The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict (7 page)

Meanwhile the French, who had long-standing economic interests in Syria and Lebanon, were also keeping track of advocates of Arabism. They encouraged them, not without effect, to expand their horizons and look to France for support. A manifesto of Syrian nationalists, for example, read: “The heart’s desire
¹¹
of the Christians in Syria is the occupation of Syria by France.” We know about it because the French consul general in Beirut, François Georges-Picot, failed to burn this and other incriminating documents when he had to leave the city on the outbreak of World War I. Instead he hid them in a consulate safe, and then made the mistake (a deadly one for their authors) of telling the consulate’s dragoman what he had done. The dragoman, whose duties were to act as interpreter and guide between the French, Arabs, and Ottomans, informed the latter of Picot’s action. Not surprisingly, they immediately opened the safe. Since the Syrian document had been signed by “Christian members of the Executive Committee of the General Assembly elected by all the communal councils of the province of Beirut,” the Turks could pick off one by one not only the principals but, if they chose to, even the men who had voted for them.

The British were paying close attention to Ottoman possessions in the Middle East as well. Southern Syria, a land bordering Egypt, through part of which ran the Suez Canal, overlooked England’s economic jugular vein; moreover, the land route between Egypt and India, jewel in the crown of the British Empire, ran through Ottoman territory. For all that the British and French were allies against the Germans, and for all that they had settled many of their imperialist differences, French aspirations in Syria were unwelcome to the British. In fact, the British probably preferred a weak Ottoman regime there to a strong French one. When, late in 1913, the Turks dispatched a new governor or
vali
to rule Lebanon, the twenty-fourth in
five years, British observers permitted themselves some optimism. Competent Turkish rule would keep out the French, and the new
vali
was “a man of character, decision and enlightenment.” Wrote one Foreign Office expert, “It is to be hoped
¹²
he will remain long.”

Even minor events in Ottoman territory attracted British attention. In May 1913, when Arabs protested corruption among the police of Basra, a detailed report found its way to the Foreign Office in London. When a few days later the protesters rioted because Turkish officials had taken no action, a Foreign Office official noted, possibly with alarm: “There is every sign
¹³
of the approaching disintegration of Turkish rule in these regions.” In December 1913 the Ottomans agreed to sponsor a new Islamic university
¹⁴
in Medina, and a well-known Egyptian pan-Islamist laid the foundation stone; a report soon was circulating at the Foreign Office. So closely did the British watch the development of the Arab nationalist movement, in fact, that after the 1913 Paris Congress, a detailed report on individual participants soon made the rounds of the Foreign Office. “With one or two exceptions,”
¹⁵
the report concluded, after describing in detail nearly a dozen participants, “they are all young men of whom much is expected.”

Only fourteen months later the European powers declared war upon one another, and in November 1914 Enver Pasha brought his country in on Germany’s side. Few Arab nationalists supported this move enthusiastically, but even fewer opposed it openly. Still, at least one conservative Ottomanist recognized the war as an opportunity. If Turkey lost it, then her grip on Arab lands would be weakened, perhaps fatally, in which case he might realize his (vast) ambitions for himself and his family. He would do nothing rash, but it might not hurt just to reestablish relations with the British. (He distrusted the French.) After all, he had had some contact with them, direct and indirect, prior to the war, and he had conceived a great admiration for them.

The cautious individual who had decided to sound out the British was the emir, or grand sharif, Hussein of Mecca. A leader among Arabs, he was at this stage not an Arabist but a conservative Ottomanist deeply alienated by CUP rule. In 1914 he was a little more than sixty years old, of medium height and fair complexion, with fine and regular features. He possessed “large and expressive brown
¹⁶
eyes … strongly marked eyebrows under an ample forehead … a short and delicately curved nose.” His mouth was “full … [his] teeth well formed and well preserved. The beard thick and not long, grey almost to whiteness.” “He is such an old dear,”
¹⁷
T. E.
Lawrence once wrote of him dismissively. But a second Briton judged him “outwardly so gentle
¹⁸
and considerate as almost to seem weak, but this appearance hides a deep and subtle policy, wide ambitions and an un-Arabian foresight, strength of character and persistence.”

