With the Turks in Palestine - Suez Campaign

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter six of With the Turks and Palestine by Alexander Aronson.
This liveryvox recording is in the public domain. Recording by
Seto chapter six the Suiz campaign. I have already spoken
of the so called requisitioning that took place among our
people while I was working as the faith. This, of course,

(00:22):
really amounted to the wholesale pillage. The hand of the
Turkish looters had fallen particularly heavy on carts and draft animals,
as the Arabs knew little or nothing of carting, hauling,
or the management of horses and mules. The Turks simply
enough had requisitioned many of the owners, middle aged or

(00:43):
elderly men, and forced them to go south to help
along the tremendous preparations that were being made for the
attack on Suez. Among these were a number of men
from our village. In the course of time, their families
began to get the most harrowing messages from them. They
were absolutely destitute, no wages being paid them by the Turks.

(01:05):
Their clothes were dropping off them in rags. Many were sick.
After much excited planning, it was decided to send another
man and myself down south on a sort of relief
expedition with a substantial sum of money that had been
raised with great difficulty by our people through the influence
of my brother at the agricultural experiment station, I got

(01:27):
permission from the Moushtar to leave Zicron Jacob, and about
the middle of January nineteen fifteen, I set out for Jerusalem.
To Western minds, the idea of the Holy City serving
as a base for modern military operations must be full
of incongruities, And as a matter of fact, it was
an amazing sight to see the streets packed with khaki

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clad soldiers and hear the brooding silence of ancient walls
shattered by the crash of steel shod army boats. Here
for the first time I I saw the German officers,
quantities of them strangely out of place. They looked with
their pink and whiteness that no amount of hot sunshine
could quite burn off. They wore the regular German officer's uniform,

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except that the pickle hob was replaced by the khaki
sun helmet. I was struck by the youthfulness of them.
Many were nothing but boys, and they were weak, desolute
faces in plenty, a fact that was later explained when
I heard that Palestine had been the dumping ground for
young men of high family whose parents were anxious to

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have them as far removed as possible from the danger zone.
Fass Hotel was the great meeting place in Jerusalem for
these young bloods. Every evening, thirty or forty would foregather
there to drink and talk women and strategy. I will
remember the evening when one of them, a slender young
Prussian with no back to his head braceleted and monocled,

(03:00):
rose and announced in the decisive tones that go with
a certain stage up intoxication. What we ought to do
is to hand over the organization of this campaign to
Thomas Cook and Psalms. However, the German officers were by
no means or incompetence. They realized. I soon found out

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that they had little hope of bringing a big army
through the Egyptian desert and making a successful campaign there.
Their object was to immobilize a great force of British
troops around the canal, to keep the Mohammedan population in
Palestine impressed with Turkish power, and to stir up religious
unrest among the natives in Egypt. It must be admitted

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that in the first two of these purposes they have
been successful. The Turks were less far sighted. They believed
firmly that they were going to sweep the English off
the face of the earth and enter Cairo in triumph,
and preparation for the march on Suez went on with
feverish enthusiasm. The ideas of the common soldiers on this

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subject were amusing. Some of them declared that the canal
was to be filled up by the sand bags, which
had been prepared in great quantities. Others held that thousands
of camels would be kept without water for many days
preceding the attack. Then the thirsty animals, when released, would
rush into the canal in such numbers that the troops
could march to victory over the packed masses of drowned bodies.

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The army operating against the Suez numbered about one hundred
and fifty thousand men. Of these, about twenty thousand were
Antolian Turks, trained soldiers splendid fighting material, as were shown
by their resistance at the Dardnells. The rest were Palestinian
Arabs and very inferior troops. They were the Arab as

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a soldier is at once stupid and cunning, fierce when
victory is on his side, but unreliable when things go
against him. In command of the expedition was the famous
General Pasha, a young Turk general of tremendous energy, but
possessing small ability to see beyond details to the big
broad concepts of strategy. Although a great friend of Enver Pasha,

(05:16):
he looked with disfavor on the German officers, and in
particular on Butch Pasha, the German governor of Jerusalem, with
whom he had serious disagreements. This dislike of Germans was
reflected among the lesser Turkish officers. Many of these, after
long years of service, found themselves subordinated to young foreigners, who,

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in addition to arbitrary promotion, received much higher salaries than
the Turks. What is more, they were paid in clinking gold,
whereas the Turks, when paid at all, got paper currency. Birsheba,
a prosperous town of the ancient province of Idumea, was
the southern base of operations for the advance on Suez.

