Al Wajh ( Arabic : الوجه ), also written Al Wejh , is a coastal city in north-western Saudi Arabia , situated on the coast of the Red Sea . The city is located in the Tabuk Province . It is one of the largest cities in Tabuk region, with a population of 50,000 as of 2013.
127-808: Al Wajh played a pivotal role during the Arab Revolt in World War I . In 1917, Al Wajh was taken by Prince Faisal 's forces and used as a base of operations for a series of attacks on the Hejaz Railway . (See HMS Anne for the British side of that operation). In the past, it has been known by other names including Al Hijr port, Mada'in Saleh , Al Yaqoubi and Al Udhri. Al Wajh is a comparatively big city, inhabited mainly by citizens from Al Balawi, Bedaiwi-Alali, Al Huety and Al Johani tribes . Fishing
254-852: A Greek victory in 449 BCE, and the Ionian cities regained their independence. By the Peace of Antalcidas (387 BCE), which ended the Corinthian War , Persia regained control over Ionia. In 334 BCE, the Macedonian Greek king Alexander the Great conquered the Anatolian peninsula from the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Alexander's conquest opened up the interior of Asia Minor to Greek settlement and influence. Following
381-772: A Muslim, played a notable role in the revolt as an engineering and artillery officer with the Arab Northern Army. The British government in Egypt sent a young officer, Captain T. E. Lawrence , to work with the Hashemite forces in the Hejaz in October 1916. The British historian David Murphy wrote that though Lawrence was just one out of many British and French officers serving in Arabia, historians often write as though it
508-470: A bitter series of civil wars followed by a combined attack by Medes , Persians , Scythians and their own Babylonian relations. The last Assyrian city to fall was Harran in southeast Anatolia. This city was the birthplace of the last king of Babylon , the Assyrian Nabonidus and his son and regent Belshazzar . Much of the region then fell to the short-lived Iran-based Median Empire , with
635-531: 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
762-636: 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 received 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
889-701: A joint action with the Arab irregulars and forces under Auda Abu Tayi , until then, in the employ of the Ottomans, against the port city of Aqaba . This is now known as the Battle of Aqaba . Aqaba was the only remaining Ottoman port on the Red Sea and threatened the right flank of Britain 's Egyptian Expeditionary Force defending Egypt , and preparing to advance into Sanjak Maan of the Syria Vilayet . Capture of Aqaba would aid transfer of British supplies to
1016-547: A large Ottoman force at the Battle of Tafilah, inflicting over 1,000 Ottoman casualties for the loss of a mere forty men. In March 1918 the Arab Northern Army consisted of In April 1918, Ja'far al-Askari and Nuri as-Said led the Arab Regular Army in a frontal attack on the well-defended Ottoman railway station at Ma'an , which after some initial successes was fought off with heavy losses to both sides. However,
1143-526: A march of 700 miles (1,100 km) in 44 days. For the final Allied offensive intended to knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war, Allenby asked that Emir Faisal and his Arab Northern Army launch a series of attacks on the main Turkish forces from the east, which was intended to both tie down Ottoman troops and force Turkish commanders to worry about their security of their flanks in the Levant . Supporting
1270-580: 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
1397-526: A poetical illustration by Letitia Elizabeth Landon that reflects on the slowness of navigation amongst the numerous coral reefs in the area. Arab Revolt The Arab Revolt ( Arabic : 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
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#17327915599001524-456: A siege. With the Egyptian artillery support, Abdullah took Ta'if on 22 September 1916. French and British naval forces cleared the Red Sea of Ottoman gunboats early in the war. The port of Jeddah was attacked by 3,500 Arabs on 10 June 1916 with the assistance of bombardment by British warships and seaplanes. The seaplane carrier HMS Ben-my-Chree , provided crucial air support to
1651-676: A sizeable Armenian population before the Armenian genocide ) an "ahistorical imposition" and notes that a growing body of literature is uncomfortable with referring to the Ottoman East as "Eastern Anatolia". The highest mountain in the Eastern Anatolia Region (also the highest peak in the Armenian Highlands ) is Mount Ararat (5123 m). The Euphrates , Aras , Karasu and Murat rivers connect
1778-613: A system of wells approximately 100 miles (160 km) apart. 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 soldiers of the Regular Army wore British-style uniforms with the keffiyahs and, unlike the tribal guerrillas, fought full-time and in conventional battles. Some of the more notable former Ottoman officers to fight in
1905-731: Is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey . It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean Sea to the west, the Turkish Straits to the northwest, and the Black Sea to the north. The eastern and southeastern limits have been expanded either to the entirety of Asiatic Turkey or to an imprecise line from
2032-545: Is a primary activity of the city's residents and the port is the central location where this occurs - the Al Wajh port used to be one of the main shipping centres in the region 50 years ago. The town is served by the Al Wajh Domestic Airport and has close links with the city of Tabuk , with a road connecting the two locations. The Al Wajh Domestic Airport is a small airport located on the outskirts of
