Lesson 29: The First World War, the Great Arab Revolt and the Sykes-Picot Agreement

01The fate of the Ottoman state in the war

• The Ottoman state entered the First World War on the side of Germany and Austria, hoping to recover what the Entente powers (England and France) had cut off from it, and to save itself and the Arab provinces still in its hands from the plans to divide them among the Entente.
• In the first days of the war the Ottoman fleet, reinforced by two German warships, bombarded the Russian ports of Odessa and Sebastopol, proclaiming the sacred "jihad" in November 1914.
• This call had a strong echo among Muslims and was disturbing for England, which ruled India and South-East Asia — at least some fifty million Muslims.

02The Arab stand

• The proclamation of jihad aroused enthusiasm in the Arab lands, then caution spread among their leaders: the crisis between the Arabs and the Turks was still live, and the First Arab Congress in Paris had not produced a satisfactory settlement.
• An intellectual current grew that called for hesitation in giving real support to the Ottoman state and for contacting all the parties concerned to learn their position on the Arab demands.
• The most prominent of the Arab roles during the war was that of Sharif Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca.

03The Arab Revolt (1916): its background

Hussein and the building of an Arab state

• Hussein bin Ali had worked to build an Arab state ever since the sharifate of Mecca was entrusted to him after the 1908 coup against the Ottoman Sultan, and he carried on a political activity of relatively wide range inside the Peninsula and beyond it.
• His son Prince Abdullah contacted Sir Ronald Storrs — the Eastern Secretary in the British High Agent's administration in Cairo — to sound out the British authorities on the Turkish attempt to remove the Sharif from his position.
• The English showed sympathy with the Sharif, and once the war came the channels of communication between the sharifate of Mecca and the High Agency in Cairo became active.

A problem for the English

• The British Government of India preferred to come to terms with Abdel Aziz al-Saud in Riyadh, while the Government of London was keen to come to terms with the Sharif.
• Both Abdel Aziz bin Saud and Sharif Hussein rejected the Ottoman theory of the state as the representative of the general Islamic state (the Caliphate) — the theory which the English themselves were adopting at the time.
• London found that Sharif Hussein, with his position in Mecca and his lineage and descent, was the one qualified to declare a resounding revolt and to launch a call of jihad counter to the Sultan's call.

04The Hussein-McMahon correspondence (1915 / 1916)

• Sharif Hussein and Henry McMahon, the British High Agent, exchanged correspondence (1915–1916); the Sharif expressed his ambitions and the views of some of the Syrian Arab leaders.

The Arab demands

• That the Sharif take over the Islamic Caliphate instead of the Ottoman Caliph.
• The independence of the Arab lands from Mersin and Adana in the north to the Iraqi–Persian frontier and the Arabian Gulf in the east, and the Arabian Peninsula and Syria — that is, setting up an Arab state including Iraq, Syria and well-nigh the Arabian Peninsula.

The British position

• The English rejected the demand about the Caliphate and rejected his request to be king over the Arabs, on the plea that many sheikhdoms of the Peninsula were bound by treaties with Britain and would not agree to any change in their status.
• Abdel Aziz bin Saud had made the treaty of Darin with England in 1915, and so had the Idrisi, ruler of Asir, and the rulers of Oman and the sheikhdoms of the coast (today's Emirates) — so only the Hejaz was left to be under the Sharif's sovereignty, on the basis that Yemen was independent.
• As for Syria, the High Agent pointed out that France had interests in what lay west of Hama, Aleppo, Homs and Damascus; and since the southern part of Iraq (Basra) had fallen to the English forces, he excluded it from the Sharif's project; he also excluded Mersin and Adana from the Arab state on the ground that they were not Arab.

05The declaration of the Arab Revolt and its course

• The Sharif found the British position hardened, at the same time as the Turks entrusted the government of Jeddah to Wajih Pasha, who was planning to remove the Sharif because he delayed in actually committing his troops alongside the Ottoman forces under Jamal Pasha on the Egyptian front.
• Jamal Pasha lost the battle and turned savagely on the Arabs: he arrested the leaders of the Arab movement in Syria, on the strength of documents found in the French consulate incriminating them of conspiracy with the enemies of the state; they were tried and sentenced to death en masse.
• The Sharif saw that if he did not declare the revolt the Turks would fall upon him, so he declared the revolt in June 1916 without having won from the English any explicit recognition of the Arabs' right to independence, trusting the English and the Allies to judge well the Arabs' stand in their support — whereas neither the English nor the Allies weighed anything but their own interests first.
• He proclaimed jihad against the Turks, and his forces succeeded in clearing the Turkish military presence out of the Hejaz except the garrison of Medina; his forces marched north and took Aqaba.
• The Arab legion led by his son Prince Faisal made for Jerusalem and entered Damascus, then Homs, Hama and Aleppo, while at the same time the English forces pushed the Ottoman forces before them in Iraq until they took Baghdad.
• The Ottoman state announced its wish to stop the fighting, so the armistice of Mudros was concluded (November 1918), and after it the English forces took Mosul.

