WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.419 Welcome to the deep dive. Before we get into 00:00:03.419 --> 00:00:05.639 the heavy history today, I really want you to 00:00:05.639 --> 00:00:08.179 start off by picturing a scene. It is a pretty 00:00:08.179 --> 00:00:10.560 wild scene to visualize, honestly. It really 00:00:10.560 --> 00:00:14.580 is. Just imagine a ragtag group of nomadic desert 00:00:14.580 --> 00:00:17.179 tribesmen, right? Their loyalties are largely 00:00:17.179 --> 00:00:20.175 tied up with their own local clans. And suddenly... 00:00:20.170 --> 00:00:22.489 They are taking on one of the world's oldest, 00:00:22.809 --> 00:00:25.309 most entrenched military powers. And they aren't 00:00:25.309 --> 00:00:28.410 just doing it on a whim. No, exactly. They are 00:00:28.410 --> 00:00:30.489 doing this while being fueled by a relentless 00:00:30.489 --> 00:00:34.189 flow of gold coins and some of the grandest geopolitical 00:00:34.189 --> 00:00:36.549 promises imaginable. It genuinely sounds like 00:00:36.549 --> 00:00:38.950 the clot of a sprawling blockbuster movie. It 00:00:38.950 --> 00:00:42.250 totally does. But it is very real history. We 00:00:42.250 --> 00:00:44.630 are diving into the Arab revolt today. which 00:00:44.630 --> 00:00:47.409 tore through the Middle East from 1916 to 1918. 00:00:47.789 --> 00:00:49.869 Right, right. And today's stack of sources comes 00:00:49.869 --> 00:00:52.070 from a really comprehensive historical overview 00:00:52.070 --> 00:00:54.810 detailing this massive uprising against the Ottoman 00:00:54.810 --> 00:00:57.369 Empire, all happening during the utter chaos 00:00:57.369 --> 00:00:59.829 of World War I. Which is a chaotic enough backdrop 00:00:59.829 --> 00:01:02.570 on its own. Completely. So our mission today 00:01:02.570 --> 00:01:05.329 is to cut through the Hollywood myths. Yes, we 00:01:05.329 --> 00:01:08.890 are actively looking past that singular romanticized 00:01:08.890 --> 00:01:11.890 image of Lawrence of Arabia riding a camel through 00:01:11.890 --> 00:01:14.269 the dunes. There is so much more to it than just 00:01:14.269 --> 00:01:16.989 him. So much more. We want to understand what 00:01:16.989 --> 00:01:20.049 really happened in the sand and the cities. The 00:01:20.049 --> 00:01:23.450 goal here is to figure out how this two year 00:01:23.450 --> 00:01:28.030 irregular war basically birthed modern Arab nationalism. 00:01:28.329 --> 00:01:30.310 And directly drew the borders and the conflicts 00:01:30.310 --> 00:01:31.950 of the modern Middle East that you see on your 00:01:31.950 --> 00:01:34.909 maps today. OK, let's untack this. Why revolt 00:01:34.909 --> 00:01:36.930 in the first place? I mean, what was the actual 00:01:36.930 --> 00:01:40.599 breaking point for these tribes? Well. To really 00:01:40.599 --> 00:01:43.040 grasp the origin of the revolt, you have to look 00:01:43.040 --> 00:01:45.219 at the state of the Ottoman Empire in the early 00:01:45.219 --> 00:01:48.140 20th century. For hundreds of years, the Ottomans 00:01:48.140 --> 00:01:51.420 had ruled this vast, incredibly diverse empire. 00:01:52.000 --> 00:01:53.980 But the Arab subjects of the empire, while they 00:01:53.980 --> 00:01:56.120 weren't initially demanding full independence... 00:01:56.120 --> 00:01:58.140 Really, they didn't want out completely? Not 00:01:58.140 --> 00:02:00.439 at all. Their demands were actually incredibly 00:02:00.439 --> 00:02:04.579 moderate early on. At the 1913 first Arab Congress, 00:02:04.640 --> 00:02:07.260 which was held in Paris, interestingly enough, 00:02:07.519 --> 00:02:09.800 Arab intellectuals and politicians put together 00:02:09.800 --> 00:02:12.780 a set of reformist requests. What kind of requests? 00:02:12.900 --> 00:02:15.360 Very basic things. They simply wanted the ability 00:02:15.360 --> 00:02:18.039 to use the Arabic language in their elementary 00:02:18.039 --> 00:02:20.159 and secondary schools. OK, that makes sense. 00:02:20.400 --> 00:02:22.919 And they asked that Arab conscripts in the Ottoman 00:02:22.919 --> 00:02:25.400 military be allowed to serve their peacetime 00:02:25.400 --> 00:02:27.819 duty closer to their home regions. Oh, instead 00:02:27.819 --> 00:02:30.099 of being shipped off across the empire. Exactly. 00:02:30.520 --> 00:02:33.550 They also requested at least three Arab ministers 00:02:33.550 --> 00:02:36.229 in the Ottoman cabinet. So it was a push for 00:02:36.229 --> 00:02:39.150 autonomy and equality within the existing empire 00:02:39.150 --> 00:02:42.449 rather than an attempt to burn the empire down. 00:02:42.889 --> 00:02:45.030 So they're pushing for basic representation, 00:02:45.289 --> 00:02:47.409 not a violent revolution. But then something 00:02:47.409 --> 00:02:50.090 changes, right? The political climate in Istanbul. 