File 756/1917 Pt 2-3 ‘ARAB BULLETIN Nos 66-114’ [‎278r] (564/834)

How long the Egyptian occupation lasted, its territorial
extent and the vicissitudes it underwent, I will not venture to
set forth, because the sources of our information are as scanty as
they are unreliable. Only so much is quite certain, namely,
that at the latest in the year 1849, even the last shadow of
Egyptian influence in Central Arabia had disappeared. This
was maintained only by the proximity of the military force,
which the Turco-Egyptians in 1824-27 and 1833-36 displayed
in their campaigns in the southern Hejaz, and in the mountains
of Yemen against the warlike tribes of Asir.
In the thirty years between the destruction of Deraiyya and
the complete evacuation of the interior by the foreigners, the
Wahhabites were able to concentrate once more. What brought
them together was the common hatred against Turks and
Egyptians. The cause of this feeling among all Beduins (who,
it cannot be denied, possess noble and chivalrous sentiments), is
the deep disgust which they entertain for the oft-experienced
faithlessness, trickery and perjury of the former.
Just as the Wahhabites had been compelled to realise that
it was a vital mistake for them to contend with disciplined
armies outside the borders of the desert, so, for their part, the
Egyptians had to confess that they could not maintain themselves
in the centre of Arabia without senseless sacrifices, and that in
no circumstances could the occupation of the land be made
profitable. Therefore, the desert for the Beduins, the fixed cities
for the soldiers and officials. And so it is still to-day. The
idea that the littoral of Arabia consists of regular ordered and
inter-connected Turkish administrative districts is a gross error;
there are only a few small garrisons with their immediate
surroundings where the Turks have anything to administer—just
as far as their guns and rifles carry. Beyond those limits in
plain or mountain, all that ceases, or exists at the most in the
colouring of the map.
Though we are comparatively well informed about the first
period of the Wahhabite power which ended with the destruction
of Deraiyya in 1817, our knowledge of subsequent events in
Central Arabia is all the poorer. Here the indifference of the
Beduins to dates leaves us in complete uncertainty. If one asks
them for a historical date one may perhaps ascertain the da}^ of
the week, or be given some proximate feast; but information
with regard to the year can seldom be obtained, still less con
firmation, so that accounts of comparatively recent events differ
one from another quite unbelievably by several years. Moreover,
there is also an unholy confusion of the names which recur
again and again in several generations and degrees of relation
ship : Abdullah, Abdul Aziz, Saud, Feisal, and so on ; together
with the common appellation of the ruling family, Ibn Saud. I
must, for the time being, decline any attempt at accuracy, and can
only relate, at third hand, that Turki, the son of the Abdullah
who was executed in Stambul, is cited as the fifth W r ahhabite