with a tradition of desperate courage, and a sense of superiority which never left them while there was life and work to do [...] but which had reduced them from twelve hundred men to less than five hundred, in thirty years." Report by French Military Mission Sergeant Marcel Matte Sergeant Marcel Matte gives his opinion: "The personality of Auda Abu Tay [sic] is much exaggerated: we are told that: 'He had come down to us like a knight-errant, chafing at our delay in Wejh, anxious only to be acquiring merit for Arab freedom in his own lands.' This is obviously exaggerated: carried along by the style given to the account, the author creates a portrait of this Bedouin chief far finer than reality. The character, whom we saw several times at Wejh, was not of this high calibre—he was a Bedouin, sly, wily and avaricious." References 1874 births 1924 deaths Bedouin tribal chiefs Military leaders of World War I Ottoman Arab nationalists Arabs from the Ottoman Empire Arab independence activists