Glubb Pasha and the Arab Legion

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Two 6-pounder cannons, which had been painfully hauled up to the ramparts of Old Jerusalem, were situated on the imposing Notre Dame Hospice. It was May 23, 1948, and at noon the Arab Legion would launch its long-anticipated attack on the handful of Jewish defenders blocking their entry into West Jerusalem. While the common soldiers and the local civilians may have hailed the endeavor, the Arab Legion’s commander vacillated. John Bagot Glubb–Glubb Pasha to his men and his liege, King Abdullah of Trans-Jordan–believed his small army was better suited for the sands of the desert than the dark passages and densely packed stone buildings of the ancient city. But Abdullah demanded a direct assault on Jerusalem, Old City and New. Ever the soldier, John Glubb knew how to obey orders.

Born in Preston, Lancashire, on April 16, 1897, Glubb was the son of an army officer and himself a graduate of the Royal Military Academy. He served in France during World War I. After the war, Glubb became an Arabist. Resigning his British army commission in 1926 to become an administrator for the Iraqi government, he lived among the Bedouins, spoke their language, understood their customs and worked for their greater good.

Glubb was a little man with a high-pitched voice, and while he was shy and reserved on most occasions, he was known to have a terrible temper. During the war, a bullet ripped off the tip of his chin, leaving it lopsided and incongruous to his plump cheeks and otherwise rounded face. That injury inspired his nickname among his Arab followers: Abu Hanaik (Father of the Jaw).

In 1930, he left Iraq to work for King Abdullah, who contracted with him to help build Trans-Jordan’s Arab Legion, the Al-Jaish Al-Arabi. The legion was originally an internal police force organized in 1921 by another Englishman, Lt. Col. Frederick Peake. In the years following World War I, Trans-Jordan was a British protectorate, and Peake’s job was to keep order among the territory’s various Arab tribes.

Stationed on the southeastern frontier near the border with Saudi Arabia, Glubb had to build his contingent from scratch. He was 120 miles away from Trans-Jordan’s capital, Amman, living in an old Buick automobile and facing the Ikhwan (brethren), religious zealots who had rebelled against King Ibn Saud of Arabia. Essentially at war with the Saudis, the Ikhwan had turned to raiding the defenseless villages of both Iraq and Trans-Jordan for supplies and sustenance.

Glubb’s orders were direct–stop the raids. To do that, he roamed the villages of the Huwaitat, trying to enlist their aid. Unfortunately, the Huwaitat, like many Arab tribespeople, had known only one government during the past 400-plus years: the Ottomans. They had learned not to trust the Turks, and that mistrust now extended to Glubb and the Arab administrators.

Helping him in this nearly thankless endeavor were four trusted men. One was a slave Glubb had acquired from Saudi Arabia. Two were Iraqis who had served at his side over the years, and one was a Shammar tribesman who had joined him when he left Iraq. The five men tried to cajole the Huwaitat into enlisting in Glubb’s small army, praising its accomplishments and warning the tribesmen that if they did not defend their villages other men would do the job–to the Arabs, that would be a loss of face.

Finally, a volunteer, Awwadh ibn Hudeiba, stepped forward and, about three days after signing up, was put in the ranks with Glubb’s four assistants. An officer from Peake’s headquarters in Amman arrived to pay the men, and in true military style, he demanded that the soldiers count off. Appalled by such intrusive regularity, the legion’s single volunteer ripped off his uniform and quit.

Luckily for Glubb, three more Huwaitat, less intimidated by army formality, soon enlisted, then 17 more. That was the modest start of the Desert Patrol: 20 men and four trucks, with four Vickers machine guns. By the spring of 1931, Glubb had 90 men wearing the legion’s uniform–a long, khaki-colored robe with long white sleeves, a red sash across the chest, a red lanyard to hold a revolver, a bandoleer of ammo, and a belt around the middle from which dangled a silver-handled dagger. Soon, the sons of the sheiks vied for admittance, and though Glubb and his lieutenants welcomed them, anyone who did not measure up to Glubb’s high standards found himself on the receiving end of that ferocious temper and booted out of the legion.

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Tags: 20th - 21st Century, Historical Conflicts, Historical Figures

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