European Imperialism and the Middle East | Explainer | 10 -Sep-2025
When the First World War broke out in 1914, the Middle East was truly different from what it is now. Most of the region was part of the Ottoman Empire, and had been for centuries.
Britain controlled Egypt and some strategic points in the Gulf, and a weak Persian state was informally under the influence of Britain in the south and the Russian Empire in the north.
When the war ended in 1918, the Ottoman Empire evaporated and a multitude of new states took its place, states whose boundaries were determined in distant capitals, and whose citizens were swept up in the upheaval and confusion of an unsettled new order driven by concepts such as nationalism, self-determination, and Zionism. For some, the new order promised a brighter future, for others, only dread.
Even prior to 1914, the Middle East was an essential strategic area. Germany erected the Berlin to Baghdad rail track to extend its influence, Russia wanted Constantinople and felt itself to be the custodian of the Orthodox Christians of the Ottoman Empire, France did likewise for Catholics in the Middle East, and Britain was eager to secure the path of the Suez Canal to British India.
Ottoman dread of the Russians, the British and the French is one reason the Empire allied itself with Germany and the Central Powers when war broke during the First World War.
For four years from then, warfare swept Anatolia, Mesopotamia, the Sinai, Palestine alongside mass famine. As the war continued, both sides attempted to subvert each other’s empires, the Ottomans and the Germans appealed to Muslims living under French, British and Russian rule, while the Allies appealed to minority Christians and Arab nationalists living under Ottomans.
The Great Powers also made secret agreements between themselves to partition the spoils of war all of these arrangements had one intention: to win the war at the earliest opportunity and to gain from the win. The wartime agreements’ contradictions and inconsistencies would be ironed out later, or so they assumed.
One such wartime arrangement was that between the British Empire and the influential Hashemite clan of the Hejaz territory, now part of Saudi Arabia but then a part of the Ottoman Empire. The Hashemites were commanded by the Sharif of Mecca, Hussein ibn Ali al Hashimi, who consented to mobilize Arab tribes faithful to him for a rebellion against the Ottomans.
The British offered in return that the Hashemites would govern an eventual sovereign Arab state but the agreement was indefinite regarding borders. Hussein’s expectation was that if the British were victorious, his dynasty might claim new land and authority and the mechanism for justifying this aspiration was Arab nationalism.
The Hashemites asserted that they spoke on behalf of the aspirations of Ottoman Arabs to be free and their own national state, concepts some Arab intellectuals and nationalist clubs had been advocating, though not necessarily under the Hashemites.
The Hashemites led the Arab rebellion backing of the British through T.E. Lawrence, more popularly known as Lawrence of Arabia. Whether the uprising was militarily effective is a matter of some dispute, but politically it raised high hopes for the peace, hopes to be dashed.
It was known to the British that their arrangement with Hussein broke a 1914 agreement with the French and the Russians, that any post war settlements of land would include all the Allies. They also understood that the French had interests in the Middle East themselves and may not be all that interested in Arab independence.
Late in 1915, French diplomat François Georges Picot clarified France’s position: “France would never agree to grant independence to the Arabs, though at the start of the war she might have done so.”
It was unthinkable that the French would agree to the subjection of Christians of the Lebanon to a Mohammedan master. So Picot had a meeting with British diplomat Mark Sykes, which led to the May 1916 secret Sykes Picot agreement.
After the defeat of the Ottomans, each Ally would receive its own area of direct and indirect influence in the Arab provinces and Anatolian part, which includes the French in the north and west, and the British in the southwest and south. Palestine was to be internationally administered, and prior agreements allocated other territories to Russia and Italy. Any prospective Arab kingdom would be French and British influenced.
But not everyone was a believer, such as British Brigadier General George Macdonough, as he once mentioned : “It appears to me that we are somewhat in the position of the hunters who divided up the bear’s skin before we had slaughtered it”.
So the British had actually promised the Hashemites an Arab kingdom. Palestine was the exception there, the British made another controversial deal to help their war effort. The Zionist movement had existed since the 19th century, and promoted the idea of a Jewish state. Zionist thinkers like Theodor Herzl considered several possible locations, but most settled on Palestine, still home to a Jewish minority.
Even prior to the war, Zionist Jews were immigrating into Palestine, and that caused conflicts with the Arab majority. In 1917, the Allies were not yet winning the war, and Russia fell out after the Revolution. Simultaneously, certain members of the British government, such as David Lloyd George and Arthur Balfour were sympathetic to the Zionist concept, a concept lobbied by leading British Zionists such as Chaim Weizmann.
London desired that, through backing Zionism, the Jewish diaspora across the globe could mobilize for the British effort. Some British politicians like Lord Curzon and Edwin Montagu (who was Jewish but anti Zionist) opposed the idea, but in November 1917, Balfour sent a telegram to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain: “His Majesty’s Government look with favor on the early establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this objective, it is being clearly understood that nothing that is done by any member of the League of Nations in regard to the attainment of this objective shall be construed in any way to prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status of the Jews in any other country.”
