The long echo of the First World War is nowhere heard and felt as acutely as it is in the Middle East. There, one hundred years ago June 10, Sharif Hussein, who governed the holy city of Mecca in the Arabian Peninsula, leaned out of his window and fired a rifle into the air. It was the symbolic first shot of the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire, and its repercussions are with us to this day.
The British instigated and supported Hussein’s uprising and national aspirations for their own strategic purposes, and felt no qualms about selling out their Arab allies even as they used those allies’ guerrilla campaign to protect the flank of General Allenby’s advance through Palestine into Syria. The 1917 Sykes-Picot agreement between Britain and France carved out European imperial spheres of influence in the region with little regard to earlier promises of independence and self-rule offered to convince the Arabs to rise against the Ottomans.
T.E. Lawrence was aware of and party to this betrayal, which tormented him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0B2JikABjA8
The post-war carving up of the carcass of the Ottoman Empire into various artificial kingdoms — notably Iraq — had lasting consequences. As historian David Fromkin notes, the post-war settlement was “a peace to end all peace.”
The century-spanning reverberations of the Arab Revolt and the cynical quashing of the Arabs’ national aspirations have fuelled the ideology and propaganda of Islamic radicalism. Not for nothing did the ISIS horde bulldoze the “Sykes-Picot Line” when they crossed from Syria into Iraq to proclaim their Caliphate.
And the self-radicalized spawn of those demonic fanatics brought their propensity for slaughter of innocents to America’s shores in the horrific mass shooting at an Orlando nightclub just this morning.
I hope it’s obvious that I’m not “blaming us” for al-Qaeda and ISIS, etc. However, it is wise to understand that the meddling of the West in the Middle East with an eye to bigger strategic considerations — whether it be winning the First World War or maneuvering for influence and position in the Cold War — has created blowback that often manifests itself long after we have forgotten all about our own actions and concerns in the region. The U.S. intervened in Afghanistan through the 1980s to poke the Russian Bear. When the Bear limped off, we dropped the whole business, basically ignored the rise of the Taliban and choked on the taste of bitter fruit on September 11, 2001.
To nick Faulkner, throughout the Middle East and Central Asia, history is not dead. It is not even past. We forget at our peril.
We all live in the shadow of that long-ago event; Sharif Hussein’s rifle shot still echoes amid the rattle of assault rifles and the explosions of ordnance across the very lands where Lawrence and Auda ibn Tayi rode, blowing up trains and railroad bridges.
Art by Tim Bradstreet from “El Borak and Other Desert Adventures,” by Robert E. Howard
The wreckage of an Ottoman locomotive in the desert. The past is not past.
deuce says
Good post. It’s always best to have a sense of perspective when it comes to Islamic history. The Battle of the Camel was fought between the two major Muslim factions only about 30yrs into the Muslim era * :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Camel
Like violence against the kuffar, civil war amongst Muslims can be called (arguably) endemic and systemic. It’s built in. Thus, for those thinking that “meddling” is the only reason for internecine strife amongst Muslims (especially Arabs), I’m afraid that 1400yrs of history argue against it.
* That battle is where the true rift between Sunni and Shiah began.
BTW, Jim, did I mention that in the American version of REVOLT IN THE DESERT (which Howard read), Hussein is called a “veiled prophet” by Lawrence at one point? REH may have noted that before he wrote “Black Colossus”. Of course, Howard almost definitely was influenced by the tales of Chambers and Rohmer in the matter as well, but I thought it worth noting.
JimC says
I’m always impressed with the way Howard sponged up history and imagery from history and threw it out in his fiction.
JimC says
Internecine warfare was endemic both due to religious imperatives and the nature of the tribal society. True in Arabia and in Afghanistan. I think the product of “meddling” was to stoke national aspirations and to provide a greater scale of organization and armament than had hitherto existed, thus giving the region’s inherent volatility much greater scope. Of course none of it would have mattered much if they weren’t sitting on a lake of oil.
Ryan says
part of that was ridiculous arguments over successions/personal bullshit (the guy who challenged Ali had people whispering behind his back that his family had joined islam when it became obvious was going to win; which was true but he hadn’t had anything to do with that.)
Matthew says
I always wonder why the people who say America/The West are responsible for the Taliban or ISIS never talk about how The Treaty of Versailles caused the rise of Hitler. The treaty really did screw over Germany and allow the rise of the Nazi party. It doesn’t however absolve the Nazi’s anymore than anything absolves ISIS.
Not that mattered when the Germans were marching through Europe and slaughtering everyone. There was no choice but war.
I imagine it was because Hitler was “on the right.” It seems to me whose on the right or left is decided by a blindfolded guy throwing darts at a board. Hitler and Stalin were way more alike than different.
JimC says
John Maynard Keynes and Churchill both recognized that Versailles was wrong and a mistake at the time. It absolutely lent legitimacy to the National socialists, because a majority of Germans was willing to accept their “rough edges” in order to see Versailles reversed.
And the Germans famously implanted the bacillus of Vladimir I. Lenin in revolutionary Russia with catastrophic consequences for the entire world.
The entire history of World War I is sordid and tawdry and it set up the whole cataclysmic century.
Pat_h says
The revolt actually commenced on June 5. I briefly noted it here on my blog, as I’ve been cataloging 1916 events as part of my overall picture of the year that saw the Punitive Expedition:
http://lexanteinternet.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-arab-revolt-commences-june-5-1916.html
Oddly, while the revolt commenced on June 5, the declaration of an Arab state didn’t come until June 10:
http://lexanteinternet.blogspot.com/2016/06/declaration-of-arab-state-june-10-1916.html
As you very well noted, it’s popular to blame everything in the region on the US, but the picture is much more complicated than that. A movement towards Arab independence had been smouldering for some time, so the declaration was at least somewhat opportunistic on the part of the Hashemites. The British could hardly be blamed for taking advantage of it once it came, but that doesn’t really excuse the Skyes Picot Agreement. Having said that, there was quite a bit of contact back and forth between the Ottomans and the Arabs prior to the revolt, so perhaps everyone was less than fully upright about their activities going into the revolt.
Still, the British get poor marks for playing the whole thing out wisely in the end, and the Saudis managed to come our remarkably well for a group that sort of allied with the British but who didn’t really participate in the war much. The Hashemites, who lead the whole thing, lost their own base, the Hajez, in the end, and to a force at the hands of the Sauds that bears a resemblance to ISIL in some ways. An interesting history that is very much with us today.
JimC says
Well said, Pat. As you note, the Arabs were hardly innocents. EVERYBODY was working an angle for their own ends. Game of Thrones ain’t got nuthin’ on the World War I era when it comes to betrayal and conspiracy.
Jerry says
Sure, and the first bloke on the right is armed with a Martini.
Now back to y’all’s higher level discussion.
JimC says
No higher level than firearms identification.