2159-517: Is not well understood how the Osmanlı, or Ottoman Turks , came to dominate their neighbours, as the history of medieval Anatolia is still little known. The Ottomans completed the conquest of the peninsula in 1517 with the taking of Halicarnassus (modern Bodrum ) from the Knights of Saint John . With the acceleration of the decline of the Ottoman Empire in the early 19th century, and as a result of
2286-681: Is probably a Medieval Latin innovation. The modern Turkish form Anadolu derives directly from the Greek name Aνατολή ( Anatolḗ ). The Russian male name Anatoly , the French Anatole and plain Anatol , all stemming from saints Anatolius of Laodicea (d. 283) and Anatolius of Constantinople (d. 458; the first Patriarch of Constantinople ), share the same linguistic origin. The oldest known name for any region within Anatolia
2413-471: Is related to its central area, known as the "Land of Hatti " – a designation that was initially used for the land of ancient Hattians , but later became the most common name for the entire territory under the rule of ancient Hittites . The first recorded name the Greeks used for the Anatolian peninsula, though not particularly popular at the time, was Ἀσία ( Asía ), perhaps from an Akkadian expression for
2540-706: The Aeolian , Ionian and Dorian colonies situated along the eastern coasts of the Aegean Sea , but also encompassing eastern regions in general. Such use of Anatolian designations was employed during the reign of Roman Emperor Diocletian ( r. 284–305 ), who created the Diocese of the East , known in Greek as the Eastern Diocese, but completely unrelated to the regions of Asia Minor. In their widest territorial scope, Anatolian designations were employed during
2667-661: The Anatolian languages , the earliest attested branch of Indo-European, have been spoken in Anatolia since at least the 19th century BCE. The earliest historical data related to Anatolia appear during the Bronze Age and continue throughout the Iron Age . The most ancient period in the history of Anatolia spans from the emergence of ancient Hattians , up to the conquest of Anatolia by the Achaemenid Empire in
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#17327915599002794-921: The Arab invasion of the Levant (634–638). In the 10 years following the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, the Seljuk Turks from Central Asia migrated over large areas of Anatolia, with particular concentrations around the northwestern rim. The Turkish language and the Islamic religion were gradually introduced as a result of the Seljuk conquest, and this period marks the start of Anatolia's slow transition from predominantly Christian and Greek-speaking, to predominantly Muslim and Turkish-speaking (although ethnic groups such as Armenians, Greeks, and Assyrians remained numerous and retained Christianity and their native languages). In
2921-635: The Balkans . The Phrygian expansion into southeast Anatolia was eventually halted by the Assyrians, who controlled that region. Another Indo-European people, the Luwians , rose to prominence in central and western Anatolia c. 2000 BCE. Their language belonged to the same linguistic branch as Hittite . The general consensus amongst scholars is that Luwian was spoken across a large area of western Anatolia, including (possibly) Wilusa ( Troy ),
3048-868: The Black Sea to the Gulf of Alexandretta . Topographically, the Sea of Marmara connects the Black Sea with the Aegean Sea through the Bosporus and the Dardanelles , and separates Anatolia from Thrace in Southeast Europe . During the Neolithic , Anatolia was an early centre for the development of farming after it originated in the adjacent Fertile Crescent . Beginning around 9,000 years ago, there
3175-523: The Black Sea , coterminous with the Anatolian Plateau . This traditional geographical definition is used, for example, in the latest edition of Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary . Under this definition, Anatolia is bounded to the east by the Armenian Highlands , and the Euphrates before that river bends to the southeast to enter Mesopotamia . To the southeast, it is bounded by
3302-467: The Eastern Anatolia Region , which largely corresponds to the historical region of Western Armenia (named as such after the division of Greater Armenia between the Roman / Byzantine Empire (Western Armenia) and Sassanid Persia ( Eastern Armenia ) in 387 AD). Vazken Davidian terms the expanded use of "Anatolia" to apply to territory in eastern Turkey that was formerly referred to as Armenia (which had
3429-768: The Greek and Roman eras. During the 6th century BCE, all of Anatolia was conquered by the Persian Achaemenid Empire , the Persians having usurped the Medes as the dominant dynasty of Persia . In 499 BCE, the Ionian city-states on the west coast of Anatolia rebelled against Persian rule. The Ionian Revolt , as it became known, though quelled, initiated the Greco-Persian Wars , which ended in
3556-838: 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
3683-665: The Hellenic world . He has been called the greatest ruler of the Kingdom of Pontus. Further annexations by Rome, in particular of the Kingdom of Pontus by Pompey , brought all of Anatolia under Roman control , except for the southeastern frontier with the Parthian Empire , which remained unstable for centuries, causing a series of military conflicts that culminated in the Roman–Parthian Wars (54 BCE – 217 CE). After
3810-427: The Imperial Camel Corps served with the Arabs for a time. The French military mission of 1,100 officers under Brémond established good relations with Hussein and especially with his sons, the Emirs Ali and Abdullah , and for this reason, most of the French effort went into assisting the Arab Southern Army commanded by the Emir Ali that was laying siege to Medina and the Eastern Army commanded by Abdullah that had
3937-481: The Later Roman Empire . Anatolia's wealth grew during the 4th and 5th centuries thanks, in part, to the Pilgrim's Road that ran through the peninsula. Literary evidence about the rural landscape stems from the Christian hagiographies of the 6th-century Nicholas of Sion and 7th-century Theodore of Sykeon . Large and prosperous urban centers of Byzantine Anatolia included Assos , Ephesus , Miletus , Nicaea , Pergamum , Priene , Sardis , and Aphrodisias . From