00:02:50.409 --> 00:02:52.969 shifts dramatically. It does. The empire was 00:02:52.969 --> 00:02:55.650 undergoing these sweeping secular changes known 00:02:55.650 --> 00:02:58.990 as the Tanzimat reforms. To put that in perspective, 00:02:59.629 --> 00:03:01.990 these reforms weakened the concept of the Ummah. 00:03:02.129 --> 00:03:04.330 The Ummah being the religious community. Right. 00:03:04.490 --> 00:03:08.409 The Ummah was this powerful unifying idea that 00:03:08.409 --> 00:03:12.150 all these different ethnic groups Arabs, Turks, 00:03:12.530 --> 00:03:15.030 Kurds were bound together simply because they 00:03:15.030 --> 00:03:17.210 shared the Islamic faith. That was the glue holding 00:03:17.210 --> 00:03:19.189 them together. Yes. And when you weaken that 00:03:19.189 --> 00:03:21.250 religious glue, you need something else to hold 00:03:21.250 --> 00:03:24.289 the empire together. And then in 1908, the Young 00:03:24.289 --> 00:03:27.569 Turk Revolution happens. A political group known 00:03:27.569 --> 00:03:29.830 as the Committee of Union and Progress, or the 00:03:29.830 --> 00:03:32.990 CUP, gains the upper hand. They start pushing 00:03:32.990 --> 00:03:36.729 a hardline policy of centralization, and more 00:03:36.729 --> 00:03:40.360 specifically, Turkification. Turkification. Meaning 00:03:40.360 --> 00:03:43.419 what exactly? They essentially make Turkish nationalism 00:03:43.419 --> 00:03:46.419 the state ideology. They demand that Turkish 00:03:46.419 --> 00:03:49.099 language and culture be the dominant force across 00:03:49.099 --> 00:03:51.479 the board. Which obviously alienates the Arab 00:03:51.479 --> 00:03:53.460 subjects completely. I mean, if you were told 00:03:53.460 --> 00:03:55.919 your language and your identity take a back seat 00:03:55.919 --> 00:03:58.719 to a newly invented nationalistic standard, you 00:03:58.719 --> 00:04:00.979 start looking for an exit strategy. You absolutely 00:04:00.979 --> 00:04:03.500 do. And this brings us to a major player in this 00:04:03.500 --> 00:04:06.370 story. Sharif Hussain of Mecca. This guy's pedigree 00:04:06.370 --> 00:04:08.870 is just incredible. It really is unmatched in 00:04:08.870 --> 00:04:12.599 the region. Right. He is a 37th generation direct 00:04:12.599 --> 00:04:14.620 descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, part of the 00:04:14.620 --> 00:04:17.720 Hashemite family. The Ottoman Sultan appoints 00:04:17.720 --> 00:04:21.480 him as the Emir of Mecca in 1908. He is highly 00:04:21.480 --> 00:04:24.500 ambitious. But according to the sources, by 1916, 00:04:24.680 --> 00:04:27.000 he's also absolutely terrified. Yeah. Fear was 00:04:27.000 --> 00:04:29.240 a massive motivator here. Really? Oh, definitely. 00:04:29.720 --> 00:04:32.279 The Ottoman government, under that CUP leadership 00:04:32.279 --> 00:04:35.339 we just talked about, had just carried out highly 00:04:35.339 --> 00:04:38.779 publicized, brutal executions of prominent Arab 00:04:38.779 --> 00:04:41.420 nationalists. Where was this? In Damascus and 00:04:41.420 --> 00:04:44.000 Beirut. So Hussein is sitting down in Mecca hearing 00:04:44.000 --> 00:04:46.720 very credible rumors that he is going to be deposed 00:04:46.720 --> 00:04:49.720 in favor of a rival family. Or worse. Or worse, 00:04:50.040 --> 00:04:52.379 brought to Damascus and executed himself. He 00:04:52.379 --> 00:04:54.899 realizes that staying loyal to Istanbul is becoming 00:04:54.899 --> 00:04:57.579 way more dangerous than rebelling. That is a 00:04:57.579 --> 00:04:59.560 stark realization. But he also knows he does 00:04:59.560 --> 00:05:01.399 not have the military capability to take on the 00:05:01.399 --> 00:05:03.660 Ottoman army alone. Right. He needs a powerful 00:05:03.660 --> 00:05:06.149 friend. And that is where the British enter the 00:05:06.149 --> 00:05:09.170 equation. There is this famous exchange of letters 00:05:09.170 --> 00:05:13.149 between July 1915 and March 1916, known as the 00:05:13.149 --> 00:05:15.490 McMahon -Hussain correspondence. Yes, a crucial 00:05:15.490 --> 00:05:18.170 piece of the puzzle. Henry McMahon, representing 00:05:18.170 --> 00:05:20.850 the British government in Egypt, essentially 00:05:20.850 --> 00:05:23.980 makes A massive historic promise to Hussein. 