Henry Herskovitz
1
HENRY HERSKOVITZ
HISTORY 240
TAKE HOME EXAM NO.1
FEB. 16, 2010
1. Capitulations:
To capitulate means “to surrender unconditionally”. More to our point, however, the Capitulations refer to a series of agreements, starting between the French and the Ottomans in 1536, that serve to benefit by way of protective legal and business rights, that would be granted by the controlling Ottoman government to the English and French imperialists who landed on foreign shores. These foreigners wanted to do business and wanted protections from their violations of local laws. For instance, when disputes arose between foreigners and Egyptians, these Capitulations protected the foreigner who otherwise might be held accountable by Islamic or Ottoman courts; the resolution of these disputes would be adjudicated by the imperialist’s own court system. He would not be subject to rulings by the Ottomans or Islamic ulama.
The Capitulations can be thought of as a granting of business privileges and legal immunities to the minority populations of French and English on Ottoman territory. When these minorities became more powerful militarily than their hosts, these Capitulations were used to exploit and to disadvantage the Ottoman economy. They also served to protect Christian holy places, and special Consular courts were set up to profit the imperialists doing business; these courts ended up abusing their powers, and one concludes that a growing anger at outsiders was created and nurtured by the special relationship and protections afforded the invading business opportunists.
Under Isma’il the Magnificent, the Mixed Court system was introduced to alleviate some of this anger, and to regain some rights lost under the Capitulations. Foreign nationals, especially in Egypt were enjoying immunity from prosecution under local law under Capitulation provisions. Although these Mixed Courts were governed by French civil code, they provided some protection for Egyptians who were being abused by consistent rulings by the Capitulations in favor of French nationals as they committed commercial and civil violations.
2. Muhammed Ali:
According to authors Cleveland and Bunton, Muhammed Ali had two stated goals: to secure independence from the Ottoman empire and to establish in Egypt a hereditary dynasty for his family; he succeeded in only the latter.
He rose to power at a time when the centralized power of Ottoman sultans waned, and it appears he took advantage of this process of decentralization to set up his dynasty in Egypt: he broke away from the Ottoman state, while their attention was focused on European imperialists from without, and resisting the break-away Mamluks from within. Though the authors claim Muhammed Ali did not want to transform the traditional Ottoman state, his breaking away seems not to have secured it, either. The Ottomans were dealing with a mixture of military advancement from Russia and Austria, as well as intrusive European economic development. Muhammed Ali resisted the typical scenario of exporting raw materials to Britain and France, and importing more technologically advanced, manufactured products. He strengthened Egypt’s educational system and built schools and universities, so that Egypt would be less dependent on outsiders’ ability to control Egypt’s economy. He converted Egypt into a military and economic power; he instigated the use of a government-controlled printing press. There was a lot of pushing and pulling by various governments and local leaders – both foreign and domestic - for control of the local economy.
But for all that good-sounding rhetoric, Muhammed Ali possessed what we would call today “gangster” characteristics: to achieve his rise to power in Egypt, he slaughtered seventy-four Mamluks as they were leaving a banquet that he, himself, had invited them to. And though he supported the Ottoman Sultan, he turned against him in 1831 when he invaded Syria. He was awarded the island of Crete after helping Mahmoud II put down a revolt in Greece. And he expanded his territory by using the muscle of his son Ibrahim. He was effective at changing religiously held land – waqfs – to public land, and diverted the taxes from the ulama to his centralized government. He thumbed his nose at some aspects of the Capitulations, defying some of their restrictions. And all the while, like the New York gangster that settles in Cleveland or Chicago, Muhammed Ali never considered himself an Egyptian and in fact was “ …reputed to have despised his subjects” [p. 71].
The reaction to Muhammed Ali by the British was most likely a negative one. The imperialist powers wanted to control the Ottoman empire through economic and military means, and here was this highly talented leader in Egypt with aspirations of his own: an independent Egypt would be counter to views of any imperialist nation. The imperialists wanted to export raw materials from the empire, and Ali wanted to export manufactured goods. Britain appears to have been content with putting up with Egyptians intransigence, until Ibrahim, Ali’s son, invaded Syria. Britain felt its interests in the region were being threatened by this aggressiveness, and sends a fleet to Beirut in 1840, pushing Ibrahim back to Egypt. The Brits then get Ali to sign the Treaty of London (1841), which forced him to limit the size of his military and to concede lands taken. In return, he got the promise to that government of Egypt was to be a hereditary office.
In this writer’s opinion, the effect on European powers of Ali’s aggressiveness was to bring on Britain’s involvement, which caused the fragmentation of the Ottoman Empire earlier than it might otherwise have been.
