Faisal bin Al Hussein: The King who sat on the thrones of Syria and Iraq

On October 3, 1932, Iraq joined the League of Nations as an "independent" country, more than a decade after Britain installed Faisal bin Al Hussein as king.

About 14 years before that day, specifically on October 4, 1918, Faisal had entered Damascus to end the Ottoman control over the country, which lasted 400 years, and later sat on the throne of the Syrian Arab Kingdom, which was short-lived, but included all of the Levant.

Who is Faisal bin Sharif Hussein bin Ali , who sat on the thrones of Iraq and Syria ?

The Encyclopedia Britannica says that Faisal bin Hussein was born on May 20, 1885 in Mecca, which was part of the Ottoman Empire at the time, and he died on September 8, 1933 in Bern, Switzerland, and he was a statesman and king of Iraq (1921-1933), as he was Pioneer of the advancement of Arab nationalism during and after World War I.

His father, Hussein bin Ali, was the Emir and Sharif of Mecca, who ruled the Hejaz from 1916 to 1924.

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The First World War provided an opportunity for rebellion for many Arab leaders who were dissatisfied with Ottoman rule, including some Syrian Arabs who looked to Sharif Hussein bin Ali for leadership and in 1915 his son Faisal traveled to Damascus to reach an understanding with the secret Arab Nationalist Societies There is about the conditions under which you will support an Arab revolution led by Sharif Hussein.

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Faisal's ability to meet with diverse groups previously unknown to him, and to gain their recognition of Sharif Hussein as an Arab leader, indicated the emergence of Arab nationalism.

Shift to the Middle East

After the Ottoman Empire sided with Germany in World War I, the Allies decided to push the Ottomans out of the war.

The plan was simple: to sail a huge fleet through the narrow Dardanelles strait that connects the Mediterranean with Istanbul.

By seizing the Ottoman capital, the empire would be severely weakened, and it might even have to surrender.

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The Allies made plans to invade by land rather than sea to seize the area and ensure the fleet's safe passage.

That battle had begun on February 17, 1915 and ended on January 9, 1916 in the Turkish Gallipoli Peninsula during the Allied attempt to capture Constantinople (Istanbul) during World War I.

The campaign involved British, French, Indian, New Zealand, Australian and Canadian forces against the forces of the Ottoman Empire supported by Germany and eventually forced the Allies to withdraw.

The plan failed miserably, as the fleet was huge, but it was very old, and many ships were damaged or sunk thanks to the Ottoman cannons and mines, forcing them to retreat.

About 141,000 soldiers were killed in the battle, including 86,000 Turkish soldiers and 55,000 Allied soldiers, including 10,000 Australian and New Zealand soldiers. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers from both sides were injured.

After the Battle of Gallipoli, the Allies turned their attention to invading the Middle East for control of the region that currently includes Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.

The period between July 1915 and March 1916 witnessed the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence, where Sir Henry McMahon, British High Commissioner in Egypt, and Prince Sharif Hussein bin Ali, Prince of Mecca at the time, exchanged letters in which the British made certain pledges towards the Arabs in exchange for Arab support for the British against the Ottomans during the war.

The Great Arab Revolt

And in June 1916 the Arab revolt against Turkey, an ally of Germany, which the British worked hard to encourage, began.

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The spark for that revolt erupted when, in June 1916, Arab fighters untrained in combat operations like regular soldiers launched an attack on the Ottoman garrisons in Mecca and Medina.

When the attack failed to achieve any success, the attacking forces retreated after a few days and imposed a siege on the two garrisons, and it did not take long for the Mecca garrison to surrender, so Britain sent military reinforcements to help the Arab forces, including an artillery battalion that came from Egypt, which was under British occupation and actively participated in The conquest of Mecca in July 1916.

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But the city's garrison eluded the attackers because supplies continued to reach it from Syria via the Hejaz Railway, and Turkish forces reinforced their forces in the city.

After that, the Turkish forces prepared to march on Mecca to eliminate the rebellion there, and those forces clashed with Arab fighters led by Prince Faisal bin Sharif Hussein bin Ali, and the Turkish forces succeeded in reaching a distance of 30 km from the port of Rabigh on the Red Sea, and the Arab forces failed to stop the advance of the forces Turkish regular.

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The Arab forces resorted to attacking the back line of supply to the Turkish forces, which is the Hejaz Railway, which extends for about 1,300 km, the distance between the city and Damascus.

In October 1916, Sharif Hussein bin Ali declared himself "King of Arabia", although the Allies officially recognized him only as King of the Hejaz.

