1. Yusuf al-Azma was a Syrian military officer and revolutionary figure who was the minister of war of the Arab Kingdom of Syria under the governments of prime ministers Rida al-Rikabi and Hashim al-Atassi, and the Arab Army's chief of general staff under King Faisal.
Yusuf al-Azma served as minister of war from January 1920 until his death while commanding Syrian forces at the Battle of Maysalun during the Franco-Syrian War.
Yusuf al-Azma became an officer in the Ottoman Army and fought on multiple fronts in the First World War.
Yusuf al-Azma was tasked with building the nascent Arab Army of Syria.
Laila was a young child when Yusuf al-Azma died, married Cevad Asar, an Istanbul-based Turkish merchant with whom she had a son named Celal.
In 1914, al-Azma was commander of the Ottoman Army's 25th Infantry Division during World War I Later during the war, he was reassigned as a deputy of War Minister Enver Pasha in Istanbul.
Toward the war's end, al-Azma was appointed chief of staff of the Istanbul-based First Ottoman Army according to historian Phillip S Khoury, or chief of staff of the Ottoman army in the Caucasus according to historian Ruth Roded.
Yusuf al-Azma joined al-Fatat, an Arab nationalist secret society founded in 1911, though it is not apparent when, and became a personal chamberlain of Emir Faisal.
Unlike other ex-Ottoman officers from the empire's Arab lands who had hailed almost exclusively from modest upbringings, Yusuf al-Azma came from the upper urban class.
In Prime Minister Rida al-Rikabi's government, Yusuf al-Azma was promoted to minister of war and on 26 January 1920 was appointed Chief of General Staff by Emir Faisal to replace Yasin al-Hashimi, who had been arrested by British forces and detained in Palestine.
Yusuf al-Azma gathered arms and ammunition left behind by the Ottoman Army in Syria, raised funds for new weaponry and by mid-1920, had created a military force of some 10,000 men, primarily consisting of Bedouin volunteers and former Ottoman officers.
Al-Rikabi led the minority faction while the majority camp was led by Yusuf al-Azma and supported by other young former Ottoman officers.
In June 1920, Yusuf al-Azma toured northern Syria to recruit more soldiers into the nascent Arab Army and establish connections with the Anatolian insurgency.
Yusuf al-Azma concluded that the Arab Army was woefully unprepared and under-equipped for a serious confrontation against the French Army.
Yusuf al-Azma was the only Arab officer to die in the battle.
Likewise, Provence states that Yusuf al-Azma "became the supreme symbol of interwar Syrian Arab patriotism".
Yusuf al-Azma's statue stands in a major square named after him in central Damascus, with streets and schools named in his honor throughout Syria.