The Arab Movements in World War I

Eliezer Tauber

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781135199852
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Storia militare e marittima

This study surveys the many revolutionary attempts carried out against the Ottoman Empire in the Fertile Cresecnt and the Arabian Peninsula during World War I. Special emphasis is laid upon the subversive activities of the Arab secret societies which preceded the outbreak of Sharif Husayn's Arab revolt in 1916. The revolt is thoroughly examined and analyzed, regarding both its military operations and its human composition, which influenced its course.

Chapter 1

ABORTIVE ATTEMPTS

The Arab revolt of Sharif Husayn of Mecca in the years 1916–1918 is considered in the historical literature, both scholarly and popular, as the only revolutionary movement of the Arabs against the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Indeed, it was the only revolutionary movement that reached the stage of realization and success during this period. By no means was it the only revolt of the Arabs against the Ottomans during the World War, but its success has overshadowed the other plans and attempts at revolt and has caused them to be erased from historical memory.

In the course of this chapter the other revolt plans initiated by Arabs of the Empire will be reviewed. These were devised for the most part by Syrians and Lebanese, and their common denominator was failure. Some of them did not even reach the stage of execution and others, which did, ended within a short time with a lack of success. The main ones among them were the revolt plans devised by Lebanese activists at the beginning of the war, the plans of the Syrian Decentralization Party, the revolt plan of an al-‘Ahd member, Amin Lutfi al-Hafiz, and the revolt plan of the former president of the Literary Club ‘Abd al-Karim al-Khalil. A number of revolt attempts which were carried out in Syria and Mount Lebanon at the time of the Arab revolt will also be reviewed.

Subversive activity and attempts at revolt were not limited to the Levant. In Iraq, too, a number of revolt plans were formulated, and a number of uprisings were carried out. Most of them were directed against the Ottomans, but towards the end of the war the first buds of a resistance movement against the British began to appear. The revolutionary activities in Iraq during the war will be discussed in the final section of this chapter.

THE REVOLT PLANS OF THE LEBANESE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR

When the Maronites in Mount Lebanon and Beirut learned of the outbreak of the First World War in Europe, they openly expressed their sympathy for France. It appeared to them that France would soon occupy Mount Lebanon and would assist them in realizing their aspirations for independence. From the statements of the French consul-general in Beirut, François Georges-Picot, they understood that France was preparing to invade the region not later than three months after the Ottoman Empire entered the war. Some of them even thought that the French invasion would not be deferred for more than one month. They began collecting money for the French Red Cross, and a delegation came to Picot and informed him of the desire of Maronites to enlist in the French army.

However, not all of them were prepared to be satisfied with that. In early August 1914 a number of Maronite leaders approached the consuls-general of Britain, France, and Russia and requested the assistance of British and French soldiers and a supply of weapons and ammunition for an uprising against the Ottomans. They expressed their belief that the Muslims of Syria would join such a revolt. The British consul-general advised them not to take such an initiative because it was not in their power to challenge the Ottoman army by themselves. He cautioned them not to expect aid from Russia or France because these two countries had to worry about themselves for the time being and would not be able to open another front in Syria. A similar appeal by a group of Lebanese in Egypt to General John Maxwell, the GOC of British forces there, met with a similar response.

With Georges-Picot, on the other hand, the applicants found a sympathetic disposition to their appeal. He was unable to promise them any active assistance from France, due to its policy of trying to avoid going to war with the Ottoman Empire. Still, on his own initiative he approached the Greek consul-general with a request that the Greek government supply arms to the Lebanese. The Greek government, according to Georges-Picot, indeed expressed its readiness to transfer to the Lebanese 15,000 rifles and two million rounds of ammunition.