00:05:24.259 --> 00:05:27.240 It was a monumental diplomatic guarantee. The 00:05:27.240 --> 00:05:29.600 British agreed that if the Arabs launched a rebellion 00:05:29.600 --> 00:05:31.639 against the Ottoman Turks, who remember were 00:05:31.639 --> 00:05:34.040 allied with Germany in World War One, Britain 00:05:34.040 --> 00:05:36.959 would recognize and support an independent, unified 00:05:36.959 --> 00:05:39.959 Arab state after the war. And the map they discussed 00:05:39.959 --> 00:05:42.980 was huge, wasn't it? Vast. It stretched roughly 00:05:42.980 --> 00:05:45.360 from Aleppo and modern day Syria all the way 00:05:45.360 --> 00:05:48.360 down to Aden in Yemen. So with that British guarantee 00:05:48.360 --> 00:05:50.779 in his pocket, Hussein pulls the trigger. On 00:05:50.779 --> 00:05:54.259 June 10th, 1916, the Arab revolt officially begins. 00:05:54.920 --> 00:05:56.939 He orders his supporters to attack the Ottoman 00:05:56.939 --> 00:05:59.920 garrison right in Mecca. The die is cast. But 00:05:59.920 --> 00:06:02.420 the moment the shooting starts, you realize just 00:06:02.420 --> 00:06:04.439 how insane of a mismatch this war is going to 00:06:04.439 --> 00:06:07.259 be. It is a total David versus Goliath situation. 00:06:07.560 --> 00:06:09.180 How are they even planning to fight a modern 00:06:09.180 --> 00:06:12.060 military? The disparity in forces is honestly 00:06:12.060 --> 00:06:14.579 staggering. At the outbreak of the revolt, the 00:06:14.579 --> 00:06:17.000 Ottomans had an entire army corps stationed in 00:06:17.000 --> 00:06:19.740 the Hejaz region. Hejaz being the coast. Basically 00:06:19.740 --> 00:06:22.019 the harsh, mountainous, western coast of the 00:06:22.019 --> 00:06:25.959 Arabian Peninsula bordering the Red Sea. By 1917, 00:06:26.240 --> 00:06:28.579 the Ottomans had about 20 ,000 troops there, 00:06:28.920 --> 00:06:31.980 led by very experienced commanders. Wow. More 00:06:31.980 --> 00:06:33.779 importantly, they were backed by their German 00:06:33.779 --> 00:06:36.800 allies. That meant they had modern artillery, 00:06:37.120 --> 00:06:39.910 machine guns, a functioning railway system. and 00:06:39.910 --> 00:06:42.149 even aviation support. Airplanes against guys 00:06:42.149 --> 00:06:44.610 on camels. Exactly. And the air forces start 00:06:44.610 --> 00:06:47.769 out with maybe 5 ,000 irregulars. Yeah. Just 00:06:47.769 --> 00:06:50.870 a bunch of nomadic Jedi tribesmen who are very 00:06:50.870 --> 00:06:53.540 loosely allied. armed with outdated rifles if 00:06:53.540 --> 00:06:55.660 they have rifles at all. It was not a conventional 00:06:55.660 --> 00:06:57.980 army in any sense. But here is the part that 00:06:57.980 --> 00:07:00.720 I found so surprising from our sources. We tend 00:07:00.720 --> 00:07:03.259 to think of this as a purely ideological uprising. 00:07:03.899 --> 00:07:06.259 But the nomads fighting the battles weren't exactly 00:07:06.259 --> 00:07:08.800 doing it for abstract concepts of Arab nationalism, 00:07:09.060 --> 00:07:11.160 at least not at first. Not at first, no. The 00:07:11.160 --> 00:07:13.279 Bedouin fighters demanded to be paid in advance. 00:07:13.560 --> 00:07:17.240 In gold coin. Gold coin. Yes. The financial logistics 00:07:17.240 --> 00:07:19.519 of keeping this revolt alive were unbelievable. 00:07:19.819 --> 00:07:22.100 The sources showed that by the end of 1916, the 00:07:22.100 --> 00:07:24.980 French had subsidized the revolt with 1 .25 million 00:07:24.980 --> 00:07:27.500 gold francs. That is an insane amount of money. 00:07:27.860 --> 00:07:31.149 And it only grew from there. By September 1918, 00:07:31.310 --> 00:07:35.230 the British were dumping 220 ,000 pounds a month 00:07:35.230 --> 00:07:38.129 into the desert just to keep the various tribes 00:07:38.129 --> 00:07:40.689 allied and fighting. So the British were basically 00:07:40.689 --> 00:07:44.790 acting like venture capitalists funding a remarkably 00:07:44.790 --> 00:07:48.449 violent high burn rate desert startup. That is 00:07:48.449 --> 00:07:50.829 a very modern way to put it, but accurate. The 00:07:50.829 --> 00:07:53.230 ultimate irony here is that the Arabs used the 00:07:53.230 --> 00:07:56.050 gold of one European empire to forge their own 00:07:56.050 --> 00:07:58.829 national identity, only to have their land stolen 00:07:58.829 --> 00:08:01.470 by another European empire later on. A tragic 00:08:01.470 --> 00:08:03.649 foreshadowing. But we will get to that. Before 00:08:03.649 --> 00:08:05.750 the betrayal, they had to actually survive the 00:08:05.750 --> 00:08:08.509 war. Right. What's fascinating here is how that 00:08:08.509 --> 00:08:10.810 initial weakness actually dictated a brilliant 00:08:10.810 --> 00:08:13.470 strategy. The Arab forces quickly realized they 00:08:13.470 --> 00:08:16.110 could not win massive pitched battles against 00:08:16.110 --> 00:08:18.470 entrenched Ottoman infantry and artillery. They'd 00:08:18.470 --> 00:08:21.579 just be slaughtered. Exactly. An early direct 00:08:21.579 --> 00:08:24.279 attack on the city of Medina in October 1916 00:08:24.279 --> 00:08:26.860 was a bloody disaster for the Arab forces, so 00:08:26.860 --> 00:08:29.680 they adapted. The greatest military contribution 00:08:29.680 --> 00:08:32.259 of the Arab revolt wasn't winning traditional 00:08:32.259 --> 00:08:36.080 battles. It was conducting textbook asymmetric 00:08:36.080 --> 00:08:39.220 warfare. It basically became a ghost army. Precisely. 