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Ottoman Arab Officers between Nationalism and Loyalty during the First World War Mesut Uyar War In History 2013 20: 526 DOI: 10.1177/0968344513494658 The online version of this article can be found at: http://wih.sagepub.com/content/20/4/526

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Ottoman Arab Officers between Nationalism and Loyalty during the First World War

War in History 20(4) 526­–544 © The Author(s) 2013 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0968344513494658 wih.sagepub.com

Mesut Uyar

University of New South Wales, Canberra, Australia

Abstract According to commonly held opinion, Arab officers of the Ottoman Army were instrumental in the initiation of the Arab Revolt and the Ottoman final defeat by throwing their lot in with the British and French. This article is an effort to correct this stereotypical opinion by making use of untapped Ottoman archive records and creating a data set. Even though the Ottoman Empire did not manage to integrate different ethnic groups, it did succeed in creating a viable and effective officer corps by making use of military educational institutions for implanting general unity and a sense of inclusiveness. Thanks to esprit de corps and long-established military institutions, most of the Arab officers stayed loyal to the empire up until the very end.

Keywords Ottoman Arab officers, First World War, Arab nationalism, Arab Revolt, military education, military professionalism

The Arab officers of the Ottoman Army remain an enigma, even after many years and many books.1 Many rumours and misleading views have helped create erroneous stereotypes which persist to this day. There is a general consensus that Ottoman Arab officers 1

A much earlier version of this article was presented to the conference ‘Palestine and the First World War: New Perspectives’, Tel-Hai Academic College, Upper Galilee, 3–6 September 2007. I am greatly indebted to Dr Serhat Güvenç, who read drafts of this article, corrected it, and provided me with ideas. I would also like to express my gratitude to Prof. Hew Strachan, Prof. Eliezer Tauber, Dr Michael Province, and Dr Nabil Al-Tikriti.

Corresponding author: Mesut Uyar, Australian Centre for the Study of Armed Conflict and Society, School of Humanities & Social Sciences, University of New South Wales, PO Box 7916, Canberra BC, ACT 2610, Australia. Email: [email protected]

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played a crucial role in the birth of Arab nationalism, in its expansion, and, more importantly, in the initiation and execution of the Arab Revolt during the First World War. According to this view, Ottoman Arab officers were ready to collaborate with Britain and France in their struggle for independence from Ottoman rule from the very beginning. They deserted to the Entente armies at the first opportunity or were recruited for the Arab Revolt from prisoner-of-war camps. Others who had no choice but to stick with the Ottoman military either tried their best to undermine the war effort or did nothing to support it. Thus the behaviour of the Arab officers was instrumental in the final defeat of the Ottomans.2 Interestingly, not only contemporary observers and modern Arab nationalist historians but also Turkish nationalist historians have shared this view. For them the Arab officers betrayed the trust of the empire and stabbed it in the back. This account therefore provides yet another proof of the failure of the multinational Ottoman imperial system.3 The motives of contemporary Western observers of the empire were easy to understand. They saw every rebellion and all social unrest from the perspective of nationalism. For them, carving separate homelands from the Ottoman Empire was legitimate and unavoidable.4 They perceived Arab officers as agents of drastic change and ardent nationalism. Unfortunately we – as researchers and scholars – are still using these very problematic and biased observations for the evaluation of this traumatic period of Ottoman and Middle Eastern history. The respective roles of Arab officers as individuals in Arab nationalism and independence movements have been much debated, but a satisfactory monograph has yet to appear. More recently the Iraq conflict played an instrumental role in arousing the interest of scholars in Ottoman-trained Arab officers as a whole and in Iraqi officers in particular. But unfortunately the outputs of this recent interest are far from adequate. The essential questions remain unanswered. 2

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From Cheetham to Grey, no. 177, 15 November 1914, in A.L.P. Burdett, ed., Arab Dissident Movements, 1905–1955 (Oxford: Archive, 1996), I, pp. 275–80. From Cheetham to Grey, no. 2037, 13 December 1914, in ibid., pp. 284–6. T.E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969), pp. 44–7, 49–50, 59. George Antonius, The Arab Awakening: The Story of the Arab National Movement, 2nd printing (Beirut: Libraire du Liban, 1969), pp. 76, 119, 149, 156–9, 186, 204, 212, 221–2, 226, 229. Alec Kirkbride, An Awakening: The Arab Campaign, 1917–18 (Tavistock: University Press of Arabia, 1971), pp. 4, 57. Lowell Thomas, With Lawrence in Arabia (London: Hutchinson, 1924), pp. 112, 237. Ariel Roshwald, Ethnic Nationalism and the Fall of Empires: Central Europe, Russia and the Middle East, 1914–23 (London: Routledge, 2002), pp. 64–72 . Maxwell Orme Johnson, ‘The Arab Bureau and the Arab Revolt: Yanbu to Aqaba’, Military Affairs XLVI (1982), pp. 194–9. For a more recent example, see Sean McMeekin, The Berlin-Baghdad Express: The Ottoman Empire and Germany’s Bid for World Power (Cambridge: Belknap, 2010), pp. 304–6. İlhan Arsel, Arap Milliyetçiliği ve Türkler, 4th printing (Istanbul: İnkılap, 1987), pp. 201–3. Yusuf Hikmet Bayur, Türk İnkılabı Tarihi (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1953), III, section 1, pp. 65–7, 401, 410–11. From Cumberbatch to Lowther, no. 39, 13 May 1913, in Burdett, Arab Dissident Movements, I, p. 233. Rashid Khalidi, ‘The Origins of Arab Nationalism: Introduction’, in Rashid Khalidi et al., eds, The Origins of Arab Nationalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), p. ix. Lawrence, Seven Pillars, pp. 42–4, 56.

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This article addresses some of those unanswered questions. Through archival records it investigates the group identity of Ottoman Arab officers and their conduct during the First World War. Simply put, it uses statistical data to refute commonly held opinions and misperceptions about the Arab officers in the Ottoman service.

I. The Ottoman Officer Corps Before getting into the identity and background of Arab officers, we need to consider the Ottoman officer corps as a whole. At the time of the First World War this was the product of two centuries of Ottoman military reforms.5 After the disastrous conduct of the Ottoman military in a series of wars with Russia and against internal threats such as the Greek rebellion, the Ottoman administration linked the poor performance and the main weakness of the army to the incompetence of its officer corps. Efforts to train officers according to Western models failed6 until the foundation of the Military Academy (Mekteb-i Harbiye) in 1834.7 The early reformers sought officers who were both professional and on a par with their European counterparts. Moreover, they were expected to understand Europe in every aspect and to be able to carry the reforms into the civilian realm. In order to achieve these widely diverging goals a very demanding semi-engineering curriculum was adopted.8 However, the Ottoman civilian educational system was not able to produce officer candidates with the solid educational foundation required. Consequently, after an

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The first military reforms were initiated immediately after the disastrous end of the OttomanHabsburg-Venetian War of 1715–18. Mesut Uyar and Edward J. Erickson, A Military History of the Ottomans from Osman to Atatürk (Santa Barbara: Praeger Security International and ABC-Clio, 2009), pp. 112–15. Some military schools had been opened before the Military Academy, but either they disappeared in a short time or they were purely technical schools with very limited enrolment, such as the Military Engineering School (Mühendishane-i Berri Hümayun). See Stanford J. Shaw, Between Old and New: The Ottoman Empire under Sultan Selim III, 1789–1807 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971). Kemal Beydilli, Türk Bilim ve Matbaacılık Tarihinde Mühendishane, Mühendishane Matbaası ve Kütüphanesi (1776–1826) (Istanbul: Eren, 1995). Çağatay Uluçay and Enver Kartekin, Yüksek Mühendis Okulu (Istanbul: Berksoy, 1958), pp. 12–110. Also see Avigdor Levy, ‘Military Reform and the Problem of Centralization in the Ottoman Empire in the Eighteenth Century’, Middle Eastern Studies XVIII (1982), pp. 227–49. The Military Academy had been opened to educate and commission infantry and cavalry officers. For a period of time veterinary officers were also commissioned from the academy. Turkish Prime Ministry Archives, Royal Decrees (Hatt-ı Hümayun), catalogue no. 1747. Mehmed Esad, Mirat-ı Mekteb-i Harbiye (Istanbul: Artin Asaduryan, 1310 [1894]), pp. 1–57. Turkish Military Academy Archives (hereafter TMAA), Registry Logbook (Künye Defteri), no. 1. Avigdor Levy, ‘The Officer Corps in Sultan Mahmud II’s New Ottoman Army, 1826– 1839’, International Journal of Middle East Studies II (1971), pp. 32–6. Mesut Uyar and A. Kadir Varoğlu, ‘In Search of Modernity and Rationality: The Evolution of Turkish Military Academy Curricula in a Historical Perspective’, Armed Forces & Society XXXV (2008), pp. 183–5.

