File 756/1917 Pt 2-3 ‘ARAB BULLETIN Nos 66-114’ [‎42v] (93/834)

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tlie Zaranik and Udein Arabs, and also of the Ismailiyah tribes.
These three on their own account, wish to attack Zebid, Taiz an
Menakhkh ^respectively. So Id,-isi hopes to clear the whole
Tihamah of Turks and occupy m their room.
Now, if we assume that Idrisi means business this time, his
plan has one or two significant features. .. .
n 'i Tt is to be entirely a Tihamah campaign. This is as it should
be ii almuch as lramitous provocation of. the Zeid, Imam will be
Voided (though Yahya will not like the Idris,’s entry into the Yemen
Tihamah) and the Turks are to be the primary objective of attack.
Moreover, it promises no collision with King Husein. But, on the
Xr hand t is to serve directly Idr,s.’s territorial ambition to
nossess himself of the lowlands down to Mokha. In sanctioning h,s
Full plan, we are, presumably, prepared to see him enthroned some day
at Zebid, vice Sabbia, and if we promote ,t son h ot Lobe,ya we are
going to help to put him into Zebid and Hodeidah. In a word Idr,si
is out against the Turks not for mrheaux mux but because what Ins
soul desires above all things is in Turkish hands.
(9) It is to tie a long campaign, whose second objective alone,
the capture of the Turks in the Abs country, must take months Idrisi,
who proposes to put about 20,000 men into the field, postulates a rate
of pay which works out at nearly £30,000 a month for Ins Hashid and
Bekil auxiliaries alone, in addition to subsidies to duets, to the liijal
el-Ma etc. etc., (be is paying £25 to £30 a month, as it is, to certain
chiefs’ and’ wishes to buy off Ibn el-Heij for a lump sum of some
£2 000). We have given him a dole which certainly will not last him
a month. Both he and Seyyid Mustapha are well aware of this fact,
and they mingle with their gratitude and their cordiality unmistakable
hints that they regard our present as only an instalment on account.
They are, doubtless, looking to be subsidised on the same scale as
King Husein.
The facts being as they are, what shall our action be when,
in much less than the six months term (see p. 442), the inevitable
demand for a further and larger instalment of subsidy is put up
by Idrisi ?
By giving him what we have now given in the way of
money, and will give in the way of supplies, we have acquitted
ourselves of our original promise. Beyond this we are not
morally bound to do more than provide him with a safe retreat,
should his offensive fail. In all else we must consult first and
foremost our own interests. How are these involved in the
success of his full plan ? Some notable success we cannot refuse
to help him secure if possible, except at obvious sacrifice of our
prestige and influence, seeing how we are, and have long been,
involved with him : and this success could hardly be less than
the attainment of his tw 7 o primary objectives, the capture of
Loheiya with the rest of the northern Yemen Tihamah, and the
reduction of the 3,000 Turks in the Abs hills. Even this much, as
has been indicated above, will certainly require us to make earlier
and greater calls on our resources, than we contemplated.
Granted, then that we have seen Idrisi through those first
two phases of his offensive, how about the sequel ? There are
less than 1,000 Turkish soldiers in all the rest of the Tihamah
and unless Idrisi’s move on the south country should draw away