In the beginning of November the Allies declared war on the Ottoman Empire. The consuls-general of the Entente Powers were obliged to leave their posts, and Picot moved to Egypt where he continued his contacts with representatives of the Greek government in Alexandria. At a party held for him by members of the Lebanese community in Alexandria he promised that their country would be liberated in the near future by France and that the tricolour would fly over Syria and Mount Lebanon. The day after he arrived in Egypt he sent a telegram to the French foreign minister, Théophile Delcassé, in which he urged France to take action in the region in order to maintain her prestige in the Levant. He pointed out that 30–35,000 Lebanese would join a landing force that came to free them from the Ottomans. There would be no need, in his opinion, for more than 1,500–2,000 French soldiers and 40 officers in order to carry out such an invasion. Additional officers would be assigned to organize the local Lebanese forces. The French foreign minister rejected Picot’s invasion proposal for both military and political reasons. He was of the opinion that France should concentrate on the campaign in Europe.

A short time afterwards a delegation of Lebanese Maronites and Greek Orthodox arrived in Athens and asked the Greek government to supply them with arms to start a revolt against the Ottomans or to assist an Allied landing force on the Lebanese coast. The Greek prime minister, Venizelos, agreed to give them 3,000–4,000 rifles with ammunition and even to supply a small ship to transport the arms to the Lebanon, on condition that the operation be carried out with the agreement of the French government. Delcassé, who was not prepared to allocate French forces for an invasion of Lebanon, agreed nonetheless to the Greek aid. The British however, expressed their opposition and claimed that the amount of rifles to be sent to Lebanon would not suffice for a clash with the Ottoman army. The French responded that they were aware of the fact that the Lebanese would not be able to hold out against the Ottomans, but at the same time they could not dishearten them and certainly could not oppose the Greek government’s supplying them with arms. To this the British responded sharply that it was extremely dangerous to encourage the Lebanese in such plans, even tacitly, because the Allies were in no condition to help them withstand any Ottoman reprisals which would follow a Lebanese revolt. A similar message was sent by the British to the Greek government.

In the meantime one of the Lebanese returned from Athens to the Lebanon in order to organize the landing of the weapons and ammunition. It had been prearranged that the arms would first go to Cyprus in a small ship and from there would be transferred to the Lebanese coast in small boats. Since Cyprus was under British rule it was necessary to obtain their agreement to the plan. Further discussions were held, and in the end the British consented while expressing open annoyance and sending a warning to the Lebanese to be aware of the dangerous situation in which they would find themselves should the Ottoman authorities discover the weapons and ammunition. At that point it was Delcassé who put an end to the plan when he decided that France must concentrate for the time being on the Western Front and had no interest in getting involved in an additional front in Syria.

The Lebanese plan was unrealistic and had it been put into action would have been doomed to failure. The Ottomans, who had suspicions of the Lebanese intentions and were apprehensive of French intervention in the wake of a revolt, entered Mount Lebanon on 22 November 1914 and deployed their soldiers there. They could not allow a French landing on the Lebanese coast, which would cut the supply line of the forces which were about to attack the Suez Canal.¹

The erroneous assessment by the Lebanese that a French invasion of the Syrian coast was near at hand caused many of them in Egypt to express their desire to enlist in the anticipated invasion force. Enlistment forms were distributed and the Lebanese journalist Ibrahim Salim al-Najjar began to organize a Lebanese volunteer force. Picot encouraged this, and the British authorities were not opposed to it at first either. Within three weeks about 3,000 volunteers had been gathered, of whom 400 started military training. The Lebanese volunteer force never left Cairo. It shortly became clear that France would not take any initiative of the type suggested by Picot, and Picot himself was constrained to cool down the enthusiasm of the Lebanese. They themselves began to express their apprehensions as to the advisability of joining the recruitment initiative and thereby placing their families at home in danger of reprisals, as long as the Allies had not clarified their intentions with regard to the Lebanon. Eventually, General Maxwell ordered a halt to the mobilization activity, and with this the episode of the Lebanese volunteer force came to an end.²

The Lebanese in Mount Lebanon and Egypt were not the only Lebanese to make plans for a revolt against the Ottomans in this period. Shukri Ghanim, the president of the Comité Libanais de Paris, asked the French foreign minister in September 1914 to instruct Picot to remain in the Lebanon even if the Ottoman Empire should enter the war on the side of Germany. His reason for this was that Picot’s “moral support” would help the Lebanese to defend themselves against an Ottoman invasion of their mountain. Ghanim expressed the opinion that it would be possible to mobilize 10–15,000 Lebanese combatants and to supply them with arms and ammunition by way of the port of Juniyya.³ Ghanim’s suggestion was, of course, not taken seriously, and Picot left his post of assignment immediately upon France’s declaration of war on the Empire.

