أولم يروا أنا نأتي الأرض ننقصها من أطرافها والله يحكم لا معقب لحكمه وهو سريع الحساب.
سورة الرعد (41)
See they not how We visit the land, reducing it of its outlying parts? (When) Allah doometh there is none that can postpone His doom, and He is swift at reckoning.
(Koran, The Thunder 41)

By 1930 Ibn Saud had been obliged to fight countless battles to the east and north of Najd in order to defend and extend his kingdom. Yet he had never fought a war in the south. This was not altogether surprising, since between Najd and the states on the Arabian Sea lay vast and empty expanse of the Rub‘ Al-Khali, which few men would enter and none would consider worth fighting over. But one potential enemy existed in the south-west of the Arabian peninsula in the shape of the state of the Yemen, and the possibility of conflict with that enemy grew as the power of Ibn Saud expanded. The northern borders of the Yemen adjoined the kingdom of Ibn Saud to the south of Hejaz on the comparatively populous and fertile coast of the Red Sea. After the conquest of Hejaz and Asir, a covert antagonism simmered between the Saudis and the Yemenis. This was, I believe, due in part to the religious mistrust which stemmed from two differing ideologies in Islam: one was that of the puritan Wahhabis, who opposed all practices not sanctioned by the Koran; the other, equally extreme, was that of the Zaidis, whose members were of the Shiite sect prominent in the Yemen. Although the differences in dogma between this sect and the Wahhabis were not in truth very great, each group nevertheless considered the members of the other to be heretics. There were also good political reasons for the hostility. Imam Yahya of the Yemen considered the rising power of the Saudis a threat to his independence, and he feared that his small country might be swallowed up by Ibn Saud in the same way as Jabal Shammar and Hejaz. There were certainly many influential people, both inside and outside Najd, who thought that the Yemen would be a logical and desirable addition to Saudi territory. For some time, Philby had been writing articles hinting that His Majesty should annex the Yemen. In one such piece, Philby said openly that his desire was to see His Majesty wear the triple crown of Mecca, Riyadh and Sana (the capital of the Yemen). I remember on an occasion, shortly after the King had conquered Hejaz, he was visited in Jeddah by a prominent writer, Amin Al-Raihani. Al-Raihni was a Christian Arab from the Lebanon who had become a prominent historian in America. He had come to congratulate the King on his conquest, and expressed the fervent hope that his next visit to honour His Majesty would be to Aden.

The general opinion in the Court was that the Yemen was a hard and difficult country, inhabited by a ferocious people, and that the King had little to gain by adding it to his already substantial kingdom. I am sure that His Majesty shared this view. I remember telling him of Philby’s suggestion about the triple crown. The King’s immediate reaction was to dismiss the idea out of hand, saying that the Yemen was not for him. Nevertheless, Imam Yahya can hardly be blamed for his unease, particularly when one considers what had recently happened to the neighbouring Amirate of Jizan.

Until the late 1920s Jizan had been a tiny independent state adjoining the northern borders of the Yemen on the Red Sea. It was ruled by an amir from its capital town of Sabya. A disagreement had occurred between Jizan and the Yemen, as a result of which Amir of Jizan had appealed to Ibn Saud for protection, His Majesty readily agreed to ally himself with the Amir, and generously suggested that a Saudi commissioner should be sent to Jizan to assist the Amir with the arduous business of government. The commissioner duly arrived the Amir found him a great help. Later on the Amir found himself in financial difficulty and asked the King to lend him money. Again His Majesty agreed, and kindly provided a financial inspector to assist the Amir with the administration of the funds. Then the king quietly replaced the first commissioner, who was a mild and unassuming man, with another how was more forceful. Soon the Amir found himself with very little say in his own government. Realizing too late what was going on, he gathered such forces as he could and besieged the commissioner’s residence. Naturally, this left Ibn Saud with no alternative but to send in reinforcements and annex Jizan. This was done with great speed and little bloodshed, and with every justification in the eyes of the outside world. Somewhat ironically, the Amir fled to sanctuary in the Yemen.