Grand Sharif Hussein belonged to the Abadila clan, which claimed direct descent from the Prophet Muhammad. Only one other clan, the Dwahi Zeid, claimed a like lineage. Male members of the two clans possessed the aristocratic title
sharif;
only they could become emirs, or grand sharifs, of Mecca. Mecca was the capital city of the Hejaz, which is present-day Saudi Arabia.

Until the eighteenth century the grand sharifate was a prize worth having. Its holder was overlord of the Hejaz, although the Bedouin tribes who wandered the country were loath to acknowledge any temporal master. But the title conferred enormous religious authority too, because the Hejaz included not merely Mecca, where the prophet had been born, but also Medina, where he had been buried. Indeed, to Muslim eyes the grand sharif of Mecca probably ranked second only to the caliph as a holy and revered figure. The grand sharif oversaw arrangements for the annual pilgrimage, or hajj, to the two cities, an extremely lucrative business. In addition he received other monies, titles to land, and emoluments.

The position itself dated from the tenth century. In the sixteenth century, when the Ottomans took over the Hejaz, they chose to retain it as always, choosing the grand sharif from the two clans but making him govern in concert with a
vali
, whom they appointed in Constantinople. The Ottomans did not significantly reduce the grand sharifs’ power because they feared alienating Muslim Arabs. Instead, they went the other way, exempting Hejazis from taxation and conscription and pouring money into the two holy cities, both of which prospered as a result.

In 1803 Muslim fundamentalists, Wahhabis who wished to purge Islam of innovations, swept like a cutting desert wind into Mecca in order to “purify” it. In 1819 the Ottomans restored their own rule but gripped tighter than before. Sultans now sought to control the grand sharifs partly through the
valis
and partly by exercising stricter oversight from Constantinople; they encouraged rivalries within and between the two sharifian clans on the principle of divide and conquer. For the next ninety-five years the grand sharifs strove always to weaken the Ottoman hold, to regain the freedom of action they once had enjoyed. They engaged in sometimes deadly rivalry with the
valis.
The Dwahi Zeid and the Abadila clans maneuvered against each other too, jockeying incessantly for favor and position at the Ottoman court. After 1819 the history of the grand sharifate was one long tale of intrigue.
But of that intrigue Hussein, grand sharif of Mecca in 1914, was a master.

He was born in Constantinople in 1853, the son, grandson, and nephew of former emirs. Part of his childhood he spent in Mecca, part in the Ottoman capital. According to an early, sycophantic biographer, he displayed extraordinary qualities even as a youth: “integrity, energy
¹⁹
and truth … unselfishness … gracious manners … love of virtue.” One imagines this young paragon listening intently as his uncles, older cousins, father, and grandfather discussed how to best their Dwahi Zeid rivals, and how to manipulate the politicians of Constantinople and the
valis
in Mecca. In secret his closest relatives may have discussed how to defeat their own cousins and uncles, since all longed to be appointed grand sharif. The youngster took it all in. During a second stint in Mecca, as an adult, Hussein supported the attempts of his uncle, Grand Sharif Aoun el-Hafik, to loosen the Ottoman reins. For this the sultan recalled him to Constantinople in 1891. There Hussein stayed until 1908, when he himself gained the great prize.

Constantinople, Europe’s easternmost or Asia’s westernmost city, is situated on a peninsula studded with seven low hills; the Golden Horn, or Bay of Constantinople, lies to its north, the channel of the Bosporus to its east, and the Sea of Marmara to its south. It is a city of mosques and domes and minarets; of Roman ruins, palaces, fortresses, and columns: beautiful, cultured, cosmopolitan, and lively. The future grand sharif flourished there. The sultan provided him with a furnished home overlooking the Bosporus. Hussein raised four sons (Ali, born in 1879, Abdullah, born in 1882, Feisal, born in 1886, and Zeid, born to a Turkish mother in 1898), for whom he engaged private tutors in every subject except the Quran, which he taught them himself. Already he was known for his piety and knowledge of Islam. His social circle comprised the Turkish and Muslim elites, many of the latter being descended, as was he, from the Prophet. “He enjoyed the high esteem and respect of the Constantinople Statesmen, Ministers and Viziers, and of the Sultan himself,” according to the biographer, and as a result he too attained the rank of vizier, and membership of the Council of State, an advisory body to the sultan. Nor would he deviate “by a hair’s breadth from the path of honor and virtue thus gaining the deepest love and veneration of the whole nation.” But for all its glories, Constantinople was a political hothouse. That Hussein succeeded in becoming grand sharif in 1908, when all his male relatives and their Dwahi Zeid rivals wanted the position too, suggests qualities his biographer failed to mention: tact, for one, which is to say the ability to mask his true thoughts, which is to say political cunning. Also he was lucky.

