1920-22 Draft of the Seven Pillars of Wisdom – Page 255

The past few days in Akaba passed ratifying position + shaking and many preparations with Fraser, within whom I worked very closely toget her. The story, if we decide not to go to Guwai, is as follows. We started from Sumeil (near Petra) + marched to Shobek. Here we were expecting to be joined by the tribes around + by a force from Maan, but as instructed could only get a handful of irregulars. At Guwai we heard that there was a Beni Sakhr concentration in the Bahath area, evidently aiming at a coup de main against Maan with the assistance of the garrisons there which had been tampered with. To frustrate this design, we decided against attacking Akaba from here as, besides the hazards of a difficult advance upon the Turks, it would have laid bare the whole of the Hejaz, now denuded of mobile forces by our concentration at Akaba, to invasion by these tribesmen, the whole work of the past two years being thus put into jeopardy. If Akaba fell into the enemy's hands it would be an easy matter for them to embark troops at such Syrian ports as Haifa + Beirut and in a very few days descend upon Mecca, thus undoing the whole of our two years' wok. Every operation, therefore, had to be examined, not from the point of view of Akaba alone, but with regard to its ultimate repercussions on the general situation. . . . This seemed ... so we marched back, to this our impregnable base at Akeyir. We must next wait a week or two before making a new decision.