File 756/1917 Pt 2-3 ‘ARAB BULLETIN Nos 66-114’ [‎183v] (375/834)

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ARCHAEOLOGIST ENEMY AGENTS.
The enemy has been making quite as much use as we have
ot‘ the archaeologists, who were engaged in the excavation or
exploration of Ottoman territory before the War. The
familiarity with out-of-the-way localities and with native ways and
means of transport which such men possess, and the close
relations, generally much more intimate than a consul’s, which
they have held to native populations, obviously fit them for
special missions and agencies. Reference has often been made
in this Bulletin to one of these, Max Freiherr von Oppenheim
(see especially page 26), who, at one time, was the chief German
missionary to the Arabs. Just before the War, he was con
ducting excavations, in which the Kaiser took a peculiar interest,
at Tell Helif, near Ras el-Ain, the Baghdadbahn railhead. Very
well known in Syria, as in Egypt, he did not enjoy a good
reputation either for morality or humanity ; and despite his
Hebrew origin, he was not reputed to be well understood or
liked by either his Semitic or his Kurdish employees.
Another well known excavator is, in all probability, the
Hauptmann Andrae, who is, or was very recently, at Aleppo at.
the Central Control of the Missions on 'the Euphrates and the
Tigris. This man is no doubt Walter Andrae, who, for nearly
twenty years, was in charge of the German excavation of Asshur,
at Qalah Sherghat on the Tigris. He speaks Arabic well and
has had frequent relations in the past with the Mesopotamian
tribes. Therefore it is not surprising that, when lately it was
desired to counteract the southward movement of the Anazeh
towards our sphere of influence, Hauptmann Andrae was selected
to visit the ex-chief of the Fedaan, Hachim Muheid, and per
suade him to come down to Rakka and take steps to assert
himself against Sheikh Mujhim, whom the tribe had elected to
follow. Whether Andrae succeeded in delivering his letter is not
known to us: his mission must have been seriously hampered,
if not prevented, by our raid down the Euphrates to north of
Heir, which occurred as he was on his way.
Pieusser, the chief of the u Missmont ( = Mission Mon-
tafik P) organization which was formed to rouse and support the
Muntafiq chief, Ajeimi, and embarrass us on the Euphrates front,
was foi some yeais Andrae s subordinate at Qalah Sherghat, and
like his chief, is an able man of good address. His capture, with
a part at any rate of the Missmont papers, by our cavalry during
the Anah laid, has put Baghdad in a better position to speak of
his activities than we are. He has found there at least one
former acquaintance in Miss Gertrude Bell.
Major Sarre, who has now gone back to Europe, after a
long spell on the I urco-Persian frontier, directing Persian
propaganda for Ins Army Group, is no doubt Dr. Friedrich Sarre.
attached before the War to the service of the Kaiser Friedrich
Museum, at Berlin, and well known in Syria and Mesopotamia.