Hussein bin Ali's Arab Revolt: McMahon Letters, Aqaba and Exile in Cyprus

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Hussein bin Ali, a Hashemite and 37th-generation descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, was summoned to Istanbul in 1893 and kept on the Council of State under watch for more than a decade before Sultan Abdul Hamid II made him Emir and Sharif of Mecca in 1908. The Young Turks of the Committee of Union and Progress then pushed Turkification and centralization, which Hussein opposed on religious and traditional grounds. In the McMahon-Hussein correspondence of 1915 and 1916 with Sir Henry McMahon in Egypt, he sought recognition of an Arab state from Aleppo to Aden, 50,000 pounds in gold and arms, while Britain wanted a revolt to draw Ottoman troops away from the Suez Canal.

Fearing deposition after Ottoman executions of Arab nationalists in Damascus, Hussein's sons Ali, Faisal and Abdullah attacked Medina in June 1916 and were repulsed by Fakhri Pasha, and on June 10 Hussein declared the revolt in Mecca. Advised by T. E. Lawrence, the rebels left Medina alone and raided the Hejaz Railway, while the Sharifian Army was built from Arab prisoners of war. Aqaba fell in 1917 and Damascus in 1918, but Sykes-Picot, the Balfour Declaration and the League of Nations mandates gave Syria and Lebanon to France and Iraq and Palestine to Britain. Hussein refused to ratify Versailles or the Anglo-Hashemite treaty, lost British support, and was overrun by Ibn Saud in 1924 and 1925, dying in exile in Cyprus.

• Ottoman artillery fired into Mecca during the uprising, and Hussein used the bombardment to rally recruits.
• France paid 1.25 million gold francs toward the revolt, and by 1918 Britain spent 220,000 pounds a month.
• Many Bedouin fighters demanded payment in gold before committing to a raid.
• Faisal, Lawrence and Auda Abu Tayi crossed the Nefud Desert and took Aqaba from the landward side, where its coastal guns could not turn.
• Hussein declared himself king of the Arab countries, but the Allies recognized him only as king of the Hejaz.