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8 Precise Syrian numbers are difficult to come by. Contemporary sources report that 12,000 to 15,000 Syrians served in the US army, a figure that is almost certainly too high. See Moroso, John, ‘Fall of Damascus thrills our Syrians’, New York Times, 6 October 1918, p. 48Google Scholar; US National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 59, Records of the State Department relating to World War I and its termination (henceforth NARA, RG 59), M367, roll 392, 763.72119/3456, George Khairallah to Frank Polk, State Department, 15 January 1919, p. 2. See also NARA, RG 59, M367, roll 392, 763.72119/4555, Hampson Gary to Robert Lansing, ‘Transmitting a memorandum called “America and Syria”’, 27 February 1919, pp. 5–6. In 1924, Philip Hitti enumerated 13,965 enlistments in his study, The Syrians in America, New York: G.H. Doran, 1924, p. 102. Sarah Gualtieri points out differences between Hitti’s figure and rates as high as 15,000 described by the Syrian American Club (in writings by one of its members, George Khairallah). Comparisons with Selective Service records, the Naturalization Index, and Army cards suggest that closer to 10,000 Syrian immigrants served at least one enlistment term. Gualtieri, Sarah, Between Arab and white: race and ethnicity in the early Syrian American diaspora, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2009, p. 210Google Scholar, n.18.

9 Ward, Gabriel Ilyas, Kitab al-Jundi al-Suri fi-Thalatha Hurub (The Syrian soldier in three wars), New York: al-Matbaʿa al-Tijariyya al-Suriyya al-Amrikiyya, 1919, p. 72Google Scholar.

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14 Hanley, Will, ‘Papers for going, papers for staying: identification and subject formation in the eastern Mediterranean’, in Liat Kozma, Cyrus Schayegh, and Avner Wishnitzer, eds., A global Middle East: mobility, materiality, and culture in the modern age, London: I.B. Tauris, 2014, pp. 190–192Google Scholar; Torpey, John C., The invention of the passport: surveillance, citizenship, and the state, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000Google Scholar.

15 Mukarzil, Naʿum, ‘Fi kull yawm khitab (Every day, a speech)’, al-Huda, 7 June 1917, p. 2Google Scholar.

16 Bakhash, Shukri, ‘Bayna al-Midhwad wa-l-Khandaq (Among troughs and trenches)’, al-Fatat, 22 December 1917, p. 1Google Scholar.

17 Tauber, Eliezer, ‘La Légion d’Orient et la Légion arabe’, Revue française d’histoire d’outre-mer, 81, 303, 1994, p. 172Google Scholar.

18 Ibid., pp. 172–4.

19 Fogarty, Richard S., Race and war in France: colonial subjects in the French army, 1914–1918, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008Google Scholar; Mann, Gregory, Native sons: West African veterans and France in the twentieth century, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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22 Bakhash, Shukri, ‘Nahu Suriya (About Syria)’, al-Fatat, 19 December 1917, p. 1Google Scholar.

23 Arsan, Andrew, ‘“This age is the age of associations”: committees, petitions, and the roots of interwar Middle Eastern internationalism’, Journal of Global History, 7, 2, 2011, pp. 186–187Google Scholar; Jackson, Simon, ‘Diaspora politics and developmental empire: the Syro-Lebanese at the League of Nations’, Arab Studies Journal, 21, 1, 2013, pp. 169–171Google Scholar.

24 This terminology is borrowed from Hakim, Carol, The origins of the Lebanese national idea, 1840–1920, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013, pp. 217–220CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 Tauber, Eliezer, The Arab movements in World War I, London: Frank Cass, 1993, pp. 197–199Google Scholar.

26 Recruitment announcement, Jamʿiyyat al-Nahda al-Lubnaniyya (Lebanon League of Progress), ‘Ila al-Watan Yahama al-Watan (To the nation, to protect the nation)’, al-Huda, 1 May 1917, p. 4.

27 The French funded the CCS in Paris at similar levels: see Tauber, Arab movements, p. 209.

28 al-Nahda, ‘Ila al-Watan’, p. 4. The Lebanon League kept two doctors on retainer: Rashid Baddur and Najib Barbur in New York.

29 Ibid., p. 4.

30 NARA, RG 59, M367, roll 475, 763.72119/9557, Hugh Cleveland to Bainbridge Colby, Secretary of State, ‘Reason for creation of Eastern Legion’, 10 March 1920, pp. 4–5.

