Jeddah, Mecca’s port, had long since been taken. Here, Hussain had used gold to raise a section of the Harb – notorious freebooters and highway brigands – under Muhsin ibn Mansour, a brave and highly respected Sharif. The Harb were recalcitrant and unruly, and not entirely to be trusted, but they fought for gold. For days they had massed around Jeddah, and on the morning of 10 June, 3,000 tribesmen had mounted their camels and horses and raced recklessly towards the city gates. The Turks began to rake the plain with artillery, planting great mushrooms of smoke among the running camels, and spattering the vanguard with machine-gun fire. The Harb turned abruptly and withdrew out of range, and Muhsin sent a squadron of camel-riders around to the north-west side of the town to cut off the water supply to the Ottoman garrison, which stood outside the walls. The following day, the Indian Marine ship Hardingeand the light cruiser Foxof the British Red Sea Patrol Squadron beat into the harbour and scourged the garrison with concentrated fire, killing three Turkish gendarmes. The bombardment was repeated daily, until, on 16 June, the carrier Ben-My-Chreedropped anchor off the reef and disgorged a flight of seaplanes which soared over the town walls dropping anti-personnel bombs. The Turkish garrison was demoralized and thirsty. On receiving advice that no reinforcements were on their way, the Commander surrendered to Sharif Muhsin. There was similar success at other ports along the Red Sea Coast. Medina’s port, Yanbu’, and Rabegh – about 120 miles north of Jeddah – were taken by the end of July. Lith and Qunfidhdha, to the south, were captured about the same time, and at Umm Lujj the Turkish troops fled in the desert when Foxput a round up the mainstreet of the town and holed the fort. Ta’if, in the Hejaz highlands seventy-five miles south-east of Mecca, however, had proved a harder nut to crack.
Ta’if, lying on a sandy plain amid fruit orchards and olive groves, 5,000 feet above sea-level, was a walled town which served as a market for the ‘Utayba – one of the most powerful Bedu tribes of central Arabia – as well as a number of smaller semi-nomadic tribes. ‘Abdallah had been sent there with seventy ‘Agayl riders on 1 June, as soon as Hussain had heard the news of Khairy Bey’s advance. He had made a camp near the town, and informed the local Commander, Ahmad Bey, that he was on a raid against the Baqqum, a nomadic tribe of 500 tents inhabiting the wadis of the Assir. Ahmad Bey had been suspicious, but had reckoned that whatever it was the young Sharif was up to, with only seventy poorly armed ‘Agayl he offered very little threat to the Turks, who numbered 3,000, and possessed ten mountain-guns. ‘Abdallah proceeded to send messengers to the camps of the ‘Utayba and other tribes, inviting them to join him, offering money and arms. The Bedu arrived in their camels in small unobtrusive parties over the next few days, and with astonishing speed ‘Abdallah built up his force from seventy to 5,000 men. Ahmad Bey, who visited his camp every evening, watched the foregathering of tribesmen and camels with disquiet. Within a week, the Sharif was ready to order the attack. Then, on the eve of his planned strike, his presence was suddenly requested by Ghalib Pasha, the Governor of the Hejaz. ‘Abdallah’s chiefs counselled caution, but the Sharif rode boldly to Ghalib’s palace escorted by only two Bedu, whom he posted outside the office, instructing them quietly that if anyone tried to arrest him they were to hold off any threat from outside while he dealt with the Vali. ‘Abdallah swept into the Governor’s presence, and found that Ghalib simply wanted to advise him against carrying out his raid on the Baqqum: ‘Rumours are about,’ the Governor said, ‘that a revolt may take place any day now. You see how the people of Ta’if are leaving their homes with their children.’ 3‘Let me carry out the raid,’ ‘Abdallah protested, ‘and the people will regain their confidence.’ At that moment Ahmad Bey entered the room, looking grave, and ‘Abdallah tensed himself for action. The Commander whispered to Ghalib, confessing his suspicions and suggesting that he should arrest ‘Abdallah forthwith. The Sharif watched anxiously, fingering his revolver beneath his cloak. After a few minutes, though, the Governor waved his Commander aside, and ‘Abdallah left freely. No sooner had he regained his camp than he sent his ‘Agayl to cut the telegraph wires to Mecca, and ordered his scouts to stop any messengers leaving or entering Ta’if, by shooting them dead if necessary. On the night of 10 June, his forces surrounded the northern quarter of the city. They were easily repelled, however, for Ahmad Bey had strengthened the town walls with earthworks and trenches. ‘Our attack was made with great violence,’ ‘Abdallah wrote. ‘In the centre our riflemen made a raid and returned with some prisoners and loot. At sunrise the Turkish artillery began to shell us heavily. We were fortunate there was no infantry offensive as well.’ 4Over the next few days, the Arabs tried continually to raid individual positions, only to find themselves scattered by the noise of the Turkish guns. The Bani Sa’ad – a local cultivating tribe – were so unnerved that they abandoned the Sharif and decamped for their villages. ‘Abdallah bided his time patiently, however, until, in mid-July, the Egyptian mountain-guns arrived, having been carried in pieces up the Wadi Fatima from Mecca, together with a howitzer the Arabs had captured there. Yet the stand-off continued. ‘Abdallah said later that he had not made as much use of the artillery as he should have done, while the Egyptian gunners later told Hubert Young that the Bedu had been afraid to attack, and had never taken advantage of their bombardments. Eventually, the Sharif’s patience paid off, however: the garrison at Ta’if surrendered on 22 September, and the Governor was taken prisoner.
