A Consul’s View of King Hussein

Yesterday I found this description of Hussein b. Ali, the King of the Hejaz and the Sharif of Mecca, by the British Consul in Jedda from December 1923:

 Imagine a cunning, lying, credulous, suspicious , obstinate, vain, conceited, ignorant, greedy, cruel Arab sheikh suddenly thrust into a position where he has to deal with all sorts of questions he doesn’t understand, and where there is no human power to restrain him, and you have a picture of King Husein … Lying, robbing, and other crimes no more come amiss to him than they did to the founder of his religion.

The British Consul does not pain a pretty picture of him. I did not know it was possible to pack so much negativity into one sentence. King Hussein was Britain’s Arabian ally during the Great War, but their relationship hardened in the years that followed when King Hussein became a small annoyance to Britain and when Britain did not fulfill her war-time promises to him. According to the book where I found the quote he had, by 1924, become both a despot and a figure of fun.

“We are flying now at sea-level”

På hausten 1937 leita arkeologar etter fleire arkeologiske og historiske stadar i Transjordan ved hjelp av fly. Med fly var det enklare å sjå formasjonar etter til dømes fort og vegar enn det var på bakken. Etter ein stogg i Amman flaug dei vidare ned mot den sørlege delen av landet. Då dei flaug over Daudehavet sendte piloten bak ein lapp der det stod: “We are flying now at sea-level.”

Daudehavet er i dag det lågaste punktet på jorda og ligg om lag 420 meter under havnivå. Havet synk no med omlag ein meter i året og vassnivået i Daudehavet låg litt høgare i 1937 enn det gjer i dag. I 1970 låg havet på 395 meter under havnivå. Dette er for det meste grunna utnytting av vatnet som renn ut i Daudehavet, eller rettare sagt som ikkje renn ut i Daudehavet lengre. Elva som mellom anna renn gjennom Wadi Mujib forsvinn nesten bokstaveleg talt ned i eit sluk rett før den når Daudehavet og blir sendt i røyr til Amman i nord og andre område i sør.

Då kristne elefantar prøvde å øydeleggje Kabaen i Mekka

Medan eg las ein omtale av sjølvbiografien til Harry StJ. B. Philby (of Arabia), ein viktig mann med tanke på Storbritannia si rolle i Midtausten etter den første verdskrigen, kom eg over ei lita historie om Kabaen i Mekka:  

På byrjinga av 500-talet sat den kristne keisaren Ella Asbeha i Etiopia og irriterte seg over ein massakre på kristne martyrar i Najran, som no ligg sør i Saudi-Arabia. For å hemne seg reiste han over Raudehavet til Jemen med ein hær og førte krig mot dei som skulle ha stått bak. Nokre år seinare hadde ein annan etiopisk keisar tatt over og hadde sett ein visekonge, Abreha, som guvernør av Jemen. Abreha var ein kristen mann som mellom anna hadde bygd ei kyrkje i Sana. Som ein kristen irriterte han seg over heidenske pilegrimar som valfarta til Mekka og ville difor setje ein stoggar for dette. Han samla dimed saman tretten elefantar og drog for å øydeleggje Kabaen, den heilage svarte steinen, som var svært heilag òg i førislamsk tid. Voktarane av Kabaen var Quraysh-stammen, stammen til Muhammad, som seinare ville bli Gud sitt sendebod. Voktarane var ikkje særleg glade i elefantar og flykta difor då Abreha kom. No stod ingenting mellom Abreha og den svarte steinen, med unntak av ei lite mirakel. Då visekongen nærma seg steinen nekta elefanten han rei på å gå vidare og sette seg i staden for ned. Dimed var visstnok Kabaen redda. Moralen her i vår vise er at elefantar er eit dårleg val dersom ein ynskjer å øydeleggjer heilage steinar.

Allenby’s fake camp

During the first world war the British forces, under the leadership of General Edmund Allenby, had tried and failed twice to take and hold the area of Transjordan. The goal had been to break the lines of the Ottoman Empire between Damascus and Medina. After two failed attacks with many casualties, Allenby shifted focus. Allenby’s new strategy was take Damascus by breaking the Ottoman lines in coastal Palestine and thereby bypassing the Ottoman forces in Transjordan. The rush for Damascus started in September 1918. The Arab Army, under the leadership of the Hashemite Sharif of Mecca, Hussein b. Ali, had been held in check by the Ottoman forces, but moved camp to Azraq Oasis to participate in the rush. To cover this operation up Allenby came up with a plan to fool the Ottomans:

Allenby feigned a new attack on Transjordan to cover his troop build-up on the coast of Palestine by pitching an empty encampment in the Jordan Valley, making some 15,000 dummy horses out of canvas, and driving mule-drawn sleighs to raise dust.

At the same time the Arab Army draw the Ottoman’s attention away from Palestine by attacking the Hijaz Railway line. The plan worked and the heavily outnumbered Ottoman forced in Palestine were defeated and their defenses collapsed in six days. The Arab Army and Allenby’s forces now raced each other to Damascus, a race the Arabs would win.

This small moment in history is picked from Frontiers of the State in the Late Ottoman Empire by Eugene L. Rogan. For more detailed information about the campaign see Setting the Desert on Fire by James Barr.

Useful Information

My blog has been in hibernation the last month and a half due to travelling, moving, readjustment and laziness. My stay in Jordan has ended and I am now back in Norway. To celebrate this occasion (restart of my blog) I will provide you with some highly useful statistical information from an article in a book I am currently reading. The following quote is from the article “A Kemalist Gambit – A View of the Political Negotiations in the Determination of the Turkish-Iraqi Border” by David Cuthell.

Mosul was established as its own province administered by its own governor [after some provincial reforms in the Ottoman Empire in the 1870s]. The city of Mosul served as the administrative center and was divided into three provincial sub-districts. These were Mosul, Kirkuk, and Sulaymaniya. According to the General Census of 1881-83 the total provincial population amounted to 176,111 souls. These were further broken down into Muslims (164,593), Catholics (7,082), and Jews (4,286). Also listed were 102 Protestants and 45 Armenians as well as 3 Greeks.  

The article is from the book The Creation of Iraq 1914-1921 and is edited by Reeva S. Simon and Eleanor H. Tejirian. Cuthell found his statistical information in a book by Kemal Karpat about the Ottoman population between 1830 and 1914.