A sideshow to a sideshow: The Great Arab Revolt, 1916-1918

In the summer of 1916, the First World War was not going well for the British and their allies. The previous year had seen the disaster of the Gallipoli Campaign, with around 170,000 casualties for no gain; and on 1 July 1916, during the first day of the Battle of the Somme, the British suffered 57,000 casualties in fighting that would drag on until November. Yet just a few weeks earlier, on 10 June, in the Arabian holy city of Mecca, Sharif Hussein bin Ali, king of the historic western Arabian region of Hejaz, signalled a bold new initiative – the beginning of the Arab Revolt – by firing a symbolic shot towards the garrison of the Ottoman Empire. With British and French support, the Rev