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edict of 1845, military secondary schools were opened in nearly all the core provinces and in the cities hosting field army headquarters, in order to overcome deficiencies in the civilian educational system.9 According to the logic of the system, an officer candidate began military education aged between 10 and 12, just after completing the first stage of primary education. He had to finish the three-year-long askeri rüştiye (second stage of primary education) and four-year-long askeri idadi (secondary school) in order to enter the Military Academy. The curricula of the military secondary schools were specially tailored for the needs of the academy, where cadets took military application and academic lessons at the same time over a three-year period. The most successful cadets (the top 5–10 per cent of the class) were selected for the Staff College (Erkân-ı Harbiye Mektebi), whose course was also three years long. Hence, an ordinary officer would spend 10 years and a staff officer 13 years in the Ottoman military school system before his first assignment.10 The outcome of this elitist approach was obvious: there were limited numbers of welltrained officers available for an army that was starved of leaders. Fewer than 100 officers per year could graduate from the academy until the 1890s, and only after 1896 did it manage to reach its target figure: 500 officers per year.11 At the same time, there was a huge demand from all departments of the government for these well-educated officers owing to the shortcomings of the civilian educational system. Many graduates of the academy were assigned to various civilian posts. Moreover, most artistic pioneers were officers and many famous writers and poets were also graduates of the Military Academy.12 The shortage of mekteblis (schooled-officers) caused problems for the army high command, which had to find enough qualified officers to man its ever-increasing number of command and staff positions. The only available source outside the Military Academy was the units of the army itself. The Ottoman military was long accustomed to commissioning able soldiers, who were called alaylı (literally meaning ‘raised from the regiment’), and certain regiments and battalions performed the task of an unofficial officer training corps in every field army. Unfortunately, even though the alaylı officers were experienced smallunit leaders and had good relations with their soldiers, most of them were illiterate and had a very limited understanding of modern combat tactics and techniques. At the same time, they were politically very conservative and, in fact, often openly rebellious against academy-trained officers and hostile to European-style training and administration.13  9 İsrafil Kurtcephe and Feridun Yıldız, Kuleli Askeri Lisesi Tarihi (Istanbul: Kuleli Askeri Lisesi, 1985), pp. 22–33. 10 For the academic curricula of military schools from different periods, see TMAA, Cadet Grade Logbook (Numara Defteri), nos. 1, 6, 20, 23, 35, 43. 11 TMAA, Registry Logbook, nos. 1, 2, 3, 4. TMAA, Cadet Grade Logbook, nos. 1, 2, 3. 12 For a list of Military Academy graduate painters, see Nüzhet İslimyeli, Asker Ressamlar ve Ekoller (Ankara: Asker Ressamlar Sanat Derneği, 1965). For a list of Military Academy graduate poets and writers see İlhan Çiloğlu, Asker Yazarlar ve Şairler (Istanbul: Elif, 2002). Also see Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu et al., Osmanlı Askerlik Literatürü Tarihi, 2 vols (Istanbul: İslam Tarih, Sanat ve Kültür Araştırma Merkezi IRCICA, 2004). 13 Ahmed Muhtar, Anılar: Sergüzeşt-i Hayatımın Cildi Sanisi, ed. Nuri Akbayar (Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt, 1996), p. 95. Selahattin Karatamu, Türk Silahlı Kuvvetleri Tarihi (1908–1920) (Ankara: Genelkurmay, 1971), III, section 6, p. 186.

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II. The Identity and Background of Ottoman Arab Officers During the First World War one of the biggest concerns and interests of British military intelligence was the ethnic and geographic composition of the Ottoman units. Intelligence officers developed a habit of referring to the ethnic makeup of the units and ethnic origins of the commanding officers in many reports.14 This tendency persists among Western scholars to this day.15 From the very beginning the Ottoman high command tried to enrol Muslim youths from all corners of the empire, regardless of their ethnic origin.16 The administration welcomed even non-citizen Muslims who volunteered to serve in the Ottoman military. There was no deliberate policy to recruit foreign Muslims, but volunteers were never refused.17 Whatever the intentions were up until the 1870s, those efforts failed because of a lack of modern primary and secondary education in the provinces. Such education was a prerequisite for admission to the Military Academy. Sultan Abdülaziz launched the campaign to found military secondary schools across the empire, and Sultan Abdülhamid 14 There are many examples for this concern and interest. Some representative samples are as follows. ‘72nd and 77th Regiments … largely composed of Arabs’: Handbook of the Turkish Army, 8th provisional edn (1916; reprint, Nashville: Battery, 1996), p. 168. ‘24th Division … On mobilization was filled up largely with Arab reservists … Many Arabs reported drafted out of division’: ibid., p. 173. ‘11th Division (Lieut.-Colonel Refet Bey, an Arab officer)’: C.F. Aspinall-Oglander, History of the Great War: Military Operations: Gallipoli (London: William Heinemann, 1929), I, p. 157. ‘The condition of the 77th Regiment, composed of Arabs, was even worse … The 72nd Regiment … like the 77th it was an Arab formation, and none too trustworthy’: ibid., p. 199. ‘72nd (Arab) Regiment’: ibid., p. 297. ‘27th (Arab) Division’: George MacMunn and Cyril Falls, Military Operations: Egypt & Palestine: From the Outbreak of War with Germany to June 1917 (London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1928), I, p. 248. 15 ‘The most reliable regiment of the 19th Division was the 57th Regiment, whose soldiers were Turks rather than Arabs’: Nigel Steel and Peter Hart, Defeat at Gallipoli (London: Papermac, 1995), p. 66. ‘The commander of the 9th Turkish Division, the Arab Colonel Sami Bey’: Michael Hickey, Gallipoli (London: John Murray, 1995), p. 123. 16 The Ottoman official documents are often silent about ethnic origins. All one can get from a standard registry logbook entry are: name, nickname (if any), father’s name (sometimes also his profession), date of birth, home town, and physical appearance. Nicknames are often misleading and are better used as a secondary element. Once again, before getting into the identity issue, I would like to stress that I have used mainly home towns to identify those who were Arabs and those who were not. So, instead of the more correct form of ‘officers from predominantly Arab provinces’, I usually use the phrase ‘Arab officers’ throughout the article. In a traditional multi-ethnic, multicultural, and multi-religious empire, it is difficult to establish how each given person identified himself. Consequently, home town seemed to prove more reliable and accessible information within the documents. As a last remark, the original ethnicity of several prominent Arab nationalists (Aziz al-Masri was a Circassian from Egypt, and Jafar al-Askari was a Kurd from Baghdad) proves the relative validity of my preference. 17 Wilfrid J. Rollman, ‘Military Officers and the “Nizam al-Jadid” in Morocco, 1844–1912: Social and Political Transformations’, Oriente Moderno (2004), p. 220.

