File 756/1917 Pt 2-3 ‘ARAB BULLETIN Nos 66-114’ [‎221v] (451/834)

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A conference was held at Hit on October G, and henceforth.
Ajeimi’s main aim was the extortion of further subsidies from
the Germans. Preusser, who was buoyed up by tidings of
a Euphrates offensive, was still further discredited when this was
abandoned, and the influence of his combination steadily waned.
To add to his troubles, the Turks began to place difficulties in
the way of direct relations between Germans^ and Arabs.
Preusser complained of this passive resistance in a note to
Yilderim in February last. The reply was :
“The Turkish Ministers of War and of the Interior have
demanded the discontinuance of all relations between Germans
and Arabs : hence the resistance. Do not initiate any further
undertakings for the present.”
There could be only one logical result, and on March 5 the
blow fell. Yilderim decreed the dissolution of Missmont in view
of the Turkish objections referred to. The Mission was therefore
wound up ; Arab affairs was taken over by the V ith Army, and
Preusser was on the point of leaving Mesopotamia when he was
captured at Haditha on March 27 with part of his records.
2. The Euphrates Group was a distinct organisation, run on
different lines and with a different aim. Its main function was
political, and though it served the immediate object of inciting
the tribes against us, it pursued always its aim of “ peaceful
penetration ” and the furtherance o£ German influence and
prestige. Inasmuch as it was essentially a military institution,
it naturally overlapped Missmont, and there seems to have been
some friction between the two organisations. Contrary to
Missmont’s practice, this group paid its agents badly, and useful
sheikhs received only doles, while the Euphrates group looked on
Missmont as spendthrifts who “ queered their pitch.”
This group apparently was not stinted in any way, and its
more niggardly poliey seems to have been due to the parsimony
of its leader, Captain Rohde of the German General Staff. He is
said to have been an exceptionally able man, the life and soul of
the 50th Division. He did a great deal besides Intelligence work,
and was practically C.G.S. to the Divisional Commander. He
was an expert Turkish scholar, who had served with the Turks in
the Tripoli and Balkan campaigns. He fell ill before our attack
on Khan Baghdadi and was invalided to Aleppo on March 20.
His first assistant was Vice-Sergeant-Major Boyes, a man of
English extraction whose famity had lived in Germany for
several generations. He had been in the German Navy and
lived in India for nineteen years. He was sent to the Euphrates
to examine Indian prisoners of war and to get in touch
with Indian troops in our lines. He spoke English and
Hindustani, and had received special instruction at the
Dolmetscherschule in Berlin, where linguists are taught the
military organisation and military phraseology of the armies
against which they are to be employed. His second assistant