Book summary “A Peace to End All Peace”: summary

Introduction

You live with the daily consequences of conflicts in the Middle East, yet the origins of these borders often remain obscure. You might wonder how a stable, centuries-old empire dissolved into a collection of fragile states in just a few years.

David Fromkin demonstrates that the modern Middle East was shaped primarily by the improvised decisions, artificial borders, and imperial ambitions of British officials during and after the First World War. You will discover how British wartime diplomacy dismantled the Ottoman Empire and created the structural instability that defines the region today.

• How did British obsession with the road to India dictate regional policy?
• Why did the Ottoman Empire enter the First World War on the side of Germany?
• What contradictory promises did Allied leaders make to Arab and Zionist movements?
• How did the postwar settlement establish artificial states that persist today?

1. The Legacy of the Great Game in Asia

The Great Game

British policy in the Middle East was driven for over a century by the obsessive goal of blocking Russian expansion to protect the road to India. You can trace this strategic anxiety through decades of diplomatic and military maneuvers.

Arthur Conolly coined the term The Great Game for this geopolitical rivalry. He was eventually imprisoned in a vermin-filled well and beheaded by an Uzbek emir in Central Asia.

British strategy relied on propping up decaying Islamic regimes as buffer states between Russian ambitions and British India. Queen Victoria assumed the title of Empress of India in 1877, formalizing the dual empire and intensifying these defensive obsessions.

Sir Edward Grey negotiated the 1907 Anglo-Russian Convention to reconcile imperial differences in Asia, seemingly bringing the Great Game to an end. Under the treaty, Tibet was neutralized, Russia surrendered interest in Afghanistan under British guidance, and Persia was split into Russian, neutral, and British zones.

Oil did not play a major role in the politics of the Middle East during the early twentieth century or the formulation of the Great Game. Most British oil came from the United States, few politicians foresaw the future importance of petroleum, and the vast quantity of Middle Eastern oil reserves was not yet known. In 1913, the United States produced 140 times more oil than Persia, which was the only significant Middle Eastern producer outside of Russia. Eighty percent of British oil came from the United States before and during the First World War.

Decline of the Ottomans

The Ottoman Empire was a multi-ethnic, theocratic remnant of medieval steppe conquests that proved incapable of modernizing its government or economy, leading to continuous territorial retreat before European expansion.

The Ottoman regime derived from nomadic war bands who mastered warfare rather than governance. It failed to centralize effectively, could not collect its own taxes reliably, and relied on independent tax farmers for 95 percent of state revenue. Its population of roughly twenty to twenty-five million was a mosaic of mutually exclusive linguistic, ethnic, and religious groups where religion deeply governed everyday life. The empire covered a territory six times the size of Texas.

English traveler Gertrude Bell observed that outside the towns Ottoman administration completely vanished, local sheikhs and brigands ruled, and the centralized government was largely a land of make-believe.

2. The Young Turks and the Road to War

Desperate for protection against territorial annihilation, the Young Turk leaders secretly negotiated and signed a mutual defense alliance with Germany after being rejected by Britain and France.

The Grand Vizier, Talaat, and Enver kept negotiations hidden from their own colleagues and central committee. Kaiser Wilhelm II overruled his ambassador to authorize discussions. On August 1, 1914, Germany agreed to protect Ottoman territory by force of arms in exchange for Turkish neutrality and eventual military intervention alongside the Central Powers. The secret treaty was scheduled to expire on 31 December 1918.

Enver Pasha made his official approach for an alliance on July 22, 1914. German ambassador Hans von Wangenheim initially turned it down before accepting under imperial orders.

Alliance with Germany

Enver and Talaat secured their alliance by offering a warship they already knew had been seized by Britain, effectively duping Berlin into a binding protection treaty. On August 1, 1914, they offered the powerful Sultan Osman battleship to Ambassador von Wangenheim as a material contribution to the German war effort. Having learned earlier that day or the day before that Britain had already confiscated the vessel, the Turkish leaders made the promise with total impunity.

German fleet officers behind the lines eagerly expected to receive the magnificent new warship and experienced deep disappointment when Churchill's seizure was confirmed.

