Mosul -

On July 14, 1958, Iraqis awoke to a bloody massacre that took place in Al-Rehab Palace in the capital, Baghdad, as the leaders of the Free Officers Organization, Abdul Salam Aref and Abdul Karim Qasim, were able to overthrow the Iraqi monarchy and announce the establishment of the Republic, after killing all members of the royal family, headed by them. King Faisal II (23 years), the guardian of the throne, Abd al-Ilah, and Prime Minister Nuri al-Said, in a massacre that historians are still writing about to this day.

Ezzo: What happened in 1958 is not only related to the Iraqi interior, but is related to the conflict of the eastern and western camps at the time (Al-Jazeera)

nepotism

Historians differed in naming this movement between the coup or the revolution, but what they unanimously agree on is that the ruling family was killed in a hideous way, and it was the first to exile it abroad, as happened in the Egyptian revolution in 1952, where King Farouk was exiled without bloodshed.

Professor of Political Science at the University of Mosul, Mahmoud Ezzo, says that the causes of the coup or the 1958 revolution in Iraq are not only related to the Iraqi interior, but there are a number of international conflicts between the eastern and western camps, which prompted many youth and military movements to be ideologically ideologically based on communist thought and the radical coup in the society.

Ezzo continues, in his interview with Al Jazeera Net, that what happened was favoring the communist ideology, which was expanding in the region at the time, and thus the leaders of the revolution took advantage of the situation of the political system during the era of the Iraqi monarchy, whose system he described as a "fragile democracy", as the military and politicians did not accept the continuous change of Iraqi ministries at the time. .

Regarding the facts of the massacre, Al-Ezzou believes that the Iraqi experience was violent and bloody compared to the Arab experiences, as happened in Egypt, whose revolution denied the king and did not kill him, in contrast to the great incitement that took place against the ruling family in Iraq.

The killing of King Faisal II (center) in 1958, chronicling the end of the monarchy in Iraq (communication sites)

As for the writer Majid Khadduri, he says in his book “Republican Iraq” that the causes of the revolution are deep and lie in the fact that the new generation in Iraq felt the chasm separating it from the old generation, so it sought to share in power and did not find the space where it was oppressed, according to him.

He adds that as a result, the spirit of discontent began from the bottom up, and at the same time that generation felt its strength and capabilities to participate in public life, but it did not find a way to participate in it, so the social pressure was translated by the Free Officers Organization in the revolution that took place in 1958.

Al-Allaf: Qassem and Aref are the ones who actually led and carried out the overthrow of the royal era (Al-Jazeera)

The facts of the massacre

Regardless of how the revolution was prepared and how the Free Officers organization was formed, the historian and professor of contemporary history at the University of Mosul, Ibrahim Al-Allaf, says that those who led the revolution were Abd al-Salam Aref, who broadcast the statement of the revolution from the Baghdad Radio Building, accompanied in planning and implementation by Abd al-Karim Qasim, who was He is the commander of the 19th Brigade in the Iraqi army, which had moved on the night of the revolution from Diyala towards Baghdad.

And Al-Allaf continues - in his speech to Al-Jazeera Net - that Abdul Karim Qassem and Abdul Salam Arif were the ones who actually led and carried out the revolution, as they had decided before that to kill both the guardian Abdul Ilah, Prime Minister Nuri Al-Saeed and King Faisal II to avoid an internal counter-revolution or foreign intervention to restore ownership, Although the Free Officers Organization unanimously agreed to kill Abd al-Ilah and Nuri al-Saeed without deciding the fate of King Faisal II.

Al-Allaf reveals that on the morning of Monday, July 14, 1958, the Free Officers besieged Al-Rehab Palace, and the attacking forces were much weaker and less capable and armed than the Royal Guard forces. However, the regent Abd al-Ilah wanted to leave Iraq and King Faisal II abdicated from the throne, so he refused To give orders to Colonel Taha Al-Bamarni - the commander of the Royal Guard at Al-Rehab Palace - to shoot the attackers.

According to Al-Allaf, Abdul-Ilah wanted to negotiate with the revolution’s officers in order to allow him to leave Iraq, as he went out with King Faisal II, Queen Nafisa and Princess Hiyam to the balcony, and some bullets were fired from behind them, but the tense situation and the attacking force’s fear of consequences, led to the issuance of Officer Abdul Al-Abbousi curtain ordered him to shoot the king, the regent, and the royal family, including the women, so they fell in their blood, except for Princess Hiyam, who was injured.

It is worth noting that Qassem and Aref were among the most prominent officers in the Iraqi army during the monarchy, and were responsible for large military units, as the writer Jamal Mustafa Mardan says in his book "Abdul Karim Qasim, the Beginning and the Fall" that the first nucleus of the Free Officers Organization was established in 1954.

The writer adds that the organization supported Qassem’s invitation to join the organization because of his good military reputation and his leadership of the “19” Mansouriya Infantry Brigade, as the movement considered it important to overthrow the monarchy, and after joining the movement, he was elected its president in 1957, accompanied by Abdel Salam Aref.

