Around 1900 the pilgrimage switched its route to one along the shores of the Gulf of Suez, and an-Nekhel went into decline. In 1915 the Lebanese Druze leader Shakib Arslan arrived at the fortress with 120 Druze volunteers hoping to join the Turkish offensive against the Suez Canal. With the total failure of the attack, the Druze force returned to their homes. According to one source, the fortress was blown up by the Turkish army during the First World War. Two British cavalry columns with three aeroplanes, commanded by Colonel William Grant, approached an-Nekhel on 17 February 1917, to find that it had been abandoned. This was the last British action in their Sinai campaign against the Turks. T.E. Lawrence writes, in chapter 59 (Seven Pillars of Wisdom), of passing near the fort ruins on his way from the capture of Aqaba in July 1917 to report to the Egyptian British command.