Arab Legion

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Arab Legion emblem

The Arab Legion ( Arabic الجيش العربي Al-Jaish al-ʿarabī , DMG al-ǧayš al-ʿarabī ) was founded in 1921 as a police unit of a military nature by the British Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Gerard Peake in the British mandate of Transjordan - the later Hashimite Kingdom of Jordan . As the only military organization, the Legion was a main institution of the nascent Jordanian state and was a decisive factor in the implementation of a central state order in the country. During the Palestinian War of 1947, the Legion occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem . After her British officers were released in 1956, she was transferred to the Jordanian Army.

Naming

The name in Arabic was Jaish al-Arabi (Eng. "Arab Army" ). This is based on the Arab revolt , in the course of which many later legionaries fought. In English-language correspondence, "Arab Legion" was used because Peake was of the opinion that the term army was not applicable to such a small association. The naming of the unit also reflected the efforts of the Transjordan ruler Abdallah ibn Husain I to expand Transjordan into an Arab state.

history

British Colonial Forces (1920-1948)

In 1917 Great Britain annexed large parts of the former provinces of the dissolved Ottoman Empire in the course of the First World War . The area of ​​today's Jordan was sparsely populated and economically very poorly developed. Whole regions had relapsed into tribal legal structures because of the lack of state power . In 1920, the British authorities founded the mobile forces (Engl. Mobile force ) under Captain Frederick Peake of 150 men. This should reduce the costs of occupying this part of the empire by recruiting locals . In 1921, the territory was formally granted independence as the Abdallah ibn Husain I monarchy from the noble dynasty of the Hashimites , who had previously been the Sherif of Mecca . In order to enforce its claim to rule against rival tribes, especially among the Bedouins , the young state needed military help. As a result, Abdullah turned to the British government. This promised the expansion of the mobile forces . The unit should include a reinforced battalion . British officers were to play a key role and take over command. This decision was made in the British government out of fear that Abdullah might go it alone with his expansive efforts. In 1922 the unit successfully participated with the Royal Air Force in the repulsion of the Saudi Ichwan who wanted to conquer the capital of Jordan, Amman . The Royal Air Force also provided air support to the Legion in several cases in suppressing tribal uprisings. On April 1, 1923, on the occasion of the country's admission to the League of Nations , the unit was solemnly renamed the Arab Legion in the presence of Abdullah ibn Hussein . At that time the unit consisted of 1,400 men, including a large number of members of the gendarmerie, who performed police duties. The Arab Legion's mobile reserve consisted of two infantry companies and two squadrons of cavalry. In 1924, an unspecified number of officers were dismissed because they had allegedly plotted against British rule and the monarchy as Arab nationalists . The Arab Legion, along with civil administration, was the main instrument for enforcing the centralized Hashimite state. The military presence made it possible to enforce modern laws and tax collection in large parts of the country.

By 1926, the unit was increased to 1,500 men. According to the British leadership, the Legion fell short of expectations in the skirmish against the Ichwan. As a result, she should withdraw to her role as a militarized police force. The defense of the external borders of the country was audited than competing unit Transjordan frontier troops (Engl. Trans jordan frontier force ) transmitted. Abdullah viewed this as a reset, as the border troops were officially under the control of the mandate administration and thus evaded his sovereignty. According to the British Indian Army, only British officers owned these and mainly non-Jordanian Arabs as well as Circassians and Chechens were recruited for them. The border troops could not suppress the traditional raids among the Bedouins and the invasions of the Saudi tribes. Due to the military control of the border from the Transjordan side, the Jordanian tribes were disadvantaged compared to the Saudi tribes and became increasingly impoverished.

John Bagot Glubb in Amman 1940

1931 were John Bagot Glubb , the mobile desert forces (Engl. Desert mobile force ) set up. Glubb almost exclusively recruited Bedouins for this unit , in contrast to the previous preference for townspeople in the army. Glubb had previously enforced state order among the Bedouin tribes in Iraq with a similar unit. Glubb believed that only a Bedouin unit could pacify the tribes. The unit initially consisted of seventy camel riders and a machine gun platoon on trucks. The Bedouins had their own uniform and, in contrast to the rest of the legion, modern rifles and full radio equipment. The desert troops were expanded to motorized infantry in the following years , while the rest of the legion had only a few vehicles and Turkish rifles. The first armored vehicles converted from civilian vehicles in Haifa reached the desert forces at the end of the 1930s. In 1930 and 1931 a system of small forts was built in the desert. These were guarded by soldiers in groups up to platoons, made it possible to transmit information quickly within the territory and ensured that the forces operating in the desert were replenished. Supported by a diplomatic rapprochement between Saud and Abdullah, the raids came to a complete standstill by 1933. While Glubb did not tolerate resettlement in the Legion on the basis of ethnicity or belief, his recruiting policy gave the Bedouins the numerical majority among the legionaries. Glubb was also under political pressure in places to recruit the sons of influential tribal leaders in order to bind them to the monarchy. Through the integration into the Legion, the standard of living of the Bedouins, whose nomadic livestock farming increasingly lost economic competitiveness, was increased significantly. In the early days of the desert troops, military service was often the only way to meet a clan's food needs. In the course of time, many Bedouins settled down. One of the main motivations was the regular school attendance made possible by the children, which in turn increased the chances of the offspring to be accepted into the Legion. Due to their close social ties to the armed forces, the Bedouins became a mainstay of the Jordanian state.

