With the Turks in Palestine - Pressed into the Service

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter two of With the Turks in Palestine by Alexander Aaronsom.
This livery box recording is in the public domain. Pressed
into the service, there was no question as to my
eligibility for service. I was young, and strong and healthy,
and even if I had not been, the physical examination

(00:21):
of Turkish recruits is a farce. The enlisting officers have
a theory of their own that no man is really
unfit for the army, a theory which has been fostered
by ingenious devices of the Arabs to avoid conscription. To
these wild people, the protracted discipline of military training is

(00:42):
simply a purgatory, and for weeks before the recruiting officers
are due, they dose themselves with powerful herbs and physics,
and fast and nurse sores into being until they are
in a really deplorable condition. Some of them go so
far as to cut off a or two. The officers, however,

(01:03):
have learned to see beyond these little tricks, and few
Arabs succeed in wriggling through their dragnet. I have watched
dozens of Arabs being brought in to the recruiting office
on camels or horses, so weak were they and welcomed
into the service with a severe beating, the sick and
the shammers sharing the same fate. Thus it often happens

(01:27):
that some of the new recruits die after their first
day of garrison life. Together with twenty of my comrades,
I presented myself at the recruiting station at Acco, the
Saint Jean d'agre of history. We had been given to
understand that once our names were registered, we should be
allowed to return home to provide ourselves with money, suitable

(01:51):
clothing and food, as well as to bid our families
good bye. To our astonishment, however, we were marched off
to the Han or caravansarai and located into the great
courtyard with hundreds of dirty Arabs. Hour after our past,
darkness came, and finally we had to stretch ourselves on

(02:12):
the ground and make the best of a bad situation.
It was a night of horrors. Few of us had
closed an eye when at dawn an officer appeared and
ordered us out of the han. From our total number,
about three hundred, including four young men from our village
and myself were picked out and told to make ready

(02:33):
to start at once for Safaith, a town in the
hills of northern Galilee, near the Sea of Tiberias, where
our garrison was to be located. No attention was paid
to our requests that we be allowed to return to
our homes for a final visit. That same morning we
were on our way to Safaith, a motley disgruntled crew.

(02:58):
It was a four days March, four days of heat
and dust and physical suffering. The September sun smote us
mercilessly as we straggled along the miserable native trail, full
of gullies and loose stones. It would not have been
so bad if we had been adequately shod or clothed.
But soon we found ourselves envying the ragged Arabs as

(03:21):
they trudged along barefoot, paying no heed to the jagged flints. Shoes,
to the Arabs are articles for ceremonious indoor use when
any serious walking is to be done. He takes them off,
slings them over his shoulder, and trusts to the horny
souls of his feet. To add to our troubles, the
Turkish officers, with characteristic fatalism, had made no commissary provision

(03:45):
for us. Whatever any food we ate had to be
purchased by the roadside from our own funds, which were
scant enough to start with. The Arabs were in a
terrible plight. Most of them were penniless, and as the
pangs of hunger set in, they began pillaging right and
left from the little farms by the wayside. From modest

(04:07):
beginnings poultry and vegetables, they progressed to a larger game,
unhindered by the officers. Houses were entered, women insulted. Time
and again. I saw a stray horse grazing by the roadside,
seized by a crowd of grinning Arabs, who piled on
the poor beasts back until he was almost crushed to earth,

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and rode off triumphantly, while their comrades held back the
weeping owner. The result of this sort of requisitioning was
that our band of recruits were followed by an increasing
throng of farmers, imploring, threatening, trying by hook or by
crook to win back the stolen goods. Little satisfaction did

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they get, although some of them went with us as
far as a faith our garrison town is not an
inviting place, nor has it and inviting reputation. Lord Kitchener
himself had a good reason to remember it as a
young lieutenant of twenty three in the Royal Engineering Corps.
He was nearly killed there by a band of fanatical Arabs.

