Jewish Bubba: Ottoman Empire's Demise, Helped By Chaim Weizmann and Sharif Hussein Ali

Nadene Goldfoot

All these countries on the map were part of the Ottoman Empire, both green and tan.

The Ottoman Empire's entry into World War I began when two recently purchased ships of its navy, which were still crewed by German sailors and commanded by their German admiral, carried out the Black Sea Raid, a surprise attack against Russian ports, on 29 October 1914. Needless to say, the Ottoman Empire was on the Axis side, the Germans, in WWI. They lost the war and in doing so, lost their land.

The Ottoman Empire:

Egyptian Governor Muhammad Ali b: 4 March 1769

Ottoman troops first invaded Europe in 1345, sweeping through the Balkans. Though defeated by Timur in 1402, by 1453 the Ottomans, under Mehmed II (the Conquerer), had destroyed the Byzantine Empire and captured its capital, Constantinople (now Istanbul), which henceforth served as the Ottoman capital.

Palestine: In 1516, the Ottoman Turks invaded and occupied Palestine, an occupation that lasted for 402 years (1516-1918), except for the 9 years between 1831 and 1840, when the Egyptian Governor Muhammad Ali sent his troops to capture Palestine under the command of his son Ibrahim Pasha.
Ibrahim Pasha Ibrahim remains one of the most celebrated members of the Muhammad Ali dynasty, particularly for his impressive military victories, including several crushing defeats of the Ottoman Empire. Among Egyptian historians, Ibrahim, his father Muhammad Ali, and his son Isma'il the Magnificent are held in far higher esteem than other rulers from the dynasty, who were largely viewed as indolent and corrupt; this is largely the result of efforts by his grandson Fuad I of Egypt to ensure the positive portrayal of his paternal ancestors in the Royal Archives that he created, which were the primary source for Egyptian history from the 1920s until the 1970s. Today, a statue of Ibrahim occupies a prominent position in Egypt's capital, Cairo.

At its height, in 1914, the Ottoman Empire included the following regions:

Turkey.
Greece.
Bulgaria.
Egypt.
Hungary.
Macedonia.
Romania.
Jordan.

The Allies, or the Entente Powers, were an international military coalition of countries led by France, the United Kingdom, Russia, the United States, Italy, and Japan against the of Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria in World War I (1914–1918). Principal Allied Powers: France. The United States joined near the end of the war in 1917 (the same year in which Russia withdrew from the conflict) as an "associated power" rather than an official ally. United States: The official figures of military war deaths listed by the US Dept. of Defense for the period ending Dec. 31, 1918 are 116,516; which includes 53,402 battle deaths and 63,114 non combat deaths.

Dr. Chaim Weizmann at U of Manchester, England, luckily living in England instead of Russia. Chaim Weizmann was born in Motol, Russia in on November 27, 1874. He received his education in biochemistry in Switzerland and Germany. Already in Geneva, he became active in the Zionist movement. In 1905 he moved to England, and was elected to the General Zionist Council. With the declaration of the State of Israel, Weizmann was chosen to serve as the first President of Israel. He filled this role until his death on November 9, 1952. He was born 149 years ago.

In 1915, a senior lecturer in biochemistry at the University of Manchester named Dr. Chaim Weizmann invented a fermentation process that converted starch — a poly-sugar readily available from corn and potatoes — into acetone and butyl alcohol, facilitated by a bacteria, Clostridium acetobutylicum, that Dr. Weizmann had previously isolated.

This novel method of acetone production became known as “the Weizmann process.” As serendipity would have it, acetone was a key component in the production of the smokeless gunpowder (cordite) used by the Allies in World War I. Acetone had previously been made from calcium acetate imported from Germany, but since the Allies were at war with Germany, this was no longer possible, and the U.S. had a sparse supply. So, Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, requested that the “Weizmann process” be used to mass produce acetone in England, Canada, and the U.S.

The British owed Chaim Weizmann a lot, for without his acetone, they would have lost the whole war. Here he was, a Jewish chemist living in England at the time.

Russia responded by declaring war on 2 November 1914. Ottoman forces fought the Entente in the Balkans and the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I. The Ottoman Empire's defeat in the war in 1918 was crucial in the eventual dissolution of the empire in 1922.

The repulse of British forces in Palestine in the spring of 1917 was followed by the loss of Jerusalem in December of the same year. The Ottoman authorities deported the entire civilian population of Jaffa, pursuant to orders from Ahmet Cemal on 6 April 1917. While the Muslim evacuees were allowed to return shortly after, the Jewish deportees were unable to until after the war. The events occurred simultaneously with the formation of the Balfour Declaration (published on 2 November 1917) in which the British Government declared its support for the establishment of a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine.

The Ottomans were eventually defeated due to key attacks by the British general Edmund Allenby.

Cemal Pasha, Ahmed Djemal also known as Djemal Pasha, was an Ottoman military leader and one of the Three Pashas that ruled the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Born on 6 May 1872, he died on July 21, 1922.

Lawrence of Arabia and the 1916 Revolt :

Lawrence of Arabia was the name given to a British Intelligence Officer, Thomas Edward Lawrence, who fought alongside Arab guerrilla forces in the Middle East during the First World War. Thomas Edward Lawrence was born in Tremadoc, Caernarvon in north Wales in 1888. Before the outbreak of the First World War he worked as an archaeologist and photographer in the Middle East. He became very familiar with the region and strongly identified with the Arab people.

The start of the in June 1916 led Lawrence to undertake dangerous missions inside enemy territory in Arabia. Before the war, Britain had maintained a long-standing policy of support for the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East. However, this ended with Turkey's support of Germany in November 1914.

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The war tested to the limit the British empire's relations with its Arab population. In February 1915 in Syria, Cemal Pasha exercised absolute power in both military and civil affairs. Cemal Pasha was convinced that an uprising among local Arabs was imminent. Leading Arabs were executed, and notable families deported to Anatolia. Cemal's policies did nothing to alleviate the famine that was gripping Syria; it was exacerbated by a British and French blockade of the coastal ports, the requisitioning of transports, profiteering and—strikingly—Cemal's preference for spending scarce funds on public works and the restoration of historic monuments.

Sharif Hussein Ali; Hussein bin Ali, King of Hejaz born 1 May 1854, died 4 June 1931.

During the war, Britain had been a major sponsor of Arab nationalist thought and ideology, primarily as a weapon to use against the power of the Empire. Sharif Hussein ibn Ali rebelled against the Ottoman rule during the Arab Revolt of 1916. In August he was replaced by Sharif Haydar, but in October he proclaimed himself king of Arabia and in December was recognized by the British as an independent ruler. There was little the Empire could do to influence the course of events, other than try to prevent news of the uprising spreading to keep it from demoralizing the army or acting as propaganda for anti-Ottoman Arab factions. On 3 October 1918 forces of the Arab Revolt entered Damascus accompanied by British troops, ending 400 years of Ottoman rule. Now, besides Chaim Weizmann, the British figured they would have also lost the war had it not been for Sharif Hussein Ali and his men fighting on their side. They had made promises to both men of land.