Abstract
Military operations in the First World War in the Red Sea blockaded the enemy Ottoman (Turkish) western Arabian coast and supported the Hashemite Arab revolt against the Turks, a revolt that was an adjunct to, and supported by, the main British-led Palestine campaign in the Levant to the north. The Palestine campaign is often described as a sideshow to the Great War on the Western Front and the Arab revolt a sideshow to a sideshow. Red Sea naval operations are thus a sideshow to a sideshow to a sideshow, and so largely forgotten. The Arab revolt, by contrast, was made famous in the West by the attachment of British military liaison officers, notably T. E. Lawrence (‘of Arabia’) whose exploits in the Arabian deserts became the stuff of legend. John Johnson-Allen has appended Lawrence’s name to the title of his book on the Royal Navy – and Lawrence does appear – but his narrative account based on some primary material pivots on the value of some 12 Royal Navy and Royal Indian Marine ships to controlling the Arabian littoral, not just by interdicting small ships ferrying supplies to remote Turkish garrisons and by keeping open the sea route to India, but by supplying Arab forces and supporting them with inshore ship-to-shore bombardment. The movement of men such as Lawrence, gold to fund the revolt and military supplies for the Hashemites forms the analytical part to Johnson-Allen’s book, after an introductory section outlining the geography of the Red Sea and the force composition of Britain’s small navy on station in the region. The ships deployed were old, slow, small and under-gunned, but fine for the job at hand. Shallow-draft monitors and seaplane carriers augmented small cruisers and up-gunned Indian navy troopships, combining to dominate the Red Sea, able to move into ports such as Jeddah, seize and de-mast Arab dhows suspected of carrying contraband. Such ships also served in defence of the Suez Canal, as in February 1915 when they provided fire support against Turkish troops attacking across the canal (and received hits from enemy artillery). The late politician Tony Benn’s father served as a pilot on one of the seaplane vessels, flying in calm seas on operations, actions made difficult in choppier waters closer to the UK.
Johnson-Allen makes the point made that without control of the Red Sea, the Arab revolt would have foundered. The navy made possible the capture of key ports from Jeddah north, up to Aqaba, and the logistical train, psychological boost, and fire power afforded by the Red Sea patrol were undoubtedly vital to maintaining the momentum of the revolt. This book will appeal to readers interested in a description of the operations, written by a former sailor in command of naval matters. That said, there were no major sea battles whose description could brighten up the text, making the book under review best read as an account of operations that were a subsidiary to more impressive land operations going on elsewhere.