3. Sultan’s Tanzimat:
The Tanzimat (Reorganization) period of the Ottoman Empire extended from 1839 to 1876. The inspiration for this reorganization came from European-educated bureaucrats, who might have wanted more egalitarian freedoms than existed under the top-down government of the Sultan. In line with this thinking of more equitable control of their lives, the reformers instituted two guiding statements: First was the Hatt-I Sharif of Gulhane, which not only promised certain reforms, but extended those reforms to all subjects, regardless of their religious affiliation. Second was the Hatt-I Humayan – which stated the principal of equality: Muslims and non-Muslims would have equal duties and responsibilities (and, one would hope, more freedoms). This theme of reformers versus preservers appears to be a continuous thread throughout this historical period.
The intent of these two decrees was to secure the loyalty of the Christian subjects in the Ottoman Empire. It must have been feared that in the European provinces, a growing nationalist movement was forming and these decrees would serve to attenuate Christian nationalist aspirations.
A growing national movement, reflected as Ottomanism, originated with the Nationality Law of 1869. There appear to be two countervailing themes: one to maintain Islamic control of the Empire, and the other to modify the existing governing structure to include more citizen input. Thus, although Cleveland writes that these changes were intended to preserve the Ottoman empire, it seems that they came at the cost of “undermining the entire basis of the Ottoman system”. I assume this referred to the underlying principals of Islam supporting the Empire.
The Tanzimat period featured higher education; many new programs and facilities were built during this time. In 1876 the Mejelle was compiled, which was a code that determined to enjoin the best of the traditional and changing world: it was inspired by European legal codes, but promised that the existing Shar’iah laws would provide the basis for the legal framework of the Empire. The Young Ottomans were featured during the Tanzimat period, and they were comprised of intellectuals and bureaucrats, some European-educated, who sought to reconcile the old – Islamic – traditions with the new – Tanzimat – reorganizations.
The era of the Young Turks was much later: 1908 – 1918, as the Ottoman Empire was nearing collapse. The Young Turks followed their Young Ottoman forebears, as both groups “believed that the best way to restore the vitality of the empire was through [a] constitutional government that would limit the power of the monarch and guarantee the rights of non-Muslims by incorporating them into the framework of Ottomanism”. Japan was used as an inspirational example: as a rising military power, a technologically advanced nation, they defeated Russia in 1905, and inspired other fledgling national movements to try their wings. If you were reform-minded in 1908, you could look to the success of Japan as a pattern to achieve your goals.
The CUP (Committee for Union and Progress) started off as a secret protest society formed within the Ottoman Empire itself. It was initiated by students at the military-medical academy, and grew as three segments of Ottoman society joined under the name of the Young Turks: the exile community, a collection of disaffected civil servants and students, and a coalition of disaffected army officers stationed in Ottoman Europe. They resisted the harsh repression under Hamid II, and sought to institute reforms to preserve the Empire.
The difficulties the CUP faced could have been the clash of nationalist movements: the CUP supported Ottomanism, certainly a nationalist movement, but as they spread their outlook into the Arab provinces, they found a second nationalist movement forming – Arabism, which was featured in the Party of Ottoman Administrative Decentralization. Both national groups – it appears – favored a united Ottoman Empire; neither wished separation.
4. Suez Canal:
Britain had imperial possessions in India and the Far East and wanted easier and quicker access to these territories. The Suez Canal, completed in 1869, provided for British economic interests a reduction of one-half the distance from London to Bombay; Britain benefited by far the most of any of the Great Powers, using 80% of the traffic through the Canal by 1881. It appears this desire for easier access to India cannot be stressed enough: Britain’s presence is felt continually in the history of the canal.
After the defeat of Muhammed Ali’s forces in Syria and their retreat back to Africa, things started to go downhill economically for Egypt. New rules and more enforced Capitulations caused many of the newly trained (in Europe) Egyptian workers to lose their jobs to immigrants who received preferential treatment under these Capitulation laws. The Canal was begun by the Egyptian ruler Sa’id, who came after Abbas, Ali’s son. Sa’id granted the concession to begin to work on the Canal to the French engineer Ferdinand de Lesseps; work began in 1854, and the final cost is difficult to determine. I would guess that since the financially-strapped Isma’il the Magnificent, Ali’s grandson, sold Egypt’s 44% interest in the Suez Canal Company for 4 million pounds, that the initial cost of the canal was approximately 9 million pound. In any case, it’s known that the completed construction costs were double the original estimate.
Though Muhammed Ali sought to create an independent Egypt, a country that could compete economically with its European manufacturers, the new laws after his army’s defeat proved costly. Cotton – a raw material – was eagerly sought after and developed, but Egypt was not the self-sufficient manufacturing economy Ali envisioned. The debt grew under Isma’il, and conditions were further exacerbated by borrowing from European powers. Egypt was occupied by Britain in 1883, to protect the Canal, and to maintain its presence and ward off any attempt by France to intervene.