(05:13):
Whilst surveying for the Palestine Exploration Fund. Kitchener had a
narrow escape of it. One of his fellow officers was
shot dead close by him, but he went calmly ahead
and completed his maps splendid large scale affairs which have
never since been equaled, and which are now in use

(05:34):
by the Turkish and German armies. However, though Safaith combines
most of the unpleasant characteristics of palestine native towns, we
welcomed the sight of it, for we were used up
by the march. An old deserted mosque was given us
for barracks. There on the bare stone floor, in close

(05:57):
packed promisquity. Too tired to react to filth and wormin,
we spent our first night as soldiers of the Sultan,
while the milky moonlight streamed in through every chink and aperture,
and bats flitter around the vaulting above the snoring carcasses
of the recruits. Next morning, we were routed out at

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five the black depths of the well in the center
of the mosque courtyard provided doubtful water for washing, bathing
and drinking. Then came breakfast, our first government meal, consisting
simply enough of boiled rice, which was ladled out into
tin wash basins holding rations for ten men. In true

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Eastern fashion, we squatted down round the basin and dug
into the rice with our fingers. At first, I was
rather upset by this sort of table manners, and for
some time I ate with my eyes fixed on my
portion to avoid seeing the Arabs, who filled the palms
of their hands with rice, pat it into a ball,
and cram it into their mouths, just so, the bolus

(07:02):
making a great lump in their lean throats as it
reluctantly descends. In the course of that same morning, we
were allotted our uniforms. The Turkish uniform, under indirect German influence,
was greatly modified during the past five years. It is
of khaki, a greener khaki than that of the British army,

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and of the conventional European cut. Spiral putties and good
boots are provided. The only peculiar feature is the headgear,
a curious, uncouth looking combination of the turban and the
German helmet. Devised by Envier Pasha to combine religion and practicality,

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and called it in his honor envy Raye, with commendable thrift.
Enver patented his invention, and it is rumored that he
has drawn a comfortable fortune from its sale. An excellent uniform,
it is on the whole. But to our disgust we
found that in the great olive drab pile to which
we were led there was not a single new one.

(08:08):
All were old, discarded and dirty. And the mere thought
of putting on the clothes of some unknown Arab legendary
who perhaps had died of cholera in Mecca or Yemen
made me shudder. After some indecision, my friends and I
finally went up to one of the officers and offered
to buy new uniforms with the money we expected daily

(08:31):
from our families. The officer, scenting the chance of a
little private profit, gave his consent. The days and weeks
following were busy ones. From morning till night, it was drill, drill,
and again drill. We were divided into groups of fifty,
each of which was put in charge of a young

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non commissioned officer from the military School of Constantinople or Damascus,
or of some Arab who had seen several years service.
These instructors had a hard time of it. The German
military system, which had only recently been introduced, was too
much for him. They kept mixing up the old and

(09:12):
the new methods of training, with the result that it
was often hopeless to try and make out their orders.
Whole weeks were spent in grinding into the Arab the
names of the different parts of the rifle. Weeks more
went to teaching them to clean it. Although it must
be said that once they had mastered these technicalities they
were excellent shots, their efficiency would have been considerably greater

(09:37):
if they had been given more target shooting. From the
very first. However, we felt that there was a scarcity
of ammunition. This shortage the drill masters, in a spirit
of compensation, attempted to make up by abundant severity. The
whip of soft, flexible, stinging leather, which seldom leaves the

(10:00):
Turkish officer's hand, was never idle. This was not surprising,
for the Arab is a cunning fellow whose only respect
is for brute force. He exercises it himself on every
possible victim. And expects the same treatment from his superiors.
So far as my comrades and I were concerned, I

(10:21):
must admit that we were generally treated kindly. We knew
most of the drill exercises from the gymnastic training we
had practiced since childhood, and the officers realized that we
were educated and came from respectable families. The same was
also true with regard to the native Christians, most of
whom can read and write, and are of a better

