'File 61/11 V (D 95) Hejaz - Nejd, Miscellaneous' [‎48v] (113/530)

2
6. Most of the preceding paragraph must be regarded as doubtful, but it is
not quite such small beer as might appear at first sight. 1 am assured that,
whatever the reason, Fuad Hamza and Yusuf Y asin are seriously at loggerheads,
and any quarrel between these two is a quarrel between an ambitious moderniser
and one who is out and out the King's man. It is not impossible that the
Amir Feisal, a man of no great character but some intelligence, swollen perhaps
with the vanity of having been Viceroy of the Hejaz, might become the stalking
horse of a party formed to pull the Hejaz out of the morass in which the King's
attempts at administration and economic depression have landed it. The report
that all is not well between the Amir and the King deserves some support from the
fact that he expected to be detained at Riyadh on his return from his tour, an
expectation which he is said to have announced to his friends before he left, and
which he confessed to me vaguely in conversation in London. There is, in fact,
tinder enough about to take fire, if the Ibn Rifada affair precipitated a serious
situation.
7. This brings me back to Ibn Rifada, whose position and prospects are
still shrouded in mystery. My French colleague is convinced that the Government
here are concealing facts, and that the situation in the north is more serious than
they will admit. I think he is going less on any known facts than on a plausible
theory that tribesmen may well be supposed to have rallied to the invader, and
that underpaid garrisons, notably that at Tebuk, have long been so discontented
that they might easily go over. On my suggesting that, if the situation were
really serious, the King would probably take it in hand himself and go at least as
far as Medina, M. Maigret developed the theory that Ibn Saud dared not leave
Taif owing to the doubtful loyalty of the tribes round that place, of whose
restiveness he had heard tales similar to those brought me by the Indian
vice-consul.
8. I take the opportunity of mentioning one matter of actual fact. You will
remember that, on the 4th June, Sheikh Yusuf Yasin mentioned to me the arrest
of a launch from Suez at Wejh. On the 8th June I found that my French
colleague had been approached about this by a certain Ansara, who had brought
the launch to Wejh. M. Maigret was at first cautious, but he told me, on the
20th June, that he had ascertained that the vessel was under the French flag,
although Ansara was, he said, an Egyptian, not a Syrian, as I had heard
elsewhere. He then took the matter up with some vigour with the Acting
Minister for Foreign Affairs, but has not so far got any explanation of the arrest
except that it was due to contravention of unspecified regulations. No one can,
or will, tell me what the launch carried, but the Hejazi Government evidently
attach importance to her, as they have detained her and her crew since the
31st May at the risk of disagreeableness with the French. Ansara himself is said
to be on his way to Taif, whether as a free man or as a prisoner, I know not.
As I write, I learn that he has got as far a§ Jedda by car.
9. I am sending copies of this despatch to His Majesty's High
Commissioners for Transjordan Used in three contexts: the geographical region to the east of the River Jordan (literally ‘across the River Jordan’); a British protectorate (1921-46); an independent political entity (1946-49) now known as Jordan , Iraq and Egypt.
I have, &c.
ANDREW RYAN.