Ottoman Empire In World War I

Ottoman Empire in World War I

Introduction

There is an old Arab proverb who says fi al-haraka baraka, which is translated as, which can be interpreted as . This proverb seems to have influenced the decision of many Arabs both in the past, and in more recent years, to make the decision to undertake a risky journey of transfer to foreign lands and begin a new life in the hope of improving their social freedomand economical, freely profess their religion and flee from the political persecutions of which they were subject to their native countries. Many had in mind to start, with great expectations, a commercial life in order to obtain copious sums of money from it. These causes were strong enough for many Arabs, most of the great Syria and, in a particular case, of Lebanon, emigrated to other countries during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

The purpose of this work is to carefully analyze the causes of the migration of the Lebanese people at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. Investigating the internal and external reasons of Lebanon that caused that exodus of its population. To this we must add the political, religious and socio-economic reasons.

The great part of the Lebanese emigrants of the late nineteenth century professed the Christian faith and belonged to the Maronita Church. Lebanese from other Christian churches also left the country with the purpose of filing in other nations permanently. In the same way, in the last years of the twentieth century, a small number of Muslims has also emigrated to other places, including Latin America.

Background

At the beginning of the eleventh century, the Ottoman Turks, who already constituted a dominant empire on the territories in the north of the Black Sea, the Balkans and some islands of the Mediterranean Sea, incorporated the Arab territories: Syria, Palestine, the Hijaz, Egypt and the coastLebanese;In 1954, they also conquered Iraq areas as a result of Ottoman success on Persian safavíes in the battle of Chalaldirán. Despite this, the Mount of Lebanon, an important Arab territory, remained outside the Ottoman yoke. This area, which in the past was impenetrable, remained semi -autonomous under the government of important families;However, all this territory never constituted a political unit. The Kisrawan region, the northern part of Mount of Lebanon, was under the influence of the Maronitas. Since the fifteenth century, two important Lebanese families, the Ma’nidas and the Shihabíes, the control of the mountain of Lebanon and the southern part of the Druzos were disputed. Any expansion of the Druss to the North or the Maronitas to the south, caused clashes between both communities. The rivalries and armed struggles between Drusos and Maronitas are part of the modern history of Lebanon. The Battle of Chaldiran occurred on August 23, 1514 among the armies of the Ottoman and Safávida empires, with the victory of the first. As a result, the Ottomans obtained control of the east of Anatolia and the north of the current Iraq. The battle was also, however, the beginning of a disastrous war of forty -one years between both Islamic empires that ended with the Amsya Treaty in 1555.

Body

The religious policy of the Ottoman Government and the conflicts between communities

The Ottoman Empire recognized the right of each individual to undergo a particular legal regime in relation to their creed or confession. Each group had their courts with jurisdiction in the religious and civil, which allowed themThe divorce. As for the other civil causes and all the penalties;The Cadí, judge in the Muslim territories that administration of justice according to Islamic law or Sharia, was the one who had total competence.

The case of the Maronite Church presents particular features, with an important margin of autonomy by virtue of the explicit recognition of the authority of the patriarch (highest authority between the Christian communities) by the Ottoman authorities;Then, after the tragic clashes between Christians and Druss in 1860, in Monte Lebanon, Patriarch Maronita requested to accept the statute of the confessions, by which the right to practice their religious rites in an autonomous rites was recognized.

