"The Empire and World War I"
Outside the Heartland, On the Eve of the War
The Palestinian question and the debate over sectarianism and secularism, the first introduced by the video "Wounded Spirits", the second by "Women, Islam and Democracy" set in Algeria, remind us that there were parts of the Ottoman empire we have not looked at in detail for some time. And while we have spoken of Greek and Bulgarian and other nationalist movements in the "European" part of the empire and how they implicated and involved the European powers (especially Britain, France and Russia), we have not spoken of other regions where similar 'nationalisms' and events also engaged European interests in one form or another. It is only when we do so that we can begin to make sense of the impact of World War I, and the problems ensuing thereof.
North Africa
Let us turn first to the setting for Women, Islam and Democracy, namely Algeria. Since the sixteenth century, the coastal region of the region which was to become Algeria had been under the sway of the Bey of Algiers. We discussed earlier the importance of the Mediterranean influence Turkish 'pirates' were able to establish and while that importance had certainly declined, Algiers (along with Tunis and Tripoli) remained critical Ottoman ports through which flowed African imports, most important of which were slaves.
In 1830, the French orchestrated a pretext which justified the conquest of Algiers. It was assumed that some 35,000 men could easily take the 15,000 or so who manned the Turkish garrisons. The assumption proved unfounded. The principal resistance came not from Ottoman garrisons but from the Muslim Arabs and Berbers living outside the city who fought to the death against being ruled by Christians. The French soon needed more than 100,000 troops to protect even fewer settlers. As resistance continued throughout the century, the French were drawn further and further into the interior -- and ultimately into the Sahara itself and the oases from which the caravan routes crossed the desert to West Africa.
Tunis and Tripoli were also Ottoman Beylicks (principalities). Both were also Mediterranean ports for the slave trade which fed the empire -- Turkey, Syria, the Balkans and Egypt.
One aspect of the Tanzimat reforms and Western pressures on Istanbul was the influence of anti-slavery movements most particularly from the British who were leading the European anti-slavery campaign. Britain abolished the trade in slaves in 1807 and slavery in all its dominions/colonies in 1833/4. As part of its international attempts to abolish both the trade and the institution, it put pressure on the Ottoman Porte to take action against them. The loss of the Crimean war in 1857 left the Empire vulnerable to such pressures.
Most of the initial attention was given to stopping the trade out of Africa. Britain operated slave patrols off the Tripoli and Tunisian coasts and established envoys in each port. This provided for de facto control over the Beylicks and for the extension of British influence across the desert.
The Case of Egypt and Muhammed Ali
[For those of you who did not participate in Tutorial 4b, you should read through the texts for fuller understanding of this section.]
[In the wake of successful janissary opposition to reform in Istanbul...] It was left to Muhammad Ali Pasha, who emerged as ruler in Egypt in the aftermath of the French invasion, to carry out the Middle East's first intensive program of modernization. An Ottoman soldier and former tobacco merchant born in Macedonia of Albanian or possibly Turkish extraction, he succeeded to the command of an Albanian regiment sent against the French. Muhammad Ali adeptly played off the rival mamluk factions against one another and the Ottoman governor.
In good Ottoman tradition, and in keeping with his own background, he began by trying to rebuild an army loyal to him. For this he extended his rule into the northern Sudan, from which he then drew the slaves with which he formed his army. Once in control of Khartoum, he used that as a base to expend towards the 'el dorado' of the interior. He had built special sailing ships to navigate up the Nile. In 1839, his troops reached Juba and established commercial relations in the region. (MAP)
[He] established his virtual independence in a personal empire centred in Egypt.
Before long, the British suspected that they had saved Egypt from france only to put it into the hands of Muhammad Ali, the French on the other hand, felt that perhaps Muhammad Ali could accomplish what they had failed to do and gave him every assistance. [He] was shrewd enough to see the supremacy of European arms, technical knowledge and education. He asked the French to teach his followers. Bringing French naval and military experts to Egypt, he created a new army and navy with the latest weapons.