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II followed in his predecessor’s footsteps with greater resolve. The foundation dates and the locations of the new military schools enable us to appreciate Abdülhamid’s zeal: Baghdad, first 1876 and the second one in 1886; Beirut and Damascus, 1877; Edirne, 1879; Bursa, Monastir, Erzurum, Trabzon, Erzincan, Elaziz, and Diyarbakır, 1881; Aleppo, 1882; Sivas, 1883; Kastamonu and Salonika, 1884; Tripoli, 1886; Sana’a, 1889; Van and Bitlis, 1890; Süleymaniye (Iraq) and Benghazi, 1892; Mosul, Üsküb, and Taiz (Yemen), 1893; and Abha (Asir), 1896. He created a network of military schools across the empire, including all provinces and all Muslim groups.18 The geographical diversity in the recruitment pool for the Military Academy increased with the opening of each new military secondary school. Unlike his predecessor, Abdülhamid saw military education not only in the context of military effectiveness, but also as a strategic instrument for his political vision and ideology. The total defeat of the Ottoman Empire at the hands of the Russians in 1878, and growing political opposition and subversive activities, prompted him to reconsider the state’s ideology and formulate a new one, the official Ottomanism ideology. He actually borrowed the essentials from the opposition – i.e. from Young Turks, Armenian revolutionaries, Arab nationalists – and redesigned them to be subservient to the state. This new ideology was built around the personality cult of the Sultan, a kind of patriotism and loyalty to the Sultan in a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, and multicultural empire. Unlike intellectuals, Abdülhamid was pragmatic and realistic. He mainly targeted the Muslim population and tried to unite it under his political and spiritual leadership, a kind of Ottoman Muslim nation.19 Understandably, he saw military schools as an important element in the effort to integrate distinct Muslim ethnic groups into the political, economic, and cultural fabric of the empire. He paid special attention to the predominantly Albanian and much-neglected Arab-populated provinces which had not previously been well represented in the Ottoman military. The administration deliberately provided social mobility channels for the poor and shaped the identity of the future officer corps – an elite corps of men with decent backgrounds, who underwent highly technical training and dedicated their lives to the military.20 After commissioning, Arab and Albanian officers often served in their home towns and presented examples of success for the local youth. According to the cadet registry (künye) and grade (numara) logbooks in the Turkish Military Academy Archives, the first ever graduate from a predominantly Arab province, a certain Hüseyin from Egypt, was commissioned in 1847 – only two years after the

18 TMAA, Cadet Grade Logbook, no. 20. Osmanlı Döneminde Askeri Okullarda Eğitim (Ankara: Milli Savunma Bakanlığı, 2000), pp. 14–169. 19 Karl K. Barbir, ‘Memory, Heritage, and History: The Ottoman Legacy in the Arab World’, in L. Carl Brown, ed., Imperial Legacy: The Ottoman Imprint on the Balkans and the Middle East (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), p. 104. 20 Mahmud Şevket, Osmanlı Askeri Teşkilatı ve Kıyafeti: Osmanlı Ordusunun Kuruluşundan 1908 Yılına Kadar, ed. N. Türsan and S. Türsan (Ankara: Kara Kuvvetleri Komutanlığı, 1983), p. 88. Ahmed Mithat, Üss-i İnkilab, ed. T. G. Seratlı (Istanbul: Selis, 2004), I, pp. 75–6, 112–13. İzzet Derveze, Osmanlı Filistininde Bir Posta Memuru [Turkish translation of the Arabic original Mudhakkirat Muhammad Izzat Darwazah], trans. Ali Benli (Istanbul: Klasik, 2007), pp. 172–7, 184–5, 188. Antonius, Arab Awakening, p. 76.

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graduation of the first class.21 Some researchers have mistakenly seen the proclamation of the constitution in 1876 as the year when the Arabs were allowed to enter military schools.22 In reality the shortcomings of the military secondary schools were the reason for the admission of so few Arab cadets. The numbers of cadets from predominantly Arab provinces increased only after the inauguration of military secondary schools in these provinces. Consequently between 1847 and 1876 barely a dozen Arab officers graduated from the academy. The figures began to improve afterwards: 5 in 1876, 24 in 1886, 65 in 1896, and the record number of 113 in 1905. The percentage of cadets from Arab provinces fluctuated between 15 and 17 per cent of all graduates after 1890. Between 1876 and 1914 (data for the years 1887, 1888, 1895, 1907, 1909, and 1913 are missing) 1,520 officers (taking into account the missing years, around 1,800) graduated from the academy.23 Abdülhamid’s emphasis on enlarging the recruit pool of the military and encompassing less represented Muslim groups played an important role in experimenting with new ideas, such as the foundation of irregular tribal cavalry regiments. Abdülhamid, as a conservative, was very proud of the Ottoman past and tried to make use of old ways in order to overcome new problems. He decided to revitalize old tribal levies and irregular formations under his own name, as the Hamidiye Aşiret Süvari Alayları (Hamidian tribal cavalry regiments). Russian Cossack irregulars might also have given him inspiration for this venture. Interestingly the first experiments in this sense took place in the faraway provinces of Libya and Yemen. In both of these, young members of ex-military social groups – kuloğlus – were conscripted and, after going through an intensive military training, were sent back to their provinces. They formed local militia tasked with military and police duties.24 Abdülhamid later decided to introduce this militia system to all eastern and south-eastern Anatolia, and eventually several Syrian and Iraqi tribes were incorporated into this militia system. In combination with the Hamidiye cavalry regiments project, a special military school (Aşiret Mekteb-i Hümayun) for the children of tribal chieftains and notables was founded 21 TMAA, Registry Logbook, no. 1. 22 For a recent example, see Youssef Aboul-Enein, ‘Prussianization of the Arab Army, the Arab Revolt of 1916–1918, and the Cult of Nationalization of Arabs in the Levant after World War I: History of the Syrian Arab Army’, Infantry (November–December 2005), p. 20. 23 Numbers of Arab officers commissioned from the Military Academy: 1876, 5; 1878, 1; 1879, 6; 1880, 18; 1881, 21; 1882, 22; 1883, 32; 1884, 28; 1885, 26; 1886, 24; 1889, 20; 1890, 22; 1891, 21; 1892, 34; 1893, 43; 1894, 31; 1896, 65; 1897, 62; 1898, 77; 1899, 91; 1900, 75; 1901, 86; 1902, 75; 1903, 109; 1904, 97; 1905, 113; 1906, 101; 1908, 35; 1910, 66; 1911, 44; 1912, 70. TMAA, Cadet Grade Logbook, nos. 2, 4, 5, 6, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22. I was unable to consult the cadet logbooks of the Military Engineering School (Mühendishane-i Berri Hümayun), where the artillery and engineer officers were educated. But, given its standard yearly graduate numbers which were around 60, and the estimated presence of at least 10 per cent cadets from Arab provinces, we can safely estimate that around 150 officers graduated from the Engineering School. 24 Cevdet Ergül, II. Abdülhamid’in Doğu Politikası ve Hamidiye Alayları (İzmir: Çağlayan, 1997), pp. 35–7, 45–6. Merwin A. Griffiths, ‘The Reorganization of the Ottoman Army under Abdülhamid II, 1880–1897’, unpublished PhD dissertation, University of California, 1965, p. 119.

