Russian Diplomacy in Hijaz and Najd in the Late 19th — Early 20th Century According to Russian Diplomatic and Military Intelligence Sources

Abstract

This article aims to shed light on activities launched by Russian diplomats and military intelligence officers in the late 19th — early 20th centuries seeking to better ascertain the situation in the two regions of the Arabian Peninsula that were once incorporated into the Ottoman Empire — Hijaz (Western Arabia) and Najd (Central Arabia). It also tackles the highly entangled, and at times extremely tense relations between Turkish authorities and Arabs who lived in these two regions. A body of little-known documents stored in the Archive of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire (AFPRE) and Russian State Military-Historical Archive (RSMHA), as well as foreign archives, form the backbone of this article. The author demonstrates that within the period under review both Bedouin tribes and the urban notables more than once rebelled against the Ottoman stranglehold and each time were suppressed by military force. Turkish-Arab relations, especially in view of Ottoman military expeditions into the Arabian regions, drew the intense interest of Russian diplomacy and military intelligence, the latter especially given the likelihood of armed conflict between Russia and the Ottomans was high. This meant that diplomats in the Russian Consulate in Jeddah, who were entrusted with the task of gaining knowledge on how Ottoman authorities leveraged Muslim pilgrimage to influence Russian Muslims who had arrived in Hijaz, recognized that their lives and health were in danger. Russian diplomats were painfully aware that the policies pursued by the UK in those regions were a means to destabilize the situation, especially in light of the smuggling of arms destined for local tribes occurring under the noses of the Ottomans.