File 705/1916 Pt 2 'Arab revolt: Arab reports; Sir M Sykes' reports' [‎181v] (360/450)

Patrika ” of the 1 st July observes that the news of the declaration of independence by
the Arabs is likely to be hailed with joy by all Mahommedans but the Turks, as it will
remove all obstacles to their free access to the Sacred Places of Mecca and Medina, and
that it will tend to diminish the power of Turkey by half.
APPENDIX (C).
STOTZINGEN-N EUFELD MISSION TO ARABIA.
[From “ Arab Bulletin ” No. 13.]
IT was reported in No. 2 of this Summary (L* 2 th June) that a small party of
“ Germans,” including a lady, had come to Yambo and was lodging there when
B.I.M.S. “ Dufferin ” arrived oil the port on the 4th June. A previous report
about the movement of this party had been obtained when the same ship was at Hassani
Island, near Umlejh, on the 3rd June. It is now possible from a report brought by
the son of the cliief Sheikh of Yambo, and from certain papers which have come
into our hands, to give some further account of the composition and fortunes of
this party.
The head of it was Major (Colonel ?) Freiherr Othmar von Stotzingen. He is,
presumably, the Major of that name appointed Senior G.S.O. to the 27th Division of
the XIII Army Corps [Wurtemburg] in February 1913. He left Berlin on the 15th
March last, carrying with him (among other documents, doubtless) a private recom
mendation to Enver Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. from the Countess Schlieffen. This letter says that
“ the duty which the gentleman in question is to take over in the east is in a certain
sense the result of a decision of your Excellency.” It proceeds to recommend him as
knowing English (his own letters support this) and French perfectly, and being
acquainted with Arabic, “as he spent four winters in Africa in the years before the
war and travelled in the company of Arabs.” The lady goes on to say that Baron von
Stotzingen “ does not obtrude his personality and has not those characteristics which
often make the Germans disliked in foreign parts.” This letter was written with the
knowledge that Enver would be absent from Constantinople when the Freiherr would
arrive, and it was in fact never presented.
Yon Stotzingen took £T. 30 with him from Berlin and reached Constantinople in
the course of the 17th March. He remained there, at Tokatlian’s in Pera, till the 26th,
and then proceeded by the Baghdad railway to Adana where he was on the 30th.
Probably there, and in relation to the break of the railway on the Amanus, he wrote a
note, an English version of which lias come into our hands, to the commandant at Tarsus
stating that Monday (3rd April ?) was “ the last day that motor-cars are going from
one station to the other of the interruption of the railway. He must himself have left
early that day, for he was at Aleppo in the course of the 4th April, and stayed there
till the 8 th April. On the 12 th April he was at Damascus, and appears to have had
something to do with the wireless installation there; for one Fr. Hammer “ Leiter
F.T. (Field Telegraph ?) of the Turkish IV A.C.” writes to him, on information received
from Unteroffizier Tholber, that one of the masts of the receiving station is bent;
proposes to repair it with the plant in the Kadem railway shops, and thinks he could
set it up again in two days’ time. He evidently expected an order from Yon
Stotzingen.
It is worth making the suggestion, on the strength of this letter and of another
indication, that Yon Stotzingen’s mission was (in part at any rate) connected wdth the
installation of wireless telegraphy in Arabia.
We have received from Aden rumours of an installation in Yemen communicating
with Mecca ; but the Emir of the latter assures us these are false, and that no wireless
apparatus existed at Mecca. Anticipations of Yon Stotzingen’s work, translated into
fact, may explain these rumours.
Yon Stotzingen stayed in Damascus till the end of April. That his delay was
largely due to differences of opinion between Enver’s party, which had commissioned
him, and Jemal Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. , into whose jurisdiction he had come, is clear from an interesting
document published later. This was written by Yon Stotzingen at El-Ala on the back
of the letter from Fr. Hammer already quoted. In it he reveals his relations with