IN the blistering heat of a late summer in Jordan, I huffed my way up the slope of the “Royal Mountain” that dominates the historic King’s Highway to reach the castle of Shobek.
The original Crusader castle had been begun in 1115 and, perched atop this commanding hilltop, it controlled the road below that snakes northwards through Jordan and towards Syria. Now superseded by the Desert Highway, this earlier road was once the main trade route in the region. Shobek Castle is well-preserved and even the most amateur strategist cannot fail to grasp the importance of its location. It was eerily deserted as I paused on the battlements to catch my breath and take in the spectacular view. A vast stretch of the Holy Land lay beneath me. My mind turned to another Irishman, Lt-Col Pierce Joyce, who captured this castle from its Turkish garrison in mid-October 1917. I could not help wondering if he had stopped at the same spot and enjoyed a “job well done” moment as he relished the significance of his actions.
Joyce was a Galwayman and an officer in the Connaught Rangers. In the course of his military career, he had served in South Africa, Egypt and the Sudan. His service life reads like a tale of Kiplingesque proportions – on one occasion he had been attacked by a rogue elephant! In 1916, he had been serving in a staff position in Cairo when the Arab Revolt broke out in Mecca. Joyce was one of several officers rushed to Arabia in the summer of 1916 in order to help the Arabs in their revolt against the Turks. Due to his experience and seniority, he was appointed to command “Operation Hedgehog”, the British mission to the Arabs.
It was in that capacity that he greeted a peculiar young officer named TE Lawrence who arrived in Arabia in October 1916. Joyce found Lawrence untidy, opinionated and bumptious. During the course of the next two years, however, their relationship improved and together with other British, French and Arab officers, they rewrote the handbook on guerrilla warfare.
Earlier in my trip to Jordan, I had stayed with the Bedouin in Wadi Rum. These desert people of the Howeitat tribe have lived in Wadi Rum for centuries and it was their ancestor, Auda Abu Tayi (so famously played by Anthony Quinn in the film Lawrence of Arabia) who had joined with Lawrence to take the vital port of Aqaba from the Turks.
During halting conversations over tea in the desert, I drew out some stories of the war. Nearly all of the Bedouin I met had some ancestor who fought in the revolt. Their stories live on in an oral tradition not unlike our own. On one occasion, an ancient Turkish rifle was brought out for me to inspect – a proud trophy taken by an ancestor in battle.
The owner insisted that I pose for a photo and then laughed – “I had to take a photo: an Irishman with a gun”.
My spell in the desert also brought home to me just how difficult these expeditions must have been for Lawrence, Joyce and others who operated in this environment during the first World War. Lawrence later wrote that Bedouin ways were a “living death” for those not born to them.
As I travelled with my guide by camel, we visited various wells, most of which were dry. Only the well known as “Shallala”, also used by the wartime raiders, held water. I became extremely conscious of the speed at which the water supply in our camels’ saddle bags seemed to dwindle.
We rarely saw anyone as we retraced some of the routes used in 1917 and it impressed on me how a navigational mistake or an accident deep in Wadi Rum could have dire consequences. On our last night in camp, a young Bedouin staggered into our midst. His jeep had broken down and his mobile phone had no coverage. He had walked for hours and was heading for the nearest village (still at least two hours away) when he saw our camp fire. It is said that a Bedouin will never drink water in front of a westerner but he slumped down and consumed litre after litre.
By late 1917, Joyce was playing an increasingly important role with the Arab Northern Army, a force of over 3,000 men equipped with armoured cars, mobile artillery and later air support. He was eventually forced out of Shobek, commenting that he left to avoid Turkish reprisals against the local population. During the campaign of 1918 he played a key role and ended the war in Damascus. The Australian general, Harry Chauvel, remarked that Joyce was the most important officer in the Middle East theatre of operations. Joyce would later serve as the military adviser to the newly-created government of Iraq under Feisal I, with whom he had served during the war. In his retirement, he showed Saluki hounds and also showed his fine Arab thoroughbred, a gift from King Feisal, at the RDS. At one point he contemplated writing a memoir, but seems to have soon abandoned the project. He died in relative obscurity in England in 1965. Like so many others who were involved in the desert campaign, Joyce’s story later disappeared into the shadow cast by Lawrence. By 1920, due to the efforts of the American newspaperman Lowell Thomas, Lawrence was a household name. The vast cast of characters who had made the Arab Revolt possible, both Arabs and Europeans, were relegated by historians to supporting roles.
As I climbed back down from Shobek Castle I met a French student on the way up. We stopped to chat, in reality a cover for catching our breath.
He parted with a laugh and “You Irish get everywhere”.