During the Arab Uprising of 1936–39, the Legion fought several times against insurgents who had infiltrated Jordanian territory. In the course of the foreign policy tensions, the Legion was significantly upgraded with the aim of forming a fully mechanized, military force, since from then on the performance of police tasks was to take a back seat to military training and equipment. During the Second World War, parts of the Legion were used in fighting in Iraq after the local military coup Raschid Ali al-Gailanis and in the subsequent Syrian-Lebanese campaign against Vichy-French troops in the League of Nations mandate for Syria and Lebanon . They took part in the storming of Baghdad. This was at a time when, according to surveys by the British intelligence service, the majority of public opinion in Jordan expected a victory for the Axis powers. The Transjordan border troops refused to advance into Iraqi territory, referring to their deployment order, which required a special proclamation for deployment outside Palestine and Transjordan. Since the proclamation did not take place, this insubordination had no consequences for the unit. However, she participated in the operations in Syria.

In 1945 the Legion had 8,000 soldiers, including a 3,000-strong mechanized brigade. The brigade had been set up by Glubb, who had meanwhile risen to command, from the core of the Mobile Desert Forces . The Transjordan border troops were fully integrated into the legion. In general, the tendency to recruit Bedouins into the Legion increased under Glubb. The Legion offered very good pay for the country, even for ordinary soldiers. As a result, at almost all times there has been a multiple of the need for volunteers to choose from. The self-recruitment rate was high.

Palestine War

Legion artillery fire with flares over Jerusalem, 1948
Soldiers and officers of the Arab Legion with Israeli prisoners after the fall of Gush Etzion in 1948

On May 13, 1948, the neighboring Arab states declared war on Israel and intervened militarily in the civil war that had been smoldering for months in the mandate area. Already days before, troops of the Arab Legion had participated with smaller units in the conquest and the massacre in the Jewish settlement Kfar Etzion , which is on the way from Jerusalem to Hebron in the settlement block Gush Etzion . A total of 157 people died in the battle for the settlement bloc. Up to 106 residents and prisoners of war were massacred with machine gun fire. In addition to legionaries, Arab-Palestinian militias were also involved in the massacre. Three people were saved by Legion officers. In at least one case, an officer used deadly force against his own subordinates. The Legion had 27 casualties in the fighting. The allied militias had 38 killed. After talks with the Legion, the residents of the settlements adjacent to Kfar Etzion were assured of withdrawal and safe conduct. As a result, the Legion evacuated 357 Jewish prisoners of war, including women and children. The Legion took them to Jordanian territory to protect them from reprisals; they stayed there until the end of the war. On the way there, the Legion fought several firefights with Palestinian gunmen who attacked the refugee convoy.

On the day of the declaration of independence, around 4,500 Legion men entered Palestine over the Allenby Bridge . When the war started, Jordanian tribal leaders raised 1,600 irregulars to support the Legion. To date, the Legion consisted of two brigades . Glubb had a severely reduced unit set up to make the Israelis believe that a full brigade was still in reserve. The invasion was personally supervised by Abdullah bin Hussein , who justified the war in a speech with nationalistic rhetoric and religious exaltation of martyrdom. The Legion attacked Jerusalem - despite assertions to the contrary to Israel . East Jerusalem with the old city was conquered . The Jewish quarter of the old town surrendered. The British government withdrew the officers of the British Army who were still legally associated with it, because they did not want to support a violation of the UN partition plan .

Legion soldiers in the destruction of the Tifferet Yisrael Synagogue in 1948
Legionaries (left) and Israeli policemen (right) in divided Jerusalem, ca.1950

As a result, the Legion blocked the road to Jerusalem at Latrun and captured the Jewish quarter of the old city on May 28 . Unity pioneers destroyed all synagogues, including the Hurva Synagogue , the Tifferet Yisrael Synagogue and the four Sephardic synagogues . There was also looting of synagogues, along with Arab irregulars. West Jerusalem remained in Jewish hands. Attempts to break the enclosure by conquering Latrun were repulsed by the Legion in the battles of Latrun . As a result, the Israeli army built the Burma Road to supply West Jerusalem. Due to the Anglo-American arms embargo for the Middle East, there was a shortage of ammunition, which decisively restricted the fighting power of the Legion.

