Throwing Snowballs in France: Muslimsipahisof the Indian Army and Sheikh Ahmad's dream, 1915–1918

2014 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 1024-1067 ◽  
Author(s):  
GAJENDRA SINGH
Keyword(s):  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
First World War ◽  
Sexual Relationships ◽  
Single Chain ◽  
World War ◽  
British Raj ◽  
The First World War ◽  
War Effort ◽  
Martial Race ◽  
First World

AbstractThe arrival of Indiansipahis(or ‘sepoys’) to fight alongside soldiers of the British Expeditionary Force in France in October 1914 was both a victory and a source of concern for the British Raj. It proved to be the zenith of martial race fantasies that had been carefully codified from the 1890s, and birthed fears about the effects that Europe and the rapidly intensifying conflict on the Western Front would have upon the ‘best black troops in the world’. The situation resulted in the appointment of a special military censor to examine the letters sent to and from Indiansipahisand compile a fortnightly summary of Indian letters from France for the duration of the First World War. This paper investigates a portion of the letters contained in these reports. More particularly, it investigates the life of a single chain letter and the effect its chiliastic message had upon Muslim troops of the Indian Army during the First World War. As the letter was read, rewritten, and passed on, it served as a rejoinder to missionary efforts by theAhmadiyyaMovement, reinterpreted as a call for soldiers to purify their own bodies and oppose interracial sexual relationships, before, finally, being used as a critique of the British war effort against the Ottoman empire.

The role of nitrogen in transforming British agricultural productivity production prior to and during the First World War

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 583-609
Author(s):  
John Martin
Keyword(s):  
Agricultural Production ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Coal Gas ◽  
Major Threat ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Food Shortages ◽  
War Effort ◽  
First World

This paper explores the reasons why artificial or mineral sources of nitrogen, which were more readily available in Britain than in other European countries, were only slowly adopted by farmers in the decades prior to and during the First World War. It considers why nitrogen in the form of sulphate of ammonia, a by-product of coal-gas (town-gas) manufacture, was increasingly exported from Britain for use by German farmers. At the same time Britain was attempting to monopolise foreign supplies of Chilean nitrate, which was not only a valuable source of fertiliser for agriculture but also an essential ingredient of munitions production. The article also investigates the reasons why sulphate of ammonia was not more widely used to raise agricultural production during the First World War, at a time when food shortages posed a major threat to public morale and commitment to the war effort.

THE RUSSIAN CONSUL IN DAMASCUS PRINCE BORIS N. SHAKHOVSKOY’S ROLE IN INTERFAITH PEACE ON THE EVE OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR

2020 ◽  
pp. 162-178
Author(s):  
Aleksei V. Sarabiev ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Interfaith Relations ◽  
Balkan Wars ◽  
Sharia Law ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Common ◽  
Foreign Ministry ◽  
First World

Prince Boris N. Shakhovskoy (1870–1926), the Russian consul in Damascus from 1907 until the First World War, left to his descendants a legacy of attentive and balanced diplomacy. His reports to the Russian Embassy in Constantinople and to the 1st Division of the Foreign Ministry contain invaluable information shedding light on interfaith relations in the Syrian regions of the Ottoman Empire on the eve and after of the Young Turk Revolution, as well as on the early months of the so-called Great War (WWI). The article analyzes the messages of the diplomat on various aspects of the religious situation in the region. He considered the activities of the Islamist organization Muslim League in Damascus, which aimed at enforcing Sharia law throughout Syrian society and countering non-Muslim and European influence in the region. An anxious change in interfaith relations is being evaluated, when Muslim suspicion towards Christians grew, aggravated by the common conscription in the context of the Tripolitan and two Balkan wars. The consul attentively followed the problems of the participation of the Orthodox Arabs in the Ottoman institutions, as well as the attempts to join the English Old-Catholics to Orthodoxy, acting through Metropolitan of Beirut. Of historical interest is also the information about the transition of the Syrian Jacobites to Catholicism, as well as notes on the Catholic missions activities in the region. All these issues in the Syrian soil are viewed by the diplomat through the prism of competition between European powers, especially France and Italy.

THE BRITISH MANDATE AND THE UPRISING OF 1920 IN IRAQ

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (73) (1) ◽  
pp. 140-153
Author(s):  
S. S. Shchevelev
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Middle East ◽  
World War I ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Initial Period ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
British Mandate ◽  
The First World War ◽  
First World

The article examines the initial period of the mandate administration of Iraq by Great Britain, the anti-British uprising of 1920. The chronological framework covers the period from May 1916 to October 1921 and includes an analysis of events in the Middle East from May 1916, when the secret agreement on the division of the territories of the Ottoman Empire after the end of World War I (the Sykes-Picot agreement) was concluded before the proclamation of Faisal as king of Iraq and from the formation of the country՚s government. This period is a key one in the Iraqi-British relations at the turn of the 10-20s of the ХХ century. The author focuses on the Anglo-French negotiations during the First World War, on the eve and during the Paris Peace Conference on the division of the territory of the Ottoman Empire and the ownership of the territories in the Arab zone. During these negotiations, it was decided to transfer the mandates for Syria (with Lebanon) to the France, and Palestine and Mesopotamia (Iraq) to Great Britain. The British in Iraq immediately faced strong opposition from both Sunnis and Shiites, resulting in an anti-English uprising in 1920. The author describes the causes, course and consequences of this uprising.