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4064-424: 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
4191-403: The Paleolithic . Neolithic settlements include Çatalhöyük , Çayönü , Nevali Cori , Aşıklı Höyük , Boncuklu Höyük , Hacilar , Göbekli Tepe , Norşuntepe , Köşk Höyük , and Yumuktepe . Çatalhöyük (7.000 BCE) is considered the most advanced of these. Recent advances in archaeogenetics have confirmed that the spread of agriculture from the Middle East to Europe was strongly correlated with
4318-540: The Roman Republic ; western and central Anatolia came under Roman control , but Hellenistic culture remained predominant. Mithridates VI Eupator , ruler of the Kingdom of Pontus in northern Anatolia, waged war against the Roman Republic in the year 88 BCE in order to halt the advance of Roman hegemony in the Aegean Sea region. Mithridates VI sought to dominate Asia Minor and the Black Sea region, waging several hard-fought but ultimately unsuccessful wars (the Mithridatic Wars ) to break Roman dominion over Asia and
4445-453: The Royal Air Force , of the well-defended Hejaz railway station at Mudawwara. They captured 120 prisoners and two guns, suffering 17 casualties in the operation. Buxton's two companies of Imperial Camel Corps Brigade continued on towards Amman , where they hoped to destroy the main bridge. 20 miles (32 km) from the city they were attacked by aircraft, forcing them to withdraw eventually back to Beersheba where they arrived on 6 September;
4572-405: The Suez Canal and conquering Damascus , allowing the British to undertake offensive operations with a lower risk of counter-attack. This was the British justification for supporting the revolt, a textbook example of asymmetric warfare that has been studied time and again by military leaders and historians alike. The Ottoman Empire took part in the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I , under
4699-436: The Vallahades from Greek Macedonia ), were resettled in various parts of Anatolia, mostly in formerly Christian villages throughout Anatolia. A continuous reverse migration occurred since the early 19th century, when Greeks from Anatolia, Constantinople and Pontus area migrated toward the newly independent Kingdom of Greece , and also towards the United States , the southern part of the Russian Empire , Latin America, and
4826-491: 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. He was driven away to exile in Selanik by the 31 March Incident , in which the Young Turks defeated the countercoup. He was eventually replaced by his brother Mehmed V . In 1913, intellectuals and politicians from
4953-437: The first division of the Roman Empire , Anatolia became part of the Eastern Roman Empire , otherwise known as the Byzantine Empire or Byzantium . In the 1st century CE, Anatolia became one of the first places where Christianity spread , so that by the 4th century CE, western and central Anatolia were overwhelmingly Christian and Greek-speaking. Byzantine Anatolia was one of the wealthiest and most densely populated places in
5080-430: The migration of early farmers from Anatolia about 9,000 years ago, and was not just a cultural exchange. Anatolian Neolithic farmers derived most of their ancestry from local Anatolian hunter-gatherers , suggesting that agriculture was adopted in site by these hunter-gatherers and not spread by demic diffusion into the region. Anatolian derived Neolithic Farmers would subsequently spread across Europe, as far west as
5207-459: The partition of the Ottoman Empire , the defeated Ottomans' mainland in Anatolia came under a joint military occupation by the victorious Allies . 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
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5334-462: The "sunrise" or possibly echoing the name of the Assuwa league in western Anatolia. The Romans used it as the name of their province , comprising the west of the peninsula plus the nearby Aegean Islands . As the name "Asia" broadened its scope to apply to the vaster region east of the Mediterranean, some Greeks in Late Antiquity came to use the name Asia Minor (Μικρὰ Ἀσία, Mikrà Asía ), meaning "Lesser Asia" to refer to present-day Anatolia, whereas
5461-447: The 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey . Of the remainder, most have left Turkey since then, leaving fewer than 5,000 Greeks in Anatolia today. According to Morris and Ze'evi, 4 million christians were ethnically cleansed from Asia minor by the Turks from 1894 to 1924. Anatolia's terrain is structurally complex. A central massif composed of uplifted blocks and downfolded troughs , covered by recent deposits and giving
5588-462: The 6th century BCE. The earliest historically attested populations of Anatolia were the Hattians in central Anatolia, and Hurrians further to the east. The Hattians were an indigenous people, whose main center was the city of Hattush . Affiliation of Hattian language remains unclear, while Hurrian language belongs to a distinctive family of Hurro-Urartian languages . All of those languages are extinct; relationships with indigenous languages of
5715-441: The Arab forces involved in the revolt numbered around 5,000 soldiers. This number 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 grew significantly. The Arab Bureau of
5842-420: The Arab revolt. 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. Lawrence then rode 150 miles to Suez to arrange Royal Navy delivery of food and supplies for the 2,500 Arabs and 700 Ottoman prisoners in Aqaba. Soon
5969-420: The Arabs launched a highly successful campaign against the Hejaz railway, capturing military supplies, destroying trains and tracks, and tying down thousands of Ottoman troops. Though the attacks were mixed in success, they achieved their primary goal of tying down Ottoman troops and cutting off Medina. In January 1918, in one of the largest set-piece battles of the Revolt, Arab forces, including Lawrence, defeated
