A Land of Aching Hearts: The Middle East in the Great War

415 Pages·2014·4.316 MB·English

by  Leila Tarazi Fawaz

A Land of Aching Hearts

LEILA TARAZI FAWAZ
A Land of
Aching Hearts
Th e Middle East in the Great War
Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, En gland
2014
Copyright © 2014 by Leila Tarazi Fawaz
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
First printing
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Fawaz, Leila Tarazi
A land of aching hearts : the Middle East in the Great War / Leila Tarazi Fawaz.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978- 0- 674- 73549- 1
1. World War, 1914– 1918—Social aspects— Middle East. 2. World War,
1914– 1918—Social aspects— Syria. 3. Middle East—History—1914– 1923.
4. Civilians in war— Middle East— History—20th century. 5. Soldiers—
Middle East— History—20th century. 6. Middle East— History, Military—
20th century. 7. Syria— History, Military— 20th century. 8. Middle
East— Social conditions— 20th century. 9. Syria— Social conditions— 20th
century. I. Title.
D524.7.M53F39 2014
940.3'56—dc23
2014012879
To Karim Fawaz

Contents
Preface ix
Note on Transliteration xii
Note on Exchange Rates xiii
Maps xv
Introduction: Everyday Heroes 1
1 A Changing Middle East 8
2 Th e Empire at War 38
3 Living the Great War 81
4 Entrepreneurs and Profi teers 121
5 Th e Soldiering Experience 161
6 South Asians in the War 205
7 Cooperation and Disaff ection 233
Epilogue: War Memory 275
Notes 287
Ac know ledg ments 367
Index 373
Illustrations follow Chapter 4

Preface
WORLD WAR I is very much alive in the memory of what was once “Greater
Syria,” the focus of this book, but it also holds resonance throughout the
entire Middle East. Indeed, the war transformed the pol itic al choices of the
entire region and exposed its populations to social and economic duress on
a scale never before known. In Lebanon, before the civil war that enveloped
the country broke out in 1975, it was the Great War that people talked about
most. I owe my own interest in the topic to my father, who used to talk about
how the war had marked our family and others in Lebanon. Later, my own
research into war and society from a historical perspective touched on
World War I, in part icu l ar as I studied another great confl ict— the confl ict
that broke out in Mount Lebanon and Syria in 1860.
Th e Great War marked the end of one historical era and the beginning
of another. When I took up this project, I relished turning my attention
from my previous focus on the prewar Middle East to that rupturing event
itself. In the twentieth century, the region experienced perennial confl ict— of
which Lebanon endured its unhappy share— but it is the outsized impor-
tance of World War I that has held par tic u lar interest for me. I was fortunate