File 756/1917 Pt 2-3 ‘ARAB BULLETIN Nos 66-114’ [‎299r] (606/834)

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The commission returned to Medina ; and soon after the
period of grace had terminated, a telephone message was received
at Bir Derwish from Ali Negib Bey saying that Fakhri had been
arrested and requesting that a party be sent for him. Emir
Abdullah at once left for Djlejla and there received Fakhri who
arrived in a motor car with Sabri Bey, a Baghdadi officer who
had been a member of the commission.
Fakhri reached Bir Derwish with Emir Abdullah on
January 10, two months and four days after he had received
his first instructions to surrender. He was brought in as a
prisoner and thus, after all, had avoided surrender to the rebels.
He appeared to feel his position very keenly, and had nothing to
say. The Emirs treated him with great kindness.
It appears that on the commission’s return to Medina, a
committee of officers was formed and Fakhri was approached
with a view to persuading him to surrender, but he refused
point blank and afterwards retired with a few officer sympathisers
and fifty men into the Haram, saying he would prefer to die
there rather than give in.
A company of gendarmerie was posted round the place,
and during the night every one who came out for any purpose
was arrested. In this way the party was reduced to a negligible
quantity and in the early morning a few of the gendarmerie
made a forced entry, seized Fakhri who was lying on his bed
fully dressed except for his coat, relieved him of his three
revolvers, and placed him in a car which was waiting outside.
In this he was taken by the O.C. Gendarmerie and Sabri Bey
to Dileila.
J J # * * # #
Talks with the officers who deserted with Emin Bey have
proved that the Turkish troops were eager to surrender and that
desertions on a large scale would have occurred at a much earlier
date had not they been taught systematically that the Bedu
would torture them. Fakhri probably believed this himself.
It is hard to believe that the Turkish envoy, Captain Zia,
did not take some part in prompting Fakhri to maintain his
attitude of refusal. Whilst in Medina it is true his movements
were strictly supervised and he had comparatively little chance of
actually promoting surrender. But there is some ground for
thinking that he was actually opposed to it; and that, even if he
did not leave Constantinople either with instructions, or a pre
conceived intention, to assist Fakhri, he acquired a sympathy
for him on his arrival in Medina, and encouraged him with
appreciations of the weakness of the Arab Government and of
its forces investing the city ; possibly also with secret intelligence
from revolutionaries at headquarters in Turkey, both he and
Fakhri being firm supporters of the C.U.P.
Captain Zia led us further astray (I believe deliberately) by
representing the physical and-normal - condition of the Turkish
garrison as stronger than they were, and by emphatically