Muhammad Ali opened schools on the French model, he also had French books translated into Arabic. He brought in agricultural experts and by 1815 had monopolized trade in cotton, hemp, indigo, and sesame. And he built ships and harbours.... He organized state monopolies for the export of cotton, tobacco and other products. The government bought all products at low prices and sold them at
great profit. In nearly forty years of his rule, the cultivated area of Egypt rose from 3,200,000 acres to 4,150,000; revenue rose from 1,203,500 pounds sterling to 4,200,000 P.S., and exports from 200,000 to 2,000,000 P.S. .
[with reference to relations to Istanbul and its sultan Mahmud II...] Mahmud II finally was able to carry out reforms that in part were in emulation of his vassal in Cairo...[reference to the creation of modern army units, the massacre of the janissary, the westernization of education...] Still the sultan was no match for his titular subordinate in Cairo, who came close to taking over the empire in the 1830s. Muhammad Ali allied himself with the Shibab amir in Lebanon, and his troops, commanded by Ibrahim Pasha [his son], invaded Syria with ease in 1831. Within two years they moved on through Anatolia to within 150 miles of Istanbul. Muhammad Ali's armies could almost surely have made him the strongman, or perhaps sultan, of the whole empire except for European intervention.
Thus Egypt and all the Fertile Crescent were drawn into the maze of European Power politics. The British were unhappy when the Egyptians in Syria threatened their access to India. The French, who had aided Muhammad Ali, were alarmed at the turn of events and, like the British, feared the consequences ... The sultan could not bear defeat at the hands of his vassal and prepared for war. Muhammad Ali was thus thwarted in his attempt to destroy Mahmud II, whom he held in contempt. But for eight years, Ibrahim ruled Syria with and broke down the economic isolation of the region.
After Muhammad Ali's death in 1849, commercial agriculture (especially of cotton) became increasingly important. His modernization of agriculture produced a new class of Egyptian landowners who in turn began to take a more and more important role in Egypt's ruling force: the military.
In the 1850s, Muhammed Ali's grandson built upon the close French relations and negotiated the right for a French engineer to build a canal which would link the Mediterranean to the Red Sea through the Suez, a link previously made by an overland railroad built by the British. Shares in the Suez company were divided between the Egyptian government and the French. The canal opened in 1869.
It marked an era of modernization, westernization and massive immigration of Europeans to Egypt. It marked as well for Muhammad Ali's grandson, Isma'il, a continuing of the colonial expansion to the south. He employed British commanders to take troops as far south as today's northern Uganda, thereby establishing a regime of political destabilization which had a fundamental impact on the process of carving up East in the 1880s and 1890s.
All of this moved Egypt into a debt situation not unlike that known to Istanbul itself. Ismail was forced to sell his shares in the Suez canal to the British and in 1878, the government was forced to take on British and French cabinet ministers in important portfolios.
As we saw elsewhere in the empire, this set the scene for opposition.
Many among the new Egyptian class of army officers also joined in what was being called a nationalist movement. It began to focus specifically on resistance to foreign control and debt management -- this at the time the Europeans took over management of the Ottoman treasury. In 1881, several of them acquired government positions, giving the British and French reason for concern. Violent riots began to break out. The British bombarded Alexandria and landed troops. The Egyptians, led by an army officer named 'Urabi who gave his name to the movement -- 'Urabists -- were defeated and British occupation began in 1882.
The regime was still nominally Ottoman and the Khedive was restored to power; but he was little more than a British puppet. The whole affair was treated as a temporary restorative situation -- one which lasted until the Nasser revolution in 1956!
The Sudan
Resistance and nationalism also was generated from another source. The sudan, recently 'colonized' by the Egyptian regime, gave birth to jihad launched by Muhammad Ahmad, claiming to be the Mahdi, the returned saviour to lead the faithful against the infidel Egyptian regime. [See the reading for Tutorial 5b, "Sectarianism versus secularism", specifically "The Mahdi: from letters and proclamations" in 'The Islamic World', on Reserve.] This fundamentalist movement drew support from all over north and into Egypt itself. Indeed, for some time it looked as if the Mahdists would not only seek their own independence but challenge Egypt itself with full support from the peasantry.It was not until a systematic campaign was launched over two years 1896-96 under the soon to be Lord Kitchener commanding Egyptian troops that the movement was suppressed and Muhammed Ali killed.
