why did britain colonize the middle east?

While McMahon expressed some reservations about parts of coastal Syria and while the two men never confirmed the final details on this point, McMahon nevertheless assured Sharif Husayn that "Great Britain is prepared to recognize and uphold the independence of the Arabs in all the regions lying within the frontiers proposed by the Sherif [Sharif] of Mecca." Deeply concerned by the Ottoman discourses that portrayed the war as a jihad, and fearful lest Muslims throughout the wider British Empire rise up to support the Ottoman cause (and thereby the Central Powers), British leaders made extra efforts to cultivate wartime alliances with Muslim dignitaries who could offset the Ottoman bid for Muslim support. 16 Oct. 2020 . This situation meant that Iran's strategic value now lay not only in its proximity to India and its position along the Persian Gulf, but also in its importance as an oil supplier and naval refueling site. London: Routledge/Curzon, 2004. Much to the dismay of France, which had only recently occupied Tunisia, Britain took action in 1882 by bombarding the coast of Alexandria and occupying Egypt. © 2019 Encyclopedia.com | All rights reserved. When Britain tried to prevent Egyptian nationalist leaders from airing their views at the Paris Peace Conference, a popular nationalist revolt broke out. 20 vols. Monroe, Elizabeth. While several key events stand However, Turkish-speaking nationalists led by an Ottoman war veteran named Mustafa Kemal (later called Atatürk, or "Father of the Turks") rallied to prevent the implementation of this treaty and to set up a counter-government in the central Anatolian village of Ankara. In theory if not in practice, this decree reversed the traditional Islamic imperial assumption of Muslim hegemony over non-Muslim subjects British foreign minister It helped in the long run that Lord Cromer, architect of British policy in the 1883 to 1907 period, had believed in the value of the press as a safety valve for local grievances, because under British colonialism, Egypt's Arabic periodical press flourished and brought Egyptian nationalism into greater focus. Here’s how and why a simple trading company, the British East India Company, became one of the biggest challenges the subcontinent had ever dealt with. The British first landed in India in Surat for the purpose of trade. The most controversial history of post-World War I British imperialism in the region pertains to Palestine. I mmediately following the end of World War II…, British Association for the Advancement of Science, British Columbia Institute of Technology: Narrative Description, British Columbia Institute of Technology: Tabular Data, British Imperial System of weights and measures, https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/british-colonialism-middle-east, Britain and the Middle East from 1914 to the Present, Independence and Decolonization, Middle East. As we go back to the time gone by and in the history of the Middle East region at large, there are many interesting themes to explore upon, be it, the culture, tradition or a combination of both these two. Kolinsky, Martin. Encyclopedias almanacs transcripts and maps, Encyclopedia of Western Colonialism since 1450. Why did European nations such as Britain colonize countries in the Middle East in the beginning of the twentieth century? Husayn did not retain power for long, however, as in 1924 the Wahhabist forces of 'Abd al'Aziz Ibn Saqud overran the region and seized control, forcing him to flee into exile. Responding to Nasser's maneuver, Britain and France, in alliance with Israel, declared war on Egypt. In the long run, Britain was arguably the most important of these powers in shaping the region's political destiny. The treaty recognized the region now corresponding to Syria and Lebanon, where France had long-standing economic and cultural interests, as part of a future French sphere, and the region of Mesopotamia (now Iraq) as part of a future British sphere. By the end of World War I, nationalism was arguably a stronger and more coherent force in Egypt than in any other Arabic-speaking country. In what amounted to a last burst of imperial expansion, France gained mandates over Syria and Lebanon; Britain gained Palestine and Iraq and ensured that the boundaries of the new Iraq included the oil-rich region around Mosul. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003. But in fact Britain kept a hold over Egypt for the next seventy years and only withdrew its last troops from the Suez Canal in 1956. In the period from 1798 to 1882, Britain pursued three major objectives in the Middle East: protecting access to trade routes in the eastern Mediterranean, maintaining stability in Iran and the Persian Gulf, and guaranteeing the integrity of the Ottoman Empire. As historians later acknowledged, however, Britain's victory in war also entailed a defeat, in a sense, for its empire. Third, Britain recognized Sharif Husayn himself as ruler of a Hashimite kingdom of the Hijaz (western Arabia). What methods did Europeans use to colonize and maintain power and authority in this area? Neither Britain nor Russia wanted the other power to seize control over Iran because the region was strategically valuable to both. British decolonization in Palestine thereby gave rise to both the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Palestinian refugee problem. With the notable exception of Iran, which remained a center of independent Islamic government for centuries, this region in the nineteenth century fell largely within the orbit of the Ottoman Empire, an Islamic sultanate that was based after 1453 in Istanbul. British Protestant Missionaries and Overseas Expansion, 1700–1914. Second, and also in 1921, Britain invited Abdallah, another son of Sharif Husayn, to become emir of Transjordan, an arid and thinly populated region that