ملف ١٩٢٤/١٧٠٧ "الجزيره العربية - تقارير عن الوضع في جدة. (١٩٢٤-١٩٣٠)" [و‎‎٣‎٦‎٩] (٨٩٨/٧٤٢)

[This Document is the
EASTERN (Arabia).
CONFIDENTIAL.
[E 2105/10/91]
Property of His Britannic
Majesty’s Government.!
[April 7, 1925.]
Section 1.
Consul Bullard to Mr. Austen Chamberlain.—(Received April 7.)
(No. 24. Secret.)
Slr > T TT A17 p , , . Jeddah, March 19, 1925.
1 TiA 11/ the honom to enclose a report on the situation covering the period the
12th to 19th March.
2. Copies of this despatch and of its enclosure are being sent to India Egypt
Khartum (through Port Sudan), Jerusalem, Bagdad, Beirut (for Damascus), Aden*
Singapore, Bushire, Koweit, Bahrein and Muskat.
I have, &c.
R. W. BULLARD.
Enclosure in No 1.
Report for the Period March 12 to 19, 1925.
(Secret.)
THE Hedjaz war.command consists principally of three persons: Tahsin Pasha,
the Syrian, who is Minister of War and Army Commander ; a Bagdadi, General Jamil
Pasha, who is attached to the King ; and the King himself. As it seems no Bagdadi
ever agrees with any Syrian, and as the King ticks from one side to the other with the
speed and regularity of the pendulum of a clock, there is a certain lack of unity and
purpose in the campaign. However, at last the die was cast for a sortie, and an
attempt to occupy the Wahabis’s positions and capture or destroy their guns. On the
13th March the garrison kept up a fairly heavy bombardment of the Wahabis’s
positions for most of the day. In this they had the assistance of four heavier guns
(4 —5-inch) which had just arrived from Medina via Maan and Akaba. On the 14th,
at 10 a.m., the Hedjaz forces moved out towards the north and north-east in four
separate bodies on a front of almost 2 miles. The main attacks were against a village
on the left wing and trenches in the plain on the right. The operation was a complete
failure. The Wahabis had four or five machine guns in various parts of the front, and
with these and rifle fire they inflicted casualties amounting in all to nearly 200 on the
Hedjaz forces. The Wahabis fought, by all reports, with the greatest ferocity, and, so
far as could be seen from the roofs of the town, with a good deal of science. The
Hedjaz troops appeared to have no heart for the work, and this is borne out by the
fact that a high proportion of the wounds received are in the discreet rather than the
valiant portions of the body, viz., the back and buttocks. The heaviest casualties were
suffered by the remnants of King Hussein’s regular army, which consist of “ Hedjazis ”
(cultivators from the country between Mecca and Taif) and “Yemenis” (men of
Yemen stock, though mostly born in the Hedjaz, ; they came under maching-gun fire
from the village. The Palestinians, who were supported by armoured cars, behaved
very warily. A few days before the battle a few hundred “ scallywags ” from the
bazaar were recruited at £2 a month, and given old rifles. A large proportion of them
were boys of 14 and under. These troops took no prominent part in the battle.
The two new Italian armoured cars were hardly more successful than the protected
lorries obtained from Germany. One never got far beyond the wire, though whether
the breakdown was in the machinery or in the German who was driving it has not
been discovered. The other went out at a good pace, but came back as quickly with
several holes in the armour, the driver wounded in the neck, and the officer
commanding armoured cars with a piece of the plating in a bullet wound in his leg.
This failure, which was anticipated by everyone else, was a heavy’ blow to the war
command, who now appear to realise that they would need more and better men to drive
the Wahabis back. But, as they are desperate and as they can always leave for a safer
place in case of disaster, there may be something in the rumour that they propose to
make another attack. The attack of the 14th has done nothing but dishearten the
defence and (doubtless) strengthen Ibn Sand’s determination to hold on until Jeddah
surrenders.
[920 g—1]
It
I