A Saner Sykes-Picot

Raymann

Banned
On the original question about a better Sykes-Picot.

I've also read a bit more about the agreement and frankly it sickened, they were literally drawing lines in the sand about a part of the world they only cared about insofar as the other side didn't get as much as them.

There should not have been any agreement in 1916. Neither the British nor the French had any significant forces in the Ottoman Empire and neither did they plan on introducing any anytime soon.

If they had waited then it would have been obvious that the French did next to nothing to secure their agreement which would have changed everything. First and foremost, the lack of a treaty would not hamstrung the British into taking action in what they knew would be the French zone of influence.

So the first sane thing would have been to wait until the war was over to conclude any agreement. Now the French had to be satisfied so they are assured their zones of control in Lebanon, Syria, and Mosul. Now if the French were smart they would have created a much smaller, Christian dominated, Lebanon with Syria controlling the rest. The only reason Lebanon was made so large in the first place was that the French knew they were getting it but weren't sure they were going to get the British captured Syria so they wanted as much territory as possible. Knowing that Syria was theirs no matter when wouldn't have given them that incentive.

French control of Mosul would have made a Kurdish state in Iraq and Turkey would hardly be in a position to say anything about it.
 
On the original question about a better Sykes-Picot.

I've also read a bit more about the agreement and frankly it sickened, they were literally drawing lines in the sand about a part of the world they only cared about insofar as the other side didn't get as much as them.

There should not have been any agreement in 1916. Neither the British nor the French had any significant forces in the Ottoman Empire and neither did they plan on introducing any anytime soon.

If they had waited then it would have been obvious that the French did next to nothing to secure their agreement which would have changed everything. First and foremost, the lack of a treaty would not hamstrung the British into taking action in what they knew would be the French zone of influence.

So the first sane thing would have been to wait until the war was over to conclude any agreement. Now the French had to be satisfied so they are assured their zones of control in Lebanon, Syria, and Mosul. Now if the French were smart they would have created a much smaller, Christian dominated, Lebanon with Syria controlling the rest. The only reason Lebanon was made so large in the first place was that the French knew they were getting it but weren't sure they were going to get the British captured Syria so they wanted as much territory as possible. Knowing that Syria was theirs no matter when wouldn't have given them that incentive.

French control of Mosul would have made a Kurdish state in Iraq and Turkey would hardly be in a position to say anything about it.

If they waited until the end of the war, France wouldn't have gotten anything at all - and Turkey certainly could have done something about French Mosul! France was in no position to be taking on Turkey - they had no forces on the ground and the British would prefer it in Turkish hands to French.
 

Raymann

Banned
If they waited until the end of the war, France wouldn't have gotten anything at all - and Turkey certainly could have done something about French Mosul! France was in no position to be taking on Turkey - they had no forces on the ground and the British would prefer it in Turkish hands to French.

Well the Turks could have but they had little reason to, first of all they withdrew at the end of the war, second Kemal didn't care much for the area, and third they had more pressing problems like preventing the Treaty of Sevres from going into effect. They absolute last thing Turkey needed was the British or French getting mad and directly helping the Greeks.
 
Early settlers weren't encumbered by hostility from the Ottomans, but the problem was that many European Jews retained their original citizenship, and thus were a means of intervention by the Powers.
Yes, citizenship thingy was touchy with Ottomans, memories of 1853 (Russia started war at pretence of protection of Christian minority in OE) and 1878 still fresh. However, a lot of Zionists were ready to part with their original citizenship (remember, Ben Gurion and Ben Zvi worked overnight pre-WWI to integrate Yishuv in Ottoman mosaic).
In addition, too much immigration too rapidly caused a lot of tension with the existing inhabitants, Muslim and Christian, but also with the Sephardic and Middle Eastern Jews who were anti-Zionist.
Zionist conflict with Mizrahi is mostly fruit of imagination. Zionists (with strong Socialist undercurrent running in the movement) were at loggerheads with old traditional Jewish elites, both Mizrahi and Ashkenazi and Mizrahi communities hadn't had a lot of social group Zionists recruited from (yong educated disillusioned Jews). But conflict had never had "regionalistic" colors. Speaking about frictions with local Gentiles, yes, they were there, but Gentile population also hugely benefited from Zionist land-development programs. Population of Palestine in 1880-1914 grew far more than population fo neighbouring territories, fueled by huge immigration inflow. So, those two tendencies (frictions and mutually profitable relationships) would co-exist.

