helping the Arabs in their uprising, and
their goal was to destroy the long
railroad the Turks had built running from
Damascus deep into the Hejaz Desert.
It was a daunting task. The Turks had
a formidable modern army. Lawrence,
by contrast, commanded an unruly band
of Bedouin. They were not skilled
troops. They were nomads. Sir Reginald
Wingate, one of the British commanders
in the region, called them “an untrained
rabble, most of whom have never fired a
rifle.” But they were tough and they
were mobile. The typical Bedouin
soldier carried no more than a rifle, a
hundred rounds of ammunition, and
forty-five pounds of flour, which meant
that he could travel as much as 110
darren dugan
(Darren Dugan)
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