Throughout the spring and sununer of 1915 the Russian and Turldsh armies in Transcau casia fought several engagements of which little news leaked out. The Russians were holding the southeastern gate while greater events were happening on their far-flung eastern lines in Europe. Early in May an action was fought at Dilman, just mside the Persian frontier, north west of Lake Urmia, in which the Turks were severely handled by the Russians. Early in September the tsar nominally took personal command of his armies and the Grand Duke Nicholas was sent to the Caucasus as governor and commander-in-chief. The Turkish forces in this region were increased to some 100,000 inen in anticipation of a Russian move. It seemed to be the Russian plan to detain as many Turldsh troops in this theatre as possible to prevent reinforcements being sent to Meso potamia or the Dardanelles. On the other hand, a Turkish embarrassment elsewhere would place the grand duke in a position to strike a blow from behind. Beyond inflicting a slight defeat on the Turks near Van in October there was no itnmediate resumption of hostilities. The Persian revolt was crushed by 20 Dec. 1915, and on 17 Jan. 1916 the Russians tnade a sudden attack on the Turkish centre at Koprikeui and broke it over a front of 66 miles. The Turks retreated in haste on their stronghold at Er zerum, 60 miles away, with the Russians dose on their heels. On the 21st the latter were already shelling the fortress, but the attack was temporarily held up by severe weather. On 11 February the Russians launched a fierce assault, and after a five days' struggle Erzerum sur rendered (16 February) with 235 officers, 12,750 men and 312 guns. Pressing swifty on ward, General Yudenitch, the Russian com mander, led his Cossacks into Mush and Alch lay, pushed south and entered Bitlis on 2 March. Two days later a Russian force was landed at the Black Sea port of Atina and passed rapidly along the coast to Trebizond, which fell to them on 18 April. The Turlcs rallied a little after the surrender of Kut and temporarily re covered some lost ground in Armenia, but by the middle of July the Russians were again on the move, capturing Baiburt, between Treb izond and Erzerum on 15 July and Erzinghisui, 100 miles west of Erzertun, on the 25th. This rapid and victorious advance was made pos sible by the power of the Russian Black Sea fleet, which dominated that inland water so long as Russia remained in the war. The addi tion of the Goeben and Breslau to the Turkish fleet was never more than a temporary annoy ance. Turco-German submarines were sent out on several occasions and copied the tactics of the U-boats generally in sinking not only mer chantmen but also hospital ships; they had no success of any consequence against the Rus sian fleet, nor did they interfere with the block ade of the Bulgarian and Turkish coasts and ports. Under the control of Vice-Admiral A. V. Kolchak, who succeeded to the command in August 1916, the Black Sea fleet was brought to a high level of efficiency, comparing very favor ably with the Baltic ships. The entry of Ru mania into the war on 27 Aug. 1916 did not affect the naval position. A severe loss befel the Russians on 20 Oct. 1916 in the destruction by fire and explosion of the dreadnought lmpera tritta Marie with 200 lives. In regard to its use of submarines and aircraft the navy also did effective work in the Black Sea. On one oc casion, during a seaplane raid on Dericos, north west of Constantinople, a machine was damaged and compelkd to alight on the water. While descending the two occuptants obeerved a Turk ish schooner, and by means of their machine gun drove the crew from the deck, leaving the way clear for them to board and capture the vessel. With the capture of Erzingirian the whole of Turkish Armenia was now in Russian hands. During August the Turks recovered Mush and Biths and lost them again vrithin 17 days. On 30 Sept 1916 Turkey declared war on Rumania.
