Coll 6/9 'Jeddah Reports Jany 1931–' [‎344v] (689/802)

59. There the matter rested at the end of December. Nothing transpired
as to the King's attempts to engage foreign personnel, except an unconfirmed
report that a Polish engineer from Mecca had been sent to recruit personnel in
Poland.
A rnbian A ir Route.
60. His Majesty's Charge d'Affaires had on the 10th October suggested to
His Majesty’s Government that, if they could help Ibn Sand to obtain the air
personnel he required, his agreement to the facilities they sought from him in
regard to landing grounds on the Hasa Coast (July-August report, paragraph 72)
might be requested as a quid f ro quo. He suggested an annual rental for these
grounds of £1,000 gold as the lowest which Ibn Sand would be likely to consider.
On the 26th November the Air Ministry informed the Foreign Office that, while
it now seemed improbable that the request for facilities could be made as a quid
pro quo, they would like it to be broached to Ibn Sand at the first
suitable opportunity. They considered, however, that the suggested rent was
excessive, as they did not require the grounds for exclusive Royal Air Force use.
but only asked that they should be marked out and available for pilots flying on
the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. route to land on in case of distress; the other desiderata relating
to the treatment of the crews of distressed aircraft were, they suggested, no more
than His Majesty's Government had a right to expect on grounds of humanity
and international courtesy. An annual rental of £50 for each of the three
grounds would, in their opinion, be adequate to meet the cost of maintenance and
renewal of the markings. His Majesty’s Charge d'Affaires was accordingly
instructed on the 2nd December to take up the matter with the Hejaz-Nejd
Government at a suitable opportunity; one did not, however, arise before the end
of the month.
Northern Hejaz.
V.— Military Matters.
61. During November and December the only addition reported to have been
made to the Saudi forces in the northern amirates was that of a draft of 150 men
to Tabuk. The Amir of Jauf, Turki-as-Sudairi, moved his headquarters and
wireless to Skaka, a village 22 miles north-east of Jauf, in November. In
December he posted 100 camelmen and five cars under Ibn Hamdan forward in
the Wadi A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows. Sirhan, at Isawiya.
62. Everywhere in the north the condition of the garrisons continued to
deteriorate. Still no pay was issued, and at Kaf and Tabuk the troops were said
to be on the verge of starvation. Circumstantial reports were, at the same time,
received from Mecca and Medina that a Nafir al Amm, or general call to arms for
Jihad, was in progress in Nejd and the Northern Hejaz. It was commonly
thought that Ibn Saud was on the point of risking his arm in a throw against
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 as the only means left to him of pacifying the general discontent and
offering his starving tribes the chance of helping themselves. Reflection, of
course, suggested that Ibn Saud could not lie so foolish as to engage openly in an
enterprise which would bring him into direct conflict with His Majesty’s Govern
ment, but the possibility could not be dismissed in the case of a man such as he,
strong-willed and ambitious, who was already in hard straits and might be
desperate in a few months. There was, of course, the alternative possibility of
the same object being pursued less openly by the promotion of authorised raids,
but no untoward development in either direction took place before the end of
the year.
East {Nejd).
63. The death of Feisal-ad-Dawish in prison at Riadh (see paragraph 38) is
said to have caused widespread consternation and gloom amongst the Mutair
and increased bitterness against Ibn Saud. The common belief was that he had
been murdered.
64. Apart from this, there were rumours of much dissatisfaction in Nejd
and some specific allegations of discontent owing to oppressive taxation,
non-payment of wages and bounties, levies in kind on merchants, attempts to
impose the use of the unpopular Hejazi dollar, and the reforms instituted in the
Hasa by the mission of Muhammad-at-Tawil, whose life was said to have been