African American Soldiers in World War I

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda M. Nagel
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African American ◽  
Military Service ◽  
The United States ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
The First World War ◽  
War Effort ◽  
African American Soldiers ◽  
First World

In the midst of the long black freedom struggle, African American military participation in the First World War remains central to civil rights activism and challenges to systems of oppression in the United States. As part of a long and storied tradition of military service for a nation that marginalized and attempted to subjugate a significant portion of US citizens, African American soldiers faced challenges, racism, and segregation during the First World War simultaneously on the home front and the battlefields of France. The generations born since the end of the Civil War continually became more and more militant when resisting Jim Crow and insisting on full, not partial, citizenship in the United States, evidenced by the events in Houston in 1917. Support of the war effort within black communities in the United States was not universal, however, and some opposed participation in a war effort to “make the world safe for democracy” when that same democracy was denied to people of color. Activism by organizations like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) challenged the War Department’s official and unofficial policy, creating avenues for a larger number of black officers in the US Army through the officers’ training camp created in Des Moines, Iowa. For African American soldiers sent to France with the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF), the potential for combat experience led to both failures and successes, leading to race pride as in the case of the 93rd Division’s successes, and skewed evidence for the War Department to reject increasing the number of black officers and enlisted in the case of the 92nd Division. All-black Regular Army regiments, meanwhile, either remained in the United States or were sent to the Philippines rather than the battlefields of Europe. However, soldiers’ return home was mixed, as they were both celebrated and rejected for their service, reflected in both parades welcoming them home and racial violence in the form of lynchings between December 1918 and January 1920. As a result, the interwar years and the start of World War II roughly two decades later renewed the desire to utilize military service as a way to influence US legal, social, cultural, and economic structures that limited African American citizenship.

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Vanda Wilcox
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
The World ◽  
War Effort ◽  
Global War ◽  
First World

Italy’s First World War is usually remembered and studied as a national conflict from 1915 to 1918. Instead, this book proposes an imperial framework to examine Italian aims, policies, and actions from 1911 to 1923. In particular, it traces four key strands through this period: Italy’s imperial and colonial aims in its wars against the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary; combat operations within its colonies; the global war effort including Italian emigrants around the world; and the Italian racial and colonial mentalities which underpinned these war efforts. After summarizing the key historiographical debates, particularly over liberal and fascist foreign policy and imperialism, this chapter outlines the structure and organization of the book.

scholarly journals The Finest Feats of the War? The Captures of Baghdad and Jerusalem during the First World War and Public Opinion throughout the British Empire

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin Fantauzzo
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Press ◽  
War Effort ◽  
Post War ◽  
First World

In March and December 1917 the British Empire won two much-needed victories in Mesopotamia and Palestine: Baghdad and Jerusalem. Both cities were steeped in biblical and oriental lore and both victories happened in a year that had been otherwise disastrous. Throughout the British Empire the press, public, and politicians debated the importance of the two successes, focusing on the effect they would have on the empire’s prestige, the Allies’ war strategy, and the post-war Middle East. Far from being overwhelmed by the ‘romance’ of the fighting in the Middle East, the press’s and public’s response reveals a remarkably well-informed, sophisticated, and occasionally combative debate about the empire’s Middle Eastern war effort.

Australian and New Zealand women teachers in the First World War

2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-45
Author(s):  
Kay Morris Matthews ◽  
Kay Whitehead
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
First World War ◽  
Women Teachers ◽  
Secondary Source ◽  
World War ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The First World War ◽  
War Effort ◽  
First World ◽  
At Home

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to highlight the contributions of women teachers to the war effort at home in Australia and New Zealand and in Egypt and Europe between 1914 and 1918. Design/methodology/approach Framed as a feminist transnational history, this research paper drew upon extensive primary and secondary source material in order to identify the women teachers. It provides comparative analyses using a thematic approach providing examples of women teachers war work at home and abroad. Findings Insights are offered into the opportunities provided by the First World War for channelling the abilities and leadership skills of women teachers at home and abroad. Canvassed also are the tensions for German heritage teachers; ideological differences concerning patriotism and pacifism and issues arising from government attitudes on both sides of the Tasman towards women’s war service. Originality/value This is likely the only research offering combined Australian–New Zealand analyses of women teacher’s war service, either in support at home in Australia and New Zealand or working as volunteers abroad. To date, the efforts of Australian and New Zealand women teachers have largely gone unrecognised.

The East’s Eastern Front: The Ottoman–Russian Clash in the Great War and Its Legacies

2019 ◽  
pp. 096834451982733
Author(s):  
Michael A. Reynolds
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Russian Empire ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Eastern Front ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Russian Empire ◽  
The Great War ◽  
First World

This article provides an overview of the neglected Caucasian front of the First World War and explores its impact on the overall course of the war and its legacy for the Middle East and Eurasia. By unexpectedly prolonging hostilities and leading the Russian empire to overextend itself, the conflict with the Ottoman empire contributed critically to Russia’s revolutionary crisis and collapse and thereby altered decisively the fate of the Middle East and Eurasia. The article places the Ottoman–Russian conflict in the context of the relentless growth of Western European military and economic might from the eighteenth century onward.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document