John Bagot Glubb

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Mayfield, East Sussex, England
Allegiance United Kingdom
 Emirate of Transjordan
 Jordan
Years of service1915–1956
RankLieutenant General
UnitRoyal Engineers
CommandsArab Legion
Battles / wars
Awards
Officer of the Order of the British Empire
Other workAuthor
Glubb Pasha in Amman in 1940

First World War, he served in France. Glubb has been described as an "integral tool in the maintenance of British control."[1]

Early life and start of military service

Glubb was born in

First World War; his mother was Letitia Bagot from County Roscommon.[citation needed] He was a brother of the racing driver Gwenda Hawkes.[citation needed
]

Glubb gained a commission in the

League of Nations Mandate following war, and was posted to Ramadi in 1922 "to maintain a rickety floating bridge over the river [Euphrates], carried on boats made of reeds daubed with bitumen", as he later put it.[3]

The Arab Legion

He became an officer of the

Desert Patrol – a force consisting exclusively of Bedouin – to curb the raiding problem that plagued the southern part of the country. Within a few years he had persuaded the Bedouin to abandon their habit of raiding neighbouring tribes. He also took part in suppressing the Ikhwan revolt.[citation needed
]

In 1939, Glubb succeeded

Syria.[4]

In 1938, Glubb married Muriel Rosemary Forbes, the daughter of physician James Graham Forbes. The couple had a son, Godfrey Peter Manley (named after the Crusader King Godfrey of Bouillon) born in Jerusalem in 1939, and another son was born in May 1940 but lived only a few days. In 1944, they adopted Naomi, a Bedouin girl who was then three months old, and in 1948 they adopted two Palestinian refugee children called Atalla, renamed John and Mary.[citation needed]

During the

Latrun (May–July 1948). According to Avi Shlaim
,

Rumours that Abdullah was once again in contact with the Jewish leaders further damaged his standing in the Arab world. His many critics suggested that he was prepared to compromise the Arab claim to the whole of Palestine as long as he could acquire part of Palestine for himself. 'The internecine struggles of the Arabs,' reported Glubb, 'are more in the minds of Arab politicians than the struggle against the Jews. Azzam Pasha, the mufti and the Syrian government would sooner see the Jews get the whole of Palestine than that King Abdullah should benefit.'[6]

Glubb (right) with King Abdullah (left) the day before the King's assassination, 19 July 1951

Glubb remained in charge of the defence of the West Bank following the

Baghdad Pact.[4] Hussein, wanting to distance himself from the British and to disprove the contention that Glubb was the actual ruler of Jordan, dismissed Glubb and several other British senior officers from the Arab Legion on 1 March 1956.[7]
Despite his decommission, which was forced upon him by public opinion, Glubb remained a close friend of the King.

Later life

He spent the remainder of his life writing books and articles, mostly on the Middle East and on his experiences with the Arabs.

He served on the Board of Governors of Monkton Combe School from 1956 to 1966.[8]

Glubb died in 1986 at his home in

Mayfield, East Sussex. King Hussein gave the eulogy at the service of thanksgiving for Glubb's life, held in Westminster Abbey on 17 April 1986.[9] A stained glass window in his local church, St Dunstan's Church, Mayfield, celebrates his life and legacy.[citation needed
]

His widow died in 2006, whereupon his papers were deposited with the Middle East Centre Archive at St Antony's College, Oxford.[10]

Honours

Glubb was appointed

KCB
in 1956.

Ribbon Description Notes
Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB)
Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George
(CMG)
Distinguished Service Order (DSO)
Order of the British Empire (OBE)
Military Cross (MC)
Order of Saint John (KStJ)
King's Police Medal (KPM)
  • 1939, for distinguished service.[17]
1914–15 Star
British War Medal
Victory Medal
General Service Medal (1918)
1939–1945 Star
Defence Medal (United Kingdom)
War Medal 1939–1945
Supreme Order of the Renaissance
  • Order of El Nahda, 1st Class[18]
Order of Independence (Jordan)
  • Order of El Istiqlal, 1st Class[19]
Arab Legion Medal for World War II[20]
Arab Legion Medal for 1948 Arab–Israeli War
Order of Al Rafidain

Autobiography

Reception

Glubb's autobiographical story A Soldier with the Arabs was reviewed in

The Saturday Review, February 1958;[23] The Reporter, April 1958;[24] The New Yorker, October 1958;[25] and Foreign Affairs, April 1958.[26]

Writing in The Reporter, Ray Alan commented that the book was more than just an apologia; while it provided "no serious political analysis or social observation", it did offer interesting insights into the period, even if Glubb was out of touch with later trends in Middle Eastern politics. What Alan found more surprising was that Glubb also had hardly anything new to say about the 1948 Palestine war "in which he had star billing," instead lapsing into self-justifying propaganda. Alan ends his review with a long quotation from T. E. Lawrence, in which he reflects on what role a foreigner may play, and prays to God that "men will not, for love of the glamour of strangeness, go out to prostitute themselves and their talents in serving another race", but will let them "take what action or reaction they please from [his] silent example".[24]

Writing in the Saturday Review, Carl Hermann Voss commented that Glubb served with and for the Arabs for 36 years, 17 of them for King Abdullah of Jordan. The portrait photograph is captioned "Glubb Pasha—'I ... failed hopelessly.'" Voss calls the book well written no matter how subjective.