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in 1892. The school curriculum was specially tailored to offer a less demanding academic education than did the other military schools, owing to the poor previous education of its tribal students. The cadets were commissioned as lieutenants after five years of education and only assigned to their respective tribes’ irregular regiments. Obviously the main aim behind the scheme was to open another channel for integrating the local elite into the empire. The administration tried its best to enrol as many cadets as possible from various tribes. Even though it achieved only limited success, most tribal regions were proportionally represented. In 1897, for example, 101 out of 128 cadets were from Arab tribes: 38 Syrian, 28 Libyan, 19 Yemeni, 12 Iraqi, and 4 Hejazi. This interesting but awkward school project fell short of its aim and was closed down pretty soon in 1907.25 In conclusion, the Ottoman administration’s policy to enlarge the human pool for the military schools and to encompass all regions succeeded, and officers from predominantly Arab provinces supplied around 15 per cent of the overall officer corps. Their socioeconomic background was nearly identical to that of the officers from other provinces. So, a typical Ottoman Arab officer would come from a low-income family and dwell in or in the immediate vicinity of a provincial centre.26 His father’s occupation would most probably be that of an artisan, small trader, farmer, or low-ranking government official – including religious ones. Not surprisingly, a sizable percentage of cadets were orphans. The famous Arab nationalist and Iraqi prime minister Nuri al-Said, class of 1906, is a good example. He was from a poor quarter (Gögenzor?) of Baghdad and his father was a low-ranking pious foundation scribe.27

III. The Tripolitanian and Balkan Wars: The Introduction of Nationalism Non-Turkish – i.e. Arab, Albanian, Kurdish – Ottoman officers did not create any unusual problems until the beginning of nationalist movements in their ethnic communities. Several cadets were punished for their political activity within the Military Academy. Their so-called political activities were limited to reading illegal publications, discussing the future of the empire, and criticizing the current government.28 Some researchers mistakenly identify region-based friendship groups (memleketli) as proto-nationalist organizations. In reality, these groups were as old as the academy itself. Cadets coming from the Balkans and western, central, and eastern Anatolian or Syrian and Iraqi military 25 Eugene L. Rogan, ‘Aşiret Mektebi: Abdülhamid II’s School for Tribes (1892–1907)’, International Journal of Middle East Studies XXVIII (1996), pp. 83–107. Alişan Akpınar, Osmanlı Devletinde Aşiret Mektebi (Istanbul: Göçebe, 1997), pp. 16–101. 26 Owing to their free-of-charge nature but high quality, military secondary schools were also chosen for the sons of middle- or high-income families, but after graduation most of these cadets would continue their education in civilian schools. Philip S. Khoury, Urban Notables and Arab Nationalism: The Politics of Damascus, 1860–1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 67–8, 72. 27 TMAA, Registry Logbook, no. 30. Lord Birdwood, Nuri as-Said: A Study in Arab Leadership (London: Cassell, 1959), pp. 8–9. 28 TMAA, Grade Logbook, no. 35. Ahmet İzzet, Feryadım (Istanbul: Nehir, 1992), I, p. 302.

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secondary schools would immediately join their older friends from the same regions. The high academic standards, strict discipline, and residence in the biggest metropolis of the empire, Istanbul, posed challenges to the newcomers from small provincial towns. The memleketli groups supported their novice members in order to help them survive in this atmosphere. Solidarity among the members of some of these groups was very strong. For example, the Baghdad group was noted for its cohesion and its proclivity to cause trouble. Of course, the relations and friendships that had been developed within these groups provided ample opportunities for the foundation of secret organizations.29 Interestingly, the administration became suspicious of nationalist movements among Arab officers not because of their activities, but after the fateful desertion of several Albanian officers during a counter-insurgency operation against Albanian rebels in 1910. This, and some other incidents, gave rise to the question of the loyalty of non-Turkish officers – a kind of Trojan horse problem – in the minds of Ottoman military leaders.30 The administration took any kind of insubordination or political activity seriously but did not necessarily deal with it heavy-handedly. Around 50 cadets were sacked from the academy and around 10 officers were dishonourably discharged in 1913.31 I have not been able to find any direct connection between these punishments and Arab nationalism during my research in the Military Academy Archives. Officers were ordered to stay away from political parties, clubs, and other organizations. Several prominent figures of the future Arab rebellion (such as Aziz al-Masri and Nuri al-Said) were implicated during this period, but the administration was content to keep them under watch rather than punish them. Contrary to common perception, Albanian or Arab nationalism did not create major problems during the Ottoman-Italian War of 1911–12 and Balkan Wars of 1912–13. Arabs and Albanians fought loyally under the Ottoman flag. However, the infamous treason of Esat Toptani Pasha (not a professional officer but an Albanian provincial 29 Mahmut N. Kerkük, Hatıratım, 1334 (1918), ed. Ali Birinci (Ankara: Altınküre, 2002), p. 19. İbrahim Temo, İbrahim Temo’nun İttihat ve Terakki Anıları (Istanbul: Arba, 1987), p. 10. Ahmet Bedevi Kuran, Harbiye Mektebinde Hürriyet Mücadelesi (Istanbul: Çeltüt, no date), pp. 23–4, 48. Ziya Yergök, Tuğgeneral Ziya Yergök’ün Anıları: Harbiye’den Dersim’e (1890–1914), ed. Sami Önal (Istanbul: Remzi, 2006), pp. 39, 68–9, 75. Fahri Belen, Tarih Işığında Devrimlerimiz (Istanbul: Menteş, 1970), pp. 173–4. The history of the United States Military Academy at West Point provides us interesting similarities with the Ottoman Military Academy in this sense. Regional cliques within the USMA cadet corps created various problems, and the academy administration tried its best to keep it under control before the American Civil War. See William B. Skelton, An American Profession of Arms: The Army Officer Corps, 1784–1861 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1992), p. 349 . 30 Mahmut Şevket, Harbiye Nazırı Sadrazam Mahmut Şevket Paşa’nın Günlüğü, ed. Adem Sarıgöl (Istanbul: IQ Kültürsanat, 2001), pp. 223–4. Tarık Zafer Tunaya, Türkiye’de Siyasal Partiler, 2nd edn (Istanbul: Hürriyet Vakfı, 1988), I, pp. 535, 537. Cemal Kutay, Türkiye İstiklâl ve Hürriyet Mücadeleleri Tarihi (Istanbul: Tarih, 1961), XVII, pp. 9837–44. İsmet İnönü, Hatıralarım: Genç Subaylık Yılları (1884–1918), ed. Sabahattin Selek (Istanbul: Burçak, 1969), p. 95. Fevzi Çakmak, Mareşal Fevzi Çakmak ve Günlükleri, ed. Nilüfer Hatemi (Istanbul: Yapı Kredi, 2002), I, pp. 174–228. Ahmet İzzet, Feryadım, pp. 77–81. 31 TMAA, Judicial Record and Punishments Logbook (Sicil ve Ceza Defteri), nos. 42, 43. Mahmut Şevket, Harbiye Nazırı, pp. 223–4.

