T.E. Lawrence and the Red Sea Patrol: The Royal Navy's Role in Creating the Legend

Introduction

On 26 November 1918 the first of three articles appeared, published in The Times by a correspondent who was in close contact with the Arabs (in accordance with tradition, its contributors then remained anonymous) who was, in reality, TE Lawrence. In the article he gave due credit for the Royal Navy’s contribution to the success of the Arab Revolt (although as Malcolm Brown points out, the significance of the naval role was diminished in Seven Pillars of Wisdom.¹) In that article Lawrence noted that "the naval side of the Sherifian operations, when the time comes to tell of it [my italics] will provide a most interesting case of the value of command of the sea as a factor in shore operations against an enemy depending entirely on land communications for his maintenance". In writing that, he was not just acknowledging the Navy’s part in the success of the Revolt, but also of his own, however reluctantly acknowledged, fame.

In several of the very many books about Lawrence and the Arab Revolt, passing mention is made of the ships of the Red Sea Patrol and their involvement, but until now the naval side of the Red Sea Campaign has not been investigated in detail, and the importance of that aspect of the campaign has gone largely unnoticed, although Jeremy Wilson notes: In the Hejaz, the Revolt had begun without adequate preparation, and Hussein had only been saved by the Royal Navy.² The many other books have been by authors who had no particular maritime interest, but had great knowledge in the other areas of the campaign.

I have had a long and abiding interest – as have many, many others – in TE Lawrence and the Arab Revolt. I have had an equally long and abiding interest in maritime history. To be able to combine these two factors to investigate and throw light on a largely unknown operation, which in itself was part of what Lawrence referred to as a sideshow of a sideshow, was an opportunity I could not let pass.

The Red Sea Patrol was a collection of ships drawn from the Royal Navy, the Royal Indian Marine and some taken up from the Merchant Navy for Royal Naval service. The numbers of ships that took part varied, but more or less numbered twelve. Of that twelve, six were the principal players, with the other six appearing as needed.

The background to the Arab revolt is complicated, but as a starting point, in 1889 in the Ottoman Empire the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) was formed as a secret protest society consisting mainly of medical and military students. The CUP grew in influence over the next twenty-five years, until on 2 August 1914, two days before Britain declared war on Germany, a decision was forced by a group within the CUP, led by Enver Pasha who was a Germanophile, to form a secret alliance with Germany against Russia. The proximity of the Ottoman Empire to the Suez Canal was naturally a major concern to the British Government and this was underlined in January 1915 when an 80,000 strong Turkish force crossed the Sinai Peninsula to attack the canal, but was beaten off by British forces before it was able to cross the canal. This caused a build-up of British troops in Egypt; by early 1917 a large force under General Allenby moved on a wide front against Turkish forces in Palestine. It was assisted by irregular forces of the Arab Revolt under Feisal, advised, inter-alia, by TE Lawrence.

British opinion on the entry of the Ottoman Empire into the war was concerned by the difficulties over the question of Islamic solidarity. The proclamation of jihad against the Allies was a potential source of unrest in the countries along the route to, and possibly including, India.

Sherif Hussein Ibn Ali, whose family claimed direct descent from the Prophet, was the Emir of Mecca, which was the most prestigious Arab Islamist position within the Ottoman Empire. His main concern was to decide whether his political ambitions would be best served by Turkey or Britain. He had an additional concern caused by the rival interest of Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud, who was based in Riyadh, now the capital of Saudi Arabia. Ibn Saud was promoting Wahhabism, an extremely rigid branch of the Islamist faith, and was offering incentives to tribesmen in the central and eastern part of Arabia to take up the Wahhabi faith. In July 1915 Hussein wrote to the British High Commissioner in Egypt, Sir Henry McMahon, setting out his requirements for him to ally himself to the British. A correspondence between the two followed. The major point of this correspondence was the question of the territories over which Hussein sought power which, in brief, comprised the Arabic speaking lands east of Egypt – the Arabian peninsula, and parts of Iraq and Syria, including Lebanon and Palestine. Eventually Britain agreed to recognise an independent Arab state after the war and to provide supplies, weapons and funds to support the Arab Revolt. Hussein committed himself to an armed revolt against the Turks. The Arab revolt, it was decided, would start on 9 June 1916 at Jeddah, although various Arab military actions started a few days before that.

This book will firstly set the scene, with chapters on the area and the Navy of the time, describing some of the ships and the men, before describing the naval part of the Red Sea Campaign. The last chapter looks at the role and the relevance of the naval side of the Sherifian operation.

The main source for the details of the actions has been the individual ships’ deck logs, written at the time by the officer of the watch at the end of his four hour watch. These contemporary records give the most accurate account of events from the naval aspect and correct many statements about the campaign written in other places. These logs were not released until fifty years after the time. They have been supplemented by comments from some of the participants, writing shortly after the end of the war. Not least among these is, of course, TE Lawrence. His description of events brings to life the atmosphere of the time and adds texture to the formal description contained within the ships’ logs.