Churchill Seizes Warships

Winston Churchill unilaterally ordered the detention and purchase of two powerful dreadnoughts being built in British shipyards for the Ottoman navy, dealing a severe psychological and strategic blow to Constantinople. The battleships Reshadieh and Sultan Osman I were funded by patriotic public subscription across the Ottoman Empire, with citizens selling jewelry and children giving pocket money. Churchill bypassed Cabinet opposition on the eve of war to commandeer these vessels for the Royal Navy, fearing their acquisition by Germany would tilt the naval balance. By the summer of 1914, the Royal Navy held a seven Dreadnoughts margin over Germany.

Admiral Limpus had sailed from Constantinople with the Turkish fleet to escort the Sultan Osman I back to the capital for a lavishly planned navy week.

Admiral Souchon forced the issue of Turkish entry into the war by sailing the German warships Goeben and Breslau to Constantinople and later bombarding the Russian coast. Faced with contradictory orders and British pursuit after escaping Messina, German Admiral Souchon independently decided to steam to Constantinople. To bypass Ottoman neutrality laws, the Porte pretended to purchase the warships for eighty million marks, while German crews kept operating them under Ottoman fezzes. Souchon eventually shelled the Russian ports to drag Turkey into the war against its collective will.

Admiral Souchon shelled Algerian port cities before evading British pursuers and heading straight for the Dardanelles. He later ignored Enver's halt orders to deliberately shell the Russian coast and force a war.

Enver and his pro-interventionist faction committed Turkey to war only after securing a substantial influx of German gold to support the Ottoman military. Enver, Talaat, Halil, and Djemal formed a faction committed to entering the war on Germany's side, contingent upon Germany depositing two million Turkish pounds in gold in Constantinople to keep the impoverished and mobilized army from collapsing. Berlin dispatched the funds in installments, and despite brief hesitations by Talaat and Halil, the financial leverage secured the alliance.

Germany shipped two million pounds in gold by rail through neutral Rumania, delivering one million on 12 October and another million by 21 October.

3. Kitchener and the Islamic Strategy

Kitchener Takes Command

Prime Minister Asquith appointed the legendary imperial hero Lord Kitchener as War Minister amid public acclaim and intense press pressure. Kitchener shocked a skeptical Cabinet on his first day by declaring that there was no army and asserting that the war would last at least three years. Defying conventional wisdom, he correctly predicted a long, multi-year war requiring an army of millions raised through voluntary recruitment, while largely treating the Middle East as a minor sideshow.

Stationed in Arabic-speaking Egypt, Kitchener and his aides regarded themselves as Middle East experts, though their outlook suffered from the narrowness of a British garrison town and ignored vast cultural differences across the region. Ronald Storrs and other members of Kitchener's entourage advocated for an Egyptian protectorate with token references to independence, establishing a prototype of indirect rule where native ministers followed British advice.

Capturing the Caliphate

Lord Kitchener viewed the Middle East through the lens of capturing Islamic religious leadership to secure Britain's postwar imperial interests against Russia.

Assuming Islam was a centralized, authoritarian structure like the medieval papacy, Kitchener believed that whoever controlled the Caliph controlled Islam. Fearing that a Russian-controlled caliphate after the war would threaten India, Kitchener planned to replace the Turkish Sultan with an Arabian Caliph under British naval control. At the time, Britain ruled over half of the world's Moslems, including almost seventy million Moslems in India alone in 1914.

John Buchan dramatized these British nightmares regarding pan-Islamic unrest and religious prophets inciting revolts toward the Indian border in his 1916 novel Greenmantle.

The Government of India and the India Office fiercely opposed Kitchener's provocative policies in Arabia, fearing they would destabilize Indian Moslem opinion. India's institutional strategy was to maintain a weak and disunited Arabia as a buffer state while avoiding inland entanglements. Percy Cox reported in December 1915 that when he met with the Sheikh of Kuwait and Ibn Saud, they found the caliphate question to be of zero interest to them.

When the Ottoman Empire entered the war, the Sultan proclaimed a jihad expecting it to awaken Islamic fanaticism and cause rebellions in India and among Allied colonial troops. However, the jihad proved to be a complete dud that failed to spark widespread enthusiasm or desertions.

4. Gallipoli and Partition Planning

Military stalemates on the Western Front and the Gallipoli disaster pushed British leaders to plan the complete partition of the Ottoman Empire.

The Gallipoli Campaign

Fearing Russia's exit from the war, Lord Kitchener reversed his stance and authorized a naval attack on the 38-mile-long Dardanelles straits. Prompted by Russian requests for a diversionary attack, Kitchener initially insisted the Royal Navy act alone without army support. He later committed ground troops after naval leadership expressed doubts.

