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The Saudite troops equipped with modern rifles and armored cars last week swooped down from the north upon Hodeida under the command of not Ibn Saud himself but his eldest son, the Emir Saud. Death of foxy Yahya the Imam seemed exaggerated. From Sana, his walled capital 7,000 ft. up in the mountains, he cabled Cairo:
"We have withdrawn from the disputed territories. However we do not acknowledge full defeat until Ibn Saud returns to methods of justice and peace. We have begged King Fuad of Egypt to intervene."
Meanwhile muffled Bedouin riflemen, deserting the Imam's army, broke into the bazaars of Hodeida and looted lustily. About 300 foreigners were in the city, mostly British Indians. Before the Saudite troops entered, the greater portion had fled to the nearby island of Kamaran. With the victorious troops in Hodeida, the Emir Feisal, Ibn Saud's second son and Foreign Minister, assured the world that sacking was over and the city quite safe for foreigners. His potent father, he said, had already picked him as the next King of Yemen. Then the Saudite horsemen swept inland toward the thick, sloping walls of Sana.
Deplore foxy Yahya as she might, Britain was worried. If Yemen falls, only Oman on the Persian Gulf will remain independent territory, and the fame of hard-riding Ibn Saud will blaze high in the Moslem world, not only in British-controlled Aden, Irak and Palestine, but also in the Sudan across the Red Sea. Refueling at Aden, the cruiser Enterprise, one of the fastest in the British navy, tore on toward Hodeida. Word reached British authorities in Aden that among the Saudite loot in Hodeida were great quantities of Italian-made munitions. The Red Sea is only 100 miles wide at Hodeida, and on the other side lies only partially pacified Italian Eritrea. Blushing at having backed the wrong horse, Italy dispatched the destroyer Turbine. France, too, was on the defensive, fearful lest the exploits of Ibn Saud, keenest sword of Allah, put wayward ideas in the heads of her Mohammedan tribes.