Marozzi, Justin. Tamerlane: Sword of Islam, Conqueror of the World. Boston: Da Capo Press, 2006.
Shaw, Stanford J. History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey. 2 vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1976.
Somel, Selçuk Akșin. Historical Dictionary of the Ottoman Empire. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2003.
Sykes, Sir Percy. History of Persia. 2 vols. London: Macmillan, 1951.
Arab Revolt (1916–1918)
A revolt led by Hussein ibn Ali, the Sharif of Mecca, and his sons, Faisal and Abdullah, against the Ottoman Empire during World War I. The revolt began in June 1916 and ended in October 1918 with the fall of Damascus, Syria.
The Ottoman Empire declared war on Russia on October 29, 1914. Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire on November 1, 1914, followed by Britain and France on November 5, 1914. The Allied expectation that the Ottoman Empire would be destroyed quickly at the onset of World War I proved to be wishful thinking. In late 1914 the British launched an offensive in southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), which was met with fierce resistance. The invasion of Mesopotamia by British forces and the siege of Kut in eastern Iraq proved to be a disastrous defeat for them. The British decision to destroy the Ottoman armies and capture the empire’s capital, Istanbul, in one military blow called for a massive landing of Allied troops at the foothills of Gallipoli on the European shores of the Dardanelles in February 1915. After establishing a bridgehead, the Allied troops planned to climb the hills and destroy the Ottoman force, which defended the heights. To the dismay of the British and the French, the Ottomans, supported by German officers, fought back heroically, inflicting a crushing defeat on the enemy, who retreated with heavy casualties in January 1916.
With their military efforts coming to an unexpected halt, the British resorted to the more devious strategy of fomenting internal revolts among the sultan’s Arab subjects. Two Arab leaders stood out. The first, Abdulaziz ibn Saud, was the master of Najd in Central Arabia. As the protector of the Wahhabi movement, Ibn Saud could rally the tribes of central and eastern Arabia against the Ottoman state. However, the British cast their lot with another Arab leader, Hussein ibn Ali, who was the Sharif of Mecca. Claiming direct lineage from the prophet Muhammad, Sharif Hussein and his sons, Faisal and Abdullah, dreamed of carving a united Arab state from the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East. In negotiations between Hussein and the British high commissioner in Egypt, Sir Henry McMahon, the British government made a critical promise to Sharif Hussein that if he led a revolt against the Ottoman Empire, at the end of the war the British would support the creation of an independent Arab state under his leadership.
The Arab revolt began in June 1916. On July 6, 1917, the Arab army under the command of Emir (Prince) Faisal captured Aqaba at the northernmost tip of the Red Sea. Here the Arabs established direct contact with British forces under General Edmund Allenby, who was advancing toward Jerusalem. In October 1918 Faisal and his Arab army reached Damascus. Faisal declared himself king of Syria. Unbeknownst to Sharif Hussein and his sons, during the Great War the British also were negotiating about the future status of the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire with their principal ally in Europe, the French. In negotiations between Sir Mark Sykes, who represented the British government, and his French counterpart, Charles François Georges Picot, the two European powers carved the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire into British and French zones of influence. According to the document that came to be known as the Sykes-Picot Agreement (May 16, 1916), the British recognized Greater Syria as part of the French sphere of influence. In addition to present-day Syria, Greater Syria incorporated the present-day country of Lebanon and the Ottoman province of Mosul in present-day northern Iraq. In return, the provinces of Baghdad and Basra, with an adjacent territory that stretched to the Mediterranean towns of Acre and Jaffa, including the imprecisely defined Holy Land, or Palestine, were established as part of the British sphere of influence (Zürcher: 143).