6096-497: 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 . At first, Fakhri's troops defeated the Hashemite forces in several engagements, and seemed set to take Yanbu. On 11–12 December 1916, it
6223-567: 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, 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
6350-850: The Armenian Highlands to the South Caucasus and the Upper Euphrates Valley. Along with the Çoruh , these rivers are the longest in the Eastern Anatolia Region. The English-language name Anatolia derives from the Greek Ἀνατολή ( Anatolḗ ) meaning "the East" and designating (from a Greek point of view) eastern regions in general. The Greek word refers to the direction where the sun rises, coming from ἀνατέλλω anatello '(Ι) rise up', comparable to terms in other languages such as " levant " from Latin levo 'to rise', " orient " from Latin orior 'to arise, to originate', Hebrew מִזְרָח mizraḥ 'east' from זָרַח zaraḥ 'to rise, to shine', Aramaic מִדְנָח midnaḥ from דְּנַח denaḥ 'to rise, to shine'. The use of Anatolian designations has varied over time, perhaps originally referring to
6477-544: The Assyrian colony of Kanesh , use an advanced system of trading computations and credit lines. Unlike the Akkadians and Assyrians, whose Anatolian trading posts were peripheral to their core lands in Mesopotamia , the Hittites were centered at Hattusa (modern Boğazkale) in north-central Anatolia by the 17th century BCE. They were speakers of an Indo-European language, the Hittite language , or nesili (the language of Nesa) in Hittite. The Hittites originated from local ancient cultures that grew in Anatolia, in addition to
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#17327915599006604-411: The Babylonians and Scythians briefly appropriating some territory. From the late 8th century BCE, a new wave of Indo-European-speaking raiders entered northern and northeast Anatolia: the Cimmerians and Scythians . The Cimmerians overran Phrygia and the Scythians threatened to do the same to Urartu and Lydia , before both were finally checked by the Assyrians. The north-western coast of Anatolia
6731-427: 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. 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
6858-404: 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
6985-425: The British, who provided much needed artillery support, and took Mecca on 9 July 1916. Indiscriminate Ottoman artillery fire, which did much damage to Mecca, turned out to be a potent propaganda weapon for the Hashemites, who portrayed the Ottomans as desecrating Islam's most holy city. Also on 10 June, another of Hussein's sons, the Emir Abdullah , attacked Ta'if , which after an initial repulse, settled down into
7112-527: The Caucasus have been proposed, but are not generally accepted. The region became famous for exporting raw materials. Organized trade between Anatolia and Mesopotamia started to emerge during the period of the Akkadian Empire , and was continued and intensified during the period of the Old Assyrian Empire , between the 21st and the 18th centuries BCE. Assyrian traders were bringing tin and textiles in exchange for copper, silver or gold. Cuneiform records, dated c. 20th century BCE , found in Anatolia at
7239-399: The Egyptians, annexing much Hittite (and Hurrian) territory in these regions. After 1180 BCE, during the Late Bronze Age collapse , the Hittite Empire disintegrated into several independent Syro-Hittite states , subsequent to losing much territory to the Middle Assyrian Empire and being finally overrun by the Phrygians , another Indo-European people who are believed to have migrated from
7366-468: The Emir Faisal's army of about 450 men from the Arab Regular Army were tribal contingents from the Rwalla , Bani Sakhr , Agyal , and Howeitat tribes. In addition, Faisal had a group of Gurkha troops, several British armored car squadrons, the Egyptian Camel Corps, a group of Algerian artillery men commanded by Captain Pisani and air support from the RAF to assist him. Anatolia Anatolia ( Turkish : Anadolu ), also known as Asia Minor ,
7493-424: The Hashemite forces. The Ottoman garrison surrendered on 16 June. By the end of September 1916, the Sharifian Army had taken the coastal cities of Rabigh , Yanbu , al Qunfudhah , and 6,000 Ottoman prisoners with the assistance of the Royal Navy . The capture of the Red Sea ports allowed the British to send over a force of 700 Ottoman Arab POWs, who primarily came from what is now Iraq, who had decided to join
7620-440: 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. Garland was the inventor of the so-called "Garland mine", which was used with much destructive force on the Hejaz railway. In February 1917, Garland succeeded for
7747-431: The Hejaz railway. On 11 May Arab regulars captured Jerdun and 140 prisoners. Five weeks later, on 24 July Nos. 5 and 7 Companies of the Imperial Camel Corps Brigade commanded by Major R. V. Buxton , marched from the Suez Canal to arrive at Aqaba on 30 July, to attack the Mudawwara Station. A particularly notable attack of Hedgehog was the storming on 8 August 1918, by the Imperial Camel Corps , closely supported by
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#17327915599007874-422: The Hejaz, that did much damage to the Hashemite forces. However, the Ottoman failure to take Yanbu in December 1916 led to the increased strengthening of the Hashemite forces, and led to the Ottoman forces to go on the defensive. Lawrence later claimed that the failure of the offensive against Yanbu was the turning point that ensured the ultimate defeat of the Ottomans in the Hejaz . In 1917, Lawrence arranged