Britain had gained with the Palestine mandate—but an area that was excluded from the sphere of Zionist settlement. Kent, Marian. Robinson and Gallagher's narrative emphasized the interconnectedness of Britain's imperial holdings in the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia, as well as the importance of river and ocean access routes in determining Britain's strategic priorities. Brookfield, VT: Ashgate, 1998. However, the United States and the Soviet Union interceded to call off the Anglo-French-Israeli invasion out of a concern that the conflict could escalate in the Cold War milieu. New York: St. Martin's, 1999. A concept coined in the initial stage of the Greek War of Independence (1821–1829) to describe the territorial effect of the political decline of the…, Great Britain, officially United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, constitutional monarchy (2011 pop. The Commonwealth Games in Glasgow this year welcomed former British colonies, but absent were those Middle Eastern states where Britain had exercised imperial soft power in the twentieth century. twentieth century, preserved the weak central government of the Qajar shahs from formal colonial takeover. In the period from 1798 to 1882, Britain pursued three major objectives in the Middle East: protecting access to trade routes in the eastern Mediterranean, maintaining stability in Iran and the Persian Gulf, and guaranteeing the integrity of the Ottoman Empire. ." This policy led to the creation of the Muhammad Ali Dynasty, which endured in Egypt until 1952. Along with Russia and France, Britain supported the Greek Revolt and helped to broker the agreement that led in 1832 to Greek independence from the Ottomans—that is, to liberty from what Greek nationalist historians have often called Turkocracy. The Middle East followed quickly behind South Asia, with Palestine's decolonization occurring in 1948. The ultimate goal behind the first two objectives was to secure and protect sea and land routes to India, which was becoming increasingly vital both to Britain's economy and to its imperial psyche. On the contrary, the mandate for Palestine laid out a framework for Zionist administration and settlement, according to which Britain would facilitate Jewish immigration. This Anglo-Russian competition over Iran, which endured into the "Capitulations." Most online reference entries and articles do not have page numbers. With Mussolini's Italy in control of Libya, on Egypt's western flank, Britain faced up to the possibility of a German and Italian invasion within North Africa. "British Colonialism, Middle East ." Correct answers: 3 question: Select the correct answer. The third objective was related to what nineteenth-century observers called the Eastern Question—that is, the challenge of preserving the Ottoman Empire in order to avoid inflaming both competition between the Great Powers and the generally contentious atmosphere created by Western imperial expansion. 2nd ed. Britain in Iraq, 1914–1932. The most symbolically important event in Britain's Middle East decolonization was the Suez Crisis, which occurred in Egypt in 1956, four years after a leftist revolution that had overturned Egypt's parliamentary monarchy and only a few months after the negotiated withdrawal of Britain's last troops from the Suez Canal Zone. - 6831784 Answer: While the Europeans never settled the Middle East in large numbers, nor did they colonize it like they did … For the purposes of this essay, the Middle East is defined as the region ranging from Egypt to Iran and from Turkey to Yemen. Martin's, 2004. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1966. Massad, Joseph A. Colonial Effects: The Making of National Identity in Jordan. An Economic History of the Middle East and North Africa. Called capitulations in English, from the Latin term capitulas referring to the chapters or clauses of the agreements, these privileges were renegotiated several times over the next two centuries. Britain's vested interests in the Ottoman Empire also influenced its policies toward Egypt in the early twentieth century. The Making of the Modern Near East, 1792–1923. Issawi, Charles. In 1919 Egyptian nationalists demanded the right to Egyptian self-determination (reflecting an ideal that U.S. president Woodrow Wilson had so famously articulated during the war) and called for an end to the British protectorate. Why did the Europeans colonize the Middle East? Though Iran's Pahlavi monarch, Reza Shah, declared Iran to be neutral when World War II broke out, British suspicions regarding his wartime sympathies prompted the shah in 1941 to abdicate in favor of his son, Mohammed Reza, as a way of safeguarding the monarchy. A desire to protect the Suez route influenced Britain's decision to annex Aden (now part of Yemen), at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, in 1839. It can also be described as an ideology of superiority.However, the root of the word comes from the Latin word colonus (farmer) and thus is frequently used to address the practice of population transfer from one territory to another. Quataert, Donald. Army units from Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq invaded the next day, but fared poorly. This idea is perceived as conventional wisdom in many Islamic nations. Known as the qUrabi Rebillion—after the military officer, Ahmed qUrabi, who emerged to lead it—this uprising prompted deep concern among Britons, who feared that instability in Egypt could threaten the Suez Canal—the British imperial life-line to India—as well as local British investments. The United States' creeping involvement in the Middle East began later, during the Truman administration, and continued through the 21st century. As you can see the ME was all … First, Britain invited Faisal (Sharif Husayn's son, who had been ousted from the leadership of a nascent Arab Kingdom in Damascus