مجموعة ٦/ ٥٨ "عسير: العلاقات بين المملكة العربية السعودية واليمن." [و‎أ‎‎٤‎٤‎٧] (٩٠٨/٩٠٢)

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The advance of Wahabi troops down the
eastern shore of the Red Sea has been
stopped following a wireless request for an
armistice by the Imam of Yemen. >The
following article on the causes and dangers
of the conflict is written by Mr. St. John
Philby, the Arabian explorer and expert.
By H. St. J. B. Philby
(Copyright)
MECCA
For one whose long career of leadership in
Arabia has witnessed the creation, expansion,
and organization of an empire Ibn Sand, the
Wahabi King, is a surprisingly unwarlike
person.
Yet, conscious of his duty as a monarch both
to Islam and to the Arab race, he claims the right
to think of and treat Arabia as a single unit, the
whole of Arabia—nothing more but nothing
And within the vast though limited sphere
icaa. z-vnci wnum vaav. luimgii apiicic
of independent Arabia, he wants and seeks
nothing but peace and prosperity. He has ever
found them difficult to secure without fighting.
And so, as often before, he takes up again the
Sword to write in blood where the ink has failed.
The Amir Saud, heir-apparent to the
Wahabi Throne and Commander-in-Chief of
the expeditionary force on the frontier, left his
headquarters at Khamis Mushait (about 25
miles N.E. of Abha, the capital of Asir) on
March 20 for Dhahran (about 40 miles north of
Sada, the most northerly of the principal towns
of the Yemen), near the border. There he will
presumably be in a strong position to cover the
Neiran district against any attempt ot the
Yemeni forces to advance in that direction. In
due course he will doubtless throw troops into
that area and advance on Sada itself, while the
long line of Wahabi contingents scattered
along the frontier through the mountains to the
coast of the Red Sea southward of Jizan will
presumably conform so far as possible to his
movements. ,, , i
Developments may well be more rapid
than is thought in some quarters, where a
perhaps exaggerated respect for the fighting
qualities of the Yemenis and an erroneous idea
of the advantages they will derive from the
mountainous character of their country are
coupled with complete ignorance of the temper
and equipment (moral as well as material) ot the
Wahabi troops which will be pitted against
Nothing can forestall war but the unlikely
recantation by the Imam of his claims to the
district of Nejran. Those claims, pressed with
astonishing perversity in face of an unexpectedly
generous compromise suggested by Ibn baud m
the interests of peace, constitute the actual
causa belli ; but no serious student of Arabia
can affect to be surprised by a denouement
which became inevitable from the moment when
the Wahabi leader began, soon after the Oreat
War, to stand out among his peers as a man or
destiny. , ,
During the Great War he made no use ot an
opportunity to establish himself as the unques
tioned ruler of all inner Arabia by the elimina
tion of Ibn Rashid. The end of the War thus
found him “ stymied ” by the presence of a rival,
who had gained rather than lost prestige by his
advocacy of the Turkish cause. His position
was further embittered by the chorus of British
admiration which went out to the Sherman
dynasty which had played a prominent part in
the military operations leading to the final Allied
victory. He was then in a position of serious
and humiliating isolation, from which he would
have found it difficult to escape had not King
Husain compelled him to show his paces before
the world. The victory of Turaba m 1919 did
indeed both enhance his prestige in the eyes of
the world and give him the necessary meed of
I self-confidence to break through the barriers
surrounding him.
master of the desert
The capture of Hail followed to leave him
unchallenged master of ^e de^ Then came
SheXn princes^strongly entrenched under
eveS |||
Su, andagmedto ^BrWsh propCfo^a
round-tabkconference^t “‘conference as
it was not he but King Husain who broke U P
the conference in the following April, and it was
not tiU then that he took up the ehallenge to
square accounts with his chief enemy, who had
meanwhile shocked all the susceptibilities of he
w-ih'ibi Arabs by proclaiming himself as the
Islam King Husain was by no means
Sone^in drinking thatW Saud would not fight
while even after the easy capture of Tan ana
Mecca the Wahabi chief insisted on delays which
might well have jeopardized the completeness
^S^bTefly* story of his conquests,
I which brings us back to the controversy with the
' Yemen, which may be regarded as having taken
definite shape after the co . nc l"“‘° £ .* e ve ^ r e) o £
and the proclamation in the following y £ ar “
a Wahabi protectorate over th e Asir P r <mn
■jnH its Idrisi rulers. The Imam had no alterna-
Tvt but to accept the resulting situation In
1930 however, the administrative interests of
i 9 Lr»er area compelled the Wahabi King to
more direct responsibility for the
.? 0 . V ^Uhe°ne A w‘idrisi ruler, Hasan acquiesced
in these arrangements, but gradually friction
’"rose between him and the accredited repre
sentatives of the Wahabi Government. There
was probably some right and
holh sides, and the King showed hlr Jl seI£
thin ready to inquire into the trouble and to
adjust maUers. A commission of mqmry was
almost certainly acting under the influence
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