It was a grand promise, but a muddled one, since it was not made evident if “national home” equated to “state” and what would become of the non-Jewish majority in reality. So in order to be victorious in the war the British had come to an agreement with the Hashemites for Arab independence, the British and French came to an understanding to partition the larger majority of the Middle East, and Britain committed herself to support Zionism.
As if this was not complex enough, during the year 1917 the United States entered the war and the web of contradictions started to unfold. In January 1918, President Woodrow Wilson released his 14 Points for peace. Wilson’s points were headed by the idea of self-determination, that people who considered themselves a nation should decide their own fate.
This sounded easy in theory, but it didn’t go with the actuality of mixed populations. There were Arab nationalists, but Middle Easterners in general were largely unfamiliar with the comparatively new construct of national identity. They tended to identify more with their religion, tribe, extended family or home region.
Yes, a few tribes participated in the Hashemite revolt, but the majority did not challenge Ottoman rule and were loyal to the current system whether or not they were vociferously supportive of it. Those who did have a desire for national self-determination, whether Arabs, Zionists, Kurds or others, now sensed there would be a state following the war, high hopes that would be extremely difficult to fulfill.
Following successful British offensives in Mesopotamia and Palestine the war finally ended in November 1918 with an allied victory and a weird interlude set in. The fighting had been halted by the armistice, but there was a long period of time to determine the post war settlement.
British and French troops occupied Ottoman Arab provinces and Anatolian regions, the Americans dispatched humanitarian aid to the starving and the politicians negotiated what the future of Europe and the Middle East would be at the Paris Peace Conference. Nationalist delegations traveled to Paris to plead their cause, but the majority would make the return trip with no concrete offers.
Lebanese Christian Patriarch Elias Hoayek was the only exception when he urged the French government to take a definite role in Lebanon: “All my efforts will be aimed at obtaining, in accordance with the Lebanese national will, the complete independence of my country with the help of France.” The ensuing peace treaty signed at Versailles in June 1919 not only ended the war between Germany and the Allies, it established the League of Nations, an international body to preserve peace.
The League would be central to the future of the Middle East, particularly as the British, French, and Americans now started to dispute how to apply the wartime arrangements. The British believed that as they had fought most of the war against the Ottomans, they should get a greater portion of the spoils. The Americans were against secret wartime diplomacy and demanded that the League should manage Middle Eastern people towards gradual independence through so called Mandates.
This implied that a “developed” state would be accountable for “advice” and “assistance” until the new states would be able to stand alone (hypothetically). In practice, it wasn’t entirely certain that how mandate would function in practice, if the Hashemite would be the rulers of the new Arab kingdom.
During the heated debate, the US Congress had a change of heart, and although the League was President Wilson’s brainchild, the US declined to sign the peace treaty or enter the League when it formally came into being in January 1920.
To the British and the French, this was an opportunity. During the San Remo conference in spring 1920, France was made the Mandatory for Syria and Lebanon, and Britain likewise for Mesopotamia, Transjordan, and Palestine.
This enabled them to rule indirectly without actually accepting them as imperial holdings. In the opinion of historian Michael Provence: “The populations of the mandated territories thus assumed all the responsibilities and none of the benefits of national sovereignty.”
The conference didn’t settle one question: the borders, those would have to wait until a peace treaty could be negotiated with the Ottomans, who were still technically in power. The League did state that France and Britain were obligated to take into consideration the desires of the people, yet British and French officials largely disregarded local appeals.
The American King Crane Commission’s questionnaire had mixed results: some indicated they would embrace democracy, some said a Greater Syria encompassing Lebanon and Palestine, some wanted a British rule, some of them French, some American, and some desired a Hashemite King.
Most did not want the Mandates, and 99% did not want Zionist settlement in Palestine. Despite all the wartime hardships and misery, disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, and absence of a stable new order, it is hardly surprising that the Middle East was filled with widespread violence following the termination of the Great War.
Egypt uprose in an unsuccessful revolution against British occupation in 1919, and there was confrontation between religious and ethnic communities in Lebanon.
A great conflict took place in Anatolia between the Turkish nationalist army led by Mustafa Kemal and Allied, principally Greek forces, which led to the establishment of the modern Turkish Republic and the official breakup of the Ottoman Empire. In Persia, the British wished to resist Bolshevik Russian influence and gain access to oil, and they aided a coup by then Future Shah Reza Pahlavi, who solidified himself in power in 1921.
But the most obdurate violence, and perhaps the one that had the most profound impact on the besieged future of the region above all else, was that which took place in Palestine, Syria, and Iraq. In Palestine, the British Mandate included the Balfour Declaration, and British authorities invited Jewish settlement some 35,000 Jewish settlers came to Palestine in hopes of an improved existence.
International Jewish groups tended to assist settlers in purchasing land, some of which (though not all) had been previously unproductive. Others expressed their wish not only for a Jewish home, but a Jewish state, which fueled tensions with Palestinian Arabs.
Jewish and some British officials wished to limit settlement, but after Herbert Samuel, the enthusiastic Zionist supporter, was appointed as British High Commissioner in Palestine, British backing for settlement became more overt. Some British and Zionists said that settlement would assist Arabs through economic developments, but the majority of Arabs perceived otherwise.