Having witnessed with alarm this example of His Majesty’s devastating statecraft, Imam Yahya was determined that his Kingdom should not suffer a similar fate. He decided that a little belligerence was the best way to convince Ibn Saud that the Yemen had no intention of becoming part of his domain. The method he chose was to lay claim to the area of Najran, which lay on his north-eastern border, and the region of Southern Asir, which lay to the north-west. Both these areas had been on the edge of the Saudi Kingdom since the annexation of Hejaz and Asir but had never been fully incorporated into it. They enjoyed a kind of uneasy and lawless independence and were ruled by local amirs. Their boundaries with Saudi Arabia and the Yemen were entirely undefined, although the Saudis maintained that the areas were part and parcel of Arabia. Ibn Saud had wisely never attempted to alter this state of affairs, since Southern Asir and Najran were, in effect, convenient buffer states between his kingdom and the Yemen. It was obvious that any attempt by Imam Yahya to alter the status quo would cause the King great concern.

The situation was complicated by the activities of the Amir of Najran, who had himself been trying, somewhat ineptly, to play the dangerous game of power politics. At different times he had sought to ally himself with, and seek assistance from, both Saudi Arabia and the Yemen. Possibly he hoped to play one off against the other to his own advantage. If this was the case, he made a grave miscalculation the result was that each country came to regard Najran at its protectorate, and in the dispute which followed, neither side took any notice of the Amir’s claim to independence.

Imam Yahya’s claims to Najran were at first only made verbally. They were dealt with by means of missions from both countries which attempted to survey and map the precise boundaries of the Yemen. This proved to be a fruitless task, because it had never before been considered necessary to mark the exact position of the frontier and nobody could agree where it lay. Endless disputes arose over which country owned particular areas of land. A good example of His Majesty’s magnanimity and diplomacy was shown during one such disagreement, which was over the nationality of a hill in the Najran area. The Yemeni and Saudi missions referred the matter first to Imam Yahya, who declared that the question should be put to the arbitration of ‘my brother, Abdul Aziz’. A telegram was sent from the Yemen to this effect. I was with the King on a hunting expedition in the desert at the time. On His Majesty’s orders, a recently acquired portable wireless set accompanied him wherever he went, and it was my duty to receive the messages from the wireless operator and present them to the King. When the message from the Yemen came through, His Majesty had left the main camp for a remote, secluded corner of the desert. I immediately went to give him the message. He read it with a smile, saying, ‘I have been asked to judge the disputed mountain.’ On His Majesty’s instructions, I sent the following brief replay: ‘I henceforth declare that the mountain belongs to the Yemen.’ News of this decision spread rapidly throughout the Arab world. One Egyptian newspaper came out with the headline, ‘God speaks’ and, after narrating the full story behind the decision, declared, ‘Let those Western powers take note who say that the Arabs have no statesmen or great politicians.’

But the ownership of a mountain by no means brought to an end the controversy over Najran. The negotiations became more protracted and bitter, and the tension between the two countries worsened when Imam Yahya decided to support his claims by sending detachments of troops into Najran territory, where the Yemeni camels encroached on the pasturage of Saudi forces stationed there. The Saudis sent notes of protest to the Imam about these infiltrations, but the Yemenis persisted and made no attempt to withdraw their forces. On the contrary, the Imam replied by sending the King numerous letter of protest of extravagant length, phrased in terms of exaggerated eloquence. There is an Arab saying, to effect that within written expression lies wisdom. The Imam took this proverb to extremes. His letters exasperated the King, for they were couched in the highest classical Arab phraseology, which was clearly calculated to show the Imam to be learned and wise but which, when unravelled, usually proved quite meaningless. His Majesty was further infuriated by the fact that the Imam persisted in misusing theological points in support of his arguments, in misusing theological points in support of his arguments, in a manner obviously intended to suggest that the King himself had no knowledge of the Koran. It was hardly surprising that His Majesty began to despair of finding a peaceful solution to the problem.