In early July 1948, Abdullah bin Hussein ordered the Legion to assume a defensive role. The Commander in Chief Glubb referred to this in his memoirs as a mock war. Every fourth legionnaire had died after the two months of fighting. Shortly afterwards, the Israeli armed forces succeeded in occupying Lydda and Ramla, two large cities and their surrounding areas. Glubb had left only the smallest units there, which withdrew because he was of the opinion that the area could not have been meaningfully defended. As a result, there were allegations in the Arab League that Jordan was betraying the common struggle against Israel. Glubb in particular has been portrayed as a British agent. King Abdullah bin Hussein also accused Glubb of being guilty of the region's fall, but not of being disloyal. After the war, Egyptian politicians in particular spread that the cause of the defeat was the Legion's deliberately neglecting to provide weapons. Glubb himself described the Egyptians and the Palestinian leadership under Al-Husseini as almost as hostile to the Legion as the Jews, and he hoped they would be militarily defeated by Israel. After the end of the war, the Legion forcibly disarmed the Palestinian-Arab militants of the Army of the Holy War who had remained in the West Bank .

Overall, both British and Jordanian authorities rated the Legion's use as positive. The minimum goal of the war, the occupation of large parts of the West Bank , was achieved. In addition, East Jerusalem came under Jordanian rule. The CIA analyst Kenneth Pollack assessed the Legion's engagement in the Palestine War as follows: "The behavior of the Arab Legion against the Israeli army under construction in 1948 was without a doubt the best performance of any Arab military against a modern opponent." Despite this, the Legion was accused in the Arab public of treason and cooperation with the Israeli state by Abdullah's political rivals in Syria and Egypt.

Post-war period (1949–1956)

John Bagot Glubb (right) with King Abdallah bin Hussein (left) at the end of his reign, 1951
Viking 1B VK500 of the Arab Legion Air Force , 1955

Shortly after the war, the Jordanian leadership set plans to expand military capabilities in motion. The Legion should be converted into a regular army. This was further expanded as a professional army modeled on the British Army . To this end, around 100 British officers were either assigned or hired as officers. In the 1950s, every second officer was British. In 1950, Abdallah bin Hussein founded the Royal Military College in Amman. As early as 1949 the legion had been increased to 12,000 men. In 1951 the foundation stone for an air force was laid. The Legion's Royal Tank Corps was officially established in 1954 after the Jordanian government managed to purchase Charioteer main battle tanks and Archer tank destroyers from the British armed forces. In 1955 the Royal Jordanian Air Force was founded . The annexation of the West Bank , one of the king's main objectives in the Palestinian War, also posed problems for the Legion. The mostly more urban Palestinians had more tech-savvy recruits. However, their loyalty has been called into question by the royal family. Overall, the Bedouins have dominated the Legion since Glubb's takeover, both among officers and men. The Legion also made use of Palestinians and townspeople, but mostly in support units. Often, ethnically separate units had to be created in order to prevent conflicts and a decrease in morale. Since the Legion could not effectively cover the border, the government founded the National Guard ( Haras al Watani ). This consisted of local residents of the West Bank who were trained and armed by the Legion in the form of militias.

In March 1956, the new King Hussein Glubb retired. The British officers were also decommissioned and the Legion dissolved. The background to this action lies in the double loyalty of the British in the eyes of political circles and the population. The Arab-Jordanian officers saw this as a way to advance their careers. The Arab Legion was officially renamed the Jordanian Arab Army ( Jaish al-Arabija al Urdunija ) and became part of the Jordanian Armed Forces . Despite the abrupt end of the Legion, intensive military cooperation with the British armed forces continued to be the order of the day. Likewise, state-owned non-military police associations were founded for the first time in 1956. However, the military retained extensive legal powers to maintain internal order. The Jordanian military and their predecessors continued to function in the fledgling nation state of Jordan as a state-sanctioned national symbol and the basis of legitimation for the Hashimite dynasty. During the Jordanian Civil War 1970-71 you were largely responsible for maintaining the monarchy.

