In the territory of today's Kingdom of Jordan, there are 180,000 Circassians (descendants) whose ancestors lived in the mountains of the Caucasus. Not to mention that this small ethnic group, which accounts for less than 2% of Jordan's total population, has always been highly respected and trusted by the Jordanian royal family, and the Royal Guard, composed of Celkes bodyguards, is regarded as "one of the solid cornerstones of the Jordanian monarchy" with amazing loyalty and courage.
The ancestors of the Circassians in Jordan were "war refugees" who were successively relocated from the mountains of the eastern Caucasus and the Black Sea coast in the middle and late 19th century due to the occupation of their homeland by Tsarist Russia. From 1817 to 1864, many Caucasian mountain peoples, including the Circassians and Chechens, stubbornly resisted the encroachment and aggression of Tsarist Russia for nearly half a century.
However, due to the great disparity in strength, the Caucasus region was eventually swallowed up by the Czarist whales, and a large number of local ethnic minorities who did not want to be loyal to the invaders chose to flee to the Ottoman Empire, the old enemy of Tsarist Russia. According to incomplete statistics, the Ottoman Empire accepted about 500,000 Caucasian refugees and settled them in Bulgaria, the Anatolian Peninsula (Turkey itself), and the Middle East, including Jordan, which was still under Ottoman rule.
The first Circassians arrived in Jordan in 1868 and built at least six settlements (also fortified fortifications) in their new homes. Although they have been displaced from their homeland and displaced, this small ethnic group has stubbornly retained the Shangwu gene that has been passed down from generation to generation. In order to be loyal and repay the Ottoman Empire's salvation, the Circassians once played the role of "empire spokesman + colonist" in Jordan, fighting and killing the indigenous Bedouin tribes for 40 years.
In 1910, the stormy Ottoman Empire, in order to stabilize the ruling order of the Arabian Peninsula, selected the Circassians to form an armed patrol to protect the Hejaz Railway (Jordan section) from Damascus, Syria, to the holy city of Medina.
It was also in this year that the Circassian cavalry battalion defeated the arab and Druze rebel army at Karak, 16 km east of the Dead Sea. Because of the rapid counterinsurgency, many Circus officers and men were promoted and promoted.
The founding monarch of Jordan, Abdullah ibn Al-Hussein
However, the decline of the Ottoman Empire was irreparable. After the end of World War I, Jordan became a semi-independent kingdom under the British mandate in 1923, and Abdullah ibn Al-Hussein of the "Holy People" Hashemite family became the Emir (monarch). However, the local Bedouin tribes were hostile to Abdullah and pursued him in the desert.
Circus cavalry
At the critical moment, the Circassians stepped forward, not only driving out the Bedouins, but also sending 40 cavalry to escort Abdullah safely to Amman (the capital of present-day Jordan).
Later, as a result of the rebellion of the Bedouin chieftain, the Circassians mobilized urgently, tightly guarded around Abdullah's residence, repelled several Bedouin attacks in succession, and finally waited for reinforcements from the Turkish government and successfully suppressed the rebellion.
Founding monarch of Jordan with the Circus Guard
Touched by the loyalty of the Circassians again and again, Abdullah announced that he had given the former a number of privileges, and also ordered the selection of the royal family's personal bodyguards from this small people, and the Circus Royal Forest Army began, and they defended the Jordanian royal family for generations until their deaths.
In the 1960s and 1970s, as many as 800,000 Palestinian refugees fled to Jordan as a result of several wars in the Middle East, so that 55% of the country's inhabitants were of Palestinian descent (including Queen Rania of Jordan). Because of this, there were all kinds of anti-American/anti-Israeli forces active in Jordan at that time, the most powerful of which was the PLO.
The former uses Jordan as a "bridgehead" to attack Israel, not only turning the refugee camp into a "country within a country", but also often hijacking international flights at Amman airports, and its various bad deeds have seriously damaged Jordan's international image. As the conflict with the Jordanian government grew, on June 7, 1970, the PLO planned the assassination of King Hussein of Jordan.
On the same day, the Jordanian Royal Convoy (including several bulletproof vehicles and 60 Circassian guards) drove from the royal palace on the outskirts of the city of Amman, where it was attacked at an intersection as it passed through a 10-kilometre stretch of road controlled by the Palestinians. Pakistani militants opened fire violently with machine guns and grenade launchers, the driver of the car was killed, and King Hussein had to jump out of the car and hide in a ditch on the side of the road.