00:08:39.370 --> 00:08:41.889 They utilized camel -mounted raiding parties 00:08:41.889 --> 00:08:44.230 that could travel hundreds of miles across the 00:08:44.230 --> 00:08:47.370 desert. They carried their own food and navigated 00:08:47.370 --> 00:08:50.289 a hidden network of wells. Moving totally off 00:08:50.289 --> 00:08:53.590 the grid. They simply existed in the harsh terrain, 00:08:54.269 --> 00:08:56.850 harassed Ottoman supply lines, and vanished back 00:08:56.850 --> 00:08:59.210 into the dunes. Which drives a conventional army 00:08:59.210 --> 00:09:02.409 crazy. And by doing this, they pinned down tens 00:09:02.409 --> 00:09:04.889 of thousands of Ottoman troops in the Hegez, 00:09:05.230 --> 00:09:07.629 who otherwise would have been sent north to attack 00:09:07.629 --> 00:09:10.049 the British forces defending the Suez Canal in 00:09:10.049 --> 00:09:12.549 Egypt. It's the ultimate war of distraction. 00:09:13.230 --> 00:09:15.429 And to coordinate this distraction, the British 00:09:15.429 --> 00:09:17.669 and French start sending military advisors. This 00:09:17.669 --> 00:09:19.389 is where the names we know start showing up. 00:09:19.570 --> 00:09:21.110 Right. This is where the Hollywood connection 00:09:21.110 --> 00:09:24.370 comes in. In October 1916, a young British officer 00:09:24.370 --> 00:09:26.730 named Captain T .E. Lawrence arrives in the port 00:09:26.730 --> 00:09:29.580 of Jeddah. He finds the rebellion completely 00:09:29.580 --> 00:09:31.519 stalled out. Dead in the water. So he goes on 00:09:31.519 --> 00:09:34.179 a long camel journey to meet the various Arab 00:09:34.179 --> 00:09:37.360 leaders. And he correctly identifies Hussein's 00:09:37.360 --> 00:09:40.740 third son, Faisal, as the one guy who actually 00:09:40.740 --> 00:09:43.740 has the charisma and vision to unite these fractured 00:09:43.740 --> 00:09:47.279 tribes. Lawrence definitely had an eye for leadership. 00:09:47.460 --> 00:09:50.080 He did. Lawrence gets the fame. He gets the Peter 00:09:50.080 --> 00:09:52.759 O'Toole movie. But the sources point out something 00:09:52.759 --> 00:09:55.340 incredibly surprising about where his intelligence 00:09:55.340 --> 00:09:58.350 actually came from. Who was actually providing 00:09:58.350 --> 00:10:01.539 the roadmap? for these desert campaigns. The 00:10:01.539 --> 00:10:03.899 intelligence network behind the scenes is crucial 00:10:03.899 --> 00:10:06.620 here. While T .E. Lawrence becomes the face of 00:10:06.620 --> 00:10:08.919 the allied effort in the desert, historians like 00:10:08.919 --> 00:10:11.039 David Hogarth point out that Lawrence was relying 00:10:11.039 --> 00:10:13.240 heavily on the work of a woman named Gertrude 00:10:13.240 --> 00:10:16.440 Bell. Gertrude Bell. Yes. Bell was an Oxford 00:10:16.440 --> 00:10:18.820 graduate who had been traveling extensively throughout 00:10:18.820 --> 00:10:21.539 the Middle East since 1888. Way before the war. 00:10:21.580 --> 00:10:23.679 Way before. By the time the war broke out, she 00:10:23.679 --> 00:10:26.100 had unparalleled knowledge of the tribal dynamics, 00:10:26.539 --> 00:10:28.539 the geography, and the politics of the region. 00:10:28.750 --> 00:10:31.570 She provided a crucial mass of information about 00:10:31.570 --> 00:10:33.970 the local Howitat tribe. So while Lawrence is 00:10:33.970 --> 00:10:35.690 getting the credit for mastering the desert, 00:10:36.750 --> 00:10:38.649 it was Gertrude Bell's homework that paved the 00:10:38.649 --> 00:10:41.269 way. Her mapping of the tribal elements between 00:10:41.269 --> 00:10:43.649 the railway and the desert made Lawrence's famous 00:10:43.649 --> 00:10:47.909 campaigns of 1917 and 1918 possible. The British 00:10:47.909 --> 00:10:50.850 military simply did not have the granular tribal 00:10:50.850 --> 00:10:53.590 -level intelligence required to forge these alliances. 