In societies where an absolutist and oppressive system prevails, there is a de fact. But other reasons for division emerged in the Ottoman Empire: the appearance of particularist features within the same society, according to religious and confessional criteria;that is, entities with certain margins of action within the empire. The spiritual, Muslim and non -Muslim leaders were responsible for the ruling political class for the duties and responsibilities of their respective communities regarding the payment of taxes applied to each group. Everything related to marriage, inheritance, education, health and legal regulations of internal economic relations were exclusive competence of the leader of each sect. Thus, the maximum spiritual chief was in turn, within his community, something like a political leader, who imposed his authority on a set of subjects;The two top representatives of the community were the priest and the administrative chief, who was generally an expert man in the law. But it should be clarified that the autonomy of the leaders of the sects was not complete, since the sublime door had the right to intervene in the internal affairs of religious communities when he believed it convenient. In this way, in addition to establishing a series of requirements such as an ‘impeccable behavior’ and loyalty to the empire, Ottoman leaders could reject a candidate for patriarch or great rabbi if they judged that there were reasons to doubt their adhesion to the imperial authority. Likewise, they had the power to dismiss the head of the sect and to mediate between this and the different bodies of power and decision within the community, in case of disregard between each other. With this type of practices, the central government ensured the loyalty of the leaders of the communities, with the exception of the Christian groups settled in Monte Lebanon and especially the Maronites, since they maintained for centuries a special regime (compared to comparisonthat of the rest of the Christian communities), which led to a particular statute in the 19th century. However, it was the Maronite communities of Lebanon who received the most strong influence, for a long time, of the European-Catholic currents. For this reason, in Aleppo and other Syrian, Orthodox cities turned to the Greco-Catolic Rite (Melquita) emigrated to Lebanese lands. Something similar would happen some time later with ex -single -trusted Armenian Catholics who had abandoned their homeland in Cilicia (after the great massacre by the Turks, in 1909) to fix their residence in Lebanon after they announced their subordination to Rome.

The inability of the Ottoman regime to achieve a cohesive society is manifested in the phenomenon of social and community fragmentation lived in the eastern regions of the empire. The confessional regime failed to establish a fixed criterion to define the legal and social framework of the communities considered heretical or not ‘strictly’ Muslim;communities that were sometimes treated with contemplations, in others ignored or object of a manifest hostility by the central power. This situation of indefinition, of legal vacuum could be said in some cases, would help to lay the foundations of very differentiated entities according to confessional criteria at the end of the Ottoman domain in Syria and manifest the European presence strongly.

The aforementioned problems forced in the nineteenth century to seek the ordering of confessions within a general action plan to restructure the entire government system. Thus the reforms or Tanzimat had emerged that, promoted by the European powers, constituted an important attempt to correct the situation. However, the Tanzimat had the opposite effect, since they caused bursts of violence for more than twenty years, culminating in the events of 1860 in Lebanon with the lifting of Muslims. In summary, this interconfessional conflict occurred in a context defined by three key factors: the consequences of the Egyptian occupation (1831-1841), the effect of the Tanzimat and European intervention. But it also had important demographic consequences, due to the emigration of Christian Lebanese groups, as Hourani (2010) points out when talking about the population of Syria and Lebanon during the period 1860-1914;According to this author, at that stage, while the Syrian population increased by 40% (from 2.5 to 3.5 million), in the case of Lebanon there was an important emigration to North and South America and other points and other pointsGeographical.

In South America, Argentina and Brazil were the countries that hosted the greatest number of Lebanese immigrants after the serious events of 1860, in which Christian Drusos and Lebanese faced. In both South American countries, this conflict has been one of the causes of the arrival of Lebanese.

Culture and education. Nationalist thinking

In the reformist context, as of the second half of the 19th century there were educational advances in Syria and Lebanon. There were facilities for access to the western world, directly or indirectly, through translations of Latin texts or schools founded by Christian groups. Also, in the Nahada movement (literary rebirth) all the Arab language peoples participated without distinction of sect or region, thus cementing the idea that the Arabs formed a nation defined by a common language, a culture and a common history.