06The Sykes-Picot agreement (1916)

The plot exposed

• While the Arab forces under Prince Faisal bin Hussein were winning victories in Syria, a wide-scale plot against the Arabs came to light.
• Bolshevik (communist) Russia, after leaving the war following the Bolshevik revolution, leaked the texts of a triple agreement made by Tzarist Russia with England and France to divide the Ottoman state's possessions.
• Bolshevik Russia declared its rejection of this plot, so what remained was an agreement between England and France only, known as Sykes–Picot.

Its clauses: dividing the Fertile Crescent

• An international regime was to be established in Palestine.
• The desert Arab region was divided between Iraq and Syria into two spheres of influence: one British and one French.

Implementing the agreement

• Prince Faisal prevented the Arab forces from entering Beirut, and England allowed France to land its troops there and the Arab flag that had been raised was hauled down.
• Despite the efforts of Sharif Hussein (king of the Hejaz) to win the members of the Peace Conference to the cause of Arab independence, he and his sons Faisal and Abdullah met the most stubborn attitudes.
• The Allies held a conference at San Remo (1920) which decided to revise Sykes–Picot so that the whole of Iraq and Palestine should be under a British mandate and Syria and Lebanon under a French mandate.

07The fall of the kingdom of the Hejaz and the Hejaz under Saudi rule

• After the Sharif's forces had succeeded in overturning Ottoman rule in Syria to proclaim the great Arab state, he faced heavy military pressure from Abdel Aziz al-Saud.
• Abdel Aziz destroyed the Sharif's forces in the first clash at Turbah (1919) and pursued his expansion, dealing the final blow to the House of Rashid and annexing Hail (1921).
• He then took Taif (1924) and the cities of the Hejaz fell one after another, until the Sharif was obliged to leave the Hejaz, which Abdel Aziz annexed and gave himself the title of King of the Hejaz and Sultan of Najd and its dependencies (January 1926).
• He next looked to settle the dispute over Asir, which was under the rule of the House of Idris (the Idrisis), while Imam Yahya Hamid al-Din worked to control it against the Al-Saud, who regarded it as part of the Saudi state.
• Attempts at a settlement between the Saudi and Yemeni sides failed, war broke out between them, and Abdel Aziz won; Asir became part of the Saudi state under the Saudi–Yemeni treaty of Taif of 1934.

08Exam traps and key takeaways

• Ottoman entry into the war had two aims: recover what the Entente had taken, and save itself and its remaining Arab provinces from being divided — not to support Germany for its own sake.
• The jihad proclamation came with the bombardment of Odessa and Sebastopol by the Ottoman fleet backed by two German warships (November 1914); it disturbed Britain because of about 50 million Muslims in India and South-East Asia.
• Arab leaders moved from enthusiasm to caution because the Arab–Turkish crisis was unresolved and the First Arab Congress at Paris had failed.
• Hussein's aim pre-dated the war: he worked for an Arab state from his appointment as Sharif after the 1908 coup; the first British contact came through Prince Abdullah → Sir Ronald Storrs (Eastern Secretary, Cairo).
• Two British centres disagreed: India favoured Ibn Saud; London favoured the Sharif — and both Sharif and Ibn Saud rejected the Ottoman claim to represent the universal Islamic state, which Britain itself held.
• Correspondence is dated 1915–1916. Arab demands = Caliphate + independence from Mersin/Adana to the Persian border and Gulf. British refusals: no Caliphate, no "king of the Arabs" because of the treaty sheikhdoms (Darin 1915 with Ibn Saud, the Idrisi, Oman, the coast).
• Excluded from the Arab state: west of Hama, Aleppo, Homs and Damascus (French interests), Basra (already occupied), and Mersin and Adana ("not Arab"); only the Hejaz remained, since Yemen was independent.
• Immediate causes of the revolt: Wajih Pasha's plan to remove the Sharif and Jamal Pasha's mass arrests and death sentences on the Arab leaders of Syria after the French-consulate documents. Revolt declared June 1916 — before any explicit British recognition.
• Course: Turkish presence cleared except the Medina garrison → Aqaba → Faisal's legion to Jerusalem, Damascus, Homs, Hama, Aleppo; the British took Baghdad; Mudros armistice November 1918, after which Mosul fell to Britain.
• Sykes–Picot was triple (Russia–England–France) as signed and became double when Bolshevik Russia exposed and renounced it. Britain got Haifa and Acre and the Basra–Baghdad provinces; France got the coast west of the four cities plus southern Anatolia with Adana and Alexandretta and Mosul's zone; Palestine = international regime; the desert split into two spheres of influence.
• San Remo 1920 moved the whole of Iraq and Palestine to Britain and Syria and Lebanon to France as mandates — the shift from spheres to mandates is the point.
• Hejaz dates: Turbah 1919 · Hail 1921 · Taif 1924 · King of the Hejaz January 1926 · Asir settled by the Taif treaty 1934.