Arab guerrillas led by Englishman T. E. Lawrence during the Arab Revolt in July 1917. During World War I, the Arab leader, Sharif Hussein of Mecca, was promised an independent Arab state if he revolted against the Ottoman Empire, but he was betrayed by the British who partitioned the Arab Middle East in secret negotiations with their principal European ally, France. (HultonArchive/Getty Images)
In November 1917 the British government made a third critical promise, which would have a long-lasting impact on the political history of the Middle East. In a letter addressed to one of the leaders of the Zionist movement in Europe, Lord Rothschild, Arthur James Balfour, the British foreign secretary, expressed the support of his government for the Zionist movement’s aim to establish a Jewish national home in Palestine. The Balfour Declaration stated that the British government viewed “with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people” and that it would use its “best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country” (Hurewitz: 2:26). Thus, the map of the Arab Middle East was redrawn after the end of World War I, as the British government tried to fulfill the contradictory promises it had made to the Arabs, the French, and the Zionists during the Great War, while at the same time maintaining its hegemony over the region after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.
See also: Battles and Treaties: Balfour Declaration; Sykes-Picot Agreement; Empire and Administration: Lawrence, T. E.
Further Reading
Aksakal, Mustafa. The Ottoman Road to War in 1914: The Ottoman Empire and the First World War. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Anderson, Matthew S. The Eastern Question 1774–1923: A Study in International Relations. 4th ed. London: Macmillan, 1972.
Anderson, Scott. Lawrence of Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East. New York: Anchor, 2014.
Finkel, Caroline. Osman’s Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire. New York: Basic Books, 2005.
Fromkin, David. A Peace to End all Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East. New York: Henry Holt, 2009.
Hourani, Albert. Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age: 1798–1939. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
Hurewitz, J. C. Diplomacy in the Near and Middle East: A Documentary Record. 2 vols. Princeton, NJ: D. Van Nostrand Company, 1956.
James, Lawrence. The Golden Warrior: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia. New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2008.
Lawrence, T. E. Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph. Blacksburg, VA: Wilder Publications, 2011.
Quataert, Donald. The Ottoman Empire, 1700–1922. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Rogan, Eugene. The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East. New York: Basic Books, 2015.
Shaw, Stanford J. History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey. 2 vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1976.
Zürcher, Erik-Jan. Turkey: A Modern History. London: I. B. Tauris, 2004.
Balfour Declaration (1917)
A declaration of British support for the creation of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine. The declaration was contained in a letter written on November 2, 1917, by Arthur James Balfour, the British foreign secretary, to Lionel Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild, a prominent leader in the Zionist movement. The Balfour Declaration stated that the British government viewed “with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people” and that it would use its “best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.” The declaration did no
t mention the indigenous Arab community of Palestine by name, and it failed to say anything about the political and national rights of the Palestinian Arab population.
The Balfour Declaration was the culmination of the tireless efforts of a group of Jewish leaders who had lobbied the British government on behalf of the World Zionist Organization. Among these, the most influential was the British scientist Chaim Weizmann (1874–1952), who had provided valuable assistance to the British war efforts, particularly the British munitions industry, during World War I.
By issuing the Balfour Declaration, the British government intended to rally Jewish support in Europe and the United States behind the Allied powers and against the Central Powers of Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Ottoman Empire. The British also hoped that the presence of a pro-British Jewish community in Palestine would assist them in the protection of British-occupied Egypt and the Suez Canal, the fastest and cheapest sea route to British-occupied India.
The commitment made in the Balfour Declaration contradicted the promises made by the British government to Hussein ibn Ali, the Sharif of Mecca, in the Hussein-McMahon correspondence. The map of the Middle East was redrawn as the British government tried to fulfill the promises it had made to the Arabs, the French, and the Zionist movement during World War I, while at the same time maintaining its hegemony over the region after the end of Ottoman rule.
See also: Battles and Treaties: Sykes-Picot Agreement; Rebels: Hussein ibn Ali and the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence; Primary Documents: Document 15; Document 16; Document 17
Further Reading
Bickerton, Ian J., and Carla L. Klausner, A Concise History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2002.
Fromkin, David. A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East. New York: Henry Holt, 2009.
Rogan, Eugene. The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East. New York: Basic Books, 2015.
Shaw, Stanford J. History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey. 2 vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1976.
Zürcher, Erik-Jan. Turkey: A Modern History. London: I. B. Tauris, 2004.
