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Authors: David Fromkin
A Peace to End all Peace (75 page)
Second, though these statesmen, in rebuilding the postwar Middle East, pursued only the national interest of their own countries, that—a century ago—was what they were supposed to do. It was their job. Only in our modern interdependent world are broader concerns required or even encouraged. Only today do we claim to speak for mankind.
Third, while it may have been chauvinist of British officials in the 1920s and 1930s to say that Arab countries were not ready for self-government—which is to say, liberal democratic constitutional regimes with rule of law—evidence as of our own late date does not seem to prove them wrong.
The Economist
(April 3, 2004, page 47) is on record as saying that “The Arab League’s 22 states remain the most uniformly oligarchic slice of the world. Not a single Arab leader has ever been peacefully ousted at the ballot box.”
Fourth, the air bases and other military stations that Britain retained in the Middle East pursuant to the Settlement of 1922 enabled the British to suppress threats from dangerous pro-Nazi German forces throughout the Middle East—in Iraq, Iran, Palestine, Syria-Lebanon, and Egypt—when the Second World War began. From a British point of view—which is the only point of view that British officials can be expected to have taken—this both validated the Settlement and showed its value.
Some of the international problems that arose from events narrated in
Peace
seem—at the moment—to be insoluble. But if we range ahead, as historians sometimes do, viewpoints can differ. In the long range, problems in politics may be solved; even more often, they are superseded. Old enmities can on occasion be forgotten as new enemies arise. And however slowly, over the long term people change; after all, it took Europe a millennium and a half after the fall of Rome’s Western empire to settle comfortably into its new map, as readers of this book have already been reminded.
The fall of the Ottoman Empire was one of history’s major upheavals. It was not on the scale of Rome’s fall; nor had the Porte’s roots sunk so deep as those of the Caesars. Nonetheless it was a large happening—a political earthquake—and it was only to be expected that it would take time for the shattered pieces to be reassembled in one lasting pattern, or another.
As the third millennium and the twenty-first century dawned, the United States tried giving history a push by invading Iraq. A whole library of books waits to be written about this extraordinary event and its consequences. In the perspective of this anniversary of
A Peace to End All Peace
, what ought to be said about the Middle East then and now is that much has happened, but it does not look as though anything fundamental has changed.
CHAPTER 1
1
Violet Bonham Carter,
Winston Churchill as I Knew Him
(London: Eyre & Spottiswoode and Collins, 1965), p. 263.
2
Ibid., p. 264.
3
Ibid., p. 262.
4
Ibid.
CHAPTER 2
1
For a fuller discussion, with citations, see David Fromkin, “The Great Game in Asia,”
Foreign Affairs
(spring 1980), p. 936. Also see Edward Ingram,
Commitment to Empire: Prophecies of the Great Game in Asia 1797–1800
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981); and Edward Ingram,
The Beginnings of the Great Game in Asia 1828–1834
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979).
2
George N. Curzon,
Persia and the Persian Question
(London: Frank Cass, 1966), Vol. 1, pp. 3–4.
3
G. D. Clayton,
Britain and the Eastern Question: Missolonghi to Gallipoli
(London: University of London Press, 1971), p. 139.
4
J. W. Kaye, according to H. W. C. Davis, “The Great Game in Asia, 1800–1844”,
Raleigh Lecture on History
(London: British Academy, 1926), pp. 3–4.
5
Marian Kent,
Oil and Empire: British Policy and Mesopotamian Oil, 1900–1920
(London: Macmillan Press for the London School of Economics, 1976), p. 6, and app. 8.
6
Quoted in Arthur Swinson,
North-West Frontier: People and Events, 1839–1947
(London: Hutchinson, 1967), p. 142.
7
M. S. Anderson,
The Eastern Question, 1774–1923: A Study in International Relations
(London and Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1966), p. 224.
8
Lady Gwendolen Cecil,
Life of Robert Marquis of Salisbury
(London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1921), Vol. 2, p. 326.
9
Paul Kennedy,
The Realities behind Diplomacy: Background Influences on British External Policy, 1865–1980
(Glasgow: Fontana, 1981), p. 20; Paul Kennedy, “A Historian of Imperial Decline Looks at America,”
International Herald Tribune
, 3 November 1982, p. 6.
