WWI: Middle East

Nationalistic Hopes and Broken Promises 1914-1923

• Ottoman Empire

  • Ottoman Turks (minority) held together a multi-ethnic (majority) empire

  • Multi-ethnic Empire

    • Young Turks (minority)

    • Arabs

    • Armenians

    • Greeks

    • Kurds

    • Many, many more

  • Multi-religious Empire

    • Sunni Muslims (majority)

    • Shia Muslims

    • Jews

    • Orthodox Christians

    • Catholic Christians

• Major Groups that held interest in Middle East as it relates to WWI

  • Young Turks

    • Desired restoration of Ottoman Empire & Turkish Nationalism

      • Regain loss territory (Greece and Serbia)

      • More modernizing reforms & Turkish nationalism

  • Arabs: Pans-Arab Nationalism

    • Desired independence from Ottoman Turks *resent Young Turks

      • Pan-Arabism grows

        • “pan”: unite all people of that culture to form their own nation state

      • The Hussein-McMahon Letters

        • Britain promised Arabs territory of “Holy Places”

      • Britain assisted an Arab Revolt to undermine the Ottoman Empire 1916-1918

        • T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia)

  • Jews in Europe

    • Jewish Nationalism: Zionism

      • Before 1st C CE, Palestine = homeland of the Jews

        • First people to believe in one God

        • Descendant of Abraham

          • Devine right to Israel/Palestine

      • Jewish diaspora > Jews without homeland

        • antisemitism: hatred/persecution of Jews

          • always present since existed

        • diaspora: scattering out of people from their homeland

        • Subjects of other nations for about 2,000 years

      • Zionist Movement established 1897

        • formed by Jews in Europe but for Jews world wide

        • Goal: creation of a Jewish nation-state (reestablishing Israel)

          • Jews rule fellow Jews

          • Free of antisemitism

        • Balfour Declaration 1917

          • Britain promised Palestine a national home for Jews

          • Why did the British support the Zionist goal of a homeland in Palestine during WWI: Knowing that Jews are a diasporic group, support from them would mean world-wide support from neutral countries

          • How did the Balfour Declaration conflict with earlier promises made during WWI: Palestine was promised by Britain to Arabs and Jews

  • Britain & France

    • Desire collapse of Ottoman Empire: expand their own Empire

    • Sykes-Picot Agreement 1915-1916

      • Dividing up territories of the former Ottoman Empire into British and France “colonies”

        • Random lines drawn up without regard to culture and ethnic groups

      • Similar to Berlin Conference

      • Does this conflict with promises made in McMahon-Hussein Letters and Balfour Declaration?: This conflicts with Britain’s previous promises because they are diving promised territory for themselves to have control of it.

• Paris Peace Conference > Promises Broken

  • Promised Arab and Jewish territory > 5 mandates

    • Access to Petroleum

    • British Mandates

      • Iraq

      • Transjordan

      • Palestine

        • Zionist Jews & Arab believed they had control of Palestine from promises

        • 3 way conflict

          • Arabs vs British

          • Zionist vs British

          • Arabs vs Zionist

    • French Mandates

      • Syria

      • Lebanon

  • Pans-Arab and Zionist movements grow

• The Republic of Turkey

  • Mustafa Kemal “Ataturk” 1881-1938

    • former Young Turk

    • father of the modern secular Republic of Turkey

  • Ataturk’s goals:

    • Boost nationalism “Turkification”

      • forced removal of Greeks and Armenians

        • Armenian Genocide

      • removed Allied occupiers (War of Independence)

    • Strengthened republic

      • national assembly/democracy (parliament)

    • Secularized government

      • Government and religion (muslim) don’t intertwine in influence and control

      • 1924: abolished the caliphate