The End of the Ottoman Empire

Author(s): Elie Kedourie

Source: Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 3, No. 4, 1918-19: From War to Peace (Oct.,
1968), pp. 19-28
Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd.
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The End of the
Ottoman Empire

Elie Kedourie

At the Armistice of Mudros, signed on 30 October I918, the Sick

Man of Europe- as the Ottoman Empire had for so long been
derisivelyknown- finallydied. For all his alleged sickness,how-
ever, the Sick Man did not die of disease, but was violently des-
troyed in a long and bitter war in which he proved a formidable
opponent and gave quite a good account of himself. But now,
at the end of 1918, the Empire was lying prostrate,its central
government quite powerless, its armies in dissolution, and its
territoriesin Arabia,the Levant, and Mesopotamiaunder Allied
- mostly British - occupation. Its enemies for half a century and
more had desiredand prophesiedthe destructionof the Ottoman
Empire, had denouncedit as a corrupt,oppressivedespotism. It
now lookedas though the Turk would at last be expelled,bag and
baggage, not only from Europe, but from Asia as well; that his
possessionswould be dismemberedand divided and the national-
ities whom he was said to have oppressedfor so long at last set
free. In fact the Allies, that is Great Britain,France,Russia, and
Italy, had by various treaties concluded in I9I5, 1916, and 1917
in anticipation divided Ottoman territoriesamong themselves,
and at the end of the war it seemed that nothing could prevent
such schemes being implemented.Russia, of course,had by then
droppedout, and the Sovietshad abandonedall claimto Ottoman
territory;but anotherclaimanthad appearedin their stead, whose
ambitionsevokedthe Turks' determinedand desperateresistance
and forced the Allies to reckonwith them. Ever since the Greek
Revolution,Greeknationalistshad aspiredto extend the bounda-
ries of Greeceso as to takein the Greekpopulationof Asia Minor,
and resuscitatethe glories of Byzantium.At the war's end, Veni-
zelos was Prime Minister in Greece. During the war he had been
pro-Entente,and he now persuadedthe Allies to award Smyrna
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 CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

and its hinterlandto the Greeks.In May I919 Greektroops were

landedin Asia Minor. This fateful move precipitateda succession
of events which in the end forced the Allies to abandonmany of
their plans and transformedthe Turkish-speakingheartlandof the
OttomanEmpireinto a secular,westernized(andactivelywestern-
izing) republic called Turkey. For this Greek occupationevoked
amongthe Turks a desperateindignation,and it so happenedthat
precisely then the man was at hand who knew how to canalize
and to use these feelings. The indignationis easy to understand.
Harsh terms imposed by the British or the French or even the
Italian enemy were perhaps bearable. But a Greek occupation
was not to be borne. More than an injury,it was a dishonouring
insult. For the Greeksnot so long ago had been the subjectsof the
OttomanMuslims: now, without having even fought in the war,
and taking advantage of European Christian sympathies, they
presumed to despoil and humiliate those who had been their
mastersonly yesterday.MustafaKemal, an Ottomangeneralwith
a distinguishedwar record, proved to be the man of the hour.
With skill and determination,ignoring the Imperial Ottoman
Governmentwhich sat in Istanbul under the Allies' thumb, he
organizedresistanceto the Greekinvaderso successfullythat in the
short space of three years he undid all the schemes of the Allies.
He becamethe recognizedleaderto whom the countrylooked for
deliverance.He defeatedthe Greeksand expelledthem from Asia
Minor; he compelled the Italians, the French, and finally the
Britishto withdrawtheir forces and to acknowledgethe authority
of the Governmentwhich he had set up in Ankara.When the
Greeksweredefeated,the GrandNationalAssembly,in November
1922,deposedthe SultanMuhammadvi Wahidad-Din, and a year
later proclaimed a Turkish Republic with Mustafa Kemal as
President. The Ottoman Sultans had been the rulers of the
greatestMuslim state in the world, and Muslims everywherehad
come to look upon them as Caliphs, as the heads, that is, of the
Muslim community,to obey whom was a religiousduty. In Mus-
lim doctrine the office of a Caliph was at the same time both
religious and political. What the Grand National Assembly
professedto have abolishedin 1922 was the Sultanateas a political
office,which was incompatiblewith the new Turkish constitution
which laid down that 'sovereigntybelongs without reservationor
condition to the nation'. The Assembly disavowedany intention
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 THE END OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

