Yusuf al-Azma
Yusuf al-Azma | |
---|---|
یوسف العظمة | |
Minister of War and Chief of General Staff of Syria | |
In office January 1920 – 24 July 1920 | |
Monarch | Faisal I |
Prime Minister | Hashim al-Atassi |
Preceded by | Office established (Minister of War) Yasin al-Hashimi (Chief of General Staff) |
Succeeded by | Offices abolished |
Personal details | |
Born | 1883 Ottoman Army (1909–18) (1920)Arab Army |
Years of service | 1909–18 1920 |
Battles/wars | World War I |
Yusuf al-Azma (
Al-Azma hailed from a wealthy
Early life and family
Al-Azma was born to a prominent mercantile and landowning
Military career with the Ottomans
Al-Azma graduated from the Istanbul-based
Toward the war's end, al-Azma was appointed chief of staff of the Istanbul-based
Minister of War
Appointment
In Prime Minister
Opposition to the French Mandate
Faisal declared the
French forces commanded by General
In northern Syria, an
On 13 July, al-Azma declared emergency measures in the Syrian National Congress, including press censorship, the power to seize civilian vehicles for military use and a call for militias across the country to support the army.[15] Inspired by Kemal's successes against the French in Turkey, al-Azma sought to follow in the latter's path in Syria. Meanwhile, al-Hashimi had returned to the country from Palestine and was tasked with inspecting al-Azma's troops.[15] He concluded that the Arab Army was woefully unprepared and under-equipped for a serious confrontation against the French Army.[15] In a meeting of King Faisal's war cabinet, al-'Azma was visibly upset with al-Hashimi's conclusions.[15] Regardless, he ultimately conceded that the army was in a precarious situation when informed that the lack of ammunition meant that each soldier would only be allotted 270 bullets for their rifle and each artillery piece could only be allotted eight shells.[15] Despite this, all of the officers in the meeting declared their willingness to fight.[15] According to Provence, both al-Azma and al-Hashimi "complained bitterly that they faced an impossible task in organizing defense, made all the more difficult by Faisal's refusal to seriously contemplate and prepare for military confrontation".[16] In the struggle against France, both officers sought to implement the model of Kemal's Anatolian insurgency while Faisal continued, in vain, to seek an intervention by his erstwhile British allies.[16]
On 14 July, France issued an ultimatum to the Syrian government to disband its army and submit to French control.
Battle of Maysalun and death
About 12,000 French troops consisting of ten infantry battalions as well as cavalrymen and artillerymen backed by tanks and fighter bombers, began their advance on Damascus on 21 July.[19] They first captured Anjar in the Beqaa Valley, where General Hassan al-Hindi's brigade had disbanded without a fight.[21][19] The French advance surprised King Faisal who believed that French military action would be avoided by his agreement to the 14 July ultimatum as General Gouraud had promised.[19] In response to Gouraud's action, King Faisal agreed to al-Azma's request for mobilization.[20] About 300 of Hindi's disbanded troops from Anjar were ordered to re-mobilize at the Maysalun Pass, some 12 miles to the west of Damascus. Al-Azma managed to assemble a few hundred regular troops, and around 1,000 volunteers, including Bedouin cavalry.[22]
On 22 July, King Faisal attempted to delay the French advance by dispatching Minister of Education
Al-Azma's troops in Maysalun were mostly equipped with rusted rifles left by Ottoman troops and rifles used by Bedouin irregulars during the 1916 Arab Revolt as well as 15 cannons.[23] The Arab force was composed of northern, central and southern columns with camel cavalry at the head.[23] Al-Azma led the central column which was backed by numerous civilian volunteers.[23] Around dawn, at the approaches of Maysalun, clashes between Arab forces and the French Army took place, but most Arab resistance, which was largely uncoordinated, had collapsed by the first hour of battle.[23] The Syrians had used up the little ammunition they had and the militarily superior French Army broke the Arab lines.[20]
Around 10:30am French forces reached al-Azma's headquarters. The mines that had been laid by the Syrians did not explode or at least did not seriously hinder the incoming French forces.[23] With French troops about 100 meters away from him, al-Azma rushed to an artilleryman and commanded him to fire at the French tanks.[23] Before any shell was fired, al-Azma was fatally shot in the head and chest by machine gun fire from a French tank crew.[23] He was the only Arab officer to die in the battle.[20] Sporadic clashes continued for another three hours. By then, Arab forces had retreated in disarray towards Damascus.[23] The French Army entered the city on 25 July. In his memoirs, General Gouraud wrote that after their defeat the Syrian troops left "behind 15 cannons, 40 rifles, and a general ... named Yusuf Bey al-'Azma. He died a courageous soldier's death in battle."[20]