8001-400: The Iberian Peninsula and the British Isles, as well as to the Maghreb . Most modern Europeans derive a significant part of their ancestry from these Neolithic Anatolian farmers. Neolithic Anatolia has been proposed as the homeland of the Indo-European language family , although linguists tend to favour a later origin in the steppes north of the Black Sea. However, it is clear that
8128-404: 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
8255-478: 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. Ottoman offensives against the Hashemite forces more often faltered due to supply problems than to the actions of the enemy. The main contribution of the Arab Revolt to the war was to pin down tens of thousands of Ottoman troops who otherwise might have been used to attack
8382-413: The Revolt were Nuri as-Said , Ja'far al-Askari and 'Aziz 'Ali al-Misri . 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
8509-411: The Seha River Land (to be identified with the Hermos and/or Kaikos valley), and the kingdom of Mira-Kuwaliya with its core territory of the Maeander valley. From the 9th century BCE, Luwian regions coalesced into a number of states such as Lydia , Caria , and Lycia , all of which had Hellenic influence. Arameans encroached over the borders of south-central Anatolia in the century or so after
8636-425: The Sharifian Army succeeded in cutting off and thus neutralizing the Ottoman position at Ma'an, who held out until late September 1918. The British refused several requests from al-Askari to use mustard gas on the Ottoman garrison at Ma'an. In the spring of 1918, Operation Hedgehog, a concerted attempt to sever and destroy the Hejaz railway, was launched. In May 1918, Hedgehog led to the destruction of 25 bridges of
8763-435: The Western front-lines of the war, and thus only a handful of deserters actually joined the Arab forces until later in the campaign. 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. At
8890-475: The administration of the Empire preferred the description Ἀνατολή ( Anatolḗ ; lit. ' the East ' ). The endonym Ῥωμανία ( Rōmanía "the land of the Romans, i.e. the Eastern Roman Empire") was understood as another name for the province by the invading Seljuq Turks , who founded a Sultanate of Rûm in 1077. Thus (land of the) Rûm became another name for Anatolia. By the 12th century Europeans had started referring to Anatolia as Turchia . During
9017-407: The appearance of a plateau with rough terrain, is wedged between two folded mountain ranges that converge in the east. True lowland is confined to a few narrow coastal strips along the Aegean, Mediterranean, and the Black Sea coasts. Flat or gently sloping land is rare and largely confined to the deltas of the Kızıl River , the coastal plains of Çukurova and the valley floors of the Gediz River and
9144-648: The arrival of Indo-European languages. Attested for the first time in the Assyrian tablets of Nesa around 2000 BCE, they conquered Hattusa in the 18th century BCE, imposing themselves over Hattian- and Hurrian-speaking populations. According to the widely accepted Kurgan theory on the Proto-Indo-European homeland , however, the Hittites (along with the other Indo-European ancient Anatolians ) were themselves relatively recent immigrants to Anatolia from
9271-465: The bulk of the area of modern-day Turkey. Nonetheless, a variety of non- Turkic languages continue to be spoken by ethnic minorities in Anatolia today, including Arabic , Kurdish , Neo-Aramaic , Armenian , the North Caucasian languages , Laz , Georgian , and Greek. Traditionally, Anatolia is considered to extend in the east to an indefinite line running from the Gulf of Alexandretta to
9398-479: The city was co-occupied by a large Anglo-French flotilla, including warships and sea planes, which helped the Arabs secure their hold on Aqaba. Even as the Hashemite armies advanced, they still encountered sometimes fierce opposition from local residents. In July 1917, residents of the town of Karak fought against the Hashemite forces and turned them back. Later in 1917, British intelligence reports suggested that most of
9525-462: The coasts of Anatolia. Greeks started Western philosophy on the western coast of Anatolia ( Pre-Socratic philosophy ). In Classical antiquity , Anatolia was described by the Ancient Greek historian Herodotus and later historians as divided into regions that were diverse in culture, language, and religious practices. The northern regions included Bithynia , Paphlagonia , and Pontus ; to
9652-525: The control of the Mongols, at least nominally, through declining Seljuk sultans. The Beyliks did not mint coins in the names of their own leaders while they remained under the suzerainty of the Mongol Ilkhanids . The Osmanli ruler Osman I was the first Turkish ruler who minted coins in his own name in 1320s; they bear the legend "Minted by Osman son of Ertugrul". Since the minting of coins
9779-617: The death of Alexander the Great and the subsequent breakup of the Macedonian Empire , Anatolia was ruled by a series of Hellenistic kingdoms, such as the Attalids of Pergamum and the Seleucids , the latter controlling most of Anatolia. A period of peaceful Hellenization followed, such that the local Anatolian languages had been supplanted by Greek by the 1st century BCE. In 133 BCE the last Attalid king bequeathed his kingdom to
9906-596: The decline of the Ilkhanate from 1335 to 1353, the Mongol Empire 's legacy in the region was the Uyghur Eretna Dynasty that was overthrown by Kadi Burhan al-Din in 1381. By the end of the 14th century, most of Anatolia was controlled by various Anatolian beyliks . Smyrna fell in 1330, and the last Byzantine stronghold in Anatolia, Philadelphia, fell in 1390. The Turkmen Beyliks were under
10033-609: The defeat of the Assuwa league in western Anatolia. The empire reached its height in the 13th century BCE, controlling much of Asia Minor, northwestern Syria , and northwest upper Mesopotamia. However, the Hittite advance toward the Black Sea coast was halted by the semi-nomadic pastoralist and tribal Kaskians , a non-Indo-European people who had earlier displaced the Palaic-speaking Indo-Europeans. Much of
