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From War to War

          

As mentioned in the previous lecture, the Ottomans had been engaged in almost constant warfare during the 19th century, including wars against Iran and Russia, and a series of internal rebellions as nationalism became more prevalent. Iran, which had successfully battled the Ottomans on more than one occasion, found themselves increasingly pressured by the Russians and the British in the Great Game, but unlike the Ottomans, did not have to worry about internal pressures and dissent. By 1911, when the Italians attacked the Ottoman holdings in North Africa, major changes had taken place in the world order. The Russians had been humiliated by the Japanese in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5, leading the Russian tsar, Nicholas II (who always used the Russian term tsar, rather than emperor as had been the case with his predecessors), to promulgate a constitution and to create a duma, or parliament. Japan had promulgated their first constitution under the leadership of the Meiji emperor, and Britain had substantially modified their voting requirements to allow more people to participate in electoral contests. Closer to the Ottomans, the Persians had rebelled in 1905, and by 1906 had created a constitutional assembly which drew up a constitution that was eventually signed by the shah. The Ottoman rebellion, which began in 1908 under the name of the Young Turks, created a democratic style government, but it was a very fragile institution and was overthrown in a military coup in 1913. The following year, after a disastrous Balkan War in 1912 that saw the Ottomans lose most of their remaining European territory (and an equally disastrous Second Balkan War, during which the Ottomans regained a small portion of the territory), World War I began, dragging the Ottomans, along with the rest of the world’s powers, into the fray. Initially the Turks did well, winning several battles against the Russians and recapturing some previously held territory, and in early 1915, they attacked the British at the Suez Canal. However, the successes of the Turks did not last; by spring of 1915, they were facing more and more fronts, and while there were a few additional successes (most significantly the defeat of the British and the Australians at Gallipoli, the last victory of the Ottoman Empire), by 1916 the Ottomans were consistently losing. While the Russian Revolutions in 1917, and the withdrawal of Russia from the war the following March, eased the burden on the eastern front, the Ottomans were clearly outmatched and were dealing with not only the exterior forces of the Triple Entente, but also with internal dissent which was becoming more and more powerful. The Armenians in Anatolia, and the Arabs in Arabia both rebelled against the Ottomans during the war; the Armenian revolt was brutally suppressed, while the Arab revolt, which had the support of the British, eventually led to the creation of the state that would become known as Saudi Arabia. In October 1918, two weeks before the end of the European war, the Ottomans signed an armistice with the British, ending their involvement in the war. European war, the Ottomans signed an armistice with the British, ending their involvement in the war.

          

The Successor States

The successor states to the Ottomans were widely varied. Saudi Arabia, as it was named in 1932, was one of the most powerful of the states, with its leader, ‘Abd-al’Aziz ibn Saud, seizing much of the Arabian peninsula, including Mecca and Medina, by 1925, and being proclaimed king of the region by 1926. At the end of WWI, Turkey and Iran were both in a precarious position, with the possibility of losing their independence a very real one. (Iran's emergence will be discussed in the next lecture).
          

The Republic of Turkey

. In 1919, a Turkish military officer named Mustafa Kemal (later named Ataturk, or “Father of the Turks”) led a resistance movement in Anatolia, gaining much support and becoming the first president of the Republic of Turkey in 1923. Ataturk recognized, as the Ottomans had not, that the need for modernization was crucial in Turkey; he also realized that the Western European states would serve as excellent role models. As such, he implemented a series of significant changes within Turkey. These changes included the following:
• Legal transformation, which included separating religion and the state, and creating a series of new law codes and, perhaps most importantly, a new Civil Code introduced in 1926 that complete revamped the Turkish law;
• Social reforms, which saw the end of the wearing of the fez and the veil (for men and women, respectively), the introduction of the western calendar, and use of surnames;
• Economic growth, which included the introduction of significant technologies; within a decade, the GNP of Turkey had increased five times;
• The introduction of language reform, during which the Turkish language’s Arabic script was replaced with the Latin alphabet (29 letters total, with 21 consonants and 8 vowels); literacy rates skyrocketed as a result (from 8% in 1923 to 33% by the time of Ataturk’s death in 1938);
• Increased women’s rights, including the elimination of polygamy, the allowing of women to divorce and seek custody of their children, the right of women to inherit, and the election of women to the parliament
• Education reforms, which made primary education not only compulsory but free and coeducational; in addition, education was free, all the way through graduate school. Education was also introduced to the military.

These changes helped Turkey become the first secular state in the Middle East, and its advancements were viewed with great interest by the rest of the states in the region. However, many of those who had initially supported the Turkish moves became disgruntled with Ataturk’s refusal to allow for religion within the state, and as a result he lost some support.

          

The Holy Land

In addition to Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, there was the issue of the Holy Land, which had previously been part of the Ottoman Empire. The British and the French, as part of the Versailles Treaty, were granted control over these areas. This control, known as a mandate, did not apply to only the Middle East, but it was the area of the most significance. The Mandates, established in article 22 of the League of Nations covenant, were divided into three groups, depending on the economic and political development in each region. The Middle Eastern mandates fell into Class A, and included Iraq and Palestine (under the control of the British) and Lebanon and Syria (under the control of the French). The most controversial of these was to be Palestine, which was being viewed by many as the potential home for a Jewish state. The British Foreign Secretary, Arthur, Lord Balfour, had declared in 1917 that the British would assist in the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine. At the time of his declaration, the population of Palestine was 92% Arab. With Balfour’s declaration, and the subsequent mandate awarded to the British, Jewish immigration into the region escalated, as did problems between the established populations of the region and the newly arrived immigrant populations. British rule in Palestine was, by most accounts, responsible; the government established administrative institutions, public works, transportation, and electrical power; however, the escalating tensions between the Arabs and Jews in the region would prove too much for the British to be able to handle, and by 1936 the region was in rebellion, which would continue until World War II. Following World War II, the United Nations would, with the support of the United States, establish the state of Israel, setting off a confrontation which continues to this day (which will be discussed in the next lecture).
          

To World War II

The fragmentation of the Ottoman Empire, and the subsequent Mandate system, increased the already substantial rivalries among the western powers. During the early years following the war, the British and the French had the region pretty much to themselves; their only potential To World War II The fragmentation of the Ottoman Empire, and the subsequent Mandate system, increased the already substantial rivalries among the western powers. During the early years following the war, the British and the French had the region pretty much to themselves; their only potential rivals, Germany and Russia, were busy contending with internal issues and did not, as such, have the time or interest in dividing up the Ottoman lands. In the 1930s and early 1940s, the two major European fascist powers (Italy and then Germany) became involved in the former areas of the Ottoman Empire and much of the rest of the Middle East, largely in an attempt to take advantage of the petroleum being produced in these regions, but by the end of World War II both countries were out of the running for control of the region. By that time, both Britain and France had been substantially impacted by the war and neither was in the position to play a dominant role. Instead, following the end of World War II, the world stage had shifted, and the United States and the Soviet Union would emerge as the new superpowers contending over the area.