Writer Musa Kazim al Husseini protested to colonial Minster Winston Churchill in August 1921; “They (colonial settlers) devalue the price of land and property at the same time they have monopoly over the financial system, can Europe then expect Arabs to live and work with such neighbors ?”,
To this Churchill, repeated his endorsement of Jewish settlement. This became mortal when Arabs rioted in Jerusalem and Tel Hai saw an organized firefight in 1920 that killed a few on each side. The tensions reached the breaking point in May 1921 in the town of Jaffa. A clash between Zionist socialist Jewish organizations near a mosque got out of hand and led to fatal rioting between Arabs and Jews.
Arabs murdered 47 Jews, and the following day Jewish groups and British police struck back, murdering 48 Arabs. A British commission primarily blamed the Arabs, but acknowledged their grievances were due to the “political and economic consequences” of settlement and “perceived pro Jewish bias” of the British.
Zionist Ze’ev Jabotinsky felt the time had come to build a metaphorical wall around the settlers: “Zionist colonization can proceed and develop only under the protection of a power separate from the native people behind an iron wall, which cannot be overcome by the native people.”
The French domination of Syria and Lebanon started in a violent manner too. Hussein’s son Faisal had guided Arab troops into Syria in 1918 and proclaimed his right to the throne of a Syrian Kingdom. But the French were not willing to relinquish control, so French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau and Faisal signed that Syria would be a de facto state under the French Mandate.
Faisal’s Arab nationalist supporters of the Syrian National Congress, however, desired independence and control for Lebanon and Palestine. A nationalist society informed Feisal of their position: “We are ready to declare war on both England and France.” Faisal’s priority was becoming the king, so he went along reluctantly and agreed to call of the deal with French and was crowned the king of Syria on March 7th 1920.
France threatened invasion, so Faisal now accepted their terms but his response came too late so the French army invaded Syria anyway from its headquarters in Lebanon, and defeated the unorganized Arab army in the battle of Maysalun in July of 1920 .
Feisal fled to Mesopotamia, but Maysalun became a symbol for Arab nationalism and resistance to European imperialism as Ali Allawi has written: “It was a military disaster, but its title has descended in the Arab history as a synonym for heroism and desperate gallantry against colossal odds, as well as for treachery and betrayal”, but Feisal’s position between the French and the nationalists, and ambitions of his own family, created a great deal of historical controversy over whether he was an opportunistic power seeker, a genuine pan Arab nationalist, or both.
In Mesopotamia, the British were struggling, their army was overstretched across the country, bureaucrats battled departmental turf battles, and politicians debated how much Mesopotamia would be independent and whether it would be one, two, or even three states. One thing immediately became apparent that the people were split. Some of the city elite did not object to British rule, but the ex Ottoman officer’s group and much of the tribal hinterland was objecting it.
In June 1920, British administrator Gertrude Bell was warned by a local Arab politician; “ You stated in your proclamation that you would establish a native government based upon the initiative and free will of the concerned but you go on prepare scheme without consulting anyone”.
In the same month, the Iraqi revolt or the Iraqi revolution started, Starting with a local tribe resisting the British soldiers and jailing one of them, the uprising spread across the middle Eastern Euphrates. Tribal forces attacked several British strongholds, took Najaf and Karbala, and repelled several British relief forces.
The British conquered the Iraqi tribes, but they didn’t comprehend them. Bureaucrats produced reports condemning the uprising as the work of a conspiracy between Turkey and Faisal, between the Germans and Turks, and perhaps the Bolsheviks as well, the manipulation of the American Standard Oil firm, Pan Islam, or the Jews.
Tribal leader Sayyid Muhsin Abu Tabikh, was pragmatically more realistic he said: “The British accelerated [the revolt’s] timing by their ignorance regarding the proud personality of the Iraqi and the multitudes of political blunders that they made throughout the country.” The Iraqi revolt or revolution is also debated in history.
Others view it as a revolt of various groups who were outraged at British occupation since it was foreign occupation, while others highlight the leadership of former Ottoman officers backing Faisal as a potential future king. Some view it as a national revolution that established the groundwork for a contemporary Iraqi identity and eventual independence.
The contours of the contemporary Middle East became clearer by 1921, although formal peace only arrived in 1923. At the Cairo Conference, the allied Powers decided that Faisal would reign in the Kingdom of Iraq, his brother Abdullah would be King of Transjordan, and Britain would still uphold the Zionist endeavor in Palestine.
While Britain would continue to exert great influence, the new Kingdoms possessed greater autonomy more than the British had planned due to the Iraqi revolt, freedom however, would have to wait. The French later split Syria and Lebanon into five distinct states, which they would govern for years to come.
They also chose to form Greater Lebanon by adding a number of Muslim districts primarily Christian Mount Lebanon, forming an unknown and unstable blend. And thus the First World War had destroyed the centuries of Ottoman domination and fashioned a new Middle East. It was a world of brittle new states, allegedly route to independence courtesy of the League of Nations but in reality subjected to British and French imperialism. There were conflicts among religious and ethnic groups, and there was conflict against foreign rule.
Connect with Security Lense
Leave a Reply