[Arabic title:] Intisar al-jaysh al-'Arabi fi al-Hijaz. [Victory of the Arab Amy in the Hejaz.]

A rare survival. Announcing the capture of Aqaba and raids on the Hejaz Railway, this hitherto unrecorded broadside is a remarkable example of the printed ephemera that communicated news of the Arab Revolt in the Middle East. Though without an imprint, it was produced in Egypt, most likely by the British authorities for distribution in the streets of Cairo. Such messaging was essential at the time, as the British were desperate to show the Middle Eastern theatre was beginning to turn in their favour.

It has long been understood that the Arab Revolt, and especially the part played by T.E. Lawrence, was useful to the British establishment as a positive and dynamic counterpoint to the unchanging horror of the Western Front. Less discussed is the significance its early successes had as a public relations tool in the Middle East, as British authorities tried to paint themselves as the winning and pro-Arab side in the conflict. This was especially the case in Arab countries where strategic allies and colonial subjects were potentially beginning to view the Entente cause as a losing battle, given the well-publicised disasters of Gallipoli and Kut. Influential figures such as Lawrence understood that wider belief in the Revolt —which opened a new front in Western Arabia— had to be cultivated and sustained once Hussein bin Ali Al-Hashimi, the Sharif of Mecca, had decided to rebel against the Ottomans in June 1916.

This broadside must be seen in that context: not only reporting the highly significant capture of Aqaba, but also stressing the totality of the victory, comparing the minimal loss of Arab life to the number of slain and captured Ottoman troops. Its full text, here in translation, reads:

“Victory of the Arab Army in the Hejaz.

Today, news of the Arab tribes that gathered in the northern Hejaz, under the flag of His Majesty King Hussein, the Sharif of Mecca, came to Egypt.

It is known that the Arab volunteers, who first met under the leadership of Sharif bin Hussein, carried out several campaigns against the stations and bridges of the Hejaz Railway near Ma’an and destroyed the bridges and a large part of the line that surrounded Ma’an, so they attacked the Turks and fought the garrisons located on the road to Aqaba and occupied Aqaba itself on July 6.

The losses of the Arabs in that incident were very few, and six hundred [Ottoman] men were killed. The Arab men took more than six hundred Turkish prisoners, including 21 Turkish and German prisoners.

On 22 July, 1917.”

Contemporary reports of the victory at Aqaba in Arabic are extremely rare, despite its modern-day status as a breakthrough moment for the Revolt and cornerstone of the T.E. Lawrence story. As a strategically vital Ottoman base regarded as only accessible by sea, its falling to a landward attack by the Sharifian Army truly was an extraordinary event; especially so given the brutal desert crossing Lawrence and 3,000 men (led by the Howeitat chief Auda Abu-Tayeh) made to get there. In The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Lawrence wrote of how the prospect of Aqaba had loomed so large as to leave them empty upon its conquest: "In the blank light of victory we could scarcely identify ourselves. We spoke with surprise, sat emptily, fingered upon our white skirts; doubtful if we could understand or learn whom we were."

Apparently unrecorded, with no examples in LibraryHub or OCLC. The sheer ephemerality of the broadside, printed on thin wartime paper and not intended for preservation, suggests very few survived to the present day.

Reference: T.E. Lawrence, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, London, Jonathan Cape, 1935.