Finally in 1932 the Najran issue was settled temporarily when a force of Saudi tribesmen under Khalid Ibn Luway drove the Yemenis from Najran and formally annexed it in the name of Ibn Saud. Although this was a serious reverse for the Yemen, it did nothing to subdue Imam Yahya, who redoubled his efforts to claim the region of Southern Asir. Relation with the Yemenis deteriorated steadily until, one grey morning in the spring of 1934, His Majesty entered the Court and told his officials of a dream he had had the previous night. He related it as follows:

I was in a room in an old, abandoned house. The room was in pitch darkness and there was not smallest glimmer of light to be seen. The darkness was so total that it was as if my eyelids had been sealed together. Suddenly, in a far corner of the room, an apparition materialized out of the darkness. It was in the form of an evil snake. Its scaly, elongated shape began to writhe and twist, and its forked tongue darted in and out as it slowly coiled itself up ready to strike. Then its jaws snapped open, revealing two daggerlike fangs dripping with venom. I was seized with terror, realizing that at any moment those fangs would sink into my flesh and deadly poison would be pumped into my blood. Like a bolt of lightning I pounced upon the snake, grasping it by the neck and pinning it to the wall. I pressed my fingers tighter and tighter about its throat until it was overpowered. At that instant I awoke, and as consciousness returned, I realized that my peril had only been imagined in a dream and I gave thanks to God for my safety.

Everyone who heard the King tell his story was deeply affected. We Arabs believe strongly that dreams can foretell what is to come. We were all aware of His Majesty’s mental powers, and nobody doubted that the dream showed clairvoyant insight. At that time the dispute with Yemen was the foremost issue of the day, and there could be little doubt that Imam Yahya was the threatening snake in the dream. As the King left the court to muse over the implications of his nightmare, there was much eager speculation as to what his next move would be. The general consensus of opinion was that he would attack the Yemen.

The following day, the King did indeed decide he had no alternative but to resort to force. His first step was to call a small gathering of the chiefs of his loyal tribes. The recent purging of the Ikhwan, while absolutely necessary for the security of the kingdom, had left the King seriously short of experienced and reliable warriors. The principal sections of the Mutair and Utaiba tribes were in disgrace, and so were represented by their secondary sections. These had remained loyal to the King, but they were numerically smaller than the main section and did not have the same military reputation. Despite their depleted numbers, the tribesmen were bursting with enthusiasm for the coming conflict. The Utaiba were now represented by the Rawaga section of the tribe. Its chief, Omar Ibn Rubaian, rose to his feet and cried out to the King, ‘O Abdul Aziz, if you want the Yemen, then allow me to lead the invasion. You may remain in Mecca or in Riyadh and I shall bring it to you.’ Ibn Saud declined Ibn Rubaian’s offer to take over his army. No doubt he had in mind what had happened after the conquest of Hejaz, when Ad-Dawish and Ibn Bijad, having played a major part in the fighting, considered the governorship of the region to be their due.

His reply to Omar Ibn Rubaian was, as always, brief and to the point. He declared, ‘Your tribe shall not move a foot without my orders. I hereby appoint my sons Saud and Faisal to lead our forces, and you shall go with them.’ The King did, however, accept one part of Ibn Rubaian’s advice, for he decided to remain at Mecca and direct his forces from there by wireless. This came as something of a surprise to us, as the King usually led his troops personally on major expeditions. In retrospect, I can see that His Majesty had very sound reasons for acting as he did. It is probable that he had no desire to annex the Yemen, and merely wished to subdue Imam Yahya and teach him a lesson. He realized that he would therefore have to stop short of total occupation and reach a compromise peace. It would be easier to be magnanimous from a distance than if he were personally involved in the fighting. In addition, he was probably worried about Hejaz, which had been part of his kingdom for barely eighty years. Not all of its people were reconciled to his reign, and the region might well have taken the opportunity to revolt if he had departed with his army. The conference was dissolved, and the tribesmen were ordered to proceed to their designated positions near the frontier of the Yemen and await further orders before moving onwards. His Majesty’s departing words to his men were in the form of a simple prayer to God which he always used when he was about to go to war: ‘We worship you and ask for your aid.’

