15. It is Not Known What are the Present Whereabouts of Captain Lawrence
Auda Abu Tayyi was the most feared fighting-man in Arabia. Tall, lean, predatory, with a nose like the hooked beak of an eagle, and eyes that had grown into slits from peering at the sun, his very presence carried with it the aura of danger. Auda seemed to be possessed by a demon which might today be described as psychopathy – a tendency to fall into a blind rage which could only be assuaged by violence. He had no control over his mouth, and would openly insult people by telling scandalous lies about them in public, daring them to challenge him. He claimed to have killed seventy-five men in battle, many at close quarters, and was reputed to have torn out and eaten the hearts of several of his enemies. 1In 1909 he had opened fire on a party of Turkish gendarmes who had descended on his camp to demand taxes, killing two and sending the others packing. Ever since, he had been on the run from the Ottoman government, which had declared him an outlaw and issued a warrant for his arrest.
Auda had not been born to the sheikhdom of his tribe, which traditionally belonged to the ibn Jazi section of the Howaytat. In Bedu custom the authority of a hereditary Sheikh simply ceased when it was no longer acknowledged by the tribe – so the Howaytat Sheikh ‘Ar’ar ibn Jazi had been deserted by his people, first for Harb Abu Tayyi and later for Auda, who retained authority by dint of his reputation for courage, energy, cruelty and generosity. He was not rich, no well-respected Bedui ever could be, for the Bedu revered open-handedness rather than wealth, and stood in awe of the man who acquired much and gave most of it away. Even in a land where people prided themselves on their munificence, Auda’s hospitality was legendary. Under his leadership, and the guidance of his cousin Mohammad adh-Dhaylan, the Towayha section of the Howaytat had been transformed within one generation from a clan of nomad-farmers to the most efficient force of raiders in the entire peninsula, known to strike as far north as Aleppo and as far south as Wadi Dawaasir on the borders of the Empty Quarter. Inspired by Auda’s truculence, they had acquired an й lan,a ruthlessness and a persistence which had led them into so many encounters that their numbers had been reduced in a few decades from over 1,000 fighting men to only 500. Unruly, anarchistic, uncompromising, the Howaytat had eccentricities which displayed the shortness of their history as nomadic camel-breeders and raiders: they were disorganized on the march and would argue incessantly over where to camp, they owned land, they carried parasols and bottles of mineral water on raids, and they had a reputation for treachery, for ignoring blood-ties, and for flouting the Bedu code. Lawrence later characterized the Howaytat as ‘true’ Bedu – in fact they were despised as parvenusby the great Bedu tribes of the desert such as the Rwalla and the Shammar, yet none of these could ignore their ferocity, and even Sheikhs such as the powerful Nuri ibn ash-Sha alan, Emir of the Rwalla, pretended friendship to Auda Abu Tayyi.
Indeed, Auda’s bitterest enemy was Hammayd ibn jazi, a descendant of ‘Ar’ar, with whom he had disputed a point of honour. A scion of ibn Jazi had taken a camel from a certain Sharari tribesman who happened to be under the protection of Auda’s family. Auda and some kinsmen had arrived at ibn Jazi’s tent demanding restitution, whereupon they had been fired on: Auda had shot dead the son of one of his opponents and seized the camel. From that moment, the ibn Jazi and the Abu Tayyi had been at each other’s throats, and the feud had resulted in the murder of Annad, Auda’s son, who had been cut down by five riders of the Motalga ibn Jazi at Bair in the Ard as-Suwwan. Auda’s only remaining son, Mohammad, from whom he was rarely parted, was a little boy of eleven. In 1914 the various branches of the Howaytat had made an uneasy truce, and moved east of the railway to the desolate Jefer plain near the Wadi Sirhan, from where they had plundered Turkish caravans and raided the Bani Sakhr – a powerful Bedu tribe to the north. They were also at war with the Shararat – the despised clan of camel-herders – to the south. Finally, around the beginning of April 1917, Auda had turned up in the camp of Feisal near Wejh, with eleven-year-old Mohammad as his only protector, and declared in favour of the Hashemites. This was a great victory for Feisal, for to have such a man as Auda with him not only added to his prestige, but gave him the key to the crucial region of Ma’an and the hinterland of Aqaba – now the only major Red Sea port still held by the Turks. Moreover, the Howaytat were accustomed to menacing the railway – in 1909 they had threatened to destroy all the bridges in the Ma an district unless the Governor paid protection-money. Although the blackmail had been paid, Howaytat raiders continued sporadically to attack and loot stations. When Lawrence returned to Wejh in mid-April 1917, bursting with his new guerrilla doctrine, and convinced that Medina should hereafter be ignored, he found in Auda the very ally he required.
The idea of capturing Aqaba was not Lawrence’s: it had been discussed from the very beginning of the war. In August 1916, before Lawrence had even arrived in Arabia, General Murray had broached the idea with the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, General Robertson, in London: ‘As for Aqaba,’ Robertson cabled him, ‘the thing to do is to work out your scheme and let us know what it means – and then we will decide whether it should be undertaken or not.’ 2However, all the schemes mooted for the occupation of the port envisaged an assault from the sea – an approach which Lawrence had realized as ineffective, probably as early as 1914: he had certainly argued against it in a report he wrote in 1915. On 1 March 1917, Charles Vickery sent a telegram to Clayton to sound out his attitude to the question of taking Aqaba with troops from Feisal’s army. ‘Sharif Feisal is very anxious to occupy the town,’ Vickery wrote, ‘as he thinks …that its capture and occupation by him would have an excellent political effect on the Syrians.’ 3However, Feisal clearly had in mind a seaborne landing with the support of British troops and naval artillery. Clayton’s reply, which came a week later, stressed political rather than military objections: ‘… it is questionable,’ he wrote, ‘whether, in the present circumstances, the presence of an Arab force at Aqaba would be desirable, as it would unsettle tribes which are better left quiet until the time is more ripe.’ 4In May, though, he revealed the true nature of his reservations in a report to McMahon: ‘the occupation of [Aqaba] by Arabic troops might well result in the Arabs claiming that place thereafter and it is by no means improbable that after the war [Aqaba] may be of considerable importance to the future defence scheme of Egypt. It is thus essential that [Aqaba] should remain in British hands after the war.’ 5On his return to Wejh, Lawrence found Feisal depressed and disheartened. The Sharif had originally been intent on Medina, but now planned to press on into Syria as soon as possible, for in late March he had heard the disturbing rumour that 60,000 French troops had already landed or were about to land in Syria. Since he believed that the arid Hejaz could not exist as an independent country without the support of fertile Syria, the prospect of the country falling into French hands at this eleventh hour was tragic. Lawrence agreed. He went to see the British OC Wejh, Pierce Joyce, in his tent by the beach, to persuade him to drop the strike against al-‘Ula which he was planning, with the object of cutting off the Medina garrison. Lawrence now saw this plan – originally devised by Newcombe – as folly: to hold a middle point on the railway would mean exposing it to a pincer attack from the Medina force and the strong garrison in Tebuk. He explained the epiphany he had had in Wadi ‘Ais – his sudden insight that it was to the advantage of the Arabs if the Turks stayed in Medina. He expressed again his fears that if there were large casualty lists, the Bedu would lose heart. To keep the railway just crawling along and to induce the Turks into passive resistance, he felt, would be the most rewarding strategy. Joyce refused to listen. Plans for the assault at al-‘Ula were already in progress: Garland and Newcombe were both poised to strike, and if Medina were captured Feisal could then move north very quickly.