Contrasting Views: The Middle East at the End of World War I: Freedom or Subjugation?

The end of World War I aroused hopes around the world. In Paris in 1919, representatives of the victorious powers were besieged by outsiders to Western government, each making a claim for special attention to their needs or for concrete action to realize the noble rhetoric of the Fourteen Points. The conquered and the colonized expected a fair-minded treaty based on a range of Allied agreements, and a variety of other peoples were encouraged by promises of self-determination. Yet it quickly became clear that there were contrasting views among the Allies themselves. Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points articulated one position on the future of colonized areas of the world, including the Ottoman Empire (Excerpt 1). As the war drew to a close in November 1918, Britain and France seemed to endorse Wilson’s position when it came to freedom for Ottoman subjects (Excerpt 2). Other agreements, such as those dividing up oil between the British and French in the Middle East, gave a far different impression (Excerpt 3). At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919–1920, Middle Eastern leaders lobbied for their independence. The emir Faisal was one of these, after having led pro-Allied troops to bring about freedom from the Ottomans and to achieve Arab unity (Excerpt 4). When the mandate system was drawn up, however, it became clear that those under Ottoman rule would in fact remain unfree (Excerpt 5).

1. Woodrow Wilson, Fourteen Points, January 8, 1918

President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points, first presented in a speech to the U.S. Congress, raised hopes that the world would be fairer after the war than before. The fifth and twelfth points, presented here, spoke especially to those who had been held in colonial subjugation.

V. A free, openminded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined.

XII. The Turkish portions of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees.

Source: Woodrow Wilson, “Speech on the Fourteen Points,” Congressional Record, 65th Congress, 2nd Session, 1918, 680–81.

2. The Anglo-French Declaration of November 7, 1918

As World War I reached its end in the autumn of 1918, the French and British issued this official declaration of their war aims.

The object aimed at by France and Great Britain in prosecuting in the East the War let loose by the ambition of Germany is the complete and definite emancipation of the peoples so long oppressed by the Turks and the establishment of national governments and administrations deriving their authority from the initiative and free choices of the indigenous populations.

Source: Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons, 5, cxlv, 351.

3. British-French Division of the Oil in Mesopotamia (Iraq)

Despite claims to favor Middle Eastern independence, the British and French made many agreements about their joint prerogatives in the region, this one concerning oil, which the war had shown to be an increasingly indispensable commodity.

The British Government undertake to grant to the French Government or its nominee twenty-five percent of the net output of crude oil at current market rates which His Majesty’s Government may secure from the Mesopotamian oilfields in the event of their being developed by Government action; or in the event of a private petroleum company being used to develop the Mesopotamian oilfields the British Government will place at the disposal of the French Government a share of twenty-five percent in such company.

Source: Memorandum of Agreement between M. Philippe Berthelot, Directeur des Affaires Politiques et Commerciles au Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, and Professor Sir John Cadman, Director in Charge of His Majesty’s Petroleum Department, in Cmd. 675 of 1920 and in U.S. Foreign Relations 1920, ii, 655–58.

4. Claiming Independence for the Middle East

Arabs had hotly debated whether to assist the Allied colonizers in World War I, but promises of independence won them over. Some Arabs argued for independence of individual areas in the Middle East and for resolutions to competing claims of the Arabs and of new Jewish settlers in the region. Emir Faisal, who had commanded Arab forces in the war, presented the pan-Arab ideal.

The aim of the Arab nationalist movement is to unite the Arabs eventually into one nation. . . . I came to Europe on behalf of my father and the Arabs of Asia to say that they are expecting the powers at the Conference not to attach undue importance to superficial differences of condition among us and not to consider them only from the low ground of existing European material interests and supposed spheres of influence. They expect the powers to think of them as one potential people, jealous of their language and liberty, and they ask that no step be taken inconsistent with the prospect of an eventual union of these areas under one sovereign government.

Source: Stephen Bonsal, Suitors and Suppliants: The Little Nations at Versailles (Port Washington: Kennikat Press, 1969), 32–33.

5. Resolution of the Syrian Congress at Damascus, July 2, 1919

In 1919, a commission from the Paris Peace Conference was established to investigate the political conditions in the Middle East. The Syrian Congress met to prepare this statement for the commission.

Considering the fact that the Arabs inhabiting the Syrian area are not naturally less gifted than other more advanced races and that they are by no means less developed than the Bulgarians, Serbians, Greeks, and Roumanians at the beginning of their independence, we protest against Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations placing us among the nations in their middle stage of development which stand in need of a mandatory power.

We oppose the pretentions of the Zionists to create a Jewish commonwealth in the southern part of Syria, known as Palestine, and oppose zionist migration to any part of our country. . . . Our Jewish compatriots shall enjoy our common rights and assume the common responsibilities.

We also have the fullest confidence that the Peace Conference will realize that we would not have risen against the Turks with whom we had participated in all civil, political, and representative privileges . . . and so will grant us our desires in full in order that our political rights may not be less after the war than they were before, since we have shed so much blood in the cause of our liberty and independence.

Source: Quoted in J. C. Hurewitz, ed., The Middle East and North Africa in World Politics: A Documentary Record, 2nd ed. 2 vols. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979), 2:180–81.

Questions to Consider

  1. Describe the various claims of the official combatant powers. How do you explain these differing positions?
  2. How were the competing positions at the peace conference related to the politics and conditions of World War I?
  3. Does any one or two of the demands seem more justifiable in addressing the peacetime needs of Europe and the world?
  4. What was the position of the Arabs?