CHAPTER XXVI

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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
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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