File 756/1917 Pt 2-3 ‘ARAB BULLETIN Nos 66-114’ [‎312v] (633/834)

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during the last phase, illness, melancholia and religious fanaticism
brought him to a state verging on insanity.
The Threat to destroy the Dardanelles Forts.
The attitude o£ the Turkish Government towards Fakhri’s
refusal to surrender was, from all the evidence, scrupulously
correct.
When, on December 16, the Minister for Foreign Affairs was
informed that the Dardanelles Forts would be destroyed unless
Fakhri at once complied with the armistice terms, he immediately
returned ym emphatic protest. The Government had, he said,
done their best. If Fakhri continued to resist after their written
message reached him—which they regarded as most improbable—
they would punish him for insubordination according to military
law. They must protest against this decision, which was justified
by no existing right. They had hoped that the previous willing
ness of the Turkish Government to comply with British requests
was sufficiently appreciated to make recourse to such threats
useless.
In forwarding this answer, the British High Commissioner,
Constantinople, observed that there was no evidence that the
Turkish Government was a party to or previously cognisant of
Fakhri’s line of action and that all communications between
them had passed quite openly.
Relations with Ihn Saud.
No evidence which has so far come to light since the evacua
tion tends directly to prove that there was any concerted plan of
action between Ibn Saud and Fakhri.
Fakhri in conversation with Colonel Bassett made very posi
tive assertions to the contrary. Ibn Saud, he said, had been a
serious thorn in his side. He had arrested agents sent to purchase
supplies in Kasim, and had not only stopped them from buying
but had refused to allow them to return to Medina. He had, too,
, a a camels i' 1 Nejd, with the result that some
A o,000 paid for them became a dead loss. Later, when the
Medina railway communications were cut, Fakhri appealed to him
tor 200 camel loads of grain but got no reply. Fakhri gratui
tously mentioned the British treaty with him, saying that it had
been a good move on our part ; for had Ibn Saud sent even 500
,, e T t° 118 help he could have kept his communications with
the itast open On another occasion he described him as by far
the cleverest of the Arabian chiefs.
Colonel Bassett formed the impression, however, that Fakhri
was keeping something back. And a direct inconsistency between
the evidence of Captain Zia and that of the captured staff is signi-
FmOoV C< T a f m f Z, i a ® tated /efimtely that, while he was in Medina,
a On i s adjutant had read him a friendly letter from Ibn Saud
containing congratulations on the success of the Turkish resistance!