Legacy

In his 1993 poetry collection, Out of Danger, James Fenton mentions Glubb Pasha in "Here Come the Drum Majorettes!":

There's a Gleb on a steppe in a dacha.
There's a Glob on a dig on the slack side.
There's a Glubb in the sand (he's a pasha).[27]

Writings

The source for the following bibliography is Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2005. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2005, except *.

  • (With Henry Field) The Yezidis, Sulubba, and Other Tribes of Iraq and Adjacent Regions, G. Banta, 1943.
  • The Story of the Arab Legion., Hodder & Stoughton, 1948, Da Capo Press, 1976.
  • A Soldier with the Arabs., Hodder & Stoughton, 1957.
  • Britain and the Arabs: A Study of Fifty Years, 1908 to 1958, Hodder & Stoughton, 1959.
  • War in the Desert: An R.A.F. Frontier Campaign, Hodder & Stoughton, 1960, Norton, 1961.
  • The Great Arab Conquests, Hodder & Stoughton, 1963, Prentice-Hall, 1964. (vol. 1; 630-680)
  • The Empire of the Arabs, Hodder & Stoughton, 1963, Prentice-Hall, 1964. (vol. 2; 680-860)
  • The Course of Empire: The Arabs and Their Successors, Hodder & Stoughton, 1965, Prentice-Hall, 1966. (vol. 3; 860 onwards)
  • The Lost Centuries: From the Muslim Empires to the Renaissance of Europe, Hodder & Stoughton, 1966, Prentice-Hall, 1967. (vol. 4; 1145–1453)
  • Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, Walker & Co., 1967.
  • The Middle East Crisis: A Personal Interpretation, Hodder & Stoughton, 1967.
  • A Short History of the Arab Peoples, Stein & Day, 1969.
  • The Life and Times of Muhammad, Stein & Day, 1970.
  • Peace in the Holy Land: An Historical Analysis of the Palestine Problem., Hodder & Stoughton, 1971 (unavailable on line 8 Aug. 2021).
  • Soldiers of Fortune: The Story of the Mamlukes, Stein & Day, 1973.
  • The Way of Love: Lessons from a Long Life, Hodder & Stoughton, 1974.
  • Haroon Al Rasheed and the Great Abbasids, Hodder & Stoughton, 1976.
  • Into Battle: A Soldier's Diary of the Great War, Cassell, 1977.
  • The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival (PDF)., Blackwood (Edinburgh), 1978.
  • Arabian Adventures: Ten Years of Joyful Service, Cassell (London), 1978.
  • The Changing Scenes of Life: An Autobiography, Quartet Books (London), 1983.

See also

References

  1. ^ Glubb Pasha and the Arab Legion: Britain, Jordan and the End of Empire in the Middle East, p7.
  2. ISBN 9780002726382
    . Retrieved 4 April 2023.
  3. ISBN 978-0-7043-2329-2
    .
  4. ^ a b Kjeilen, Tore. "Sir John Bagot Glubb and the Fate of Empires". Encyclopædia of the Orient. Archived from the original on 10 March 2021. Retrieved 8 November 2023.
  5. ^ Morris, Benny (2008). 1948: The First Arab-Israeli War. p. 207.
  6. ^ p. 96
  7. ISBN 978-1-4094-8013-6
    .
  8. ^ A Delightful Inheritance by P LeRoy, Monkton Print, 2018
  9. ISBN 0-349-10344-5
    .
  10. ^ "The Glubb Pasha papers: a precarious existence", 4 April 2017
  11. ^ "No. 40728". The London Gazette. 9 March 1956. Page 1437
  12. ^ "No. 37598". The London Gazette. 13 June 1946. Page 2761
  13. ^ "No. 35316". The London Gazette. 21 October 1941. Page 6085
  14. ^ "No. 32941". The London Gazette. 3 June 1924. Page 4412
  15. ^ "No. 30450". The London Gazette. 1 January 1918. Page 36
  16. ^ "No. 40378". The London Gazette. 30 December 1954. Page 158
  17. ^ "No. 34585". The London Gazette. 2 January 1939. Page 23
  18. ^ "No. 36662". The London Gazette. 18 August 1944. Page 3832
  19. ^ "No. 34889". The London Gazette. 18 August 1944. Page 4098
  20. ^ "Lieutenant-General Sir John Bagot Glubb". The Saleroom. 2 December 2009. Retrieved 13 September 2017.
  21. The Atlantic Monthly
    , April 1958. pp 87–95
  22. The National Review
    , May 1958. p 430
  23. The Saturday Review
    , February 1958. pp17-18
  24. ^ a b "Glubb Pasha's Rear-Guard Action". The Reporter, April 1958. p 39
  25. ^ "Pasha's Testament". The New Yorker, October 1958. pp 182–189
  26. ^ "The Middle East". Foreign Affairs, April 1958. p 528
  27. ISBN 0-14-058719-5
    .

Further reading

Photos

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