1916-1918 жылдардағы Араб көтерілісі және Осман империясына қарсы күрес

1916–1918 uprising against the Ottoman Turks
the anti Ottoman uprising during World War I

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The Arab Revolt (الثورة العربية al Thawra al ‘Arabiyya), also known as the Great Arab Revolt (الثورة العربية الكبرى al Thawra al ‘Arabiyya al Kubrā), was an armed uprising by the Hashemite led Arabs of the Hejaz against the Ottoman Empire amidst the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I. On the basis of the McMahon–Hussein Correspondence, exchanged between Henry McMahon of the United Kingdom and Hussein bin Ali of the Kingdom of Hejaz, the rebellion against the ruling Turks was officially initiated at Mecca on 10 June 1916. The primary goal of the Arab rebels was to establish an independent and unified Arab state stretching from Aleppo to Aden, which the British government had promised to recognize. The Sharifian Army, led by Hussein and the Hashemites with backing from the British military's Egyptian Expeditionary Force, successfully fought and expelled the Ottoman military presence from much of the Hejaz and Transjordan. By 1918, the rebels had captured Damascus and proclaimed the Arab Kingdom of Syria, a short lived monarchy that was led by Hussein's son Faisal I. Having covertly signed the Sykes–Picot Agreement with the French Third Republic, the British reneged on their promise to support the Arabs' establishment of a singular Arab state. Instead, the Arab majority Ottoman territories of the Middle East were broken up into a number of League of Nations mandates, jointly controlled by the British and the French. Amidst the partition of the Ottoman Empire, the defeated Ottomans' mainland in Anatolia came under a joint military occupation by the victorious Allies, though this was gradually broken by the Turkish War of Independence, which established the present day Republic of Turkey.

The rise of nationalism in the Ottoman Empire dates from at least 1821. Arab nationalism has its roots in the Mashriq (the Arab lands east of Egypt), particularly in countries of the Levant. The political orientation of Arab nationalists before World War I was generally moderate. Their demands were of a reformist nature and generally limited to autonomy, a greater use of Arabic in education and changes in peacetime conscription in the Ottoman Empire to allow Arab conscripts local service in the Ottoman army. The Young Turk Revolution began on 3 July 1908 and quickly spread throughout the empire. As a result, Sultan Abdul Hamid II was forced to announce the restoration of the 1876 constitution and the reconvening of the Ottoman parliament. The period is known as the Second Constitutional Era. In the 1908 elections, the Young Turks' Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) managed to gain the upper hand against the Liberal Union, led by Sultanzade Sabahaddin. The new parliament had 142 Turks, 60 Arabs, 25 Albanians, 23 Greeks, 12 Armenians (including four Dashnaks and two Hunchaks), five Jews, four Bulgarians, three Serbs and one Vlach. The CUP now gave more emphasis to centralisation and a modernisation. It preached a message that was a mixture of pan Islamism, Ottomanism, and pan Turkism, which was adjusted as the conditions warranted. At heart, the CUP were Turkish nationalists who wanted to see the Turks as the dominant group within the Ottoman Empire, which antagonised Arab leaders and prompted them to think in similarly nationalistic terms. Arab members of the parliament supported the countercoup of 1909, which aimed to dismantle the constitutional system and to restore the absolute monarchy of Sultan Abdul Hamid II. The dethroned sultan attempted to restore the Ottoman Caliphate by putting an end to the secular policies of the Young Turks, but he was, in turn, driven away to exile in Selanik by the 31 March Incident in which the Young Turks defeated the countercoup, and he was eventually replaced by his brother Mehmed V.

In 1913, intellectuals and politicians from the Mashriq met in Paris at the First Arab Congress. They produced a set of demands for greater autonomy and equality within the Ottoman Empire, including for elementary and secondary education in Arab lands to be delivered in Arabic, for peacetime Arab conscripts to the Ottoman army to serve near their home region and for at least three Arab ministers in the Ottoman cabinet.

