Dangerous Gifts: Imperialism, Security, and Civil Wars in the Levant, 1798–1864

Abstract

The title of Ozan Ozavci’s new book is a retort to Fouad Ajami’s The Foreigner’s Gift.1 In that 2006 book, the late Ajami had argued that the US invasion of Iraq represented an American “gift” to the Iraqi people and to the Arab world at large, as it offered them the opportunity to do away with dictatorship and secure a new democratic order. Ajami’s take was the subject of numerous spirited critiques, which Ozavci echoes when he notes that the civil war that followed the toppling of Saddam Hussein had harrowing repercussions on the lives of large segments of Iraqi society.Dangerous Gifts is not a book about contemporary Middle East politics. However, it does aim to set the historical record straight on a series of important points. The author’s central contention is that ever since Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1798, international (i.e., Western) military interventions in what we now call the Middle East were framed as supposedly beneficial to the people of the region. Yet, those interventions generally had destabilizing effects, often leading to civil war.As supporting evidence, Ozavci offers detailed accounts of repeated Western interventions in Ottoman lands between 1798 and 1864. The decision to cover this specific sixty-six-year period enables the author to cover several developments of great consequence: Napoleon’s military campaign in Egypt and Syria (1798–1801), the Greek war of independence (1821–29), the Egyptian-Ottoman wars (1831–33 and 1839–41), the civil strife that broke out in Mount Lebanon in 1840, and finally, the 1860 civil war in Mount Lebanon and the concomitant sectarian massacres in Damascus, as well as their aftermaths.To be clear, Ozavci does not argue that all instability and conflict in the 1798–1864 period stemmed from foreign interventions. In fact, he readily acknowledges that sociopolitical tensions and other problems in the late Ottoman Empire predated the military actions of France, Britain, and other Great Powers. He also notes that Ottoman authorities and Ottoman subjects in the Levant did have agency. In Ozavci’s narrative, instability and civil war in the late Ottoman Empire were thus the outcome of complex interactions involving a multitude of actors with different visions and goals, including imperial powers, local authorities, and various individuals in positions of influence. While not exactly succinct, the argument is certainly nuanced. This review will first highlight the many points of strength of Ozavci’s work. It will then consider some of the book’s shortcomings and its overall contribution to the study of international relations and regional politics in the Eastern Mediterranean region.The greatest strength of Dangerous Gifts is the magnitude of the archival research undergirding its analysis. Ozavci benefited from the help of six to eight research assistants who uncovered sources in archives and libraries in Russia, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Austria, Germany, France, and Britain. The book thus contains a wealth of original information that is a boon to scholars of the late Ottoman Empire. It also corrects several misconceptions. For example, Ozavci explains that the so-called Eastern Question was far more complex than generally assumed. Most accounts of the late Ottoman Empire frame the Eastern Question through the prism of security: the Great Powers, namely Britain, France, Austria, Prussia, and Russia, were long concerned about the relative decline of the Ottoman Empire, as it risked precipitating an imperialist scramble for strategic positions in the East—and potentially a major international war in Europe.Ozavci acknowledges that this discourse contributed to strategic decision-making in European capitals throughout much of the nineteenth century. Yet he also highlights how, in reality, the Eastern Question was intersubjective, as it involved a great intermingling of European, Ottoman, and Levantine ideas. Ottoman authorities and subjects naturally had their own sets of interests and intra-elite rivalries were often decisive. Ozavci thus reveals in great detail the power struggles pitting Mohammed Ali of Egypt against the Ottoman admiral and statesman Hüsrev Mehmed Pasha (chapter 5). Another interesting case was that of the Ottoman statesman and diplomat Mustafa Reşid Pasha (chapter 7), who not only was behind the Tanzimat reforms but also played an important role in the 1840 Concert of Europe intervention against Mohammed Ali. The analysis is rich in original material and greatly informative.Ozavci’s retelling of the civil strife in and around Mount Lebanon in 1840 and 1860 (chapters 8–13) is likewise solid, particularly when it comes to the role of feudal lords, such as the Jumblatt family, and other prominent households including the Abu’l Lama. The analysis also engages the actions of peasant leaders, such as the muleteer