Part 3. Twentieth Century Middle East to 1945

By the first decade of the twentieth century, almost every Muslim country was under Western dominance, either as formal colonies such as India or Indonesia, as informal colonies such as Egypt, or as weak states unable to operate without gaining Western support and approval such as Iran and the Ottoman Empire.  In fact, it would take a major world war to change this situation.  The coming of World War I would have profound consequences for the Middle East.

The Middle East in World War I 

Arab nationalism is the concept that the peoples of the Arab nations (those nations where the predominant spoken language is Arabic) ought to form one large national homeland.  This form of nationalism came about relatively late in comparison with Egyptian or Turkish nationalism.  The main reason for this is the fact that the majority of Arab lands were under Ottoman rule during the nineteenth century, and most Arabs believed that the Ottomans were legitimate Muslim rulers over their lands.

The conception of Arab nationalism appears to have first arisen in the region of Syria during the 1880s, among a small group of well educated young Syrians who began to push for Arab autonomy under Ottoman rule.  Their movement had a very limited following and was mostly conducted underground prior to World War I.  Very few of these “nationalists” envisioned complete independence from Ottoman rule, but rather they wanted to be recognized as a separate group with autonomy under the Ottoman state, much as the Lebanese Christians and Egyptian Muslims had already obtained some autonomy during the nineteenth century.  Their definition of what qualified as “Arab” lands seems to have included the areas encompassing the modern nations of Syria, Iraq, Israel/Palestine, Jordan and the Arabian peninsula.  Not all Arab nationalists had the same idea in mind. Christian Arabs, for instance, looked for a non-sectarian state in which the Arab identity would predominate.  This made sense for a religious minority that sought to break free from centuries of second class status under Muslim rule.  However, Muslim Arabs seemed to prefer more of a religious state or even a pan-Islamic identity, with the latter sentiment growing stronger as outside challenges to the Ottoman Empire increased in strength.

By 1914, events were beginning to move faster than the Arab nationalist movement could keep up with.  With the outbreak of World War I, the Ottoman Empire was forced to choose sides between the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary and the Allied Powers of Britain, France and Russia.  Given that the Russians had always been enemies, and that the Ottomans’ former British allies seemed to be abandoning them to their fate following Britain’s treaty with Russia in 1907, it should not have been a surprise that the Ottomans chose to align themselves with the Central Powers.  This decision was aided by the fact that Germany had been reaching out to the Ottomans over the course of the preceding twenty years and had even provided some financial assistance towards Ottoman development.  Thus the empire was soon set on a course that would ultimately lead to its dissolution.  Still, in 1915 that result was far from assured.  The Ottomans even won an important military conflict against the British in that year, turning back an Allied invasion at Gallipoli, a conflict that turned out to be one of the worst British defeats of the war.

As the British began to realize that the Ottomans represented a more formidable enemy than they had at first thought, they started to look into other ways to undermine the empire.  As the war raged on in Europe, the British negotiated three agreements in an attempt to secure their influence over the Middle East when the conflict finally concluded.  These agreements were focused on with the division of Ottoman territories between the Allied powers.  In the Husayn-McMahon correspondence, the British high commissioner of Egypt, Sir Henry McMahon, sought to negotiate Arab support in the war through a series of letters exchanged between himself and the Arab ruler of Mecca, Sharif Husayn ibn Ali.  Ultimately some Arabs, under the leadership of Sharif Husayn, launched a revolt against the Ottoman Empire in 1916.  This revolt was launched despite the fact that Sharif Husayn and High Commissioner McMahon had not reached a formal agreement as to what lands the Arabs would be granted for their own state after the war.

In the Sykes-Picot accord, another secret agreement, the British negotiated with their allies, the French and the Russians, over how they would divide up Ottoman territories following the end of the war.  This agreement would only become public knowledge in the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917, but its stipulations would continue to haunt the region for decades to come.  Finally, in 1917, the British made a pledge to a group of Zionists (European Jews who wanted to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine) that they would support the establishment of this homeland, as long as “it would not harm the civil or religious rights of Palestine’s ‘existing non-Jewish communities.’” (Arthur Goldschmidt Jr and Aomar Boum, A Concise History of the Middle East, Eleventh Edition, 193).  These various and conflicting promises would later come back to haunt the British during the long negotiations following the end of the war, beginning at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 and continuing at San Remo in 1920.

