Arab Revolt (1916-1918): Sharif Hussein and Lawrence of Arabia

The Arab Revolt was an uprising against the Ottoman Empire led by Sharif Hussein bin Ali of Mecca, which began in June 1916 and lasted until the Ottoman collapse in Syria in October 1918. Backed by British money, weapons and advisers, including the famous T. E. Lawrence, Arab forces drove the Ottomans from much of the Hejaz, captured Aqaba and entered Damascus. Its broken promises shaped the modern Middle East.

Background

When the Ottoman Empire entered the First World War on Germany’s side in late 1914, it controlled much of the Arab world, including Syria, Mesopotamia and the Hejaz, the western region of Arabia that contains Mecca and Medina. Since 1908 the Hashemite Hussein bin Ali had served as Sharif and Emir of Mecca, guardian of Islam’s holiest sites.

Relations between Hussein and the Young Turk government in Istanbul were tense. He feared being deposed, and the completion of the Hejaz Railway to Medina in 1908 had increased Ottoman military reach. In Syria, the governor Djemal Pasha hanged Arab nationalists in 1915 and 1916, which hardened opposition.

Britain wanted Arab support against the Ottomans, especially after the failure of the Gallipoli campaign. Between July 1915 and March 1916 Hussein exchanged letters with Sir Henry McMahon, British High Commissioner in Egypt. McMahon promised British support for Arab independence within boundaries that excluded certain areas, and the meaning of those exclusions is still argued over today.

The revolt begins

The revolt opened in June 1916, with an attack near Medina in early June and Hussein’s formal call to arms in Mecca on 10 June. Arab forces quickly took Mecca, and with the help of the Royal Navy captured the Red Sea port of Jeddah in June. Taif surrendered in September.

Medina was a different matter. Its strong Ottoman garrison under Fakhri Pasha, supplied by the railway, held out for the whole war and did not surrender until January 1919. Hussein’s sons commanded the main armies: Ali, Abdullah, Faisal and the youngest, Zeid.

In late 1916 the revolt was in danger as Ottoman troops advanced towards Mecca. British supplies, gold subsidies and a small number of officers helped stabilise it. One of them, Captain T. E. Lawrence of the Arab Bureau in Cairo, became liaison officer to Faisal, whom he judged the most capable of Hussein’s sons.

Aqaba and the desert war

In January 1917 Faisal’s forces moved north and took the coastal town of Wejh. From there Arab irregulars and British specialists began a long campaign of raids against the Hejaz Railway, blowing up track, bridges and trains. The aim was not to cut the line permanently but to tie down large Ottoman forces defending it.

The most famous operation was the capture of Aqaba, at the head of the Gulf of Aqaba. Rather than attack its sea-facing defences, a small force led by Auda abu Tayi of the Howeitat tribe, with Lawrence and Sharif Nasir, marched hundreds of kilometres through the desert to approach from inland. After defeating an Ottoman battalion at Aba el Lissan on 2 July, they entered Aqaba on 6 July 1917.

Aqaba became the base for Faisal’s Northern Arab Army, which now worked alongside General Edmund Allenby’s Egyptian Expeditionary Force. While Allenby took Beersheba and Jerusalem in late 1917, Arab forces fought in Transjordan, including a victory at Tafileh in January 1918, and attacked the railway around Ma’an.

The road to Damascus

In September 1918 Allenby launched the decisive Battle of Megiddo. Arab forces protected his eastern flank and cut the railway junction at Deraa. As the Ottoman armies collapsed, Arab and Australian troops reached Damascus at the end of September; Arab forces entered the city on 1 October 1918, and Faisal arrived on 3 October to set up an Arab administration.

The Armistice of Mudros on 30 October 1918 ended the war between the Allies and the Ottoman Empire.

British support and its limits

The revolt depended heavily on outside help. Britain supplied rifles, machine guns, mountain guns and armoured cars, and paid regular subsidies in gold, which kept tribal fighters in the field; estimates of the total cost run to several million pounds. Small teams of British, French and Egyptian specialists handled demolitions and artillery, and the Royal Navy transported troops and supplies along the Red Sea coast.

There were also limits to Arab military strength. Tribal irregulars were mobile and knew the desert well but often fought for limited periods and were reluctant to assault fortified positions. A more conventional force was built from Arab officers and soldiers who had deserted or been captured from the Ottoman army, led by men such as Ja’far al-Askari and Nuri al-Said, who later held high office in Iraq.

The revolt’s main military value lay in tying down Ottoman troops. Tens of thousands of soldiers remained in Medina and along the railway rather than facing Allenby in Palestine, and the guerrilla campaign protected the British right flank during the advance into Syria.

Key people

• Sharif Hussein bin Ali (c. 1853-1931), Emir of Mecca, who proclaimed himself King of the Arab Lands; the Allies recognised him only as King of the Hejaz.
• Emir Faisal (1885-1933), Hussein’s third son and the revolt’s main field commander, later King of Iraq.
• T. E. Lawrence (1888-1935), British officer and liaison, later author of Seven Pillars of Wisdom.
• Auda abu Tayi, leader of the Howeitat, central to the Aqaba march.
• Fakhri Pasha, Ottoman commander who defended Medina until 1919.

Aftermath

Hussein and Faisal expected an independent Arab kingdom, but Britain and France had already agreed to divide the region in the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916, and Britain’s Balfour Declaration of 1917 supported a Jewish national home in Palestine.

After the war the region was divided into League of Nations mandates. Faisal was proclaimed King of Syria in March 1920, but French forces defeated his army at Maysalun in July and expelled him. Britain then made him King of Iraq in 1921, and his brother Abdullah became Emir of Transjordan, later the Kingdom of Jordan. Hussein, increasingly isolated, lost the Hejaz to Ibn Saud in 1924-1925.

Myths and facts

The 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia made the revolt world-famous but presented it largely through one Englishman. In reality the revolt was planned and led by Hussein and his sons, and Arab tribal leaders and former Ottoman Arab officers did most of the fighting. Lawrence’s own account, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, is a vivid literary work but not always reliable in its details.

It is also sometimes claimed that the revolt was a mass uprising of all Arabs. In fact support varied by region and tribe, many Arabs continued to serve in the Ottoman army, and the fighting forces were usually a few thousand regulars supported by fluctuating numbers of tribal irregulars.

Timeline

• 1915, July - 1916, March: The Hussein-McMahon correspondence.
• 1916, 10 June: Sharif Hussein proclaims the revolt in Mecca.
• 1916, October: T. E. Lawrence first meets Faisal.
• 1917, January: Arab forces capture Wejh.
• 1917, 6 July: Aqaba falls to Arab forces.
• 1918, January: Arab victory at Tafileh.
• 1918, 1 October: Arab forces enter Damascus.
• 1919, January: Fakhri Pasha surrenders Medina.

Why it matters

The Arab Revolt helped end four centuries of Ottoman rule in the Arab lands and gave rise to the Hashemite monarchies of Iraq and Jordan. The gap between wartime promises and the post-war settlement left a lasting sense of betrayal that still colours views of Western involvement in the Middle East.