Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 86, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 April 1916 — ARABS HELP TURKS [ARTICLE]

ARABS HELP TURKS

Swarm on Flanks of British in Mesopotamia. Follow Like Jackal* to Take Advantage of Any Accident or Confusion by the Way—Atmosphere Deceptive. ‘V-

London. —Edmund Candler in the Dally News gives an interesting account of the hordes of Arab cavalry which swarm on the flanks of the British columns in Mesopotamia. He Bays: ■ _ “The mobility of the Arab cavalry who ride light and are unsparing of their horses is something outside experience. On approaching a Turkish position to reconnoiter our scouts will often see a horde of Arabs emerge from the dark masses and spread in a fanlike movement over the whole horizon. These irregulars are eternally swooping about for no apparent reason. Drop a shell in front of them and they will swerve like a flight of teal, make a wide detour at full gallop and appear on the other flank. “The atmosphere is most deceptive, and in the haze of mirage it is difficult to tell if the enemy are horse or foot, or to make an estimate of their numbers. Everything is magnified. A low-lying mud village becomes a fort with walls twenty feet high, a group of donkeys, a palm grove. Camels appear on a near horizon like huge dissipated compasses. There is not a cavalry regiment with the force which has not at some time or other mistaken sheep for infantry. “In no theater of the war is our cavalry so essential, for the Arabs make up a kind of irregular arm for the Turk. They are always hoyerihg on our flanks ready to take advantage of any accident or confusion by the way. And they follow like jackals in our rear. Two jibbing ponies in a Jaipur transport cart had to be unyoked and the cart abandoned. The Arabs were down on it before the rear guard had passed on eight hundred yards. After this the nondescript horde closed in, emboldened by the loot. They are frankly plunderers, and murder is merely the preliminary to pillage. “Nominally the Arabs are fighting for the Turk, but they are the most uncomfortable allies. Their sympathies are but skin deep, and they turn on their friends and murder and loot them, too, if opportunity delivers them into their hands. The Turks use them, but put no trust in them. “The Arabs, of course, melt away whenever our cavalry charge. We can never get in among them. They are light, and carry little kit, and seem to be independent of supplies. Their horses look thin and poor, but are hard and well fed, and they don’t mind using them up. "Our chargers are handicapped with their six stone of accouterment. The Arab horseman has his bag of dates, a small ration of grain for his horse, and nothing else except his arms and ammunition. These are of no regular pattern—a rifle always, a dagger or sword or both, waist belt and bandolier of ammunition, and occasionally a lance.

“They fire from the saddde for choice, and employ no dismounting tactics. Each man holds his own horse,* and stands or kneels firing. Their tactics are always to surround a smaller force, shoot the horses and close in; or to lead our cavalry on to an Infantry ambuscade. They fear ambuscades themselves, and are chary of following us up. They are naturally •more formidable in a retirement, when they wait until our cavalry are mounting, and get in their fire before they take up another position. “They will only attack small bodies when the odds are five or six to one. They have cut up a patrol or two, but have never got in on a troop or squadron, much less on a regiment, and are not encouraged by their superior numbers, which are, indeed, discounted by our guns. , “March 3, in the skirmish near Shaiba, is, I think, the only occasion on which they have charged. They believed they had taken us in an ambuscade and at a disadvantage in the deep mud. We were 450 cavalry, with two sections of horse artillery, and vastly outnumbered. We had no time to close in ranks and crumple them up, but wheeled oh to them In extended order. We were interlocked. *For a minute it was sword and lance. Then they gave. As they retired they came under our infantry fire, which did bloody execution. It was the best fight they have put up.”