Jimgrim and Allahs Peace | Page 5

has any right to blame them. The English betrayed the
Arabs--I don't mean the fellows out here, but the gang at the Foreign
Office."
I glanced at his uniform. That was a strange statement coming from a
man who wore it. He understood, and laughed.
"Oh, the men out here all admit it. They're as sore as the Arabs are
themselves."
"Then you're on the wrong side, and you know it?" I suggested.

"The meat," he said, "is in the middle of the sandwich. In a small way
you might say I'm a doctor, staying on after a riot to stitch up cuts. The
quarrel was none of my making, although I was in it and did what I
could to help against the Turks. Like everybody else who knows them,
I admire the Turks and hate what they stand for--hate their cruelty. I
was with Lawrence across the Jordan--went all the way to Damascus
with him--saw the war through to a finish--in case you choose to call it
finished."
Vainly I tried to pin him down to personal reminiscences. He was not
interested in his own story.
"The British promised old King Hussein of Mecca that if he'd raise an
Arab army to use against the Turks, there should be a united Arab
kingdom afterward under a ruler of their own choosing. The kingdom
was to include Syria, Arabia and Palestine. The French agreed. Well,
the Arabs raised the army; Emir Feisul, King Hussein's third son,
commanded it; Lawrence did so well that he became a legend. The
result was, Allenby could concentrate his army on this side of the
Jordan and clean up. He made a good job of it. The Arabs were
naturally cock-a-hoop."
I suggested that the Arabs with that great army could have enforced the
contract, but he laughed again.
"They were being paid in gold by the British, and had Lawrence to hold
them together. The flow of gold stopped, and Lawrence was sent home.
Somebody at the Foreign Office had changed his mind. You see, they
were all taken by surprise at the speed of Allenby's campaign. The
Zionists saw their chance, and claimed Palestine. No doubt they had
money and influence. Perhaps it was Jewish gold that had paid the
wages of the Arab army. Anyhow, the French laid claim to Syria. By
the time the war was over the Zionists had a hard-and-fast guarantee,
the French claim to Syria had been admitted, and there wasn't any
country left except some Arabian desert to let the Arabs have. That's
the situation. Feisul is in Damascus, going through the farce of being
proclaimed king, with the French holding the sea-ports and getting
ready to oust him. The Zionists are in Jerusalem, working like beavers,

and the British are getting ready to pull out as much as possible and
leave the Zionists to do their own worrying. Mesopotamia is in a state
of more or less anarchy. Egypt is like a hot-box full of explosive--may
go off any minute. The Arabs would like to challenge the world to
mortal combat, and then fight one another while the rest of the world
pays the bill--"
"And you?"
"The French, for instance. Their army is weak at the moment. They've
neither men nor money--only a hunger to own Syria. They don't play
what the English call 'on side.' They play a mean game. The French
General Staff figure that if Feisul should attack them now he might beat
them. So they've conceived the brilliant idea of spreading sedition and
every kind of political discontent into Palestine and across the Jordan,
so that if the Arabs make an effort they'll make it simultaneously in
both countries. Then the British, being in the same mess with the
French, would have to take the French side and make a joint campaign
of it."
"But don't the British know this?"
"You bet they know it. What's the Intelligence for? The French are
hiring all the Arab newspapers to preach against the British. A child
could see it with his eyes shut."
"Then why in thunder don't the British have a showdown?"
"That's where the joker comes in. The French know there's a sort of
diplomatic credo at the London Foreign Office to the general effect that
England and France have got to stand together or Europe will go to
pieces. The French are realists. They bank on that. They tread on
British corns, out here, all they want to, while they toss bouquets,
backed by airplanes, across the English Channel."
"Then the war didn't end the old diplomacy?"
"What a question! But I haven't more than scratched the Near East

surface for you yet. There's Mustapha Kemal in Anatolia, leader of the
Turkish Nationalists, no more dead or incapacitated than a possum.
He's