31 Bakhash, Shukri, ‘al-Wizarat al-Harbiyya al-Fransawiyya wa-l-Firq al-Sharqiyya (The French War Ministry and the Légion d’Orient)’, al-Fatat 19 December 1917, p. 2Google Scholar.

32 Jackson, ‘Global recruitment’, p. 143.

33 al-Nahda, ‘Ila al-Watan’, p. 4.

34 Tauber, Arab movements, pp. 200–1.

35 Gabriel Ilyas Ward, ‘ʿar an la-Tasil damaʾuna illa ʿala khanja al-saffah (‘Shame that our blood does not flow, except from the Butcher’s [Cemal Pasha’s] dagger)’, al-Huda, 2 June 1917, p. 3.

36 Tauber, Arab movements, p. 211.

37 Yusuf, Ilyas and Karam, Shakir, ‘al-Suriyyun wa-l-khidma al-‘askariyya fi-Kanada (The Syrians and Canadian military service)’, al-Nasr, 18 January 1918, p. 3Google Scholar, translation of public address given on 3 November 1917.

38 Ward, Kitab al-jundi al-Suri, pp. 61–4.

39 Yusuf and Karam, ‘al-Suriyyun wa-l-khidma al-‘askariyya’, p. 3.

40 ‘al-Tajnid al-Inklizi huna (The British recruitment here)’, al-Bayan, 2 June 1917, p. 1.

41 Yusuf, and Karam, , ‘al-Suriyyun wa-l-khidma al-‘askariyya’, p. 3Google Scholar.

42 ‘al-Khawatir: bayna al-harb wa-l-tard wa-l-sajn (Reflections: between war, expulsion, and imprisonment)’, al-Huda, 3 May 1917, p. 5.

43 NARA, RG 59, M367, roll 381, 763.72119/1686, E. Tabet and Mikhail Naimy to President Wilson, 10 May 1918, pp. 1–2.

44 Ward, Kitab al-jundi al-Suri, p. 73; Manela, Erez, The Wilsonian moment: self- determination and the origins of anticolonial nationalism, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, pp. 23–55Google Scholar.

45 Second Report of the Provost Marshal General to the Secretary of War on the operations of the Selective Service system to December 20, 1918, Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1919, pp. 86–8.

46 Ford, Nancy Gentile, Americans all! Foreign-born soldiers in World War I, College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2001, pp. 60–61Google Scholar.

47 See, for instance, New York State Archives, Adjutant General’s office, Abstracts of World War I military service, 1917–1919, series B0808-85, draft cards for Alex Assa, service number 1929681, 25 September 1917, and for Taufik Hazaz, service number 3194840, 28 May 1918.

48 Naʿum Mukarzil, ‘al-Lubnaniyyun wa-l-Suriyyun tujaha al-khidma al-ʿaskariyya (The Lebanese and Syrians facing military service)’, al-Huda, 1 June 1917, p. 3.

49 Ibid., p. 3.

50 Gualtieri, Between Arab and white, pp. 58–61, 84.

51 Mukarzil, ‘al-Lubnaniyyun wa-l-Suriyyun’, p. 3.

52 Naʿum Mukarzil, ‘Fi kull yawm khitab’.

53 ‘Syrians loyal to United States’, Christian Science Monitor, 28 May 1917, p. 9.

54 Ibid.; NARA, RG 29, T626, roll 957, Records of the Bureau of the Census, Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930, Massachusetts Census of Populations, Suffolk County, Boston City, District 13-514, Ward 20, page 9b, line 81, Elias Shannon.

55 Bilingual Liberty Loan advertisement, ‘La tathabbat marra wahida innaka Amriki bal miʾa marra / Prove you are 100% American’, al-Nasr, 30 September 1918, p. 5.

56 Moroso, ‘Fall of Damascus’; Arab American National Museum, Dearborn, MI, Evelyn Shakir Collection (henceforth AANM, ES), Syrian American Club of Boston Records, 1, 5.

57 Mukarzil, ‘Fi kull yawm khitab’.

58 ‘Asas manh al-shʿub huquq taqrir mustaqbaliha (The foundational rights of peoples to determine their future)’, al-Huda, 2 June 1917, p. 2. See also Manela, Wilsonian moment, pp. 28–30.

59 Khater, ‘Becoming “Syrian”’, p. 300.

60 Ward, Kitab al-jundi al-Suri, p. 11.

61 On Costa Najour, see Gualtieri, Between Arab and white, pp. 60–2.

62 ʿAbdu, Yusuf Jirjis, ‘Murasilat: Atlanta Jurjya, 1 Disimbir (Letters: Atlanta, Georgia, 1 December)’, al-Fatat, 13 December 1917, p. 5Google Scholar.