by the French) to become king of British-mandated Iraq in 1921—thus creating the Hashimite Kingdom of Iraq, which lasted until a violent leftist coup in 1958. (In 1932 Britain granted Iraq a form of official, yet nominal independence: it was nominal because Britain reserved control over Iraq's military and communications and retained a major share in Iraq's burgeoning oil industry.) British authorities maintained that the occupation would be a short-term affair, pending the restoration of political stability. Encyclopedia of Western Colonialism since 1450. . Acting on this agreement, and bolstered by British funds, weapons, and military advising, Sharif Husayn built up an army to attack the Ottomans. Said, Edward W. Orientalism. Codell, Julie F., and Dianne Sachko Macleod. In Egypt in 1881, a nationalist uprising broke out against a backdrop of widespread economic distress and growing anti-European sentiment. Britain responded by unilaterally severing Egypt from the Ottoman Empire and by declaring Egypt to be a British protectorate; Egypt then became an important base for military planning and coordination on the Middle East front. Plans for Palestine were left somewhat vague with the treaty suggesting some kind of international administration. A. to gain an upper hand over the United States B. to export oil from Britain to the Middle East C. to control Britain was initially concerned about the prospect of a French invasion of India through Iran and Afghanistan, but this threat had dissipated by the time the Napoleonic wars ended in 1815. However the foundations that this conspiracy rests Leiden, Netherlands; Boston: Brill, 2004. Encyclopedia.com. When the loans came due in 1875, the Ottoman and Egyptian governments found themselves unable to pay. Colonialism, in other words, was a two-way street. As the Turks began controlling everything in the Middle East, the Europeans began searching for new routes to India. Understanding what each of these deals entailed and how they were later applied is critical to understanding the impact of British imperialism on the twentieth-century Middle East. They identified a possible ally in Husayn ibn Ali, also known as Sharif Husayn of Mecca. ed. London: Ithaca, 1976. Britain agreed to recognize and if necessary protect the signatories and their heirs, in return for gaining exclusive control over their foreign policy. Having come under increased attacks from armed Zionist groups whose members regarded Britain's presence as an obstacle to Jewish statehood, and realizing the intractability of the situation that the mandate had created for local Arabs, British authorities hoisted down the Union Jack on May 14, 1948, and beat a hasty retreat. The Rise and Fall of the Hashemite Kingdom of Arabia. Britain's War in the Middle East: Strategy and Diplomacy, 1936–1942. In 1919 Britain extracted a new Anglo-Persian treaty that made Britain the sole provider of advice to Iran's military and central government and the sole source of transportation and communications development. Farther to the west, North Africa assumed vital importance as a staging area for the United States and Britain to launch their invasion of fascist Italy, from which they hoped to move northward to attack German positions in central Europe. Question is wrongly worded if the comment is true: ‘A lot of the answers are addressing the conquest of later IE-speaking empires (the Persians, Alexander Elizabeth Monroe, in Britain’s Moment in the Middle East, wrote an incisive account of the rise and fall of British power in the region from 1914 to the Suez crisis of 1956. These resisters, who went on to declare the birth of a Turkish republic in 1920 and the end of the Ottoman order, succeeded in winning international recognition for the new country of Turkey and in preventing the full implementation of the Treaty of Sèvres. Arguably, the informality of the British influence in Egypt made British colonialism especially tenacious there, with the result that Egypt gained independence only incrementally. Source: Britannica. In the 1920's, after the First World War, the Middle East was colonized mostly by France, Spain, Britain, and Italy. Encyclopedia.com. see also Baring, Evelyn; British India and the Middle East; Mandate Rule. Historians date the beginning of British imperialism in the Middle East to 1798, the year Napoléon invaded Egypt. Britain negotiated an advantageous commercial treaty with Iran in 1857, while in the late nineteenth century British concerns won concessions to develop a telegraph system and a modern central bank in Tehran. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Because each style has its own formatting nuances that evolve over time and not all information is available for every reference entry or article, Encyclopedia.com cannot guarantee each citation it generates. London: Longman, 1987. The Middle East and the West: Carving Up the Region Napoleon's foray into Egypt in 1798 began a long string of European adventures in the Middle East. British Documents on Foreign Affairs: Reports and Papers from the Foreign Office Confidential Print, Part I: From the Mid-Nineteenth Century to the First World War, Series B: The Near and Middle East, 1856–1914. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. Middle East, the lands around the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea, encompassing at least the Arabian Peninsula and, by some definitions, Iran, North Africa, and sometimes beyond. Over non-Muslim subjects ( dhimmis ), oil made its debut as a concept has been superseded since the World. ), was a two-way street L. Esposito, 257-260 often important Ali! Convention regarding the best way to format page numbers extract advantages for itself frederick, MD: Hopkins... This area its beginning the Zionist movement has been superseded since the World... 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