Balkan Wars (1912, 1913)
Two successive wars, in 1912 and 1913, that dispossessed the Ottoman Empire of most of its remaining territory in the Balkans. The first Balkan War was a military conflict between the members of the Balkan League (Serbia, Montenegro, Greece, and Bulgaria) and the Ottoman Empire. The second Balkan War began when the victors of the first Balkan War fought over their territorial conquests in Macedonia, with Bulgaria attacking Serbian and Greek forces.
By autumn 1911 the Ottoman central government had become so weak that it could not respond effectively to growing unrest in Albania, an uprising in Yemen (the uprising of Imam Yahya), and the Italian invasion and occupation of Libya. A group of Ottoman officers under the leadership of Major Enver (later Enver Pasha) rushed to Libya and organized popular resistance against the Italian invaders. An Italian attack on the Dardanelles and the occupation of the Dodecanese islands in May 1912, however, forced the Ottoman government to sue for peace.
Ottoman soldiers at Salonika (Thessaloniki) in present-day Greece during the Balkan Wars. The first Balkan War, which began in October 1912, pitted the members of the Balkan League—Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, and Montenegro—against the Ottoman Empire, while the Second Balkan War, which commenced in June 1913, brought Serbia, Greece, and Romania into an alliance against Bulgaria. (Library of Congress)
The Italian victory emboldened the neighboring Balkan states, which had been waiting for an opportunity to invade and occupy the remaining Ottoman provinces in Europe. After a series of negotiations, Serbia and Bulgaria formed an alliance in March 1912. Shortly afterward, in May, Bulgaria signed a similar agreement with Greece. Finally, in October, Serbia and Montenegro formed an alliance. On October 8 Montenegro, a member of the Balkan League, declared war on the Ottoman Empire. Greece, Serbia, and Bulgaria followed suit 10 days later. The Bulgarians quickly captured Thrace, defeating the Ottomans at the battles of Kirklareli/Kirkkilise (October 22–24) and Lüleburgaz (October 22–November 2). The Serbs also defeated the Ottomans at the battle of Kumanovo (October 23–24) in present-day Macedonia. The Greeks seized Salonika on November 8. In the absence of a unified command, the Ottomans were forced to retreat. The major urban centers of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans were surrounded by the invading Balkan armies. By December the Ottoman government sued for peace. As the negotiations dragged on in London, Bulgaria demanded the city of Edirne. This was too much for a group of young officers in Istanbul, who staged a military coup on January 23, 1913, killing the minister of war and forcing the grand vizier to resign. The former commander of the army, Mahmud Şevket (Shevket) Pasha, assumed the post of grand vizier and minister of war. When news of the coup in Istanbul reached London, the Balkan states resumed their military campaigns. Despite a promise to adopt an offensive posture, the new government in Istanbul failed to repulse the Bulgarian forces, which captured Edirne on March 28. On April 22 the Serbs seized Shkodër. On May 30 the Ottoman government was forced to sign the Treaty of London, which resulted in the loss of much of its territory in Europe, including the city of Edirne. The internal crisis reached a new height when Mahmud Şevket Pasha was assassinated on June 11.
Fortunately for the Ottomans, intense rivalries and jealousies among the Balkan states erupted shortly after the signing of the Treaty of London. Romania, which had not participated in the war, demanded territory from Bulgaria. The Greeks and Serbs also expressed dissatisfaction with the division of territory in Macedonia. As the negotiations for the creation of an anti-Bulgarian alliance began, Bulgaria attacked Serbia, which ignited a new Balkan war between the victors of the first. The Ottomans used this opportunity to recapture Edirne, forcing Bulgaria to sign the Treaty of Constantinople on September 29, 1913.
See also: Beys and Pashas: Enver Pasha; Rebels: Young Turks
Further Reading
Ahmad, Feroz. The Young Turks: The Committee of Union and Progress in Turkish Politics. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969.
Hanioglu, M. Șükrü. Preparation for a Revolution: The Young Turks, 1902–1908. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Hanioglu, M. Șükrü. The Young Turks in Opposition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Hanioglu, Șükrü. A Brief History of the Late Ottoman Empire. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010.