States that Escaped Direct European Rule

On October 30, 1918, the Ottoman Empire signed the Mudros armistice, in which it recognized the complete defeat and subjugation of the empire to the Allied forces.  Constantinople would be occupied, the Ottoman army demobilized, and the empire was to be partitioned among various European powers.  However, less than five years later, the Turks would negotiate the much more favorable treaty of Lausanne (July 24, 1923) which led to the establishment of the new Turkish republic.  In between these two dates, the remnants of the Ottoman army fought a war of independence under the leadership of General Mustafa Kemal, allowing them to retain the whole of the Anatolian peninsula, as well as a small section of southeastern Europe (the province of Thrace), for the new nation.

Seen as the savior of his country, Mustafa Kemal was swept into office as the first president of the Turkish republic, and he was given extraordinary powers to lay the foundations for the new state.  Over the next fifteen years, Kemal (better known as Ataturk) undertook a series of radical top-down reforms guided by several principles according to which he which he governed the country (the so-called “six arrows” of reformism, republicanism, secularism, nationalism, populism, and etatism).  Despite the authoritarian nature of his rule, Ataturk laid the foundations for democracy to arise within the country following his death.  Ironically, the successor state to the defeated Ottoman Empire, located in its Anatolian heartlands, has proven to be arguably the most successful Middle Eastern state since the collapse of the empire.

Another contemporary reformer has often been compared with Ataturk because of his emphasis upon Westernizing modernization, his military roots, and his authoritarian approach to rule.  Yet, Reza Shah, the new ruler of Iran, was different from the Turkish leader in several significant ways.  He has been chided for his failure to introduce democratizing reforms within the country, for his establishment of a family dynasty in Iran, and for the fact that he enriched himself as well as many of his cronies throughout his reign, something that Ataturk never did in Turkey. No doubt Reza Shah had greater obstacles to overcome in establishing his state, although this would not have appeared to be the case in 1921 when he stepped into power in the country that was then known to the outside world as Persia.  But there is no doubt that Shi’ite religious leadership (the ulama) in Iran were in a much more powerful position to resist Reza Shah’s secularizing approach than were the Sunni religious leaders in Turkey.  Furthermore, Iran’s important strategic value to both the Western nations and the new Soviet Union, in addition to its large oil reserves, meant that outside powers would meddle in Iran’s business much more actively than they would in Turkey, placing more limitations upon Reza Shah’s ability to radically transform his country.  Finally, the extensive Westernizing reforms undertaken by the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century had created a large class of Westernized elite that supported Ataturk’s aims in Turkey, whereas the much more limited reforms of Qajar Persia meant that Reza Shah did not have the same infrastructure in place or support for his reforms in Iran.

As a result, the Iranian dictator tried to forcibly implement modernizing changes within the country and he also resorted to a strategy of buying off supporters by rewarding them with positions within the administration or with large estates of land, creating a huge disparity between haves and have-nots in Iran.  Reza Shah maintained a particularly close relationship with the military, whose officers received numerous privileges.  In fact, Reza Shah himself became the largest landowner in the country, amassing a huge fortune for his family along with his large estates scattered throughout Iran.   When the British and Soviets forced him out of power in 1941, the people of Iran applauded his abdication.  In contrast, Ataturk remains a heroic figure in Turkey, immortalized in statues and portraits throughout the country until this day.

The third Middle Eastern country to escape direct European rule arose in the Arabian Peninsula, heartland of the Islamic faith.  When the Saudi troops swept the weak sharifian state out of power in the Hijaz in 1924, the British did nothing to help their former ally Husayn, who had launched the Arab revolt against the Ottomans at their instigation back in 1916.  Instead, they negotiated an agreement (the Treaty of Jiddah) with the Saudi leader, Abd al-Aziz ibn Sa`ud, in 1927 and they supported his establishment of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932.  Because the British viewed Arabia as a large and unimportant desert country (nobody knew about the oil below the sand at that time), Ibn Sa`ud had more freedom to develop his state than any other Middle Eastern ruler apart from Ataturk.

