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That was a bit of a struggle to finish. Very well written, accessible tone, but so long winded! I can't imagine someone who doesn't have a great interest in the topic getting through it, so I don't know how it became a New York Times best seller. Speaks to many issues that are often glossed over when speaking about the formation of the modern Middle East in the aftermath of World War II.
I remember really enjoying the book when i read it way back when...I should read it again and see how my views have changed (or not)
A Peace to End All Peace is a serious work of scholarship in understanding the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and the foundations of the modern Middle East in the aftermath of World War I. It's deeply researched and painstaking in presenting the different views inside the British government. It is also somewhat scattered, difficult to read, and feels like it's missing key parts.
In 1914, it was obvious to all that the Ottoman Empire was on the ropes. Perpetually broke, technologically backwards, with major concessions to European powers over the rights of Christian minorities and the sovereignty of Egypt, and riddled with radical reformist secret societies, the Ottomans were ready for collapse. When the war came, and they aligned with the Entente, it would just take a few sharp invasions to topple the whole rotten edifice, at least in theory.
In practice, it was a different matter, as the Ottoman's repelled an invasion at Gallipoli, and another in Iraq. The Bedouin revolts promised by Arabian princes were expensive and ineffective, contra the self-made myth of T.E. Lawrence (which takes a knocking in this book). British policy was far from unified, even as events tilted towards them in 1918. The Prime Minister opposed the Minister of War opposed the Government of India opposed the Cairo Bureau opposed the Foreign Office. The bureaucratic infighting involved frequent changes of position, punctuated by major position papers, including the Balfour Declaration, which guaranteed a Jewish homeland in Palestine, the secret Sykes-Picot arrangement which divided up the Middle East between Britain and France, and a host of treaties and declaration of principles.
But truth is decided by the facts on the ground, and it is here, in the key period between 1918 and 1922 that the narrative loses steam. Immediately after the armistice, Britain had a million man army spread across the Middle East. They demobilized, and a multisided conflict between European rump armies, Bolshevik missions from Russia, a new ethnic Turkish army, and the Greeks lead to major battles. When the dust finally cleared, the Middle East was much as we see it today, with the building blocks of Turkey, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and seeds of the Israel/Palestine conflict. The British were left the inheritors of a system they no longer wanted or had faith in.
In 1914, it was obvious to all that the Ottoman Empire was on the ropes. Perpetually broke, technologically backwards, with major concessions to European powers over the rights of Christian minorities and the sovereignty of Egypt, and riddled with radical reformist secret societies, the Ottomans were ready for collapse. When the war came, and they aligned with the Entente, it would just take a few sharp invasions to topple the whole rotten edifice, at least in theory.
In practice, it was a different matter, as the Ottoman's repelled an invasion at Gallipoli, and another in Iraq. The Bedouin revolts promised by Arabian princes were expensive and ineffective, contra the self-made myth of T.E. Lawrence (which takes a knocking in this book). British policy was far from unified, even as events tilted towards them in 1918. The Prime Minister opposed the Minister of War opposed the Government of India opposed the Cairo Bureau opposed the Foreign Office. The bureaucratic infighting involved frequent changes of position, punctuated by major position papers, including the Balfour Declaration, which guaranteed a Jewish homeland in Palestine, the secret Sykes-Picot arrangement which divided up the Middle East between Britain and France, and a host of treaties and declaration of principles.
But truth is decided by the facts on the ground, and it is here, in the key period between 1918 and 1922 that the narrative loses steam. Immediately after the armistice, Britain had a million man army spread across the Middle East. They demobilized, and a multisided conflict between European rump armies, Bolshevik missions from Russia, a new ethnic Turkish army, and the Greeks lead to major battles. When the dust finally cleared, the Middle East was much as we see it today, with the building blocks of Turkey, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and seeds of the Israel/Palestine conflict. The British were left the inheritors of a system they no longer wanted or had faith in.
A Peace to End All Peace: the Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East by David Fromkin. Published by Owl Books 2001
4/5
This is one of those books that everyone reads for a foundational knowledge about the Middle Eastern policy during WWI. It is a well-researched and well written book that is an easy and quick read, packed with a ton of information. Like one of my other favorite books: Dreadnaught written by Robert K. Massie, this book focuses on the British war efforts. However, unlike Dreadnaught, this book only focuses on the British war effort. Fromkin writes in the preface, that that was intentional, and while it provides a focused narrative, it doesn’t capture all the nuisances of the Middle Eastern theater. It also obfuscates the role Russia played in shaping the war effort. It also doesn’t make much of an effort to explain the Turkish policy. This is a good book to start if one wants an entry point into the mess that is WWI’s Middle Eastern Front, but it needs to be read along with other books to provide a more holistic and in depth understanding of the war.
