ملف ١٩٢٤/١٧٠٧ "الجزيره العربية - تقارير عن الوضع في جدة. (١٩٢٤-١٩٣٠)" [و‎‎٣‎٦‎٥] (٨٩٨/٧٣٤)

[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty’s Government.]
JaSTERN (Arabia)
CONFIDENTIAL
[E 2484/10/91]
Consul Bullard to Mr. Austen Chamberlain.—(Received April 27.)
(No. 31. Secret.)
Sir, Jeddah, April 11, 1925.
I HAVE the honour to enclose a report on the situation covering the period the
20th March to the 11th April.
2. Copies of this despatch and of its enclosure are being sent to India, Egypt,
Khartum (through Port Sudan), Jerusalem, Bagdad, Beirut (for Damascus), Aden,
Singapore, Bushire, Koweit, Bahrein and Muskat.
I have, &c.
R. W. BULLARD
[April 27, 1925.
Section 1.
roTTr
Enclosure in No. 1.
Report for the Period March 20-April 11, 1925.
(Secret.)
RAMADAN has confirmed the lull in hostilities. A few shells are fired morning
and evening, and that is all. The Wahabis’ shelling is reduced to a few shots daily
at the Hedjaz guns and barracks. Occasionally a shell falls into the town, but that
is now very rare. The Hedjaz troops are free to fast and many of the men are taking
advantage of the permission. It is believed that all the Wahabis are fasting.
On the 23rd March the two Italian cars were sent out and for several hours
there was much machine-gun and rifle fire. The Hedjaz Government report at
least 300 enemy casualties at a cost of six wounded on this side. Why a performance
so simple and so effective is not repeated several times a day is not explained.
Perhaps it is realised that such operations are governed by the law of diminishing
returns.
One of these cars has since had a Wahabi shell through it and all the crew
wounded except one, who was killed. This was in a fierce attack they made on five
Javanese pilgrims, whom they took for Wahabis. They fired many rounds at the
pilgrims from their machine guns, but without hitting any of them.
The soldiers who were recruited at Amman are protesting so loudly at being
kept over two months in arrear with their pay that the Government are becoming
seriously alarmed. They have been obliged to allow thirty-five Egyptians and
Palestinians to leave for home. This will encourage ail the other foreign recruits
to demand their release. Most of them seem prepared to cut their losses if they can
only get away.
Private individuals can pass between Tambo and Medina, but the road is cut
against the Hedjaz Government. Yambo might fall into the Wahabis hands at
any time.
2. The Italian consul says he has received orders from M. Mussolini to assure
all his colleagues that he is much annoyed to hear that munitions have been landed
at Jeddah from an Italian steamer and that if the munitions are Italian they must
have been smuggled out of Italy. The Italian consul states that the captain must
have made false declarations : the ship's papers gave the cargo a.s timber only.
The three Germans are still here, though, as they are being paid in drafts on a
person in Egypt who is unlikely to honour them, they may not be here much longer.
Willi Beirsdorff of Berlin is adviser on fortifications and teaches the use of flame
throwers; Karl Schultz is artillery expert; and Fritz Bensener [ ?], an Australian-
born German, has been driver of the King’s car and of one of the Italian armoured
cars since the Palestinian who formerly drove them was wounded in the attack of
the 14th March.
I ought to have corrected before this the report I mentioned some time ago, that
the flame-throwers which were being used here were among the stocks of munitions
left behind by the Turks. The flame-throwers (forty in number) came from Germany
[920 dd—1]