In early 1917, Faisal's forces left Mecca and Rabigh and headed north towards the "Wajh" area, 320 km north of Mecca. Even before these forces fought any battle against the Turkish forces, panic had spread in the latter's ranks, and their forces withdrew from the outskirts of Rabigh to Medina.

Half of the Turkish forces entrenched in the city, led by General Omar Fakhreddin Pasha, resisted Arab attacks and maintained their positions until early 1919, while the other half were deployed along the Hejaz Railway with the aim of protecting it from attacks by Arab tribesmen.

The British navy and aviation also participated in the bombing of Turkish targets on the coast of the Red Sea. The Arab forces managed to control all the Red Sea ports and cities, and hundreds of Turkish soldiers were arrested, who were later involved in the battles against the Turkish forces.

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Britain and France sent soldiers from Egypt, North Africa and India to in the battles against the Turkish forces, and one of the most prominent leaders who participated in the battles in terms of direction and leadership was Lawrence of Arabia.

In 1917, Prince Faisal's forces, under the direction of Lawrence of Arabia, launched a lightning attack on the port of Aqaba and seized it. The Arab forces succeeded in occupying an area of ​​160,000 square kilometers without incurring any significant losses.

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This was the first major victory for Faisal's forces due to the strategic importance of the port of Aqaba on the Red Sea, and the success continued as they gradually made their way north.

British intelligence officer Thomas Edward Lawrence had gone to Arabia and worked with the Arab irregular forces for two consecutive years. Lawrence became a liaison officer and advisor to Faisal, the son of the revolutionary leader, Sharif Hussein bin Ali, in Mecca.

Known as Lawrence of Arabia, Lawrence was a distinguished tactician and a very influential theorist in the guerrilla war against the Turks.

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His small but effective irregulars attacked Turkish communications and supply routes and prevented thousands of Turkish troops in the fight against the Allied forces led by General Edward Allenby.

Lawrence's ultimate goal was to help the Arabs achieve the military success that would lead to postwar self-government.

On October 4, 1918, Faisal at the head of his forces entered Damascus, ending 400 years of Ottoman control.

The battles between the Arab forces and the Turkish army continued until the end of 1918 amid a continuous retreat by the Turks until the war ended with the Mudros Agreement between the Allies and the Ottoman Sultanate, according to which the battles between the two sides were ended.

With the end of the war and the cessation of battles, 35,000 Turkish soldiers were captured by the Arab forces, while a similar number of them were killed and wounded.

Syrian Kingdom

After the end of World War I and the victory of the Allies and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Hussein represented his third son Faisal at the Versailles Peace Conference, but he refused to ratify the Treaty of Versailles (1919), rejecting the mandate of Syria, Palestine and Iraq by France and Britain.

In fact, the Mandate regimes were preceded by steps taken during the First World War. In May 1916, Britain, France and Russia reached the Sykes-Picot Agreement, according to which the greater part of Palestine would be internationalized.

To further complicate the situation, Arthur Balfour, then British Minister of Foreign Affairs, wrote to Lord Lionel Walter Rothschild (the Balfour Declaration) expressing his sympathy for "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people with the understanding that nothing shall be done that would prejudice the the civil and religious rights of the non-Jewish communities in Palestine.

It is noteworthy that Lawrence attended the conference with Faisal, and he hoped that the borders in the Arab Mashreq would be redrawn based on his knowledge of the areas concerned and their inhabitants. He put forward proposals to cancel the partition plan agreed upon in 1916 between Sir Mark Sykes and François Picot, representatives of Britain and France.

Lawrence proposed two separate governments for the Kurdish and Arab regions of present-day Iraq. He also proposed two separate governments for the Arabs in Mesopotamia and the Armenians in Syria.

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During the years 1915 and 1916, Lawrence studied the reports and information received from all those regions in depth.

He later discussed the political future of the region with volunteers from Syria and Mesopotamia.

However, the British and the French had agreed, before the start of the Paris Conference, on the future of the Arab lands that were subject to Turkey.

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On March 20, 1920, delegates from Palestine attended the Syrian General Conference in Damascus, which issued a resolution rejecting the Balfour Declaration and elected Faisal I, the son of Sharif Hussein bin Ali, as king of the united Syria (including Palestine).

But a few weeks later the Allies divided the former territories of the defeated Ottoman Empire at the Peace Conference held in San Remo, Italy, in April 1920.

The young kingdom of Syria was divided by placing Syria and Lebanon under French tutelage and Palestine under British tutelage (or mandate).