00:10:53.889 --> 00:10:55.350 Because they were just looking at maps from a 00:10:55.350 --> 00:10:58.440 distance. Exactly. But... Bell had it because 00:10:58.440 --> 00:11:00.779 she had spent decades sitting in their tents 00:11:00.779 --> 00:11:03.500 and learning their politics. So with that intelligence, 00:11:03.879 --> 00:11:06.259 the strategy shifts away from attacking heavily 00:11:06.259 --> 00:11:09.740 fortified cities like Medina. Instead, the Arabs 00:11:09.740 --> 00:11:13.440 decide to just torture the 1300 kilometer Hejaz 00:11:13.440 --> 00:11:15.940 railway that supplied the Ottoman garrisons. 00:11:16.240 --> 00:11:18.620 A brilliant shift in focus. It's the military 00:11:18.620 --> 00:11:21.200 equivalent of repeatedly slashing the tires of 00:11:21.200 --> 00:11:23.769 your enemy's only delivery truck. They couldn't 00:11:23.769 --> 00:11:25.669 beat the Ottomans in a fair fight, so they just 00:11:25.669 --> 00:11:27.970 made sure the Ottomans couldn't eat or reload. 00:11:28.210 --> 00:11:30.409 It was a relentless campaign of bleeding the 00:11:30.409 --> 00:11:33.330 enemy's logistics, and the sabotage was highly 00:11:33.330 --> 00:11:36.070 creative. How so? Well, you had British officers 00:11:36.070 --> 00:11:38.230 like Major Herbert Garland who actually invented 00:11:38.230 --> 00:11:40.610 a device called the Garland Mine specifically 00:11:40.610 --> 00:11:42.990 designed to blow up moving locomotives. Wow. 00:11:43.340 --> 00:11:46.519 custom -built train killers. Exactly. And you 00:11:46.519 --> 00:11:48.580 had French officers too, like Captain Mohammed 00:11:48.580 --> 00:11:51.159 Oud Al -Iraho, a Muslim officer in the French 00:11:51.159 --> 00:11:54.940 army. He led Bedouin forces on raids that destroyed 00:11:54.940 --> 00:11:58.080 five kilometers of track and four massive bridges 00:11:58.080 --> 00:12:01.639 in a single operation. The scale of the sabotage 00:12:01.639 --> 00:12:04.879 is wild. to coordinate blowing up five kilometers 00:12:04.879 --> 00:12:06.759 of track in the middle of the desert while avoiding 00:12:06.759 --> 00:12:09.620 patrols. And that was just one raid. To give 00:12:09.620 --> 00:12:11.820 you an idea of the sheer volume of attacks, in 00:12:11.820 --> 00:12:15.000 July 1917, British officers Stuart Newcomb and 00:12:15.000 --> 00:12:18.320 Pierce Joyce planted over 500 explosive charges 00:12:18.320 --> 00:12:21.820 on the Hejaz Railway in a single night. 500 in 00:12:21.820 --> 00:12:24.049 one night? Yes. The Ottomans were at the end 00:12:24.049 --> 00:12:27.350 of a very long, very tenuous supply line. They 00:12:27.350 --> 00:12:29.370 were forced to string their troops out in small 00:12:29.370 --> 00:12:31.750 isolated garrisons just to protect the tracks. 00:12:31.789 --> 00:12:34.129 Constantly on defense. Constantly repairing the 00:12:34.129 --> 00:12:36.190 damage instead of fighting the war. Here's where 00:12:36.190 --> 00:12:39.450 it gets really interesting. All of this sabotage 00:12:39.450 --> 00:12:42.169 is softening up the Ottomans for major offenses. 00:12:43.129 --> 00:12:46.870 In 1917, the Arab forces set their sights on 00:12:46.870 --> 00:12:49.710 the port city of Aqaba. A massive turning point. 00:12:49.850 --> 00:12:51.990 It's the last remaining Ottoman port on the Red 00:12:51.990 --> 00:12:54.600 Sea. Now the Ottomans heavily descended it from 00:12:54.600 --> 00:12:56.840 an evil assault. Their big guns were pointed 00:12:56.840 --> 00:12:58.679 out at the water. Which is standard doctrine. 00:12:59.279 --> 00:13:02.240 Right. So Lawrence, along with the fearsome local 00:13:02.240 --> 00:13:05.000 leader, Ota Abutai, comes up with an audacious 00:13:05.000 --> 00:13:08.759 plan. Attack Aqaba from behind by crossing the 00:13:08.759 --> 00:13:11.809 brutal, seemingly impassable Nefud Desert. It 00:13:11.809 --> 00:13:15.250 was a strategic masterstroke, but a total logistical 00:13:15.250 --> 00:13:17.889 nightmare. They marched an irregular force through 00:13:17.889 --> 00:13:20.330 some of the harshest, most unforgiving terrain 00:13:20.330 --> 00:13:23.029 on earth. And the Ottomans had no idea. None. 00:13:23.429 --> 00:13:25.610 The Ottomans never expected a large scale attack 00:13:25.610 --> 00:13:27.830 from the deep desert because they assumed a traditional 00:13:27.830 --> 00:13:30.090 army simply couldn't survive the crossing. Right. 00:13:30.289 --> 00:13:32.529 Because of that element of total surprise, the 00:13:32.529 --> 00:13:34.769 Arab forces managed to sweep into the city from 00:13:34.769 --> 00:13:38.009 the landward side in July 1917 with almost no 00:13:38.009 --> 00:13:40.629 casualties. Taking a heavily fortified port city 00:13:40.629 --> 00:13:43.649 from the by crossing an uncrossable desert is 00:13:43.649 --> 00:13:45.590 the kind of stuff you usually only read about 00:13:45.590 --> 00:13:48.429 in fiction. Truly. And the payoff was massive. 