs and get it away from 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, such as millet, but barred wheat and particularly barred barley, which the local Arab does not eat for choice, but which the Turks wanted very badly for their cavalry.

In this connection a typical incident may be mentioned as illustrating the sort of thing we were up against.

The ship I was serving in at the time lay off Jeddah and had three boats down picketing the dhow-channels leading in to that reef-girt harbour, for which dhows were making like homing bees. In such cases my post was usually on the bridge, while the ship's interpreter and Arab-speaking Seedee-boys went away in the boats. The dhows were reached and their papers examined, then allowed to proceed if all was in order. Otherwise the officer examining signalled the facts and awaited instructions. Usually it 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; so I slid off the bridge and had a sample of the grain handed up to me: it was a species of millet, looking very like pearl-barley as "milled" for culinary purposes. I shouted to the reis to go where he liked as long as he kept clear of our propellers, which thereupon gave a ponderous flap or two as if to emphasise my remarks, and he bore away from us rejoicing. In the ward-room later on I rallied that cutter's officer on his error. "Well, it was just like the barley one sees in soup," was his defence.

In the southern part of the Red Sea, which was handled politically from Aden, the problems of blockade were even more complex, for there even arms and ammunition were allowed between certain ports to meet the convenience of the Idrisi chief, who was theoretically at war with the Turks, but rather diffident about putting his principles into practice, especially after the Turkish success outside Aden.

This meant that the sorely-tried officers responsible for the conduct of the blockade in those waters had frequently to decide on a cargo of illicit-looking rifles and cartridges, not of Government make, but purchased from private firms and guaranteed by a filthy scrap of paper inscribed with crabbed Arabic which 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 the Turks for private gain. Up north there were no difficulties with illicit arms; we allowed a reasonable number per dhow, provided that they were the private property of the crew, and when rifles were dished out to our Arab friends the Navy delivered the goods, which were all of Government mark and pattern.

The political aspect of the blockade required delicate handling anywhere along the Arabian littoral of the Red Sea, but especially so on the Hejazi coast. We were at war with the Turks but not with the Arabs, 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 demonstrations with impunity, as the patrol only fired on the Turkish uniform, since few people can distinguish between a Turco-Arab gendarme and an armed tribesman at long range unless they know both breeds intimately.

The general standard of honour and good faith at most places along the Arabian littoral is not high, even from an Oriental point of view, and is nowhere lower than on the Hejazi coast. Frequently an unattached tribesman would take a shot at a reconnoitring 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 hidden position. As for the actual levies, they would solemnly man prepared positions within easy range of even a 3-pounder when we visited their tinpot ports, relying on us not to fire, and telling their compatriots what they would do if we did.

Even when examining dhows one had to be on one's guard, and it was best not to board them to leeward and so run the risk of having their big, bellying mainsail let go on top of you and getting scuppered while entangled in its folds. African dhows could generally be trusted not to resist search, for when a reis has got his owners or agents at a civilised port like Suakin he likes to keep respectable even if he is smuggling. Our chief difficulty with such craft, before we tightened the blockade, was due to the nonchalant manner in which they put to sea and behaved when at 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 were in shoal water with no way on the ship. My operations were not facilitated by the biggest Crœsus of the lot producing some £400 in five different currencies from various parts of his apparel and stating that he had no idea how much there was but would abide by my decision. I believe he expected me to give him a receipt in round hundreds and take the "oddment," as we call it in Warwickshire, for myself. As it was, I was down half a sovereign or so over the transaction, having given him the benefit of the doubt over two measly little gold coins of unascertainable value.

Some of them were just as happy-go-lucky in their seamanship, though skilful enough in handling their outlandish craft. Early one morning, about fifty miles out of Jeddah, I boarded a becalmed dhow and found 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 would have carried them to Jeddah before it died down. We gave them water and their position, but I told the reis that he was putting more strain on the mercy of Allah than he was, individually, entitled to.

