Empire and the Middle East

An ally of Germany during the war, the 400-year-old empire had been dying slowly since defeats by Austrian and Venetian forces in the 17th Century. The creation of invading Turkish tribes who replaced earlier Moslem rulers in the 15th Century, its sway had extended from the Balkans to Egypt. Often through the centuries, Moslem invaders had threatened to spill beyond Spain, their last outpost, into the heart of Europe; in a often-quoted passage, the English historian Gibbon discussed the possibility of Englishmen studying Koranic theology in the colleges of Oxford if earlier encroaches had been successful (Pfaff 86).

Instead, in the period from 1918 to 1922, the British Empire, with some help from the French, was carving up the Turk, and the effect on the post-war world, the troubling new world that presented so many challenges for Europe and its empires, was beyond calculation.

In their weakness, the Ottomans had already effectively withdrawn from parts of their Empire. Egypt had been under European dominion since the Napoleonic invasion at the beginning of the 19th

. . .
ises to various local peoples. In actuality, many of the surrounding areas could be called, as Palestine has often been, "twice-promised land." Prewar and earlier Arab political movements had contradictory ideas about territory and political leaders. In this theocratic society, leadership roles often fell on local religious leaders such as the Sherif of Mecca, who administered the most important Islamic holy site for the Sultan. During the war, the Arab revolt against the Ottomans by the Arabian tribes led by Sherif Hussein of Mecca and his sons--the famous revolt participated in and later colorfully retold by the English intelligence officer T.E. Lawrence, or Lawrence of Arabia--put the British in their debt. The creation of the kingdom of Transjordan and its rule by Abdullah, one of Hussein's sons, was the payment. Feisal, another son of Husayn of Mecca, was later king of Syria and still later king of Iraq (Fromkin 504). Issuance of the famous Balfour Declaration in 1917, which took the form of a letter from Britain's Foreign Secretary to Lord Rothschild "as the most prominent name in British Jewry," is rightly seen as a turning point in Zionist aspirations. However, its cautious wording took due note of the aspirations
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
League Nations, Lebanon British, Arabi Egyptian, Viennese Jew, Majesty's Government, Cairo Conference, Middle Eastern, Balkans Egypt, Balfour Declaration, British Empire, balfour declaration, middle east, british occupation, suez canal, british mandate, mandate rule, syria lebanon, world war, british mandate palestine, o'brien 135, cairo conference, modern middle east,
Approximate Word count = 1913
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)