Yet again a fresh belligerent appears upon the scene, this time to throw in his lot with that of the Allies as against Turkey— Hussein ibn Ali, the Grand Shereef of Mecca. Shortly after the surrender of Townshend at Km, this Arabian potentate notified the British govern ment that he could no longer stand aside and witness the continued subjugation of the Arabs to their Turkish rulers. He asked for money, arms and food for his troops, and before they had been promised him broke out into rebellion against the Young Turkey party and their Ger man masters and declared the independence of the Hedjaz. The Arabs had suffered badly at the hands of the Turks, and were not unmind ful of the fact that millions of their coreli gionists lived ccmtentedly under the protection of Great Britain and France, who respected their creeds and permitted absolute religious freedom. What contributed largely to bring about the unlooked-for intervention of the Arabs was the proclamation issued to Indian Mussultnans by the Agha IChan (q.v.) at the outbrealc of the war. Also, the Indian govern ment had announced in November 1914 that the holy places of Arabia, including the Holy Shrines of Mesopotamia and the port of Jed dah, would be immune from attack or molesta tion from the British forces so long as there was no interference with pilgrims from India to the holy places and shrines in question. The governments of France and Russia had given similar assurances. Hussein ibn Ali and his family carried all the Arabs of the Hedjaz with them when independence was declared an 9 June 1916. They immediately backed their challenge with deeds by attacking and capturing the Turkish garrisons in Taif, Mecca and Jed dah. They next opened up communications with the British fleet iit the Red Sea so that the arms and food required for their campaign could be brought to their coasts. The Shereef's two sons, Feisul and Ali, raised their father's flag of revolt in Medina on 13 June. The Turks were not un red to meet the new situation; they had Cr:ET:gist down large forces from Syria in anticipation of hostilities. Feisul rallied all the tribesmen and villagers around Medina, but shrank from an attack upon the holy city itself. They tore up a part of the Hedjaz Railway with their bare hands, in the absence of explosives, and threw the rails dovrn the embankments. But they refrained from cutting the water conduit and refused to clear their way by fighting through the streets. By this scrupulous regard for the city containing their holiest shrine— the tomb of the Prophet — they lost their opportunity. The Turkish gar rison in Medina, encouraged by the inactivity of the rebels, made a sortie early in the morning, took the garden suburb of Awali by surprise, massacred sorne hundreds of women and chil dren and set the plate on fire. 13y the time the havoc had been wrought, Feisul dashed tip with his Arabs mounted on camels and har assed the rear of the retiring Turks. Yet he still wavered when his men demanded to attack the fortress outside the city walls; they even rushed to the charge without him, but they were stopped by artillery fire, a new experience to the sons of the desert. The Turks
sent out an enveloping force to cut off the Arab van, a move that was detected by Feisul a mile to the rear. Under a withering shrapnel fire he now took the lead against the sortie force, maintaining the struggle till nightfall, when his ammunition was nearly exhausted. He had no reserves and was also running short of food. The British were meanwhile establishing a base for Feisul at Rabegh on the Red Sea, about 100 miles north of Jeddah. The Turks were well provided with guns, machine guns and aeroplanes; they repaired the broken rail road, received further supplies from Syria, and made an advance toward Rabegh, to the north of which Feisul had retired with his disheart ened followers. Immediate action was impera tive to check the Turkish advance, for, with Rabegh once in their hands, Mecca would be in danger'. In consultation with British naval officers in the Red Sea, Feisul determined to risk leaving the Mecca road undefended and carry his whole force away from Yenbo and attack Wejh, 200 miles farther north along the Hedjaz coast, striking against the Turicish com munication with Syria the Hedjaz Railway. By this move he hoped to compel the enemy to drvert a considerable force for defensive pur poses and perhaps abandon the march on Mecca. Feisul placed his younger brother Zeid in com mand of a handful of men to make a show of resistance in the hills, and requested his elder brother Abdullah, who had been blockading Medina on the east, to move across the railway north of Medina and pretend to threaten the Turlcs' line of communication directly. Though Abdullah had no adequate force to perform any serious enterprise, he succeeded in cutting up some scattered Turkish units. Feisul embarked all his arms and stores from Yenbo el Bahr on British ships and divided his 10,000 men into nine units, to move northward