That being said, Fromkin does a fantastic job highlighting the inefficiency and stupidity behind the British war efforts. They entered the region without a clear plan on what they wanted from the region and once their forces were trapped in the Middle East, they had no idea how to win or what winning entailed. The War Office, under Kitchener, wanted to create a hands on empire while others wanted a loose confederacy of British states, ruled by locals, but modeled on British officers. Then there were others, like T. E Lawrence one could argue, who took advantage of a situation they were thrust into to their own benefit, altering a region in ways they couldn’t understand.
The British launched the Gallipoli campaign because they were terrified of Russia being pushed out of the war by the Turkish and because they underestimated the Turkish war effort. They thought it would be an easy victory that could distract from the disaster that was the western front. McMeekin, author of The Ottoman Endgame, does a fantastic job describing the true role Russia played in the Gallipoli campaign, while Fromkin only touched upon it. McMeekin also spend far more time explaining the role Russia played in constructing the Sykes-Picot Agreement.
Fromkin, however, provides the necessary analysis of the interpersonal politics of the British war effort. Like Massie, Fromkin understand people and psychology, and does an indepth analysis of the officers who surrounded Kitchener, the Indian Office, and the War Department as well as the mercurial nature of men like Winston Churchill and David Lloyd George. Fromkin also does a decent job balancing the many countries involved in the war, dedicating times to small offenses such as Dunsterforce campaign in Central Asia while keeping the bigger picture in view. He even took time to briefly explain what was going on in the British home front to explain some of the policy decisions the British made.
Overall, while the book only focuses on the British perspective, it is a great and indepth overview, providing a good foundation to a very conflicting and confusing front. But it needs to be supplemented with other books.
4/5
This is one of those books that everyone reads for a foundational knowledge about the Middle Eastern policy during WWI. It is a well-researched and well written book that is an easy and quick read, packed with a ton of information. Like one of my other favorite books: Dreadnaught written by Robert K. Massie, this book focuses on the British war efforts. However, unlike Dreadnaught, this book only focuses on the British war effort. Fromkin writes in the preface, that that was intentional, and while it provides a focused narrative, it doesn’t capture all the nuisances of the Middle Eastern theater. It also obfuscates the role Russia played in shaping the war effort. It also doesn’t make much of an effort to explain the Turkish policy. This is a good book to start if one wants an entry point into the mess that is WWI’s Middle Eastern Front, but it needs to be read along with other books to provide a more holistic and in depth understanding of the war.
That being said, Fromkin does a fantastic job highlighting the inefficiency and stupidity behind the British war efforts. They entered the region without a clear plan on what they wanted from the region and once their forces were trapped in the Middle East, they had no idea how to win or what winning entailed. The War Office, under Kitchener, wanted to create a hands on empire while others wanted a loose confederacy of British states, ruled by locals, but modeled on British officers. Then there were others, like T. E Lawrence one could argue, who took advantage of a situation they were thrust into to their own benefit, altering a region in ways they couldn’t understand.
The British launched the Gallipoli campaign because they were terrified of Russia being pushed out of the war by the Turkish and because they underestimated the Turkish war effort. They thought it would be an easy victory that could distract from the disaster that was the western front. McMeekin, author of The Ottoman Endgame, does a fantastic job describing the true role Russia played in the Gallipoli campaign, while Fromkin only touched upon it. McMeekin also spend far more time explaining the role Russia played in constructing the Sykes-Picot Agreement.
Fromkin, however, provides the necessary analysis of the interpersonal politics of the British war effort. Like Massie, Fromkin understand people and psychology, and does an indepth analysis of the officers who surrounded Kitchener, the Indian Office, and the War Department as well as the mercurial nature of men like Winston Churchill and David Lloyd George. Fromkin also does a decent job balancing the many countries involved in the war, dedicating times to small offenses such as Dunsterforce campaign in Central Asia while keeping the bigger picture in view. He even took time to briefly explain what was going on in the British home front to explain some of the policy decisions the British made.
Overall, while the book only focuses on the British perspective, it is a great and indepth overview, providing a good foundation to a very conflicting and confusing front. But it needs to be supplemented with other books.
informative
medium-paced
It is a long read, but provides the history of how the Middle East came to be as it is exists today. In it you learn how the imperial ambitions of England, France, and Russia caused the three empires (particularly England and France) to partition up the middle east for themselves, with little regard for the people who live in these countries.
Fromkin's thorough and highly exploratory piece on the creation of the modern Middle East is a delight for the armchair historian and academic alike. With clear and well-developed arguments throughout, a plethora of first-hand documentation, and plausible theses, the book moves effectively through its three main tenets and leaves the reader with a better understanding of the situation at the time and in the current political as well as social denouement. Fromkin argues three key points worth exploring below as it relates to the formation of the modern Middle East: loss of the Great War; post-war treaty divisions; and, the lack of foundational European imperialism. Fromkin argues the aforementioned points effectively and leaves the reader to judge whose fault the entire mess could fall to, though it is doubtful the modern actors would take the credit for their predecessors. A stellar piece of work that anyone with an itch for history would surely find captivating.