In the beginning of November a delegation from the Lebanon League of Progress in New York came to the French ambassador in Washington and gave him a memorandum on the future of Lebanon. The French ambassador arranged a meeting of this delegation with the British ambassador and a representative of the Russian embassy so that the Lebanese could present their point of view to them. In the memorandum the members of the League expessed the aspiration of the Lebanese to be liberated from the Ottoman yoke and to gain their independence. They tried to convince the representatives of the Allies of the strategic importance of Mount Lebanon (that is, it lay across the route from Asia Minor to Egypt) and that it was an ideal site for stationing an invasion force. The Christians of the Lebanon, who made up 80 per cent of the population, were interested in helping the Allies to invade it and would be prepared to make sacrifices to achieve their freedom. Therefore, as soon as the Allied forces invaded Lebanon the local population would join them and open a revolt against the Ottomans. The authors of the memorandum purported to represent 150,000 Lebanese in North America, and claimed that they would be able to send thousands of volunteers to the Lebanon, if only they would be furnished with suitable means of transportation. They also asked the Allies to supply them with arms, ammunition, and officers.

The appeal of the Lebanese of New York did not receive a positive response, just as the other appeals of the Lebanese did not. The Allies were not ready at this stage to engage in war efforts of this type, whose chances of success were in question, and they felt that they must invest the better part of their energies in the main arenas of the war. The Lebanese did not give up. One of the authors of the memorandum, Major K. al-Aswad, appealed again in February 1915 to the British ambassador in Washington and expressed the desire of the Lebanese living in the United States to volunteer to fight the Ottomans. He suggested that a training camp be set up in Cyprus in which an organized Lebanese force would take shape and land on the Lebanese coast at the end of its training. He asked for Britain to finance the transportation of the volunteers to Cyprus and to arm them. The British foreign minister rejected the plan forthwith and instructed his ambassador in Washington not to encourage any initiatives of this sort. Other appeals during 1915 were rejected as well on the grounds that Britain could not engage in organizing an armed force on the territory of the United States, which was a neutral state.⁴

Also the Syrian community in Canada approached the Canadian government in early 1915 and informed it that a large number of Syrians in Canada, the United States, and South America wanted to volunteer in the British forces and to go to Egypt in order to fight for the liberation of Syria. They promised to enlist 30–50,000 volunteers. Nothing came of this appeal either.⁵

THE PLANS OF THE DECENTRALIZATION PARTY AND ITS EMISSARIES

After World War I broke out in Europe, and before it spread to the Middle East, the Syrian Decentralization Party and the Alliance Libanaise society of Cairo agreed to open a joint revolt against the Ottomans if and when the Empire should enter the war. The initiators of this joint activity were Iskandar ‘Ammun, who was vice-president of the Decentralization Party and president of the Alliance Libanaise, and Da’ud Barakat, who was among the founders of these two bodies and a member of the executive committee of both. The planned revolt was to start in Zahla, and according to ‘Abd al-Ghani al-‘Uraysi, a Beiruti member of the Decentralization Party, the French minister in Cairo promised them 20,000 rifles, three warships to cover the rebels, and French officers to direct the actions.

On 20 August 1914, the Decentralization Party sent the following letter to one of its branches in the Lebanon:

The Fatherland has never needed the help of its sons as much as it does in this difficult time in which the World War is raging … If the Empire should enter this war, and this seems certain to many, then it will never come out of it whole. This war will most likely bring it to its end … In this situation the Arab countries will face the same danger that the other Ottoman countries will face and even a much greater danger … Inasmuch as this is the appearance of things, it is encumbent upon us, the Arab community, to contemplate the means which will keep our independence from eradication…. Therefore we ask you to respond as soon as possible to the following questions:

1. What forces do you have that we can depend on in the hour of need in order to carry out a general action?

2. Will it be possible for you to collect funds and send them to us, or to hold them until needed? What sums will you be able to collect?