10
P. L. Cottrell,
British Overseas Investment in the Nineteenth Century
(London: Macmillan Press, 1975), p. 9.
11
Walter Bagehot,
The Collected Works
(London:
The Economist
, 1974), Vol. 8, p. 306.
12
Viscount Grey of Falloden,
Twenty-Five Years, 1892–1916
(London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1925), Vol. 1, p. 152.
CHAPTER 3
1
Thirty million: Charles Issawi,
The Economic History of Turkey: 1800–1914
(Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1980), p. 1. Fifty million: George Lenczowski,
The Middle East in World Affairs
, 4th edn (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1980), p. 28.
2
The Arab War: Confidential Information for General Headquarters from Gertrude Bell, Being Despatches Reprinted from the Secret “Arab Bulletin”
(Great Britain: The Golden Cockerel Press, n.d.), p. 9.
3
Issawi,
Economic History of Turkey
, p. 353.
4
Encyclopaedia Britannica
, 11th edn, s.v. “Constantinople.”
5
Bernard Lewis,
The Emergence of Modern Turkey
, 2nd edn (London, Oxford, and New York: Oxford University Press, 1968), p. 228.
6
John Presland (pseudonym for Gladys Skelton),
Deedes Bey: A Study of Sir Wyndham Deedes 1883–1923
(London: Macmillan, 1942), p. 19.
7
Margaret FitzHerbert,
The Man Who Was Greenmantle: A Biography of Aubrey Herbert
(London: John Murray, 1983), p. 83.
8
Elie Kedourie,
Arabic Political Memoirs and Other Studies
(London: Frank Cass, 1974), p. 244.
9
Ibid., p. 260.
10
Ibid., p. 257.
11
Ibid., p. 261.
12
Ibid., p. 255.
13
For accounts of the origins and internal workings of the Young Turkey movement, see Feroz Ahmad,
The Young Turks: The Committee of Union and Progress in Turkish Politics 1908–1914
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969); and Ernest Edmondson Ramsaur, Jr,
The Young Turks: Prelude to the Revolution of 1908
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957).
14
John Buchan,
Greenmantle
(New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1916), ch. 1; Lewis,
Modern Turkey
, pp. 207–8, n. 4.
CHAPTER 4
1
Charles Issawi,
The Economic History of Turkey: 1800–1914
(Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1980), p. 151.
2
Ibid.
3
Ibid.
4
Ibid., pp. 146–7 and 152–77.
5
Ibid., p. 147.
6
Ibid., p. 177.
7
Ibid., p. 178.
8
Harry N. Howard,
The Partition of Turkey: A Diplomatic History 1913–1923
(New York: Howard Fertig, 1966), pp. 47
et seq
.
9
Sir Mark Sykes,
The Caliphs’ Last Heritage: A Short History of the Turkish Empire
(London: Macmillan, 1915), p. 2.
10
Ahmed Djemal Pasha,
Memories of a Turkish Statesman: 1913–1919
(New York: George H. Doran, 1922), p. 108.
11
Martin Gilbert,
Winston S. Churchill
, Vol. 3:
1914–1916, The Challenge of War
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1971), p. 189.
12
Ibid., p. 190.
13
Ulrich Trumpener,
Germany and the Ottoman Empire: 1914–1918
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968), p. 20.
14
Ibid., p. 19.
15
Ibid.
CHAPTER 5
1
Ted Morgan,
Churchill: Young Man in a Hurry, 1874–1915
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982), p. 314.
2
Violet Bonham Carter,
Winston Churchill as I Knew Him
(London: Eyre & Spottiswoode and Collins, 1965), p. 262.
CHAPTER 6
1
Martin Gilbert,
Winston S. Churchill
, Vol. 3:
1914–1916, The Challenge of War
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1971), pp. 179–80.
2
Ibid., opposite p. 156.
3
Richard Hough,
The Great War at Sea: 1914–1918
(Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), p. 71.
4
Lord Kinross,
Ataturk: A Biography of Mustafa Kemal, Father of Modern Turkey
(New York: William Morrow, 1965), p. 79; Stanford J. Shaw and Ezel Kural Shaw,
History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey
, Vol. 2:
Reform, Revolution, and Republic: The Rise of Modern Turkey, 1808–1975
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), p. 311.