If the Ottomans retain Palestine, there is no way they'll allow a Jewish political entity there, and I can't see why Germany would want to pressure them into creating one - why alienate an ally over something that is not any sort of priority for them?
You are looking at the region as if it exists in vacuum and only internal political development affected it's fate. However, it would be part of "Victorious CP" world, where Germans would be forced to deal with pacification of Mitteleuropa, among other things. Besides, it is possible that in "Victorious CP" world Germany would assume role of "patron of Zionism", a-la Great Britain IOTL in 1920s. All that might (or might not) lead to Germany pushing it's junior partner OE into accepting more Jewish settlers.

By 1914 the Jews made up nearly 20% of the population of what is now Israel plus the West Bank and Gaza Strip so given a limited population and limited resources, plus a cheerfully acquistive British Empire right next door, there had to be a limit on the number of immigrants the OE would accept even if they ignored any questions of which nation truly had the loyalty of those immigrants.
You completely misunderstand development of relationships between Zionism and Entente (and later wider Anglo-Saxon world of USA+British Empire, as French gradually slipped into "sidekick" role). Zionists of pre-WWI period were not "avant garde of Western civilization against Islamofascists". They did not harbour warmer feelings toward Entente (union of Russia, which have the word "pogrom" to political lingua franca, France of Dreyfuss fame and British Empire, which was always ready to give Jews a cold shoulder) than they had toward CP (after all, Germany gave birth to a concept of Jewish Enlightement). German Jews (loyal to German Empire) were extremely important in establishing Yishuv's infrastructure in Palestine. So, would card to shuffle another way, Zionist would not have problem adapting to CP victory.
 
Well the Turks could have but they had little reason to, first of all they withdrew at the end of the war, second Kemal didn't care much for the area, and third they had more pressing problems like preventing the Treaty of Sevres from going into effect. They absolute last thing Turkey needed was the British or French getting mad and directly helping the Greeks.

That's actually not true - Mosul was included in the National Pact and was desired by the Kemalists - it just wasn't a practical goal in the face of the strong British desire to control the oil.
 
According to my figures the entire Jewish population increase was less than 50,000 from 1880-1914 and some of it had to have been natural increase and not immigration.

It doesn't seem likely that a victorious Germany would encourage splintering the OE, barring a total wipeout for the British. If the British still hold Egypt how would a potential buffer state at Ottoman expense help either the Ottomans or the Germans?:confused:

Further, regardless of the specifics of a German victory it becomes much harder to promise territory to a rather small group at the expense of an ally than to do so at the expense of an intended victim. Not to mention that an exodus of Jews from Eastern Europe is likely to reduce a population otherwise very supportive of Germany.
 
Conflict between European Jews and Sephardic & Middle Eastern Jews was not at all imaginary. Zionists tended to be more modern, a lot more secularist, and tended to look down upon their "backward" brethren. Jews tended to live in Muslim quarters where they were fairly integrated, whereas Zionist settlers tended to live separately (much like other colonists including a fairly large number of Germans).

In addition, the Jewish Millet had a legislature, so newcomers were a new class challenging the old order - and while many Zionist leaders had Ottoman citizenship, the merchants almost never did, because they had huge commercial advantages retaining their original citizenship.

So there were many reasons for conflict - most of it not religious in nature.

As for the rest, there is no way Germany is going to try to force a Palestinian Jewish state on the Ottoman Empire - there is absolutely no reason to do so, and this would conflict with the strong lobby, sponsored by the Kaiser, supporting German colonization of the Holy Land.

Yes, citizenship thingy was touchy with Ottomans, memories of 1853 (Russia started war at pretence of protection of Christian minority in OE) and 1878 still fresh. However, a lot of Zionists were ready to part with their original citizenship (remember, Ben Gurion and Ben Zvi worked overnight pre-WWI to integrate Yishuv in Ottoman mosaic).Zionist conflict with Mizrahi is mostly fruit of imagination. Zionists (with strong Socialist undercurrent running in the movement) were at loggerheads with old traditional Jewish elites, both Mizrahi and Ashkenazi and Mizrahi communities hadn't had a lot of social group Zionists recruited from (yong educated disillusioned Jews). But conflict had never had "regionalistic" colors. Speaking about frictions with local Gentiles, yes, they were there, but Gentile population also hugely benefited from Zionist land-development programs. Population of Palestine in 1880-1914 grew far more than population fo neighbouring territories, fueled by huge immigration inflow. So, those two tendencies (frictions and mutually profitable relationships) would co-exist.