of tamperingwith the religiousattributesof the Caliphate,which

they declaredstill to inhere in the OttomanHouse. They there-
fore proclaimedthe deposed Sultan'scousin, Abdul Majid, as the
new Caliph. This new-model Caliph had purely 'spiritual'attri-
butes; he was, so to speak,the honoraryheadof the Muslimworld,
but he had no functionswhateverwithin the Turkish- or indeed
any other- body politic. Such a separationof what,in the Muslim
tradition,had been inseparable,was inspired,as we may suspect,
by the exampleof Europe,where,however,the distinctionbetween
spiritualand temporalaroseout of its own peculiarhistory.In any
case, the mock-Caliphateof Abdul Majid did not last long, for
in I924 it was in its turn abolishedat MustafaKemal'ssuggestion.
Thus, in the space of two years, there was unceremoniously
swept away not only the Ottoman dynasty which had exercised
power for six centuries,but also the highest and most venerable
officeof Islam,which was as old as the religionitself. These events,
the consequenceof defeat in war, are also the culminationof a
trend clearly visible throughout nineteenth-century Ottoman
history. For Mustafa Kemal can be seen as the latest of those
Ottomanrulers and statesmenwho believed that the state would
surviveonly if it adoptedwesterninstitutions- military,adminis-
trative, and political. But the Turkish Republic which was the
culminationof all these endeavourswas manifestlynot the Otto-
man Empire.Can it be the case that these reformerswere wrong,
and that westernizationcould not ensure Ottomansurvival? We
may indeed go furtherand say that Ottomansurvivalwas incom-
patible with westernization;that if the Empiremay be called the
Sick Man of Europe,then the maladywastingits framewas itself
a Europeansickness.

Westernizationwas desirableto makethe stateefficientandpower-

ful. But westernizationwas not merely a matterof administrative
techniquesand politicalinstitutions;it was fundamentallya trans-
valuationof values, a transformationof one's view of oneself, of
one's history, and of one's place in the body politic. Westerniza-
tion requiredthe Ottomansto cease looking upon themselves as
the subjects of the Sultan, and to consider themselves citizens
bound to the state and to fellow citizens by a feeling of active
solidarity.And accordingto Europeanpoliticaltheory this indis-
pensablefeeling of solidarityexisted at its strongestonly in nation-
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 CONTEMPORARYHISTORY

states,whereit wasnationalityandlanguage,not so muchreligionor

loyaltyto a dynasty,whichboundmentogether.Hencethe Caliphate
had to go, hence the Sultan's subjects, or some of them, had to
learn to look upon themselves as 'Turks', and to believe that it
was this which legitimately delimited and defined their body
politic. This was clearly incompatiblewith the Ottomanset-up,
and to the extent that the Ottoman Empire was sick, to the
extent that it died of sickness, we may with no exaggerationsay
that it died of Europe.
We may measure the depth to which these European ideas
permeatedthe Middle East by the sequel to the Turkish abolition
of the Caliphate. The first reaction was, as we might expect,
one of shockand protest.LeadingMuslims were heardto say that
the Caliphatewas of the essence of Islam, and ambitiousrulers
thought to acquire the dignity for themselves. Husain, ci-devant
Sharif of Mecca and subordinateof the Sultan, now King of the
Hijaz,tried to get himself acclaimedCaliph. So did Fuad, King of
Egypt, whose family before 1914 also held their title from and
were the vassals of Istanbul. Neither had any success, for Islam
as an ecumenical community vanished beyond recall. For just
as the Turkish-speakingsubjects of the Sultan were being told
by their intellectualand officialclasses that they were not Otto-
mans but 'Turks', so the Arabic-speakingpopulation of the
Empire was informedthat Ottomanrule had been an oppressive
foreign tyranny, that the 'Arabs'formed a nation on their own,
and that this nation had the right to live in a state exclusivelyits
own.
This doctrineof Arabnationalism,as disruptiveof the Ottoman
scheme as Turkish nationalism,found its greatopportunityin the
war. It had so far been the affair of a few obscure writers and
students in Istanbul and elsewhere, and a few Arabic-speaking
Ottoman officers for whom the conspiratorialand doctrinaire
style of the YoungTurkswas a seductiveprecedentand a tempting
example.After 1914, Franceand GreatBritain,but chieflythe lat-
ter, took it up and promotedHusain the Sharif of Mecca as its
spokesmanand standard-bearer.They promised to set up some
kind of Arab state or states after the war, taking it for granted-
and it was quite a reasonableassumption- that these states would
come under their influenceor control. It was Great Britainwho
bore the brunt of the fightingagainstthe Ottomans,and to many
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 THE END OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

