Faisal I
Faisal I bin Hussein bin Ali al-Hashimi was a Hejazi statesman who served as the King of Iraq from 23 August 1921 until his death in 1933. A member of the Hashemite family, he was a leader of the Great Arab Revolt during the First World War, and ruled as the unrecognized King of the Arab Kingdom of Syria from March to July 1920 when he was expelled by the French.
The third son of Hussein bin Ali, the Grand Emir and Sharif of Mecca, Faisal was born in Mecca and raised in Istanbul. From 1916 to 1918, with British assistance, he played a major role in the revolt against the Ottoman Empire. He helped set up an Arab government in Syria, based in Damascus, and led the Arab delegation at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. In 1920, the Syrian National Congress proclaimed Faisal king, rejecting the French claim to a Mandate for Syria. In response, France invaded a few months later, abolished the kingdom and forced him into exile.
In August 1921, in accordance with the decision made at the Cairo Conference, the British arranged for Faisal to become king of a new Kingdom of Iraq under British administration. During his reign, Faisal fostered unity between Sunni Muslims and Shia Muslims to encourage common loyalty and promote pan-Arabism in the goal of creating an Arab state that would include Iraq, Syria and the rest of the Fertile Crescent. In 1932, he presided over the independence of the Kingdom of Iraq upon the end of the British Mandate and the country's entry into the League of Nations. Faisal died of a heart attack in 1933 in Bern, Switzerland, at the age of 48 and was succeeded by his eldest son Ghazi.
Early life
Faisal was born in Mecca, Ottoman Empire, in 1885, the third son of Hussein bin Ali, the Grand Sharif of Mecca. He grew up in Constantinople and learned about leadership from his father. In 1913, he was elected as representative for the city of Jeddah for the Ottoman parliament.Following the Ottoman Empire's declaration of war against the Entente in December 1914, Faisal's father sent him on a mission to Constantinople to discuss the Ottomans' request for Arab participation in the war. Along the way Faisal visited Damascus and met with representatives of the Arab secret societies al-Fatat and Al-'Ahd. After visiting Constantinople Faisal returned to Mecca via Damascus where he again met with the Arab secret societies, received the Damascus Protocol, and joined with the al-Fatat group of Arab nationalists.
World War One and the Great Arab Revolt
On 23 October 1916 at Hamra in Wadi Safra, Faisal met Captain T. E. Lawrence, a junior British intelligence officer from Cairo. Lawrence, who envisioned an independent post-war Arabian state, sought the right man to lead the Hashemite forces and achieve this. In 1916–18, Faisal headed the Northern Army of the rebellion that confronted the Ottomans in what was to later become western Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria.In 1917, Faisal, desiring an empire for himself instead of conquering one for his father, attempted to negotiate an arrangement with the Ottomans under which he would rule the Ottoman vilayets of Syria and Mosul as an Ottoman vassal. In December 1917 Faisal contacted General Djemal Pasha declaring his willingness to defect to the Ottoman side provided they would give him an empire to rule, saying the Sykes–Picot Agreement had disillusioned him in the Allies and he now wanted to work with his fellow Muslims. Only the unwillingness of the Three Pashas to subcontract ruling part of the Ottoman Empire to Faisal kept him loyal to his father when it finally dawned on him that the Ottomans were just trying to divide and conquer the Hashemite forces.
In his book Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Lawrence sought to put the best gloss on Faisal's double-dealing as it would contradict the image he was seeking to promote of Faisal as a faithful friend of the Allies betrayed by the British and the French, claiming that Faisal was only seeking to divide the "nationalist" and "Islamist" factions in the ruling Committee of Union and Progress. The Israeli historians Efraim Karsh and his wife Inari wrote that the veracity of Lawrence's account is open to question given that the major dispute within the CUP was not between the Islamist Djemal Pasha and the nationalist Mustafa Kemal as claimed by Lawrence, but rather between Enver Pasha and Djemal Pasha.
In the spring of 1918, after Germany launched Operation Michael on 21 March 1918, which appeared for a time to foreordain the defeat of the Allies, Faisal again contacted Djemal Pasha asking for peace provided that he be allowed to rule Syria as an Ottoman vassal, which Djemal, confident of victory, declined to consider. After a 30-month-long siege, he conquered Medina, defeating the defence organised by Fakhri Pasha and looted the city. Emir Faisal also worked with the Allies during World War I in their conquest of the region of Syria and the capture of Damascus in October 1918. Faisal became part of a new Arab government at Damascus, formed after the capture of that city in 1918. Emir Faisal's role in the Arab Revolt was described by Lawrence in Seven Pillars of Wisdom. However, the accuracy of that book, not least the importance given by the author to his own contribution during the Revolt, has been criticized by some historians, including David Fromkin.