You are looking at the region as if it exists in vacuum and only internal political development affected it's fate. However, it would be part of "Victorious CP" world, where Germans would be forced to deal with pacification of Mitteleuropa, among other things. Besides, it is possible that in "Victorious CP" world Germany would assume role of "patron of Zionism", a-la Great Britain IOTL in 1920s. All that might (or might not) lead to Germany pushing it's junior partner OE into accepting more Jewish settlers.

You completely misunderstand development of relationships between Zionism and Entente (and later wider Anglo-Saxon world of USA+British Empire, as French gradually slipped into "sidekick" role). Zionists of pre-WWI period were not "avant garde of Western civilization against Islamofascists". They did not harbour warmer feelings toward Entente (union of Russia, which have the word "pogrom" to political lingua franca, France of Dreyfuss fame and British Empire, which was always ready to give Jews a cold shoulder) than they had toward CP (after all, Germany gave birth to a concept of Jewish Enlightement). German Jews (loyal to German Empire) were extremely important in establishing Yishuv's infrastructure in Palestine. So, would card to shuffle another way, Zionist would not have problem adapting to CP victory.
 

Raymann

Banned
That's actually not true - Mosul was included in the National Pact and was desired by the Kemalists - it just wasn't a practical goal in the face of the strong British desire to control the oil.

Well of course he would have liked to have it, but he wasn't even going to pretend to fight the British over it.

As for the Levant, there wasn't going to be a Jewish state after WWI, everyone knew it...especially the Zionists. There was a lot of talk of actually supporting the Ottomans early on in the war. The Ottomans were leaving them alone for the most part, even allowing them to buy up a lot of land. The British on the other hand were doing their best to be buddy buddy with the Arabs.

Problem was that eventually the British started making promises to both the Arabs and Jews there and with the Ottomans putting down what little dissent there was, they all sided against them.
 
Well of course he would have liked to have it, but he wasn't even going to pretend to fight the British over it.

My point was that if Mosul had gone to France like originally envisioned in Sykes-Picot, France wouldn't have been able to hold it against the Kemalists. They had no real means of access to it.
 
What do the Arabs do when they wind up back in charge of their own country, with most of the world's low cost oil under their control?

Most Middle Eastern oil had yet to be discovered. Only about 5% of global oil production came from there at the start of WWI; in 1960 it would be about 25%. Places like the Gulf of Mexico, Venezuela, the Caspian and the Dutch East Indies were more important.

Recently, I have felt that the best outcome for British and French, would have been an approach of concession, and an abandonment of colonial rule in the wider context of the region.

Never gonna happen.

mideastpeacebritishpossdy7.png


Turkey: Their pride is left intact, and retain all of their national territory (which in OTL they eventually won back anyway).
Nobody in 1918 could've told you what Turkey's "natural territory" was, what "should be" Turkish and what "should be" Greek, Arab, Kurdish, Armenian, or Georgian. It was all defined by blood and iron.

Arabia: A large Arabia could avoid what is widely seen as a 'betrayal' of the Arabs by the British, and allow close ties to be maintained with Britain. Britain would also give this state Qatar.
What are you going to do about the Saudis.

Mesopotamia: Broadly based on Iraq, Mesopotamia would be a mixed ethnic and religious country (or possibly Christian), with perhaps an international commission formed from within the LoN to guarantee tolerance.
How are you going to get a Christian state in an overwhelmingly Muslim territory?

Jerusalem: Another mixed ethnic and religious country
Easier to call it "Palestine".

Lebanon: Almost twice the size than OTL, Lebanon would be a Christian country, and a home for many Christian Arabs.
The French almost left Lebanon without a Christian majority when they extended it. Your plan will give it a Muslim majority.

Oman: Trucial Oman would be given to the Omani sultanate, improving ties with Britain
Not in a million years. Not even if Oman had the military capacity or Britain the will to force it on the Trucial States.

Yemen: The Aden colony would be given to the Yemen, improving ties with Britain
Not in a trillion billion million years. And a problem similar to the one above WRT the Arab states in the Aden Protectorate.

Western interests, particularly those of Britain and France would be served through the ability to invest in the region in a safer and more friendly environment.
I'm sorry, is this the ASB subforum? 'Cause it seems you've just ISOTed present-day France and Britain to 1918.
 
Last edited:
Top