Egyptian Troops under General Kitchener, en route to Khartoum, where General Gordon was besieged in 1884 by the Mahdi Mohammad Ahmad and his Sudanese followers
Tribal warriors like these tormented the British lion in the Sudan. Kipling eulogized their courage when they were finally wiped out by machine guns: "So 'ere's to you, Fuzzy Wuzzy, at your 'ome in the Sowan; You're a pore benighted 'eathen but a first-class fightin' man.
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Muhammed Ali's occupation of Syria had been a turning point for the region
[From E.C. Bogle, The Modern Middle East, pp.
36,7]
With his withdrawl in 1840, effective central control was removed in Lebanon. A
conflict began in the Maronite community of Lebanon with the clergy-supported revellion of
Maronite peasants against their Maronite overlords. ...
Druze leaders, however, were able to capitalize upon the resentment of the new Christian freedoms and direct the frustration of Druze peasants toward the Maronites. Maronite leaders welcomed the diversion of attention from the social upheaval and the Maronite community soon became heavily armed with French assistance. Druze leaders quietly did the same with British and Ottoman assistance. A trivial incident... in 1859 turned what had been a conflict in the Maronite community into a sectarian blood bath between Maronites and Druze. ...
Ottoman officials and troops did not interfere on behalf of the Maronites and might, in fact, have overtly aided the Druze onslaught. The Ottoman governor arranged a peace in Beirut on July 6 1860, but three days later Muslims killed thousands of Chritians in Damascus and spread panic among the entire Christian population of Greater Syria. There was no doubt that Ahmad Pasha, the governor of Damascus, had played a major role in the Damascus massacre.
In 1861, the French landed troops in Beirut to put a stop to the war and the Sultan appointed a special governor to work with the French in the region.Lebanon, in fact, became a protectorate of the Great Powers and the Ottoman Empire. ... it was self-governing and paid neither taxes nor tribute to Istanbul. By contrast, ... [Istanbul] was obligated to provide additional funds if the newly independent entity was unable to generate enough for its needs. ... Lebanon's special status attracted educational and religious missionaries. These individuals were under the protection of the European states and served to make the differences between Lebanon and its neighboring areas more pronounced.
[Return to McCarthy]
Syria became a breeding ground for Arab ethnic nationalisms. Several groups emerged
from the late 1850s through the 1870s. Some opposed Ottoman rule more than formulated
nationalist goals; others were clearly Arab nationalist in aim.
Initially, these movements were fairly limited in appeal, but then Turkish nationalism began to take hold in Istanbul, marked by the victory of the CUP in 1908, Arab nationalism in the Fertile Crescent was given a major boast. Other nationalist organizations flourished in exile, such as al-Fatat (Youth) established in Paris in 1911; another was led by a popular Egyptian al-Ahd (the covenant). Both called for an Arab-Turkish monarchy on a model like the Austrian-Hungarian empire. In 1913, an Arab congress met in Paris to make certain of these demands on the Ottoman parliament. Although an Ottoman representative participated, the CUP did not implement the requests.
Distinct from these nationalist movements were the tribes of the Arabian peninsula, in particular the area of Mecca. Here there was much resentment of Istanbul's attempts to centralize and the Sharif of Mecca, Husayn, sought, successfully, the support of regional tribes in the Hijaz. Hasayn's son was a member of the new parliament. He sought out the support of Lord Kitchener in Cairo against the Ottoman regime and continued, in the year 1914, to seek British support for resistance. For the moment, it suited the British not to intervene directly in ottoman politics.
Nonetheless, it is fair to say that with all the nationalist and secessionalist movements among the Arabs of the Fertile crescent and peninsula in 1914, they remained in the minority and most were still loyal to the Ottoman Empire.
Go to next lecture (Secrecy and the Suez)
