As I’ve discussed over the past month, everything we know today about rightful control of Israel came to a head with the Great War, a war that shaped the Middle East.
When World War I began in 1914, the Ottoman Empire (most of the Middle East) joined Germany and Austria-Hungary against the Allied Powers (Britain, France, and Russia). The British opened several campaigns to fight the Ottomans, the most famous being the Battle of Gallipoli in 1915. The disastrous campaign resulted in approximately 250,000 British and Australian casualties and nearly destroyed future British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s political career.
Knowing the Ottoman rulers were Turkish but most of their subjects were Arabs, the British realized that one way to weaken the Ottoman Empire was to convince the Arab subjects to rebel. The problem was that the Arab population was not united but divided by regional, tribal, and political rivalries. There was no single leader who spoke for all Arabs. The best option for Britain was to work with Emir Sharif Hussein bin Ali of Mecca. As guardian of Islam’s holiest cities — Mecca and Medina — Hussein held considerable influence among Arab Muslims. If anyone could help unite the Arabs against the Ottomans, he was a promising candidate. Through the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence, 10 letters between Sir Henry McMahon, British high commissioner in Egypt, and Hussein, the British convinced Hussein to fight against the Ottomans in return for British support of an independent Arab nation, although the precise boundaries of that promise remained ambiguous.
In 1916, the Arab Revolt began under the leadership of Hussein and his son Faisal, who led the army. To assist the revolt, the British sent one of their officers, T. E. Lawrence. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia, was a British archaeologist, scholar, and army officer who had studied the Middle East and spoke Arabic. He was assigned because his regional knowledge and ability to build relationships with Arab leaders made him a valuable liaison between the British military and Hussein’s supporters. Lawrence helped coordinate Arab guerrilla attacks against Ottoman forces, including attacks on railways and the strategically important Port of Aqaba in modern-day Jordan.
In 1917, British General Edmund Allenby launched a major offensive into the regions of Syria and southern Palestine. British forces captured Be’er Shiva in October and Gaza in November before entering Jerusalem in December, ending centuries of Ottoman rule over the city. Fighting farther north continued into 1918 as British and Allied Forces pushed through Palestine and Syria. The Ottoman Empire signed an armistice in October 1918, effectively ending its participation in the war.
During the war, while the British were working with the Arabs, they also negotiated with France over how the Ottoman Empire might be divided after the war. In May 1916, the two countries reached the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement, a pact named for British diplomat Mark Sykes and French diplomat François Georges-Picot. The agreement outlined plans for British and French control or influence over much of the Ottoman Empire.
Finally, Britain made a third important commitment the following year, this time to the Zionists. On Nov. 2, 1917, British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour sent a letter to Lord Lionel Walter Rothschild, a prominent Jewish leader in Britain, expressing the British government’s support for Zionist aspirations.
Known as the Balfour Declaration, the letter stated that the British government favorably viewed the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in their homeland.
While the Balfour Declaration was a huge victory for the Zionists, it did not explicitly promise the creation of an independent Jewish state, nor did it define precisely what a national home would mean politically.
Clearly, during the war, the British were working several angles at once. They needed to defeat the Ottoman Empire, secure strategic interests in the Middle East, and maintain cooperation with France. Support from Arab leaders helped weaken Ottoman control while an agreement with France preserved the wartime alliance and established British and French spheres of influence in the region. British support for Zionism also reflected a combination of strategic calculations and sympathy for the Zionist cause among influential British leaders. These objectives were pursued through separate negotiations, and the British government did not clearly resolve how its various commitments would fit together.
When the Ottoman Empire was finally defeated, these disagreements became more than diplomatic disputes. Britain and France established control over much of the former Ottoman Empire. Palestine was placed under British administration, which incorporated the Balfour Declaration’s commitment to a Jewish national home. For many Arab leaders, this outcome represented a betrayal of the independence they believed Britain had promised. Instead of establishing the unified Arab kingdom they had hoped for, the postwar settlement placed much of the region under European control.
For the Zionists, British support offered an important opportunity to advance the goal of establishing a Jewish national home in their historic homeland. For the Arabs of Palestine, however, the prospect of increased Jewish immigration and the development of a Jewish national home raised growing concerns about their own political future and national aspirations. These competing expectations, combined with the conflicting promises made during the war, helped lay the groundwork for the struggle that would follow.
James Finck is a professor of American history at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma. He can be reached at james.finck@swoknews.com. Thanks to the Southwest Ledger and the Lawton Constitution for sharing his column.
