Partitioning others’ lands

Twenty-nine years after Britain’s and France’s experience in the successful partitioning of Africa at the Berlin Conference, the First War erupted in 1914. The Ottomans’ military weakness from the late eighteenth century was evident to the Triple Entente. They expected to pick up their pieces in the middle of the War once the Ottoman Empire fell apart.

جولای 4, 2024

۰ 5 زمان تقریبی مطالعه 3 دقیقه

The Sykes-Picot Agreement (1916) and the Berlin Conference (1885)

An article to to the 7^th Finnish Mena studies at Tampere University, 10-11 June 2024

Unil a century ago, the Middle East’s political landscape looked different to that of today. None of the Arab countries we recognise today, with artificial boundaries, such as Jordan, Syria, Iraq, or Saudi Arabia, in addition to Israel and modern Turkey, existed a century ago. In referring to what is commonly described as the post-WWI Middle East new order, David Fromkin notes that the Middle East as we see it today was created by the Allies who ‘destroyed the old order in the region irrevocably, they smashed the Turkish rule of the Arabic-speaking Middle East beyond repair.’[۱]

The new order started with the Sykes-Picot Agreement (1916), which followed two examples. First, The Anglo-Russian Convention of August 31, 1907, on Iran. According to the Convention, London recognised northern Iran as part of the Russian sphere of influence. In return, Moscow recognized southern Iran as part of the British sphere of influence. However, this was not partitioning Iran; it was a kind of agreement to identify the sphere of influence. The second and most important one was the partitioning of Africa at the Berlin Conference (lasted for 4 months between November 1884-February 1885), in which the European colonial powers gathered to manage the ‘scramble for Africa’ and prevent war over their claims to African lands.

In a short time, i.e., over the course of twenty-five years from 1875 to 1900 and at the peak of the European competition for the entire continent of Africa, Great Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, and Portugal all desired a part of Africa to provide an efficient workforce and natural resources for their growing industrial sectors. In the event, Britain and France (two significant powers who later secretly made the Sykes-Picot deal) were major winners who took possession of vast tracts of African lands.

Figure 1: French caricature (1885) of carving up Africa at the Berlin Conference (Nov. 1884 – Feb. 1885) by German Chancellor Bismarck among the European colonial powers

Figure 2: Shares of European colonial powers in carving up Africa

The Berlin Conference was held between fourteen nations, including the United States and thirteen Europeans, to divide Africa and manage an agreed direct European colonial influence while no Africans attended the event. By the end of the event, man-made borders were drawn to shape their colonies or protectorates in Africa, affecting the continent’s borders even today. Looking at the straightness of 80% African latitudinal and longitudinal borders, demondtrates that borders are man-made and drawn at the Berlin Conference. Unnatural borders are faulty boundaries and not organic frontiers Unnatural borders are man-made deformities that are usually longitudinally or latitudinally drawn by self-interested humans who drew the borders and boundaries according to their wishes. From this perspective, demography does not determine the states. Whereas, a natural border is a complicated border between states formed through wars or is concomitant with natural features such as rivers, mountain ranges, or deserts.

Figure 3: African borders prior to WWI[2]

Twenty-nine years after Britain’s and France’s experience in the successful partitioning of Africa at the Berlin Conference, the First War erupted in 1914. The Ottomans’ military weakness from the late eighteenth century was evident to the Triple Entente. They expected to pick up their pieces in the middle of the War once the Ottoman Empire fell apart. To London, British Egypt, and, notably, the safety of the Suez Canal was the key to access to British India. To Paris, as the protector of Catholics, Greater Syria was the desired land. Because of the Eastern Orthodox Church, Moscow wished to claim Constantinople (Istanbul today) and the Straits of Dardanelles. Their dreams came true once France and Britain split the Ottoman’s Arab lands between themselves based on a secret colonial deal, officially recognised as the Asia Minor Agreement but colloquially remembered as the Sykes-Picot Agreement. The deal was reached by Colonel Mark Sykes (1879-1919), London’s desk man in charge of the Middle East (the author of The Caliph’s Last Heritage), and French diplomat François Georges-Picot (1870-1951), who worked as Consul-General in Ottoman Beirut prior to the First War. He firmly believed in France’s civilising mission. The two highly professional envoys were designated to draft a mutually acceptable post-war partition of Arab lands under the Ottomans into three imperial possessions.

The Sykes-Picot secret negotiations occurred between November 1915 and March 1916. Eventually, the Agreement was concluded on May 16, 1916, while almost parallel talks were going on between Sharif Hussein and Henry McMahon from July 1915 until March 1916.

Figure 4: Overlapping of the period of the Hussein -McMahon correspondence and the period of Mark Sykes (left) and François Georges-Picot (right) negotiations

According to the Agreement, the parties agreed to carve up territories overwhelmingly Muslim, Arabic-speaking, and Turkish-ruled since the thirteenth century (sometimes referred to as the Arabs of Mesopotamia, Greater Syria, and the Hejaz) into three different spheres of influence. That took place by drawing an almost straight line on a map, extending roughly from Palestine to Iraq (i.e., to the south and east) to the British and the north and west to France. Russia was supposed to receive Armenia, the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmara, the Bosphorus, and Istanbul.