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Given the state of mingled fear and hatred of Western encroachment that was steadily spreading throughout the Moslem world, it is easy to see how great Djemal's influence must have been. And of course Djemal was not alone in his preaching. Other influential Moslems were agitating along much the same lines as early as the middle of the nineteenth century.
Djemal Pasha had evidently counted on an Egyptian rising, and perhaps a mutiny of the Indian Moslem troops, but he showed that he entirely misjudged their sentiments, as they displayed great bitterness toward the Turks during the fighting, and attacked them in a thoroughly vindictive spirit.
Had not Djemal Pasha, commander-in- chief of the armies in Palestine, given his word of honor that we should have redress? We were soon shown the depth of our naïveté in fancying that justice could be done in Turkey by a Turk. Fewzi Bey came back from Jerusalem, not in convict's clothes, but in the uniform of a Turkish officer!
The reaction in Palestine after the defeat at Suez was tremendous. Just before the attack, Djemal Pasha had sent out a telegram announcing the overwhelming defeat of the British vanguard, which had caused wild enthusiasm.
Imprisoned for a while in India, he went to Egypt about 1880, and had a hand in the anti-European movement of Arabi Pasha. When the English occupied Egypt in 1882 they promptly expelled Djemal, who continued his wanderings, finally reaching Constantinople. Here he found a generous patron in Abdul-Hamid, then evolving his Pan-Islamic policy.
Djemal Pasha had boasted that he had introduced law and order; the country was under military rule; it remained to see what he would say and do when the crimes of Fewzi Bey were brought to his notice. Accordingly, armed with my boyouroulton, or passport, of a locust-inspector, I rode to Jerusalem, where I procured, through my brother, who was then in favor, an interview with Djemal Pasha.
The failure of the Turks to win any success at that canal, and their subsequent retreat, had a discouraging influence on the Bedouin levies, who had joined Djemal Pasha and Hilmi Bey, and they now chose the first opportunity to vanish with the new rifles that had been given to them.
Practically all the leaders of the Turkish war-government Enver, Djemal, Talaat, and many more, fled to Russia for refuge from the vengeance of the victorious Entente Powers. The same was true of the Hindu terrorist leaders who had been in German pay during the war and who now sought service under Lenin.
Wallahi haida fasl!* Not he who fought under Lawrence against the Turks? Wallah! I fought on the other side, but we all feared Lawrence and admired him so that not a man would try to capture him, although Djemal Pasha put a great price on his head. And you were known far and wide as his man! There was a price on your head too dead or alive five thousand pounds Turkish well I remember it.
I had no notion he was such a close student of war, for his exposition was as good as a staff lecture. He made out that the situation was none too bright anywhere. The troops released from Gallipoli wanted a lot of refitment, and would be slow in reaching the Transcaucasian frontier, where the Russians were threatening. The Army of Syria was pretty nearly a rabble under the lunatic Djemal.
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