The final exploit in the campaign fell also to the credit of the armoured cars, and the war has shown few more romantic incidents. It will be remembered that the previous November the survivors from the _Tara_ and _Moorina_ had been taken prisoner by Arabs and moved into the interior. By a coincidence which would scarcely be credited in a work of fiction, the man captured at Bir Warr proved to have been employed as one of the guards of the prisoners, and disclosed their whereabouts. The place was 75 miles west of Sollum, and with General Peyton’s consent, the Duke of Westminster set out on the morning of the 17th to their rescue. He had with him, besides his cars, a number of motor ambulances. The guide proved faithful, and after a journey of 120 miles over featureless desert the prisoners’ camp was found at a place called the Hidden Spring. The men were naked skeletons, and no language can describe their amazement and joy at this miraculous rescue. By the morning of the 18th the cars with the released captives were safely back at Sollum, having travelled in 24 hours some 300 miles. It was an enterprise which in normal times would have been considered to belong rather to the realms of wild romance than to the sober chances of war, and it did signal credit to the intrepidity and resource of its originator. In the words of Sir John Maxwell’s dispatch, “to lead his cars through perfectly unknown country against an enemy of unknown strength was a feat which demanded great resolution, and which should not be forgotten even in this war, where deeds of rare daring are of daily occurrence.”[8] * * * * * So ended the first invasion of Egypt from the west since the Fatimite attempt of the tenth century. The occupation of Sollum and the achievement of the armoured cars put an end to the menace from the Senussi. In less than a month General Peyton had driven the enemy back 150 miles, had scattered his forces beyond the frontier, had captured his commander and taken all his guns. If Germany hoped to make of the Arabs and Bedouin of the Tripoli hinterland a fanatical horde which would sweep to the gates of Cairo, she had wholly misjudged their temper. To build up armies from such material was like an attempt to make ropes of desert sand. Thereafter hostilities degenerated into frontier brigandage and police patrols. A year later the Grand Senussi, who had been living in the Siwa oasis, made an attempt to shift his quarters. Major-General Watson, who then commanded the Western Frontier Force, sent a column of armoured cars, which on February 3, 1917, broke up his camp, drove him into the outer deserts, and destroyed for good any little military prestige that remained to him. The main problem left to the British Government was that of feeding the starving tribes, for the futile war had prevented the raising of the usual barley crop. After our humane fashion we beat the enemy and fed his belongings. [Sidenote: _April 11._]