'To the victors, the spoils!' So goes the adage and how true it is in this context. Fromkin illustrates, through two-thirds of the book, that the modern Middle East was greatly shaped by the side it (for simplicity purposes, let us unite the Ottoman Empire as a cohesive and non-porous entity) chose in the Great War. Turning to Germany, the Ottomans fought alongside the Kaiser in an attempt to hold its territory and defend the honour it had nurtures for half a millennium. While many readers may be familiar with the European arena of war, Fromkin turns the focus of the book on the Asiatic region, specifically that territory under Ottoman control. Taking direction from German military leaders, Ottoman armies were able, for a time, to hold off troops from Britain, France, and Russia, but did eventually fall victim to the larger defeat that befell the German military. This was, inevitably, the first step towards reshaping the Middle East, as the victors took it upon themselves to claim ownership and direct rule over the defeated (and deflated) Empire. The loss in the Great War did play a key role in shaping the modern Middle East, in that it allowed the intoxicated Powers to bandy about ideas for colonising the region in a way that had partially ruined parts of Europe and Africa. The aforementioned adage could have potentially ruined modern political and geography harmony within the region, all due to the European power gluttony that took place as soon as the ink on the armistice documents was left to dry.
Fromkin's second key argument related to the modern outcome of the region relates to the power-sharing and territorial smorgasbord the victors imposed on the region. France and Britain took special delight in carving up the region and negotiating treaties to shape these newly independent states in their own image. The two other powers, the United States and Russia, were not as effective in wresting power for themselves (the latter due to its democratic system whereby Congress would not uphold the treaties negotiated on Woodrow Wilson's behalf and the latter because of English-French greed to keep any region from falling to the Bolsheviks), but did play a small role in the early stages of treaty negotiations. While seen as a single entity in modern geography (though keeping its independent states), the Middle East was turned into a sausage-making experiment, jamming many ideas into one area in hopes that something productive might ensue. This was not the case, nor did it effectively work in the short-term. Fromkin's arcing thesis for the book can best be summed up in his own words in the latter pages of this work: “The Middle East became what it is today both because the European powers undertook to re-shape it and because Britain and France failed to ensure that the dynasties, the states, and the political system that they established would permanently endure.”
In addition to this treaty-negotiation venture, one area bandied about for long periods of time, but never effectively actioned was the role of a Jewish State. Arguments were made by both Britain and France, outlining the importance of this (the Balfour Declaration was also newly minted), but nothing came to fruition, even while its importance spanned pages of Fromkin's narrative. Hindsight being what it is, could proper and thorough negotiations have been undertaken to effectively push for a Jewish State (choosing the modern location of Israel), the 'coming home' might have taken place, leaving the new German regime from enacting its atrocities and keeping Stalin from instilling his demented Soviet pogroms on the Jews. All this can, again, be summed up by Fromkin's aforementioned quote and only goes to illustrate how poorly the victors handled the entire process.
Fromkin's final argument about the development of the modern Middle East flows directly from its second. After trying to instil order in the region with puppet governments and like-minded leaders, the two European powers stood back and watched. They let these regimes flounder and saw countless states revert to old ways, though this time without the umbrella of Ottoman guidance. Fromkin makes a point (and a simplistic one at that) throughout, that these states were not only under Ottoman rule for centuries, but also that their ways of life were completely different from European political and social norms. Nomadic rather than aristocratic; survivalist rather than socially-minded; Muslim rather than Christian. The great differences abound, which only go to show how this loose imperialism could not help but fail, especially when the two political puppeteers would not stand by their work and force its development in their own images. Infighting amongst the allies did not help either, but it was this pathetic straw foundation on which these new nation-states were placed that made their westernised failure all but inevitable. Fromkin pushes this argument from the outset, that Middle Eastern divisions were not made to effectively help the various nation-states to walk on their own two feet after Ottoman rule, but to expand a dwindling imperial dream of two European states whose influence in the world was itself fizzling out faster than anything else.
As a final comment to the reader, while Fromkin's book is by no means a swift read, its attention to detail and strong arguments cannot be matched. Read alongside Margaret MacMillan's PARIS 1919, the reader will see the power (and failure) of post-Great War treaty making and might, if given the chance, help bolster the idea that much of the modern world's issues and challenges, at least from a political and civil unrest perspective in Europe and the Middle East all stem from the negotiations to redesign these regions from 1919-1922. Both books are powerful tomes whose theses leave a full on omelet on the faces of British, French, American, and even Russian politicians. Well worth the invested time and effort of any curious reader.
Kudos, Dr. Fromkin for yet another stellar piece of work surrounding the Great War. I have nothing but the utmost praise for you and all you do.
