Hejaz Railway

The Hejaz Railway was an Ottoman railway line from Damascus to Medina, built in 1900–1908. It was meant to carry pilgrims to the holy cities of Islam and to bind distant Arabia more closely to the rest of the empire. In the war it became the only supply route of the Turkish garrisons in the Hejaz and the main target of the Arab Revolt.

The pilgrims’ railway

Construction was ordered in 1900 by Sultan Abdülhamid II, who wanted to strengthen his position as caliph. He called on Muslims all over the world to donate, although most of the money came from within the empire. The technical work was directed by the German engineer Heinrich Meissner, and the workers suffered from heat, lack of water and disease. The narrow track, with a gauge of 1050 mm, followed the old pilgrim route and on 1 September 1908, the anniversary of the sultan’s accession, reached Medina. The section from Damascus was about 1300 km long. The journey, which had taken about 40 days, now took a few.

The railway also served the army: it made it easier to move troops deep into Arabia. That is why the Sharif of Mecca, Hussein bin Ali, opposed its extension to Mecca, which would have placed the Hejaz under the closer control of the Young Turks. The line never got there. The old pilgrim ports, on the other hand, lost their importance, among them Yanbu, which T. E. Lawrence described as half a dead city.

The war for the track

When the revolt broke out in June 1916, Emir Faisal’s Arabs attacked Medina and tore up rails with their bare hands, but the Turks quickly repaired them and brought reinforcements in by rail. General Fahreddin Pasha’s garrison held the city, and the railway remained its only supply line. From early 1917, when Faisal set up a new base at Wejh, British and French officers taught the Bedouin to use explosives and led raids themselves, blowing up bridges, culverts and trains.

In the spring of 1917 Lawrence concluded that Medina was not worth taking. The garrison tied to it did the Turks more harm than good, and the railway should be kept alive but barely working, tying down as many soldiers as possible to guard it. The revolt was moving north. After the capture of Aqaba in July, Lawrence blew up trains near Mudawwara in the autumn, and in January 1918 the Arabs took Jurf al-Darawish station north of Ma’an.

1918 and after

The British fought for the railway too. In the spring of 1918 two raids across the Jordan, on Amman and Es Salt, failed to destroy the viaduct and tunnel at Amman. In April the Arabs wrecked the track between Ma’an and Mudawwara so badly that it was not rebuilt before the end of the war, and Medina was cut off from the north. In September, before the offensive at Megiddo, the rebels blew up track around the junction at Deraa, and on 25 September Chaytor’s horsemen took Amman. Soon afterwards the Ma’an garrison surrendered, while Medina held out until January 1919.

After the war Britain and France divided the line between them. The ruined southern section never returned to service, and in the Hejaz only abandoned stations and track remained of the railway, while trains kept running in the north, among other routes from Damascus to Amman.