separately and concentrate at Um Lejj by 14 Jan. 1917. On arrival here he provided his men with fresh sup plies from the ships and embarked a landing party to be used in the attacic on Weill in co-operation with the navy. With the rest of his army Feisul set out on a march of 150 miles along a route notoriously short of water. Many camels died on the road; a Royal Indian marine ship put into an uncharted bay on the coast and supplied the caravan with water in the middle of a dry march of 75 miles. The navy and the landing party had settled the business at Wejh before the army arrived on the scene; Feisul was in time only to cut off some of the escaping garrison and capture all their reserves of arms and equipments, The ships' guns supported the landing parties, and after some difficult street fighting in the town the Arabs cleared the Turks out to the last man. The whole proceeding took 36 hours. The British warships took other landing parties and set them ashore at Dhaba and Moweilah, so that by the middle of Febru ary 1917 the whole northern end of the Red Sea up to the Gulf of Akabah was cleared of the enemy. This picturesque campaig:n, of which but little was heard at the time, demon strated once more the overwhelming advantage which sea power gives to an inferior and ill equipped force over an enemy superior in strength but dependent entirely on land commu nications. In November 1916 the Grand Shereef took the title of king of the Hedjaz, and was definitely recognized as such by the Allies. Per haps the principal factor in establishing the new kingdom and restoring the Caliphate to the de scendants of the Prophet was Col. Thomas Law rence, a young Englishman and graduate of Ox ford, who was studying ardimological inscrip tions in Mesopotamia when the war broke out. He was then 26. Without any lcnowledge of mil itary affairs, Lawrence was appointed an officer in the British army. Dressed as an Arab, in a costume he wore like a native, he traveled through the country and united the various tribes against the Turks. His profound lcnowl edge of the land and its languages made him an important personage in the eyes of the people. He had lived among Kurds, Arabs, Turks and Egyptians; he was a friend of Kitchener when the latter was High Commissioner for Egypt, and he even bore the title of Prince of Mecca. Mounted on a camel, he led the Bedouins into many fights against the Turks, who, with their German allies, soon discovered that some mys terious power inspired the Arabs. 'Through their spies,* wrote Lowell Thomas, (they learned that Lawrence was the guiding spirit of the whole Arabian Revolution. They offered a reward of $500,000 for him, dead or alive. But the Bedouins would not have betrayed their idolized leader for all the gold in the fabled mines of Solomon?) (Asia, New York, Sep tember 1919.) We now turn again to t, where the Turkish attack on the Suez EgiPtal had failed signally in 1915. From the beginning of hos tilities the Anglo-Eg.yptian garrisons had been withdrawn from the Sinai Peninsula, where there was nothing of importance to protect This desert region was at that time tile only spot in the world whem British territory was occupied by enemy forces, though for the reason that it vias not defended. The Turks had the run of the ground, occasionally skirmishing with British mounted patrols. Early in 1916 the British had re-occupied the region of Katia, east of the canal, and were laying a light railway to that place. In May reports came that the Turks were preparing for another attack; in the middle of July a Turkish force of about 10,000 began moving west from El-Arish, car rying heavy guns manned by Germans and Ans tnans, and accoinpanied by an Arab camel corps under a German officer. Moving along the coast, the expedition was harried by Brit ish monitors from the sea. A Scottish terri torial division was stationed 23 miles from the canal at Romani and spread seven miles to the coast at Mahamdie; Australian and New Zea land troopers protected the right of the line, while mounted detaclunents harassed the ene my's left On 3 August the Turks delivered their attack For over 20 hours the battle raged, and on the afternoon of the 4th the whole British front advanced. The result was qtsicIdy decided; the enemy line was completely smashed; Turks, Arabs and Germans fled in confusion, followed by British cavalry sweep ing up masses of prisoners, guns and equip ment By the 7th the enemy had retreated 20 miles; he made a stand on the 9th, but was again pushed back The enemy resistance was broken, and it now remained to clear the rest of the peninsula. Several heavy actions were yet to be fought, but by the end of February 1917 the Turks had been thrown back across the frontier at Rafa. The province of Sinai was freed after a two years' undisturbed oc cupation; only a few scattered patrols re mained behind, all that was left of the army destined to reconquer Egypt, Turkey's prom ised reward for her participation in the war on the German side. .