Post-World War I
Participation in the Paris Peace Conference
In 1919, Emir Faisal led the Arab delegation to the Paris Peace Conference and, with the support of the knowledgeable and influential Gertrude Bell, argued for the establishment of independent Arab emirates for the predominantly Arab areas previously held by the Ottoman Empire.Greater Syria
in October 1918, which was followed by the Armistice of Mudros. With the end of Turkish rule that October, Faisal helped set up an Arab government, under British protection, in Arab controlled Greater Syria. In May 1919, elections were held for the Syrian National Congress, which met the following month.Faisal–Weizmann Agreement
On 4 January 1919, Emir Faisal and Chaim Weizmann, President of the Zionist Organization, signed the Faisal–Weizmann Agreement for Arab-Jewish Cooperation, in which Faisal conditionally accepted the Balfour Declaration, an official declaration on behalf of the British government by Arthur Balfour, promising British support to the development of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Once Arab states were granted autonomy from the European powers, years after the Faisal-Weizmann Agreement, and these new Arab nations were recognized by the Europeans, Weizmann argued that since the fulfillment was kept eventually, the agreement for a Jewish homeland in Palestine still held.In truth, this hoped-for partnership had little chance of success and was a dead letter by late 1920. Faisal had hoped that Zionist influence on British policy would be sufficient to forestall French designs on Syria, but Zionist influence could never compete with French interests. At the same time, Faisal failed to enlist significant sympathy among his Arab elite supporters for the idea of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, even under loose Arab suzerainty.
Following the decisions taken by the San Remo conference in April 1920, on 13 May 1920, Lord Allenby forwarded to the British War Cabinet a letter from Faisal which stated his opposition to the Balfour proposal to establish a homeland for the Jews in Palestine.
King of Syria
On 8 March 1920, Faisal was proclaimed King of the Arab Kingdom of Syria by the Syrian National Congress government of Hashim al-Atassi. In April 1920, the San Remo conference gave France the Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon, which led to the Franco-Syrian War. In the Battle of Maysalun on 24 July 1920, the French were victorious and Faisal was expelled from Syria.King of Iraq
Accession to the Iraqi throne
In the winter of 1920, Iraqis gathered in sociable meetings in coffeehouses and tents to discuss which form of government and leader the new Iraqi state should have. The British government, mandate holders in Iraq, were concerned at the unrest in the colony. They decided to step back from direct administration and create a monarchy to head Iraq while they maintained the mandate. The idea was to set up a native leader who would be popular among the Iraqi people while still maintaining close relations with the British government.In March 1921, at the Cairo Conference, the British decided that Faisal was a good candidate for ruling the British Mandate of Iraq because of his apparent conciliatory attitude towards the Great Powers and based on advice from T. E. Lawrence, more commonly known as Lawrence of Arabia. In 1921, few people in Iraq even knew who Faisal was or had heard his name. With help of British officials, including Gertrude Bell, he successfully campaigned among the Arabs of Iraq and won over the popular support of the minority Sunni.
The Shia majority were at first lukewarm about Faisal, and his appearance at the port of Basra was met with indifference. From 23 April to 8 May 1921, Iraqis including most notably Nuri Pasha al-Sa'id sent telegrams to Faisal, inviting him to Iraq as its prospective king. Between May and June, Faisal sent representatives to confirm his election.
On 12 June 1921, Faisal left Jeddah for Iraq alongside several Iraqi nobles and Sir Kinahan Cornwallis on the RIMS Northbrook, and on 23 June, Faisal first landed in Iraq on the main port of Basra. Faisal's arrival was met with a mixed response, while most Iraqis welcomed him in large numbers and groups, some people, especially the Ulama' at Najaf and the tribesman of Southern Iraq, including Samawah, were either disappointed or hostile which shocked Faisal.
Despite this, the Mayor of Baghdad at the time sent a telegram to greet Faisal. The city of Hillah also welcomed him. When Faisal arrived in Baghdad on 26 June, he was widely welcomed by Baghdadis. The next day, an ovation was given to him in al-Kadhimiyya, where he prayed at its main mosque and was welcomed.
Faisal became a candidate for King of Iraq alongside other candidates such as the Sayyid Muhammad al-Sadr, and Ali Jawdat al-Ayyubi. Following a plebiscite showing 96% in favor, Faisal agreed to become king. On 23 August 1921, he was made king of Iraq. Iraq was a new political entity created after World War I from Ottoman Iraq, which had consisted largely of the Ottoman vilayets of Mosul, Baghdad and Basra. Ottoman vilayets were usually named after their capital, and thus the Basra vilayet was southern Iraq. Given this background, there was no sense of Iraqi nationalism or even Iraqi national identity when Faisal took his throne. Anecdotally, the band present played God Save the King, as Iraq did not yet have a national anthem and would not have one until 1932.