Britishstatesmenand officialsit beganto seem unfairthat France

should benefit so handsomely from the Ottoman defeat. They
beganthereforeto encourageSharifianpretensionsin the hope that
France would give up its Middle Eastern ambitions when she
found these too difficultand too costly to assert. Notably, at the
very end of the war, they allowed Sharifian troops to enter
Damascusaheadof othertroops and thus to claimthat it was they
who capturedthis ancientand importantmetropolis.The French
were not daunted and proceeded to assert their rights in the
Levant; but this British policy acted, so to speak, as a catalyst
of Arab nationalism.It provided the nationalistswith a myth,
a programme,and a grievance,which becamethe source of much
turbulencein the followingdecades.Again, the Britishat the end
of I917 had promisedthe Zioniststo help them establisha Jewish
'national home' - whatever this meant - in Palestine, and this
commitmentwas embodiedin the Mandatefor Palestinewhich in
I920 Great Britain was assigned to administeron behalf of the
League of Nations. It has become a truism that Zionism and
Arab nationalism are incompatible - and so they are - but it is
well to remembertwo things. The first- now a purely academic
but still not unimportantpoint - is that behind the commitment
to the Zionists lay the most complicated motives; but that it
did not contradictthe commitmentto the Sharif, and that in so
far as it was useful in checkmatingthe French it also usefully
complemented,in British eyes, this commitmentto the Sharif.
The second is that, potentiallyincompatibleas nonethelessthese
undertakingsmay have been, this incompatibilitydid not become
fatal and catastrophicuntil 1933, when the Nazis began to terro-
rize the Jews of Europe and thus bring about an intolerable
situation in Palestine. But who could believe in 19I9 that the
civilizationof Europewas capableof throwingup a phenomenon
like Hitler? Who, apartfrom a few unregardedseerslike the poet
Yeats who, in a remarkable poem published in I920, affirmed
The blood-dimmed
tide is loosed
and wondered
Whatroughbeast,its hourcomeroundat last
SlouchestowardsBethlehemto be born?
Palestine, as we have seen, became a Mandate. The idea of
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 CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

