Arab Revolt
Sharif Hussein of Mecca revolted against the Ottoman Empire in June 1916 on British promises that were incompatible with British commitments elsewhere. Hussein was the Hashemite guardian of the holy cities and a subject of the Sultan, who was also the Caliph — which is why the revolt needed the religious argument that the Young Turk government was insufficiently Islamic. The negotiations with Sir Henry McMahon in Cairo through 1915 and 1916 produced letters promising British support for Arab independence in an area defined by exclusions whose meaning has been argued about ever since, particularly whether Palestine was inside or outside it. While those letters were being written, Britain and France agreed the Sykes-Picot partition of the same territory, and in November 1917 Balfour promised a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine. Militarily the revolt did what was asked. Some 5,000 regulars and a larger tribal force, advised by British officers including T. E. Lawrence and supplied with gold and rifles, took Aqaba by an inland march in July 1917, and then tied down tens of thousands of Ottoman troops guarding the Hejaz railway rather than fighting Allenby. Faisal's forces entered Damascus in October 1918. The settlement gave France Syria and Lebanon and Britain Palestine, Transjordan and Iraq as mandates. Faisal was expelled from Damascus by the French in 1920 and made king of Iraq by the British. Hussein lost the Hejaz to Ibn Saud in 1925. The gap between what was promised and what was delivered is the origin of a durable Arab reading of European good faith, and the mandate borders drawn then are substantially the state borders of the region now.
- Year: 1916 CE
- Category: Military
