'Field notes: Mesopotamia. General Staff, India. February, 1917.' [‎9v] (25/350)

ever since, but not without frequent skirmishes with the forces
of Jabal Shammar. In 1910 he had to meet both an internal
and an external danger. Certain grandsons of his late uncle,
Sa’ud, claiming the throne for the elder branch, tried to raise
Kharj and Harik. At the same time Abdullah, the son of the
Grand Sherif, appeared in Qasim, professing to champion rights
of the Ateiba violated by Abdul Aziz. The latter’s younger
brother, Saad, his representative in Qasim, was made prisoner;
but finding that the Amir of Hail, who had lately made peace
with Abdul Aziz, did not co-operate, Abdullah retired stipulat
ing that the Qasim towns contribute to the Meccan treasury a
sum of £4,000 annually (the larger towns had previously paid
such ‘ Peter’s pence ’ voluntarily), and be free to elect their own
governors. Abdul Aziz assented to these terms. The southern
rebels had no success, and after being driven from town to town,
fled out of Najd. For harbouring some of them, Abdul Aziz
inflicted heavy punishment on the Ataiba a year later, in viola
tion of his convention with the Sherif. Hard pressed for re
sources he had been coveting Hasa, which before 1871 per
tained to his dynasty, and he had tried, without much success,
to enlist the support of the Indian Government, seeking to
revive an agreement which had subsisted between his uncle,
the Amir Abdullah, and ourselves in regard to Gulf matters.
The Balkan war and the internal dissensions of the Bin Rashid
house at last offered him an opportunity, and the presence of
rebel grandsons of Sa’ud at Hofuf, an excuse: and early in
1913 he descended on Hasa, captured the central oasis, and
ten days later, Qatlf. He sent the Turkish governor and garri
son down to Ojair, whence they made their way into el-Katr.
At the end of that year he had a conference with two repre
sentatives of the Indian Government, and, after a show of nego
tiating with the Ottoman Power and accepting the title “ Wali
of Najd,” he invited a British agent to his court, and declared
for us and against Bin Rashid, the ally of the Turks. The latter
advanced early in 1915 into Sadair, but retired after fighting
a drawn battle near Majma, in the course of which our newly
arrived agent, Captain Shakes|5ear, was unfortunately killed.
In the early autumn the Grand Sharif, who shelters the rebel
grandsons of Sa’ud, again sent up Abdullah, with a considerable
force, to mediate between the two Amirs and at the same time
to enforce the pact of 1910, especially its financial clause. A
peace was patched up (it has not been very faithfully observed),
and the Sharif’s son retired, leaving some soreness behind.