10160-631: The early 20th century (see the rise of nationalism under the Ottoman Empire ). During World War I, the Armenian genocide , the Greek genocide (especially in Pontus ), and the Assyrian genocide almost entirely removed the ancient indigenous communities of Armenian , Greek , and Assyrian populations in Anatolia and surrounding regions. Following the Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922 , most remaining ethnic Anatolian Greeks were forced out during
10287-677: 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. Hashemite forces in Mecca were joined by Egyptian troops sent by
10414-903: 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
10541-526: The era of classical antiquity (see Classical Anatolia ), the Anatolian languages were largely replaced by the Greek language , which came to further dominate the region during the Hellenistic period and the Roman period . The Byzantine period saw the decline of Greek influence throughout the peninsula as the Byzantine–Seljuk wars enabled the incoming Seljuk Turks to establish a foothold in
10668-576: The era of the Ottoman Empire , many mapmakers referred to the mountainous plateau in eastern Anatolia as Armenia . Other contemporary sources called the same area Kurdistan . Geographers have used East Anatolian plateau , Armenian plateau and the Iranian plateau to refer to the region; the former two largely overlap. While a standard definition of Anatolia refers to the entire Asian side of Turkey, according to archaeologist Lori Khatchadourian, this difference in terminology "primarily result[s] from
10795-795: 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. Hussein had about 50,000 men under arms, but fewer than 10,000 had rifles. On 5 June 1916, two of Hussein's sons,
10922-758: The expansionist policies of the Russian Empire in the Caucasus , many Muslim nations and groups in that region, mainly Circassians , Tatars , Azeris , Lezgis , Chechens and several Turkic groups left their homelands and settled in Anatolia. As the Ottoman Empire further shrank in the Balkan regions and then fragmented during the Balkan Wars , much of the non-Christian populations of its former possessions, mainly Balkan Muslims ( Bosniaks , Albanians , Turks , Muslim Bulgarians and Greek Muslims such as
11049-727: The fall of the Hittite empire, and some of the Syro-Hittite states in this region became an amalgam of Hittites and Arameans. These became known as Syro-Hittite states . From the 10th to late 7th centuries BCE, much of Anatolia (particularly the southeastern regions) fell to the Neo-Assyrian Empire , including all of the Syro-Hittite states , Tabal , Commagene , the Cimmerians and Scythians , and swathes of Cappadocia . The Neo-Assyrian empire collapsed due to
11176-602: The first time in destroying a moving locomotive with a mine of his own design. In February 1917, around Medina , Captain Muhammad Ould Ali Raho of the French Military Mission carried out his first railway demolition attack. Captain Raho emerged as one of the leading destroyers of the Hejaz railway. In March 1917, Lawrence led his first attack on the Hejaz railway. Typical of such attacks was
11303-722: The following century, the Byzantines managed to reassert their control in western and northern Anatolia. Control of Anatolia was then split between the Byzantine Empire and the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm , with the Byzantine holdings gradually being reduced. In 1255, the Mongols swept through eastern and central Anatolia, and would remain until 1335. The Ilkhanate garrison was stationed near Ankara . After
11430-719: The history of the Hittite Empire concerned war with the rival empires of Egypt , Assyria and the Mitanni . The Ancient Egyptians eventually withdrew from the region after failing to gain the upper hand over the Hittites and becoming wary of the power of Assyria, which had destroyed the Mitanni Empire. The Assyrians and Hittites were then left to battle over control of eastern and southern Anatolia and colonial territories in Syria . The Assyrians had better success than
11557-460: The latter to the northern part of the Mesopotamian plain. According to Richard Hovannisian , this changing of toponyms was "necessary to obscure all evidence" of the Armenian presence as part of the policy of Armenian genocide denial embarked upon by the newly established Turkish government and what Hovannisian calls its "foreign collaborators". Human habitation in Anatolia dates back to
11684-586: The mid-5th century onwards, urbanism was affected negatively and began to decline, while the rural areas reached unprecedented levels of prosperity in the region. Historians and scholars continue to debate the cause of the urban decline in Byzantine Anatolia between the 6th and 7th centuries, variously attributing it to the Plague of Justinian (541), the Byzantine–Sasanian War (602–628), and
11811-690: The north on 23 January 1917. Wejh surrendered within 36 hours, and the Ottomans abandoned their advance toward Mecca in favor of a defensive position in Medina, with small detachments scattered along the Hejaz railway. The Arab force had increased to about 70,000 men, armed with 28,000 rifles and deployed in three main groups. Ali's force threatened Medina, Abdullah operated from Wadi Ais harassing Ottoman communications and capturing their supplies, and Faisal based his force at Wejh. Camel-mounted Arab raiding parties had an effective radius of 1,000 miles (1,600 km), carrying their own food and taking water from
11938-475: The north. However, they did not necessarily displace the population genetically; they assimilated into the former peoples' culture, preserving the Hittite language. The Hittites adopted the Mesopotamian cuneiform script . In the Late Bronze Age, Hittite New Kingdom ( c. 1650 BCE ) was founded, becoming an empire in the 14th century BCE after the conquest of Kizzuwatna in the south-east and
