A tale of two cities and one telegram: The Ottoman military regime and the population of Greater Syria during WWI

What is it about?

This article compares the evacuations of the two port cities of Gaza and Jaffa in southern and central Palestine, respectively, by their civilian population on the orders of Cemal Pasha, the Ottoman commander of the Syrian front, during the spring of 1917. While these evacuations are usually regarded as mutually exclusive events, they were in fact part of the same process. We claim that the general evacuation order for two of the main coastal cities of Palestine was driven by the exigency of war and military considerations, rather than by political motivations such as the desire to destroy Zionism or take revenge against the Arab population. This view does not negate the exceptionality of each case but rather aims to better contextualize them within the larger framework of civilian affairs in the region and the Empire at large during WWI. For this purpose we analyse a 17-page enciphered Ottoman telegram that sheds new light on the rationale and the execution of the evacuation of populations in Palestine and compare it to other controversial events in Greater Syria during the war.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

March 1917 was a tragic month for Gaza and Jaffa, the two main cities along Palestine’s southern and central coast. The civilian population in both was evacuated by the Ottoman military regime in preparation for the invasion of the British army from Sinai. The literature dealing with the plight of the populations of Gaza and Jaffa during WWI tends to regard the events in these two cities for the most part as mutually exclusive. The former is rarely addressed in research, perhaps because it is seen as a negligible side effect of the skirmishes between the British and Ottoman armies on the southern border of Palestine. When mentioned, though, it is often portrayed in the context of the anti-Arab tendencies of Cemal Pasha (1872–1922), the Ottoman military governor of the Syrian front during WWI, the Minister of Navy and the commander of the Fourth Army. By contrast, in Zionist historiography and collective memory the evacuation of the latter is depicted as a transparent political act motivated by Cemal Pasha’s anti-Zionist policy. This historiographical split stems largely from the nationalistic nature of research on the Jewish Yishuv and Palestinian society as well as from major differences in the quality and quantity of available documentation for the two events. This article suggests that understanding Cemal Pasha’s evacuation campaigns in Palestine requires a wider perspective that entwines the histories of both cities and their different demographic compositions. This view does not negate the specificity of each case but rather attempts to better contextualize these events within the larger framework of Palestine, Greater Syria, and the Empire at large during the war. Our aim is by no means to rehabilitate the image of Cemal Pasha, but rather to present the evacuation of populations in Palestine through his eyes. We argue that Cemal Pasha’s order to evacuate the populations of Gaza and Jaffa in the spring of 1917 stemmed above all from military rather than political imperatives. To support our claim, this article analyses a 17-page enciphered Ottoman telegram (şifre), sent by Cemal Pasha on 26 May 1917 to Talaat Pasha (1874–1921), the Minister of the Interior, which was recently released to researchers by the central Ottoman archive in Istanbul, the Basbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi. This document sheds new light on the rationale of the evacuation of populations in Palestine and makes it possible to compare these occurrences to other controversial events in Greater Syria during the war.