Surprised this hasn't been posted yet: T.E Lawrence's proposed map for post-war Arabia.
...Is that a modern-day Cilician Armenia?
Surprised this hasn't been posted yet: T.E Lawrence's proposed map for post-war Arabia.
...Is that a modern-day Cilician Armenia?
Along with some kind of weird not-Kurdistan....Is that a modern-day Cilician Armenia?
...Is that a modern-day Cilician Armenia?
The "Afrikanerland" proposal seems comparable in total area (IIRC the proponents of the plan explicitly set the proportion of land area equal to the proportion of the White population of South Africa), but yeah.
I didnt know thisWas just reminded of this thread and had just found this pick while looking some stuff on the Assyrians. Thought it might be worth a gander.
The Assyrian delegations' request at the Paris Peace Conference:
I didnt know this
To be fair, I think even in 1918 that area would be about 5% Assyrian.
Yeah, it looks more like a Kurdistan to me.To be fair, I think even in 1918 that area would be about 5% Assyrian.
Yeah, it looks more like a Kurdistan to me.
Well, all of the homeland proposals were huge. It doesn't excuse the British from completely preventing them from attending the conference.
Also, it's doubtful that there are 12 million people in that small region (the population of the Ottoman Empire (the main portion roughly corresponding to modern day Turkey and northeastern Syria, not the Arab sections, was 18.5 million in 1914, roughly). There were 600,000 Assyrians, Chaldeans, and other Syriac-speaking people in the Ottoman Empire
Granted, by 1918, it might be 5% Assyrian, if only because the Turks and the Kurds wiped out about half of them and drove many of them out (they even invaded Persia and destroyed many Assyrian villages in the west of Lake Urmia.
Already addressed part of this in the post before. See:
Also, EVERY nation showed their maximum claims where, at that point, they negotiated down to their actual borders. Compare the proposed borders for Armenia by their delegation vs the Wilsonian Armenia borders.
Yes, that entire region wasn't Armenian, but those were their claims. They received less than half of that region. It's the same as in any negotiation. you start from your highest/largest bids and then negotiate down from there. (Also, note the Hakkiari on the map. This is in reference to the proposed Assyrian state).
Clearly someone should have tried to build a combination Armenian-Kurdish state to fill the area, and keep them united by making sure the Turks hated them and wanted to invade... that's a good plan for long term stability.
Imagine if post-Ottoman, a Kurd-Armenia-Chaldea-state had been assembled (kind of like how Pakistan was an amalgam of three regions that didn't really have all that much in common beyond religion).
Kurtchalstan, anyone?