Admiral Carden's warships opened the Dardanelles campaign on 19 February 1915. This led to public expectations of victory and a scramble among Allied powers to stake claims on the Ottoman Empire.

Admiral Carden suffered severe anxiety regarding minesweeping and potential casualties near the 1,600-yard-wide Narrows. His replacement, Admiral de Robeck, subsequently called off the naval attack on 18 March after losing several ships to mines, unaware that Turkish ammunition was completely exhausted and defenses were on the verge of total collapse.

General Sir Ian Hamilton led the Gallipoli land invasion under flawed conditions. He ultimately committed his forces to a static trench warfare stalemate.

At dawn on 25 April 1915, Allied armies waded ashore onto six narrow, unconnected beaches on the Gallipoli peninsula. ANZAC troops mistakenly landed at Ari Burnu and encountered Mustapha Kemal's defending forces.

Winston Churchill was made the scapegoat for Dardanelles setbacks, leading to a political crisis. This resulted in the formation of Britain's first coalition government and Churchill's removal from the Admiralty.

Secret Partition Agreements

To prevent Russia from seeking a separate peace, Britain and France secretly agreed in March and April 1915 to hand over Constantinople and the straits to the Czar. Motivated by Great Game fears, Sir Edward Grey reversed a century of traditional British foreign policy.

On 4 March 1915, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Sazanov transmitted a demand from Czar Nicholas II for Constantinople and the straits. Britain formally accepted this on 12 March 1915, and France accepted on 10 April 1915.

Sir Mark Sykes negotiated a secret partition agreement with French diplomat François Georges Picot to divide Ottoman territories into spheres of influence.

Sent to break a deadlock in London in late December 1915, Sykes negotiated daily at the French embassy with Picot. François Georges Picot acted as the advocate for the French colonialist party, championing a historic mission historique in Syria and Palestine.

To create a buffer against Russian expansion, Britain agreed to extend the French sphere of influence all the way to Mosul. Britain secured direct control over Basra and Baghdad, leaving Palestine under an international regime.

The preliminary Sykes-Picot Agreement was concluded on 3 January 1916. The British and French Cabinets approved the agreement in February 1916.

5. Promises to the Arabs and the Balfour Declaration

Britain made contradictory wartime promises to Arab leaders and Zionist advocates while carving up Ottoman territories into European spheres of influence.

The Hussein-McMahon Correspondence

British intelligence in Cairo was duped by an Ottoman deserter who pretended to represent powerful secret Arab societies. Lieutenant Muhammed Sharif al-Faruqi deserted the Ottoman forces at Gallipoli in late 1915 and convinced Gilbert Clayton in Cairo that he spoke for the secret Arab military society al-'Ahd. Though unverified and acting purely on his own impulse, al-Faruqi demanded that Britain pledge support for an independent Arab state, threatening that Arabs would otherwise support Germany and Turkey.

Al-Faruqi emerged from obscurity in late 1915, held British attention into 1916 by redrawing maps and brokering messages, and ultimately died young in a 1920 tribal raid in Iraq.

Emir Hussein of Mecca demanded an independent Arab kingdom in Arab Asia after discovering Turkish plans to depose him. Having discovered written evidence in early 1915 that the Young Turk government planned to depose him after the war, Emir Hussein was forced to consider opposing Turkey. He sent his son Feisal to Damascus to secure backing from secret societies, which resulted in the Damascus Protocol, setting forth territorial demands that Hussein incorporated into his letters to British Cairo.

Hussein sent his son Feisal twice to Damascus in 1915 to negotiate with secret society conspirators like General Yasin al-Hashimi before sending his demands to British High Commissioner Sir Henry McMahon.

Sir Henry McMahon used deliberately evasive language in his letters to Emir Hussein to make no real commitments. Instructed by Lord Kitchener to secure the Arab alliance without binding Britain to conflicting future claims, McMahon divided claimed lands into four areas and insisted on exclusive British advisers, effectively making any Arab kingdom a British protectorate. Clayton later noted that they had successfully committed themselves to nothing whatsoever.

McMahon excluded territory west of Damascus, Aleppo, Homs, and Hama, reserved Basra and Baghdad for British special administration, and left western Syria dependent on French interests.

