The declaration of the Arab Revolt and its course

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.