Posts Tagged ‘Hussein of Mecca’
“Peace Treaty of Versailles”: Paris, 1919
Posted by: adonis49 on: November 14, 2009
“Peace treaty”: Paris, 1919; (Nov. 14, 2009)
I watched a documentary on the French channel TV5 this Thursday, Nov. 12, 2009. The documentary was relating and commenting on the 5 months that dragged on before the most lousy “peace treaty” was finally signed to end WWI.
The chiefs of the main 5 nations who won in the First World War sat around in Paris to discuss how to partition the world. The government chiefs were: USA (Wilson), Britain (Lloyd George), France (Clemenceau), Italy, and Japan. Germany had ceased fire; the Kaiser, “Emperor Guillaume“, is settled in the Netherlands. Turkey is declared defeated as ally to Germany.
Every delegation from all over the world, when allowed, was given 10 minutes to expose his case and demands. Ho Chi Minh (from Viet Nam) was refused an appointment; he will later defeat the French in 1954 and then the US forces in 1973.
Wilson wanted to discuss establishing a world organization of State of Nations to prevent further military escalations; the other four leaders were trying hard to convince Wilson that they are not against this idea but there are more urgent matters to resolve at this junction.
The four other leaders wanted to redraw world’s borders; cartographers spent 5 months redrawing borders. Wilson wanted the people to decide and vote for their destiny; the other four leaders tried hard to educating Wilson on pragmatic procedures.
In the meantime, Communism was spreading everywhere in Europe and the USA. The “Spanish flu” had decimated 20 millions in Europe and America (it was called the “Spanish flu” simply because it was the Spanish press that divulged this scourge that States were trying to keep under cover).
Soldiers were returning from the war front at the pace of 100,000 each month; I see one-legged soldiers hoping around in a baseball game and their companions laughing and having good time. Soldiers were returning home to experience famine, miseries, and desolate institutions to take care of business.
The world’s “five leaders” are smoking cigars and pipes and looking mightily serious. Lloyd George wanted 300 billions in gold for war reparation from Germany; his financial counselor, the famous Keynes, is steadfastly suggesting agreeing on 10 billions for material damages on the ground that Germany could barely pay even that amount; Lloyd George had plenty of time to get practical at this stage.
Wilson does not want any reparations and the other four leaders are fuming because it was not the US that lost millions of dead and injured soldiers and civilians in the war.
Clemenceau wants
1. to recover the Alsace and Loraine in addition to
2. La Sarre region, rich in coal production, in Germany, in order to exploit for 15 years as war reparation.
The Italian President just wants a port on the Adriatic Sea as an advanced post to check any resurgence of hostility but the other leaders adamantly refused his wish.
A Germany delegation of over 110 individuals arrives in Paris to deal a peace treaty.
The train is made to stop first in Verdun where 450,000 soldiers on both sides died. This delegation is typing reams of legal papers claiming that they are not the only culprit for starting the war.
The vanquishers have no time to read the German side of view: they want Germany to admit that it is the sole bad party and that it had lost the war. The Germans are upset: why discuss a peace treaty if the other party has already made his mind?
The German delegation refused the humiliating peace deal and the war was on the verge of resuming. The German sank their merchant marine in order not to be captured by the allies.
Clemenceau is furious because he could not convince Lloyd George to jointly board these ships to avoid sabotage.
By now, Wilson is totally worn out and more hawkish than even Clemenceau. In the last 5 days before the refusal of Germany to sign the humiliating peace treaty Lloyd George had second thoughts: if Germany is completely humiliated then any demy-god would take power and start another war.
Lloyd George also needed to trade goods with a strong Germany. What Keynes suggested as reasonable reparation of 10 billions in gold is fine with Lloyd; Germany does not need to admit that it lost the war.
The problem was how to convince Wilson after manipulating him for five month on pragmatic politics. Wilson is adamant: Germany has to understand that it lost the war; period! The German Chancellor resigned and another peace delegation arrived in Paris and signed the treaty in Versailles. Wilson could go home to face major downturns.
The Italian President lost the election and could not attend the peace signing ceremony: Mussolini was on the rise.
The American Congress refused the plan of Wilson for establishing the Society of Nations.
China and Japan were not satisfied; Japan will invade China in 1935 and capture Korea as a colony.
While the leaders in Paris were discussing dividing the world into mandated colonies, Wilson’s concept of people deciding on their future destiny by vote went down the drain as the months eroded his determination into “pragmatic” attitudes.
Clemenceau got just what he asked La Sarre. and Poland recaptured a region in Germany with the Danzig port.
The Middle East people want independence from Turkey that lost the war. No problems.
Turkey is to lose the eastern region for an independent Armenia, the western region for Greece, including the city of Izmir, and the southern region under French mandate. The army of Mustapha Kemal “Ataturk” will recapture all the lands taken out of Turkey, including the Syrian land of Antaquia and Iskandaroun.
Hussein of Mecca has many children. One of them by the named of Faissal is appointed King to Syria and Lebanon. Another by the name of Abdullah is appointed King to Jordan. A third is appointed King to Iraq, I think: I am confused.
Wilson sent a delegation to gather field intelligence on the wishes of the people. Clemenceau and Lloyd George had another plan: they partition the Middle East between them.
France is to have mandate on Syria, Lebanon, and “Antaquia” in Turkey that Syria claimed to be part of its lands. England is to have mandate on Iraq, Jordan, and Palestine. There were barely 5,000 immigrant Jews in Palestine at the time.
Clemenceau sent a French army to depose King Faissal and govern his “mandated people”.
Mount Lebanon is split from Syria and more lands are attached to Lebanon so that it might have the illusion of agricultural “self-sufficiency”.
