so mixed was the company, sherifs, meccans, sheikhs of the juheina and ateiba, mesopotamians, ageyl, that i threw apples of discord, inflammatory subjects of talk amongst them, to sound their mettle and beliefs without delay. feisal, smoking innumerable cigarettes, kept command of the conversation even at its hottest, and it was fine to watch him do it. he showed full mastery of tact, with a real power of disposing men’s feelings to his wish. storrs was as efficient; but storrs paraded his strength, exhibiting all the cleverness and machinery, the movements of his hands which made the creatures dance. feisal seemed to govern his men unconsciously: hardly to know how he stamped his mind on them, hardly to care whether they obeyed. it was as great art as storrs’; and it concealed itself, for feisal was born to it.
the arabs loved him openly: indeed, these chance meetings made clear how to the tribes the sherif and his sons were heroic. sherif hussein (sayidna as they called him) was outwardly so clean and gentle-mannered as to seem weak; but this appearance hid a crafty policy, deep ambition, and an un-arabian foresight, strength of character and obstinacy. his interest in natural history reinforced his sporting instincts, and made him (when he pleased) a fair copy of a beduin prince, while his circassian mother had endowed him with qualities foreign to both turk and arab, and he displayed considerable astuteness in turning now one, now another of his inherited assets to present advantage.
yet the school of turkish politics was so ignoble that not even the best could graduate from it unaffected. hussein when young had been honest, outspoken . . . and he learned not merely to suppress his speech, but to use speech to conceal his honest purpose. the art, over-indulged, became a vice from which he could not free himself. in old age ambiguity covered his every communication. lake a cloud it hid his decision of character, his worldly wisdom, his cheerful strength. many denied him such qualities: but history gave proof.
one instance of his worldly wisdom was the upbringing of his sons. the sultan had made them live in constantinople to receive a turkish education. sherif hussein saw to it that the education was general and good. when they came back to the hejaz as young effendis in european clothes with turkish manners, the father ordered them into arab dress; and, to rub up their arabic, gave them meccan companions and sent them out into the wilds, with the camel corps, to patrol the pilgrim roads.
the young men thought it might be an amusing trip, but were dashed when their father forbade them special food, bedding, or soft-padded saddles. he would not let them back to mecca, but kept them out for months in all seasons guarding the roads by day and by night, handling every variety of man, and learning fresh methods of riding and fighting. soon they hardened, and became self-reliant, with that blend of native intelligence and vigour which so often comes in a crossed stock. their formidable family group was admired and efficient, but curiously isolated in their world. they were natives of no country, lovers of no private plot of ground. they had no real confidants or ministers; and no one of them seemed open to another, or to the father, of whom they stood in awe.
the debate after supper was an animated one. in my character as a syrian i made sympathetic reference to the arab leaders who had been executed in damascus by jemal pasha. they took me up sharply: the published papers had disclosed that these men were in touch with foreign governments, and ready to accept french or british suzerainty as the price of help. this was a crime against arab nationality, and jemal had only executed the implied sentence. feisal smiled, almost winked, at me. ‘you see,’ he explained, ‘we are now of necessity tied to the british. we are delighted to be their friends, grateful for their help, expectant of our future profit. but we are not british subjects. we would be more at ease if they were not such disproportionate allies.’
i told a story of abdulla el raashid, on the way up to hamra. he had groaned to me of the british sailors coming ashore each day at rabegh. ‘soon they will stay nights, and then they will live here always, and take the country.’ to cheer him i had spoken of millions of englishmen now ashore in france, and of the french not afraid.
whereat he had turned on me scornfully, asking if i meant to compare france with the land of hejazi?
feisal mused a little and said, i am not a hejazi by upbringing; and yet, by god, i am jealous for it. and though i know the british do not want it, yet what can i say, when they took the sudan, also not wanting it? they hunger for desolate lands, to build them up; and so, perhaps, one day arabia will seem to them precious. your good and my good, perhaps they are different, and either forced good or forced evil will make a people cry with pain. does the ore admire the flame which transforms it? there is no reason for offence, but a people too weak are clamant over their little own. our race will have a cripple’s temper till it has found its feet.’
the ragged, lousy tribesmen who had eaten with us astonished me by their familiar understanding of intense political nationality, an abstract idea they could hardly have caught from the educated classes of the hejaz towns, from those hindus, javanese, bokhariots, sudanese, turks, out of sympathy with arab ideals, and indeed just then suffering a little from the force of local sentiment, springing too high after its sudden escape from turkish control. sherif hussein had had the worldly wisdom to base his precepts on the instinctive belief of the arabs that they were of the salt of the earth and self-sufficient. then, enabled by his alliance with us to back his doctrine by arms and money, he was assured of success.
of course, this success was not level throughout. the great body of sherifs, eight hundred or nine hundred of them, understood his nationalist doctrine and were his missionaries, successful missionaries thanks to the revered descent from the prophet, which gave them the power to hold men’s minds, and to direct their courses into the willing quietness of eventual obedience.
the tribes had followed the smoke of their racial fanaticism. the towns might sigh for the cloying inactivity of ottoman rule: the tribes were convinced that they had made a free and arab government, and that each of them was it. they were independent and would enjoy themselves — a conviction and resolution which might have led to anarchy, if they had not made more stringent the family tie, and the bonds of kin-responsibility. but this entailed a negation of central power. the sherif might have legal sovereignty abroad, if he hiked the high-sounding toy; but home affairs were to be customary. the problem of the foreign theorists — is damascus to rule the hejaz, or can hejaz rule damascus?’ did not trouble them at all, for they would not have it set. the semites’ idea of nationality was the independence of clans and villages, and their ideal of national union was episodic combined resistance to an intruder. constructive policies, an organized state, an extended empire, were not so much beyond their sight as hateful in it. they were fighting to get rid of empire, not to win it.
the feeling of the syrians and mesopotamians in these arab armies was indirect. they believed that by fighting in the local ranks, even here in hejaz, they were vindicating the general rights of all arabs to national existence; and without envisaging one state, or even a confederation of states, they were definitely looking northward, wishing to add an autonomous damascus and bagdad to the arab family. they were weak in material resources, and even after success would be, since their world was agricultural and pastoral, without minerals, and could never be strong in modern armaments. were it otherwise, we should have had to pause before evoking in the strategic centre of the middle east new national movements of such abounding vigour.
of religious fanaticism there was little trace. the sherif refused in round terms to give a religious twist to his rebellion. his fighting creed was nationality. the tribes knew that the turks were moslems, and thought that the germans were probably true friends of islam. they knew that the british were christians, and that the british were their allies. in the circumstances, their religion would not have been of much help to them, and they had put it aside. ‘christian fights christian, so why should not mohammedans do the same? what we want is a government which speaks our own language of arabic and will let us live in peace. also we hate those turks.’