The Christians of the East were the first to access education and modern training thanks to schools and universities with French government financing and protection. Thus, due to the action of Catholic and Protestant missionaries, the new generations learned foreign languages and new subjects, without a break with Arabic culture. At that time, the "renewal" movement, which began the modernization of Arabic language and culture, gained strength for the development of the press, and the creation of the first prints with Arab characters, which contributed to spread many booksand newspapers that reached the middle class in a stately society, predominantly rural base. This movement promoted the creation of modern schools and universities that continue to exist. This first step, whose beginning was access to education for all without discrimination of sex or creed, quickly transformed into a movement of modernization of social, economic and cultural structure. Together with educational development, the Arabs began to take into account modern rational thinking, which contributed to the awakening of national consciousness, which had its active center in Cairo and then spread through Syria (Damascus, Aleppo) and Lebanon (Beirut). The efforts of Arab intellectuals in general- and from Lebanese Christians in particular- to translate foreign works and disseminate artistic or encyclopedic literary production, helped arouse Arab consciousness and consolidate a nationalist movement called Arabism, which tried to separate theArabic language of the religious sphere to transform it into an element of cultural unity between the different peoples and religious communities of the Middle East and advance in social and political modernization.

Among the best-known names of this founding elite of the modernist current of Arab thought are those of Ali Mubarak, Rifa’a Tahtawi, Jeir Eddin, Abd el Rahman el-Kawakibi, Bugos El-Bustani, Nasif and Ibrahim el-Yazgi. However, the ideas of the modernity of the new intellectual elite, of a Christian majority, and the introduction of Western culture, very different from Arab culture (especially due to changes in the situation of women, which began to imitateThe French in clothing and way of relating to the varocus), made the majority of antioccidental Muslim intellectualFigure of the Ottoman Sultan, at the same time claiming political reforms to obtain greater autonomy. However, after about four centuries of Ottoman domination, the Arab peoples subjected to the Turkish empire had difficulty imagining themselves as an independent state.

In the development of nationalist thought, the principles of Islam were combined with the aspirations of freedom and equality, of a modern social-political organization, giving greater value to the Arab cultural heritage (language, history, common traditions). This fusion or convergence led to the foundation of new parties, led by politicians and intellectuals who promoted political education so that Arab society fought to become independent from the Ottoman Empire. The newspapers played a key role in the dissemination of such ideas, among which they can be mentioned to Ahram (founded by the Lebanese Salim Taqla), the Islamic League (Antun Farah), MISR (founded by Adib Ishaq) and the magazine La Nación Arab, edited by Chakib Arsalan. The press had a very important role to convey to the popular sectors nationalist ideas as a union of political and religious, supporting the awakening of the consciousness of Arab society. However, in the last years of the 1870s, the Ottoman Government began to take measures to control the press, applying a rigid censorship during the reign of Sultan Abdul Hamid II (1876-1909). Many journalists and intellectuals then decided to leave Syria and Lebanon and left for Egypt, where there was greater freedom of the press;This emigration impulsed the publication of newspapers in Cairo and Alexandria and thus, in the final years of the 19th century, more than one hundred and sixty newspapers and magazines would be edited in Egypt.

Also students who had conducted higher studies in some Western countries published a series of essays, novels, poems and newspapers where these nationalist ideas were disseminated in a simple and understandable language for the humblest classes, in order to become aware and contributeto the fight for an independent Arab identity.

In the first decade of the twentieth century, the first Arab associations that defended political decentralization, such as Qabhtaniyia (1909), Al-Fatat (1911), Al-áhd (1914) were born. They were secret organizations, linked to Freemasonry and counted among their members elements of the small urban bourgeoisie as well as nationalist military. At that time, when the migratory movements were already produced in large -scale migratory movements from Syria and Lebanon to Latin America (more prominently from the end of the 19th century), the Arab colonies established in different countries, worked hard in favor of the diffusionof Arab culture and Arab nationalism through the newspapers and magazines they founded.