63 Kherbawi, Basilius, ‘Hal yajuz li-l-Masihiyi an yatajannad? (Are Christians obligated to enlist?)’, al-Saʾih, June 1917, reprinted in Ward, Kitab al-jundi al-Suri, p. 116Google Scholar.

64 Ibid., p. 118.

65 Mukarzil, Naʿum, ‘Bayna al-Suriyyin: bi-ism al-Massih wa-l-Muhammad (Between Syrians: in the name of the Messiah and Muhammad)’, al-Huda, 5 April 1916, p. 6Google Scholar; ʿAbd al-Massih Haddad, ‘Qatil bayna al-Suriyyin (Killing among the Syrians)’, al-Saʾih, 6 April 1916, pp. 1–2.

66 On confessional politics, see Fahrenthold, Stacy, ‘Transnational modes and media: the Syrian press in the mahjar and emigrant activism during World War I’, Mashriq & Mahjar: Journal of Middle Eastern Migration Studies, 1, 1, 2013, 40–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

67 Hakim, Origins, pp. 1–13.

68 Bakhash, ‘Nahu Suriya’.

69 NARA, RG 59, M367, roll 381, 763.72119/1686, E. Tabet and Mikhail Naimy to President Wilson, 10 May 1918. See also Makdisi, Ussama, Faith misplaced: the broken promise of American–Arab relations, 1820–2001, New York: Perseus Books, 2010, pp. 136–146Google Scholar.

70 Doumit, Tannus Yusuf and al-Bakhash, Shukri, ‘al-Bakhash wa-l-mudafiʿin salafan (Bakhash and the ranks of the defenders)’, al-Huda, 1 May 1917, p. 2Google Scholar.

71 Capozzola, Christopher, Uncle Sam wants you: World War I and the making of the modern American citizen, New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008, pp. 152–159CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

72 Mukarzil, Naʿum, ‘Akhbar mahliyya: tajrim sihafiyyun (Local news: journalists indicted)’, al-Huda, 4 May 1917, p. 2Google Scholar.

73 NARA, RG 59, M367, roll 217, 763.72112/5267, Jean Jusserand to Robert Lansing, Secretary of State, ‘Memo 5267, on behalf of A. Tabet’, 24 October 1917.

74 Bakhash, ‘Nahu Suriya’.

75 Ibid.

76 NARA, RG 65.2.2, M1085, Investigative reports of the Bureau of Investigation, case no. 84061, Perkins, ‘Naoum Mokarzel—French Consul—Spanish Consul, alleged interference of Spanish Consul with Selective Draft of Syrians in the United States’, 28 January 1918, pp. 16–17.

77 NARA, RG 65.2.2, M1085, roll 751, case no. 329549, Busha, ‘Alli Muharem, alleged representing himself as Turkish consul’, 19 November 1918. See also ‘Gross frauds on draft suspected: follows arrest of Joseph Solomon and Said Joseph’, Boston Daily Globe, 15 January 1918.

78 Ford, Americans all, p. 56.

79 See ‘Alien slackers may not escape service’, New York Times, 22 April 1917, p. 3; ‘Deportation of alien slackers’, Christian Science Monitor, 1 August 1917, p. 1.

80 War Department organizational records, 77th Division records, Office of the Chief of Staff, memorandum no. 79, 21 May 1918, cited in Ford, Americans all, p. 63.

81 Ford, Americans all, p. 64.

82 AANM, ES, Syrian American Club Records, 1, 6, Shukry Yusuf, ‘Syrian American Association bylaws’, 10 October 1914. See also Gualtieri, Between Arab and white, p. 85.

83 Department, War, ‘Rates of monthly pay for enlisted men’, Official Army register December 1 1918, Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1918, pp. 1138–1139Google Scholar. Cole, Donald, Immigrant city: Lawrence, Massachusetts 1845–1921, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1963, p. 183Google Scholar.

84 AANM, ES, Syrian American Club Records, 1, 6, 1918.

85 See, for instance, NARA, RG 21, Records of the US District Court, M1368, roll 99, Petitions and records of naturalizations of the U.S. District and Circuit Courts of the District of Massachusetts, Petition for naturalization of Peter Arthur Abraham, 9 May 1919.

86 Saʿab, ‘Hawl harakat al-tatawwuʿ al-wataniyya (About the national voluntary recruitment movement)’, al-Huda, 5 May 1917, p. 5.