Jelavich, Charles, and Barbara Jelavich. The Establishment of the Balkan National States, 1804–1920. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1977.
Shaw, Stanford J. History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey. 2 vols. Cambridge,UK: Cambridge University Press, 1976.
Somel, Selçuk Akșin. Historical Dictionary of the Ottoman Empire. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2003.
Zürcher, Erik J. The Young Turk Legacy and Nation Building from the Ottoman Empire to Atatürk’s Turkey. London: I. B. Tauris, 2010.
Zürcher, Erik-Jan. Turkey: A Modern History. London: I. B. Tauris, 2004.
Başkent (Bashkent), Battle of (1473)
Battle fought between Ottoman armies under the command of Sultan Mehmed II (r. 1444–1446, 1451–1481) and the forces of the Aq Qoyunlu (Ak Koyunlu) Turkomans under the command of Uzun Hassan on August 11, 1473.
The invasion of Bosnia by the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II reignited the war with the Hungarians, who sought an alliance with Venice. In searching for formidable allies who could strengthen their united front against the Ottomans, Hungary and Venice sought and received the support of the Albanian rebel Skanderbeg. Their most important ally in the east was Hassan Beyk, also known as Uzun Hassan (Tall Hassan), the chief of the Aq Qoyunlu or the White Sheep Turkomans. Uzun Hassan dreamed of resurrecting the vast and powerful empire of Timur (Tamerlane) in the east. Venetian emissaries arrived at the court of Uzun Hassan to negotiate an alliance that would allow Venice and the Aq Qoyunlu forces to coordinate a
joint military campaign against the Ottoman Empire.
Since the early 1460s the Ottomans had watched the rise of Uzun Hassan as the ruler of a new and powerful empire based in Iran. In November 1467 Uzun Hassan defeated Jahan Shah, the chief of the rival Qara Qoyunlu (Kara Koyunlu) or Black Sheep Turkomans. Two years later Uzun Hassan routed the armies of the Timurid prince Abu Said and Jahan Shah’s son, Hassan Ali. With these impressive victories, Uzun Hassan emerged as the master of Iran. His letters to Mehmed II, which were initially humble and gracious in tone, began to change. As he rose to power in Iran, Uzun Hassan became a proud and confident monarch, who viewed himself as equal to the Ottoman sultan, a change that could not have gone unnoticed by Mehmed (Navai: 576–577).
The Aq Qoyunlu ruler was well aware that in any military confrontation with the Ottoman sultan, he needed all the support he could mobilize from other states that were equally concerned about Ottoman expansionist policies. To the south, the Mamluk sultanate constituted the dominant power in Egypt and Syria. Uzun Hassan maintained a close relationship with the Mamluks, as demonstrated by the correspondence between the rulers of the two states. He hoped that the Aq Qoyunlu and the Mamluks would form an alliance against the Ottomans. Between the Ottomans and the Aq Qoyunlu in Anatolia stood the last two remaining Turkoman principalities of Dulkadir and Karaman, the latter having been defeated and conquered by Mehmed between 1468 and 1470. Despite their defeat and loss of independence, the rulers of Karaman had not given up on the dream of regaining their principality by using the Aq Qoyunlu as allies against the Ottomans. Since the annexation of their principality, they had sought refuge in the Taurus Mountains, appealing to Uzun Hassan for an alliance against the Ottoman sultan (Shaw: 1:65).
The powers willing and committed to wage an attack on the Ottoman state were the Venetians and the Knights of Rhodes, who had sent ambassadors to court Uzun Hassan in 1464 seeking an alliance and providing the Turkoman chief with financial support and weaponry (Roemer: 6:176). As a formidable maritime power, Venice could attack the Ottomans from the west while the Aq Qoyunlu waged a land assault from the east. In 1472, after he had received an urgent request from the Karaman for support against a major Ottoman force led by Mehmed II, Uzun Hassan mobilized his army for a major campaign and attacked eastern Anatolia (Tehrani: 554).
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