THE FIRST WORLD WAR AND THE MIDDLE EAST

Abstract

The First World War in the Middle East swept away five hundred years of Ottoman dominion. It ushered in new ideologies and radicalized old ones – from Arab nationalism and revolutionary socialism to impassioned forms of atavistic Islamism. It created heroic icons, like the enigmatic Lawrence or the modernizing Atatürk, and it completely re-drew the map of the region, forging a host of new nation states, For many, the self-serving intervention of these powers in the region between 1914 and 1919 is the major reason for the conflicts that have raged there on and off ever since. Yet many of the most common assertions about the First World War in the Middle East and its aftermath are devoid of context. This article argues that, far from being a mere sideshow to the war in Europe, the Middle Eastern conflict was in fact the centre of gravity in a war for imperial interests. Moreover, contrary to another persistent myth of the First World War in the Middle East, local leaders and their forces were not simply the puppets of the Great Powers. The way in which these local forces embraced, resisted, succumbed to, disrupted, or on occasion overturned the plans of the imperialist powers for their own interests in fact played an important role in shaping the immediate aftermath of the conflict – and in laying the foundations for the troubled Middle East.