Al-Wondawi saw that the leaders of the Free Officers Organization were afraid of the royal family’s ability to return again with British support (Al-Jazeera)

conflicting stories

For his part, the Iraqi historian Muayyad Al-Wandawi says that the leaders of the Free Officers Organization did not reach, in their meetings before the revolution, a final vision of what the state would be in Iraq, but their vision was to emulate the Egyptian experience in 1952 with the exile of the king and then the killing of the regent and the prime minister. , for fear of what happened in the revolution of May (May) 1941, and the ability of the royal family to continue to return again with British support.

Al-Wondawi continues - in his speech to Al-Jazeera Net - that the events of July 14, led by Abdul Salam Aref and Abdul Karim Qasim, took place without the knowledge of the Free Officers Organization, and therefore the organization's formations did not know what would happen on that day.

According to Al-Wondawi, the units that entered Baghdad and carried out the revolution were led by Abdul Salam Aref, who broadcast the statement of the revolution, as Abdul Karim Qasim entered the capital, Baghdad, after everything was over.

Regarding the killing of the royal family, he adds that the attacking force on Al-Rehab Palace was small and in need of equipment, and therefore he asked the Washash camp in Baghdad (currently Al-Zawra Park) to support the attacking force, as Major Abdul Sattar Al-Abousi was at the head of this force that joined the attackers in Al-Rehab Palace.

Despite the surrender of the royal house, according to Al-Wondawi, in the midst of the chaos that occurred at the time, officer Abdul Sattar Al-Abousi began shooting at the royal family, killing everyone at once except for Princess Hiam.

Regarding the extent to which Abdul Karim Qassem or Abdul Salam Arif participated in the killing orders, Al-Wandawi adds that the facts did not prove anything of this nature, except that Arif’s incitement against the royal family was strongly present through the statement of the revolution broadcast by the latter, and even the incident of killing the royal family did not He is denounced or denounced by the leaders of the revolution, and al-Abbousi has never been tried, which gives many impressions of secret orders to kill the king without evidence of that.

Political differences erupted between Qassem (right) and Aref after the success of the 1958 coup (communication sites)

Previous experiences

Commenting on this, Al-Allaf believes that the killing of the royal family in Iraq was not the first incident, as history bears witness to the killing of the royal family during the French Revolution of 1789, and the killing of the royal family in Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917.

Thus, Al-Allaf comments that “when the revolution occurs, many events accompany it, and it is not easy to control it or its philosophy from a rational and logical point of view,” adding that despite that, the leaders of the revolution put in their minds what happened during the Rashid Ali Al-Kilani movement in 1941, and the flight of The regent Prince Abdul-Ilah and the royal family from Iraq, and then sought help from Britain and the royal family in the Emirate of Transjordan to intervene, as the movement was thwarted at that time and the family returned to Baghdad.

This argument agrees with Al-Wandawi, who adds that Qassem and Aref were afraid of international reactions, especially Britain or the Baghdad Pact, which included the United States, Turkey, Iran and Pakistan, and their fear of military action against the "revolution."

With regard to the chaos, Al-Wandawi comments that “Arif’s agitation to the public through the statement of the revolution was a reason to provoke the masses who arrived at Al-Rehab Palace after the royal family was killed, but these masses stopped the military car that transported the bodies of the royal family, where the body of the guardian Abdul Ilah was withdrawn. From the car, the masses represented the body and then dragged it through the streets of Baghdad."

Hence, Al Wendawi points out that the leaders of the revolution did not possess the military units capable of stopping mass actions, in addition to that this incident revealed two things: the first is popular support for what happened, in addition to the lack of good military preparation for the coup or revolution.

Britain's role

Over the past decades, many questions have been raised about Britain's role in what happened on July 14, 1958, as political science professor Mahmoud Ezzo believes that Iraq before the revolution was a factor of stability and regional balance, and was within the Baghdad Pact a wall of resistance in the face of communist expansion.

With the completion of the revolution, Iraq became an ally of the eastern camp led by the Soviet Union, which led the country to lose political stability throughout the subsequent decades and the like of coups and bloody events that began 5 years after the revolution / coup, and was represented by the killing of Abdul Karim Qasim in 1963 and then the turmoil that afflicted That was until the 1968 revolution/coup and what followed, according to Ezzo.

In addition, Al-Wandawi asserts that more than 6 decades after the incident, there is no evidence or document that supports the involvement of Britain or the United States in what happened in Iraq, and therefore the incident remains far from what he described as a “conspiracy”, especially since the British documents that were revealed About its secrecy, it did not confirm this. Rather, the British Embassy in Baghdad was familiar with the presence of the Free Officers organizations since 1957, and warned the Iraqi government at the time.

Al-Wondawi elaborates on this to point out that the idea of ​​British-American military intervention was raised during the meetings of the British government in London, but the threat of the Soviet Union prevented that intervention to save the monarchy.

Ezzo believes that the republic founded by Aref and Qassem was more a monarchy than the monarchy itself, as political differences soon erupted between the two leaders of the revolution without a clear political program for them, and then they sought absolute rule as well, the country did not witness any democratic republican system and no elections were held periodically, and thus the country witnessed many bloody movements and coups, which the country is still suffering from its consequences until this moment.

On this day 7/14/1958

Two people overthrew the king,


then one of them overthrew the other,


then came the one who overthrew the one who overthrew


his friend, then America came and overthrew them all, and the


people came out after the overthrows defeated and broken, but he remained celebrating everyone who came and who left.

— Ali John Khalidi 🇮🇶 (@0YldxsjuZ1eqQwW) July 14, 2020