mandateswas invented towardsthe end of the war and was later

incorporatedin the Covenantof the Leagueof Nations. By means
of this device, territoriesand colonies which had belongedto the
defeated powers, and which were-as the Covenant put it-
'inhabited by peoples not yet able to stand by themselvesunder
the strenuous conditions of the modern world', were put under
the tutelageof 'advancednations' who were to lend them assis-
tance 'until such time as they are able to stand alone'. By their
wartime self-determinationrhetoric the Allies had made it very
difficultfor themselvesto reap in a straightforwardmannerat the
peace settlement the traditional rewards of victory. Mandates
seemed to be a convenientdevice to satisfyambitionswhich it was
thought no longer decent openly to avow. And yet not so conven-
ient, for by its very naturethe exerciseof mandatorygovernment-
meant to be strictlytemporary- was perpetuallyopen to scrutiny
and challengein respect not merely of the details of its operation,
but in respectalso of its very legitimacy.This workedto crampthe
style of the mandatories- the Frenchin the Levantand the British
in Palestine and Mesopotamia- to make them uncertainin the
exercise, and hesitant in the assertion,of authority.And this can
be said to have worked to the detrimentof the mandatedterri-
tories themselves. When the League Covenantspoke of 'peoples
not yet able to stand by themselves',it spoke metaphorically,and
the metaphorwas surely meant to indicate that these mandated
territoriesdid not enjoy the arts of stable, orderly,constitutional
government which the 'advanced nations' knew the secret of
inculcating.If this was so, then mandatoryrule diminishedrather
than enhanced the chances of these peoples 'to stand by them-
selves'.
But let us abandonthe metaphor,for metaphorsdrawn from
the nursery are not really suitable to the discussion of politics.
Speakingthen a more literallanguage,we may say that the man-
dated areasof the Middle East had seen their traditionalpolitical
institutions violently and suddenly destroyed by the war; their
customary loyalties and allegiances had become meaningless.
These societies were therefore dangerouslyvolatile and could
easily become the victims of instability and disorder,in an age
where the demagoguescould make use of radio and cheap news-
print to reachand manipulatethe masses.And these massescould
bring no judgment to bear on complicatedand remote political
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issues, hitherto quite alien to their world, and made even more
alien by the Europeanvocabularyin which they were phrased.In
these circumstancesthe mandatoryscheme, with its makeshift
and temporaryair, with its fatal confusionbetweenthe activityof
governingand the activityof educating,could not conduceto the
orderlinessand stabilitywhich are indispensableto politicalfree-
dom and public welfare. Mandates, then, were yet another
reasonwhy the Middle East would enjoy little public tranquillity
after I9I8. Mandatesspreadthe illusion that governmenthas an
appointedgoal and a stated terminus, namely to help mandated
territoriesto 'standby themselves'.They thus offeredthe manda-
tories the temptation to preserve influence and power in the
Middle East while sliding out of the arduous, unpleasantand
perpetualburden of governing aliens. But it is a commonplace
both of prudenceand moralitythat powerand responsibilitymust
not be divorced.Mandatesmadethis divorceeasyandthus marked
a degradationof the imperialethic.

Anglo-Egyptianrelationsin the aftermathof the war provideyet

anotherexampleof this degradation.When war brokeout in 1914
Egypt, which had still been formallypart of the OttomanEmpire,
was proclaimeda BritishProtectorate.By the end of the war, the
exact modalitiesof the Protectoratehad not yet been workedout,
and all the wartime talk of self-determinationand Wilsonian
principles encouragedthe Sultan of Egypt and some Egyptian
public men to askfor autonomy- or perhapseven independence-
for Egypt. What they understoodby autonomyor independence
no doubt varied from person to person. The Sultan, Fuad, who
had unexpectedlycome to the thronein 1917, who was autocratic
in temper and hungry for power, anticipatedthat the removalof
British control would make him the undisputed master of the
country.Ministersand politicianson their side thought that such
a state of affairswould give them,not the Sultan, greateroppor-
tunities in the governmentof Egypt. In a concertedmove, a few
days after the Armistice, an Egyptiandelegationapproachedthe
BritishHigh Commissionerwith a demandto be allowedto go to
London to discuss future Anglo-Egyptianrelations.The delega-
tion was led by Zaghlul,an ex-ministerwhom Cromerin the old
days had consideredto be one of the hopes of constitutionaland
parliamentarygovernment in Egypt. The events which now
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followed showed him to possess hitherto unsuspected,but quite

