Arab Revolt Against Ottoman Rule

# The Arab Revolt: The Alliance That Divided the Arab World

The Hejaz on the Eve of Revolt

When Sharif Hussein ibn Ali of Mecca (r. 1326-1343 AH / 1908-1924 CE) launched the Arab Revolt in June 1916, he set in motion a chain of events whose consequences shaped the modern Middle East more profoundly than almost any other single decision of the 20th century. To understand why he made this choice — and why its aftermath still generates pain and controversy — requires understanding both his position and the world he inhabited.

Sharif Hussein was the Hashimite guardian of Mecca and Medina, holding a position of religious prestige unmatched in the Arab world. He was also a political pragmatist in an empire under severe strain. The Young Turk government in Istanbul had been centralizing power since 1913, reducing the traditional autonomy of the Hashimite Sharif of Mecca and installing CUP loyalists in positions of authority. Hussein chafed under this supervision and worried about the long-term trajectory of an empire that seemed to be moving toward Turkish nationalism at the expense of Arab and Islamic identity.

When the CUP entered World War I in 1914 and declared jihad, Hussein faced an uncomfortable position: join a war whose outcome was uncertain, in alliance with Germany, for the benefit of a government that was reducing his authority, or explore alternatives. The British — who controlled Egypt and were deeply invested in the security of the Suez Canal — were interested parties, and emissaries began feeling out the possibility of an arrangement.

The Hussein-McMahon Correspondence

Between July 1915 and March 1916, Sharif Hussein exchanged a series of letters with Sir Henry McMahon, the British High Commissioner in Egypt. These letters — known as the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence — formed the diplomatic basis for the Arab Revolt, and their interpretation has been disputed ever since.

Hussein asked for British recognition of Arab independence in a vast territory comprising the Arabian Peninsula (excluding the British-controlled coastal areas), Greater Syria (present-day Syria, Lebanon, Israel/Palestine, and Jordan), and Iraq. He stated explicitly that he wanted a unified Arab state under Hashimite leadership as his people's reward for rebelling against the Ottoman Empire.

McMahon's letter of October 24, 1915, was deliberately ambiguous. He stated that Britain was "prepared to recognize and support the independence of the Arabs in all the regions within the limits demanded" by Hussein — but then excluded "the districts of Mersina and Alexandretta and portions of Syria lying to the west of the districts of Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo" (which McMahon described as not being "purely Arab"), and also excluded areas where Britain had existing treaty obligations with Arab chiefs (i.e., the Gulf).

The key ambiguity was Palestine. McMahon's exclusion of "portions of Syria lying to the west of the districts of Damascus" could be interpreted as excluding Lebanon and coastal Syria but not Palestine — which lay to the south, not the west. Hussein interpreted the correspondence as including Palestine in the promised Arab state; the British later argued it was excluded. This interpretive dispute continues to this day.

Hussein accepted the correspondence as a commitment to Arab independence and launched the revolt.

The Launch of the Revolt

On June 10, 1916 (10 Sha'ban 1334 AH), cannon fire from the Sharif's fortress in Mecca signaled the beginning of the Arab Revolt. Within days, Hussein's forces had taken most of Mecca, Ta'if, and Jeddah. The Ottoman garrison in Medina, commanded by Fakhri Pasha, refused to surrender and held out until after the Armistice — a remarkable feat of endurance lasting through the entire revolt and beyond.

Hussein proclaimed the Arab Revolt in the name of Islamic solidarity against Ottoman oppression, Arab independence, and the protection of the Holy Places. His son Ali commanded the northern Hejaz operations; Faisal would become the revolt's most celebrated military leader; Abdullah led forces toward Medina.

The initial success was real but limited. The Ottoman garrison could not be dislodged from Medina, and Hussein's tribal forces were ill-equipped for the kind of sustained conventional warfare that could threaten the Ottoman position in Syria. The revolt needed to become a guerrilla campaign that disrupted Ottoman logistics rather than a conventional military force that could capture and hold territory.

T.E. Lawrence and the Guerrilla Campaign

Into this situation came Captain (later Colonel) T.E. Lawrence — an Oxford archaeologist turned intelligence officer who became the British liaison to the Arab forces. Lawrence grasped something that many British officers did not: the revolt's value was not as a conventional military force but as a strategic distraction that tied down Ottoman troops and disrupted the Hejaz Railway (the Ottoman supply line from Damascus to Medina).

Lawrence's approach — living with and becoming part of the Arab forces, learning the terrain and the tribal relationships, advocating for the Arab cause within British command structures while pursuing guerrilla objectives — produced results. The Arab Northern Army, with Lawrence and the remarkable Auda abu Tayi (a Howeitat tribal leader), captured the port of Aqaba in July 1917 in a famous overland attack from the desert that the Ottomans had not considered possible.

The guerrilla campaign against the Hejaz Railway consumed enormous Ottoman resources. Trains were blown up, stations attacked, and repair parties harassed. The Ottomans were forced to maintain large garrisons at railway points that could not be employed elsewhere. Lawrence later wrote about this campaign in Seven Pillars of Wisdom (published 1926) — a work of extraordinary literary quality and complex reliability. Lawrence was simultaneously proud of the Arab cause, guilty about British duplicity, and engaged in a degree of self-mythologization that modern historians must treat carefully.

