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28. It may have been due to Ibn Wazir’s confirmation of the Imam’s
reiterated assurances that he meant to comply with the King’s demands that
Ibn Saud announced on the 12th May a suspension of hostilities on all fronts.
Anyhow, they worked together so well and so speedily that on the 20th May a
treaty of “ Islamic Friendship and Brotherhood ” was signed at Taif, complete
with a protocol on arbitration and annexed letters. The treaty provided fjfc^
the immediate termination of the state of war in anticipation of ratification, but
the Saudi Government made it clear in the annexed letters that it could not be
brought into force as a whole by an exchange of ratifications until the Imam
had completely fulfilled the King’s three conditions.
29. Even now Ibn Saud was not sure of the Imam. Within a month of
the signature of the treaty he was again so suspicious that he announced that, if
the conditions were not complied with by the 29th May, he would restart
hostilities. Reports from the Yemen itself were also discouraging. The moral
of the Saudi troops in and about Hodeida seemed to have deteriorated somewhat.
There were signs of some revulsion of feeling among the tribes, which had
welcomed them. Accounts of the Yemeni military dispositions suggested that
they might be preparing a belated counter-attack. Presently, however, the
situation grew easier. On the 29th May Ibn Saud announced that he would hold
his hand for a few days longer. On the 3rd June, Hasan-al-Idrisi, the head of
the family and one of his two most important nephews, reached Hodeida; three
hundred of their followers were surrendered elsewhere. On the 11th June it was
announced officially that the evacuation of the mountain area had been completed.
Next day Abdullah-al- Wazir Minister. left for Hodeida in the same ship as a courier
bearing the Saudi instrument of ratification. The Imam approved the treaty
t?! j t J u . ne > an d the ratifications were exchanged at Hodeida on the
wuuiu ^ 18 nofc clear whether the remaining Idrisi of importance, Abdul-
Wahhab, had actually been surrendered before that date, but in due course he
.lowed his uncle and brother to Taif, where they were kindly treated and
given permission to reside at Mecca, instead of being deported to Riyadh as some
had anticipated. J
30 The liquidation of the military situation followed quickly. The
evacuation of the Yemen littoral by sea and by land was completed by'the 6th
July. I he position m the interior remained somewhat obscure The Saudi
Heir Apparent had presumably withdrawn from Yemeni territory, but some
j 1 ? d fn t f ° ; what ™ going on over the border, and it was announced
on the 13th July that he would remain m Najran until arrangements had been
made for the simultaneous withdrawal of the Imam’s eldest son from his
thaTX C 10 <? T Sldt :, P n fh 27th Jul y- howeve '-’ it was announced
that the Amir Saud had returned to Abha, and he reached Taif on the 10th
August. The Amir Feisal had tarried in Asir to deal with administrative
questions, but he arrived m Jedda on the 5th August, and was in time to go out
to meet his elder brother on the road to Taif from the south. S
31. The Treaty of Taif, a long document in 23 articles, was concluded for
twenty lunar years. Considered as a peace settlement it was, on the face of it
eminent y satisfactory. From the Imam’s point of view it contained nothing to
justify the suggestion, made notably by Mr. Philby, that it established a veiled
Saudi protsctorate over the Yemen It gave Ibn Saud a secure title, so far as a
treaty m Aiabia can establish a title, to Najran and the disputed frontier re°lon
Its longest article, that defining the frontier, was difficult to follow owing to the
lack of information regarding many of the remote places and tribes named in it
but it was probably as workmanlike as anything that could have been reduced to
writing by negotiators who suffered greatly, if not as greatly as European^ from
the same lack of information. Effect has not yet been given to a clause providing
for a joint delimitation of the frontier. s e P rovl a m g
32. In the outside Arab world, the treaty was hailed as something more than
a peace settlement. It was acclaimed in many quarters as the greatest strirPi
ever made towards Arab unity Those who wished to see in ft a treatTof alltnce
between the only two really independent rulers in Arabia could do so not indeed
in its provisions which produced no such effect, but in the affirmations of Islamic
fw taf^ brotherh 9° d whlc h abounded in it and the assertion of the principle
that the two countries formed one nation. Provision of a non-compulsory nature