But the craft that plied along the Hejazi coast were sinister customers and wanted watching. Some time before I joined the patrol one of our ships was lying a long way out off Um-Lejj, as the water is shallow, and her duty-boat was working close in-shore examining coastal craft. One of these had some irregularity about her and was sent out to the ship with a marine and a bluejacket in charge while the cutter continued her task. That dhow stood out to sea as if making for the ship and 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 fanatics whose language was unknown to them. On the other hand, the men were, of course, fully armed, and there were but five of the dhow's crew all told, of whom two were not able-bodied. There must have been the blackest treachery – probably the unfortunate men goodnaturedly helped with the running gear and were knocked on the head while so engaged. Their bodies would, no doubt, have been put over the side when the dhow was out of sight, and their rifles sold inland at a fancy price.

When I first joined the patrol we were not allowed to bombard or land at any point between the mouth of the Gulf of Akaba and the Hejaz southern border. The Turkish fort up at Akaba had been knocked about a good deal by various ships of the patrol, and the whole place was uninhabited; but we visited it frequently, as drifting mines were put in up there, having been taken off 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 sort was essential and visible from out-board. The padre, who had opened the "vicarage" dead-light about an inch to get a breath of air, was promptly spotted by an indignant Number One who said that it made the ship look like a floating gin palace. This must have been a pardonable hyperbole, for the signal-fires ashore which used to herald our approach from afar were not lit.

We were off Akaba at peep of day, and two armed cutters raced each other to the beach. I went with the one that made for the stone jetty in the middle front of the 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 no one in the town, but water had been drawn recently from the well inside the fort, and a mud hut out in the desert behind the town seemed a likely covert to draw.

The cutter's officer accompanied me, leaving the crew ensconced in the cemetery, which was a wise move, for, when we were close to the hut, heavy fire was opened on us from a hidden trench some three hundred yards away. We both dropped and rolled into a shallow depression caused by rain-wash, where we lay as flat as we could while 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 using black powder, and outside four hundred yards one has time to avoid the bullet by dropping instantly at the smoke. Otherwise they should have bagged us in spite of the support of our covering party in the cemetery, for the ground was quite open and so dusty that they could see the break of their heavy picket-bullets to a nicety.

We landed in force an hour later and turned them out of it. On returning, the men who searched the hut (which the ship's guns had knocked endways) brought me a budget of correspondence. It was chiefly addressed to the officer in charge and told me that the detachment was Syrian, which I had already suspected 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 for the feast of Muled-en-Nebi (the birthday of the Prophet), which corresponds with our Christmas. There was also a letter from the officer's wife enclosing a half-sheet of paper on which a baby hand had imprinted a smeared outline in ink. It bore the inscription "From your son Ahmed – his hand and greeting."

Early in the spring of 1916 we managed to persuade the political folk at Cairo to extend our sphere of action. I had particularly marked down Um-Lejj 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 also a rallying-point for Turkish influence, and it was not conducive to our prestige or politically desirable that it should flourish unmolested.

I was in the "Fox" again for that occasion, she being the senior ship of the patrol and the only one that could land an adequate force if required.

The evening before we anchored far out on the fishing-grounds of Hasani Island, and I managed to pick up a fisherman who knew where the Turkish hidden position 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 with the steam-cutter groping ahead for the channel, which is about as tortuous a piece of navigation as you can get off this coast, and that is saying a good deal.

When we cleared for action I went to my usual post on the bridge with the S.N.O. and took my fisherman-friend with me. The civil population was streaming out of the town across the open plain in all directions like 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 to warn Arab civilians; thus giving the Turks time to clear, besides the chance of a sitting-shot at us if they thought my address to the townsfolk a violation of the rules of war, which, technically, it might be.

However, the fort was a fixture and our business was first of all with it. Standing close in, the ship turned southwards and moved slowly abreast of the town. The port 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 minaret rose just to the right of the fort, and the houses were so massed about it that there was only one clear shot – up the street leading from the beach past the main gate.