considerabledemagogic talents, and to rival the Sultan in the
autocracyof his temperandhis appetitefor power.The mechanism
of Britishgovernmentwhetherin London or in Cairohad suffered
by reasonof the war, and the Egyptianrequestcame as a surprise
to which no ready answerwas forthcoming.The Egyptianswere
told that the Governmentwas too busy to talkto them. Thereupon
a country-wide agitation began, favoured by the Sultan and
encouragedby his ministers.The Britishofficialsin Egypt clearly
did not appreciatethe characterand extent of this agitationand
believed that if Zaghlul were removedit would die down. When,
however, they deported him to Malta, widespread disorders
engulfed the country. It is apparentin retrospectthat this up-
rising was the consequenceof the previousmonths'agitation,and
more remotely of the unsettlement,inflation,and administrative
slacknessbroughtaboutby the war. The cities, Cairoand Alexan-
dria in particular,had become swollen with a miserablevolatile
mass of recent immigrantsfrom the countrysidewho could be
worked upon and manipulated.The uprising provided an early
exemplificationof the crowd as a politicalweapon,which Zaghlul
and later Middle Eastern leaders came to use with consummate
skill. Though it was put down very quickly, the uprising threw
the British Governmentoff its balance.Wingate,the High Com-
missioner, who knew the country well, was abruptlyreplacedby
Allenby, whose brisk and soldierly methods were thought more
appropriate.But his methods did not answer, policy became a
zig-zag alternatingbetween concession and repression, and the
Governmentwas driven from expedient to expedient in dealing
with a situationnow clearlybeyond its control. Finally, wearying
of commissions and investigations and negotiations, Allenby
did put up a show of briskness.He put a pistol to Lloyd George's
head and compelled him to agree to a declarationof his own
devising. This was the famous Declarationof 28 FebruaryI922.
The Declaration conceded independence to Egypt, but four
points were reservedto the discretionof the British Government.
These concerned the security of Imperial communicationsin
Egypt, the defence of Egypt itself, the protection of foreign
interestsand of minorities,and the Sudan.The Declarationmade
sense only on the assumptionthat the events of I9I9-22 indicated
the desire of the Egyptiansfor freedom and independence.Such
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 THE END OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

an assumption,as the sequel speedilyshowed, was quite doubtful.

It was sounder and wiser to see in them the outcome of a social
malaise born of the war which the Sultan and the politicians
captured and exploited for their own purposes. By granting
independenceto Egypt the 1922 Declarationin effect abandoned
the country to the autocratic Fuad and his equally autocratic
son, and to the vagaries of politicians who behind a facade of
parliamentarygovernmentpursued interests and purposes quite
divorcedfromthose of the massof the Egyptians.But the Declara-
tion was also carefulto safeguardthose interestswhich had made
the continuedoccupationof Egypt,in the eyes of Britishstatesmen,
worthwhileand indeed necessary.In so doing, it in effectdivorced
British interests from British responsibilities. But the great
justificationof the Britishoccupationof Egypt- which was carried
out in orderto protectBritishinterests- had been that the British
recognizeda responsibilityfor the good governmentand the wel-
fare of its inhabitants. With this justificationrepudiated, the
British position in Egypt was bound sooner or later to become
untenableand indefensible.
The first world war and its aftermathwas the harbingerin
Europeof monstroustyrannies,of a second, even more destructive
war, and of atrocities unparalleledin the history of the world.
It would thereforebe surprisingfor this conflict to have proved
beneficentin the Middle East. In fact, in this area, decade after
decade, there was a steady worseningof political conditions, an
exacerbationof political conflicts, and a coming to the fore of
new politicalclasseswhose style of rule was an amalgamof tradi-
tionaldespotism,modernEuropeanabsolutism,and contemporary
totalitarianism.The shockand destructionof the warundoubtedly
were responsiblefor this. Also responsible were the European
states - France, but mainly Great Britain - who inherited the
Ottoman position. As the dominant powers in the area, they
were increasinglydistracted by their European preoccupations,
and they pursuedno coherentor consistentpolicies.Even had they
desired to do so, they would have been hobbled and hampered
by the absurd mandates system, by a mass electorate at home
profoundly uninterested in anything but 'welfare', and- not
least - by an insidious and profound feeling of guilt which in-
creasingly dominatedtheir official and intellectual classes. It is
usual to point to the Palestineproblemas a prime exampleof the
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 CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

disasters brought upon the Middle East by the West. But the
Palestineproblem became unmanageablebecause of Hitler's un-
foreseenrise, which the British had no means of preventing.For
all its prominencetherefore,Palestine is not really such a good
example. More pertinent are Egypt, Iraq, or Syria, where from
I919 onwardsthe westernpowerswereengagedin puttingtogether
and perfecting those infernal machines which after 1945 would
explodein their own faces and also do greatdamageto the popula-
tions for which they had so blithely acceptedresponsibility.
* * * *

(The authorwishesto thank the British BroadcastingCorporationfor

permissionto publishthis article, originallygiven as a talk on the Third
Programme.)

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