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grandee) during the defence of İşkodra (Shkodër) and the resignation of several Albanian officers immediately after the fall of İşkodra province complicated relations and increased tension between the administration and non-Turkish officers.32 The real effects of both wars showed themselves after the end of the hostilities. The disastrous defeats, humiliating peace treaties, and the independence of Albania were perceived as the end of the Ottoman Empire by some of the Arab intellectuals and officers.33 Several semi-secret clubs and organizations became centres of disaffection under the watchful eyes of the new governing elite, the Committee of Union and Progress (İttihad ve Terakki).34 Arab officers and some intellectuals began to discuss the future of the empire openly and possible alternative courses of action for Arabs. The main motive behind these activities was the empire’s obvious failure to protect the vital region of Rumelia against small Balkan states, and the argument that it would not be able to protect distant Arab provinces. There were two camps. The majority group was supportive of the Ottoman Empire but desired its overall reorganization and the creation of a union in which the Arabs would govern the empire jointly with the Turks, in a fashion similar to the Austro-Hungarian model. The minority saw the empire as already defunct and asked for total independence for the Arab provinces as a whole.35 Surprisingly, even though the administration saw these demands as simply a first step to complete separation and the break-up of the empire, it still refrained from prosecution of those involved in such activities, but warned the leaders of these clubs to abstain from subversive acts. The trial and forced exile of Aziz al-Masri (February–April 1913) was afterwards understood by most Arab officers as an unfair prosecution of nationalists. Some accounts suggest that it was indeed the result of a long personal feud and power struggle between Aziz and Enver Pasha. According to official records, Aziz was put on trial not because of his role as the chief of the Arab nationalists but because of his embezzlement of funds given to him during the last phase of the Libyan War. Several of his followers decided to flee after this verdict – including Lieutenant Nuri al-Said.36 32 Esat Pasha was instrumental in the suicide of the commander of İşkodra Fortress Hasan Rıza Pasha. The defenders capitulated afterwards. This suicide became the symbol of the so-called Albanian treason. Abdurrahman Nafiz and Kiramettin, 1912–1913 Balkan Harbinde İşkodra Müdafaası (Istanbul: Askeri, 1933), pp. 352–9, 372, 569–75. Bayur, Türk İnkılabı, II, section 1, pp. 261–72. 33 Ali İhsan Sabis, Harp Hatıralarım: Birinci Dünya Harbi (Istanbul: Nehir, 1990), I, p. 43. Mahmut Şevket, Harbiye Nazırı, p. 159. Selim Ali Selam, Beyrut Şehremini’nin Anıları 1908–1918 [Turkish translation of the Arabic original Muzekkiratu Salim Ali Salam 1868– 1938], ed. Hassan Ali Hallak (Istanbul: Klasik, 2005), pp. 94. 34 Mahmut Şevket, Harbiye Nazırı, p. 224. Cemal Paşa, Hatıralar: İttihat ve Terakki, 1. Dünya Savaşı Anıları, ed. Alpay Kabacalı (Istanbul: Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür, 2001), pp. 70–3. 35 Antonius, Arab Awakening, p. 110, 119. Cemal, Hatıralar, pp. 70–4. Selam, Beyrut, pp. 94– 125. Khoury, Urban Notables, pp. 67–8. 36 From Mallet to Grey, no. 117, 24 February 1914, in Burdett, Arab Dissident Movements, I, p. 233. From Mallet to Grey, no. 249, 12 April 1914, in ibid., I, pp. 236–8. Jafar Pasha al-Askari, A Soldier’s Story: From Ottoman Rule to Independent Iraq, trans. Mustafa Tariq al-Askari (London: Arabian, 2003), p. 74. Cemal, Hatıralar, pp. 74–9. Sabis, Harp Hatıralarım, pp. 43–4, 164. The Arab Bulletin: Bulletin of the Arab Bureau in Cairo, 1916–1919 (Oxford: Archive, 1986), I, p. 7. Antonius, Arab Awakening, pp. 118–21. Birdwood, Nuri, pp. 17–19.

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Simultaneously, Turkish intellectuals and officers reacted to these developments,37 and they also founded clubs and organizations emulating other ethnicity-based organizations. Again, as with their Arab counterparts, the majority were trying to retain the integrity of the empire and believed in the virtues of Ottomanism and Pan-Islamism, whereas the minority focused on the predominantly Turkish provinces only. The Turkish elite hesitantly, but continuously, became nationalist, and the increasingly secular nationalistic policies of the administration alienated significant sectors, thereby adding momentum to separatist nationalist movements. Several attempts to revitalize Pan-Islamist and Ottomanist ideology failed, thereby further increasing frustration. This vicious circle was established just before the declaration of the First World War.38

IV. The Catalysts: The Experience of World War The Ottoman military entered the war with many shortcomings. The mobilized personnel strength of the military was imposing: more than a million men, with a combat strength of 820,000. However, the number of regular officers was only 12,469. So for every 100 combatant soldiers the administration was providing 1½ officers, a drop in the ocean. The administration tried several methods to man officer posts and replace casualties. Some of the discharged alaylıs were called back,39 Military Academy cadets were immediately assigned to units as brevet lieutenants (zabit vekili), and senior cadets of the military secondary schools and civilian high school graduates or students were introduced into the military as officer candidates (zabit namzeti) after a brief period of combat training. Several officer training courses (zabit talimgâhları) were opened for the continuous supply of junior officers to units. Cadets took basic officer training for six to eight months and were sent to the front with the rank of corporal. According to the regulations, unit commanders could decide to commission them as officers after a six-month probation. The officer candidates, by serving as NCOs for the first six months or longer, fulfilled a very important function in the army.40 37 İ. Hakkı Sunata, Gelibolu’dan Kafkaslara: Birinci Dünya Savaşı Anılarım (Istanbul: Türkiye İş Bankası, 2003), p. 12. 38 M. Şükrü Hanioğlu, Bir Siyasal Örgüt Olarak Osmanlı İttihad ve Terakki Cemiyeti ve Jön Türklük (1889–1902) (Istanbul: İletişim, 1986), I, pp. 70–2. Ercümend Kuran, ‘The Impact of Nationalism on the Turkish Elite in the Nineteenth Century’, in W.R. Polk and R.L. Chambers, eds, Beginnings of Modernization in the Middle East: The Nineteenth Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), p. 117. Kerem Ünüvar, ‘İttihatçılıktan Kemalizm’e İhya’dan İnşa’ya’, in Mehmet Ö. Alkan, ed., Modern Türkiye’de Siyasi Düşünce (Istanbul: İletişim, 2001), I, pp. 132–3. Ahmet İzzet, Feryadım, p. 72. 39 Alaylı officers were purged by making use of various excuses, such as age limitations, poor performance, and disciplinary issues after 1909. But some of them were called back during the Balkan Wars and again during the mobilization of 1914. 40 Alaeddin Ören, ‘İlk Yedek Subay Yuvası: İhtiyat Zabitan Mektebi’, Piyade Yedek Subay Talimgâhı 35. Dönem Hatırası (Ankara: Güzel Sanatlar, 1952). İhsan Ali Alpar, Anı: Kahraman Türk Silahlı Kuvvetlerimizde 55 Yıl 11 Ay (Istanbul: Nilüfer, 1974), pp. 21–35. Faik Tonguç, Birinci Dünya Savaşında Bir Yedek Subayın Anıları (Istanbul: T. İş Bankası, 1999), pp. 16–17, 63, 67.