'To the victors, the spoils!' So goes the adage and how true it is in this context. Fromkin illustrates, through two-thirds of the book, that the modern Middle East was greatly shaped by the side it (for simplicity purposes, let us unite the Ottoman Empire as a cohesive and non-porous entity) chose in the Great War. Turning to Germany, the Ottomans fought alongside the Kaiser in an attempt to hold its territory and defend the honour it had nurtures for half a millennium. While many readers may be familiar with the European arena of war, Fromkin turns the focus of the book on the Asiatic region, specifically that territory under Ottoman control. Taking direction from German military leaders, Ottoman armies were able, for a time, to hold off troops from Britain, France, and Russia, but did eventually fall victim to the larger defeat that befell the German military. This was, inevitably, the first step towards reshaping the Middle East, as the victors took it upon themselves to claim ownership and direct rule over the defeated (and deflated) Empire. The loss in the Great War did play a key role in shaping the modern Middle East, in that it allowed the intoxicated Powers to bandy about ideas for colonising the region in a way that had partially ruined parts of Europe and Africa. The aforementioned adage could have potentially ruined modern political and geography harmony within the region, all due to the European power gluttony that took place as soon as the ink on the armistice documents was left to dry.
Fromkin's second key argument related to the modern outcome of the region relates to the power-sharing and territorial smorgasbord the victors imposed on the region. France and Britain took special delight in carving up the region and negotiating treaties to shape these newly independent states in their own image. The two other powers, the United States and Russia, were not as effective in wresting power for themselves (the latter due to its democratic system whereby Congress would not uphold the treaties negotiated on Woodrow Wilson's behalf and the latter because of English-French greed to keep any region from falling to the Bolsheviks), but did play a small role in the early stages of treaty negotiations. While seen as a single entity in modern geography (though keeping its independent states), the Middle East was turned into a sausage-making experiment, jamming many ideas into one area in hopes that something productive might ensue. This was not the case, nor did it effectively work in the short-term. Fromkin's arcing thesis for the book can best be summed up in his own words in the latter pages of this work: “The Middle East became what it is today both because the European powers undertook to re-shape it and because Britain and France failed to ensure that the dynasties, the states, and the political system that they established would permanently endure.”
In addition to this treaty-negotiation venture, one area bandied about for long periods of time, but never effectively actioned was the role of a Jewish State. Arguments were made by both Britain and France, outlining the importance of this (the Balfour Declaration was also newly minted), but nothing came to fruition, even while its importance spanned pages of Fromkin's narrative. Hindsight being what it is, could proper and thorough negotiations have been undertaken to effectively push for a Jewish State (choosing the modern location of Israel), the 'coming home' might have taken place, leaving the new German regime from enacting its atrocities and keeping Stalin from instilling his demented Soviet pogroms on the Jews. All this can, again, be summed up by Fromkin's aforementioned quote and only goes to illustrate how poorly the victors handled the entire process.
Fromkin's final argument about the development of the modern Middle East flows directly from its second. After trying to instil order in the region with puppet governments and like-minded leaders, the two European powers stood back and watched. They let these regimes flounder and saw countless states revert to old ways, though this time without the umbrella of Ottoman guidance. Fromkin makes a point (and a simplistic one at that) throughout, that these states were not only under Ottoman rule for centuries, but also that their ways of life were completely different from European political and social norms. Nomadic rather than aristocratic; survivalist rather than socially-minded; Muslim rather than Christian. The great differences abound, which only go to show how this loose imperialism could not help but fail, especially when the two political puppeteers would not stand by their work and force its development in their own images. Infighting amongst the allies did not help either, but it was this pathetic straw foundation on which these new nation-states were placed that made their westernised failure all but inevitable. Fromkin pushes this argument from the outset, that Middle Eastern divisions were not made to effectively help the various nation-states to walk on their own two feet after Ottoman rule, but to expand a dwindling imperial dream of two European states whose influence in the world was itself fizzling out faster than anything else.
As a final comment to the reader, while Fromkin's book is by no means a swift read, its attention to detail and strong arguments cannot be matched. Read alongside Margaret MacMillan's PARIS 1919, the reader will see the power (and failure) of post-Great War treaty making and might, if given the chance, help bolster the idea that much of the modern world's issues and challenges, at least from a political and civil unrest perspective in Europe and the Middle East all stem from the negotiations to redesign these regions from 1919-1922. Both books are powerful tomes whose theses leave a full on omelet on the faces of British, French, American, and even Russian politicians. Well worth the invested time and effort of any curious reader.
Kudos, Dr. Fromkin for yet another stellar piece of work surrounding the Great War. I have nothing but the utmost praise for you and all you do.
Hands down the best book to understanding the 'creation' of the modern Middle East.
One of the best books about the formation of the modern middle east and it's many problems.