The Sykes-Picot Agreement: The Betrayal

While Hussein was launching the Arab Revolt based on the McMahon correspondence, British and French diplomats were negotiating a secret agreement that directly contradicted the promises to the Arabs. The Sykes-Picot Agreement, signed in May 1916 — the same month the Arab Revolt began — was a secret understanding between Sir Mark Sykes (British) and François Georges-Picot (French) dividing the post-war Middle East into spheres of influence.

Under Sykes-Picot: France would control Greater Syria (present-day Lebanon and Syria) and the Mosul region of Iraq; Britain would control southern Mesopotamia (most of modern Iraq) and Palestine; the Hejaz and the interior of the Arabian Peninsula would nominally be independent Arab territories. Palestine was to be under an "international administration."

The agreement was secret. The Arabs did not know it existed until the Bolsheviks found it in the Tsarist archives after the Russian Revolution of 1917 and published it to embarrass the Allied powers. When Hussein confronted the British with the text, they initially denied its significance and then assured him that Arab independence would be honored within the areas promised to him.

The gap between what the Arabs had been promised and what the British and French intended to deliver was fundamental and not merely a difference of interpretation.

The Balfour Declaration and Palestine

The third element of the collision was the Balfour Declaration (November 2, 1917) — a letter from British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour to Lord Rothschild promising British support for a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine. Britain had been seeking support from Zionist Jews, particularly to influence American Jewish opinion and maintain US involvement in the war.

Palestine was simultaneously promised to the Arabs (under the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence), allocated to international administration (under Sykes-Picot), and promised as a Jewish national home (under the Balfour Declaration) — all within a period of two years, by the same British government. That these three commitments were incompatible with each other was apparent to informed observers at the time and did not prevent the British from making all three.

The March to Damascus

The final phase of the Arab Revolt coincided with General Allenby's massive British offensive against the Ottomans in Palestine and Syria (1918). Arab forces under Faisal, with Lawrence as liaison, operated on the eastern flank — harassing Ottoman communications, holding down forces that might otherwise resist the British advance, and racing to reach Damascus before the regular British forces to establish an Arab political presence.

On October 1, 1918, Arab forces entered Damascus. The scene — Faisal's entry, Arab flags over the ancient city, the moment of apparent triumph — was captured in photographs that circulated worldwide. Lawrence was present and found the occasion hollow, knowing what the peace settlement would bring.

The armistice with the Ottomans came on October 30, 1918.

The Peace Settlement: Promises Broken

The Paris Peace Conference (1919) and subsequent agreements revealed the full extent of the gap between Arab expectations and Allied intentions. Faisal attended the conference and presented the Arab case for independence, supported by Lawrence. The Arab delegation received polite attention and no satisfaction.

Syria was assigned to France as a League of Nations Mandate; when Faisal attempted to maintain an independent Arab Kingdom of Syria, French forces expelled him militarily from Damascus in 1920. Iraq was assigned to Britain as a Mandate; Hussein's son Faisal was installed as king in 1921 as a British-controlled client state. Jordan (Transjordan) was created as a British Mandate, with Hussein's son Abdullah installed as Emir. Palestine became a British Mandate explicitly incorporating the Balfour Declaration — the stated objective of facilitating a Jewish national home.

Hussein himself refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles, which incorporated these arrangements. He was the only Arab leader to formally reject the post-war settlement. This principled refusal cost him British support; when Ibn Saud's Ikhwan forces moved against the Hejaz in 1924, the British declined to intervene. Hussein was expelled from the Hejaz in 1924 and died in exile in Amman in 1931.

The Theological Controversy

The Arab Revolt generated immediate theological controversy. Traditional Islamic scholarship had consistently taught that rebellion against a Muslim ruler was haram — forbidden — except in cases of explicit kufr (disbelief). The Ottoman Sultan was not only a Muslim ruler but the Caliph — the symbolic head of the Muslim world. How could Sharif Hussein, guardian of the Holy Mosques, rebel against the Caliph with the military assistance of British Christians?

The counter-argument made by Hussein and his supporters: the Young Turk government was guilty of oppressing Muslims, manipulating the Caliphate for nationalist rather than Islamic ends, and corrupting Islamic governance. They pointed to the CUP's secularism, its marginalization of the ulama, and its prioritization of Turkish nationalism over Islamic unity. By this argument, the revolt was against the CUP's corrupt government, not against Islam.

The opposing view, held by many South Asian and Arab scholars, was that whatever the CUP's faults, joining with British forces against a Muslim government crossed a line — and that the consequences (colonial control of Muslim holy lands, the Balfour Declaration) vindicated this concern.

Sources:

• Lawrence, T.E. Seven Pillars of Wisdom. London: Jonathan Cape, 1926.
• Faisal, Prince. Speech to the Paris Peace Conference, February 6, 1919.
• Fromkin, David. A Peace to End All Peace. Henry Holt, 1989.
• Barr, James. A Line in the Sand: Britain, France and the Struggle that Shaped the Middle East. Simon & Schuster, 2011.
• McMahon, Sir Henry. Correspondence with Sharif Hussein of Mecca, 1915-1916. British National Archives.
• Antonius, George. The Arab Awakening: The Story of the Arab National Movement. Hamish Hamilton, 1938.
• Abu-Manneh, Butrus. "The Husaynis: The Rise of a Notable Family in 18th Century Palestine," in Palestine in the Late Ottoman Period. Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi / Brill, 1986.