76. ‘RIOT ON THE BAGDAD RAILWAY’

Facsimile of an article in The Times, 25 March, 1914

The German construction engineers responsible for the Baghdad Railway works at Jerablus were unable to establish a good relationship with their workforce. By the spring of 1914 a number of minor incidents had already taken place, and it seemed inevitable that there would one day be more serious trouble. This finally occurred at the end of March, when a minor dispute over pay turned into a shooting incident and then into a riot. But for courageous intervention by Lawrence and Woolley, the German staff would certainly have been massacred. The affair was thoroughly investigated by Turkish, British and German officials, all of whom praised Woolley and Lawrence for their bravery in the face of an armed mob.