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Mesopotamia, Arab Bulletin No. 3, 14 June
1916
To the British Officers who were
arranging the exchange of our wounded from Kut, Halil Pasha,
Commander-in-Chief of the Turkish forces in Irak, spoke very freely on
the question of the Arab attitude, At first he proposed the exchange of
Indian sick for Arab prisoners of War; but later he went back on this,
and refused to accept
Arabs in exchange at all. He said that most of them were condemned to
death, and would only be shot if they returned; and that in
any case he did not
want them.
He said that ninety per
cent of Turks were good
soldiers, and
ninety per cent of Arabs were bad. He
said their
desire was only to get taken prisoner, and that the whole lot of them
were unreliable. Under protest
he excepted from his condemnation some of the Arabs of Mosul and Syria,
who were, he said, sufficiently 'Turkised' to have some virtue. Kasim
Bey, his Chief of Staff, agreed with what he said, and it seemed to be
the view shared by the younger officers we met. I suggested to them the
case of Sami Bey, and they said
that the Russian War of '6o and the Defence of Kars fell
on a different footing,
when the Arabs were still loyal to
the Ottoman Empire. Lieutenant Mehmed Riza classed the
Kurd tribes with the Arabs in disloyalty and disinclination to fight.
This may lend colour to previous reports of disaffection among some
sub-tribes of the Mili confederation.
Representations were made to Halil
Pasha concerning the fate of the Arabs of Kut. These had shown themselves, in the main,
friendly to us, but had not been asked to take any active part in
operations. Townshend’s surrender
having been unconditional, it was impossible to make any stipulation as to
their treatment, but Halil was
urged strongly to show moderation, and to treat
them as compelled to side
with us by force majeure.
He said that he had no
intention of going to extremes, and seemed rather amused at our interest
in them.
He broke the understanding,
however, and has to date hanged nine
individuals; they comprise a Turkish officer deserter, a
Jew contractor, an Arab notable of Kut and his two sons, two Mukhtars and two prominent sheikhs. Halil's
record of service, which
includes some months Kurd-hunting in Van before the war, and
a peculiarly ghastly
Armenian massacre in the Melazgherd area compels one to look upon this
performance as humane.
The executions are
confirmed by British Officers engaged in removing General Townshend’s
wounded from Kut. It is reported that
one prisoner, when being led to the gallows seized his
Musbah (Mohammadan rosary) and flung it to a British officer over the
heads of the Turks. The man may have been a Shia, indeed probably was,
but even so the incident is probably unprecedented in modern Islam.
Note. Halil's remarks about the Arabs,
and the incident of the Musbah at Kut were reported by officers present
under privilege from the Turks, and must not, therefore, be communicated
in any way. They are given here as remarkable evidence of the relations
existing in Irak between the Turks and their Arab subjects.
Note. DG
mistakenly states that this contribution by Lawrence appeared in Arab
Bulletin No 23.
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