00:13:48.669 --> 00:13:51.110 The capture of Aqaba fundamentally changed the 00:13:51.110 --> 00:13:53.850 geometry of the war. It removed the threat to 00:13:53.850 --> 00:13:55.950 the right flank of the British forces defending 00:13:55.950 --> 00:13:58.590 Egypt. Okay. But more importantly, it opened 00:13:58.590 --> 00:14:02.200 a massive supply artery. The British Royal Navy 00:14:02.200 --> 00:14:05.139 could now sail right into the port of Aqaba and 00:14:05.139 --> 00:14:07.899 flood the Arab Northern Miami with food, weapons, 00:14:08.139 --> 00:14:11.320 armored cars, and supplies. Entirely bypassing 00:14:11.320 --> 00:14:14.039 the dangerous overland routes. Exactly. Up until 00:14:14.039 --> 00:14:16.080 this point, we've talked a lot about the adventure, 00:14:16.240 --> 00:14:18.519 the strategy, the blowing up of trains. It all 00:14:18.519 --> 00:14:21.279 sounds very dashing, but it is crucial we don't 00:14:21.279 --> 00:14:24.259 gloss over the immense human cost of this revolt. 00:14:24.419 --> 00:14:26.240 It's deeply important to remember that. This 00:14:26.240 --> 00:14:29.320 is a brutal localized world war, and the trauma 00:14:29.320 --> 00:14:31.970 was profound. found. It absolutely was. The sources 00:14:31.970 --> 00:14:34.409 are very clear about the grim realities of this 00:14:34.409 --> 00:14:36.570 kind of warfare, particularly toward the end 00:14:36.570 --> 00:14:38.789 of the campaign. Yeah, things get very dark. 00:14:39.049 --> 00:14:42.350 By September 1918, the Ottoman army is retreating 00:14:42.350 --> 00:14:45.509 north and military discipline is completely breaking 00:14:45.509 --> 00:14:48.950 down. During their retreat, a column of Ottoman, 00:14:49.269 --> 00:14:52.610 Austrian and German troops plundered and massacred 00:14:52.610 --> 00:14:55.230 the inhabitants of an Arab village called Tafas. 00:14:55.350 --> 00:14:58.789 Awful. The Arab forces, including T .E. Lawrence, 00:14:59.269 --> 00:15:01.909 arrived shortly after to find the horror of what 00:15:01.909 --> 00:15:04.110 had been done to the civilian villagers. And 00:15:04.110 --> 00:15:06.789 the retaliation was horrific. In a state of sheer 00:15:06.789 --> 00:15:09.889 rage, Lawrence issued a no -prisoners order. 00:15:10.230 --> 00:15:13.110 In his book, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Lawrence 00:15:13.110 --> 00:15:15.529 wrote candidly about the psychological toll and 00:15:15.529 --> 00:15:17.750 the sheer brutality of that day. What did he 00:15:17.750 --> 00:15:20.529 write? He wrote, in a madness born of the horror 00:15:20.519 --> 00:15:23.100 of Tafas we killed and killed, even blowing in 00:15:23.100 --> 00:15:24.980 the heads of the fallen and of the animals as 00:15:24.980 --> 00:15:27.159 though their death and running blood could slake 00:15:27.159 --> 00:15:30.019 our agony. It's a stark reminder that beneath 00:15:30.019 --> 00:15:32.899 the romanticized image of desert warfare was 00:15:32.899 --> 00:15:35.600 a deeply traumatic, blood -soaked reality that 00:15:35.600 --> 00:15:37.720 broke the people fighting it. That quote strips 00:15:37.720 --> 00:15:40.100 away all the glamour completely. It leaves you 00:15:40.100 --> 00:15:42.840 with the raw trauma of these men in the desert. 00:15:42.860 --> 00:15:45.960 It does. But despite that horror, The military 00:15:45.960 --> 00:15:48.980 momentum of the Arab forces was unstoppable by 00:15:48.980 --> 00:15:52.120 late 1918. They're pushing north into Syria, 00:15:52.460 --> 00:15:55.000 working in tandem with the British General Allenby's 00:15:55.000 --> 00:15:58.059 massive conventional offensives. A two -pronged 00:15:58.059 --> 00:16:00.580 attack, essentially. Right. The Arab camel cavalry 00:16:00.580 --> 00:16:04.279 is harassing retreating columns, providing intelligence, 00:16:04.740 --> 00:16:07.399 and wiping out garrisons. And then they reach 00:16:07.399 --> 00:16:10.690 the ultimate prize. Damascus. Damascus was the 00:16:10.690 --> 00:16:13.370 political and cultural heart of the region. By 00:16:13.370 --> 00:16:16.889 October 1st, 1918, Arab troops, including Oda 00:16:16.889 --> 00:16:19.350 Abutai and T .E. Lawrence, ride into the city. 00:16:19.429 --> 00:16:21.710 The big victory march. But the symbolic victory 00:16:21.710 --> 00:16:24.460 had actually already been achieved. When Sharif 00:16:24.460 --> 00:16:27.080 Noser's camel cavalry and the Ruala tribe arrived 00:16:27.080 --> 00:16:29.700 just outside the city walls the day before, they 00:16:29.700 --> 00:16:32.240 found that surviving Arab nationalists inside 00:16:32.240 --> 00:16:35.019 Damascus had already raised the flag of the Arab 00:16:35.019 --> 00:16:37.259 revolt. So the city had already flipped? Yes. 00:16:37.659 --> 00:16:40.120 The Ottoman Empire was in full total retreat. 