(06:00):
Some of our villages had been sent to this district,
and in searching for them, I had the opportunity of
seeing at least the taking off place of the expedition.
Beyond this point, no Jew or Christian was allowed to pass,
with the exception of the physicians, all of whom were
non Mohammedans who had been forced into the army. Bersheba

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was swarming with troops. They filled the town and overflowed
on to the sands outside, where a great tensity grew up.
And everywhere that the Turkish soldiers went, disorganization and inefficiency
followed them from all over the country. The finest camels
had been requisitioned and sent down to Beersheba, until at

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the time I was there, thousands and thousands of them
were collected in the neighborhood. Through the laziness and stupidity
of the Turkish Commissriat officers, with no amount of German
efficiency could counteract. No adequate provision was made for feeding them,
and incredible numbers succumbed to starvation and neglect. Their great

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carcasses dotted the sand in all directions. It was the
only wonderful antiseptic power of the Eastern Sun that held
the pestilence in Czech The soldiers themselves suffered from much hardship.
The crowding in the tents were unspeakable. The water supply
was almost as inadequate as the medical service, which consisted

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chiefly of volunteer Red Crescent societies, among them a unit
of twenty German nurses sent by the American College of Berat.
Medical supplies, such as they were, had been taken from
the different mission hospitals and pharmacies of Palestine, these acquisitions
being made by officers who knew nothing of medical requirements

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and simply scooped together everything in sight. As a result,
one of the army physicians told me that in Beersheba
he had opened some medical chests consigned to him and
found to his horror that they were full of microscopes
and binecological instruments for the care of wounded soldiers. In
the desert. Visits of British aeroplanes to Beersheba were common occurrences,

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long before the machine itself could be seen, its wanging
resonant hum would come floating out of the blazing sky,
seemingly from everywhere. At once. Soldiers rushed from their tents,
squinting up into the heavens until the speck was discovered,
swimming slowly through the air, then followed wholesale firing at
an impossible range until the officers forbade it. True to

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the policy of avoiding all unnecessary harm to the natives,
these British aviators never dropped bombs on the town, but
was most dangerous from the Turkish point of view. They
would unload packages of pamphlets printed in Arabic, informing the
natives that they were being deceived, that the Allies were
their only true friends, that the Germans were merely making

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use of them to further their own schemes, et cetera.
These cleverly worded little tracks came showering down from the sky,
and at first they were eagerly picked up. The Turkish commanders, however,
soon announced that any one found carrying them would pay
the debt penalty. After that, when little bundles dropped near them,

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the natives would run as if from high explosive bombs.
All things considered, it is wonderful that the Turkish demonstration
against the canal came as near to fulfillment as it did.
Twenty thousand soldiers actually crossed the desert in six days
on scant rations, and with them they took two big

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guns which they dragged by hand when the mules dropped
from thirst in exhaustion. They also carried pontoons to use
in crossing the canal. Guns and pontoons are now at
rest in the museum at Cairo. Just what took place
in the attack is known to very few. The English
have not seen fit to make public the details, and

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there was little to be got from the demoralized soldiers
who returned to Beersheba peace by peace. However, I gathered
that the attacking party had come to the canal at dawn.
Finding everything quiet, they set about getting across, and had
even launched a pontoon when the British, who were lying
in wait, opened a terrific fire from the farther bank,

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backed by armored locomotives and aeroplanes. It was as if
the gates of Jehennem were opened and its fires turned
loose upon us. One soldier told me the Turks succeeded
in getting their guns into action for a very short while.
One of the men of war in the canal was hit.
Several of the houses in Ismaelia suffered damage, but the

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invaders were soon driven away in confusion, leaving perhaps two
thousand prisoners in the hands of the English. If the
latter had chosen to do so, they could have annhilated
the Turkish forces then and there. The ticklish state of
mind of the Mohammedan's population in Egypt, however, has led
them to adopt a policy of leniency and of keeping
to the defensive, which subsequent developments have more than justified.

