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 manoeuver 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.