The Explorers' Club Special: June 1916

Operation AXIOM: The World War
June 1916 saw Verdun, the longest battle of the war, continue; the Russians launched an offensive to take the pressure off the French at Verdun, ultimately their most effective offensive of the whole war; the British War Secretary, Lord Kitchener, was killed when a mine laid for the Battle of Jutland sank the ship on which he was traveling; & the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire broke out.

The Wayback Machine Tour of the World War: June 1916
"The Explorers' Club," № DI: The Battle of Verdun, Part IV (1-8 June 1916)
"The Explorers' Club," № DIII: The Brusilov Offensive, Part I (4 June-6 July 1916)
"The Explorers' Club," № D: The Sinking of the H.M.S. Hampshire (5 June 1916)
"The Explorers' Club," № DII: The Arab Revolt, Part I (June 1916)

Lest we forget.

The Explorers' Club Special: May 1916

Operation AXIOM: The World War
May 1916 saw the aerial war over the Western Front take on a more modern shape, as specialist fighter squadrons were formed & new types of aeroplanes were introduced; the French & the British secretly sign the Sykes-Piot Agreement to partitian the Middle East after the defeat of the Ottomans, seemingly contrary to the British inducements that elicited the Arab Revolt; & the British & the Germans fight the largest discrete naval action of the war.

The Wayback Machine Tour of the World War: May 1916
"The Explorers' Club," № CDXCVI: The "Fokker Scourge" Ended (March-December 1916)
"The Explorers' Club," № CDXCVII: The Sykes-Picot Agreement (16 May 1916)
"The Explorers' Club," № CDXCVIII: The Battle of Jutland, Part I (17-31 May 1916)
"The Explorers' Club," № CDXCIX: The Battle of Jutland, Part II (31 May-1 June 1916)

Lest we forget.

The Explorers' Club, № MCXXXIII

Operation AXIOM: Between the Wars—The Second Saudi-Hashemite War, Part II
8 January 1926: In the Great Mosque of Mecca, Ibn Saud was crowned King of the Hejaz; his forces had captured Medina (9 December 1925) & Jeddah (17 December) & the last Hashemite king, Ali bin Hussein, fled to Baghdad, where his brother reigned as King Faisal I; Ibn Saud raised the Sultanate of Nejd to a kingdom (29 January 1927); his dual monarchy was called the Kindgom of Hejaz & Nejd.

Commentary: The advancement of the "Third Saudi State": the Emirate of Riyadh (1902-1913), the Emirate of Nejd & Hasa (1913-1921), the Sultanate of Nejd (1921-1926), the Kindgom of Hejaz & Nejd (1926-1932), & ultimately the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (1932-present).

Lest we forget.

The Explorers' Club, № MXLVI

Operation AXIOM: Between the Wars—The Second Saudi-Hashemite War, Part I
29 August-5 December 1924: The Sultanate of Nejd (Saudi) declared war on the Kingdom of Hejaz (Hashemite), capturing the cities of Taif (3 September) & Mecca (5 December); King Hussein bin Ali of the Hejaz abdicated in favor of his son, Ali bin Hussein (16 October); the end of British subsidies sparked the war, subsidies which had both restrained Sultan Ibn Saud & funded the Sharifian Army.

Commentary: King Ali's brothers, Abdullah & Faisal (far-famed from Lawrence of Arabia's Seven Pillars of Wisdom), were Emir of Trans-Jordan & King of Mandatory Iraq, respectively, but as both were militarily dependent upon the British for their thrones, neither was in a position to aid the Hejaz, their ancestral home, against Ibn Saud & his Wahhabi fanatics.

Lest we forget.

The Explorers' Club, № DCLIII

Operation AXIOM: The World War
30 October-4 November 1918: On 31 October, the Armistice of Mudros, signed aboard the British battleship H.M.S. Agamemnon, took effect, ending the war between the Ottoman Empire & the Arabs & the Entente; on 4 November, the Armistice of Villa Giusti took effect, ending the war between the Austro-Hungarian Empire & Italy; of the Central Powers, the German Empire alone continued to fight.

Lest we forget.

