The Arab War by Gertrude Bell

The Arab War by Gertrude Bell

Author:Gertrude Bell
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: History
Published: 2012-03-26T07:00:00+00:00


VI. ISMAIL BEY

[Arab Bulletin, 23 March 1917]

ISMAIL BEY, SON OF IBRAHIM PASHA MILLI, ARRIVED AT ZUBEIR on December 28, seeking British protection and offering us his co-operation against the Turks.

His father was the most considerable figure in northern Mesopotamian politics during the last ten or fifteen years of Abdul Hamid’s reign. He had established, with the favour of the Sultan and of the latter’s powerful minister, Izzet Pasha, an authority which was little short of sovereignty over the country between Diarbekr and Ras el-Ain, and he controlled the northern roads between the Euphrates and Tigris. If his rule was not an unqualified blessing, neither was it an unmixed evil; he harried the smaller tribes of the Euphrates, and was at constant loggerheads with the Shammar Jerbah and Sinjar Yezidis; but he protected Christians and provided a rough and ready administration as good as, if not better than, anything which the Turks had managed to set up. His headquarters, established at an ancient but almost obliterated site, Wiransheher (Antoninopolis), grew into a flourishing little town, doing a brisk trade with the desert. The opening of the constitutional era brought Ibrahim’s glory to an end. Local independence was distasteful to the C.U.P. and Ibrahim’s personal relations with the Sultan made him an object of special distrust. Local tribes, both Kurdish and Arab, who had suffered justly or unjustly under his strong hand, were let loose upon his flocks and fields during his absence in Damascus, whither he had gone with the purpose of coming to terms with the new rulers of the Ottoman Empire. He hurried back to Aleppo, crossed the Euphratyes at Qalat en- Nejm and died in the desert between the Euphrates and the Khabur, probably from natural causes, for he was ill when he passed through Aleppo.

He left six sons, Abdul Hamid (usually known as Hamud), Mamu (now about 30), Ismail (28), Khalil Pasha (26), Abdul Rahman (18) and Tama (16). The mother of Mamu, Ismail and Khalil is Khansah Khansum, a lady of remarkable force of character, who administered the family estates when the elder sons were imprisoned in Diarbekr after Ibrahim’s death. Abdul Hamid died in prison, but Ismail and his brothers were released after a captivity of many months’ duration, and their possessions were in great part restored. Though the power of the ruling house had suffered, the Milli remained a strong tribe, trained in arms in the Hamidiyah levies, while the sons of Ibrahim are still wealthy, and soldiers from their youth up.

Ismail is a fair man, of medium height and slight figure, pleasant mannered, with a fine confident bearing. He looks what he is, the son of a great chief, accustomed to dealing with high officials, and conversant with big political issues. He speaks with affection and respect of his brother Khalil Pasha, who, according to him, has some 1,400 troops, more or less trained in the Hamidiyah, under his command. He himself claims to have about 400 horsemen of a similar kind, and says that his tribe numbers 25,000 men and can raise 12,000 horse.



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