With a little assistance from the Royal Navy, but with few trained troops and little modern equipment, the Hashemites had captured most of the vital towns of the Hejaz, taking some 6,000 prisoners and a vast amount of military hardware. More than this, they had scored a brilliant propaganda success: Turco-German dreams of a Jihad or Holy War were dead. Jamal Pasha admitted as much publicly in a speech, in which he called Hussain a ‘traitor’ and a ‘vile individual’. For the Arabs, the problem was that Medina, not Mecca, was the key to the Hejaz, and they had not captured it. Medina was not only a self-supporting oasis, far beyond the range of British naval guns, but it was also linked directly to the outside world by the Hejaz railway. By June it had a large garrison of at least 12,000 men under a gifted, resolute and ruthless commander named Fakhri Pasha, the notorious ‘Butcher of Urfa’. Hussain and his sons slowly realized that they had underestimated the power of the railway. While Medina remained in Turkish hands, the Turks could move any amount of men and material into the Hejaz at will, and launch a counter-attack at their leisure.
After raising the flag on 5 June, ‘Ali and Feisal had divided their force of Bedu into three detachments, one of which had torn up the railway tracks north of Medina with their bare hands and flung the rails down the embankment. This achieved nothing, for without explosives they could do no permanent damage, and the Turks, who had repair teams in their fortress-stations, had no shortage of spare track. Muhit was the first station on the railway, thirteen miles northwest of Medina, a solid building of black basalt, guarded by a massive blockhouse, standing under a crust of low hills. On the morning of 8 June, ‘Ali’s snipers poured fire into the buildings from concealed places in the surrounding hills, while another detachment skirmished across the open plain towards the position. The Turks were well-entrenched and easily turned back the advance with a clatter of machine-gun fire. Worse, a large force of infantry under the personal leadership of Fakhri Pasha had sallied forth from Medina, and fell on them from the rear. The Arabs retreated into the hills and regrouped, making a massed sortie against Medina which was again met with a solid wall of fire from artillery and machine-guns. The noise of the cannon so terrified the Bedu that they turned and ran. The ‘Utayba and the ‘Agayl took shelter among the black stones of a lava scree and refused to budge. Feisal, riding a white mare and dressed conspicuously in his finest Sharifian robes, paced up and down steadily through a rain of Turkish bullets and bursting shells trying to rally them. It was to no avail; the Bedu had no experience of this kind of carnage. Feisal had been relying on the Bani ‘Ali, a tribe of cultivators who inhabited the village of ‘Awali outside the town walls, to hold the city’s water supply. But the roar of the guns and the flight of the Bedu irregulars were too much for them. They asked the Turks for a truce, and while they were parleying, Fakhri’s men encircled the village. Then, on a signal, they moved in with fixed bayonets and massacred every man, woman and child, burning the houses and setting machine-guns at the gates to cut down the fleeing victims as they ran out. Feisal and a handful of Bedu who came to the rescue too late were appalled. This wanton butchery of women and children was an atrocity which they would never forget. It was the final nerve-shattering blow to their morale, and the Hashemites were obliged to retreat, first to Bir Mashi, south of the city, and then to Wadi Aqiq. The Turks pursued them as doggedly as bloodhounds, driving them from place to place, until they split up, Feisal taking his troops to Yanbu ‘an-Nakhl – a palm oasis in the hills on the Medina-Yanbu’ road – and ‘Ali to Wadi Ithm, about thirty miles to the south-west of Medina, where, almost out of food, he barely managed to hang on. The Turks now began to push forward relentlessly, collecting camels from the surrounding tribes for transport, capturing and fortifying wells and strong-points. The Arab forces were almost out of supplies and ammunition, and what little they had was reaching them from Mecca, rather than from the beach-head at Rabegh. In mid-July ‘Ali’s force was increased by a detachment of regular Arab soldiers – former members of Ottoman Divisions seized by the British as prisoners-of-war, and released from prison-camps in Egypt as volunteers for the Arab cause. They were under the command of a highly capable young Iraqi artillery officer called Nuri as-Sa’id, who, on reaching ‘Ali’s position, saw that his situation was hopeless. ‘Ali had no information about the enemy’s movements, and Nuri had to locate the three Turkish battalions tracking him by sending out his men as decoys to draw fire. Ammunition was low, and the Turks were in possession of the nearest water sources. Nuri felt that the Bedu troops were incapable of holding a Turkish advance, and advised ‘Ali to withdraw to the coast, where, in the comforting shelter of British naval guns, the nucleus of a regular Arab army might be formed under the command of Aziz ‘Ali al-Masri – another distinguished and brilliant Arab defector from the Turks, who had fought with the Senussi in the Libyan desert, and had now devised a detailed strategy for the Arab Revolt. Al-Masri proposed to form a ‘flying column’ of trained Arab volunteers 8,000 strong, which, with eight mountain-guns, would move north from the Hejaz into Syria, wrecking the railway but never fighting pitched battles with the Turks. The scheme, later to be adapted by Lawrence, was scotched by Hussain, who was suspicious of his Syrian officers and felt that such a ‘flying column’ would be beyond his control. Indeed, the guerrilla strategist al-Masri was later sacked by the Sharif – an irreplaceable loss to the revolt. For now, however, Nuri advised ‘Ali to withdraw to Rabegh. In doing so, the Sharif could also find out why none of the thousands of rifles and tons of supplies the British had landed there had reached them in the field.