World War I and the Turkish Empire Fall

In 1914, the Ottoman Empire and Germany faced the First World War against allies France, Great Britain and Russia. This war caused great poverty in most of the Syrian-Liban territ. This would also cause the departure of their territories of many Syrians and Lebanese with their families, fleeing from recruitment. In 1915, in addition to Turkish control over agricultural production, other problems such as pests (lobster) and diseases (smallpox and typhus) emerged, aggravating the economic situation of the Syrian-Liban people. In 1916 the Turkish government demanded all peasants information about the food consumption needs of their respective families in a period of six months;But it served for the rest of the production to be monopolized by the Government, under the pretext of the country service. In addition, merchants were forced to deliver goods and pharmacists, medicines. Another difficulty was raised with the lack of means of transport, since the Turkish government appropriated almost all load animals to use them in the war. In areas like Monte Lebanon, bread shortages was notorious, then adding many other products.

This situation was accompanied by population changes;In the case of Syria and Lebanon, the demographic increase already occurred with the arrival of Armenians who had escaped from the Turkish massacre (1909), but was compensated by the emigration of many Syrians and Lebanese to North and South America,and to the West of Africa;In the case of Lebanon, the emigration was important, since by 1914 the departure of about 300 thousand people was recorded.

The internal situation of the Arab countries led to the rebellion against the Ottoman in 1916, led by Husein, the Jerife of Mecca, supported by the British in order to create a unified Arab state from Aleppo in Syria to Adén in the Yemen. Thus, the Antiturco Movement, directed by Husein, was largely encouraged by the Europeans themselves, interested in defeating Ottomans in World War I. The interest of European powers was not only military or strategic but also economic, since they sought to control international trade routes that crossed the Arab world, still subject to the Ottoman government. When World War I, France and Great Britain broke out, theoretically, of helping the Arabs to achieve independence, but secretly planned the division of the Arab states through the Sykes-Picot agreements, of 1916;They were determined that Great Britain would be responsible for Iraq and Palestine and France of Syria and Lebanon, which would be formalized through the "mandates" granted by the Nations Society in 1922, after the Turks were defeated by the allied countries.

In 1918 the allies occupied Syria and Lebanon;In the first of these territories, the Fayesal Authority, son of the aforementioned Jerife of Mecca, had been imposed since that year, with the support of the Syrian nationalists, but France would dethrone it. In compensation, the British appointed Faysal Rey de Irak in 1921, maintaining the English dominance over this country during the following decade.

However, the harmony of interest between imperial powers and local nationalists was not total and thus, towards the 1930s, Arab societies were experiencing profound changes that would eventually influence the subsequent political evolution.

In summary, in the period from 1918 to 1939 the French and British affirmed their mastery of trade and production in Syria and Lebanon. However, local landowners and merchants intended to exercise greater control over these activities for the benefit of their interests. On the other hand, the new generations of young people with instruction aspired to become government officials. According to Hourani, such circumstances favored opposition movements to foreign domain that began at this stage, although they still lacked a solid political organization to consolidate nationalist claims. However, the trigger of World War II would mark the beginning of a process that finally went to the independence of the territories under the mandate. A fundamental fact was the defeat of France in 1940 and the deterioration of its economic situation, its position being weakened, which in the Arab countries encouraged nationalist expectations.

conclusion

In conclusion, the history of the Lebanese during the Ottoman domain was characterized by difficult circumstances. This originated in the political and religious circumstances, following the Turkish reforms that were carried out in the nineteenth century under the pressure of the European powers, which caused discontent in the different religious communities, both Christian and Muslim, although for different reasons. An exception were the Sunni, who had the favor of the Ottoman Government. Religious conflicts (that of Monte Lebanon in 1860 and others), the obligation of military service, the difficulties of farmers and the wave of international migrations that spread the promise of “making America”) caused the emigration of Syrians and Lebanese(and other national groups of the Middle East, in less quantity), which came to form numerous colonies in several Latin American countries.

On the other hand, World War I was a period of poverty and famine for the Lebanese people, added to this is the fact that they were forced to perform military service in favor of the Ottoman Empire, causing many families to run out of parents and children, children,This being a trigger for a massive emigration that would remain until the end of the 20th century.

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