ARABS' LOVE OF FINERY

Evening Star, Issue 19664, 17 September 1927, Page 21

ARABS' LOVE OF FINERY

GOOD PEACE-TIME SOLDIERS. King Fcisal’s Arabs in camp at Mosul, who require to be supplemented by costly frontier levies, trained and commanded by British officers to enable them to act as lax collectors, arc lineal descendants of Nebuchadnezzar’s mercenaries who lounged on the walls of Babylon. They are born with a lovo for the panoply of war, but it is only with difficulty to-day that they can be persuaded to become disciplined soldiers. Threats and promises alike from the Iraq'hancellor of the Exchequer have failed to produce a force capable of dealing with the paramount Kurdish sheiks who refuse to pay taxes to an alien monarch. The authorities toy with vague promises of conscription when pressed to legislate for an efficient force to supplement the civil power, but the truth is that conscription has already been tried in Iraq and it lias failed. Madhat Pasha, a Turkish Governor, in 1867 brought in a decree of conscription for service in the then ill-discip-plined and indolent Turkish army. When the Turkish agents marched through the country to enforce the decree they found, to their surprise, tliat all the able-bodied men had adopted the simple expedient of crossing the Tigris into Persia. Madhat Pasha was obliged to cancel his decree because officials in Constantinople demanded an explanation for the sudden fall in land revenue. The cultivated land along the Euphrates and Tigris ran to waste in consequence of lack of labor. Popular belief in the Arab as a soldier is based on a misconception. The Arab loves to deck himself with weapons and to make every occasion an excuse for a war dance, but he soop loses heart unless spurred on by the exciting cries of his womenfolk or the appeal of a religious fanatic. Bravery is fashionable among the women. It was a woman who slew Sisera with a tent peg, and the story is still told to taunt the menfolk by the tent-dwelling women. The Arab is an expert in raiding a weaker opponent and in driving off nis cattle and capturing his women, but unless spurred by fear of ridicule or tbe loss of his place in Paradise he has little relish for real fighting. _ There are two ways to induce an Arab to soldier. One is to give him a showy uniform instead of the khaki ho wears to-day, and the other is to appeal to him through his womenfolk. The deficit in the Iraq exchequer prevents a wholesale purchase of a musical comedy uniform.