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The Ottoman Army did not have a professional NCO corps, and often experienced soldiers were left to perform the tasks of NCOs.41 Military-school-trained NCOs were a very small fraction of men in uniform42 and most of the time they were assigned to junior officer positions – not to NCO positions. Thus, the brevet officers performed an important function in the army’s junior leadership. The empire’s high schools had graduates and students to fill the necessary quotas for only one year. After 1915 the high command decided to enrol religious school (medrese) graduates and students, and later on every available untapped source was used in order to overcome mounting casualty figures.43 Many Arab high school graduates or students were commissioned as reserve officers. The administration was aware of nationalist feelings among the Arab high school students, but there was no other choice. Additionally bilingual youngsters (mostly Syrians) were selected as interpreters for Turkish officers commanding Arab units.44 Thus, the war resulted in a doubling of the number of Arab officers in the army. The exact numbers of the regular Arab officers who served during the First World War are difficult to establish. To get a better idea, I randomly chose two Military Academy graduate classes, the class of 1903 (1319) and the class of 1914-C (1330-C), notwithstanding the generational difference.45 From the class of 1903, 740 officers were commissioned, with 109 from Arab provinces. By 1914, 14 Arab officers were missing from the military for various reasons, chief among them being killed in action. So 16 per cent of the remaining officers from the class of 1903 were Arabs. From the class of 1914-C, 295 officers received their commissions, with 75 from Arab provinces. Thus 1 out of every 4 graduates was an Arab, indicating a remarkable increase in 10 years. If we go back to the total number of regular officers at the beginning of the war, which stood at 12,469, and extrapolate on the basis of the ratios provided above, it seems reasonable to argue that Arab officers numbered around 2,100 to 2,500.46 Unfortunately there are no 41 The first NCO school (Gedikli Küçük Zabit Okulu) was founded by Mahmud Şevket Paşa in Istanbul in 1909. Some more schools were opened in important regional centres such as Beirut and Konya. These three-year schools managed to have three classes graduate before the war. Tahsin Yahyaoğlu, ‘Astsubay Okullarının Tarihçesi’, Türk Kültürü, year 3, no. 32 (June 1965), p. 36. İsmail Hakkı Süerdem, Anılarım: Osmanlı’dan Cumhuriyet’e, ed. O. Avcı (Ankara: Bilge, 2004), pp. 23–4. Nurettin Peker, Tüfek Omza: Balkan Savaşından Kurtuluş Savaşına Ateş Hattında Bir Ömür (Istanbul: Doğan, 2009), pp. 47–50. 42 The most successful NCO cadets from each class were commissioned as officers. So in reality the NCO schools turned out to be supplementary military academies. Süerdem, Anılarım, p. 39. Peker, Tüfek Omza, pp. 124, 130. 43 Başkatipzade Ragıp, Tarih-i Hayatım, ed. Ahmet Emin Güven and M. Bülent Varlık (Ankara: Kebikeç, 1996), pp. 49–53. 44 Eliezer Tauber, The Arab Movements in World War I (London: Frank Cass, 1993), p. 57. Derveze, Osmanlı Filistininde Bir Posta Memuru, pp. 327–8, 360. 45 The data set is compiled from the following sources: TMAA, Registry Logbook, nos. 16, 52, 54. Milli Savunma Bakanlığı Arşivi (Ministry of National Defence Archive), Subay Şahsi Dosyaları (Officer Files). 319 (1903) de Harbiyeden Çıkan Subaylar İçin Kırk Yıllık Hatıra (1943). 1328–1912 Yılı Harp Okuluna Kuleli As. İdadisinden Geçen Sınıfa Ait Braşür (1954). 46 Unfortunately owing to the complex nature of Ottoman military record keeping and the archive system, it is very demanding and time-consuming to research files of a whole class.

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records available for reserve officers, but we can safely assume that, out of 20,000 reserve officers47 who were mobilized, at least 3,000 were Arabs. Of these sample classes only 2 of the 95 officers in the class of 1903 were deserters: 75 either were killed during the war or resigned at the end of the war, 18 fought in the Turkish Independence War, and 14 continued to serve with the Republican Turkish military. Out of 75 officers of the class of 1914-C only 1 deserted: 42 either were killed during the war or resigned at the end of the war, and 32 fought in the Turkish Independence War and later served with the Republican Turkish military.48 The statistics tell a completely different story from what we are used to hearing. The Ottoman Arab officers did not desert en masse. Instead most of them fought until the very end. If we pay attention to the status of the sample classes, the reality becomes more obvious. The officers from the class of 1903 provided field ranking officers from battalion level to brigade level. One very talented and meritorious officer from this class, İsmet İnönü, commanded an army corps in the final stage of the war. The class of 1914-C officers were junior officers and most ended the war as company commanders. These two classes experienced the full horror of the war and remained at the front line. However, aside from a few individuals, none severed their institutional ties and deserted from the Ottoman military. They fought loyally to the end. Most surprisingly, a remarkable percentage of them took part in the Turkish Independence War, which was a war of survival for the Turkish nation, and most of these veterans of the Independence War continued to serve with the newly founded republican military. The Turkish Ministry of Defence Archive Directorate volumes of the fallen corroborate the sample class figures. According to this database, which is far from complete, the total figure for the deaths of Arab officers is 351, of whom 104 were reserve officers.49 The figures for the Turkish Independence War are more striking: of a grand total of 431 combatrelated deaths for regular officers, 33 were Arab officers, 14 of whom were Libyans.50 Let us now revisit several widely known incidents in order to refute commonly held beliefs. The most frequently cited example of the inferior performance of the Arabs was none other than the infamous 77th Regiment during the Gallipoli campaign.51 This concerns the poor performance of Arab private soldiers as a unit, not the Arab officers, but interestingly most researchers pay limited attention to this important difference. The recruitment district of the 77th Regiment was the province of Halep (Aleppo). For this reason, it was known as an ‘Arab’ regiment. However, the demographics of Aleppo

47 Şevket Süreyya Aydemir, Makedonya’dan Ortaasya’ya Enver Paşa (Istanbul: Remzi, 1999), III, p. 254. 48 TMAA, Registry Logbook, nos. 16, 52, 54. Milli Savunma Bakanlığı Arşivi, Subay Şahsi Dosyaları. 319 (1903) de Harbiyeden Çıkan Subaylar İçin Kırk Yıllık Hatıra. 1328–1912 Yılı Harp Okuluna Kuleli As. İdadisinden Geçen Sınıfa Ait Braşür. 49 Unfortunately most of the military recruitment centres’ logbooks of the Arab provinces were destroyed during and after the war. So the original figures should be higher. Şehitlerimiz (Ankara: Milli Savunma Bakanlığı, 1998), V, pp. 154–5, 190–249. 50 Geçmişten Günümüze Resimlerle Kara Harp Okulu (Ankara: KHO, 1996), pp. 272–90. 51 Remzi Yiğitgüden et al., Birinci Dünya Harbinde Türk Harbi: Çanakkale Cephesi Harekatı (Ankara: Genkur, 1978), V, book 2, pp. 122–6, 156.

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province tell another story. In fact, there were many ethnic Turks living around Aleppo, although these were mostly nomads. There were also some religious minorities, such as Yezidis and Nusayris. Consequently, the regiment was not composed only of Arabs. Unit commanders specifically complained about the Yezidis and Nusayris because of their non-military bearing.52 The 77th Regiment became disorganized and fled in disarray during the 25–6 April 1915 attack in Anafartalar and, at first, everybody blamed the soldiers. Three deserters from the 77th Regiment were summarily executed in order to address the disorganization of the regiment and to set an example for the incoming units.53 But after a detailed examination, the 19th Division commander, Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) Bey, clearly identified the real culprit as the commanding officer of the regiment. For Mustafa Kemal Bey the role of the soldiers in the retreat was relatively minor.54 Another famous incident is the defection of the prominent figure of Arab rebellion, Lieutenant Mehmet Şerif el Faruki (Muhammad Sharif al-Faruqi). He was a member of the secret Arab organization al-Ahd before the war. While stationed in Damascus he and some of his friends planned to rebel or to escape to join Sharif Hussein of Mecca. But Faruki was arrested and sent to the First Army in Istanbul. He was then assigned to the Çanakkale front as a platoon leader, but he defected to the British on 20 August 1915, after spending just 10 days in his unit.55 Obviously, posting a noted Arab nationalist to the front line seems more than naive, but it worked with most of the implicated Arab nationalists, such as Lieutenant Colonel Yasin Hilmi (better known as Yasin al-Hashimi) Bey from Baghdad. Yasin was the true leader of the Arab nationalist officers in Syria. He was widely known to have masterminded the plot to support an Allied landing at İskenderun (Alexandretta) Bay by inciting whole Syrian units. However, either he gave up his subversive activity or the reports of these conspiracies had no foundation in truth.56 Yasin was sent to the European fronts with his division and subsequently promoted to major general thanks to his valiant and 52 Fahrettin Altay, 10 Yıl Savaş ve Sonrası (1912–1922) (Istanbul: İnsel, 1970), pp. 82–3. Enver Çakan, XVI. Yüzyılda Haleb Sancağı (1516–1566) (Elazığ: Fırat Üniversitesi, 2003), pp. 306–7. 53 Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Arıburnu Muharebeleri Raporu, ed. Uluğ İğdemir (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1986), p. 94. İzzettin Çalışlar, On Yıllık Savaşın Günlüğü: Balkan, Birinci Dünya ve İstiklal Savaşları, ed. İ. Görgülü and İ. Çalışlar (Istanbul: Yapı Kredi, 1997), p. 95. 54 The 77th Regiment was not the only unit that performed poorly. For example, the 33rd Regiment did likewise and some of its units fled under heavy enemy fire. For the details of these incidents and Mustafa Kemal Bey’s evaluation, see Atatürk, Arıburnu Muharebeleri, pp. 28–51, 60–1. Altay, 10 Yıl, p. 90. 55 Eliezer Tauber, ‘The Role of Lieutenant Muhammad Sharif al-Faruqi: New Light on AngloArab Relations during the First World War’, Asian and African Studies XXIV (1990), pp. 19–20. Antonius, Arab Awakening, p. 169. 56 Arab Bulletin, II, p. 80. Lawrence, Seven Pillars, pp. 49–50. Antonius, Arab Awakening, pp. 157–9, 186. Tauber, Arab Movements, pp. 60–1. According to British documents and some memoirs, the real culprit behind this project was Major Amin Lutfi al-Hafiz, who was the CO of 136th Regiment in charge of the coastal defence of İskenderun in 1915. He was later tried for treason and was hanged. Tauber, Arab Movements, pp. 19–21.

