Arab Revolt

On the basis of the McMahon–Hussein Correspondence, exchanged between Henry McMahon of the United Kingdom and Hussein bin Ali of the Kingdom of Hejaz, the rebellion against the ruling Turks was officially initiated at Mecca on 10 June 1916.^[a] The primary goal of the Arab rebels was to establish an independent and unified Arab state stretching from Aleppo to Aden, which the British government had promised to recognize.^[11]


The Sharifian Army, led by Hussein and the Hashemites with backing from the British military's Egyptian Expeditionary Force, successfully fought and expelled the Ottoman military presence from much of the Hejaz and Transjordan. By 1918, the rebels had captured Damascus and proclaimed the Arab Kingdom of Syria, a short-lived monarchy that was led by Hussein's son Faisal I.


Having covertly signed the Sykes–Picot Agreement with the French Third Republic, the British reneged on their promise to support the Arabs' establishment of a singular Arab state.^[12] Instead, the Arab-majority Ottoman territories of the Middle East were broken up into a number of League of Nations mandates, jointly controlled by the British and the French. Amidst the partition of the Ottoman Empire, the defeated Ottomans' mainland in Anatolia came under a joint military occupation by the victorious Allies, though this was gradually broken by the Turkish War of Independence, which established the present-day Republic of Turkey.

Forces[edit]

It is estimated that the Arab forces involved in the revolt numbered around 5,000 soldiers.^[16] This number however probably applies to the Arab regulars who fought during the Sinai and Palestine campaign with Edmund Allenby's Egyptian Expeditionary Force, and not the irregular forces under the direction of T. E. Lawrence^[17] and Faisal. On a few occasions, particularly during the final campaign into Syria, this number would grow significantly. The Arab Bureau of the British Empire in Cairo believed that the revolt would draw the support of all Arabs throughout the Ottoman Empire and Arab lands.^[18][19] Faisal and Sharif Hussein reportedly expected to be joined by 100,000 Arab troops. However, the large desertions predicted British Arab Bureau never materialized as the majority of Arab officers remained loyal to the Ottomans until the end.^[18][20] Many Arabs joined the Revolt sporadically, often as a campaign was in progress or only when the fighting entered their home region.^[21] During the Battle of Aqaba, for instance, while the initial Arab force numbered only a few hundred, over a thousand more from local tribes joined them for the final assault on Aqaba. Estimates of Faisal's effective forces vary, but through most of 1918 at least, they may have numbered as high as 30,000 men.


The Hashemite Army comprised two distinctive forces: tribal irregulars who waged a guerrilla war against the Ottoman Empire and the Sharifian Army, which was recruited from Ottoman Arab POWs and fought in conventional battles.^[22] Hashemite forces were initially poorly equipped, but later were to receive significant supplies of weapons, most notably rifles and machine guns from Britain and France.^[23]


In the early days of the revolt, Faisal's forces were largely made up of Bedouins and other nomadic desert tribes, who were only loosely allied, loyal more to their respective tribes than the overall cause.^[24] The Bedouin would not fight unless paid in advance with gold coin,^[25] and by the end of 1916, the French had spent 1.25 million gold francs in subsidizing the revolt.^[24] By September 1918, the British were spending £220,000/month to subsidize the revolt.^[24]


Faisal had hoped that he could convince Arab troops serving in the Ottoman Army to mutiny and join his cause, but the Ottoman government sent most of its Arab troops to the Western front-lines of the war, and thus only a handful of deserters actually joined the Arab forces until later in the campaign.^[26]


By the beginning of the First World War, Arab conscripts constituted about 30% of the wartime Ottoman military of 3 million, serving in all ranks from the lowest to the highest and forming a crucial component of the Ottoman Army.^[19][27] Ottoman troops in the Hejaz numbered 20,000 men by 1917.^[26] At the outbreak of the revolt in June 1916, the VII Corps of the Fourth Army was stationed in the Hejaz to be joined by the 58th Infantry Division commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Ali Necib Pasha, the 1st Kuvvie- Mürettebe (Provisional Force) led by General Mehmed Cemal Pasha, which had the responsibility of safeguarding the Hejaz railway and the Hejaz Expeditionary Force (Turkish: Hicaz Kuvve-i Seferiyesi), which was under the command of General Fakhri Pasha.^[26] In face of increasing attacks on the Hejaz railway, the 2nd Kuvve i Mürettebe was created by 1917.^[26] The Ottoman force included a number of Arab units who stayed loyal to the Sultan-Caliph and fought well against the Allies.^[26][b]


The Ottoman troops enjoyed an advantage over the Hashemite troops at first in that they were well supplied with modern German weapons.^[26] In addition, the Ottoman forces had the support of both the Ottoman Aviation Squadrons, air squadrons from Germany and the Ottoman Gendarmerie or zaptı.^[29] Moreover, the Ottomans relied upon the support of Emir Saud bin Abdulaziz Al Rashid of the Emirate of Jabal Shammar, whose tribesmen dominated what is now northern Saudi Arabia and tied down both the Hashemites and Saʻudi forces with the threat of their raiding attacks.^[30]


The great weakness of the Ottoman forces was they were at the end of a long and tenuous supply line in the form of the Hejaz railway, and because of their logistical weaknesses, were often forced to fight on the defensive.^[26] Ottoman offensives against the Hashemite forces more often faltered due to supply problems than to the actions of the enemy.^[26]


The main contribution of the Arab Revolt to the war was to pin down tens of thousands of Ottoman troops who otherwise might have been used to attack the Suez Canal and conquering Damascus, allowing the British to undertake offensive operations with a lower risk of counter-attack. This was indeed the British justification for supporting the revolt, a textbook example of asymmetric warfare that has been studied time and again by military leaders and historians alike.^[31]