Salaam
Thanks, the brother for your contribution. There's a thread I'm trying to find that questions the whole 'Ottoman decline' thesis, I'll share it if I find it.
I think you too harsh on Abdülhamit 2nd I think he is one of the greats but for different reason compared to earlier Sultans. He was in an impossible situation, surrounded by predatory powers (Russians were eyeing up Constantinople, Autro-Hungarians, British etc) so he did his best with the hand he was dealt. His situation reminds of the German commander Walther Model, given orders that were on paper impossible to achieve, but somehow managing to pull a rabbit out of a hat in the most trying of circumstances. He definitley played a role in delaying the collapse of the Empire.
This doesn't detract from his failings, I agree why did he let the bankers in (was he pressured or bad decision making on his part?), creation of a police state and lets not forget the treatment of the Armenians (Im not familiar so I need to look into it more).
I agree with you though the betrayal by (certain) Arabs during WW1 was profoundly bad move, whatever the differences they could of been settled after the war (wishful thinking on my part?) and we could be living in a very different world.
In the end, we all paid a price.
Blurb
In 1916, in the middle of the First World War, two men secretly agreed to divide the Middle East between them. Sir Mark Sykes was a visionary politician; François Georges-Picot a diplomat with a grudge. The deal they struck, which was designed to relieve tensions that threatened to engulf the Entente Cordiale, drew a line in the sand from the Mediterranean to the Persian frontier. Territory north of that stark line would go to France; land south of it, to Britain. Against the odds their pact survived the war to form the basis for the post-war division of the region into five new countries Britain and France would rule. The creation of Britain's 'mandates' of Palestine, Transjordan and Iraq, and France's in Lebanon and Syria, made the two powers uneasy neighbours for the following thirty years.
Through a stellar cast of politicians, diplomats, spies and soldiers, including T. E. Lawrence, Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle, A Line in the Sand vividly tells the story of the short but crucial era when Britain and France ruled the Middle East. It explains exactly how the old antagonism between these two powers inflamed the more familiar modern rivalry between the Arabs and the Jews, and ultimately led to war between the British and the French in 1941 and between the Arabs and the Jews in 1948.
In 1946, after many years of intrigue and espionage, Britain finally succeeded in ousting France from Lebanon and Syria, and hoped that, having done so, it would be able to cling on to Palestine. Using newly declassified papers from the British and French archives, James Barr brings this overlooked clandestine struggle back to life, and reveals, for the first time, the stunning way in which the French finally got their revenge.
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And of course lets not forget.
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Thanks for another interesting video. It's true that in the West (in the US, at least), the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the impact of WW1 on the Arab World are treated as afterthoughts compared to the European theater. Arab history in general is barely glazed over in our formal education.
Given that the US has been heavily involved militarily in the Middle East for decades, I think it is important for Americans to better educate themselves about the history of this region. Wars don't burst out of a vacuum. The cultural and historical context is crucial.
So many people on both sides try to portray the conflicts as religious (Christians vs. Muslims, eg.), but there is a lot more to it than that. Christians and Muslims mostly live peacefully side-by-side here in the US, just as they have in the Middle East for centuries. So what is the problem? Better yet, what are the right questions? Because I think we have been working with false presuppositions, creating puzzles for which there is no solution.
Just some random thoughts. Thanks for reading.
Abdulhamid was not properly in power when the Ottomans lost the Russia war in 1878. Ottomans were at a free fall after Mahmud II's rule who wanted to make the state more of a European nation state and took loans from England and France to fund his Crimean war. Let me put this into perspective. Mahmud's army lost twice to Egyptian army, the same Egyptian army that lost to Ethiopia. This was the state of the Ottoman army.Selam. I dont want to disrespect Abdülhamit as he was an Ottoman sultan who cared his country like the others. I just think that he was not succesful as he is portrayed. He did not delay the fall since no one was trying to destroy the state completely at his time. He lost most of the Balkan region, caucasus, and egypte. He was the most land loser sultan of all times. Ofcourse it wasnt all of his fault as he inherited all the problems from his uncle but he could do nothing to correct anything. Also although financially and technologically falling, the Ottoman state still had a strong govermental and militaristic structure. So without such a big war as WW1 it was not possible for the empire to terminate completely, and this war did not happen during his reign. The Armenian events is a differnt issue and needs its own thread.
Unfortunately I have never had the chance to read the books you share yet. I would like to read this one though.
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Ottoman empire was a “magical” state. They controlled the entire Middle east with peace and order for hundreds of years. Look at what America brought there in only fifteen years..
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