12065-693: The northwest, the Galatian variant of Gaulish in Galatia until the 6th century CE, Cappadocian in the homonymous region, Armenian in the east, and Kartvelian languages in the northeast. Anatolia is known as the birthplace of minted coinage (as opposed to unminted coinage, which first appears in Mesopotamia at a much earlier date) as a medium of exchange, some time in the 7th century BCE in Lydia. The use of minted coins continued to flourish during
12192-462: The one commanded by Newcombe and Joyce, who on the night of 6/7 July 1917, planted over 500 charges on the Hejaz railway, which all went off at about 2 am. In a raid in August 1917, Captain Raho led a force of Bedouin in destroying 5 kilometers of the Hejaz railway and four bridges. In March 1917, an Ottoman force joined by tribesmen from Jabal Shammar led by Ibn Rashid carried out a sweep of
12319-747: The only remaining part of the Byzantine East , and thus commonly referred to (in Greek) as the Eastern part of the Empire. At the same time, the Anatolic Theme ( Ἀνατολικὸν θέμα / "the Eastern theme") was created, as a province ( theme ) covering the western and central parts of Turkey's present-day Central Anatolia Region , centered around Iconium , but ruled from the city of Amorium . The Latinized form " Anatolia ", with its -ia ending,
12446-675: The outbreak of the revolt in June 1916, the VII Corps of the Fourth Army was stationed in the Hejaz. It was joined by the 58th Infantry Division, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Ali Necib Pasha, the 1st Kuvvie- Mürettebe (Provisional Force) led by General Mehmed Cemal Pasha, which had the responsibility of safeguarding the Hejaz railway and the Hejaz Expeditionary Force ( Turkish : Hicaz Kuvve-i Seferiyesi ), which
12573-558: The overall cause. The Bedouin would not fight unless paid in advance with gold coin. By the end of 1916, the French had spent 1.25 million gold francs in subsidizing the revolt. By September 1918, the British were spending £ 220,000/month to subsidize the revolt. Faisal had hoped that he could convince Arab troops serving in the Ottoman Army to mutiny and join his cause, but the Ottoman government sent most of its Arab troops to
12700-567: The ranges that separate it from the Orontes valley in Syria and the Mesopotamian plain. Following the Armenian genocide , Western Armenia was renamed the Eastern Anatolia Region by the newly established Turkish government. In 1941, with the First Geography Congress which divided Turkey into seven geographical regions based on differences in climate and landscape, the eastern provinces of Turkey were placed into
12827-529: The region. Thus, the process of Anatolia's Turkification began under the Seljuk Empire in the late 11th century and continued under the Ottoman Empire until the early 20th century, when the Ottoman dynasty collapsed in the aftermath of World War I . Between 1894 and 1924, millions of non- Turkic peoples and Christians were suppressed and removed by the Ottoman Turkish authorities from
12954-599: The reign of Roman Emperor Constantine I (306–337), who created the Praetorian prefecture of the East , known in Greek as the Eastern Prefecture, encompassing all eastern regions of the Late Roman Empire and spanning from Thrace to Egypt . Only after the loss of other eastern regions during the 7th century and the reduction of Byzantine eastern domains to Asia Minor, that region became
13081-490: The responsibility of protecting Ali's eastern flank from Ibn Rashid. Medina was never taken by the Hashemite forces, and the Ottoman commander, Fakhri Pasha, only surrendered Medina when ordered to by the Turkish government on 9 January 1919. The total number of Ottoman troops bottled up in Medina by the time of the surrender were 456 officers and 9,364 soldiers. Under the direction of Lawrence, Wilson, and other officers,
13208-564: The rest of Europe. Following the Russo-Persian Treaty of Turkmenchay (1828) and the incorporation of Eastern Armenia into the Russian Empire, another migration involved the large Armenian population of Anatolia, which recorded significant migration rates from Western Armenia (Eastern Anatolia) toward the Russian Empire, especially toward its newly established Armenian provinces. Anatolia remained multi-ethnic until
13335-464: The revolt led by Nuri al-Saʻid and a number of Muslim troops from French North Africa . Fifteen thousand well-armed Ottoman troops remained in the Hejaz. A direct attack on Medina in October resulted in a bloody repulse of the Arab forces. In June 1916, the British sent out a number of officials to assist the revolt in the Hejaz , most notably Colonel Cyril Wilson , Colonel Pierce C. Joyce, and Lt-Colonel Stewart Francis Newcombe . Herbert Garland
13462-424: 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
13589-601: The shifting political fortunes and cultural trajectories of the region since the nineteenth century". Turkey's First Geography Congress in 1941 created two geographical regions of Turkey to the east of the Gulf of Iskenderun-Black Sea line, the Eastern Anatolia Region and the Southeastern Anatolia Region , the former largely corresponding to the western part of the Armenian Highlands,
13716-857: The southeast, while Galatian , a Celtic language , was spoken throughout Galatia in the central peninsula. Among the other peoples who established a significant presence in ancient Anatolia were the Galatians , the Hurrians , the Assyrians , the Armenians , the Hattians , and the Cimmerians , as well as some of the ancient Greek tribes , including the Ionians , the Dorians , and the Aeolians . In
13843-687: The success of Lawrence's occupation of Aqaba , covering the "tribal elements ranging between the Hejaz Railway and the Nefud , particularly about the Howeitat group." It was this information, Hogarth emphasized, which "Lawrence, relying on her reports, made signal use of in the Arab campaigns of 1917 and 1918." Lawrence obtained assistance from the Royal Navy to turn back an Ottoman attack on Yenbu in December 1916. Lawrence's major contribution to
