Glubb, John Bagot [Pasha] (1897–1986)
GLUBB, JOHN BAGOT [Pasha] (1897–1986)
British general born in Lancashire in April 1897, and died in 1986. A scholarship student at Cheltenham College, Glubb joined the British army in 1914. After serving in World War I he became an engineer, then an administrator in Arabia and Iraq, where he was in charge of a mobile Bedouin unit. In the early 1930s his skill at camel-back guerrilla warfare sent him to Transjordan. He was assigned to Colonel Frederick Peake, founder of the Arab Legion. Between 1936 and 1939, at the head of the Bedouin troops in the Desert Patrol Force, Glubb prevented the Arab revolt in Palestine from spreading to Transjordan. In April 1939, he took command of the Arab Legion, which fought brilliantly on the side of the Allies in Syria and Iraq during World War II. In 1946 King Abdullah made him a Jordanian citizen. In May 1948, during the first Israeli-Arab conflict, he entered Jerusalem at the head of the Arab Legion, thereby allowing Transjordan to maintain control of the Arab section of the Holy City. On 1 March 1956, urged by public opinion and his Arab neighbors, King Hussein of Jordan decided on a break with him, relieving him of his command. Glubb then retired to Sussex to devote himself to writing. He published twenty-two books, including A Soldier with the Arabs.
SEE ALSO Hussein ibn Talal.