The transition from the declining Ottoman Empire to the contemporary Middle East is a story of profoundly tragic transformation fundamentally shaped by Western interests, strategies and intervention. The “West”, primarily represented by Britain, France, and later the United States, acted as the architects of the modern Middle East, carving out borders, installing regimes, and managing resources to suit their own selfish interests, often to the detriment of the local populations. The Ottoman Empire started as a small Anatolian principality in present-day Turkey in 1299.
The word “Ottoman” is an Anglicized, historical derivation of Osman. The Ottoman Empire was named after Osman I (or Osman Gazi), the leader of a Turkish tribe who founded the dynasty and the empire. The empire was ruled by the same dynasty, the House of Osman from roughly 1299 to 1922. By the 17th century, the empire was a vast, multi-ethnic superpower stretching across Asia, Europe, and North Africa, controlling the holy sites of Islam in Mecca and Medina, and key Mediterranean trade routes.
This phase of the Ottoman Empire’s expansion largely overlapped with the rise and consolidation of the Mughal Empire under emperors Akbar, Jahangir, and Shah Jahan, thus simultaneously establishing two of the world’s most powerful Islamic gunpowder empires. The Ottoman Empire was much bigger in geographical area. At its peak, it spanned 5.2 million sq. kilometres. By comparison, at its peak under Emperor Aurangzeb, the Mughal Empire, which spanned nearly the entire Indian subcontinent ~ including modern India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and parts of Afghanistan ~ covered approximately 4 million sq. kms.
The Ottoman Empire had reached its greatest territorial extent just before the Battle of Vienna fought in September 1683. Following its decisive defeat at the Battle of Vienna, the Ottoman Empire entered a long period of decline, losing vast territories in Europe. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, continued military losses, nationalist revolts, and territorial cessions in North Africa to European powers further reduced their reach. By the onset of World War I, the empire had lost the vast majority of its European and North African holdings, transforming from a transcontinental power into one that was primarily a Middle Eastern one.
At the start of World War I in 1914, the Ottoman Empire encompassed Anatolia (modern Turkey), most of the Middle East – including modern-day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, and parts of the Arabian Peninsula ~ and a small section of Southeastern Europe (Thrace) which still connected it to Europe despite the loss of other European possessions. By this time, the Ottoman Empire had become largely irrelevant in European affairs and was described by Tsar Nicholas I as the ‘sick man of Europe’. The term described the empire’s decline due to political weakness, economic debt, and military defeats in the 1800s. Britain viewed the declining Ottoman Empire with a mix of strategic pragmatism and opportunistic imperialism.
It regarded the Middle East region of the Ottoman Empire as a resource-rich region to be exploited or controlled when the empire finally collapsed. Britain also sought control over key areas for its imperial route to India, such as Egypt which it occupied in 1882 to secure the Suez Canal. As the Ottoman Empire weakened further, Britain developed a strategy based on planning for its dissolution. France’s interests in the declining Ottoman Empire during the 18th and 19th centuries were rooted in economic dominance, religious protection of Catholic Christians, and geopolitical balancing against rival European powers (particularly Russia and Britain).
France was the Ottoman Empire’s largest creditor by the late 19th century. As the empire weakened, France increasingly viewed it as a vital sphere of influence, heavily investing in its infrastructure while seeking to control key territories like Syria and Lebanon. French capital funded major projects, including railways (such as lines in Anatolia and Syria) and ports to facilitate trade. Against this background, the Western role was highlighted by three contradictory promises:
* The McMahon-Hussein Correspondence (1915–16)
* The Sykes-Picot Agreement (1916)
* The Balfour Declaration (1917)
The McMahon-Hussein Correspondence (1915-1916) was a series of ten letters exchanged during World War I between Sir Henry McMahon, British High Commissioner in Egypt, and Sharif Hussein bin Ali, Emir of Mecca. Britain promised support for an independent Arab state in exchange for an Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire. Sir Henry McMahon was the same British diplomat who had served as Foreign Secretary in the Government of India from 1911 to 1915 before his appointment as High Commissioner in Egypt from 1915 to 1917. As Foreign Secretary in the Government of India, he drew the McMahon line which remains a critical point of contention in modern India-China border negotiations.
Thus, he left behind a legacy of disputes both in India and in the Middle East. The 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement was a secret treaty between Britain and France, approved by Russia, that partitioned the Ottoman Empire’s Arab territories into spheres of influence. The Agreement was worked out by the British diplomat Sir Mark Sykes and the French diplomat François Georges-Picot. It planned to divide modern-day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine into British ~ and French-administered zones, largely ignoring local Arab independence desires.
The agreement allocated the northern area (Syria/Lebanon) to France and the southern area (Iraq/Palestine/Jordan) to Britain. Britain aimed to secure its Suez Canal route to India and to acquire oil resources, while France sought to protect its historic cultural and economic interests in the Levant. The Balfour declaration was a public 1917 statement by Britain during World War I supporting the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine. Issued as a letter from Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Lord Rothschild, British hereditary peer, investment banker, and member of the Rothschild banking family, it aimed to secure Jewish support for the Allied cause.
Britain conveyed its support to create a Jewish homeland in Palestine which was then an Ottoman region with a small minority Jewish population. Thus, the British role in this period was that of dishonest communicators. To the Arabs, they promised a glorious and united kingdom. To the Zionists, they promised a national home. And to themselves, they promised all the strategic routes and the power over these territories.
After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire following World War I, the San Remo Conference, which was a meeting of the post-World War I Allied Supreme Council held in April 1920, allotted the League of Nations Class A mandates to Great Britain for Iraq, Palestine, Transjordan and to France for Syria and Lebanon. These mandates were based on the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement, the secret pact that divided the region to serve European strategic interests rather than local aspirations for sovereignty.
(The writer, a retired IFS officer, served as India’s Ambassador to Kuwait and Morocco and as Consul-General in New York)