13970-418: The support of both the Ottoman Aviation Squadrons , air squadrons from Germany and the Ottoman Gendarmerie or zaptı . 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
14097-537: 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 culminated in a telegram of 1 November 1914 from Kitchener, recently appointed as Secretary of War, to Hussein, wherein Britain would, in exchange for support from
14224-410: The town. It serves as a gateway to Wajh and the surrounding areas for both tourists and locals. The airport offers flights to several destinations within Saudi Arabia, including Jeddah, Riyadh, and Medina. Al Wajh is the subject of a painting by Clarkson Frederick Stanfield , an engraving of which was published in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1832 as [REDACTED] El Wuish, Red Sea . along with
14351-458: 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. By the time of Aqaba 's capture, many other officers joined Faisal's campaign. A large number of British officers and advisors, led by Lt. Col.s Stewart F. Newcombe and Cyril E. Wilson, arrived to provide the Arabs rifles, explosives, mortars, and machine guns. Artillery
14478-445: The tribes in the region east of the Jordan River were "firmly in the Ottoman camp." The tribes feared repressions and losing the money they had received from the Ottomans for their loyalty. Later in 1917, 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
14605-417: The west were Mysia , Lydia , and Caria; and Lycia , Pamphylia , and Cilicia belonged to the southern shore. There were also several inland regions: Phrygia , Cappadocia , Pisidia , and Galatia . Languages spoken included the late surviving Anatolic languages , Isaurian , and Pisidian , Greek in western and coastal regions, Phrygian spoken until the 7th century CE, local variants of Thracian in
14732-405: Was Lawrence alone who represented the Allied cause in Arabia. David Hogarth credited Gertrude Bell for much of the success of the Arab Revolt. She had travelled extensively in the Middle East since 1888, after graduating from Oxford with a First in Modern History. Bell met Sheikh Harb of the Howeitat in January 1914 and thus was able to provide a "mass of information" which was crucial to
14859-634: Was a major migration of Anatolian Neolithic Farmers into Europe , with their descendants coming to dominate the continent as far west as the Iberian Peninsula and the British Isles . The earliest recorded inhabitants of Anatolia , who were neither Indo-European nor Semitic , were gradually absorbed by the incoming Indo-European Anatolian peoples , who spoke the now-extinct Anatolian languages . The major Anatolian languages included Hittite , Luwian , and Lydian ; other local languages, albeit poorly attested, included Phrygian and Mysian . The Hurro-Urartian languages were spoken throughout Mitanni in
14986-403: Was a prerogative accorded in Islamic practice only to a sovereign , it can be considered that the Osmanli, or Ottoman Turks, had become formally independent from the Mongol Khans. Among the Turkish leaders, the Ottomans emerged as great power under Osman I and his son Orhan . The Anatolian beyliks were successively absorbed into the rising Ottoman Empire during the 15th century. It
15113-415: Was also involved. In addition, a French military mission commanded by Colonel Édouard Brémond was sent out. The French enjoyed an advantage over the British in that they included a number of Muslim officers, such as Captain Muhammand Ould Ali Raho, Claude Prost, and Laurent Depui. The latter two converted to Islam during their time in Arabia . Captain Rosario Pisani of the French Army , though not
15240-426: 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
15367-472: 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. Fakhri then turned his forces south to take Rabegh , but owing to the guerrilla attacks on his flanks and supply lines, air attacks from the newly established Royal Flying Corps base at Yanbu, and the over-extension of his supply lines, he was forced to turn back on 18 January 1917, to Medina. The coastal city of Wejh
15494-435: Was inhabited by Greeks of the Achaean / Mycenaean culture from the 20th century BCE, related to the Greeks of southeastern Europe and the Aegean . Beginning with the Bronze Age collapse at the end of the 2nd millennium BCE, the west coast of Anatolia was settled by Ionian Greeks , usurping the area of the related but earlier Mycenaean Greeks . Over several centuries, numerous Ancient Greek city-states were established on
15621-410: 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
15748-419: 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 succeeded in ambushing and destroying
15875-418: Was only sporadically supplied due to a general shortage, though Faisal would have several batteries of mountain guns under French Captain Pisani and his Algerians for the Megiddo Campaign. Egyptian and Indian troops also served with the Revolt, primarily as machine gunners and specialist troops, a number of armoured cars were allocated for use. The Royal Flying Corps often supported the Arab operations, and
16002-476: Was to be the base for attacks on the Hejaz railway. On 3 January 1917, Faisal began an advance northward along the Red Sea coast with 5,100 camel riders, 5,300 men on foot, four Krupp mountain guns, ten machine guns , and 380 baggage camels. The Royal Navy resupplied Faisal from the sea during his march on Wejh. 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
16129-445: Was under the command of General Fakhri Pasha . In face of increasing attacks on the Hejaz railway, the 2nd Kuvve i Mürettebe was created by 1917. The Ottoman force included a number of Arab units who stayed loyal to the Sultan-Caliph and fought well against the Allies. The Ottoman troops enjoyed an advantage over the Hashemite troops at first, in that they were well supplied with modern German weapons. The Ottoman forces had
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