scholarly journals 2. The Emergence of the Middle East into the Modern State System

Author(s):  
Eugene L. Rogan

This chapter traces the origins and the entry of Middle East states into the international system after the First World War. The modern states of the Arab Middle East emerged from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the post-First World War settlement. The fall of the Ottoman Empire left the Turks and Arabs ready for statehood, although unprepared for dealing with the international system. Indeed, the Palestine crisis brought to light Arab weaknesses in the international arena and in regional affairs that were a legacy of the way in which the colonial powers shaped the emergence of the modern Middle East. Ultimately, the emergence of the state system in the Middle East is a history both of the creation of stable states and of destabilizing conflicts.

Author(s):  
Eugene L. Rogan

This chapter examines the origins and the entry of Middle East states into the international system after the First World War. Drawing on the ideas of the English School of international relations, it traces the emergence of the Middle East that saw states entering and participating in the international society. After providing a historical overview of the Arab entry to international relations, the chapter considers diplomacy under the Ottoman Empire as well as the Ottoman legacy of statehood. It then discusses plans for the partition of the Middle East during the First World War, along with the post-war settlement. It also describes the colonial framework of the Middle East that emerged from the post-war negotiations and concludes with an assessment of the Arab states’ efforts to address the Palestine crisis in 1947 and 1948.


Author(s):  
S. S. Shchevelev

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.


2019 ◽  
pp. 111-139
Author(s):  
Charlie Laderman

This chapter examines Woodrow Wilson’s pragmatic decision not to declare war on the Ottoman Empire after American entry into the First World War. It explains why this policy choice offers important insights into Wilson’s attitude toward the Allied powers, particularly the British Empire. It evaluates Wilson’s broader attitude to Britain and his attitude toward an Anglo-American alliance. The chapter emphasizes the clash between Wilson and Roosevelt over whether the United States should declare war on the Ottoman Empire, and what this reveals about their humanitarian visions and broader conceptions of international order. In doing so, it traces the emergence of Wilson’s own solution to the Armenian question as part of a reformed, American-led international system.


2019 ◽  
pp. 096834451982733
Author(s):  
Michael A. Reynolds

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.


2020 ◽  
pp. 121-141
Author(s):  
Nurfadzilah Yahaya

This chapter elaborates the gradual dissolution of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War contributed to the nationalization of the Arab diaspora in the British and Dutch colonial imagination. It highlights a phenomenon which linked the diaspora to an Arab nation instead of the colonies in Southeast Asia where they had established themselves. As much as the surveillance was focused on Southeast Asia, the chapter reveals that the British interests in the Middle East, in the wake of the demise of the major imperial power in the region (the Ottomans), dictated the direction of surveillance policies. It outlines how the First World War formed a watershed moment in the history of British–Arab relations in Southeast Asia. The chapter also looks at how the strained wartime resources caused colonial officials to feel more vulnerable and isolated, leading them to cement their alliance with the Arab community. Ultimately, the chapter examines the constant attempts of the members of the Arab diaspora who continually tried to prove their utility and legitimacy to colonial authorities, culminating in 1915, in the wake of the Sepoy Mutiny in Singapore, in an alliance with the British of Muslims loyal to the king of England.


Author(s):  
Robert J. C. Young

‘History and power, from below and above’ addresses the continuing interference by former colonial powers in the internal affairs of independent decolonized states. Indeed, countries that achieved sovereignty in their independence struggles still find that they are the object of interventions by the Western countries that had once ruled them. Has the Middle East ever really been free of Western interference since Napoleon invaded Egypt in 1798 or the remnants of the Ottoman Empire were divided up between Britain and France at the end of the First World War? An interesting example can be seen in the intermittent bombing of Baghdad and Iraq by Western powers since 1920.


2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-119
Author(s):  
Redžep Škrijelj ◽  

Based on unpublished sources from Serbian, Turkish, Austrian and other archives, we illuminate the phenomenon of Muslim volunteers (volunteers). In this study, on the basis of archival material and the telling of contemporaries, we are talking about Bosniak warriors who were taken away to write history, but most of them did not know the geography. Namely, after the occupation of the Sandžak region (November 21, 1915), in the autumn of 1916 - the spring of 1917, the Austro-Hungarian Army, with the help of local ages and begs, carried out a fierce propaganda campaign, after which in the struggle against the Russians, front in Ukraine, took more than 10 thousand volunteers aged between 18 and 50 years. The occupying Austro-Hungarian authorities used the Ottoman Empire to enter the First World War on the side of the Central Powers for propaganda against the forces of Antanta, accusing them of the First World War for the destruction of Muslims, opposing the Bosniak population the illusion of the renewal of the Ottoman authorities in Sandzak. The second phase of mobilization (1917) denies the claim of "volunteers" because most of them are violently intervened. In the nation, these warriors were still known as "dwarfs". Most of them disappeared or transferred to the Middle East fronts. Every tenth captured or survived returned to homeland, which explains the vast post-war depopulation of the male population.


2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 41
Author(s):  
Patricia Ellis

Glanders, although known to be endemic in certain regions/countries of the Old and New Worlds for centuries, had been largely overlooked as a threat to equine and human health until the disease re-emerged in the Middle East in 2004. The exponential growth in international horse movements, both legal and illegal, mainly for performance purposes, has enhanced the risk of global spread of glanders in the Middle East and elsewhere. Ever since the First World War, the glanders bacillus has been recognised as a potential biological warfare agent.


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