Tanyus Shahin, who was instrumental in organizing the peasant revolt of 1859, which would give way to the civil war of 1860. Much attention is also dedicated to the actions of foreign actors, from the British dragoman Richard Wood to the French General Charles-Marie-Napoléon de Beaufort d’Hautpoul. Beyond individual personalities and their roles with respect to political developments, Ozavci carefully crafts a balanced and nuanced narrative, which once again highlights how French and British meddling in the Ottoman Levant contributed to fueling animosities and setting the stage for dramatic escalations of violence and instability.Ozavci also explains how the Règlement Organique that the Great Powers imposed on the Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of the sectarian violence of 1860 led to the emergence of a semi-autonomous territory—the mutasarrifiya of Mount Lebanon. In turn, it was that institution that planted the seeds for new forms of proto-nationalism and for the quest for the establishment of an independent state of Lebanon.Dangerous Gifts is an excellent book for anyone interested in the conflicts that punctuated the history of the late Ottoman Empire. The analysis, however, does have some weaknesses. To start, the central argument remains elusive at times. Ozavci asserts that foreign military interventions can be deeply destabilizing—but then again he also notes that in the Ottoman Empire political instability generally preceded the foreign interventions he describes. Similarly, he argues that European imperialists caused much trouble in the Levant—but then again he goes to great lengths to demonstrate that Ottoman leaders and Levantine actors had agency and all interacted with one another in “intersectoral relations” involving “the interplay between strategic, legal, economic, financial, religious, or cultural factors. That is, how one sector affected the other(s) during the decision-making processes” (11). Nuance is important, of course. Yet, in Ozavci’s work, it does occasionally come at the expense of clarity.Another issue is that the different sections of the book appear at times somewhat disjointed. In his foreword, Ozavci candidly admits that the research project that led to the writing of this book was initially supposed to be focused on the events of 1860–62 in and around Mount Lebanon (vii). As the research progressed, Ozavci felt compelled to embrace a broader time-span (1798–1864) so as to connect the dots on European interventionism in the domains of the Ottoman Empire. It is perfectly understandable that the subject of one’s research may change along the way in response to new findings; the problem is that it shows. As the subject matter shifts from the Greek war of independence to the Egyptian-Ottoman wars, to the civil strife in and around Mount Lebanon, at times it does feel as if the book is a patchwork of different projects stitched together somewhat inconsistently. For example, the fourth chapter, which examines the Greek war of independence, does not quite fit the central argument. In this case, foreign military intervention contributed to ending the conflict and paved the way for the emergence of Greece as an independent nation state.It is also questionable to characterize the Egyptian-Ottoman wars of the 1830s as a “civil war” (74). In fact, they more closely resembled classic wars of conquest; they stemmed from the will of an ambitious leader, Mohammed Ali, who was eager to expand and consolidate his domains. To be fair, Ozavci attempts to explain his choice of the expression “civil war” in the introduction, arguing that the point is to emphasize both “the domestic and global nature of violence in the Levant” (14). Yet the terminology adds little in the way of clarity.A final critique is that the author mentions in the introduction that the “lives, ideas, emotions and threat perceptions, and interests of Levantines themselves have rarely been mentioned or specifically foregrounded in historical analyses of security” (4). Ozavci then goes on to assert that his book will “fill these gaps” in the literature. However, the text features few Levantine voices.Ozavci has produced an important monograph. Its main contribution to the academic community is its thorough archival research on foreign military interventions in the Levant, which offers a treasure trove of new information for academics and researchers. Dangerous Gifts also puts into perspective a number of important issues in international affairs, including the fact that Western powers have long used humanitarian discourse to justify foreign interventions. Such military actions, however, rarely unfolded as planned, and often only exacerbated political violence and conflict. The argument may not be entirely new but is nonetheless important, and should serve as a cautionary reminder to the numerous policymakers, advisors, and analysts who pay little heed to the checkered history of international interventions.