The Arabs captured the entire Turkish transport, a complete field-hospital, and hundreds of prisoners. One body of over a thousand Turks, who succeeded in retreating to Busta in fair order, fought their way back several days later to Abu el Lissan and to Maan.
After the battle, Lawrence slipped through the Turkish lines in disguise and returned with a copy of the Turkish communiqué describing the battle. It brought roars of laughter from the victorious Arabs. It ran:
We have stormed the fortifications of Petra, losing twelve killed and ninety-four wounded. The Arab losses are one thousand dead and wounded, and we counted seventeen British officers among the bodies.
The only British officers, except Lawrence, who were in that part of Arabia at the time were many miles away, at Akaba. Lawrence himself had worn his Arab robes. His losses were twenty-eight killed and wounded. The Turks had made a little error of 972 in their estimate.
“Perhaps the reason why women played such a small part in the war in the Land of the Arabian Nights,” explained Colonel Lawrence, “was because their men-folk wear the skirts and are prejudiced against petticoats.” Then adding philosophically: “Perhaps that is one of the reasons why I am so fond of Arabia. So far as I know, it is the only country left where men rule!” But Colonel Lawrence denies the assertion made by another authority on Arabia that man is the absolute master and woman a mere slave. Although “she is the object of his sensual pleasures, a toy with which he plays whenever and however he pleases”; although “knowledge is his, ignorance is hers”; although “the firmament and the light are his, darkness and the dungeon are hers”; and although “his is to command, hers is blindly to obey,” she still wields a vast indirect influence. But one sees and hears very little of her. Arabia is one country, indeed, where the equal suffrage propaganda of Mrs. Catt and Mrs. Pankhurst has made little headway.
Although the king of the Hedjaz figures in the cable news, his queen, Gellaleta el Melika, is never mentioned. Emir Feisal attended the Versailles Peace Conference as the head of the Arabian delegation, but his wife, who shortly afterward became the first queen of a new dynasty in Bagdad, did not accompany him.