'File F/1 Criminal Intelligence, Circular Memoranda: Pan-Islamism' [‎24v] (48/68)

The Jewish Baron had left Syria by then but -his evil-counsel had been
taken by the drunken and blood-thirsty Jemal with whom he was most intimate
during his stay in the unfortunate province.
Jemal's atrocities now demand description.
C.— The crueliies of Jemal Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. .
Jemal Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. dealt gently with the Syrians on his first entry into their
country. He came as the future conqueror of Egypt and was received
royally by the Syrians who looked upon bis appointment as an honour to their
country, as a partial recognition of it as a political entity and as a tribute to
its importance.
He devoted the first few months of his rule to breaking down the
bureaucratic system of the existing Turkish administration. In violent
journeys from north to south of the province he made his presence known
everywhere. He removed some local governors who showed signs of
independence and broke the spirit of others by abruptly and without reference
reversing their decisions. His love of oppression showed itself on two
occasions. The first was his condemnation and public maltreatment of
Nakhla Mutran, a Syrian Christian of Baalbek, who, after trial on a charge of
intriguing with Prance, was led through Damascus on a donkey, face to the tail,
and so beaten and outraged by hired ruffians that he died or had to be put out
of his misery in prison. This act was on Jemal's part a shocking instance
of ingratitude seeing that Victoria Mutran, sister of Kakhla, who has since
died, had saved Jemal from Kiamil Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. 's police while he was preparing the
coup d'etat of January 23rd, 1913, with Enver and Talaat; had saved efavid
and Jahid Beys by hiding them in her house in the days of the counter-revolu
tion when armed mutineers were seeking their blood, and had done her
utmost for the Committee of Union and Progress during her visits to Paris,
where she frequently visited the Erench Eoreign Office. The second occasion
was Jemal's brief persecution of the Palestinian Jews. These were mostly of
alien and hostile nationality and Jemal began to confiscate their property,
as he had done with other allied subjects in Syria, and to expel them, which
was merciful by comparison with his treatment of the British, Erench and
Russians whom he interned. But by touching the Jews Jemal aroused the
indignation not only of the Jews and crypto-Jcws of the Committee of Union
and Progress but of the American Ambassador in Turkey. Mr. Morganthau s
himself a Jew, whose efforts on behalf of the allied subjects in Syria were long
unsuccessful, who stood by and contemplated the Armenian massacres, and
who allowed the Consular seals to be broken at Beirut and did not protest till
six months had passed, now rose up in his might and secured from Jemal not
onJy mercy for the Jews whom it had been intended to deport but favour,
culminating in the grant of new agricultural concessions. Jemal was so far
converted irom his anti-Jewish past that he added a Jewess to his harem.
He now felt secure in Syria. Up and down the country his word was law.
The mobilised youth of the country and the Turkish troops were his absolutely.
The Ottoman officials were obedient; the foreign Consuls subservient. He
even rid himself of part of bis German Staff. Mysterious reports were put about
in the summer of I9i5 that all was not well between Jemal and the Committee
of Union and Progress. It was said that the Dictator of Syria had refused to
send his Arab troops to the Dardanelles: that he was plotting to make himself
independent of Turkey in Syria. Jemal himself gave colour to these reports.
A Turk from Mitylene he spoke in his cups of his Arab blood, his "sympathy
with the people of the Prophet ". Little by little the Arabs were persuaded
that Jemal meant them well. In spite of his gambling, his drunkenness,
his inordiuate lechery, his fits of passion when he saw red, and struck down
any one in his path, they began to think that this man would assist them to
the reforms they had been imploring from the Ottoman Government for six
years. Some oi the leaders began to take Jemal into their confidence. This
was what Jemal had been waiting for. He brought down from Constantinople
to assist him Azmi, one of the foulest spirits in the Committee, and together
they struck, and struck home. They arrested a group of the leading men of
Beirut, and after a two-days' mockery of a trial hanged them publicly in the
market place. The nine men hanged were not ail politicians, but mostly