'Report on Najd Mission 1917-1918' [‎20v] (40/60)

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expressed their inability to supply arms for the Hail campaign, it is to Ibn
Sand's credit that he resisted the temptation to reply to Fakhri Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. .
Another Tnrkish communication received in August he treated with simi
lar contempt—a letter signed by four leading chiefs of the Asir tribes, but.
obviously, from its style and contents, dictated by Muhiyuddin Beg, the
Turkish Commandant and Mutasarrif in Asir, in which Ibn Sand was re
minded of the benefits accruing to the province of Asir from Turkish rule and
was called upon to join the signatories in defence of the true faith.
So much for such correspondence as is known to hav^ been addressed to -
Ibn Saud by or on behalf of the Turkish authorities. In June a report,
emanating from Aden, indicated, apparently on good authority, that Ibn
Saud and the Turks had concluded arrangements, whereby certain officers
were to be allowed to pass down to Yaman to set the finances of the troops
serving there in order, but at no time did this report seem to me to be anything
but the fiction of some prejudiced brain. In any case, it was intrinsically
improbable on the face of it, and I never heard any more of the results of
the alleged arrangement.
The only occasion, on which, so far as I know, Turkish Officers attempted
to pass through Najd, occurred in April, when, on my return to Riyadh, Ibn
Saud informed me that, having received information of the passage of a Dar-
wish through Riyadh, he had stopped and arrested the man, who proved to be
a certain Qol-Agasi Qudsi Elfendi, an Officer of the Yaman forces, endeavouring
to make his way from Sanaa and Ibha via Riyadh to Medina and Constanti
nople with a considerable sum (£ T341) in Turkish notes and a number of
private letters, which contained little of interest and importance beyond the
information that another officer had left Ibha some three weeks or so ahead
of Qudsi Elfendi bound for the same destination. Whether that officer got
through or perished on the journey it is impossible to say, but he was not in
tercepted by Ibn Saud.
As regards Qudsi Effendi, who remained in custody at Riyadh to the
end of the period under report, I expressed a desire to see him on my return
from Wadi A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows. Dawasir, with a view to arranging for his despatch to the coast for
internment by the British authorities. My desire to visit him being com
municated to him, he made it quite clear that, though he could not refuse to
see me, if Ibn Saud insisted on his doing so, his disgust for and hatred of infi
dels was such, that he would rather be spared the ordeal. In these circum
stances I respected his wishes and never saw him, though, hearing from another
source that he was in custody in circumstances of great hardship and discom
fort, I begged Ibn Saud to improve the conditions of his imprisonment. Qol
Agasi Qudsi Effendi, for all his unreasoning fanaticism, had reason to be-
grateful to an infidel for a very substantial alleviation of the miserable condi
tions, under which he lived in the dungeons of the Riyadh fort for
nearly two months.
17. Arms in Najd.
In view of the often-repeated reluctance of H.M.'s Government to supply
Ibn Saud with arms and the High Commissioner's insistence on the inadvis-
ubility of strengthening the Wahhabi forces on account of the possible deve
lopment of a Wahhabi menace, it is important to note that, while Government's,
policy in this matter had the effect of alienating, to a certain extent, the sym
pathies of Ibn Saud, it failed of its main object owing to the Sharif's lavish
distribution of arms and ammunition among irresponsible elements of the
population of Xajd in the mistaken belief that he was thereby securing their
allegiance. To this may be added the illicit traffic in arms and ammunition,
out of which, there seems little doubt, certain Sharifian officials, responsible
for the custody of military equipment, made considerable profits.
The traffic in arms and ammunition was carried on in Najd on a wholesale
scale, and cases came to my notice of the transit thereof through Najd to the
Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. coast. Ibn Saud was constrained to forbid the exoort of ammu
nition from his territories and to take steps to purchase such surplus stocks, as
were available, for his own use, with the result that, during the last months
of the period under report, he had bought up considerably in excess of 300,000
rounds, while I estimated that at least an equal quantity, in the aggregate,
was held by individuals. Ibn Saud being content to leave rifles in the posses
sion of those who had them, knowing that they would always be available for
his service, it was not possible to procure even the roughest estimate of the
number received from Sharifian sources, but it is known that Najd volunteers
were freely supplied with arms and regularly came away with the equipments
so secured—frequently as deserters. In these circumstances it may be assumed
that in one way or another Najd secured large quantities of arms, possibly not
far short of 5,000, if we assume a ro^gh percentage of one rifle to 100 rounds
of ammunition brought away.
1 he result of the Sharif's policy and, indeed, of our own was to weaken
Inn Saud in relation to his own subjects and leave him in a worse position to'
control the A\ ahhabi movement than before, while, at the same time, greatly
increasing the strength of the tribes.