literature

Autobiographical works

Secondary literature

  • James Lunt: The Arab Legion 1923-1957 . Constable Press, London 1999, ISBN 978-0-09-477640-1 .
  • Kamal Salibi: The Modern History of Jordan . 2nd Edition. IBTauris, London, New York 1998, ISBN 978-1-86064-331-6 .
  • PJ Vatikiotis: Politics and the Military in Jordan: Study of the Arab Legion, 1921-57 . Frank Cass Publishers, New York 1967, ISBN 978-0-7146-1061-0 .
  • Peter Young: The Arab Legion (Men-at-Arms) . Osprey Publishing, Oxford 1972, ISBN 978-0-85045-084-2 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Al-Massad Joseph : Colonial Effects: The Making of National Jordan . Columbia University Press, New York 2001, ISBN 978-0-231-12322-8 , pp. 105-111 .
  2. ↑ Kamal Salibi: The Modern History of Jordan. London, New York 1998, p. 94
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Kenneth M. Pollack: Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948-1991 (Studies in War, Society, and the Military) . University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln 2004, ISBN 978-0-8032-8783-9 , pp. 267-292 .
  4. ↑ a b Kamal Salibi: The Modern History of Jordan. London, New York 1998, pp. 104f
  5. ↑ a b Ma'an Abu Nuwar: The History of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan: The creation and development of Transjordan, 1920-1929 , Volume 1, Oxford, 1989, p 82, p 222
  6. ↑ James Lunt: The Arab Legion - 1923-1957. London 1999, pp. 20-23
  7. ↑ Yoav Allon: Tribal Shaykh and the Limits of British Imperial rule in Transjordan 1920-46. In: The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History. Vol. 32, No.1, 2004, pp. 69-92.
  8. ↑ James Lunt: The Arab Legion - 1923-1957. London 1999, pp. 33-35
  9. ↑ James Lunt: The Arab Legion - 1923-1957. London 1999, p. 44f, p. 51
  10. ↑ James Lunt: The Arab Legion - 1923-1957. London 1999, pp. 44f, 52f, 54, 61f
  11. ^ Yoav Alon: The Making of Jordan: Tribes, Colonialism And the Modern State (Library of Modern Middle East Studies) . IBTauris, London, New York 2007, ISBN 978-1-84511-138-0 , pp. 119-121 .
  12. ↑ Naseer H. Aruri: Jordan: A Study in Political Development (1923-1965) . Springer Netherlands, The Hague 1972, ISBN 978-90-247-1217-5 , pp. 32 .
  13. ↑ Muwafaq Al-Serhan, Ann L. Furr: Tribal Law in Jordan. In: South Carolina Journal of International Law and Business. Volume 4, Issue 2 Spring, 2008, Article 3, pp. 19-21. ( PDF )
  14. ^ Martin L. van Creveld: The Sword and the Olive: A Critical History of the Israeli Defense Force . PublicAffairs, New York 2002, ISBN 978-1-58648-155-1 , pp. 67 .
  15. ↑ James Lunt: The Arab Legion - 1923-1957. London 1999, pp. 64-67
  16. ↑ Kamal Salibi: The Modern History of Jordan. London, New York 1998, pp. 149-151
  17. ↑ James Lunt: The Arab Legion - 1923-1957. London 1999, p. 78f
  18. ^ A b Benny Morris: 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War . Yale University Press, New Haven, London 2008, ISBN 978-0-300-12696-9 , pp. 167-173 .
  19. ^ A b c Benny Morris: 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War . Yale University Press, New Haven, London 2008, ISBN 978-0-300-12696-9 , pp. 207-232 .
  20. ^ Yoav Alon: The Making of Jordan: Tribes, Colonialism And the Modern State (Library of Modern Middle East Studies) . IBTauris, London, New York 2007, ISBN 978-1-84511-138-0 , pp. 151 f .
  21. ↑ Wolfgang Zank: The modest Progress of Arab Integration, or why some Arab Countries have integrated more with Europe than with their Neighbors , CCIS Working Paper, Aalborg, 2009
  22. ↑ Kenneth M. Pollack: Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948-1991 (Studies in War, Society, and the Military) . University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln 2004, ISBN 978-0-8032-8783-9 , pp. 282 . (Original text in English: "The conduct of the Arab Legion against a nascent Israeli army in 1948 was, without doubt, the best performance of any Arab military against any foe of the modern era." )
  23. ↑ Kamal Salibi: The Modern History of Jordan. London, New York 1998, pp. 162f
  24. ↑ James Lunt: The Arab Legion - 1923-1957. London 1999, p. 133
  25. ^ Peter Young: The Arab Legion. Oxford 1972, pp. 27f
  26. ↑ James Lunt: The Arab Legion - 1923-1957. London 1999, p. 135
  27. ^ Nawaf Tell: Jordanian Security Sector Governance: Between Theory and Practice. DCAF Conference Paper, Geneva, 2004, pp. 2-4.
  28. ↑ Alexander Bligh: The Jordanian Army: Between Domestic and External Challenges. ( Memento of the original from September 1, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Middle East Review of International Affairs. Vol 5, No 2, June 2001. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / meria.idc.ac.il
This article was added to the list of articles worth reading on June 14, 2012 in this version .