It is estimated that the Arab forces involved in the revolt numbered around 5,000 soldiers. This number however probably applies to the Arab regulars who fought during the Sinai and Palestine campaign with Edmund Allenby's Egyptian Expeditionary Force, and not the irregular forces under the direction of T. E. Lawrence and Faisal. On a few occasions, particularly during the final campaign into Syria, this number would grow significantly. The Arab Bureau of the British Empire in Cairo believed that the revolt would draw the support of all Arabs throughout the Ottoman Empire and Arab lands. Faisal and Sharif Hussein reportedly expected to be joined by 100,000 Arab troops. However, the large desertions predicted British Arab Bureau never materialized as the majority of Arab officers remained loyal to the Ottomans until the end. Many Arabs joined the Revolt sporadically, often as a campaign was in progress or only when the fighting entered their home region. During the Battle of Aqaba, for instance, while the initial Arab force numbered only a few hundred, over a thousand more from local tribes joined them for the final assault on Aqaba. Estimates of Faisal's effective forces vary, but through most of 1918 at least, they may have numbered as high as 30,000 men. The Hashemite Army comprised two distinctive forces: tribal irregulars who waged a guerrilla war against the Ottoman Empire and the Sharifian Army, which was recruited from Ottoman Arab POWs and fought in conventional battles. Hashemite forces were initially poorly equipped, but later were to receive significant supplies of weapons, most notably rifles and machine guns from Britain and France. In the early days of the revolt, Faisal's forces were largely made up of Bedouins and other nomadic desert tribes, who were only loosely allied, loyal more to their respective tribes than the overall cause. The Bedouin would not fight unless paid in advance with gold coin, and by the end of 1916, the French had spent 1.25 million gold francs in subsidizing the revolt. By the beginning of the First World War, Arab conscripts constituted about 30% of the wartime Ottoman military of 3 million, serving in all ranks from the lowest to the highest and forming a crucial component of the Ottoman Army. Ottoman troops in the Hejaz numbered 20,000 men by 1917. The Ottoman troops enjoyed an advantage over the Hashemite troops at first in that they were well supplied with modern German weapons. Moreover, the Ottomans relied upon the support of Emir Saud bin Abdulaziz Al Rashid of the Emirate of Jabal Shammar, whose tribesmen dominated what is now northern Saudi Arabia and tied down both the Hashemites and Saʻudi forces with the threat of their raiding attacks. The great weakness of the Ottoman forces was they were at the end of a long and tenuous supply line in the form of the Hejaz railway, and because of their logistical weaknesses, were often forced to fight on the defensive.

The Ottoman Empire took part in the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I, under the terms of the Ottoman–German Alliance. Many Arab nationalist figures in Damascus and Beirut were arrested, then tortured. The flag of the resistance was designed by Sir Mark Sykes, in an effort to create a feeling of "Arab ness" in order to fuel the revolt.

