stir up religious unrest among the natives in
Egypt. It must be admitted that in the first two of these purposes they
have been successful.

The Turks were less far-sighted. They believed firmly that they were
going to sweep the English off the face of the earth and enter Cairo in
triumph, and preparations for the march on Suez went on with feverish
enthusiasm. The ideas of the common soldiers on this subject were
amusing. Some of them declared that the Canal was to be filled up by the
sandbags which had been prepared in great quantities. Others held that
thousands of camels would be kept without water for many days preceding
the attack; then the thirsty animals, when released, would rush into the
Canal in such numbers that the troops could march to victory over the
packed masses of drowned bodies.

The army operating against Suez numbered about one hundred and fifty
thousand men. Of these about twenty thousand were Anatolian
Turks--trained soldiers, splendid fighting material, as was shown by
their resistance at the Dardanelles. The rest were Palestinian Arabs,
and very inferior troops they were. The Arab as a soldier is at once
stupid and cunning: fierce when victory is on his side, but unreliable
when things go against him. In command of the expedition was the famous
Djemal Pasha, a Young Turk general of tremendous energy, but possessing
small ability to see beyond details to the big, broad concepts of
strategy. Although a great friend of Enver Pasha, he looked with
disfavor on the German officers and, in particular, on Bach Pasha, the
German Governor of Jerusalem, with whom he had serious disagreements.
This dislike of the Germans was reflected among the lesser Turkish
officers. Many of these, after long years of service, found themselves
subordinated to young foreigners, who, in addition to arbitrary
promotion, received much higher salaries than the Turks. What is more,
they were paid in clinking gold, whereas the Turks, when paid at all,
got paper currency.

Beersheba, a prosperous town of the ancient province of Idumea, was the
southern base of operations for the advance on Suez. Some of our
villagers had been sent to this district, and, in searching for them, I
had the opportunity of seeing at least the taking-off place of the
expedition. Beyond this point no Jew or Christian was allowed to pass,
with the exception of the physicians, all of whom were non-Mohammedans
who had been forced into the army.

Beer