00:16:40.539 --> 00:16:42.659 The two -year desert campaign had actually worked. 00:16:43.100 --> 00:16:45.580 So what does this all mean? The fighting stops. 00:16:45.799 --> 00:16:48.259 The Ottomans are defeated. The Arab forces are 00:16:48.259 --> 00:16:50.980 sitting in Damascus. Sharif Hussein is down in 00:16:50.980 --> 00:16:53.360 Mecca expecting to be handed the keys to this 00:16:53.360 --> 00:16:56.399 massive new independent kingdom stretching from 00:16:56.399 --> 00:16:59.259 Aleppo to Aden. But while he was fighting in 00:16:59.259 --> 00:17:01.620 the sand, what was actually happening in the 00:17:01.620 --> 00:17:04.500 backrooms of Europe. What happened in those backrooms 00:17:04.500 --> 00:17:07.700 is what the sources, modern historians and the 00:17:07.700 --> 00:17:10.920 Arab world widely characterized as a profound 00:17:11.319 --> 00:17:14.660 world -altering betrayal. The Rug Bull. A massive 00:17:14.660 --> 00:17:17.359 one. Remember that grand promise Henry McMahon 00:17:17.359 --> 00:17:20.220 made to Hussein in 1915? The independent state. 00:17:20.539 --> 00:17:22.700 Right. Well, in 1916, while the Arabs were bleeding 00:17:22.700 --> 00:17:24.920 in the desert fighting the Ottomans, British 00:17:24.920 --> 00:17:27.420 and French diplomats secretly signed the Sykes 00:17:27.420 --> 00:17:29.839 -Picot agreement. And this agreement basically 00:17:29.839 --> 00:17:32.500 voids everything they told Hussein. Entirely. 00:17:32.670 --> 00:17:35.230 Sykes -Picot carved up the post -war Middle East 00:17:35.230 --> 00:17:37.910 into European mandates. Mandates. Right. A mandate 00:17:37.910 --> 00:17:40.029 was effectively colonialism by a different name. 00:17:40.410 --> 00:17:42.769 It divided the Arab territories into spheres 00:17:42.769 --> 00:17:45.069 of British and French control. How was it split? 00:17:45.470 --> 00:17:48.089 France would get control of modern -day Syria 00:17:48.089 --> 00:17:51.069 and Lebanon. Britain would get control of modern 00:17:51.069 --> 00:17:53.990 -day Iraq, Jordan, and Palestine. Just drawing 00:17:53.990 --> 00:17:57.359 lines on a map. Exactly. And to further complicate 00:17:57.359 --> 00:17:59.519 matters, the British also issued the Balfour 00:17:59.519 --> 00:18:02.400 Declaration in 1917, which promised support for 00:18:02.400 --> 00:18:04.640 the establishment of a Jewish national home in 00:18:04.640 --> 00:18:08.079 Palestine. When the war officially ended, the 00:18:08.079 --> 00:18:10.759 Allies reneged on their original deal with Hussein. 00:18:11.460 --> 00:18:15.059 The unified Arab empire he fought for was partitioned 00:18:15.059 --> 00:18:17.519 away by diplomats in Europe who simply drew new 00:18:17.519 --> 00:18:20.329 lines on a map. The heartbreak of that is just 00:18:20.329 --> 00:18:23.170 immense. You have Hussein who staked his life, 00:18:23.369 --> 00:18:25.589 his family, and his people on this alliance. 00:18:25.970 --> 00:18:28.490 He launched a war beast on a handshake with an 00:18:28.490 --> 00:18:31.470 empire. And he paid the price. He did. When the 00:18:31.470 --> 00:18:33.730 dust settles, he is left with only the kingdom 00:18:33.730 --> 00:18:36.269 of Hejaz, that harsh strip of land bordering 00:18:36.269 --> 00:18:39.170 the Red Sea. He is so furious and principled 00:18:39.170 --> 00:18:41.809 about the betrayal that he flat out refuses to 00:18:41.809 --> 00:18:43.750 sign the Treaty of Versailles. A huge political 00:18:43.750 --> 00:18:46.089 statement. And he refuses to legitimize the mandate 00:18:46.089 --> 00:18:48.559 system or the Balfour Declaration. His protest 00:18:48.559 --> 00:18:51.019 was highly principled, yes, but it cost him his 00:18:51.019 --> 00:18:53.539 kingdom. By refusing to sign the treaties, he 00:18:53.539 --> 00:18:55.680 alienated the British government, which promptly 00:18:55.680 --> 00:18:58.319 cut off his financial and military support, leaving 00:18:58.319 --> 00:19:01.960 him completely exposed. Isolated, weakened, and 00:19:01.960 --> 00:19:04.700 without his powerful European ally, his kingdom 00:19:04.700 --> 00:19:07.400 was left vulnerable. Within a few years, it was 00:19:07.400 --> 00:19:09.539 invaded by the Saudi armies from the Central 00:19:09.539 --> 00:19:12.539 Arabian Peninsula. The