ARAB LEGION

Arabic Al-jaish Al-'arabi, police force raised in 1921 by British Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Gerard Peake in what was then the British protectorate of Transjordan, to keep order among Transjordanian tribes and to safeguard Transjordanian villagers from Bedouins. In 1939 Major (later General) John Bagot Glubb, called Glubb Pasha, became the legion's commander and transformed it into the most effective military force in the Arab world. At the end of the first Arab-Israeli war (1949), the Arab Legion, 6,000 strong, was the only Arab army that had been able to retain any Palestinian territory against the Israelis. King Abdullah of Transjordan annexed those portions, which included Jerusalem, Hebron, and Nablus, and proclaimed his country the Arab Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Even after Jordan proclaimed its independence from Britain, the Arab Legion remained under Glubb's command, but nationalist sentiments in the country grew until King Hussein, who came into power in 1953, was forced to dismiss Glubb on March 1, 1956. The legion was then nationalized under the command of Ali Abu Nawwar, Hussein's personal adjutant. In that same year the Arab Legion, which was a volunteer army, merged with the Jordanian National Guard, a conscripted force, to form a unified Jordanian army.