5
Winston S. Churchill,
The World Crisis: 1911–1914
(London: Thornton Butterworth, 1923), pp. 208–9.
6
Martin Gilbert,
Winston S. Churchill: Companion Volume
, Vol. 3, Part 1:
July 1914–April 1915
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1973), pp. 1–2.
7
Ibid., p. 3.
8
Ibid., pp. 2–3.
9
Ibid., p. 5.
10
Ibid.
11
Ibid., p. 10.
12
Ibid., p. 9.
13
Ibid., p. 16.
14
Ibid.
15
Ibid., p. 19.
16
Ulrich Trumpener,
Germany and the Ottoman Empire: 1914–1918
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968), p. 15.
17
Ibid., pp. 19–20.
18
Ibid., p. 16.
19
J. A. S. Grenville,
The Major International Treaties 1914–1973: A History and Guide with Texts
(New York: Stein & Day, 1975), p. 24; Harry N. Howard,
The Partition of Turkey: A Diplomatic History 1913–1923
(New York: Howard Fertig, 1966), p. 49.
20
Trumpener,
Ottoman Empire
, pp. 14, 22.
21
Trumpener,
Ottoman Empire
.
22
Gilbert,
Churchill: Companion Volume
, p. 36.
23
Y. T. Kurat, “How Turkey Drifted into World War I,” in K. C. Bourne and D. C. Watt (eds),
Studies in International History
(London: Longman, 1967), p. 299.
CHAPTER 7
1
The account in the text follows that in Ulrich Trumpener,
Germany and the Ottoman Empire: 1914–1918
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968).
2
Violet Bonham Carter,
Winston Churchill as I Knew Him
(London: Eyre & Spottiswoode and Collins, 1965), pp. 321–2.
3
Martin Gilbert,
Winston S. Churchill: Companion Volume
, Vol. 3, Part 1:
July 1914–April 1915
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1973), p. 73.
4
Ibid.
5
Stanford J. Shaw and Ezel Kural Shaw,
History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey
, Vol. 2:
Reform, Revolution and Republic: The Rise of Modern Turkey, 1808–1975
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), p. 312.
6
Ibid., p. 311.
7
H. H. Asquith,
Letters to Venetia Stanley
, ed. by Michael and Eleanor Brock (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), p. 168.
8
Ibid., p. 171.
9
John Presland (pseudonym for Gladys Skelton),
Deedes Bey: A Study of Sir Wyndham Deedes 1883–1923
(London: Macmillan, 1942), pp. 138–9.
10
Gilbert,
Churchill: Companion Volume
, p. 58.
11
Harry N. Howard,
The Partition of Turkey: A Diplomatic History 1913–1923
(New York: Howard Fertig, 1966), p. 49.
12
Martin Gilbert,
Winston S. Churchill
, Vol. 3:
1914–1916, The Challenge of War
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1971), p. 210.
13
Trumpener,
Ottoman Empire
, p. 31.
14
Ibid., p. 33.
15
Ibid.
16
Ibid.
17
Ibid., p. 32.
18
Viscount Grey of Falloden,
Twenty-Five Years, 1892–1916
(London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1925), Vol. 2, p. 164.
19
Joseph Heller,
British Policy Towards the Ottoman Empire: 1908–1914
(London: Frank Cass, 1983).
20
Trumpener,
Ottoman Empire
, p. 48.
21
Harry N. Howard,
Turkey, the Straits and U.S. Policy
(Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974), p. 27, n. 2.
22
Trumpener,
Ottoman Empire
, p. 58.
23
Gilbert,
Churchill: The Challenge of War
, p. 216.
24
Shaw and Shaw,
Ottoman Empire
, p. 312.
25
Asquith,
Letters
, p. 309.
26
Martin Gilbert,
Winston S. Churchill
, Vol. 4:
1916–1922, The Stricken World
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1975), pp. 752–3.
27
Asquith,
Letters
, pp. 165–6.
28
Ibid., p. 186.
29
Gilbert,
The Challenge of War
, p. 210.