(11:09):
It is characteristic of England's faculty for holding their colonies
that batteries manned by Egyptians did the finest work in
defense of the canal. The reaction in Palestine after the
defeat at Suez was tremendous. Just before the attack, Jemal
Pasha had sent out a telegram announcing overwhelming defeat of
the British vanguard, which had caused wild enthusiasm. Another later

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telegram proclaimed that the canal had been reached, British men
of war sunk. The Englishmen routed, with the loss to
the Turks of five men and two camels, which were
afterwards recovered, but added to the telegram, a terrible sandstorm
having arisen, The Glorious Army takes it as the wish
of Allah not to continue the attack, and therefore withdrawn

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in triumph. These reports hood win the ignorant natives for
a little while, but when the stream of haggard soldiers,
wounded and exhausted began pouring back from the south, they
guessed what had happened, and a fierce revulsion against the
germano Turkish regime set in. A few weeks before the
advanced in Suez, I was in Jaffa, where the enthusiasm

(12:18):
and excitement had been at fever. Pitch parades and celebrations
of all kinds in anticipation of the triumphal march into
Egypt were taking place, and one day a camel, a dog,
and a bull, decorated respectively with flags of Russia, France
and England, were driven through the streets. The poor animals
were horribly maltreated by the natives, who rained blows and

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flung filt upon them by the way of giving concrete
expression to their contempt for the Allies. Mister Glaisbrook, the
American consul at Jerusalem, happened to be with me in
Jaffa that day, and never shall I forget the expression
of pain and disgust on his face as he watched
this melancholy little session of scapegoats hurrying along the street. Now, however,

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all was changed. The Arabs, who took defeat badly turned
against the authorities who had got them into such trouble.
Rumors circulated that Jemal Pasha had been bought by the
English and the defeat at Suez had been planned by him,
and persons keeping an year close to the ground began
to hear mutterings of general massacre of Germans. In fact,

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things came within an ace of bloody outbreak. I knew
some Germans in Jaffe and Haifa who firmly believed that
it was all over with them. In the defeated army itself,
the Turkish officers gave vent to their hatred of the Germans.
Three German officers were shot by their Turkish comrades during
the retreat, and a fourth committed suicide. However, Jemal Pasha

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succeeded in keeping order by means of stern repressive methods
and by the fear roused by his large bodyguards of
faithful Antolians. I felt sure that the Turkish defeat would
put a damper on the arridance of the soldiery, but
even the Mohammedan population were hoping that the Allies would
push their victory and land troops in Syria and Palestine.

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For though they hated the Infidel, they loved the Turk
not at all. And the country was exhausted, and the
blockade of the Mediterranean by the Allies prevented the import
and export of articles. The oranges were rotting on the
trees because the annual Liverpool market was close to Palestine,
and other crops were in similar case. The country was

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shot too of petroleum, sugar, rice and other supplies, and
even of matches. We had to go back to old
customs and use flint and steel for fire, and we
seldom used our lamps. Money was cast too, and Turkey,
having declared a moratorium, Cash was often unobtainable, even by

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those who had money in the banks, and much distress ensued.
As the defeated army was pouring in from the south.
I decided to leave Bieshebba and go home. The roads
and the fields were covered with dead camels and horses
and mules. Hundreds of soldiers were straggling in disorder, many
of them on leave, but many deserting. Soon after the

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defeat at the Canal, several thousand soldiers deserted, but an
amnesty was declared and they returned to their regiments. When
I arrived at Jerusalem, I found the city filled with soldiers.
Jemal Pasha had just returned from the desert, and his
quarters were guarded by a battery of two field guns.
Nobody knew what to expect. Some thought that the country

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would have a little more freedom now than the soldiery
had lost at Brigadaschio, while others expected the lawlessness that
attends this organization. I went to see Concert Blaisbrook. He
is a true American, a Southerner, formerly a professor of
theology at Princeton. He was most earnest and devoted in
behalf of the American citizens that came under his care.

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Entering at Jerusalem, the same sort of service that Ambassador
Morgenthaw had rendered at Constantinople. He was practically the only
man who stood up for the poor, defenseless people of
the city. He received me kindly, and I told him
what I knew of the conditions in the country, what
I had heard among the Arabs, and of my own
fears and apprehension. He was visibly impressed, and he advised

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me to see Captain Decker of the U. S. S. Tennessee,
who was then in Jaffa, promising to write himself to
the Captain of my proposed visit. I went to Jaffa
the same day, and after two days delay, succeeded in
seeing Captain Decker, with the further help of mister Glasbrook,
who took me with him. The police interfered and tried
to keep me from going about the ship, but after

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long discussions I was permitted to take my place in
the launch that the captain had sent for the consul.
Captain Decker was interested in what I had to say,
and at his request I dictated my story to his stenographer.
What became of my report, I do not know whether
it was transmitted to the Department of State, or whether
Captain Decker communicated with Ambassador Morgenthau, But at all events,

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we soon began to see certain reforms inaugurated in parts
of the country, and these reforms could have been effected
only through pressure from Constantinople. The presence of the two
American cruisers in the Mediterranean waters has without any doubt
been instrumental in saving of many lives. End of chapter
six recording by Cetu