The Treaty of Versailles 3: The Middle East and Asia

The Occupation of Constantinople 1919

Constantinople stood as a strategic symbol of the gateway to the near east and Asia. For centuries it had represented the presence of controlling imperial power – whether Byzantine or Ottoman. In 1919 it was also a microcosm of the challenges facing the Peace Conference in dealing with the world beyond Europe. Leaderless since the surrender of the Ottomans to the British (see Post 8/10/2018), it was nominally under the administration of the British. It was an unstable cauldron, teeming with defeated soldiers of several nationalities, and with refugees and dispossessed itinerants. Britain was really only interested in free passage for its fleets, and was not keen to hold a mandate or protectorate. The Russians had wanted Constantinople since the times of Peter the Great as an outlet to the Mediterranean for their Black Sea fleet. They might even have pressed a spurious claim for control, based on wartime promises made by Britain and France, but for the regime change and Lenin’s preference for world revolution over world domination. Constantinople, like the remainder of the Middle East had to wait for the judgements of Wilson, Clemenceau and Lloyd George, and their advisers. 

In the interim, the Ottoman naval minister Hussein Rauf (who had led the armistice negotiations with the British) persuaded the Sultan Mehmed to take a very compliant approach with the British peace demands. Other Turks became alarmed by this, seeing the danger of losing control of their homelands. Chief among them was the war hero, Mustafa Kemal, who would become known as Ataturk, founder of modern Turkey. In the short term he raised forces for an independent Turkey, and moved its putative capital away for Constantinople to the little known city of Ankara in the interior of Asia Minor. He would prove more than a match for the ambitions of Venizelos in that region (See previous post).

Today's Middle East emerged from the chaos of WW1

Middle East. 
Of the big three leaders at the Conference, Lloyd George had the greatest ambitions for control and influence in the region. Clemenceau was so focused on the Treaty for Germany that other parts of the world were of secondary importance to him (not all of his advisers agreed). Wilson was not enthusiastic to have America involved much beyond the principles of his fourteen points, and viewed imperial land grabbing with distaste.

In the 19^th century the British had been content to have a weak Ottoman empire in north Africa and the near east as a buffer between the other great powers and Britain’s possessions in Asia. But a crumbling Ottoman Empire was another matter. In the 1880s, the first signs of Egyptian nationalism prompted the British to invade, to protect their newly acquired asset, the Suez Canal. Cairo, at the heart of their ‘protectorate’ formed the base of the British army in the Middle East for WW1 (the Egyptian Expeditionary Force). As the war progressed the British gradually reversed their mishaps at Gallipoli and Kut, and steadily pushed the Ottomans out of Arabia and Mesopotamia. They made promises to the Arabs and to the Jews (See Post 30/8/2018) along the way but were considering control of the whole area from Suez to the ancient provinces of Baghdad and Basra. The first man to map this out was Sir Mark Sykes, a somewhat eccentric British aristocrat, diplomat and sometime MP. The French had their own ambitions and their diplomat Francois Picot was ordered to represent their interests. The ‘Sykes-Picot Agreement’ of 1916 formed the basis of the carve up between Britain and France, but there were numerous sub-plots involving the Arabs (led by Hashemite King Hussein); the Jews (led by Zionist Chaim Weizmann); the Italians and the Russians. By the time the partition of the Ottoman Empire came to be discussed at the Peace Conference some of the irreconcilable promises were exposed. Clemenceau’s focus on Europe worked in favour of Britain. He was content to concede Mosul to them, provided France kept Syria and Lebanon. Britain kept control of Jordan and Palestine, and now added to Province of Mosul to those of Baghdad and Basra, creating a new, oil rich nation, Iraq.

All this left only Persia (Iran) and Afghanistan between the middle east and India.  With civil war in Russia, the ‘great game’ of the 19^th Century between Russia and Britain for control of that region, had swung back to England – for now.

Tsingtao (now Qingdao), Shandong peninsula.
 German colony until 1914, then occupied by
the Japanese.

China. The ancient and closed eras of Chinese civilization, in the centuries since Marco Polo, had been disturbed by European interference (opium wars, Boxer rebellion, German occupation of Tsingtao) and more recently by aggressive Japanese expansion on to the Chinese mainland (in Korea, Manchuria and the Shandong peninsula, including Tsingtao). Japan was taking its place at the Conference as an ally, and was expecting favourable treatment of its further claims on China. However, China at that time was undergoing great change and inner turmoil (that would last for decades). In 1917, previously neutral China had declared war on Germany. This was clever tactical move to forestall further Japanese demands on their territory, set out in a 21 points memorandum. In an even more creative move, China proposed to send ‘labourers not soldiers’ to support the war effort at the front. This made a significant contribution in 1918, when 140,000 Chinese laboured behind the allied lines of the Western Front, freeing up soldiers for front line action. Finding a pragmatic compromise between opponents China and Japan, both of them wartime allies, put a great strain on the big three – Wilson almost had a breakdown. When the decisions came down broadly in favour of Japan, the reaction from China was extreme. Demonstrations in Tiananmen Square were followed by violence and descent into civil war. Neither were the Japanese fully mollified. Their bitterness over the way they had been treated no doubt contributed to the rise of anti-Western Japanese militarism during the 1920s.

India. Britain was by now facing increasing turbulence from nationalism in India. Gandhi had arrived from South Africa during the war and was transforming the Indian National Congress to a mass movement. India’s large muslim population was restless and their reaction to the dismantling of the Sultan’s empire was unpredictable – the Amritsar massacre of 1919 resulted from inter-religious tensions.

Lloyd George may have been winning arguments to enhance Britain’s influence in the world, but resistance in the Dominions and Colonies was increasing, and an exhausted and economically weakened Britain would struggle to retain its power. The Dominions, particularly the Australians, New Zealanders and Canadians, having contributed so much to the war effort were no longer willing to follow unquestioningly the decisions taken in London. They had shocked Lloyd George with their demands for strong representation at the Peace Conference, and the abrasive Australian Prime Minister, Billy Hughes, enjoyed sparring with the Big Three, much to Wilson’s annoyance. He demanded New Guinea and a string of formerly German Pacific islands be voted to Australian control, and his NZ counterpart demanded the same of Samoa.

In today’s management speak, there were many wicked problems lurking in the agenda of the Paris Peace Conference. And yet the headline event and outcome would have to be the signing of the Treaty by Germany, with all the complexities and implications that it would hold. Small wonder that many of the big decisions had to be shelved for further work and later treaties – some successful, some disastrous. Settling with Germany was core business.