So far most of what we've been focused on has
been Europe and some of you all have argued that,
"Hey, why is this called World War I? It should
be called Europe War I." In reality,
especially because the major European powers
had these empires throughout the globe,
it really was a world war. The most significant
fronts were the Western front and the Eastern front,
but we have many, many, many other fronts,
many other campaigns. A lot of these helped shape
the modern world, especially the world of the
twentieth century. You had fronts, campaigns in Africa,
between the various colonies that the empires
had in Africa. You had a front here in the Caucasus
between the Ottoman empire and Russia.
You had Japan involved. Japan, in World War I
was on the side of the allies. It wasn't one of
the major actors in World War I, but it helped
provide naval support, it helped against some
of Germany's colonies in the pacific and in China.
What I really want to focus on in this video
is in some ways one of the most interesting campaigns,
or I guess several campaigns of World War I,
because it really helped shape the modern
Middle East and a lot of the way countries are
shaped now and a lot of the conflicts we now see
in the Middle East to some degree can be tied
to what happened leading up to World War I
and what happened after World War I.
Just as a little bit of context, this entire
region right over here, what we consider to be
the Middle East now, especially Arabia,
was nominally under Ottoman control.
The Ottoman empire had been losing power for
centuries leading up to the twentieth century,
especially if you look at the Arabian Peninsula.
It wasn't direct Ottoman control. It was very
hard to control the various Arab tribes there.
Egypt by this point, as we enter into World War I,
in the late 1800s the British occupied, began
to occupy Egypt, essentially took control of Egypt.
As we enter into World War I, Egypt is officially
a protectorate of the British empire.
Egypt is, for all purposes, it is British.
Egypt is of huge strategic interest at this
point in time. In fact, it continues to be of
huge strategic interest because it has the
Suez Canal. The Suez Canal is right over here.
It's a man-made canal, made in 1869 by the French,
and it connects the Mediterranean Sea with
the Red Sea. To see its importance, you just have
to look at the map at a more global scale.
It's the fastest way to get from Europe by ship
into the Red Sea and into the Arabian Sea
and to India, which was a significant part of
the British empire there, or to go further East,
go into the Indian Ocean and go to places further East.
It was of huge, huge, huge strategic interest.
That lays the groundwork for, essentially, the
various campaigns. Oftentimes they would be collectively
called the Middle East campaigns, or they're
separated sometimes as the Sinai and Palestine campaign
and the Mesopotamia campaign.
Mesopotamia, that's in modern-day Iraq.
The Sinai Peninsula, that's part of modern-day Egypt.
Palestine in 1914, what was then considered Palestine,
is now part of Israel, part of the West Bank,
part of the Gaza Strip, part Lebanon.
As we'll see, all of these countries that we now
recognize as different countries,
Lebanon, Jordan, Syria,
these were all kind of carved and shaped by
what happened during World War I
and at the end of World War I.
As we get to the beginning, right at the outset
in 1914, the British land right over here at
the southern end of Mesopotamia.
Over the course of the war they just keep
driving northward along the Tigris River.
They keep driving northward and northward
and northward. By the end of the war, they've
essentially captured what you would consider
most of modern-day Iraq. For the most part,
it was a very successful campaign for the British,
although they did have some significant setbacks.
In particular, at the end of 1915 you have the British
who are held up in Kut. They were essentially
sieged by the Ottoman empire, 147 days siege.
After the 147 days they had to surrender.
They were starving in there. They couldn't get supplies.
They were dying of sickness. This is actually
a picture of an Indian soldier after the siege of Kut,
after they were taken by the Ottomans after
they surrendered. Even though the Mesopotamian
campaign was successful for the British, the
siege of Kut is recorded in British military history,
or global military history, as one of the biggest
humiliations for the British army, where you had
that many troops who had to surrender. They were
starving, literally, to death. One thing I should
point out: I'm going to be talking about the allies,
the British troops, but in the Middle Eastern
campaigns and the Sinai and Palestinian campaign
and in the Mesopotamian campaign, Indian troops,
which were part of the British empire, played a
significant factor, especially in the Mesoptomian
campaign, and so did the Australian and
New Zealand troops. When we talk about British
troops, we're also talking about all of the various
nationalities that were part of the British empire.
By 1918, they were able to capture much of what
is now modern-day Iraq, or much of I guess you could say
Mesopotamia. On the other side of, I guess
you could call it on the Egyptian side
of the campaign, the first few offensives were
actually taken by the Ottomans. They say, "Hey look,
the British hold the Suez Canal. If we could take back
the Suez Canal, that would be a pretty crippling
blow for the British, especially in their ability
to get to the various ports of their empire."
So in 1915, you have the Ottomans try to make
an offensive to try to capture the Suez Canal.
It's repulsed. It fails. They try again in 1916.
That fails again. After that, the British then
take the offensive. Once again, it's the British,
but we're talking, they have Egyptian troops,
they have Arab troops; well, Egyptians are Arabs.
They have Australian troops with them.
They have Indian troops with them.
They start to make an offensive. That offensive
essentially continues through the course of
World War I. In 1915 they are able to defend the Suez Canal.
In 1916 they defend it again. By 1917, they're
making an offensive. After several tries, they're
able to take Gaza in 1917. Then they're able to take
Jerusalem, which was kind of a major source of
prestige. Obviously Jerusalem has a thousands
of years history of various armies trying to
take Jerusalem. Then they continue on and as they
saw that the end of the war was imminent, especially
as we get into 1918, the British were, and the allies
were, essentially on a land grab. They knew that as
soon as an armistice is called, it's kind of your
last chance to grab more land, and then it goes
to the bureaucrats to start negotiating things.
So in 1918 the British are essentially on a
land grab, especially the allies.
They take Damascus. They get all the way north
to Aleppo. By the end of 1918 you essentially
have the end of the war. You have an armistice
at the end of October with the Ottoman empire.
We know that the Austro-Hungarians signed
their armistice in early November, and so do
the Germans and World War I is over.
Now, there's a bunch of interesting things here
and I'm kind of doing a very broad survey of
these campaigns. One is the famous movie
Lawrence of Arabia. It took place during these
campaigns. This is a picture of of T.E. Lawrence,
who was many, many, many things, but he was this
interesting character who helped the Arabs rise
up against the Ottomans, against the Turkish rule.
He was heavily involved in helping to coordinate
the Arabs' uprising against the Ottomans.
In this case, the Arabs were helping the allies
essentially push the Ottomans back.
The most interesting thing, the outcome of this,
and we'll probably talk into a lot more detail
about this in future videos, is because by the
end of the war you have the allies in control
of all of this territory ... in control ... let me do
that in a better color ... in control of all of
this territory, right over here, it was really
left to them to carve up the modern Middle East.
It was agreed to ahead of time that the French
would gain control of what is now Syria and Lebanon.
This is roughly, Lebanon's right over there.
Syria, we're talking roughly this region,
including Damascus, so roughly this region right
over here, and it left the British in control of
what is now Israel, Palestine, Jordan and Iraq.
As we'll see as we go into the 1920s, this was
all part of the British mandate. They carved
it up and a lot of their decisions have led to
a lot of what we now see as the modern Middle East,
and the French essentially were in control up
here in Lebanon and Syria as part of the French mandate.