Partition of the Ottoman Empire in the context of "Geopolitical"

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⭐ Core Definition: Partition of the Ottoman Empire

The partition of the Ottoman Empire (30 October 1918 – 1 November 1922) was a geopolitical event that occurred after World War I and the occupation of Constantinople by British, French, and Italian troops in November 1918. The partitioning was planned in several agreements made by the Allied Powers early in the course of World War I, notably the Sykes–Picot Agreement, after the Ottoman Empire had joined Germany to form the Ottoman–German alliance. The huge conglomeration of territories and peoples that formerly comprised the Ottoman Empire was divided into several new states. The Ottoman Empire had been the leading Islamic state in geopolitical, cultural, and ideological terms. The partitioning of the Ottoman Empire after the war led to the domination of the Middle East by Western powers such as Britain and France, and saw the creation of the modern Arab world and the Republic of Turkey. Resistance to the influence of these powers came from the Turkish National Movement but did not become widespread in the other post-Ottoman states until the period of rapid decolonization after World War II.

The League of Nations mandate granted the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon, the British Mandate for Mesopotamia (later Iraq) and the British Mandate for Palestine, later divided into Mandatory Palestine and the Emirate of Transjordan (1921–1946). The Ottoman Empire's possessions in the Arabian Peninsula became the Kingdom of Hejaz, which the Sultanate of Nejd (today Saudi Arabia) was allowed to annex, and the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen. The Empire's possessions on the western shores of the Persian Gulf were variously annexed by Saudi Arabia (al-Ahsa and Qatif), or remained British protectorates (Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar) and became the Arab States of the Persian Gulf.

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Partition of the Ottoman Empire in the context of Jordan

Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and both Israel and Palestine (West Bank) to the west. The Jordan River, flowing into the Dead Sea, is located along the country's western border within the Jordan Rift Valley. Jordan has a small coastline along the Red Sea in its southwest, separated by the Gulf of Aqaba from Egypt. Amman is the country's capital and largest city, as well as the most populous city in the Levant.

Inhabited by humans since the Paleolithic period, three kingdoms developed in Transjordan during the Iron Age: Ammon, Moab and Edom. In the third century BC, the Arab Nabataeans established their kingdom centered in Petra. The Greco-Roman period saw the establishment of several cities in Transjordan that comprised the Decapolis. After the end of Byzantine rule, the region became part of the Islamic caliphates of the Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid, and the Ottoman. Following the 1916 Great Arab Revolt during World War I, former Ottoman Syria was partitioned, leading to the establishment of the Emirate of Transjordan in 1921, which became a British protectorate. In 1946, Jordan gained independence and became officially known as the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Jordan captured and annexed the West Bank during the 1948 Palestine war until it was occupied by Israel in 1967. Jordan renounced its claim to the territory to the Palestinians in 1988 and signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994.

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Partition of the Ottoman Empire in the context of Turkish War of Independence

The Turkish War of Independence (15 May 1919 – 24 July 1923) was a series of military campaigns and a revolution waged by the Turkish National Movement, after the Ottoman Empire was occupied and partitioned following its defeat in World War I. The conflict was between the Turkish Nationalists against Allied and separatist forces over the application of Wilsonian principles, especially self-determination, in post-World War I Anatolia and eastern Thrace. The revolution concluded the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the Eastern question, ending the Ottoman sultanate and the Ottoman caliphate, and establishing the Republic of Turkey. This resulted in the transfer of sovereignty from the sultan-caliph to the nation, setting the stage for nationalist revolutionary reform in Republican Turkey.

While World War I ended for the Ottomans with the Armistice of Mudros, the Allies continued occupying land per the Sykes–Picot Agreement, and to facilitate the prosecution of former members of the Committee of Union and Progress and those involved in the Armenian genocide. Ottoman commanders therefore refused orders from the Allies and Ottoman government to disband their forces. In an atmosphere of turmoil, Sultan Mehmed VI dispatched general Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk), to restore order; however, he became an enabler and leader of Turkish Nationalist resistance. In an attempt to establish control over the power vacuum in Anatolia, the Allies agreed to launch a Greek peacekeeping force and occupy Smyrna (İzmir), inflaming sectarian tensions and beginning the Turkish War of Independence. A nationalist counter government led by Mustafa Kemal was established in Ankara when it became clear the Ottoman government was appeasing the Allies. The Allies pressured the Ottoman "Istanbul government" to suspend the Constitution, Parliament, and sign the Treaty of Sèvres, a treaty unfavorable to Turkish interests that the "Ankara government" declared illegal.