Cunning and luck were both apparent in 1908, when the CUP decided to replace the acting grand sharif (who happened to be one of Hussein’s cousins). Having just taken power and still nourishing progressive and democratic impulses, the CUP had little reason to favor the conservative, deeply religious Hussein, who put himself forward. It chose instead another
²⁰
of his relatives, an uncle. But the latter dropped dead while on his way to Mecca. The Young Turks distrusted Hussein, but some Old Turks held different views. The sultan, for one, appears to have admired and liked Hussein personally. “I pray that God
²¹
may punish those who have prevented me from benefiting from your talents,” Abdul Hamid II told him before dispatching him to Mecca. But the sultan could not have done it alone. Hussein had been courting
²²
the English too: He sent a message of thanks to the British ambassador in Constantinople for supporting opponents of the CUP’s centralizing policies; and the British dragoman, Gerald Fitzmaurice, may have recommended Hussein to the Anglophile grand vizier. The British influence, coupled with the sultan’s, proved too weighty for hardliners in the CUP to overcome. Another possibility is that the CUP hoped to score points with the British by appointing their favorite. In any case, while Hussein’s courtship of the sultan was simply elementary politics, that he had bothered to court Fitzmaurice is evidence of political acumen.

Another part of this story needs telling. By now Hussein’s second son, Abdullah, aspired to play a political role. Like his father, he had grown up at the feet of elder male relatives spinning political intrigues. When he was alone, he must have ruminated upon what he had heard and nourished the ambition to take part someday in political affairs. In 1908 he was ready. He urged his father to put his claim to the sharifate in writing; he brought the letter himself to the Anglophile grand vizier; he lobbied court officials on his father’s behalf. He later claimed these efforts were decisive, which we may doubt. But as markers
²³
of his future role they were significant.

Already in 1908 Sharif Hussein despised the Young Turks of the CUP, who heartily returned the sentiment; he supported instead the reactionary sultan, Abdul Hamid II. Upon reaching Mecca, Hussein’s first words confirmed his deeply conservative views: He would respect not the CUP constitution but only God’s: “This country abides
²⁴
by the constitution of God, the law of God and the teaching of his prophet.” He anticipated the counterrevolution of 1909: “When Your Majesty calls, the first country to respond will be the Hejaz,” he pledged before his departure. He may have promised
²⁵
the sultan a place of safety from which to plan the countercoup, and it may be that the sultan lived to regret not accepting this invitation. At
any rate, Hussein’s general outlook did not augur well for his future relations with the CUP government.

The Hejaz of which Hussein became emir in 1908 was among the most desolate regions of the Arabian Peninsula, that vast expanse of sparsely settled rock and sand roamed by constantly warring, untamable nomadic tribes. “The principal superficial characteristic of Hejaz is general barrenness,” wrote the British archaeologist and agent David Hogarth in a prewar handbook. Only the occasional oasis and “rare fertility” at the foot of certain upland valleys permitted the practice of agriculture at all. There were few villages or even hamlets. In Midian, in northern Hejaz, such tiny settlements as did exist consisted solely of mud huts, according to William Yale, an American engineer who worked as an agent for the State Department in the Middle East during World War I. And Midian as a whole Yale judged “a miserable country.”
²⁶
As for the Bedouins, they were, according to Hogarth, “of exceptionally predatory
²⁷
character, low morale and disunited organization.”

But Hejaz boasted a significant port, Jeddah, and two relatively prosperous cities, Mecca and Medina. Jeddah, with a population of 30,000, played a crucial role in the hajj: Muslim pilgrims sailed there from all over the world, then proceeded on to Mecca. Medina, with a population of 30,000 to 40,000, was a walled town based on a large oasis, well watered by wadis, and surrounded by palm trees bearing 139 varieties of dates, other fruit trees, vineyards, wheat, barley, and vegetable gardens. As the terminus of the railway from Damascus, it supplied the second great stream of Muslim pilgrims en route to Mecca. In fact, for wealthier pilgrims Medina, final resting place of the Prophet Muhammad, was a destination city too. Residents of all classes
²⁸
and occupations made large profits from these sojourners.