"At the southern gate of the fort, each gun to fire as it comes to bear up the street from the water-side."

As I turned my glasses on the big portico of the southern gate, out stepped a Turkish officer who regarded us intently; the next instant the bridge shook to the crashing concussion of our forward six-inch, and through a drifting haze of gas-fume I saw him blotted out by the orange flash of lyddite and an up-flung pall of dust and débris.

There was a pause, cut short by the clap of the bursting shell reverberating like thunder against the foot-hills beyond the town.

A little naked boy ran in an attitude of terrified dismay up the water-street just as the first four-point-seven fired. I saw him through my glasses duck his head between his arms, then dive panic-stricken through a doorway as the fort was smitten again in dust and thunder. "Was the poor little beggar hit?"

"No, sir, only scared."

While the target was still veiled in its dust the second four-point-seven spoke, and the minaret disappeared from view behind a dun-coloured shroud.

"Cease fire" sounded at once. "Who fired that gun? Take him off," came in tones of stern rebuke from the bridge. Luckily the minaret showed intact as the dust drifted clear and firing continued.

As the fort crumbled under our guns, Turkish soldiers began to break cover at various points of the town and fled across the plain. The cutter, in-shore, opened with Maxim-fire, and so accurately that we could see the sombre-clad figures lying here and there or seeking frantically for 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 up), to the temporary satisfaction of my fisherman, who was curled up in a corner of the bridge, nearly stunned by the shock of modern ordnance in spite of the cotton-wool I had made him put in his ears. Before we picked up our cutter the civil population was already streaming back.

The incident is worth noting in view of remarks made by a popular fiction-monger in one of his latest works, that indiscriminate aerial raids on civil centres in England are on the same level of humanity as naval bombardments.

I visited the fishing-banks off Hasani Island a week or so after to get the latest news of Um-Lejj, which came from Turkish sources. There was one civilian casualty – a woman who was in the Turkish concealed position. No casualties among Turkish officers, but one of them left in charge of the fort had disappeared. There were bits of the fort left, but the Commandant had 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 gave them away. Returning to the coast toward Jeddah unexpectedly, having played the well-worn ruse of "the cat's away," we sighted a small dhow close in-shore, and should have left her alone as she was in shoal-water, but, on standing in to get a nearer view of her, she headed promptly for the beach and ran aground, disgorging more men than such a craft should carry.

I went away in the duty cutter to investigate, and we had barely realised that she was heavily loaded with kerosene in tins (a heinous contraband) when the fact was emphasised by a sputtering rifle-fire from the scrub along the beach. The ship very soon put a stop to that demonstration with a round or two of shrapnel, while we busied ourselves with the dhow. There was no hope of salving her, as she had almost ripped the keel off her 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 our cruise up the coast just in time to overhaul at racing speed a perfect regatta of dhows heeling over to every stitch of canvas in their efforts to make Jeddah before we could get at them, for they had seen the smoke of that burning oil-dhow and realised that the cat was about. Good money is paid at Cowes to see no more spirited sailing – we had to put a shot across the bows of the leading dhow before they would abandon the race.

There was always trouble off Jeddah – the approaches to that reef-girt harbour lend themselves to blockade-running dhows with sound local knowledge on board. At night, especially, they had an advantage 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 fired high would stop the game, and I made them come alongside and take a wigging for annoying the cutter and turning me out; there was seldom anything wrong about the dhow – it was sheer cussedness.

All through the early part of 1916 we were keeping in touch with the Sharif of Mecca by means of envoys, whom we landed where they listed, away from the Turks, picking them up at times and places indicated 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 legitimate aspirations under Ottoman rule, which was a blight on all Arab progress and prosperity, as the Young Turkish party was hardly Moslem at heart, being more national (that is Tartar) – certainly not pro-Arab.