Empire and Imperialism

From the eighteenth century onward, the Ottomans were directly threatened by the imperial aspirations of two land-based empires, Russia and Austria (Austria-Hungary after 1867). In addition, the Ottoman Middle East became unwittingly embroiled in the rivalries of two seaborne empires, Great Britain and France, illustrating the global scope of imperial competition.

The treaty ending the French and Indian War in North America in 1763 saw France cede not only Canada to Britain but also French claims to India. The swiftest route to India for Britain lay through Ottoman territory, first overland via Syria and Mesopotamia, then by the Suez Canal once it opened in 1869. The British empire centered in India defined British strategic interests in the Middle East as preserving the security of the Egyptian Suez Canal route and dominance in the Persian Gulf to block other powers access to India. By 1914 and the outbreak of World War I, Britain had occupied Egypt (1882), extended its interests to include southern Mesopotamia and the oil fields of southwest Iran, and had backed Kuwaiti secession from Ottoman-controlled Mesopotamia.

France, the first to occupy Ottoman land in the Middle East, invaded Algeria in 1830 and colonized it. France later occupied Tunisia in 1881 and took Morocco in 1912, while Italy invaded Libya in 1911. By 1914, the Ottomans controlled no territory in North Africa, nor in eastern Europe, where their remaining possessions were lost in the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913. Ottoman rule remained in Anatolia and in the central Arab lands of Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Mesopotamia (Iraq after World War I), and portions of the Arabian peninsula.