King Hussein was surrounded by cheering Jordanian soldiers
In a moment of crisis, the Circassians once again showed great courage. They quickly organized a ring of defense, and soon found the king hiding in the ditch, and organized a "human wall" to protect him from danger. In this tragic encounter, as many as 40 Circassian guards were killed, and the 20 surviving people were also hung up.
This vicious incident immediately triggered a fierce battle between the Jordanian government and palestinian armed forces. Armored vehicles and artillery from both sides fought in unison and engaged in a major battle in downtown Amman.
Palestinian militants also attacked the Shapsug district, where Caucasian migrants are concentrated, where circassians did not sit still, but rose up in resistance.
The brutal fighting caused heavy casualties, killing 700 people in June alone, but the PLO was not going to stop there, and its leaders even threatened in August of that year to turn Amman into "the graveyard of the public enemy of the Palestinian revolution." On 1 September, Palestinian forces attempted another attempted assassination of King Hussein, but killed a Circassian guard. The enraged Jordanian hierarchy could not bear it and ordered a "complete end to palestinian violations."
So on September 2, 1970, the 3rd Armored Brigade of the Royal Jordanian Army, with Celkes officers and men as the backbone, marched to the northern outskirts of Amman to launch a general offensive against the Palestinian forces entrenched in the refugee camps, while the PLO responded with guerrilla warfare and the hijacking and blowing up of civil airliners, and fierce fighting broke out on every major street in Amman.
This is the famous "Black September Incident" in history. The situation was quite unfavorable to the Jordanian government – as the "backstage boss" of the Palestinian armed forces, Syria (the elder Assad had not yet mutinied) sent 1 airborne brigade, 2 armored brigades (300 tanks) to invade Jordan's northwestern border region, and the Iraqi armored division (17,000 people) stationed in eastern Jordan after the 1967 Six-Day War was also ambiguous.
Schematic of the Jordanian-Syrian border conflict in 1970
In response to the armed intervention of the "Arab brothers", the Jordanian 40th Armored Brigade and the 99th Infantry Brigade fought and guarded against the Syrian-Iranian army. Jordan's top brass also urgently sought military assistance from the United States and britain, and Pakistan also sent a military advisory group to assist Jordan, and the leader of this advisory group was the future President of The Baqiang, Zia Haq, who personally commanded the Jordanian army in combat.
King Hussein of Jordan attended the press conference
In the Northwest Frontier Region, the elite Jordanian forces of Circassians and Chechens performed well, and the unit was later reorganized into the Royal Jordanian Army's trump card, The 101st Special Operations Battalion.
On September 25, 1970, the dismal PLO announced a temporary ceasefire, killing some 20,000 Palestinians (including 3,400 militants) in just over three weeks, and more than 2,000 casualties among the Jordanian army, and syria, which interfered militarily in the internal affairs of other countries, paid a heavy price – more than 600 casualties and 120 tanks and armored vehicles.
The PLO at the 1970 military parade in Amman
Sporadic fighting continued for another 10 months until the PLO moved its base camp and main forces to Lebanon (a move that became an important trigger for the 1975 Lebanese civil war) and the expulsion of another 150,000 Pakistani refugees from Jordan. King Hussein, who had experienced great devastation, confessed that without the protection of the Circassians, the power of the Hashemite family would have long ceased to exist.
To this day, in Jordan's civil servants, doctors, teachers, engineers, military and other professional fields, the Circassians still retain a share far more than the proportion of their own ethnic population, and senior generals, parliamentarians (2 of the 60 seats in the Jordanian National Assembly, The Circassians hold a fixed seat), diplomats, pilots, heads of intelligence services, prime ministers of the government, and ministers of agriculture, communications, internal affairs, finance, etc.
Most importantly, the Circassian Royal Guard, dressed in the traditional Caucasus samurai costume and allowed to wear short swords in the court, is still appreciated and trusted by the Jordanian royal family.
They appeared in the honor guard of the US president's visit, accompanied by the "most beautiful queen of the Middle East" Rania, not only decorated and set off the grandeur and majesty of the Jordanian royal family, but also demonstrated the strength and domineering of this ill-fated and self-reliant Caucasian small people.