File 756/1917 Pt 2-3 ‘ARAB BULLETIN Nos 66-114’ [‎319v] (647/834)

•' 1
54
(i a
rtain amount of
Beni Mugheid
support:—
405 rifles.
A1 Musa .
... ... 1225
Alqam
4012 „
Rabia wa
Rufeida 479
Beni Malek
400 „
Sha’f ...
85
Shahran
200 „
Belahmar
125
Beni Shihr
3 ,,
Be 1 asm a r
45
Qahtan Rufeidet
el Yemei i ...
61 n
Rijal el Ma ... 205
Ivunfidah district 150
n
itfes.
It may be doubted, however, whether there was any real
pro-1 urkisli feeling except round Ebhah, where intermarriage
had drawn Turks and Arabs closer together and produced a small
civilian population of mixed origin. Elsewhere any hold the
I urks^ had over Arab tribes was probably intermittent and
precarious, and depended on the fact that Arabs can always be
found who hate some other Arabs more than they hate the
foreigner, and will ally themselves with the latter in return for
gifts of arms and ammunition.
I he I urks stated that in normal times they received a subsidy
ol A h. 90,000 per annum from Constantinople for administrative
expenses in Asir. During the war this had been cut off; officers
and men had received no pay and had got heavily into debt to
merchants and others ; supplies had been requisitioned from
friendly tribes and not paid for. Muhieddin Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. , who had
been crippled with rheumatism for six months and, for that reason,
perhaps was not sorry that duty called him away from a part
of the world where little was available in the way of medical
treatment, showed much greater readiness to surrender than the
urkish commanders at hanaa and Medina. He did, however,
put in a strong plea for financial assistance in order to enable him
to discharge public and private debts before leaving, describing
t us as a necessity if his journey to the coast was to be unopposed.
ic event proved that, he was exaggerating, but he would cer
tainly have had great difficulties in reaching the coast if the
Arabs had been hostile. He appears to have solved his problem,
when once it became clear to him that no assistance in money
was forthcoming, by taking up the role of reconciliator between
Hassan ibn Ah ibn Aidh and the Idrisi. Ibn Aidh and the pro-
urk tribes of the Ebhah district were naturally nervous as to
their position when Turkish support was withdrawn. They were
surrounded by pro-Idrisian tribes, who would be only too ready
to attack them at a word from the Idrisi, and the latter, a ruler
i . g 5, eat ] ) ,?' Ver ., and P resti £ e accor( Iing to local standards, was
, ( . ss J UM . . * 1111 < ‘ s awa .7* TIl «y dad most of them fought against
hm. and it was an aggravation of the offence that many of them
previously fought with him. The Idrisi was in a position to
produced by the Turks when accounting for the disposal of their
munitions at the time of the evacuation, and showing the
number of rifles supplied to various Arab tribes, gives a fairlv
accurate idea of where they had at one time or another foun
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