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meritorious service. In the closing stages of the war he was the commanding general of the VIII Army Corps and was seriously wounded when fighting against the Arab volunteers of Sharif Hussein’s army during the final retreat to Damascus. While he was recovering in a hideout in Damascus, the Ottoman units evacuated Syria, and the victorious Arabs proclaimed independence. For a brief period Yasin served as the chief of the general staff of the short-lived Syrian government of Faisal. Interestingly he applied for an assignment in the Turkish army in late 1921 but he was refused. Yasin then enrolled in the Iraqi army in 1922 and served in various capacities, including as prime minister.57

V. Incubators of Nationalism? Prisoner-of-War Camps From the very beginning, British authorities orchestrated a propaganda campaign in order to win the hearts and minds of the Arab officers and soldiers in the Ottoman Army. British intelligence established relations with the secret Arab organizations well before the war. It also recruited most of the oriental scholars or adventurers who happened to know bits and pieces about the Ottoman Empire into its newly created intelligence establishment, the Arab Bureau in Cairo. Like many contemporary European diplomats and travellers, they immediately looked for sources of local uneasiness and interpreted them as clear signs of Arab nationalism. Additionally, these eager but inexperienced intelligence experts quickly came under the influence of Arab nationalist circles in Egypt, and argued that the Arab officers and soldiers would not shed blood in the Ottoman cause; instead they would rebel at the first opportunity. That is why Lieutenant Faruki easily convinced all British intelligence experts with his story that nationalist Arab officers had planned an uprising well before the start of the war. These conspirators were already occupying places of influence and they were just waiting for a hint from Britain. Faruki’s story remained popular for nearly a year, even after many became suspicious of it.58 One of the most important reasons for the British negotiations with Sharif Hussein of Hejaz was to incite Arab officers and soldiers within the Ottoman military to rebel or at least to disobey.59 Interestingly, the British authorities were more convinced by their cleverly designed propaganda than was the original target population. Except for a few individuals, most Arabs remained loyal to the empire. Obviously the shocking impact of the world war exposed the fragility of the empire and the limits of integration. Wartime tensions were instrumental in evoking more distrust or outright hostility towards ethnic

57 Ali Fuad Erden, Birinci Dünya Harbinde Suriye Hatıraları (Istanbul: Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür, 2003), pp. 89–90. Mohammad Tarbush, The Role of the Military in Politics: A Case Study of Iraq to 1941 (London: KPI, 1985), pp. 116–17. M. Neşet, Büyük Harpte Suriye Cephesinde 48. Piyade Fırkası (Istanbul: Askeri, 1930), p. 98. Lawrence, Seven Pillars, p. 45. Tauber, Arab Movements, pp. 115–16. 58 MacMunn and Falls, Military Operations, I, pp. 216–17. H.V.F. Winstone, The Diaries of Parker Pasha (London: Quartet, 1983), p. 100. Sheila Ann Scoville, ‘British Logistical Support to Hashemites of Hejaz: Taif to Maan, 1916–1918’, unpublished PhD dissertation, University of California, 1982, pp. 22, 38–42. Ronald Storrs, Orientations (London: Readers Union, 1939), p. 193. 59 Scoville, ‘British Logistical Support’, p. 47.

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groups. However, neither the heavy-handed policy of the governor of Syria, Cemal Pasha, nor the start of the Arab rebellion in June 1916 changed the situation drastically. Even the ardent separatist nationalists continued to fight for the Ottoman cause rather than throw in their lot with foreign powers.60 The long-awaited crisis came at the beginning of 1917, when all belligerent nations were beginning to waver. To the surprise of many observers, Ottoman soldiers as a whole, and Arabs in particular, simply chose desertion instead of openly resisting the Ottoman high command. For understandable reasons the numbers of deserters increased if their respective unit was close to its home base. Most deserters took refuge in their home towns and only a fraction of them defected to the enemy. There was no collective action, like the rebellions of the Russian Revolution or the Italian and French mutinies.61 The British authorities decided to make use of prisoners of war to man Sharif Hussein’s rebel army and to perform intelligence missions. This policy gained importance after the hopes for the early collapse of the Ottoman military and large numbers of deserters/ defectors did not materialize. Prisoners were immediately grouped not according to the laws of war but according to their ethnicity. The Arab officers were the prime target.62 British intelligence officers and some early defectors, such as Nuri al-Said and Faruki, played important roles in this respect.63 The officers who showed a willingness to collaborate gained material advantages, whereas the others were punished. Taking into account the high mortality rate among Ottoman prisoners (7.1 per cent) in comparison with Austro-Hungarian or German prisoners in the British camps (2.9 and 2.6 per cent respectively), the choice of collaboration was actually a choice between life and death in many instances. According to British statistics, a total of 10,742 Ottoman prisoners out of 150,041 died of various causes – chief among them pellagra disease due to a niacin deficiency.64 Nearly all of the prominent commanders of Sharif Hussein were former 60 Erden, Birinci Dünya Harbinde, pp. 325–32. Ali Fuat Cebesoy, Birüssebi-Gazze Meydan Muharebesi ve Yirminci Kolordu (Istanbul: Askeri, 1938), p. 39. İnönü, Hatıralarım, p. 226. Ahmet İzzet, Feryadım, pp. 222–4, 230. Selam, Beyrut Şehremini’nin Anıları, pp. 150–69. Lawrence, Seven Pillars, p. 46. Tauber, Arab Movements, pp. 110–11. 61 Leonard V. Smith, ‘Remobilizing the Citizen-Soldier through the French Army Mutinies of 1917’, in John Horne, ed., State, Society and Mobilization in Europe during the First World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 144. Paul Corner and Giovanni Procacci, ‘The Italian Experience of Total Mobilization, 1915–1920’, in Horne, State, Society and Mobilization, pp. 229–30. Cebesoy, Birüssebi-Gazze, p. 18. Behiç Erkin, Hatırat 1876– 1958, ed. Ali Birinci (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 2010), pp. 141–3. Naci Kaşif Kıcıman, Medine Müdafaası: Yahud Hicaz Bizden Nasıl Ayrıldı (Istanbul: Sebil, 1994), pp. 168–9, 340. Selahattin Yurtoğlu, Yüzbaşı Selahattin’in Romanı, ed. İlhan Selçuk (Istanbul: Cumhuriyet, 2004), I, pp. 232, 244. Şevket Süreyya Aydemir, Suyu Arayan Adam (Istanbul: Remzi, 1965), p. 117. Arab Bulletin, III, p. 92. Antonius, Arab Awakening, p. 227. 62 Cemalettin Taşkıran, Ana Ben Ölmedim: Birinci Dünya Savaşında Türk Esirleri (Istanbul: Türkiye İş Bankası, 2001), pp. 73–92. Antonius, Arab Awakening, p. 226. Tauber, Arab Movements, p. 102. 63 Birdwood, Nuri, pp. 37–8, 48. Askari, A Soldier’s Story, pp. 99, 110–11. Antonius, Arab Awakening, p. 212. 64 Yücel Yanıkdağ, ‘Ill-fated Sons of the Nation: Ottoman Prisoners of War in Russia and Egypt, 1914–1922’, unpublished PhD dissertation, Ohio State University, 2002, pp. 149–50.

