The War 211
If the menace of the Turks on the Eastern frontier
of Egypt was overestimated, the same may be said of
the menace of the Senussi on its Western frontier. This
organisation had, since its foundation a century before,
occupied the desert oases of the Eastern Sahara and the
coastal villages between Egypt and Tripoli. Its remote
seclusion and sinister reputation had imposed on the
imagination both of East and West, and had impressed
the world with an importance justified neither by its
military strength of some thousand savage warriors nor
by its fanatical faith in a puritanical Mahomedanism, nor
by its political programme—an exclusion of everything
European. The French had come into collision with it in
the south, the Italians in the north. Both had found it
sufficiently formidable to leave unmolested in its desert
fastness. But the possibilities of the ' * brotherhood J* as
a weapon for irritating and immobilising British forces
in Egypt was not overlooked by the Germans. The
Senussi Chief, Sid Ahmed, was conceited, and put a high
price on his co-operation. The British had neglected to
subsidise him, and German submarine power in the
Mediterranean was by 1915 able to supply the Senussi
with munitions and money. The Cairo Intelligence
Service, occupied with its ramifications in more distant
fields, was caught napping. The Senussi struck at
Sollum and other Egyptian posts on the coast, which
they occupied (November, 1915). These points
were, however, recovered without difficulty (March,
1916) after a series of skirmishes, in which the modern
machinery of war decisively demonstrated that desert
guerilla had had its day. Thereafter the Senussi were
only important as occupying large forces in patrolling the
Western frontier against raids.
Meantime, after a visit of Enver to the Sinai front.