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In this episode I'm going to take a little look at the Special Relationship the British and Americans like to talk about and that has worried the French and other Europeans in the post-war world. It was Churchill who actually coined the phrase, referring to a “fraternal association of the English-speaking peoples …. a special relationship between the British Commonwealth and Empire and the United States.”
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What happened in Berlin in 1948 and 1949 can be seen in a number of ways. It is the last factor in explaining the cause of the Cold War; and at the same time, it is the first act of the Cold War, the first clash between the two superpowers. It also demonstrates just how Berlin was at the centre of those rings I described in the introduction to this little series.
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Mistrust is an interesting word and its worth reflecting on just what it might mean. It could be seen as entirely rational. Based on reason and looking at the Cold War, it would focus on the ideological divide, a divide that appeared to allow for no compromise. Democracy and self-determination versus dictatorship and empire-building. Free trade versus protectionism too. As it might also look to past deeds, for example appeasement of Hitler or the Nazi-Soviet Pact. But it might also be based on emotion, on prejudice amongst the leaders, in a nutshell, on personal dislike.
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Though there was a clear ideological divide, this hadn’t prevented the Soviet Union and the West uniting to defeat Hitler. So how was it that allies became enemies, and so quickly? How did Europe come to be divided by, in Churchill’s famous phrase, an ‘iron curtain’? Can we attach blame? Or was it mostly a terrible misunderstanding from both sides? This episode provides the context to this epoch-making momemt in history.
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I'm breaking away from my history of the Middle East though not entirely. Because it just so happens that while reading a book by a super, super historian Margaret MacMillan; the book: History’s People, I came across two incredible women, one kicking around in the Middle East, the other in the Balkans, around the time of WW1 and I really wanted to share what I learned about them with you. So, a slight diversion to take a look at Gertrude Bell and Edith Durham, two truly incredible women.
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In this episode we look at the end of the French mandates and take a brief look at what, having been given their independence, Syria and Lebanon were able to do with it.
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In 1943, we come to a point where the story of the French and British mandates intertwines again, or at least more visibly intertwines for wasn’t it always so. And with victory in Europe looking increasingly likely, the waters, far from becoming clearer, only get more muddied as France and Britain lose control of events.
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So far, the history of the Middle East has been a complicated story of Britain and France trying to out-manoeuvre each other whilst at the same time out-manoeuvring the Arabs and, in Britain’s case, the Jews too. Couldn’t get more complicated? Of course it could. In WW2, the same complications are there to be seen but now Britain is dealing with two Frances: Vichy France, the third of France that had some autonomy from the Germans so long as they collaborated with them; and Free France led by General Charles de Gaulle, from London mostly. And Free France, desperate though its position was, was as much at odds with the British as pre-war France had been. And the war, the need for oil, what Germany might or might not do and what a post-war world would look like needs to be added to the mix. A complicated story is going to get much more complicated.
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Everything goes from bad to worse for Britain in Palestine: the Arab Revolt and Zionist terrorism as Hitler's attacks on the Jewish community in Nazi Germany worsens and a second world war looks increasingly likely.
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This episode looks at the dilemma that immediately faced the British in Palestine: how to satisfy Jews and Arabs. What led to the Arab revolt and to Zionist terrorism with Nazi Germany the menacing backdrop. And, too, how Transjordan transformed itself into the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan
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Before WW1, what was to become Iraq was administered as three provinces of the Ottoman or Turkish Empire, none of which identified strongly with the others: Mosul, Baghdad and Basra, collectively known as Mesopotamia. Persia (today’s Iran), had been a British protectorate since 1899, as was Kuwait. All three states have become important in recent history. So what was British rule like in those inter-war years?
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WW1 had been shattering for Europe: at least ten million dead, a lost generation of young men; WW1 had turned Britain from being the world’s largest creditor to being its largest debtor, whilst France’s economy was simply in ruins. European standing might have been dealt a mighty blow, its arrogance not so much. As you will see in this episode, both Britain and France still held unrealistic imperial ambitions.
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This week I’m going to focus on an issue that seems to dominate so much of international relations today, and which, right back at the beginning of the twentieth century, came to dominate Britain’s thinking more and more as WW1 was still being fought out: oil.
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You would be hard pushed to find a single German who didn’t hate the Treaty of Versailles and those who had forced it on their nation; and for many, those who had accepted it: the November Criminals as they were labelled. And that’s what this episode is going to look at, and in doing so, help explain why we had a second world war.
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As a break from the Middle East, I thought it would be interesting to look at how the allies in Paris dealt with Germany and take in briefly how Europe was reshaped. It seems to me that you would find it interesting as there is no doubt that the Treaty of Versailles, the treaty that dealt with Germany, is a major factor in any explanation of the second world war and all that entailed, whilst the other treaties went a long way to reshape Europe. So, the first of two episodes looking at how Germany was dealt with and, with this episode at least, how Europe was reshaped.
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I said you would meet Mustafa Kemal or Ataturk properly, well, now’s the time. I’ve given hints of his place in Turkish history and now it’s time to do that properly too. Because you can’t understand modern Turkey and what Erdogan has done with Ataturk’s Turkey unless we go back to what Ataturk established.
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This episode is going to take a look at how the peacemakers dealt with Turkey as we shouldn’t underestimate the significance of Turkey today. It has a different relationship to the countries of the Middle East, and Russia too, than do western European countries and America; while it is a member of NATO, and has been since 1952. And that alone makes it very important.
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This episode continues our look at the Paris Peace Conference that followed WW1 as it gets down to the nitty gritty of the negotiations that did so much to shape the way the Middle East looks, and feels, today.
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This episode begins a considered look at the manoeuvrings both immediately before and during the Paris Peace Conference, the conference that shaped the world after WW1. Its really important because this conference set in motion the grievances that the Arab world and the Muslim world hold against the West today, and that includes, not only the fact that there is an Israeli state, and the situation in Gaza and the West Bank today, but it also goes a long way to explaining the sorry state of Lebanon too, and also any proper explanation of the Iranian Islamic Revolution, the regime of Saddam Hussein and the tragic civil war in Syria.
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