3. Can you provide a safe refuge for one or more persons who will be called upon to lead the national movement, and to assure their sustenance?

4. Can you send a reliable person who will represent your branch to a place that we will designate, so that he may receive necessary instructions?

5. If you cannot send anyone, do you see a need for a special messenger to come to you in order to deliver these instructions?

We ask that you respond immediately, for every minute that passes will be a minute lost to Arab lives. The time has come for us to sacrifice all we have for the life of the nation.

This letter later fell into the hands of Jamal Pasha, the commander of the Fourth Ottoman Army and ruler of the Levant (see below). The Shi‘ite sheikh Kamil al-As‘ad also informed him of this plan for revolt. Jamal Pasha expressed his astonishment that the Decentralization Party, which had a pan-Syrian tendency, should agree to cooperate with the Alliance Libanaise, which was generally working for the Lebanon alone. Evidently he was aware of the ideological difference between these two bodies and of the contradiction between the Syrian idea and the Lebanese idea. To this Kamil al-As‘ad answered: “They are working together because they believe that they must first of all realize their primary goal, and that is to struggle against the Ottoman Empire.”⁶

The British in Cairo, who were not at all pleased by the exclusiveness of the French contacts with the Syrian and Lebanese activists, began talks with prominent Muslim members of the Decentralization Party. Among them were Rafiq al-‘Azm, the president of the party, and Rashid Rida, the Muslim thinker, who was a member of its executive committee. The talks were held without the knowledge of the Christian members of the party (who were pro-French). They made it clear to the British that they were interested in the liberation of the Arab countries, even if it meant the collapse of the Empire. It was agreed that they would put their conditions for cooperation with the British in writing, and these would be conveyed to the British government. If the latter decided to accept the conditions, then it should make this known officially through the Reuter News Agency. In return for this the Arab societies would commit themselves to incite revolts in the Arab provinces of the Empire. It was also agreed that the party would send emissaries for this purpose to the various Arab centres. At the behest of Rashid Rida the British gave the party 1,000 Egyptian pounds to finance the sending of the emissaries.

As for their political plans at this time, according to one of the party members, they would be prepared to grant Britain priority in the Arab countries after their liberation and to be assisted by Britain in creating a modern government. According to this person they also planned to install a new caliph in Mecca, though this caliph would focus solely on the religious sphere, while the government would be placed in the hands of an amir or governor-general.

The members of the party began sending letters to their friends in the Empire, in which they explained that no one was to enlist on the side of the Turks in the war because it was contrary to Arab interests. They reported to them that the British were prepared to supply arms and ammunition for a revolt in Syria, and they appealed to the Arab soldiers to desert from the Ottoman army. In addition to this, on 26 October 1914, two pairs of emissaries of the party left for the purpose of inciting the Muslim Arabs of the Empire to revolt. The first pair, party member Sheikh Muhammad al-Qalqili and a student of Rashid Rida by the name of ‘Abd al-Rahman ‘Asim, left Alexandria headed for Beirut and Syria. They arrived in Beirut on an Italian mail boat and just then they found out that the Ottoman Empire had entered the war. Muhammad al-Qalqili was terror-stricken, and they returned immediately on the same boat to Alexandria.

The second pair, deputy secretary of the Party Muhibb al-Din al-Khatib and an Iraqi by the name of ‘Abd al-‘Aziz al-‘Atiqi, left Suez headed for the Persian Gulf, Ibn Sa‘ud in Arabia, and Iraq. The British Foreign Office did inform the India Office, which was responsible for this area, about the two emissaries. But as a result of lack of coordination, when these two arrived in Bushir in the Persian Gulf, they...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Introduction: Arab Societies before the War
• 1. Abortive Attempts
• 2. Negligence, Treachery, and Executions
• 3. Al-Fatat, al-‘Ahd, and the Origins of the Arab Revolt
• 4. ‘Aziz ‘Ali al-Misri and the Arab Revolt
• 5. The Arab Revolt: New Features
• 6. Syrians and Lebanese in Egypt
• 7. The Légion d‘Orient and Emigré Communities in America
• 8. The Final Month of the War
• Summary, Conclusions, and Epilogue
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index