Ironically, however, the Saudi state would go in a very different direction from that of the Republic of Turkey.  Ibn Sa`ud’s alliance with the ultra-conservative Wahhabi sect meant that he gave over religious authority to the Wahhabis while maintaining political authority within his very large family (he is said to have had 22 wives and at least 37 sons).  In contrast, Ataturk made enemies of the Turkish ulama by his aggressive secularization program.  Whereas the Turkish leader substantially modernized his country, Ibn Sa`ud ruled his new nation like a Bedouin chief.  Were it not for the discovery of oil by Americans in 1938, Saudi Arabia would likely have remained a peripheral state in Middle Eastern politics, important only for its possession of the holiest sites in Islam.  The establishment of the Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO) not only transformed the country into one of the most important in the region, but it also established a close alliance between the United States and Saudi Arabia, which has remained in place to this day, despite various strains upon their relationship over the years.

Mandates and Other States Overseen by Great Britain and France 

However, the majority of the new states in the Middle East were not as fortunate as Turkey and Saudi Arabia in their ability to determine their own futures.  Instead, the former Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire came under direct rule from the European powers, through an odd program known as the Mandate System.   Because the Mandate states were said to be “inhabited by peoples not yet able to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of the modern world,” they were placed “under the tutelage of the ‘advanced nations,’ which would assist them ‘until such time as they are able to stand alone’” (Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East Sixth Edition, 162).

Despite this lofty rhetoric, however, most historians view the Mandate system as colonialism by another name.  The fact is that the Arab peoples placed under this system vehemently objected to this action, as can be seen not only in the passionate pleas made by their leaders to the Allies in 1919 and 1920 but also by the fact that widespread revolts broke out in most of the Mandate territories shortly after the system was announced.  In fact, the French had to bomb the city of Damascus into submission in 1925 before they could establish their administration over the Mandate of Syria.  Arab resentment over this system, along with the seemingly arbitrary boundaries drawn by the colonial powers for the countries of Iraq, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, has continued to this day.  There is a widespread and seemingly justified belief that the British reneged on the promise that they had made to Sharif Husayn in 1916, and that they betrayed their Arab allies by parceling Arab lands up into a number of small states even as Turkey (the enemy of the British in WWI) was allowed to establish its own unified state.

The British, however, saw themselves as simply pursuing their own national interests. The fact remains that the Arab regions were much more strategically valuable to Great Britain than was Turkey.  It is for this reason that the British were extremely slow in giving up their foothold in Egypt, even though that country was not formally part of the Mandate system.  After all, they viewed the Suez Canal as a critical lifeline connecting the Mediterranean with British interests in East Africa and India.  In addition, the British presence in Egypt had proven to be extremely valuable in fighting the First World War in the Middle East, and it would again be valuable during the Second World War.  After informally dominating the country for decades, Great Britain formally established a protectorate over Egypt upon the outbreak of war in 1914.  Even with the end of the war, the British showed no inclination to change Egypt’s status and even denied a petition by Egyptian leaders to take their case for independence to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919.  The resulting Egyptian revolution, however, convinced the British that some changes would need to be made.  After negotiations with Egyptian leaders failed in 1922, the British unilaterally declared Egypt to be independent in 1922, but with “four reserved points” that maintained British control over Egyptian foreign relations, the treatment of foreigners within Egypt, the Sudan and the Suez Canal.