When Herbert Kitchener was Consul General in Egypt, contacts between Abdullah and Kitchener had eventually culminated in a telegram of 1 November 1914 from Kitchener (recently appointed as Secretary of War) to Hussein wherein Great Britain would, in exchange for support from the Arabs of Hejaz, "guarantee the independence, rights and privileges of the Sharifate against all foreign external aggression, in particular that of the Ottomans." The Sharif indicated that he could not break with the Ottomans immediately, and it did not happen till the following year. From 14 July 1915, to 10 March 1916, a total of ten letters, five from each side, were exchanged between Sir Henry McMahon and Sherif Hussein. Hussein's letter of 18 February 1916 appealed to McMahon for £50,000 in gold plus weapons, ammunition, and food. Faisal claimed that he was awaiting the arrival of 'not less than 100,000 people' for the planned revolt. McMahon's reply of 10 March 1916 confirmed British agreement to the requests and concluded the correspondence. Hussein, who until then had officially been on the Ottoman side, was now convinced that his assistance to the Triple Entente would be rewarded by an Arab empire encompassing the entire span between Egypt and Qajar Iran, with the exception of imperial possessions and interests in Kuwait, Aden, and the Syrian coast. He decided to join the Allied camp immediately, because of rumours that he would soon be deposed as Sharif of Mecca by the Ottoman government in favor of Sharif Ali Haidar, leader of the rival Zaʻid family. The much publicized executions of the Arab nationalist leaders in Damascus led Hussein to fear for his life if he were deposed in favour of Ali Haidar. On 5 June 1916, two of Hussein's sons, the emirs ʻAli and Faisal, began the revolt by attacking the Ottoman garrison in Medina, but were defeated by an aggressive Turkish defence led by Fakhri Pasha. The revolt proper began on 10 June 1916, when Hussein ordered his supporters to attack the Ottoman garrison in Mecca. In the Battle of Mecca, there ensued over a month of bloody street fighting between the out numbered, but far better armed Ottoman troops and Hussein's tribesmen. The port of Jeddah was attacked by 3500 Arabs on 10 June 1916 with the assistance of bombardment by British warships and seaplanes. The Ottoman garrison surrendered on 16 June. Herbert Garland was also involved. In addition, a French military mission commanded by Colonel Édouard Brémond was sent out. Lawrence obtained assistance from the Royal Navy to turn back an Ottoman attack on Yenbu in December 1916. Lawrence's major contribution to the revolt was convincing the Arab leaders (Faisal and Abdullah) to co ordinate their actions in support of British strategy. Lawrence developed a close relationship with Faisal, whose Arab Northern Army was to become the main beneficiary of British aid. By contrast, Lawrence's relations with Abdullah were not good, so Abdullah's Arab Eastern Army received considerably less in way of British aid. Lawrence persuaded the Arabs not to drive the Ottomans out of Medina; instead, the Arabs attacked the Hejaz railway on many occasions. This tied up more Ottoman troops, who were forced to protect the railway and repair the constant damage. On 1 December 1916, Fakhri Pasha began an offensive with three brigades out of Medina with the aim of taking the port of Yanbu. It was fire and air support from the five ships of the Royal Navy Red Sea Patrol that defeated the Ottoman attempts to take Yanbu with heavy losses on 11–12 December 1916. The coastal city of Wejh was to be the base for attacks on the Hejaz railway. While the 800 man Ottoman garrison prepared for an attack from the south, a landing party of 400 Arabs and 200 Royal Navy bluejackets attacked Wejh from the north on 23 January 1917. The Arab force had increased to about 70,000 men armed with 28,000 rifles and deployed in three main groups. In late 1916, the Allies started the formation of the Regular Arab Army (also known as the Sharifian Army) raised from Ottoman Arab POWs.

The year 1917 began well for the Hashemites when the Emir Abdullah and his Arab Eastern Army ambushed an Ottoman convoy led by Ashraf Bey in the desert, and captured £20,000 worth of gold coins that were intended to bribe the Bedouin into loyalty to the Sultan. Starting in early 1917, the Hashemite guerrillas began attacking the Hejaz railway. At first, guerrilla forces commanded by officers from the Regular Army such as al Misri, and by British officers such as Newcombe, Lieutenant Hornby and Major Herbert Garland focused their efforts on blowing up unguarded sections of the Hejaz railway. In February 1917, Garland succeeded for the first time in destroying a moving locomotive with a mine of his own design. Captain Raho was to emerge as one of the leading destroyers of the Hejaz railway. Typical of such attacks were the one commanded out by Newcombe and Joyce who on the night of 6/7 July 1917 when they had planted over 500 charges on the Hejaz railway, which all went off at about 2 am. In March 1917, an Ottoman force joined by tribesmen from Jabal Shammar led by Ibn Rashid carried out a sweep of the Hejaz that did much damage to the Hashemite forces. Lawrence and Auda left Wedj on 9 May 1917 with a party of 40 men to recruit a mobile force from the Howeitat, a tribe located in the area. On 6 July, after an overland attack, Aqaba fell to those Arab forces with only a handful of casualties. The tribes feared repressions and losing the money they had received from the Ottomans for their loyalty. Later in the year, the Hashemite warriors made a series of small raids on Ottoman positions in support of British General Allenby's winter attack on the Gaza–Bersheeba defensive line, which led to the Battle of Beersheba. Typical of such raids was one led by Lawrence in September 1917 that saw Lawrence destroy a Turkish rail convoy by blowing up the bridge it was crossing at Mudawwara and then ambushing the Turkish repair party. In November 1917, as aid to Allenby's offensive, Lawrence launched a deep raiding party into the Yarmouk River valley, which failed to destroy the railway bridge at Tel ash Shehab, but which succeeded in ambushing and destroying the train of General Mehmed Cemal Pasha, the commander of the Ottoman VII Corps. Allenby's victories led directly to the British capture of Jerusalem just before Christmas 1917.

