Faisal II.
Faisal II ( Arabic الملك فيصل الثاني, DMG al-Malik Faiṣal ath-thānī; * May 2, 1935 in Baghdad ; † July 14, 1958 ibid) was King of the Kingdom of Iraq from 1939 to 1958 .
childhood
Faisal II was born in Baghdad in 1935 as the son of the Hashimite and king of Iraq Ghazi I and succeeded his father on April 4, 1939 after the early death of his father. Because of his minority, his maternal uncle, Prince Abd ul-Ilah , took over the reign. Nationalist resistance to British supremacy continued to grow and expanded to include the military. On April 1, 1941, there was a putsch by pro-German officers under Raschid Ali al-Gailani , who drove out the regent but left the underage king on the throne. The actual state power now lay with al-Gailani and the "Government of National Defense", which he led, and which turned to the Axis powers . Despite material support from National Socialist Germany - the main character was the agent Fritz Grobba - Gailani was unable to assert himself against the British troops in the Anglo-Iraqi war. His government was overthrown after only a few weeks and a pro-British government under Nuri as-Said and the old prince regent was reinstated in its place .
Regency
In 1953 Faisal officially took over the government himself, but remained politically dependent on his uncle Abd ul-Ilah (now crown prince, since the king was childless) and the pro-British Prime Minister Nuri as-Said. Under their leadership, Iraq positioned itself - especially after the Suez Crisis of 1956 - as a pro-Western leading power against the center of Arab nationalism , the Egypt of the military dictator Gamal Abdel Nasser . The climax of this anti-Nasser policy, which was highly unpopular within the Arab opposition in Iraq, was the formation of the so-called Baghdad Pact in 1955 under the aegis of the USA and Great Britain. After Nasser had formed a United Arab Republic through the unification of Egypt with Syria in 1958 , which potentially also kept other Arab states open, the pro-Western Hashimite kingdoms of Iraq and Jordan responded in February 1958 by forming their own monarchical Arab federation .
death
On 14 July 1958, shortly before the planned wedding of the king with Princess Fazila and a state visit to Ankara, overthrew the military under the leadership of Colonel Abd al-Karim Qasim and Abdul Salam Arif against King and the government. Faisal, his uncle and the prime minister Nuri as-Said were overthrown and murdered. The naked body of Abd ul-Ilah was dragged through the streets of Baghdad by the angry people. This ended the rule of the Hashimites in Iraq.
family
Faisal was betrothed to Princess Sabiha Fazila Khanum Sultana of Egypt . She is the only daughter of Prince Damad Muhammad Ali Ibrahim Bey Effendi of Egypt and his wife, the Ottoman Princess Hanzade Sultan.
literature
- Majid Khadduri: Independent Iraq, 1932-1958 . 2nd Edition. Oxford University Press, 1960
- Stephen H. Longrigg: Iraq, 1900 to 1950 . Oxford University Press, 1953.
- James Morris: The Hashemite Kings . London 1959.
- Feisal II. , In: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 41/1958 of September 29, 1958, in the Munzinger Archive ( beginning of the article freely available)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Overview of Iraqi History ( Memento from January 7, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Henner Fürtig : Brief history of Iraq: from the foundation in 1921 to the present. in the Google book search CH Beck, Munich 2003, ISBN 3406494641 , p. 36 ff.
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Faisal II. |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Iraqi nobleman, King of Iraq (1939-1958) |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 2, 1935 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Baghdad , Iraq |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 14, 1958 |
| Place of death | Baghdad |