Editing Arab Revolt (section)

==== Northward expeditions (January–November 1917) ====
[[File:Ferrocarril del hiyaz EN.PNG|thumb|The [[Hejaz railway]], on the Damascus-Mecca pilgrim route, built at great expense by the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century. It quickly fell into disrepair after the Arab revolt of 1917.]]

The year 1917 began well for the Hashemites, when the Emir Abdullah and his Arab Eastern Army ambushed an Ottoman convoy led by Ashraf Bey in the desert, and captured £20,000 worth of gold coins that were intended to bribe the [[Bedouin]] into loyalty to the [[List of sultans of the Ottoman Empire|Sultan]].<ref>Murphy, p. 38</ref> Starting in early 1917, the Hashemite guerrillas began attacking the Hejaz railway.<ref name="Murphy, David pages 39-43">Murphy, pp. 39–43.</ref> At first, guerrilla forces commanded by officers from the Regular Army such as al-Misri, and by British officers such as Newcombe, Lieutenant Hornby and Major [[Herbert Garland]] focused their efforts on blowing up unguarded sections of the Hejaz railway.<ref name="Murphy, David pages 39-43"/> Garland was the inventor of the so-called "Garland mine", which was used with much destructive force on the Hejaz railway.<ref name="Murphy, David page 43">Murphy, p. 43.</ref>

In February 1917, Garland succeeded for the first time in destroying a moving locomotive with a mine of his own design.<ref name="Murphy, David page 43"/> In February 1917, around [[Medina]], Captain Muhammad Ould Ali Raho of the French Military Mission carried out his first railway demolition attack.<ref name="Murphy, David pages 43-44">Murphy, pp. 43–44.</ref> Captain Raho emerged as one of the leading destroyers of the Hejaz railway.<ref name="Murphy, David pages 43-44"/> In March 1917, Lawrence led his first attack on the Hejaz railway.<ref name="Murphy, David page 44">Murphy, p. 44.</ref> Typical of such attacks was the one commanded by Newcombe and Joyce, who on the night of 6/7 July 1917, planted over 500 charges on the Hejaz railway, which all went off at about 2&nbsp;am.<ref name="Murphy, David page 44"/> In a raid in August 1917, Captain Raho led a force of Bedouin in destroying 5 kilometers of the Hejaz railway and four bridges.<ref>Murphy, p. 45.</ref>

In March 1917, an Ottoman force joined by tribesmen from [[Jabal Shammar]] led by [[Ibn Rashid]] carried out a sweep of the Hejaz, that did much damage to the Hashemite forces.<ref name="Murphy, David page 38"/> However, the Ottoman failure to take [[Yanbu]] in December 1916 led to the increased strengthening of the Hashemite forces, and led to the Ottoman forces to go on the defensive.<ref name="Murphy, David page 38"/> Lawrence later claimed that the failure of the offensive against Yanbu was the turning point that ensured the ultimate defeat of the Ottomans in the [[Hejaz]].<ref name="Murphy, David page 37"/>

In 1917, Lawrence arranged a joint action with the Arab irregulars and forces under [[Auda Abu Tayi]], until then, in the employ of the Ottomans, against the port city of [[Aqaba]]. This is now known as the [[Battle of Aqaba]]. Aqaba was the only remaining Ottoman port on the [[Red Sea]] and threatened the right flank of [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|Britain]]'s [[Egyptian Expeditionary Force]] defending [[Sultanate of Egypt|Egypt]], and preparing to advance into [[Sanjak]] Maan of the [[Syria Vilayet]].<ref name="p81"/>  Capture of Aqaba would aid transfer of British supplies to the Arab revolt.<ref name="p82">Parnell, p. 82</ref> Lawrence and Auda left Wedj on 9 May 1917 with a party of 40 men, to recruit a mobile force from the [[Howeitat]], a tribe located in the area. On 6 July, after an overland attack, [[Battle of Aqaba|Aqaba fell to those Arab forces]] with only a handful of casualties.<ref name="p82"/>

Lawrence then rode 150 miles to [[Suez]] to arrange Royal Navy delivery of food and supplies for the 2,500 Arabs and 700 Ottoman prisoners in Aqaba. Soon the city was co-occupied by a large Anglo-French flotilla, including warships and sea planes, which helped the Arabs secure their hold on Aqaba.<ref name="p82"/> Even as the Hashemite armies advanced, they still encountered sometimes fierce opposition from local residents. In July 1917, residents of the town of Karak fought against the Hashemite forces and turned them back. Later in 1917, British intelligence reports suggested that most of the tribes in the region east of the [[Jordan River]] were "firmly in the Ottoman camp."<ref>{{Cite book|title = The Arabs: A History|last = Rogan|first = Eugene|publisher = Penguin|year = 2011|pages = 152}}</ref> The tribes feared repressions and losing the money they had received from the Ottomans for their loyalty.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AMAbXGQDmDYC&pg=PA233|title=Frontiers of the State in the Late Ottoman Empire: Transjordan, 1850–1921|access-date=1 June 2017|date=2002|publisher=Cambridge University Press|page=233|author=Rogan Eugene|isbn=9780521892230}}</ref>

Later in 1917, the Hashemite warriors made a series of small raids on Ottoman positions in support of [[Edmund Allenby|British General Allenby]]'s winter attack on the [[Gaza Strip|Gaza]]–[[Beersheba|Bersheeba]] defensive line, which led to the [[Battle of Beersheba (1917)|Battle of Beersheba]].<ref name="p83">Parnell, p. 83</ref> Typical of such raids was one led by Lawrence in September 1917, that saw Lawrence destroy a Turkish rail convoy by blowing up the bridge it was crossing at [[Mudawwara]] and then ambushing the Turkish repair party.<ref>Murphy, pp. 56–57.</ref> In November 1917, as aid to Allenby's offensive, Lawrence launched a deep-raiding party into the [[Yarmouk River]] valley, which failed to destroy the railway bridge at [[Tell Shihab|Tel ash-Shehab]], but succeeded in ambushing and destroying the train of General Mehmed Cemal Pasha, the commander of the Ottoman VII Corps.<ref>Murphy, pp. 57–59.</ref> Allenby's victories led directly to the British capture of [[Jerusalem]] just before Christmas 1917.