After WWI: “As the World War I peace negotiations dragged
on at Versailles, the British helped the Greeks land at Izmir
to take the share of western Anatolia that had been promised
them earlier. Mustafa Kemal, who was in Anatolia, organized the
resistance against the Greeks (and later against the British
and the French). In Ankara he organized a rival government, and
this Grand National Assembly government abolished the sultanate
on November 1, 1922, formally ending the Ottoman Empire. The
Republic of Turkey was founded the next year.”
--The League of Nations granted France mandates over
Syria and Lebanon. The British were given Mesopotamia (renamed by the British
to Iraq) and Palestine. Saudi Arabia’s King ibn Saud was recognized as
the sovereign of that nation because of his alliance with the British.
--The decline of the Ottoman Empire started as soon
as it had reached its expansion peak with the unsuccessful Siege of Vienna in
1529. Ottoman attempts to conquer Europe finally ended with the Battle of Vienna
in 1683. As the Great Powers advanced in science and technology the Ottoman Empire
stagnated on the issue just like the Romans. One can argue that the awakening
of a new Europe, that brought with it enlightenment not only in the arts and
architecture but also in science and technology, made the industrial revolution
possible. This threw the competitive advantage in world commerce into the laps
of the “Western” Powers. Re-enforcement of that advantage came from
an unlikely source—the rejection of science and technology by the Ottoman
Empire. This was an unlikely source of re-enforcement because they, the Muslims,
the once illiterate conquerors, became the masters of science that created the
Arabic numeral system and algebra in the ninth century. They created the foundation
form which “Western” science and technology evolved…
|
