ABSTRACT
It was, as a matter of coincidence, on the very day of Kitchener’s death – on Monday, the 5th of June 1916 – that the Arab Revolt began, and it began on a much smaller scale than the Sharif had originally planned. His first project had been to provoke risings in Syria and in the Hejaz simultaneously, to time them to synchronise with a landing of Allied troops at some point near Alexandretta, and in that way to take the Turks between two fires and paralyse their forces between Aleppo and Mecca; then, carrying the rebellion eastward, to strike at them in Iraq. But, owing to its rejection by the Allies, he had had to renounce that plan and content himself with a revolt in the Hejaz as the prelude to an attack on the Turkish position in Syria.