87 Ford, Americans all, pp. 37–9.

88 Tauber, Arab movements, p. 201. Such was the case of Melham George, investigated for draft evasion in 1918 but subsequently cleared because he was ‘fighting the Turks in Palestine’ with the French: NARA, RG 65.2.2, M1085, roll 692, case 277009, Dunn, ‘Visa investigation, Melham Maroum George’, 30 August 1918.

89 ‘Organize “foreign legions” at Devens: War Office experiments with new scheme’, Daily Boston Globe 17 August 1918.

90 Winship, Laurence, ‘Camp Devens foreign legion presents a Babel of tongues: Slav and Italian and Greek and Armenian, but all Americans at heart’, Daily Boston Globe, 25 August 1918, p. 32Google Scholar.

91 NARA, RG 21, Records of the US District Court, M1368, roll 99, Petitions and records of naturalizations of the U.S. District and Circuit Courts of the District of Massachusetts, Petition for naturalization of James Habib Attara, 22 November 1918.

92 Ward, Kitab al-Jundi al-Suri, p. 112.

93 Ibid., p. 101.

94 Beşikçi, Ottoman mobilization, p. 259.

95 NARA, RG 59, M 367, roll 381, 763.72119/1707, William Yale to Leland Harrison, Department of State, ‘Report #2 dealing with Arabia and Hedjaz situation’, 5 November 1917, pp. 18–19. See also Beşikçi, Ottoman mobilization, pp. 257–64; Eugene Rogan, The fall of the Ottomans: the Great War in the Middle East, New York: Basic Books, 2015, pp. 302–5.

96 Ward, Gabriel Ilyas, ‘Hadith al-Muslim (A discussion with a Muslim)’, al-Huda, 11 May 1917, p. 5Google Scholar.

97 Kayalı, , Arabs and Young Turks, pp. 174–202Google Scholar; Çiçek, War and state formation, pp. 39–63.

98 Ward, ‘Hadith al-Muslim’.

99 Ward, Kitab al-jundi al-Suri, p. 10.

100 Ibid., p. 122. Bishara’s derisive terminology, ‘the nations of Genghis Khan’ (al-dawla al-jankiziyya), was a common soldier’s idiom referring to the German forces. In Syrian usage the epithet also captured notions about the Ottomans as Turkish hordes.

101 AANM, ES, Syrian American Club Records, 1, 5, Gabriel Ward to Syrian American Club of Boston, 23 November 1918; Ward, Kitab al-Jundi al-Suri, p. 70.

102 ‘Ahad jabarat al-Suriyyun (One powerful Syrian)’, Abu al-Hawl, May 1917, and ‘Jundi yadaʿu al-Suriyyin wa-l-Lubnaniyyin ila-l-tatawwuʿ (A soldier calls on Syrians and Lebanese to volunteer)’, al-Huda, May 1917, reproduced in Ward, Kitab al-jundi al-Suri, pp. 125–9.

103 Ward, ‘ʿAr an la-tasil damaʾuna illa ʿala khanja al-saffah’.

104 NARA, RG 147, M2097, roll 185, Selective registration cards, World War II, no. 1753, fourth registration for George A. Matook, 1942.

105 Shakir, Wadiʿ and Maʿtuq, Jurj, ‘Risala jundi Suri (A Syrian soldier’s letter’, Fatat Boston, 3 March 1918, p. 1Google Scholar.

106 Shakir, Wadiʿ, ‘al-Suri al-mutajannad (The entrenched Syrians)’, Fatat Boston, 3 March 1918, p. 2Google Scholar.

107 Shakir and Maʿtuq, ‘Risala jundi Suri’.

108 AANM, ES, Syrian American Club Records, 1, 5, Jurj Maʿtuq to Syrian American Club of Boston, 4 June 1918.

109 Ibid.

110 On petitions, see Pedersen, Susan, The guardians: the League of Nations and the crisis of empire, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hakim, Origins, pp. 213–60; Arsan, ‘This age’, p. 137; Jackson, ‘Diaspora politics’, pp. 166–90; Bailony, Reem, ‘Transnationalism and the Syrian migrant public: the case of the 1925 Syrian Revolt’, Mashriq & Mahjar: Journal of Middle East Migrations, 1, 1, 2013, pp. 21–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wheatley, Natasha, ‘Mandatory interpretation: legal hermeneutics and the new international order in Arab and Jewish petitions to the League of Nations’, Past & Present, 227, 2015, pp. 205–248CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

111 Makdisi, Faith misplaced, pp. 145–55; Blumi, Ottoman refugees, pp. 146–50; Manela, Wilsonian moment, p. 147.