Hejaz, Syria and Iraq
Faisal I
1885–1933 Leader of the Arab Revolt; King of Syria, then King of Iraq
The son of Sharif Hussein of Mecca, Faisal led the Arab armies that fought alongside Allenby and T. E. Lawrence, entering Damascus in October 1918. At Paris he made the case for Arab independence, and in March 1920 a Syrian congress proclaimed him king. His kingdom lasted four months, until the French defeated his army at Maysalun in July 1920. The British, who wanted a pliable ruler for their Iraq mandate, installed him as king there in August 1921, after a plebiscite whose results few took seriously. He worked for the independence of Iraq, which was admitted to the League in 1932, and died in 1933 in Switzerland. His life illustrated the gap between wartime promises and the order of the mandates.