The United Kingdom agreed in the McMahon–Hussein Correspondence that it would support Arab independence if they revolted against the Ottomans. However, the United Kingdom and France reneged on the original deal and divided up the area under the 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement in ways that the Arabs felt were unfavourable to them. Further confusing the issue was the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which promised support for a Jewish "national home" in Palestine. This series of events is often characterised as a betrayal of the Arabs by the British. For a brief period, the Hejaz region of western Arabia became a self declared state, without being universally recognised as such, under Hussein's control. Although both Ibn Saud and Hussein both received British aid, it was eventually conquered by Ibn Saud in 1925, as part of his military and sociopolitical campaign for the unification of Saudi Arabia. The Arab Revolt is seen by historians as the first organized movement of Arab nationalism. It brought together different Arab groups for the first time with the common goal to fight for independence from the Ottoman Empire. Much of the history of Arab independence stemmed from the revolt beginning with the kingdom that had been founded by Hussein. After the war, the Arab Revolt had implications. Groups of people were put into classes that were based on whether they had fought in the revolt and their rank. In Iraq, a group of Sharifian officers from the Arab Revolt formed a political party that they headed. The Hashemites in Jordan remain influenced by the actions of the revolt's Arab leaders.

According to Efraim Karsh of Bar Ilan University, Sharif Hussein of Mecca was "a man with grandiose ambitions" who had first started to fall out with his masters in Istanbul when the dictatorship, a triumvirate known as the Three Pashas (General Enver Pasha, Talaat Pasha, and Cemal Pasha), which represented the radical Turkish nationalist wing of the CUP, seized power in a coup d'état in January 1913 and began to pursue a policy of Turkification, which gradually angered non Turkish subjects. Hussein started to embrace the language of Arab nationalism only after the Young Turks revolt against the Ottoman sultan Abdul Hamid II in July 1908. The fighting force of the revolt was mostly combined from Ottoman defectors and Arabian tribes loyal to the Sharif. The Turks answered by accusing the rebelling tribes of betraying the Muslim Caliphate during a campaign against imperialist powers attempting to divide and govern Muslim lands. The Turks said the revolting Arabs gained nothing after the revolt; rather, the Middle East was carved up by the British and French.

While the revolt failed to garner significant support from within the Ottoman Empire's soon to be Iraq provinces, it did find huge support from Arab populated Levantine provinces. This early Arab nationalism came about when the majority of the Arabs living in the Ottoman Empire were loyal primarily to their own families, clans, and tribes despite efforts of the Turkish ruling class, who pursued a policy of Turkification through the Tanzimat reforms and hoped to create a feeling of "Ottomanism" among the different ethnicities under the Ottoman domain. Liberal reforms brought about by the Tanzimat also transformed the Ottoman Caliphate into a secular empire, which weakened the Islamic concept of Ummah that tied the different races together. The arrival of Committee of Union and Progress to power and the creation of a one party state in 1913 which mandated Turkish nationalism as a state ideology worsened the relationship between the Ottoman state and its non Turkish subjects.