The Near East Dilemma: Discussion
Posted by: adonis49 on: May 17, 2009
The Near East Dilemma: Discussion (Part 2, May 17, 2009)
Note: Jean Dayeh is a Lebanese author and a veteran journalist investigative reporter; he published recently “Jubran Tueny Sr. and the Century of Renaissance” in the Near East. This article is the second part that will explain in details the positions of the various Syrian political parties and intelligentsia of the period during and after the First World War. At the time, Syrian was the name of the populations comprising the current Syrian State, Lebanon, Palestine and current Jordan.
The discussions reported on the preferred status for Syria during the year 1919 and a couple of years afterward. The year 1919 was critical for the Near East and the entire Arab World. After almost a century we are still reaping the consequences of the resolutions of the lengthy convention of the League of Nations that met in Paris for many months to divide the spoils of the First World War. Never such profusion of intellectual activities was so prolific and so divergent for uniting the spirits under a unified desire for autonomy.
The Lebanese and Syrian immigrants in the USA, France, and Egypt were very active. In Egypt there were first, the “Syrian Union Party” headed by Michel Lotfallah and the vice president was Mohammad Rasheed Rida. This party supported the efforts of the Maronite Patriarch Howeiyek to have Lebanon under French mandate as preliminary to his independence and attaching four adjacent territories belonging to Syria so that Greater Lebanon could be self-sufficient agriculturally.
The second political party in Cairo, Egypt, was the “Moderate Syrian Party” with the founders constituted by Nicholas Choukry, Phares Nemr (owner of the daily “Al Mokkatam“), Nasseem Saybaa, Sami Juraidiny, Yacoob Saraaf (owner of the daily “Al Moktataf“, and Khalil Khayat. Nasseem Saybaa expressed the position of this party for willingness to accepting a temporary USA mandate over all Syria unde the legitimate authority of King Faissal. This political party, the “Syrian Union” was worried that England and France will not withdraw their armies in the region and there were indications that these two powers intended to establish a Jewish State in Palestine; it hoped to the last minutes that the US Congress would turn down the League of Nations proposed resolutions but in vain.
In the small town of Mansoura, Egypt, a journalist Jubran Tueny Sr. (later the founder of the daily Al Nahar (The Day) in Lebanon) was for a French mandate over an independent Greater Lebanon on the ground that France saved the Lebanese immigrants from slaughter in Haiti while the US did not deign to intervene. Tueny was convinced that it was the US that implicitly encouraged a Jewish “homeland” in Palestine, simply because the US lumped the Near East as Asia. Tueny refused the presence of the Hijjaz army (under the Hussein of Mecca) in Damascus and wanted it to withdraw as the Turkish forces did because urban Syria is distinct from the Arab culture and civilization.
Chebli Chmayel was a sociologist and prolific thinker that spread the Masonic ideology that those who tend the land should own it (referring to the new Jewish immigrants who first focused on agriculture in colonies). Chmayel was typical of Masonic members who believed that democracy means that the majority of an ethnic group in a nation should govern and rule.
Both Syrian political parties founded in Egypt demanded an independent and secular Syrian nation, comprising Lebanon, but headed by King Faisal.
In Latin America there were Nehmeh Yafeth (an industrialist and wholesame merchant in Sao Paolo, Brazil) and Khalil Saadeh (father of Antoun Sadeh, the founder of the Syrian National Social Party in 1936). Khalil Saadeh headed the “Democratic National Party” in Brazil and demanded the total independence of the Syrian Nation with no mandate and for Mount Lebanon to enjoy an autonomous State status within Syria. Khalil Saadeh wrote the Arabic/English dictionary, and translated the new testament of Bernabas; he never could digest the idea that a tribal leader in Mecca should be appointed King to urban Syria; he claimed that the Syrian people were not Arab, even if they spoke Arabic, and their culture has nothing to do with nomadic culture and literature.
In the USA, especially in the City of New York, there were the “Committee for Liberating Syria and Mount Lebanon” headed by Ayoub Thabet (later would be appointed first President to Lebanon by the French mandate) and Jubran Khalil Jubran as secretary. The main members were Amine Rihany, Michael Nouaymeh, Abel Massih Hadad (owner of the daily “Al Saseh”, The Tourist), and Nasseeb Arida. This council attempted to send volunteers under the “Orient Regiment” to fight alongside the French during the war but the efforts fizzled. This party was for the total independence of Syria after a brief mandate by France or the USA; Mount Lebanon was to enjoy strict decentralized status within the Syrian Nation.
The other political party in NY was the “Lebanese Renaissance” party was headed by Naoum Moukarzel (owner of the daily “Al Houda”). This party was a staunch supporter of French mandate and giving Lebanon a Maronite authority and character.
In Paris there were the “Central Syrian Association” headed by Choukry Ghanem, and Dr. George Samneh.
In Mount Lebanon, the members of the “Administrative Council of Mount Lebanon” were for a confederal status of Lebanon with Syria under King Faisal. Even Saadallah Howeiyek, brother of the Maronite Patriarch, and a member of this governing body was not with the Patriarch position for a separate Lebanese State under French mandate.
The Lebanese leaders were the most confused and disunited as to their status after the war. Woodrow Wilson, the President of the USA, was confused by the diversity of opinions emanating the Lebanese leaders assembled in Paris during the convention; he thus dispatched an investigative commission King-Crane to report the people wishes for their status. France and England refused to join the King-Crane commission because they had set on a project to divide and get mandate over the Near East.
The Syrian population did not have an army to fight with against the Turks alongside the “allies”; they were suffering famine and calamities due to locust invasion and the perpetual requisitions of the Turkish army in foodstuff and coerced soldiers. The concept and principles of waging war, then and now, that only those parties or nations that effectively participated in the war were eligible to divide the spoil. Syria had no “legitimate rights” to share independence at the League of Nations who won the war.
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