final blow. By December 00:19:12.539 --> 00:19:15.740 1925, Hussein was forced to surrender and his 00:19:15.740 --> 00:19:17.539 kingdom of Hezbollah was conquered, bringing 00:19:17.539 --> 00:19:20.700 his sure fate to a permanent end. It is a tragic 00:19:20.700 --> 00:19:24.180 personal arc, but the ideas he unleashed didn't 00:19:24.180 --> 00:19:26.680 die with his kingdom. Not at all. Despite the 00:19:26.680 --> 00:19:29.140 diplomatic betrayal and the tragic end for Sharif 00:19:29.140 --> 00:19:31.680 Hussein himself, the legacy of the Arab revolt 00:19:31.680 --> 00:19:34.359 is undeniable. It changed everything. Historians 00:19:34.359 --> 00:19:37.119 view it as the very first organized movement 00:19:37.119 --> 00:19:40.670 of Arab nationalism. Before 1916, loyalty was 00:19:40.670 --> 00:19:43.369 primarily local to a family, a clan, or a specific 00:19:43.369 --> 00:19:46.089 tribe. The revolt brought incredibly diverse 00:19:46.089 --> 00:19:48.630 groups together for the first time under a shared, 00:19:48.869 --> 00:19:51.170 regional goal of independence. You figured out 00:19:51.170 --> 00:19:53.109 there were unified people. And the people who 00:19:53.109 --> 00:19:55.509 fought in this revolt went on to shape the entire 00:19:55.509 --> 00:19:58.539 region. Sharifian officers formed the first political 00:19:58.539 --> 00:20:01.420 parties in Iraq. Hussein's sons became kings 00:20:01.420 --> 00:20:03.799 of newly created states. The Hashemite. Yes. 00:20:04.059 --> 00:20:06.619 The Hashemite family still rules in Jordan today. 00:20:06.900 --> 00:20:08.960 The borders drawn in the aftermath of this revolt. 00:20:09.109 --> 00:20:12.130 those mandates created by Sykes -Picot and the 00:20:12.130 --> 00:20:14.730 fierce nationalist spirit the revolt awakened 00:20:14.730 --> 00:20:17.750 created a ripple effect. A ripple effect we still 00:20:17.750 --> 00:20:20.890 see. Absolutely. It directly dictates the politics, 00:20:21.089 --> 00:20:24.130 the borders, and the conflicts of Iraq, Syria, 00:20:24.609 --> 00:20:27.009 Jordan, and the broader Middle East in the 21st 00:20:27.009 --> 00:20:29.769 century. The modern Middle East was forged in 00:20:29.769 --> 00:20:32.660 the fires of the specific revolt. This raises 00:20:32.660 --> 00:20:35.720 an important question, though. Just how far did 00:20:35.720 --> 00:20:38.759 this sudden, fierce awakening of identity reach? 00:20:39.099 --> 00:20:41.079 That is the question. Was it just contained to 00:20:41.079 --> 00:20:42.700 the soldiers fighting in the trenches of the 00:20:42.700 --> 00:20:45.480 Hejaz, or the politicians arguing in Damascus? 00:20:45.640 --> 00:20:47.839 I want to leave you with one final fascinating 00:20:47.839 --> 00:20:50.319 nugget from our sources to mull over, because 00:20:50.319 --> 00:20:53.359 the answer to that question is wild. This fight 00:20:53.359 --> 00:20:55.839 for identity, this total rejection of the old 00:20:55.839 --> 00:20:58.500 Ottoman labels, it reached thousands of miles 00:20:58.500 --> 00:21:00.200 away. All the way across the Atlantic Ocean. 00:21:00.519 --> 00:21:03.000 Right. While the war was raging in the desert, 00:21:03.339 --> 00:21:05.960 immigrants living in the United States, specifically 00:21:05.960 --> 00:21:08.200 Arab and Hebrew immigrants who had originally 00:21:08.200 --> 00:21:11.039 come from Ottoman Turkey, actually organized 00:21:11.039 --> 00:21:13.240 and petitioned the U .S. State Department. In 00:21:13.240 --> 00:21:15.500 the middle of the war? In the middle of it. Yeah. 00:21:15.640 --> 00:21:17.700 They formally demanded that the federal government 00:21:17.700 --> 00:21:21.059 stop classifying them on state registers as Turkish 00:21:21.059 --> 00:21:24.460 subjects. They insisted on being recognized specifically 00:21:24.460 --> 00:21:28.400 as Arab or Hebrew. That is just amazing to think 00:21:28.400 --> 00:21:31.410 about. It really is. The struggle to define who 00:21:31.410 --> 00:21:34.170 they were wasn't just happening with rifles and 00:21:34.170 --> 00:21:36.170 explosives in the desert. It was happening in 00:21:36.170 --> 00:21:38.910 the bureaucratic offices of America. A complete 00:21:38.910 --> 00:21:41.569 awakening. Exactly. It goes to show that when 00:21:41.569 --> 00:21:44.210 people wake up to their own identity, it cannot 00:21:44.210 --> 00:21:46.750 be contained by the arbitrary lines drawn on 00:21:46.750 --> 00:21:49.529 a map by an empire. Keep questioning those lines 00:21:49.529 --> 00:21:51.910 and keep digging into the history beneath them. 00:21:52.569 --> 00:21:54.269 Thanks for joining us on this deep dive.