In a last effort for peace, the King delivered an ultimatum to Imam Yahya, stipulating reasonable terms for the settlement of the outstanding boundary disputes and threatening war if the terms were not accepted. The ultimatum was ignored, and on 5 April 1934 the Saudi forces marched over the borders of the Yemen. The strategy of the assault was that Prince Saud should attack from Najran into the mountainous regions of north-east Yemen, while Prince Faisal simultaneously attacked from the west down the Tihamah, the coastal strip along the shores of the Red Sea. From the start, Prince Saud’s advance was slow. He would never have claimed to be a brilliant general and  the task he was given was hard. A huge problem was the difficult nature of the country, which often necessitated raising and lowering the transport by rope over sheer cliffs. Prince Ahmed, the Crown Prince of the Yemen, was in command of the Yemeni forces in this region. He made his headquarters in the town of Sa’ada, which was situated on top of an impregnable mountain and was never in serious danger of being taken by the Saudis. The Crown Prince was known with good reason as ‘ Abu Jinnah’, which means ‘the frenzied one’. He was given to bouts of uncontrollable rage and was greatly feared by his troops and servants. One story told about him was that he used to keep a venomous snake in a basket by his side. The snake was harmless, for its poison sacs had been cut out, but only the Prince knew that. Any unwary visitor who annoyed the Prince (and that was not difficult) was likely to find the snake suddenly thrown about his neck.

Despite such sadistic eccentricities, or possibly because of them, the Prince was an excellent general. He had a larger part of the Yemeni army under his command and he directed it with skill. For the most part, his forces remained in fortified positions in the mountains; whenever the Saudi troops mounted an attack up the slopes, they were met with determined resistance. When the Saudis tired, the inevitable counter-attack would be launched against them, forcing them back to the plains. On more than one occasion, the Yemenis reached the camp of Prince Saud and ransacked it, plundering all his provision and stores and burning his tents before retiring back to their mountain fortress. Stung by these defeats, Prince Saud tried new tactics; he divided his troops into several sections, under the leadership of his cousins Prince Faisal In Sa’ad and Prince Fahd Ibn Sa’ad. He ordered them to move further south and attack the mountains from a number of different points on the eastern slopes. These attacks, too, all met with disaster. Wherever the Saudis went, they were forced to scale mountain ridges which were often more rugged and difficult than those on the northern slopes, and the Yemenis beat back the attacks with little difficulty.

The whole expedition in the north-eastern region can only be described as a spectacular failure. There was, however, one very real consolation, for it kept a large part of the Yemeni army pinned down in the mountains, thus giving Prince Faisal a comparatively free hand in the west. In contrast to the campaign of his unfortunate brother, Faisal’s mission was a resounding success. Setting off from Jizan on the Red Sea, and sweeping down the Tihamah coastal plain, he crossed the Yemeni frontier and was immediately confronted by a large enemy force based in the town of Harad. The Yemenis were able to hold Prince Faisal for a time, but eventually a full-scale battle took place. The Yemeni forces were routed and withdrew in complete disorder, losing much of their equipment. Unfortunately, the Saudi general, Hamad Al Shuair, was killed during the campaign. Nonetheless, the victory gave a much-needed boost to Saudi morale. After the battle of Harad, Faisal met with practically no resistance and was able to advance with great speed down the western seaboard of the Yemen towards Al-Hudaidah, the principal Yemeni port on the Red Sea. He encountered only a few pockets of enemy troops on the way, and they were immediately liquidated. Some Yemeni forces were positioned in the hills to the east of the Saudi line of advance, but Faisal made no attempt to attack them and none dared to come down and face him in the plains.

