The "Great" Arab Revolt
The Great Arab Revolt was a costly public relations stunt. The most important result was making T.E. Lawrence famous. It cost millions of pounds, thousands of rifles, millions of bullets and tons of food and had very little military importance. The Sharif family received the deal of the century but were unable to keep all the spoils after the war.
The Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF) commanded by General Edmund Allenby reached a total strength of approximately 200,000 men by late 1917. It included British, Australian, New Zealand, Indian, and South African troops, along with a significant Egyptian labour corps. There were at least 60,000 infantry and 12,000 cavalry andutilized 46,000 horses and 20,000 camels. The campaign began with an attack on Beersheba on 31st October 1917. At dusk a daring mounted bayonet charge by the 4th Australian Light Horse Brigade took the town and broke the Turks. Jerusalem was captured on 9 December 1917. Allenby, deeply religious, entered the city on foot. In September 1918 the Turkish line was broken at Megiddo and the Ottoman Empire surrendered on 30th October.
Between 300 to 400,000 Arabs served in the Ottoman army in WW1 many in Gallipoli and Palestine.
Lloyd George, who became Prime Minister of Great Britain in 1916 (until 1922) gave evidence (secretly) at the Peel Commission in April 1937:
'What about the Arabs? The Arabs have done well out of the allied victory. No race has done better out of the fidelity with which the Allies redeemed their promises to the oppressed races,' he proclaimed. Owing chiefly to British and Allied sacrifices, the Arabs now had four independent states - Iraq, Syria, Transjordan and Saudi Arabia - 'although most of the Arab races fought throughout the War for their Turkish oppressors.'
'The Palestinian Arabs fought for Turkish rule,' he emphasised, disregarding the 2,000 who had joined the British-sponsored anti-Ottoman revolt led by Hussein, Sherif of Mecca, and his son Feisal. Through Mark Sykes (of Sykes-Picot fame) and T.E. Lawrence ('of Arabia'), he said, Britain informed Hussein and Feisal of the planned Declaration.[11]
'We could not get in touch with the Palestinian Arabs as they were fighting against us. The Arab leaders did not offer any objections, so long as the rights of the Arabs were respected,' Lloyd George explained. 'There was a twofold undertaking given to them, that the establishment of a Jewish National Home would not in any way, firstly, affect the civil or religious rights of the general population of Palestine; secondly, would not diminish the general prosperity of that population. Those were the only pledges we gave to the Arabs.'
The ex-premier challenged any critic of Britain's Palestine policy to point to an instance in which non-Jewish civil or religious rights had been compromised, and he marshalled statistics on revenue, exports, wages, land prices, public health and a half-dozen other indicators of the land's newfound prosperity. 'There can be no doubt that the Arab population of Palestine has profited enormously by the Zionist enterprise.'
No more than 5,000 Arabs fought in the Arab Revolt. They captured Aqaba,
Arab forces led by Emir Faisal, supported by T.E. Lawrence, were allowed to enter Damascus on October 1, 1918, after the Australian Light Horse had moved through the city going north towards the Turks at Homs and Aleppo beforehand. The city experienced chaos, looting, and breakdowns in law and order. The desert tribesmen began looting Ottoman stores, buildings, and looting anf killing the sick and wounded Turkish soldiers in hospital. The situation was so chaotic that Allenby moved quickly, sent in the Light Horse and installed a military government to restore public services and impose order. The soldiers quickly stabilized the city. Faisal was setting up a government with local notables in Damascus, who quickly shifted their allegiance. By October 4, T.E. Lawrence had left Damascus, ending his military involvement and carrying an undeserved reputation as the superhero Lawrence of Arabia. When British forces withdrew from Syria in November 1919 the the French moved in and put an end to Faisal's 3 month reign as King of Syria. The British then installed him as King of Iraq where the family ruled, if only just, until 1958 when Faisal II was assassinated in the 14 July Revolution.
The Hashemites were kings of Hijaz until 1925 when they were ousted by Ibn Saud and Emir of Transjordan and Kings of Jordan to this day. The British rewarded them 100 fold for their efforts in WW1.
Glubb Pasha, the commander of the Jordanian Arab Legion commented on the revolt in "Britain and the Arabs":
The Arabs cannot be said to have mace much contribution to the final and dccisive victory of the 1gth September, 1918, which destroyed the 7th and 8th Turkish Armies, but their severance of the railway, and the mass rising of the tribes south of Damascus, was largely responsible for the destruction of the Turkish 4th Army, which had not been engaged in the main battle. If this army had been able to retire unscathed through Damascus, it might have been necessary to fight another battle, north of that city, before the armistice.
:It may of course be argued that the Arab revolt very nearly flickered out six months after its inception, when the Amir Feisal was driven away from Medina and pursued down to Yenbo. The course of the revolt was thereafter transformed, principally by Lawrence’s far-sighted conception of the campaign in the north. That enterprise once initiated, British military and financial support alone kept the movement going, But this does not alter the conclusion that the Arabs made a valuable contribu- tion to victory.
In addition to this {ar from negligible military contribution, the sherif’s rebellion finally cancelled out the Turkish sultan's appeal for a Muslim holy war, though it must be admitted thal the appeal had met with only a half-hearted response, even before the Arab revolt.
To the student of war, the whole Arab campaign provides a remark- able illustration of the extraordinary results which can be achieved by mobile guerilla tactics. For the Arabs detained tens of thousands of regular Turkish troops with a force scarcely capable of engaging a brigade of infantry in a pitched battle.