Arabs capture Wejh

On the morning of 23 January 1917, covered by the fire of Royal Navy ships, several hundred Arab rebels and a party of sailors landed north of Wejh, a port on the northern coast of the Hejaz, about 290 kilometres north-west of Yanbu, and that same day forced their way into the town. The British official history of the campaign in Egypt and Palestine (MacMunn and Falls) states that on 23 January the landing force took Wejh before the arrival of the main body of Emir Faisal, which was marching there along the coast from Yanbu. Resistance in the town, however, lasted into the night. According to the official history of the air war (Jones, The War in the Air), the occupation of the town was completed on the morning of 24 January, and Faisal arrived on 25 January, when the fighting was over. The British chronology of the war records the capture of the port under 24 January.

The march along the coast

The plan was born of a crisis. In December 1916 the Turks from Medina had routed the forces of Sharif Hussein’s sons in the mountains, and Faisal had had to fall back on Yanbu. In Cairo and London there was renewed argument over whether to send a British brigade to Rabigh to shield Mecca. As early as October Faisal had proposed a march along the coast to Wejh and the establishment there of a new base that would threaten the rear of the Turks in Medina and their only line of supply, the Hejaz Railway. After the December defeats, however, he feared that once he left, Rabigh and Yanbu would fall. According to the official history, the problem was solved by a proposal from Captain Thomas Edward Lawrence, supported by Lieutenant-Colonel Cyril Wilson. Faisal’s brother, Emir Abdullah, who was operating north-east of Medina, was to take up a position by the railway in Wadi Ais, about 110 kilometres north of the city. As long as he was there, the Turks could not safely move on Rabigh.

The march on Wejh meant covering about 320 kilometres parallel to the Turkish communications and abandoning the only base and the only defensive position. It was made possible by British command of the sea and cooperation with the ships patrolling the Red Sea, commanded by Captain William Boyle. At the beginning of January Faisal moved north from Yanbu. Lawrence wrote that the army assembled at Umm Lajj, halfway, numbered 5,100 camel riders and 5,300 men on foot, with four Krupp mountain guns and ten machine guns. The official history gives a round 10,000 men. The baggage of the whole army was carried by a mere 380 camels. Far fewer men would have been enough to take Wejh, but Faisal wanted to show the tribes along the route the strength of his father’s cause. On 18 January the army set out from Umm Lajj on the last stage.

The landing

Under the plan Lawrence had agreed with Boyle, the two forces were to meet at Wejh on 23 January. Mounted Arabs were to close the escape routes from the town by dawn, and a party of several hundred men of the Harb and Juhayna tribes under the young Salih ibn Shefia, carried by the Royal Indian Marine armed transport Hardinge, was to land from the sea. Faisal’s army, however, was late. Boyle feared that the Turkish garrison would escape and decided to strike on his own. Before the attack he flew over the port in a seaplane from the carrier Anne, and the fire of the cruiser Fox and of Hardinge was corrected by airmen by wireless. Lawrence wrote of at least six ships with 50 guns. On the morning of 23 January about 500 Arabs and a party of sailors landed north of the town, where the Turks had no posts.

The garrison was small. According to the official history, the Arab camel troops had deserted and only about 200 Turkish infantrymen remained in the town. Some more recent studies give much higher figures. Lawrence later learned that even before the landing the Turkish governor, Ahmed Tewfik Bey, had called on the soldiers to defend the town to the last drop of their blood, and at dusk had himself ridden off on a camel towards the railway with a handful of horsemen. The infantry resisted a landing force three times as numerous, but the ships’ fire prevented them from making good use of their positions. During the night most of the Turks slipped out of the town, and on the morning of 24 January the sailors and Salih’s men occupied it. Faisal’s advance guard caught the fugitives on the morning of 25 January and took many prisoners. According to the official history, about a third of the garrison escaped. According to Lawrence, Salih’s men lost nearly 20 killed, and in a seaplane a Royal Flying Corps lieutenant, N.W. Stewart, was killed by a bullet from the ground.

Lawrence considered the assault unnecessary. Cut off, without food or transport, the Turks would in his view have had to surrender after a few days. The ships’ fire ruined the town, and the victors plundered it. The inhabitants, mostly newcomers from Al-Qusayr in Egypt, in any case preferred the Turks and did not heed Faisal’s call to rise or to leave.

The war moves north

The official history states that the march on Wejh, although in reality it could threaten Medina only to a small degree, worked like a charm. From then on there was no longer any question of a Turkish attack on Mecca. The troops in Medina were never besieged in the strict sense, but they became in practice a beleaguered garrison, and the Turks began to deploy ever larger forces along the railway. The dispute over a British brigade for Rabigh died away. Lawrence wrote that the Arab movement no longer had an opponent in western Arabia and the danger of its collapse had passed.

Wejh became Faisal’s new base, to which the British brought arms and supplies, and in the spring aircraft as well. Sheikhs of the northern tribes began to flock to the camp. From here the rebels destroyed the Hejaz Railway, and from here in May 1917 set out the expedition that in July captured Aqaba. The Arab Revolt ceased to be a struggle for the holy cities of the Hejaz and moved towards Syria.