5. Colonel Urabi:
This story begins with Isma’il becoming troublesome for Britain, after he tossed out to British financial controllers: the Brits asked the cruel Ahmed Hamid II to use his sultan power to dismiss Isma’il, and Hamid complied. Isma’il was replaced by the pliable Khedive Tawfiq, as Egyptian discontent with British influence rose. The peasant-born, home-trained Colonel Ahmad Urabi enjoyed a good following in the army and from some notables. When Tawfiq passed a racist law which prohibited soldiers of peasant roots from ascending to officer ranks, Urabi and his followers demanded its removal. But even though the offending law was revoked, there was enough momentum to Urabi’s leadership that a movement was started. It had lofty goals: (1) to eliminate foreign control of Egypt’s finances, and (2) to curtail the autocratic rule by the Khedive.
Colonel Urabi certainly was a man of the people, and his power must have been genuinely feared by Britain and France. These two Great Powers recognized, omigod!, that they might not get paid the great deal of money “owed” them from the Egyptian economy. The people’s labor would be supporting these payments, and now they were being led by a man who wanted the debt erased. This – one assumes – was greeted by Britain and France as “this shall not stand”. A second concern for these imperialists was that, omigod again, this Urabi fellow might even nationalize the Suez Canal.
So the ever-fearful Brits decided to bomb Alexandria, and they defeated Urabi at the battle of Tel al-Kebir in the fall of 1882. This began a rather permanent occupation of Egypt by England.
6. Husayn-McMahon Letters:
The First World War is being waged across Europe, and the Entente Powers Britain, France and Russia are maneuvering themselves for their piece of the Ottoman Empire pie, much like wolves jockeying for position after a fresh kill. The British were seeking out a Muslim “inside man” from whom they could seek and receive help in bringing more quickly the end of Ottoman rule. They found this inside man in Sharif Husayn ibn Ali, who, like Muhammed Ali before him, sought in part a dynastic rule in Arab culture and nationhood: he wanted the title of Amir to be hereditary.
Husayn appears to have written the first of a series of letters to Sir Henry McMahon, British High Commissioner in Egypt, and conveyed his desire of an independent Arab state for all Arab lands east of Egypt. McMahon’s counter was that the land that lay west of the imaginary line connecting Aleppo and Damascus was unavailable for this deal. He said that the reason for this unavailability was because the population there was not purely Arab.
This was a lie: the real reason was that McMahon knew that land in question was promised to France, but did not communicate that to Husayn. He did write that Britain was interested in a presence in the provinces of Baghdad and Basra (later to become Iraq). This was acceptable to Husayn, and in exchange he got McMahon to write that Britain was prepared to recognize and uphold independence of Arabs in a land that was specified by Husayn. The dispensation of Palestine was left vague to both parties.
The second agreement these two reached was that Britain would arm Husayn so that Husayn could lead the Arab Revolt against the “sick man of Europe”, the Ottoman Empire. Husayn needed to attract the support of his fellow Muslims to pull off this stunt, so he lied as well: he claimed his attacks were to free the Ottomans from the clutches of the “anti-Islamic” Committee of Union and Progress (CUP). The CUP wished a European-like constitutional regime to replace the repressive Abdul Hamid’s reign, but attacking them was a guise to permit his deal with the British.
Britain was nervous about France’s claims to Syria, and so the Sykes-Picot Treaty was a secret affair, which incidentally spilled the beans about McMahon’s lie to Husayn. This treaty was the first that dealt with “advance bookings”. These were promises to and by the Great Powers how the Ottoman Empire was to be split up after its defeat: Russia was promised Istanbul and the Turkish straits, France gets Syria, and Britain would get the future Iraq. These areas were referred to as spheres of “exclusive indirect influence”. Palestine, according to this treaty, was to be placed under international administration, most likely a result of pressure by Zionists like Chaim Weitzman on British high command.
7. Origins of Zionism:
Most people generally think that Zionism was the search for a land that would act as a safe haven for European Jews. Interesting, then, that author Ritchie Ovendale tells of Benjamin Disraeli’s 1833 book Alroy, which describes Jews as a superior race and subsequent hopes for an empire for this race to develop and control. Ritchie also describes Theodore Herzl’s book Der Judenstaat as it related to his shock while covering the trial of Alfred Dreyfuss in France. Dreyfuss was falsely convicted of espionage for Germany in 1894, yet Ovendale errs in omitting Dreyfuss’ full return to his previous rank and pension. That’s to opine that the cure for “anti-Semitism” was already available – at least through the courts – and there was really no need to develop Disraeli’s empire.
Ovendale also commits a common error: he establishes the existence of “anti-Semitism”, yet offers no concrete assessment of the origins and understandings of this phenomenon. He quotes Dr. Leon Pinsker: “Anti-Semitism would persist wherever Jews are a minority”, yet does not describe how other minorities could exist without being hated. He writes “Russia’s difficulties were attributed to Jewish corruption”, without explaining the details of that alleged corruption. And that the Hep! Hep! Riots in Wurzburg (1819) “ … reflected a suspicion of Jewish financiers and bankers, and suggested that the Jews were responsible for economic difficulties”. Well … were they, or weren’t they? Ovendale’s readers are left to fend for their own, and any understanding of root causes of “anti-Semitism” are left unaddressed.