The Ma'an garrison surrenders

On 29 September 1918, at Ziza station on the Hejaz Railway, about 30 kilometres south of Amman, several thousand Turkish soldiers surrendered who for more than a year had defended Ma’an against the Arab rebels. They capitulated to a handful of Australian horsemen, but in truth they feared someone else: hundreds, and according to some accounts thousands, of Bedouin who were circling their camp, waiting for plunder. The scene in which Australians and Turks spent the night side by side in the trenches, ready to fight off the Arabs together, is among the strangest episodes of the Palestine campaign.

Retreat from Ma’an

Ma’an was the most important Turkish railway junction in the south of Transjordan. Ever since the Arabs took Aqaba in July 1917 a strong garrison had been stationed there, which beat off the attacks of the Arab Northern Army of Emir Faisal. In April 1918 the Arab regular troops of Jafar al-Askari assaulted the town for several days but failed to take it. Before Allenby’s September offensive, according to Cyril Falls’s British official history, there were about seven battalions in Ma’an, and another eight guarded the line between Ma’an and Amman. They came under the Turkish II Corps, which was responsible for about 300 kilometres of railway.

After the breakthrough at Megiddo the fate of these troops was sealed. Without supplies from the north they could not stay where they were. The headquarters of the Fourth Army, to which they belonged, waited for them in Amman for so long that Otto Liman von Sanders later wrote that the army itself was late in retreating as a result. According to the British official chronology, the garrison left Ma’an on 23 September. The town was occupied by the Arab regulars. The column, numbering between 5,000 and 6,000 men according to the Australian official historian Henry Gullett, set off northwards along the railway. It was commanded by Colonel Ali Bey, called Ali Bey Wahaby in British sources.

The road closed

As the Turks marched north, Amman had already been taken by Chaytor’s horsemen. Major General Edward Chaytor was ordered to block the way of the troops from Ma’an. He had the line south of Amman damaged, and on 27 September the Australian 1st Light Horse Brigade seized the springs at Wadi al-Hammam to the north-east, closing to the Turks the route along the old pilgrim road through the desert east of the railway. The same day a patrol of the 2nd Light Horse Brigade took a prisoner near Libban station who stated that the head of the column from Ma’an had reached Kastal station. On 28 September airmen spotted the Turks at Ziza, where they had hastily dug in around the station. A pilot dropped them a message saying that all the water to the north was in British hands and threatened them with bombing if they did not surrender.

Night at Ziza

According to Falls, on the morning of 29 September the Australian 5th Light Horse Regiment, made up of Queenslanders, came within about 700 metres of the Turkish positions. On the hills around the station hundreds of riders on horses and camels were waiting, mainly from the Bani Sakhr tribe. Falls compared them to vultures watching over a dying man. At 10.30 a trolley flying a white flag came down the line. The Turkish commander wanted to surrender, but did not want to lay down his arms, because he did not believe that a few hundred Australians could protect unarmed prisoners from the Bedouin. Lieutenant Colonel D. C. Cameron finally obtained a written surrender, and Ali Bey asked only that the Australians not enter the position until reinforcements arrived.

What was now feared most was their own air force. It was not certain whether the order cancelling the air raid had arrived in time, so Cameron had signal panels for the airmen laid out in the Turkish camp and warned the Turks to take cover. Ali Bey is said to have calmly replied that if the raid came, it would be the will of God. The raid was called off. At about 5 p.m. Chaytor arrived by car. He agreed that the Turks would keep their arms overnight and hold their trenches, and lay them down in the morning. Ali Bey went with him to Amman as a hostage. Brigadier General Granville Ryrie, who galloped up with the 7th Regiment, moved his men into the Turkish positions. He warned two sheikhs whom he had brought with him that if their men attacked during the night, they would be shot. The Australians sat by the campfires together with the Turks, shared food with them and, as Gullett writes, cheered every time the nervous Turks opened fire with their machine guns into the darkness.

Prisoners

In the morning the Turks were assembled at the station and the bolts of their rifles were taken from them. The two best battalions, made up of Anatolians, kept their weapons and ammunition on Ryrie’s orders so as to cover the march in case of a Bedouin attack. Their entry into Amman fully armed caused a sensation. Falls states that the 5th Regiment led 4,068 prisoners to Amman, while 534 sick were left on the spot to be taken away by rail, 4,602 men in all. Fourteen guns, 35 machine guns, three locomotives and 25 wagons were captured. Gullett writes of about 5,000 prisoners and 13 guns. Many local soldiers slipped away home during the night.

The sources disagree about the dates. Falls, who relies on the war diaries, places the negotiations on 29 September and the laying down of arms on the morning of 30 September. Gullett moves everything a day earlier, and some later works follow him in giving 28 September. The British official chronology records the surrender under 29 September. The surrender at Ziza ended the operations of Chaytor’s force east of the Jordan. In the south of the Hejaz Railway only cut-off garrisons remained, above all Medina, which held out even after the armistice.