The Post-WWI Partition of the Ottoman Empire: How Great Britain and France Carved Out the Modern State Order in the Fertile Crescent
Open Access
- Author:
- Anavkar, Ishaan
- Area of Honors:
- History
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Arts
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Lior Betzalel Sternfeld, Thesis Supervisor
Cathleen Denise Cahill, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- Partition
Ottoman Empire
First World War
Great Britain
France
State Creation
Fertile Crescent
Syria
Lebanon
Iraq - Abstract:
- By the end of the First World War, in 1918, the Ottoman Empire had begun to come undone. Being on the losing side of the war had drained it of its resources, wealth, and able-bodied people. Seeing the decline of the Ottoman Empire as imminent, the European powers jumped in on the prospect of furthering their imperial ambitions. The British were interested in securing the Middle East so they could reinforce their land route to their jewel colony of British India. The French wanted to curb British influence in the area as well as become the predominant force in the Mediterranean. Russia, being a key player in the handling of former Ottoman territories within Europe, also served to benefit from a territory-sharing agreement. The Ottoman administration had its hands tied and did not have the standing to reject any proposals at Europe’s behest. Gradually, the European powers began to expand their influence over the Middle East, benefitting from and accelerating the waning of the Ottoman Empire. The empire came to an end with the termination of the title of Sultan in 1922, after about six centuries of ‘glorious’ reign. Once the Ottoman administration was secured to play at the whims of the colonizing powers, it came down to negotiations between the powers based on their approaches to dominate the Fertile Crescent. Multiple initial proposals were drawn up at the conferences, the most notable one being the Treaty of Sevres, proposed at the San Remo Conference in 1920. Constantinople was to be administered as an international mandate under multiple nations. There was the question of what to do with the ethnic Armenians and Kurds, both of which were sizable minorities fighting for statehood. For a while, it was even considered that a part of the region would be a mandate under the United States, but the Americans pulled out of the deal after facing severe opposition from isolationists in Congress. Much before this, in 1916, the British and the French had already signed a treaty in secret, dividing up the Fertile Crescent between themselves in the case that the Central Powers were actually defeated in the First World War. This infamous agreement, called the Sykes-Picot Agreement, continues to propagate a legacy of colonialism even today. This agreement assumed there would be an independent Greater Armenian state, encompassing much more territory in eastern Anatolia that is in Turkey today. The French were to receive what is today Syria and Lebanon, though the proposed French Syria contained much greater territory. The British were awarded the three Mesopotamian provinces, as well as Palestine and Transjordan. Though the Sykes-Picot Agreement was signed in secret, the resulting division of the Ottoman Empire happened under the supervision of the League of Nations. Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations established the mandate system, which was a legal instrument through which countries such as the United Kingdom and France would gain territory under the pretext of ‘guarding’ them until they were fit to rule themselves. These former German and Ottoman territories faced several issues, but there certainly was not a dearth of leadership that wanted to promote self-determination and independence. The mandate system was essentially just colonialism under a new name, this time legitimised by the world order. To the ordinary people on the ground, it was just a shift from being controlled by one nation to another. I argue that the mandate system was promoted as a benevolent, righteous path to self-governance of territories, but in practice, it was simply the acquisition of more colonies for the West, this time approved by the rest of their rivals. Great Britain and France had rather polar approaches to governing their colonies. The French preferred assimilation, pushing aggressive French transformation throughout its colonies with the aim of Francisation of the people until they were ‘cultured’ enough to be considered second-class Frenchpeople. The British, on the other hand, had a more hands-off approach, indirectly ruling through existing leaders and institutions. The result was a distinct outcome for colonies of both the nations. I argue that the people of the Fertile Crescent had for centuries been Ottoman subjects, not Syrians or Iraqis or Lebanese, but with the gradual passing of time, the variation in colonial policies on either side of the Sykes-Picot Line would express itself as distinct national identities. What this meant for the Arabs in the Fertile Crescent was a partitioning of a shared tradition and culture, separation from families, and having to side with two aggressors that they had not even asked for. Today, looking at a map of the region with religious, linguistic, and ethnic groups, we can see that the borders were certainly not conducive to the healthy functioning of these societies. Iraq got the short end of the stick, having Sunni Muslims, Shia Muslims, and a sizable Jewish population being clumped into the same nation; what made things worse was that a section of these Muslims were ethnic Kurds, fighting for their own homeland. I argue that the differences in the way the British and the French administered their Middle Eastern mandates led to the series of events that created the distinct national identities we see today.