The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1919-05-29
GAVE BREAD
FROM HEAVEN
MODERN MIRACLES IN THE HOT
SANDS OF ARABIA.
Airships Brought Food
When Starvation Stared Them in the
Face, Relief Comes to the BE-
leaguered Warriors.

to eat.-John 6:31.
The most of US know the old Bible
story about the children OF Israel
inst out of bondage in Egypt, los
an4wandering in the desert, weary
footsore, disappointed, hungry;
scorching sun in a cloudless sky,
waste of burning sand stretching tc
the horizon on every side, and o1
how they began to yearn for the flesh
pots of Egypt and TO grumble al
Moses and Aaron, who had brought
them to this pass.
And then, when it seemed that
starvation must come soon, the LORD
opened the windows to heaven and
rained down mama upon them; they
ate and were filed, and marched on,
arriving finally in the Promised Land,
a place where milk and honey flowed.
That happened $40 years ago.
And just few months ago, in the
spot where the children of Israel
were so miraculously fed from the
heaven "a centuries ago, some of
their own descendants, starving IN
the same desert, were fed from the
sky, too, but this time it was not a
miracle, unless it can be called a
miracle when an airplane loaded with
bread. futtered down from the clouds
and landed in their midst.
It was just one more startling In
cident of the great war; and the
story of it is told by Jules Chancel,
a French war correspondent, in the
last number of Lectures Pour Tous,"
a magazine printed in Paris.
Chancel was sent by his magazine
to watch the allied campaign against
the Turks in Palestine and Arabia.
He was attached to the Arabian army
commanded by the 34-year-old Gen.
eral Feysal, Emir of Hedjaz.
FeysaIs warriors were Arabs
mothered by the desert, and trained
to ride horseback before they could
walk. These roughriders on the sandy
wastes of Arabia and Syria were
mounted on lean desert. horses, and
armed with jeweled daggers and long
barreled saddle guns of the Levant.
They wore f1owered robes and silk
turbans with long, loose ends falling
over their shoulders to protect their
necks from the hot sun. They were
without artillery or modern equip
ment of any kind, and their "supply
train was simply a small caravan of
camels that carried food and water in
the long and swift fight across the
desert.
The Turkish troops against which
they fought were commanded by Ger
man officers, were we'll drilled in
modern military tactics and were
equipped with modern rifles and
small arms; but they were often beat
en- by the wild riding Arabs.
Chancel tells how a detachment of
1000 of these Arab horsemen made
raid on a Turkish railway that had
been pushed out into the desert east
of Palestine, the same Wilderness"
in which the children of Israel wan
dered for 40 years on the journey
from Egypt to the Land of Canaan.
The Arabs planted a mine under
, long trestle on this railway line.
Then they lay hidden behind the cac-
tus plants of the desert and set of
the mine while a train loaded with
Turkish troops was crossing it. Many
were killed, and in the panic the
Arabs took 1000 Turkish prisoners.
In trying to escape, the Arabs
were surrounded by large force of
Turks which camped in the desert
and began siege of the Arabs with
in the circle, expecting to starve
them into surrender.
The Arabs had a meager supply
of water from a spring in little
grove of palm trees, but they had
rations for only few days. Feysal
knew that unless he could get relief
from the British forces on the Red
sea he would surely have to die of
starvation out there on the desert,
or surrender to the Turks. At night
he sent couriers on camels but he
had little hope that they would ever
reach the British, for first they would
have to get through the Turkish
lines: and even if this were done, the
camels were weak from lack of
nourishment, the way led across the
desert of Sinai, journey of more
than two weeks. An officer of Fey
sails army thus told the story to
Chancel:
''It would take five weeks to make