The Explorers' Club, № DCXLIX

Operation AXIOM: The World War
26 September-27 October 1918: The Capture of Damascus (26 September-1 October), the Pursuit to Haritan (3-27 October), & the Battle of Aleppo (25 October)—Entente forces pursued the retreating Ottomans to & then beyond Damascus, while Prince Faisal's Arab army captured Aleppo; the last remaining Turkish army, under Mustafa Kemal, prepared to defend the Ottoman heartland of Anatolia.

Lest we forget.

The Explorers' Club, № DCXLIII

Operation AXIOM: The World War
19-25 September 1918: The Battle of Megiddo—Arab forces cut the Ottoman lines of communication & the Entente (British, Imperial, A.N.Z.A.C., & French) broke through the Ottoman defenses at Sharon & Nalbus, encircled the Judean Hills, crossed the Jordan River, & extirpated the Turks & Germans from Palestine—killing, capturing, or scattering all but six thousand, who escaped to Damascus.

Lest we forget.

Commentary: The fighting took place all throughout Palestine, not just near Tel Megiddo, but the symbolically-minded General Allenby, the liberator of Jerusalem, chose the name "Battle of Megiddo" to reflect the historical Battles of Megiddo (1457 B.C.: Egypt versus Canaanite rebels & 609 B.C.: Egypt versus Judea) & the prophesied Battle of Armageddon from the Book of Revelation.

The Explorers' Club, № DLXXVIII

Operation AXIOM: The World War—The Arab Revolt, Part III
9 November 1917: The Balfour Declaration—In a carefully worded letter from Arthur Balfour, British Foreign Secretary, to influential Zionist leader Walter Rothschild, the Entente Powers came out in favor of "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people;" the Sharif of Mecca regarded it as a betrayal of promises made in the 1915-1916 McMahan-Hussein correspondence.

Lest we forget.

Commentary: The letter from Balfour to Rothschild was dated 2 November 1917, but published in the press on this date, 9 November, one hundred years ago.

The Explorers' Club, № DLVII

Operation AXIOM: The World War—The Arab Revolt, Part II
6 July 1917: The Battle of Aqaba—With Emir Faisal's Hashemite Arab forces unable to seize Medina, still fiercely defended by the Ottomans, Lawrence convinced the Arabs to assault Aqaba, the Turks' last port on the Red Sea, both relieving a threat to the flank of the Desert Column besieging Gaza & allowing the British to supply & equip the Arabs as the latter advanced northward toward Damascus.

Lest we forget.

Commentary: Like so much else in the acclaimed film Lawrence of Arabia, the depiction of the assault on Aqaba is essentially inaccurate, though undeniably entertaining.

The Explorers' Club, № DII

Operation AXIOM: The World War—The Arab Revolt, Part I
June 1916: The Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire (which claimed caliphate authority over the worldwide Ummah) began when Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca, backed by promises of Entente support, declared himself King of Hejaz (8 June) & besieged Medina (10 June); Hussein's Hashemite dynasty allied with the House of Saud, while the rival House of Rashid allied with the Ottomans.









Lest we forget.

Operation AXIOM

Eighty-one years ago to the day, 19 May 1935, Colonel T. E. Lawrence perished in a motorcycle crash near his home in Dorset. Immortalized (& mythologized) as "Lawrence of Arabia" by the award-winning 1962 film of the same name, he was noted for his service in the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire from 1916-1918, experiences recounted in his memoir Seven Pillars of Wisdom, also published as Revolt in the Desert. Thomas Edward Lawrence died, eighty-one years ago today.

Requiescat in pace.

The Explorers' Club, № CDXCVII

Operation AXIOM: The World War
16 May 1916: The Sykes-Picot Agreement, officially the Asia Minor Agreement, was signed in secret by the British & the French, dividing up much of the Ottoman Empire into post-war zones of direct colonial rule & spheres of influence; the agreement would remain secret until November 1917.









Lest we forget.

Commentary: Not to get ahead of ourselves, but Sykes-Picot would have an enormous influence on the post-war League of Nations Mandates, which in turn largely set the national borders of the Middle East down unto the present day. One of the stated aims of Daesh (A.K.A. the "Islamic State," or I.S.I.S.) is to reverse the Sykes-Picot borders, reestablishing the transnational caliphate last exercised by the Ottoman sultans.