Disordered Ordering: Mapping the Divisions of the Ottoman Empire

Abstract

The division of the Arab territories of the Ottoman Empire following World War I was a formative and highly contentious process in which maps played an integral role. The British and French delegates who parcelled out the Ottoman Empire created and altered maps in a succession of treaties and conferences that would lead to the reordering of these territories into new imperially mandated states. This article examines the maps that British delegates used and created during the war years and in peace negotiations over the Ottoman Empire. Expanding on recent scholarship framing maps as processes rather than static documents or representations, the author applies the “maps as process” framework to historical maps, a broad category of mapping yet to be addressed by this growing body of literature, to highlight the disordered yet interconnected ways in which seven British archival maps emerged from these negotiations and ultimately helped to reorder this area of the world.