As the Saudi troops moved irresistibly southwards, news reached Prince Faisal that Imam Yahya had, in desperation, called on various foreign powers for assistance. The Italians had decided to help him, and an Italian sea-borne force was steaming up the Red Sea towards Al-Hudaidah, apparently with the object of occupying the town and preventing the Saudis from entering. Prince Faisal had no intention of allowing this to happen, and reacted with a rapidity which paid tribute to the training he had received at the hands of his father. Scouts were immediately sent ahead to Al-Hudaidah and the Prince ordered his army to advance towards the city with the utmost speed. Outpacting the rest of his forces and accompanied by barely one hundred men, Prince Faisal reached the outskirts of Al-Hudaidah, where he met his returning scouts. They reported that the Yemeni forces had withdrawn from the city, but that a number of Italian warships were already in the harbour, on the point of landing a force of occupation. Faisal’s companions urged him to hold back, for his small body of men were no match for the Italian army. But the Prince had not yet lost his race against time and he was determined not to be beaten at the last moment. He ordered his men to proceed immediately to the harbour and open fire on the Italians before they had a chance to land. This they did, and the Italians, believing that the Saudis were already firmly in possession of the port, withdrew in haste to a safe distance. The Prince was delighted with the outcome and, pointing to the retreating ships, said to his followers, ‘Look! Perhaps I was not as mad as you thought when I sent my men to fire at them.’

The fall of Al-Hudaidah, despite the attempted foreign intervention, was a crushing blow for Imam Yahya, and matters were made worse for him by a communications error on the part of the Saudis. When the Italian fleet withdrew from Al-Hudaidah, they sent a wireless message in morse code back to Italy. The message, which for some reason was worded in French, was to the effect that the port was in the hands of the Saudis and that Imam Yahya had decided to withdraw his forces to his capital of Sana. This was quite correct, but a Saudi wireless operator in Jeddah who intercepted the message misread the French word ‘décidé’ as ‘décédé’, an easy mistake when reading morse, and concluded that the Imam had died while withdrawing with his forces. This was the message which was passed to the press, and subsequently appeared in headlines all over the Arab world.

The spreading of the false story about his death seemed to be the final straw for the Imam, who sued for peace. Ibn Saud agreed to a truce, and his armies remained in possession of the territory they had conquered while negotiations took place at Ta’if between the representatives of both countries. A group of Arab nations urged the King to be magnanimous and allow the Yemen to retain its independence within the existing boundaries. His Majesty was happy to agree to a settlement along these lines, and the Saudi forces withdrew after the Imam had agreed to pay reparations of £100,000 in gold to the King to compensate him for the expenses of the campaign. The peace treaty was finally signed at Mecca. A joint boundary commision was then set up and was able to agree the line of the frontier without further difficulties. Although Ibn Saud could easily have deposed Imam Yahya and taken the Yemen by force, he did not do so, but contented himself with subduing the country and ensuring that it could no longer be a threat to him. Thus the prophecy in his dream was fulfilled, for the King had not dreamt that he killed the snake but merely that he held an iron grip upon it until it had been overpowered.

The war in the Yemen gave rise to a dramatic incident one year later, when His Majesty was in Mecca for the hajj. The King was performing the Tawaf, the ritual circumambulation of the kaaba in the center of the Holy Mosque in Mecca. As always, he was surrounded by thousand of other devout pilgrims. Suddenly two youthful Yemeni fanatics, who had managed to push their way through the throng, leapt forward to attack the King with knives. His Majesty was saved by the quick reactions and gallantry of Crown Prince Saud, who threw himself in front of his father to ward off the blows. Saud was fortunate to receive only a slight wound in the shoulder. One of the Yemenis was immediately shots by the King’s bodyguard, but the other managed to escape through the crowd. Thus were fired the last last shots of the war of the Yemen. Through the grace of God the King was unhurt, and the incident even had its positive side, for it marked the beginning of a period of reconciliation between the Yemen and Saudi Arabia. It has never clearly established who was behind the assassination attempt. Imam Yahya immediately disclaimed any involvement, and indeed was one of the first to send a message to His Majesty deploring the assassination attempt and expressing his thanks and relief that the King was safe.