'Historical Summary of Events in Territories of the Ottoman Empire, Persia and Arabia affecting the British Position in the Persian Gulf, 1907-1928' [‎14v] (35/188)

quent negotiatiops. Meanwhile Captain W. H. I. Shakespear had been instructed
to proceed to Nejd on a special mission to Ibn Sand.
C aptain Shakespear reached Ibn Saud s camp on the 31st December, 1914. He
round that the Emir was resolved to remain neutral until he could secure a binding
treaty with His Majesty's Government, and that what lie sought was a solid
guarantee of his position under what would be, in effect, British suzerainty. On the
4th January, 1915, Captain Shakespear sent Sir P. Cox a translation of Ibn Saud's
rough oraft of the treaty he proposed. This draft, as Captain Shakespear pointed
out, asked for little more than had already been offered in the British proposals of
November, if these were intended to apply to the future as well as the present. " In
exchange,' Captain Shakespear wrote, " Ibn Sand offers to make himself a British
vassal for good."
On the 17th January, 1915, Ibn Saud received a letter from the Shereef of
Mecca's second son, which stated that the Turks were urgently pressing the Shereef
to proclaim the jihad and call up the tribes, but that he was temporising until he
could learn what attitude Ibn Saud had adopted towards the Turks and British.
Ibn baud read the letter aloud to Captain Snakespear and asked him what reply
would be advantageous to Great Britain.
In reply, Ibn Saud advised the Shereef to temporise further, pleading fear of a
British attack on Jeddah. He explained that for himself he saw no advantage in
siding with the l urks. He added that he had himself just returned a temporising
reply to a mission sent to him by the Porte, and alleged his pending operations
against Ibn Rashid and fear of a British attack on Qatif as reasons for caution. It
was a timely service, of which the full value may have been very great. At the
beginning of January 1915 the Shereef of Mecca was in doubt as to which side he
should take with the greater prospect of success. His inclinations, his judgment,
impelled him to support Great Britain; but Turkish garrisons were on his territory,
holding all his chief cities; the war had not begun well for the Allies; he had every
thing to lose by taking part in unsuccessful hostilities against the Turk. While thus
hovering in doubt he received Ibn Saud's reply, and was encouraged to continue
temporising; those who looked to Mecca for a sign saw none, and the jihad became
merely Turkish in its authority and left Arabia unstirred. Nor was the silence of
Mecca at this critical time without its influence in the wider Islam.
Although Ibn Saud had not yet committed himself to supporting Great Britain,
a renewal of the conflict between him and his enemy, Ibn Rashid, who, at the head of
a confederation of pro-Turkish tribes, had entered Northern Nejd, began early in
January. The two armies encountered at Jerrab on the 24th January in one of the
greatest battles, in point of numbers engaged and casualties suffered, that Arabian
history can show. Here, too, Captain Shakespear, present as a spectator, met his
death. The battle ended in a draw, a result more favourable for Ibn Saud than for
his enemy, and hostilities were tacitly suspended. But Ibn Rashid was put out of
action, could not join the Turks as he had intended, and so could not take part in
the early campaign in Mesopotamia, where his appearance at the head of his tribes
might have added considerably to our difficulties.
A formal peace was signed by the rival Emirs on the 10th June, 1915, in which
Ibn Rashid renounced his pretensions to Qasim; but the situation that resulted
between them was that of an armed neutrality varied by recurring hostilities.
Later in 1915 Ibn Saud had to deal with a serious rising of the Ajman tribe in
Northern Hasa, and with the Al-Murrah in the south. During these struggles, in
which Ibn Saud was hard pressed, we assisted him with arms and munitions sent
from Bahrein, and in October gave him 1,000 rifles and lent him £20.000.
In November 1915, seven months before the Shereef of Mecca began his rising
against the Turks, and while Ibn Saud was embarrassed with the Ajman and
Al-Murrah, the Shereef sent a considerable force under his son Abdullah into Western
Nejd. The purpose of this ill-timed incursion, which got within 70 miles of Ibn Saud's
capital, was political—to support the claim of a Hejaz tribe to alleged rights in
Southern Qasim. This movement excited Ibn Saud's violent indignation, and he pro
tested to His Majesty's Government that if they could not restrain the Shereef's
activities he would do so himself. But no untoward results ensued beyond the
creation of ill-will on the part of Ibn Saud towards the Shereef.
Negotiations for a treaty between Ibn Saud and His Majesty's Government
were now nearing conclusion. The reasons making such a treaty desirable from the
British point of view were stated in a communication from the India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. to the
Foreign Office on the 30th January, 1915. The treaty would be desirable, the India
Office wrote, ,£ .... not merely from the exigences 'of the moment, which make it