An amazing, and little known, incident took place at Ziza towards the end of World War I. The war in the desert was growing to a close, and the Turkish troops had been contacted by two squadrons of the 5th Light Horse. The Turkish Commander believed that if they lay down their arms, they could not be protected then from the thousands of Bedouin Bern Sakhr tribesmen circling the camp.
The 7th Light Horse was sent to help, and for one night only the Australian and Turkish troops shared campfires, and watches, before the Turkish soldiers surrendered in the morning and were marched to Jerico. Arthur Dobbs 7th Light Horse, later of Laravale, wrote as follows:
“When they wouldn’t surrender to the 5th our chaps sent word into the brigadier and we all went out from Ammon at the gallop and reached the Turks just at dusk, they had their out-posts out with fixed bayonets. In riding through their lines especially there were a few bullets flying about fired by Bedouins as we found out after. We had 4,500 Turks and we left them all armed that night, in fact some of them did out-post too and we were firing at the Bedouins all night, they were trying to get in and rob the prisoners & get away with all the loot they could but they failed. Next morning the prisoners were marched off to Ammon & we collected all the rifles, ammunition & other war material & stacked it in a train that was in the station there & it was brought on to Ammon too.
I think Turkey’s finished; I do not think we will fire another shot on this front.”