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Partition of the Ottoman Empire in the context of Sultan of the Ottoman Empire

The sultans of the Ottoman Empire (Turkish: Osmanlı padişahları), who were all members of the Ottoman dynasty (House of Osman), ruled over the transcontinental empire from its perceived inception in 1299 to its dissolution in 1922. At its height, the Ottoman Empire spanned an area from Hungary in the north to Yemen in the south and from Algeria in the west to Iraq in the east. Administered at first from the city of Söğüt since before 1280 and then from the city of Bursa since 1323 or 1324, the empire's capital was moved to Adrianople (now known as Edirne in English) in 1363 following its conquest by Murad I and then to Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) in 1453 following its conquest by Mehmed II.

The Ottoman Empire's early years have been the subject of varying narratives, due to the difficulty of discerning fact from legend. The empire came into existence at the end of the 13th century, and its first ruler (and the namesake of the Empire) was Osman I. According to later, often unreliable Ottoman tradition, Osman was a descendant of the Kayı tribe of the Oghuz Turks. The eponymous Ottoman dynasty he founded endured for six centuries through the reigns of 36 sultans. The Ottoman Empire disappeared as a result of the defeat of the Central Powers, with whom it had allied itself during World War I. The partitioning of the Empire by the victorious Allies and the ensuing Turkish War of Independence led to the abolition of the sultanate in 1922 and the birth of the modern Republic of Turkey in 1922.

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Partition of the Ottoman Empire in the context of Islam in Europe

Islam is the second-largest religion in Europe after Christianity. Although the majority of Muslim communities in Western Europe formed as a result of immigration, there are centuries-old indigenous European Muslim communities in the Balkans, Caucasus, Crimea, and Volga region. The term "Muslim Europe" is used to refer to the Muslim-majority countries in the Balkans and the Caucasus (Albania, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Turkey) and parts of countries in Central and Eastern Europe with sizable Muslim minorities (Bulgaria, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and some republics of Russia) that constitute large populations of indigenous European Muslims, although the majority are secular.

Islam expanded into the Caucasus through the Muslim conquest of Persia in the 7th century and entered Southern Europe after the Umayyad conquest of Hispania in the 8th–10th centuries; Muslim political entities existed firmly in what is today Spain, Portugal, Sicily, and Malta during the Middle Ages. The Muslim populations in these territories were either converted to Christianity or expelled by the end of the 15th century by the indigenous Christian rulers (see Reconquista). The Ottoman Empire expanded into Southeastern Europe and consolidated its political power by invading and conquering huge portions of the Serbian and Bulgarian empires, and the remaining territories of the region, including the Albanian and Romanian principalities, and the kingdoms of Bosnia, Croatia, and Hungary between the 14th and 16th centuries. Over the centuries, the Ottoman Empire gradually lost its European territories. Islam was particularly influential in the territories of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo, and has remained the dominant religion in these countries.

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Partition of the Ottoman Empire in the context of Russo-Turkish Wars

The Russo-Turkish wars (Russian: Русско-турецкие войны Rússko-turĭéckije vójny), or the Russo-Ottoman wars (Turkish: Osmanlı-Rus savaşları), began in 1568 and continued intermittently until 1918. They consisted of twelve conflicts in total, making them one of the longest series of wars in the history of Europe. All but four of these wars ended in losses for the Ottoman Empire, which was undergoing a period of stagnation and decline. Conversely, they showcased the ascendancy of the Russian Empire as a significant European power after Peter the Great oversaw extensive modernization efforts in the early 18th century. Ultimately, however, the end of the Russo-Turkish wars came about with the dissolution of the two belligerents' respective states as a consequence of World War I: the Russian Empire collapsed in 1917 and was ultimately succeeded by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1922; while the Ottoman Empire was partitioned between 1918 and 1922 and succeeded by the Republic of Turkey in 1923.

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Partition of the Ottoman Empire in the context of Sykes–Picot Agreement

The Sykes–Picot Agreement (/ˈsks ˈpk, - pɪˈk, - pˈk/) was a 1916 secret treaty between the United Kingdom and France, with assent from Russia and Italy, to define their mutually agreed spheres of influence and control in an eventual partition of the Ottoman Empire.

The agreement was based on the premise that the Triple Entente would achieve success in defeating the Ottoman Empire during World War I and formed part of a series of secret agreements contemplating its partition. The primary negotiations leading to the agreement took place between 23 November 1915 and 3 January 1916, on which date the British and French diplomats, Mark Sykes and François Georges-Picot, initialled an agreed memorandum. The agreement was ratified by their respective governments on 9 and 16 May 1916.

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