Yusuf al-Azma (, Turkish: Yusuf el-Azma; ALA-LC: Yūsuf al-ʻAẓmah; 1883 – 24 July 1920) was the Syrian minister of war in the governments of prime ministers Rida al-Rikabi and Hashim al-Atassi, and the Arab Army's chief of general staff under King Faisal. He served as minister of war from January 1920 until his death while commanding Syrian forces against a French invasion during the Battle of Maysalun. Al-Azma hailed from a wealthy Damascene landowning Turkish family. He became an officer in the Ottoman Army and fought on multiple fronts in World War I. After the defeated Ottomans withdrew from Damascus, al-Azma served Emir Faisal, the leader of the Arab Revolt, and was appointed minister of war upon the establishment of the Arab government in Damascus in January 1920. He was tasked with building the nascent Arab Army of Syria. The country, meanwhile, had been designated as a mandatory territory of France, which did not recognize Faisal's government. Al-Azma was among the more vociferous opponents of French rule and as their troops advanced toward Damascus from Lebanon, he was authorized to confront them. Leading a motley army of civilian volunteers, ex-Ottoman officers and Bedouin cavalrymen, al-Azma engaged the French at Maysalun Pass but was killed in action and his soldiers dispersed, which allowed the French to occupy Damascus on 25 July 1920. Though his army was defeated, al-Azma became a national hero in Syria for his insistence on confronting the French despite their clear military superiority and his ultimate death in the ensuing battle. Early life and family Al-Azma was born to a prominent mercantile and landowning Damascene family of Turkmen descent in 1883. Members of his family formed part of the Ottoman Syrian establishment; al-Azma's brother Aziz Bey served as a district governor while many of his relatives were Ottoman officers, including al-Azma's nephew Nabih Bey. Al-Azma was married to a Turkish woman, with whom he had a daughter named Laila. Laila was a young child when al-Azma died, married Cevad Asar, an Istanbul-based Turkish merchant with whom she had a son named Celal. Many members of the al-Azma family in Syria later became bankers, landowners and merchants in post-Mandatory Syria and one member, Bashir al-Azma, served as prime minister of Syria in 1962. Military career with the Ottomans Al-Azma graduated from the Istanbul-based Ottoman Military Academy in 1906 and was a member of the underground reformist Committee of Union