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prisoners of war, like Jafar al-Askari, Mavlud Mukhlis, Ali Jawdat al-Ayyubi, Salah alDin al-Sabbagh, İbrahim al-Husseini, and Cemil al-Madfai.65 The SS Pandua and SS Kara Deniz affair is a good example of the futile efforts of the British authorities to enlist Arab prisoners. Beginning in June 1916, British intelligence officers desperately asked the viceroy of India to find volunteers for Sharif Hussein’s army from Arab prisoners. They asked especially for officers and artillery specialists. After much delay and hesitation, 300 prisoners were selected from different camps in India and sent to Hejaz on board the Pandua and Kara Deniz. Interestingly, except for a few individuals, none of these so-called volunteers were willing to fight for Sharif Hussein against their Turkish comrades. The British authorities tried to keep the reality secret. A small mutiny took place on board when the true nature of the affair was leaked just before the start of the voyage. The ships arrived off the Hejazi coast in late November 1916, and negotiations with prisoners started immediately afterwards. However, neither the promises of British officials nor the presence of Nuri al-Said and other defectors were much help. Only four prisoners (a police officer, a journalist, and two medical doctors) volunteered to serve for the Sharif’s cause after a week-long effort. The rest preferred to remain prisoners of war rather than be part of the Sharif’s army, despite offers of material gain.66

VI. Conclusion The relations between Arabs and Turks remained more or less intact until the total collapse of the Palestinian and Syrian front on 6 November 1917, even though the series of defeats, the preferential treatment of the Arab prisoners of war, and the Allied propaganda campaign increased tension and distrust between Turks and Arabs. However, after the final collapse, Arab officers were suddenly faced with the harsh reality of having to choose between resigning and staying at home, or moving back to Anatolia to fight another day.67 The majority of Arab officers asked for permission to resign in order to return to their home towns.68 However, a sizeable minority remained with their Turkish comrades and continued fighting, but this time for the salvation of the Turkish national homeland, not for the Ottoman Empire.69 Not surprisingly, the partition of the Arab provinces between France and Britain according to the Sykes–Picot agreement, the collapse of Faisal’s Syrian government, and the power struggle at all levels influenced their thinking on the 65 Birdwood, Nuri, p. 49. Tarbush, Role of the Military, p. 164. Arab Bulletin, I, p. 9; III, pp. 3–4. 66 Winstone, Diaries of Parker Pasha, pp. 181–4. Scoville, ‘British Logistical Support’, pp. 73–4, 79, 81, 120–2, 126–7. Tauber, Arab Movements, pp. 102–7. 67 Khoury, Urban Notables, p. 78. Yurtoğlu, Yüzbaşı Selahattin’in, p. 255. Emin Çöl, ÇanakkaleSina Savaşları (Ankara: Güryılmaz, 1977), pp. 131–2. 68 For example, Lieutenant Fawzi al-Qawuqji – later to become prominent with his role in Syrian and Palestinian uprisings – asked permission from his field army commander Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) Pasha to stay in Syria during the final retreat to Anatolia. Orhan Koloğlu, Gazi Çağında İslam Dünyası (Istanbul: Boyut, 1994), pp. 131–2. 69 During the Turkish Independence War, 431 officers (excluding reserve officers) were killed in action; 33 of them were Arab officers.

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new Turkish military. However, these are not enough to explain the enduring loyalty of most Arabs during and after the war. Several general factors immediately come to mind, such as being brothers in arms, having traditional bonds, family and garrison ties, the day-to-day struggle to survive, and being far away from home. Still, such factors are far from giving satisfactory answers to the statistical realities. The main argument of this paper is that the issue of Ottoman Arab officers marks a success story in regard to integrating non-Turkish Muslim ethnicities into the imperial realm. Obviously, successive Ottoman administrations failed to achieve a strong degree of integration, general unity, and sense of belonging within the predominantly Arab provinces. However, this failure was not total, and the empire did succeed in certain aspects and with certain groups. The loyalty of Arab officers during the First World War and even afterwards is a clear example of successful integration. Any professionally trained Ottoman Arab officer, starting from an early age, spent 10 to 13 years within the military educational system, which provided a remarkably long and uniform programme of professional socialization. He served and fought with officers and soldiers coming from different provinces during his professional career. Additionally, long periods of service away from his home town and the creation of a garrison mentality tended to erode his parochialism. Thus he became a product of the Ottoman military system. Apparently, most Arab officers were susceptible to nationalist ideas and movements. Like their Turkish comrades, they tried to find solutions to the disintegration of the empire and its structural problems. Some of them even founded secret organizations and engineered plots. But, in the end, the high level of integration, esprit de corps, and institutional loyalty prevailed over national and/or ethnic affinities. Until the very end, most Ottoman Arab officers still believed in or wanted to believe in the viability of the Ottoman Empire. Not surprisingly many of the defectors later rued fighting against the empire and letting their comrades down. They tended to blame civilian politicians for choices which they came to regret.70 The Ottoman high command did achieve remarkable success in managing this important issue. Instead of discrimination, exclusion, or humiliation, Arab officers were treated equally and assigned to positions according to their rank and merit. They were given chances of promotion, of status, and of becoming first-class soldiers. The rise in tension between Turks and Arabs after the rebellion of Sharif Hussein and the subsequent defections were also handled intelligently. For example, the high command immediately dismissed some junior Turkish officers posted to the Galician front when they disobeyed the orders of the 20th Infantry Division commander, Yasin al-Hashimi – a well-known Arab nationalist – because of their nationalist feelings.71 The deliberate assignment of officers from Libya and of former French prisoners of war of Algerian and Tunisian origins to 70 Albert Hourani, ‘The Ottoman Background of the Modern Middle East’, in The Emergence of the Modern Middle East (London: Macmillan, 1981), p. 18. Derveze, Osmanlı Filistininde Bir Posta Memuru, pp. 422–3. Kirkbride, Awakening, pp. 41–2. For a similar crisis of identity and loyalty during the American Civil War, see Skelton, American Profession, p. 348. 71 1328–1912 Yılı Harp Okuluna Kuleli As. İdadisinden Geçen Sınıfa Ait Braşür.

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problematic units and fronts turned out to be a wise decision. These officers, whose homeland had been occupied by European colonial powers, greatly influenced the Arab officers and soldiers.72 Funding This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

72 Kıcıman, Medine Müdafaası, p. 230. On the use of French colonial POWs by Ottomans and Germans for propaganda purposes, see Richard S. Fogarty, Race and War in France: Colonial Subjects in the French Army, 1914–1918 (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2008), pp. 82, 108–9.