Legacy
Al-Azma's refusal to surrender to the French, his insistence on entering battle with inferior forces and his death commanding the Syrians in Maysalun made him a hero in Syria and the Arab world.[7] According to Khoury, al-Azma was "henceforth immortalized by Syrians as the supreme national martyr".[7] Likewise, Provence states al-Azma "became the supreme symbol of interwar Syrian Arab patriotism".[6] His statue stands in a major square named after him in central Damascus, with streets and schools named in his honor throughout Syria.[24] Statues of al-Azma are also present across the Middle East.[25] According to historian Tareq Y. Ismael, the defeat of al-Azma and the subsequent French takeover of Syria contributed to popular attitudes in the Arab world—that exist to the present day—which hold that "the West is not honorable in its commitments, speaks with a forked tongue about issues of democracy ... and will oppress anyone who stands in the way of its imperial designs".[25]
A tomb for al-Azma was erected inside a shaded grove at Maysalun in the 1930s.[26] Though it has been frequently renovated, the original structure of the tomb remains largely intact.[26] It consists of a stone sarcophagus elevated on a platform. One side of the platform has a stairway and the other side is a concrete column which carries a large concrete roof that is further supported by a beam.[26] The sarcophagus has a triangular roof upon which is engraved the Zulfiqar sword.[26] The Syrian military annually honors al-Azma at his tomb on Maysalun Day.[26]
See also
- Great Syrian Revolt
- Ayyash Al-Haj
- Fawzi al-Qawuqji
- Abd al-Rahman Shahbandar
- Sultan al-Atrash
- Adham Khanjar
- Saleh Al-Ali
- Hasan al-Kharrat
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Moubayed 2006, p. 44
- ^ a b c Roded, in Kushner 1986, p. 159
- ^ a b c Roded 1983, p. 90.
- ^ Aziz al-Azma Library; Sami Moubayed (Editor). "Laila, the daughter of Yusuf al-Azma – 1942". Syrian History. Haykal Media. Archived from the original on 2015-09-28. Retrieved 2015-09-27.
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has generic name (help) - ^ Aziz al-Azma Library. Sami Moubayed (ed.). "Yusuf al-Azma's daughter Laila with the nationalists Nabih and Adel al-Azma–Istanbul 1942". Syrian History. Haykal Media. Archived from the original on 2015-09-28. Retrieved 2015-09-27.
- ^ a b c d Provence 2011, p. 213.
- ^ a b c Khoury 1987, p. 97.
- ^ Tauber 2013, p. 30 and p. 211
- ^ a b c d Provence 2011, p. 216.
- ^ Tauber 2013, p. 24
- ^ a b Allawi 2014, p. 260.
- ^ Tauber 2013, p. 30
- ^ a b c d e f Allawi 2014, p. 285.
- ^ a b Khoury 1987, p. 98.
- ^ a b c d e f Allawi 2014 p. 287.
- ^ a b Provence 2011, p. 218.
- ^ a b c Allawi 2014, p. 288.
- ^ a b c d Tauber 2013, p. 34
- ^ a b c d Allawi 2014, p. 289.
- ^ a b c d e f Moubayed 2006, p. 45
- ^ Tauber 2013, p. 35
- ^ a b Allawi 2014, p. 290.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Tauber 2013, p. 218
- ^ Herb 2008, p. 728
- ^ a b Ismael 2013, p. 57
- ^ a b c d e Wien 2017, p. 164.
Bibliography
- Allawi, Ali A. (2014). Faisal I of Iraq. Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300127324.
- Herb, Guntram H. (2008). Nations and Nationalism: A Global Historical Overview. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 9781851099085.
- Ismael, Tareq Y. (2013). The International Relations of the Contemporary Middle East: Subordination and Beyond. Routledge. ISBN 9781135006914.
- Khoury, Philip S. (1987). Syria and the French Mandate: The Politics of Arab Nationalism, 1920–1945. Princeton University Press. ISBN 9781400858392.
- Moubayed, Sami (2006). Steel and Silk. Cune Press. ISBN 1885942419.
- Provence, Michael (2011). "Ottoman Modernity, Colonialism, and Insurgency in the Interwar Arab East" (PDF). International Journal of Middle East Studies. 43 (2). Cambridge University Press: 205–225. (PDF) from the original on 2022-02-25. Retrieved 2018-10-08.
- Roded, Ruth (November 1983). "Ottoman Service as a Vehicle for the Rise of New Upstarts among the Urban Elite Families of Syria in the Last Decades of Ottoman Rule". Asian and African Studies. 17 (1–3). Haifa: Institute of Middle Eastern Studies: 63–94. ISSN 0066-8281.
- Roded, Ruth (1986). "Social Patterns Among the Urban Elite". In Kushner, David (ed.). Palestine in the Late Ottoman Period: Political, Social, and Economic Transformation. BRILL. ISBN 9789004077928.
- Tauber, Eliezer (2013). The Formation of Modern Iraq and Syria. Routledge. ISBN 9781135201180.
- Wien, Peter (2017). Arab Nationalism: The Politics of History and Culture in the Modern Middle East. Abingdon: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-49937-8.