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Emir Faisal's party at Versailles

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  • Emir Faisal's party at Versailles

    Global Post
    Feb 20 2010


    1919 | Emir Faisal's party at Versailles

    Blog: Mavi Boncuk

    Let's briefly point to some connections. The French help during the
    Arab Revolt (using Algerian Arabs) and the occupation of Clicia (Adana
    and its environs) as a follow thru on the plans of no other than
    Georges Picot, the French High Commissioner in Syria and Armenia. Mavi
    Boncuk

    Emir Faisal's party at Versailles, during the Paris Peace Conference
    of 1919. At the center, from left to right: Rustum Haidar, Nuri
    as-Said, Prince Feisal, Captain Rosario Pisani[1] (behind Feisal), T.
    E. Lawrence, Feisal's servant (name unknown), Captain Tahsin Qadri.

    The Faisal-Weizmann Agreement was signed on January 3, 1919, by Emir
    Faisal (son of the King of Hejaz) and Chaim Weizmann (later President
    of the World Zionist Organization) as part of the Paris Peace
    Conference, 1919 settling disputes stemming from World War I. It was a
    short-lived agreement for Arab-Jewish cooperation on the development
    of a Jewish homeland in Palestine and an Arab nation in a large part
    of the Middle East. The parties committed to carrying into effect the
    Balfour Declaration of 1917, in exchange for The Zionist movement
    assistance of the Arab residents of Palestine and the future Arab
    state to develop their natural resources and establish a growing
    economy.

    The peace conference results did not provide the vast Arab state that
    Faisal desired mainly because the British and French had struck their
    own secret Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 dividing the Middle East
    between their own spheres of influence after the expected downfall of
    the Ottoman Empire during World War I. The agreement was concluded on
    16 May 1916 by the French diplomat François Georges-Picot and Briton
    Mark Sykes.

    [1]"... Days passed, talking politics, organization and strategy with
    Feisal, while preparations for a new operation went forward. Our luck
    had quickened the camp; and the mining of trains promised to become
    popular, if we were able to train in the technique of the work enough
    men for several parties. Captain Pisani was first volunteer. He was
    the experienced commander of the French at Akaba, an active soldier
    who burned for distinction - and distinctions. Feisal found me three
    young Damascenes of family, who were ambitious to lead tribal
    raids...The Lewis guns rattled out suddenly, three or four short
    bursts: there was a yell from the Arabs, and, headed by Pisani
    sounding the women's vibrant battle-cry, they rushed in a wild torrent
    for the train...Pisani superintended the carrying off or destruction
    of the booty. As before, the Arabs were now merely camel-drivers,
    walking behind laden pack-animals..." (T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars
    of Wisdom BOOK FIVE CHAPTER 68)

    "In order to succeed in this new undertaking, he decided to join
    forces with the French Captain Rosario Pisani, a peerless fighter
    whose career was closely allied to that of Colonel Brémond[*].
    Lawrence and Pisani left Akaba on 26 September. They were accompanied
    by nine men, two of whom were gunners of the French detachment. On the
    way, Lawrence recruited 80 Bedouin and instructed Pisani in the
    handling of explosives. By 3 October, the raiders had reached the
    railway. Lawrence and Pisani laid a mine at kilometre 500, near Akabat
    el Hejazia, but they had to wait until 5 October for a train to cross
    the bridge where the charge had been laid. The mine did not explode.
    Lawrence and Pisani then decided to 'lay an electric mine made of 25
    kilos of gelignite and to torpedo the train which [was to] arrive from
    the south.' Pisani continued in his report: 'I asked Major Lawrence
    for the honour of positioning myself beneath the bridge so that I
    could blow up the train and take my revenge for the torpedoing of the
    Caledonian." (Pisani, report no.204, 21 October 1917, SHAT, box 7 N
    2138.) Source
    [*] The Allied headquarters divided the Levant into four occupational
    territories. Cilicia comprised the Northern Occupation Territory with
    the city of Adana as its administrative center. Colonel Edouard
    Bremond, whom the French government named administrator-in-chief of
    Cilicia, arrived in Adana on February 1, 1919, and assumed his duties
    as the head of the civil administration of the province. The cities of
    Marash, Aintab, Urfa, and Kilis were not incorporated within the
    jurisdiction of the French administration. Instead, they were assigned
    to a newly established fifth occupational zone and put under the
    command of the British Desert Mounted Corps whose administrative
    center was in Aleppo.
    At the time when the French civil and military administrations had
    started to organize and regulate living conditions in Cilicia, Georges
    Picot, the French High Commissioner in Syria and Armenia and one of
    the signatories of the Sykes-Picot agreement. Source

    "The head of the French Military Mission at Jidda, Colonel Bremond
    (Wilson's counterpart, but with more authority; for he was a
    practising light in native warfare, a success in French Africa, and an
    ex-chief of staff of a Corps on the Somme) strongly urged the landing
    of Allied forces in Hejaz. To tempt us he had brought to Suez some
    artillery, some machine-guns, and some cavalry and infantry, all
    Algerian Moslem rank and file, with French officers. These added to
    the British troops would give the force an international flavour. "
    (T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom BOOK ONE CHAPTER 16)

    http://www.globalpost.com/webblog/turkey/1919 -emir-faisals-party-at-versailles
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