Though treated like a colony, Egypt was not formally part of the Mandate system.  Instead, Great Britain received mandates for Iraq and Palestine in 1920.  The Palestine Mandate was troubled from the beginning and was made particularly complicated by the fact that the British had promised their support to the Zionists (a group of European Jews who sought a homeland for the Jews in Palestine) in the Balfour Declaration of 1917.  In 1921, the British split the Palestine Mandate in two, along the Jordan river.  The eastern portion was transformed into the Mandate of Transjordan, and leadership was given to the son of sharif Husayn, Abdallah.  The borders of this new country were so arbitrary that the story goes that Winston Churchill thought it up over lunch.  The main purpose of Transjordan was to maintain control over the Bedouins in order to keep them from stirring up trouble along the long border with the French mandate of Syria.  The Jordanian military was small but very efficient and was led by a British commander, Sir John Glubb.  The remainder of the Palestine Mandate is discussed later in Chapter Two, in the section entitled “Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.”

The other British mandate was located in the new nation of Iraq.  Like Jordan, Iraq was a completely new creation by the British.  Assembled from three former Ottoman provinces, Iraq faced internal divisions between religious sects (Sunnis and Shi`a) and ethnic groups (Arabs and Kurds).  In fact the Kurdish province of Mosul was only connected to Iraq in 1919 because Great Britain wanted to control the oil that had been discovered in Mosul; the province had originally been promised to France in the Sykes-Picot agreement.  The Kurds were unwillingly grafted onto Iraq, having been promised their own separate state in the 1920 Treaty of Sevres.  This promise was not delivered upon due to the success of the Turkish War of Independence.  To make matters even more difficult for Iraq, “the British officials who delineated the Iraqi frontiers disadvantaged the new state by restricting its access to the Persian Gulf.” (Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East Sixth Edition, 195)  The majority of the Iraqi coast, including the best harbor, was given to the new state of Kuwait, which the British created to serve their allies, the Al Sabah family, who were established as the rulers of this tiny country.  Leadership over Iraq was given to the British ally, Faysal, son of Sharif Husayn, who had no connections to the country prior to being installed as king in 1921.  Ironically, despite all these disadvantages, Iraq was the first mandate to be granted formal independence in 1932.  However, the death of Faysal in 1933 substantially weakened the monarchy and Iraq would experience many different governments, as well as substantial violence, during the interwar years.

The British approach towards running their mandates was to work indirectly through allies such as Faysal or Abdallah, who were expected to enforce policies within their countries that favored British interests.  The French took a more heavy-handed approach towards their mandates, however, maintaining direct rule in Syria through the outbreak of World War II.  Perhaps the frequent objections raised by Syrian leaders against French rule, along with the devastating rebellion that took place upon the onset of the mandate, convinced French authorities that they would need to maintain tight control over the country.  Whatever the reason, French administrators took a “divide and rule” approach towards running the Syrian mandate.  One of the first things that they did was to separate the western portion of the mandate to form a new country called Lebanon.  The Maronites and Druze within Mt. Lebanon had long functioned independently of the Sunni majority in the rest of Syria.  However, the French took traditional Syrian territory, including the fertile Biqa Valley, to add onto Lebanon, creating a “Greater Lebanon.”  This action not only expanded Lebanese territory but it also created a much more diverse population within Lebanon itself, adding large populations of Shi`ite and Sunni Muslims to the Christian/Druze mix that already existed within the country.  Because of their close alliance with the Maronite Christians, the French allotted a leadership role to the Christians of Lebanon, and granted greater freedom to its government during the interwar period.  In contrast, however, Syria was run like an armed camp, with very few Syrians granted access to real political authority during the period of French administration.  The only Syrian institution that was allowed some autonomy was the military, which tended to attract religious minorities into its military academy, since it offered them their one chance to rise into positions of influence.  As a result, the Syrian military was largely dominated by the Shi`ite `Alawi sect when Syria finally obtained independence in the 1940s.

Primary Source Documents

The documents linked below concern British negotiations during World War I.  The first is the text of the series of letters exchanged between the British High Commissioner of Egypt, Sir Henry McMahon, and Sharif Husayn ibn `Ali, steward of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.  The second document is the text of the secret Sykes-Picot Accords between Britain, France and Russia.  The third is the text of the Balfour Declaration, released by Great Britain in 1917.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-hussein-mcmahon-correspondence-july-1915-august-1916

https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/sykes.asp

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/text-of-the-balfour-declaration

The next set of documents relate to the Mandate system in the Middle East during the inter-war period.