Lawrence wrote:

The Red Sea patrol-ships were the fairy-godmothers of the Revolt. They carried our food, our arms, our ammunition, our stores, our animals. They built our piers, armed our defences, served as our coast artillery, lent us seaplanes, provided all our wireless communications, landed landing parties, mended and made everything. I couldn’t spend the time writing down a tenth of their services.³

Without the Royal Navy’s assistance, it will become apparent in this book that in all likelihood, TE Lawrence would have ended the war as just another officer in the army bureaucracy of Cairo.

1.  TE Lawrence in War and Peace, 217.

2.  Lawrence of Arabia, 412.

3.  TE Lawrence, quoted in The Life and Letters of Lord Wester Wemyss, 359.

Chapter One

The Red Sea

HMS Euralyus

Now getting worn out, and only good for short spurts. (Janes, 1914)

The Red Sea was, until 18 November 1869, a dead end. A long narrow sea bound on either side by desolate wastes, entered through the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb at its southern end, it runs in a more or less NNW direction, terminating in two narrower fingers: the Gulf of Suez which continues straight and the smaller Gulf of Aqaba which branches off and runs in a direction just east of north. From the head of the Gulf of Suez to the narrow Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb at the southern end it is some 1,200 nautical miles in a nearly straight line.

Red Sea. (Admiralty Pilot 1909)

From the north the access from the Mediterranean had been by canal, river and then four-horse wagons across an 84-mile stretch of desert. This route, which ran for thirty years from Alexandria to Suez, was operated by P&O Lines to connect with the Suez to Bombay route. The success of the Red Sea end of the operation was the result of the work of Captain John Wilson, who had demonstrated the viability of a route between Suez and Bombay and of Commander Robert Moresby who surveyed the Red Sea between 1829 (only twenty-four years after the Battle of Trafalgar) and 1834. The charts from which his surveys were made were still in use in 1916.

On 18 November 1869, all that changed with the opening of the Suez Canal. The history of the development of the canal can be read elsewhere, but the use of the canal started slowly, only some 430,000 tonnes passing through in the year after it opened. This increased fivefold in the next five years and by 1882 it had risen to over 5,000,000 tons. By 1912 the annual tonnage had reached over 20,000,000 tonnes. In the last five months of 1914 that had reduced by 40 per cent, but even at its lowest point, in 1917, over 8,000,000 tonnes of shipping was still passing annually through the Red Sea. In today’s terms this would have equated to some 100 ships, but then it would have been equivalent to about 2,000, ships at the time being very much smaller than today. The Suez Canal of the new millennium is nearly five times wider and three times deeper than in 1869 and accepts ships that were inconceivable in size when it opened, were still inconceivable in 1916, and remained so until after the middle of the next century.

The canal was open to all nationalities, despite the war, for by the 1888 Convention of Constantinople, nine nations, including significantly for what was to follow less than twenty-five years later, Britain, France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey, the Suez Canal shall always be free and open in time of war, as in time of peace to every vessel of commerce or of war, without discrimination of flag.¹ The USA, as a neutral, benefited and increased its trade through the canal, to the extent that its Hydrographic Office published the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden Pilot in 1916.

Having passed through the Suez Canal and through the Red Sea in both directions many times whilst serving in BP Tankers, the author has experienced the weather and moods of the Red Sea for himself. Most of its weather revolves around the words hot and dry. Its weather patterns are influenced by the monsoons of the North Indian Ocean, so from November to March the north-east monsoon weather prevails, and night-time temperatures can be bearable or even pleasant. In June, July and August the South West monsoon is at its peak and the temperatures are furnace-like: maximum daily temperatures in some places can exceed 55°C and normal daily temperatures are about 40°C. Add to that humidity of up to 75 per cent, and the conditions are extremely uncomfortable; in today’s air-conditioned ships it is bearable; before that working or sleeping, for Europeans, was much more than very uncomfortable. For those who worked in engine rooms and boiler rooms, the temperatures were almost unbearable. The temperatures ashore were even greater. TE Lawrence describes the heat, on arriving in Jeddah in October 1916 on board HMS Lama:

When at last we anchored in the outer harbour …, the heat of Arabia came out like a drawn sword and smote us speechless.²

Another difficulty caused by the climate occurs in the summer, particularly when refraction and mirage effects are common. With the haze caused by dust in the air added to these effects, the combined result can cause navigational problems, rendering sextant sights unsafe, because of the dubious horizon, and significant errors can be and were made in navigation. The dust haze also made visual navigation by shore marks difficult and uncertain. Dust haze and sandstorms are also experienced in the winter months, when the Khamsin blows. Its effect is reputedly not dissimilar to that of the Southern European mistral on humans: the Arabs have a saying that when the Khamsin has blown for more than three days, a man is justified in killing his wife. In the summer, katabatic winds blowing down off the mountains can reach up to gale force eight, which can be accompanied by dense dust storms.

The climate affects the salinity of the water: saline evaporation causes a huge loss of water estimated at 900 billion square metres annually, making the Red Sea the most saline of all the world’s open seas. This is caused by the narrowness of the opening at the southern end, the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, which are only thirteen miles wide. The sea is narrow, being only 190 nautical miles at its widest, with, at the sides, large and shallow coral reefs which restrict the navigational width available to shipping. In the middle of the navigational area lay two prominent coral outcrops which, without appropriate warning, would be serious risks to safe navigation. The first, about ninety miles South South East of the entrance to the Gulf of Suez, is the Brothers, which consists of two coral islets with a