in 1915 When Europe was divided into two blocs before the First World War, he supported an alliance with France. He went to France to negotiate an alliance with the French, but failed and then sided with
Enver and
Talaat, who favoured the German side. Djemal, along with Enver and Talaat, took control of the Ottoman government in 1913. The
Three Pashas effectively ruled the Ottoman Empire for the duration of World War I. visiting the
Dome of the Rock in
Jerusalem, circa. 1916 Previously snubbed by the Allies, Djemal switched his attention to an alliance with the Central Powers, although he had at first been opposed to a full alliance with Germany. Nevertheless, he agreed in early October 1914 to use his ministerial powers to authorise
Admiral Souchon to launch a pre-emptive
strike in the Black Sea, which led to Russia, Britain and France declaring war on the Ottoman Empire a few days later. After the entry of the Ottoman Empire into the war, Enver Pasha nominated Djemal Pasha to lead the Ottoman army against
British forces in Egypt, and Djemal accepted the position. In late 1914, he was assigned to the governorship and military command for the southern provinces of the Ottoman Empire. He was known among the local Arab inhabitants as
as-Saffāḥ (), being responsible for the hanging of many Lebanese and Syrian
Arab nationalists, including Sunni Muslims, Shia Muslims and Christians, wrongly accused of treason on 6 May 1916 in
Damascus and
Beirut. In total between 1915 and 1916, Djemal had 34 Syrian and Lebanese politicians and nationalists executed. Jamal Pasha was praised for his good deeds by some Arab inhabitants of Aleppo, such as the water pipeline he built, which saved Aleppo's population from a severe drought in the summer of 1917. His popularity among some Arab inhabitants of Aleppo can be attributed to the city's orientation toward the Ottoman Empire. In his political memoirs, the leader of the "
Beirut Reform Movement"
Salim Ali Salam recalls the following: Jamal Pasha resumed his campaign of vengeance; he began to imprison most Arab personalities, charging them with treason against the State. His real intent was to cut off the thoughtful heads, so that, as he put it, the Arabs would never again emerge as a force, and no one would be left to claim for them their rights … After returning to Beirut [from Istanbul], I was summoned … to Damascus to greet Jamal Pasha … I took the train … and upon reaching
Aley we found that the whole train was reserved for the prisoners there to take them to Damascus … When I saw them, I realized that they were taking them to Damascus to put them to death. So … I said to myself: how shall I be able to meet with this butcher on the day on which he will be slaughtering the notables of the country? And how will I be able to converse with him? … Upon arriving in Damascus, I tried hard to see him that same evening, before anything happened, but was not successful. The next morning all was over, and the … notables who had been brought over from Aley were strung up on the gallows. At the end of 1915, Djemal with viceregal powers is said to have started secret negotiations with the Allies for ending the war; he proposed to take over the Ottoman administration himself as an independent king of Syria. These secret negotiations came to nothing, in part because the Allies reportedly could not agree on the future territory of the Ottoman Empire; France objected strongly, and Britain was unwilling to fund the imperial operations. , 1915 His most successful military exploit was against the British
Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force, which had arrived in early 1915 from India. 35,000 British troops marched north on Baghdad, hoping to take the citadel with relatively few casualties. Djemal Pasha was appointed to command and marshaled a vast army, ultimately led by
Halil Kut Pasha, which by the time of the
siege of Kut al-Amara numbered 200,000 Turks and Arab auxiliaries. The British could only evacuate their wounded with Djemal's consent and attempted to send emissaries requesting permission to evacuate while the city was encircled on three sides. Djemal refused to compromise his advantageous position, and strafed enemy attempts by the
Tigris Corps to take relief boats up river. They had underestimated Djemal's considerable administrative capabilities and will to resist the Allied armies. The Ottoman troops fought hard at the
Battle of Ctesiphon, but the subsequent fate of POWs and civilians later enhanced Djemal Pasha's wartime reputation as a capricious and cruel general. Nonetheless, the successes impressed
T. E. Lawrence to write a significant account of their diplomatic encounters when finally Kut fell in April 1916, which provides for "a colourful character". The ever-present threat of Arab Revolt fomented by British intelligence was rising throughout 1916 and 1917. Djemal instituted strict control over Syria Province against Syrian opponents. Djemal's forces also fought against the Arab nationalists and
Syrian nationalists from 1916 onwards. Ottoman authorities occupied the French consulates in Beirut and Damascus and confiscated French secret documents that revealed evidence about the activities and names of the Arab insurgents. Djemal used the information from these documents as well as from others belonging to the
Decentralization Party. He believed that insurgency under French control was the main reason for his military failings. With the documents he gathered, Djemal moved against the insurgent forces which were led by Arab political and cultural leaders. This was followed by the military trials of the insurgents known as in which they were punished.
