File P 53/1915 Part III 'German War: Turkey; Arab Kingdom; Caliphate and Jemal Pasha' [‎253r] (21/60)

SECRET.
From General Officer Commanding, Force D., to 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. .
Addressed Egypt, repeated Chief of General Staff, Secretary of State
for India, and W ar Office. '
LG. 1906.
Continuation of my LG. 1900. The following inwXn^'L
by a doctor who claims to have had friendly conversadons wit Jemal Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders.
(a) Left Damascus fearing arrest c,i his friends had
been executed uniler Jemal’s orders andlolW™^ Arabs,” include
November'’ ^ stla niah, were arrested about 1st
n ?> n -i“ 11(l No y e ; n ] )ei ‘ returned from the opening of the Beer-
shebah Railway and left for Aleppo on the same day, either to deal with a
typhus epidemic, to meet \ on der Goltz, or to assist Fakhri Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. who is
having difficulty with the Armenians at Marash.
(c) Only wood is now burnt on the Syrian railway. The result is that
the journey I mm Damascus to Aleppo now takes three or four days instead
of it hours. The Turks use rails and material of the French Houran
railway to complete the Beershebah railway. No more material for the
remaining 300 kilometres to the Canal and no rail was being made to
Alarish. The gauge is still broken at Riyaq. In the opinion of the doctor
the Beershebah railway is a bluff. He was told last August by Dickmann, a
German railway official, that the Hejaz railway had been pronounced unlit
for military traffic by the German military inspector.
(d) At the railway station on 2nd November it is said that Jemal warned
the Chef du Gare to have his rolling stock ready for the troops released from
the Dardanelles, as they would be making another attack on Egypt in
February. A short time before the doctor left suitable houses for military
hospitals were selected by medical officers—3,00U beds at Aleppo and 2,500
at Damascus. Doctor thinks that this is all bluff.
(e) Yassim Bey, Arab Chief of Staff to Fakhri Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. , told him last June
that there were not more than 200,000 Turkish troops in the Dardanelles.
Turkey is now believed to possess not more than 000,000 troops. Orders
have been given to recruiting authorities to accept unfit men. As all the
men have been called to arms a famine is expected in Syria. Men are paid
in I.O.U.’s, not money or notes. Since the beginning of the war, 70,000
Syrians are said to have deserted. The canal attack of last year was under
taken by 30,000 troops, plus 5,000 or 0,000 volunteers, whose maximum loss
was 1,250 killed and 500 prisoners. The remains of these troops were
gradually railed northward. Subsequently four heavy guns of 14, 15, and
10 cm. calibre, which were dragged to the canal by buffaloes and 3,000
troops, were got back and sent to the Dardanelles.
(/) He places Mahoud Mukhtar probably in Constantinople, Von der
Goltz in Baghdad, Liman Sanders in Dardanelles, Zekki Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. at Berlin,
Fakhri Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. at Marash and Jemal the younger in Jerusalem.
(g) He says that the British would be welcomed by the Syrians.
(/<) He appears genuine but will be kept under observation. He reached
Hit by camel caravan about 2nd December, coming via Deir, and thence by
boat to Nasiriyah Says there are no signs of troops on the Euphrates line.
M.S. 85.