(10:44):
class than Mohammedans of the country. When Turkey threw in
her lot with the Germanic powers, the attitude towards Jews
and Christians changed radically. But of this I shall speak later.
It was a hard life we led while in training.
At Safaith, evening would find us dead, tired, and little

(11:05):
disposed for anything but rest. As the tremendous light play
of the eastern sunsets faded away, we would gather in
little groups in the courtyard of our mosque, its minaret
towering black against a turquoise sky, and talk fitfully of
the little happenings of the day, while the Arabs murmured

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gutturally around us. Occasionally one of them would burst into
a quavering, hot blooded tribal love song. It happened that
I was fairly well known among these natives through my
horse Kochba of pure Maneghi Sebelli blood, which I had
purchased from some Anazi Bedoins who had encamped not far

(11:48):
from Aleppo. A swift and intelligent animal, he was winner
of many races, and in a land where a horse
is considerably more valuable than a wife, his owner ship
cast quite a glamour over me. In the evenings, then
the Arabs would come up to chat, as they speak
seldom of their children, of their women folk. Never the

(12:11):
conversation was limited to generalities about the crops and the weather,
or to the recitation of never ending tales of Abu Zaid,
a famous hero of Beni Hilal, or of Antar. The
glorious politics of which they have amazing ideas, also came
in for discussion. Napoleon Bonaparte and Queen Victoria are still

(12:35):
living figures to them, but significantly enough, they considered the
Kaiser king of all kings of this world, with the
exception of the Sultan, whom they admitted to equality. Seldom
did an evening pass without a dance. As darkness fell,
the Arabs would gather in a great circle around one
of their comrades, who squatted on the ground with a

(12:58):
bamboo flute to a weird music. They would begin swaying
and moving about, while some self chosen poet among them
would sing impromptu verses to the flute obligato. As a rule,
the themes were homely Tomorrow we shall eat rice and meat.
The singer would wail, Yaha, Lili, yamali, my endeavor be granted,

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came the full throated response of all the others. The
chorus was tremendously effective. Sometimes the singer would indulge in
pointed personalities with answering roars of laughter. These dances lasted
for hours, and as they progressed, the men gradually worked
themselves up into a frenzy. I never failed to wonder

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at these people, who, without the aid of alcohol, could
reproduce the various stages of intoxication. As I lay by
and watched the moon riding serenely above these frantic men
and their twisting black shadows, I reflected that they were
just in the condition when one word from a holy
man would suffice to send them off to wholesale murder

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and rapine. It was my good fortune soon to be
released from the noise and dirt of the mosque. I
had had experience with corruptible Turkish officers, and one day,
when barrack conditions became unendurable, I went to the officer
commanding our division, an old Arab from La Take who

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had been called from retirement at the time of mobilization.
He lived in a little tent near the mosque, where
I found him squatting on the floor, nodding drowsily over
his comfortable paunch. As he was an officer of the
old regime, I entered boldly, squatted beside him and told
him my troubles. The answer came with an enormous shrug

(14:47):
of the shoulders. You are serving the sultan. Hardship should
be sweet. I should be more fit to serve him
if I got more sleep and rest. He waved a
fat hand about the tent. Look at me here, I
am an officer of rank, shooting a knowing Look at me,

(15:09):
I've not even a nice blanket. A crime, A crime,
I interrupted to think of it. When I, a humble soldier,
have dozens of them at home. I should be honored,
if you allow me, My voice trailed off suggestively. How
could you get one? He asked, Oh, I have friends

(15:31):
here in sa faith, but I must be able to
sleep in a nice place. Of course, certainly, what would
you suggest that hotel kept by the Jewish widow might do?
I replied. More amenities were exchanged, the upshot of which
was that my four friends and I were given permission

(15:52):
to sleep at the Inn, a humble place, but infinitely
better than the mosque. It was all perfectly simple. End
of Chapter two. Recording by CeThO pressed into the service