Commander of Fourth Army Gaza's head of garrison, Major Tiller, had 7 infantry battalions, a cavalry squadron, and some camel troops. The British under Colonel
Chetwode already had 2,000 troops in front of the city. Reluctantly, Djemal marched with the 33rd Division to relieve Gaza. Kressenstein was delighted to have repelled the British assault and wanted to mobilise aggressively by driving into Shellal,
Wadi Ghazze, and
Khan Yunis, but Djemal absolutely forbade it. The British had a whole division in retreat, so Djemal apprehended that a two-battalion sortie would have been annihilated. One of Djemal's associates in Iraq was engineer Colonel
Heinrich August Meissner who had built both the
Hejaz and
Baghdad railways and who was employed on an ambitious project to construct a railway to the Suez canal at Bir Gifgafa. By October 1915, the Central Powers had already built 100 miles of track as far as the oasis of
Beersheba. Djemal insisted that an extended railway would be needed to attack British Egypt. Djemal was completely committed to the
Turco-German military machine, which he saw as necessary to resist the new wave of offensives launched by the British High Command.
Mustafa Kemal Pasha and Djemal Pasha became increasingly skeptical of German capabilities, but Djemal was not yet prepared to openly back the German allies. He insisted on the possibility of a planned allied assault behind the
Yıldırım Army, as the
Seventh Army gathered at the
Turco-German Aleppo Conference. In the shake-up that followed, Djemal was demoted to a command of the
Fourth Army under General
Erich von Falkenhayn. They now adopted a plan similar to the Kress Plan for Gaza and sent the Yıldırım Army to Baghdad. It was not until October 1917 that the Seventh Army could march south to face the growing threat from
Edmund Allenby, hampered by the limitations of the single-gauge railway, which was built away from the coastline to avoid Royal Navy salvos. During this time, Djemal presided over the
1917 Jaffa deportation in which he was accused of allowing the Jewish population of
Jaffa to be robbed, assaulted, starved and killed. On 7 November, the
British captured Gaza, but Djemal had long since been forced to evacuate. Although chased, he managed to retreat at speed. In December, the Turks were driven out of Jaffa, Djemal's army still in retreat, and the city fell without a fight. Falkenhayn had ordered an evacuation on 14th, and the British had begun to enter the same day. But now the Turkish Eighth formed a much stronger line of entrenchment; Djemal's organized defence of Gaza had been amply anticipated by the British. His army delayed them further at the vital Junction railway station. But the British were probably unaware of its importance. The fighting in the hills was all but over by 1 December. On 6 December, Djemal Pasha was in Beirut to make a speech publicizing the allied deal to 'carve up' Syria-Palestine into partitioned spheres of influence in the
Sykes-Picot agreement. At the end of 1917, Djemal ruled from his post in Damascus as a near-independent ruler of his portion of the Empire. On 9 April and then 19 April 1918, Djemal ordered the evacuation of civilians from Jaffa and Jerusalem. The Germans were furious and rescinded the order, revealing the chaos in the Ottoman Empire. Djemal's ambiguous attitude to the subject populations of the Ottoman Empire proved beneficial to the British colonial authorities. The Turkish line was solidified in readiness for the final onslaught at Nebi Samwell and
Nahr-el-Auja. To the south of Nebi Samwell were the defences of
Beit Iksa; the Heart and Liver Redoubts before Lifa; and
Deir Yassin, two systems behind
Ain Karim. In all, there were 4 miles of fortifications. Djemal Pasha was recalled to Istanbul in June 1918. He was sent back to the southern Syrian provinces in August 1918 to defend the Ottoman lines there however the Ottoman Army was forced to retreat and in an act of revenge, Djemal Pasha's forces committed the
Tafas massacre against the local Arab population for allying with the advancing British forces. After the defeat of Ottoman forces in
World War I, he once again returned to Istanbul.
Role in the Armenian Genocide Djemal's role in the
Armenian genocide has been contested by historians. His policies allowed some Armenians to survive in the territories under his control. German historian
Wolfgang Gust states, "while preserving the lives of perhaps 150,000 Armenians—in terrible conditions—he helped kill another 150,000". In December 1915, he offered to the Entente powers that he would march to Constantinople, overthrow the CUP government, and end the genocide in exchange for the guarantee of the Ottoman Empire's territorial integrity in its pre-World War I borders. Historian
Ümit Kurt argues that "The most fundamental difference between Djemal and the other two leaders [Talat and Enver] was
the methods he wanted to employ to decrease the number of Armenians to a level that would no longer pose a threat to the Ottoman state." Instead of killing Armenians, he favored their forced conversion and assimilation to neutralize the perceived Armenian threat. Kurt furthermore argues: "Saving the lives of some fortunate Armenians does not exempt Djemal from the label '
génocidaire', for he was fully committed to the disappearance of Armenians from Ottoman soil." In the CUP's penultimate congress held in 1917, Djemal was elected to the Board of Central Administration.
Military trial With the defeat of the empire in October 1918 and the resignation of
Talaat Pasha's cabinet on 2 November 1918, Djemal fled with seven other leaders of the CUP to Germany, and then
Switzerland. A military court in Turkey accused Djemal of massacring
Arab subjects of the Ottoman Empire and sentenced him to death
in absentia. Later in 1920, Djemal went to Central Asia, where he worked as a
military advisor, charged with modernising the
Afghan Royal Army. ==Assassination==