In January of 1920, Faisal returned to Damascus, which was very dissatisfied with the news of the French claims of its mandate over Syria, and soon France invaded the Kingdom of Faisal and occupied Damascus in July of 1920 after the Battle of Maysaloun, and Faisal was forced to go into exile. Finally, he went to London at the invitation of the British government.

King of Iraq

The Encyclopedia Britannica says that in the meantime, Britain established a sphere of influence in Iraq. In 1917, during the First World War, Britain occupied the states of Basra, Baghdad and Mosul, and was affiliated with the Ottoman Empire.

However, Iraq witnessed an uprising against the British in May of 1920 (the Twentieth Revolution), when the Iraqi people felt that the promises made to them of independence had been undone, and it required the deployment of more than 100,000 British and Indian soldiers.

The revolution spread throughout the country and was suppressed with great difficulty. The confrontations resulted in the deaths of thousands of Iraqis and the deaths of hundreds of British and Indian soldiers. The military campaign cost Britain tens of millions of pounds, money that it could not afford after the Great War.

A new way of taking control of Iraq was needed, and Winston Churchill, as Secretary of War in Lloyd George's coalition government, proposed massive cuts to the military budget while tightening his grip from the air.

The situation was so bad that the British commander, General Sir Aylmer Haldane, at one point requested a supply of poison gas.

Indiscriminate air power was used to suppress the uprising of the tribesmen in the region, and methods were used which the British admitted did not make them friends, and as one said that these methods planted an inexhaustible hatred of the British among the people of the region and a desire for revenge.

To ease resistance to British rule, Britain decided in March 1921 to sponsor Faisal as the representative of Iraq in order to conclude a treaty with him that provided eventual independence. Faisal accepted the plan and was enthusiastically welcomed in Iraq, where he was crowned in August 1921, according to Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica adds that Faisal bin Al Hussein's ability to gain widespread support in Iraq and Syria has been a constant indicator of nationalist sentiment among Arabs in the Fertile Crescent (Iraq and the Levant).

Indeed, as an Arab leader with no definite political roots in Iraq, Faisal drew his powers and showed an appreciation for British friendship while maintaining his full credentials among Arab nationalists enthusiastic about him as a leader.

The three separate states (Basra, Baghdad and Mosul) were united under the Hashemite King Faisal, who came from the Hijaz in the Arabian Peninsula.

The new Iraq was a complex mixture of ethnic and religious groups and natural geographical differences.

And there remained other contentious issues. The Iraqis resented greatly the borders imposed on them, which meant limited access for Iraq to the waters of the Gulf.

Encyclopedia Britannica says that Faisal, from his position of influence, negotiated with Britain a series of treaties culminating in a treaty that enabled Iraq to achieve "independence" and membership in the League of Nations by 1932.

The British had imposed a monarchy and a form of democracy, but even after formal independence was granted in 1930, most Iraqis believed that the British were actually running the country.

King Faisal I remained on the throne until his death on September 8, 1933.

hashemite family

The monarchy lived in Iraq until 1958, when King Ghazi I, the son of Faisal, sat on the throne after the death of his father until 1939. Then Prince Abdul-Ilah al-Hashemi took over the throne of the young crown prince, Faisal II, until he reached the legal age in 1953 and continued to rule until 1958. When he was killed in the coup of Abd al-Karim Qasim on 14 July of that year, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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The Ibn al-Hussein faction has three brothers, Ali, Abdullah and Zaid. Ali succeeded his father in 1924 as the second king of the Hejaz, but he abdicated in the following year after the defeat at the hands of the Saudis, and Abdullah became king of Transjordan (later Jordan).

Faisal bin Al Hussein had witnessed the end of the rule of the Hashemite family in the Hijaz.

The Encyclopedia Britannica says that in March 1924 Sharif Hussein bin Ali established himself as the Caliph of the Muslims, but war with Abdulaziz Al Saud was imminent, and the Brotherhood of Obedience to God loyal to the Al Saud launched an attack on Taif in September of that year, and there was no Sharif Hussein bin Ali ready to repel that attack.

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The Al Saud forces succeeded in entering Taif and Mecca in 1924. On October 5 of that year, Sharif Hussein bin Ali abdicated the throne to his eldest son Ali, and the British transferred him to Cyprus.

It is noteworthy that Jeddah withstood the siege of the Al Saud forces until December 17, 1925, and with its fall, the Kingdom of Hejaz fell.

Sharif Hussein bin Ali lived in Cyprus until 1930, then returned to the Middle East to live with his son Abdullah in Transjordan, where he died in 1931.