At first light on 10 June, the voice of a single muezzin rang out from the minaret of the Grand Mosque at Mecca. It was still cool at that hour, but already the sky was clear as a burning-glass and the eddyless air held the threat of furnace heat. There were dark figures in the streets, Bedu wrapped in cloaks and mantles, with their headcloths tightly knotted across their faces, mingling, hardly noticed, with townsmen hurrying to perform their prayers. At the Jirwal barracks on the Jeddah road, where the garrison commander had spent the night, the Turks slept on, confident in the belief that they were protected by the sentries and guns of the Jiyad fortress – a massive, many-towered redoubt squatting on a stump of shale above the town. The troops were few – less than 1,500 men – for during the sweltering summer season, the Governor moved to cooler quarters in Ta’if with the bulk of the garrison. In the Hamdiyya building, which housed the Ottoman Government Offices, the Vice-Governor, who was already awake and making his ablutions, paused for an instant to take in the beauty of the muezzin’s song. Not far away, in the Hashemite palace, Sharif Hussain was listening carefully to the same clear notes, gazing out of the window, and observing the slowly milling figures in the streets. The Call to Prayers finished abruptly, and for a second there was silence. Then the Sharif picked up his rifle, and, with slow deliberation, fired from the window the shot which officially opened the Arab Revolt.
It was the signal the tribesmen had been waiting for. Instantly, they threw off their cloaks, and let rip a hail of bullets at the three Turkish fortresses, the barracks, the guard-posts and the offices. The troops at the Jirwal awoke to find bullets buzzing through their windows like flies, and, rolling out of bed, the Commander looked about him in confusion. He was under attack, but he had no idea by whom. He listened attentively for the boom of artillery or the rattle of machine-guns which would have accompanied an Allied assault, but heard only the coarser crack and thump of musketry. Glancing out of the window, he saw a scarlet flag flying from the Hashemite palace, but did not distinguish it as the Hashemite emblem, for the Imperial Ottoman banner was also scarlet. Quickly, he cranked the telephone and spoke to the Commander of the battery in the Jiyad fort. Almost at once a terse order brought the gunners to their posts. Puffs of smoke appeared at the gun-ports of the fortress, followed by the crashing roar of shells bursting in the streets. To the Bedu attackers, the guns sounded like thunder-demons. They were armed only with muzzle-loading muskets, and had never heard artillery before. At the Jirwal barracks the Turks had recovered from their initial surprise, and, emboldened by the artillery barrage, were now firing back vigorously. The Commander next telephoned the Sharif: ‘We are under attack by the Bedu,’ he reported. ‘Can you do something about it?’ ‘Certainly,’ Hussain replied calmly, and gave the signal for a renewed attack.
At nine o’clock, when the lambent heat of the day could already be felt in the tight streets, the Commander asked for a parley. The local Arab civil officer marched up to the barracks under a white flag, and informed him: ‘This country has declared its independence from the Ottoman Empire. Hostilities will only cease when your force evacuates the barracks and surrenders its entire armoury to the Arab commander.’ 2Startled by the revelation, but determined to hold out now he knew whom he was fighting, the Commander at once ordered the Jiyad battery to open up. Firing continued sporadically all that day and all through the night, and the next morning a wedge of Bedu, screaming warcries and brandishing daggers and scimitars which flashed venomously in the sunlight, rushed the main guard-house near the Grand Mosque, stove in its doors, and captured its defenders. The following day they attacked the Hamidiyya Building, where the Vice-Vali had by now entrenched himself with his escort. All night he and his men had kept up a withering fire at anyone who came within range, and had shot dead a number of people who were merely plodding to prayer at the mosque. Worming their way from door to door, the Bedu suddenly launched a charge from close range, leaping out of the shadows screaming like banshees. The Turkish soldiers, cowed by their ferocity, dropped their rifles and raised their hands in fright. They were marched up to the Hashemite palace, from where the Vice-Governor sent letters ordering the troops at Jirwal and Jiyad to surrender. The Turkish units adamantly refused to budge, and kept up a continual, rhythmic barrage of shells, ranging them so indiscriminately into the town that they set fire to the Kiswa– the embroidery covering the sacred Ka’aba– the holiest shrine in Islam. They also managed to damage the shrine of Abraham, and to splinter a bas-relief commemorating the life of the Khalif Othman. All of these acts provided excellent propaganda against them, and the last was held up as an ominous sign of their disfavour, since the name Othman was linked with the eponymous ancestor of the Ottoman Turks. The situation was now stalemate, however. The Arabs could not attack the Jiyad with its deadly batteries, and the Turks were unable or unwilling to sally forth. The situation remained static until the beginning of July, when two batteries of mountain-guns arrived with a detachment of Egyptian artillerymen under the command of Sayyid ‘Ali Pasha. Though the guns were archaic, sent hurriedly by Sir Reginald Wingate, Sirdar of the Egyptian Army, from Port Sudan, they were effective at close quarters. Almost at once the batteries knocked out some of the Turkish guns in the Jiyad, and breached the walls, so that the Bedu, who had scaled the surrounding heights, were able to hurl themselves into the fort, where they cut down or captured the entire garrison. They also took five artillery-pieces, 8,000 rifles, and hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition. The mountain-guns were then turned on the Jiwal barracks, and a shell-burst set the building ablaze, spreading poisonous smoke through it. The Turks, who had no water to put out the blaze, surrendered on 9 July. In a month’s fighting the Arabs had killed and wounded almost 300 Turks, and had captured the rest. The opening gambit in the Arab Revolt had been an astounding success.