Emir Hussein of Mecca proclaimed the Arab Revolt not out of nationalist fervor, but to preempt being deposed by the Young Turks. Although British intelligence hoped the revolt would mobilize hundreds of thousands of Arab troops, Hussein's forces were mostly untrained tribal guerrillas whose operations were severely limited and heavily dependent on British naval support.

The Royal Navy intervened along the Hejaz coastline to secure ports like Jeddah and Rabegh, while the tribe's attacks on Turkish positions were frequently repulsed by artillery.

The Balfour Declaration

Britain issued the Balfour Declaration on 2 November 1917 to secure wartime support from international Jewish communities and establish a strategic British land bridge to India. Driven by the Foreign Office, the Milner circle, and Prime Minister Lloyd George—who viewed Palestine as a vital imperial link connecting Africa, Asia, and Europe—the Cabinet overrode domestic Jewish and bureaucratic opposition. The final declaration expressed favor for a Jewish national home while safeguarding the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities and the status of Jews elsewhere.

On 2 November 1917, Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour conveyed the official Cabinet declaration of sympathy to Lord Rothschild in a formal letter addressed to the Zionist Federation.

Dr. Chaim Weizmann met with Prince Feisal, establishing a cooperative relationship where Feisal welcomed Jewish cooperation in exchange for Allied support for his Syrian ambitions. Arranged by Alan Dawnay, the meeting went exceptionally well because Feisal was focused on acquiring Damascus and northern Syria rather than Palestine, and viewed Palestinian Arabs with contempt.

Weizmann wrote to his wife describing Feisal as a true leader, honest, and completely unconcerned with Palestine while aiming for northern Syria.

6. Postwar Settlement and the Modern Middle East

The 1922 Middle East settlement marked the culmination of European imperial conquest, dividing the former Ottoman domains into artificial secular states governed by European design rather than local consensus.

Mustapha Kemal used his commission as Inspector-General of the Ninth Army to slip into Anatolia and organize a nationalist military resistance against Allied peace terms. Disobeying recall orders after the Greek landing at Smyrna, Kemal rallied remaining Ottoman troops, convened national congresses at Erzerum and Sivas, and established an independent power base.

On the evening of 6 May 1919, Kemal embarked for Samsun, while British intelligence expert Wyndham Deedes rushed to warn the Grand Vizier too late that Kemal intended to resist Allied terms. Under Kemal's command, a Turkish regular army numbering 30,000 defeated French forces at Marash.

Prince Feisal tried to establish an independent Arab kingdom in Syria. His government collapsed when French forces under General Gouraud routed his partisans and drove him into exile.

On 26 July 1920, the French occupied Damascus, ordered Feisal into exile on 27 July, and he departed on 28 July. Other key dates marked this campaign:

• 6 June 1919: the General Syrian Congress was called into being.
• 14 January 1920: Feisal returned from Europe to Syria.
• 20 May 1920: Robert de Caix led a delegation to Angora to negotiate an armistice.
• 27 May 1920: Paris ordered General Gouraud to prepare for military action.
• 1 August 1920: General Gouraud proclaimed Great Lebanon.

The Cairo Conference

Violent anti-Jewish riots in Jerusalem and the partisan behavior of the British military administration prompted the replacement of military rule with a civilian administration under Herbert Samuel. On 4 April 1920, three days of rioting broke out in Jerusalem during the Moslem springtime festival, resulting in deaths and hundreds of injuries. Vladimir Jabotinsky formed a Jewish defense group and received a sentence of fifteen years of hard labor from a court-martial. Winston Churchill wrote to Lloyd George on 13 June 1920 regarding the costs and friction of the Palestine venture.

The Cairo Conference of March 1921 formulated the Hashemite solution of placing King Hussein's sons on thrones in Iraq and Transjordan. Sir Percy Cox and Gertrude Bell met with Churchill at the Semiramis Hotel in Cairo starting 12 March 1921, where they agreed to offer the throne of Mesopotamia to Feisal and place Abdullah in Transjordan for an initial period of six months.

The Rise of Turkish Nationalism

European powers established new borders, installed monarchies, and instituted League of Nations mandates in regions like Iraq, Palestine, Transjordan, and Syria between 1919 and 1922. Sir Mark Sykes and other officials recognized by 1917 that their earlier imperial pacts already belonged to a bygone era as anti-imperialist rhetoric from Wilson and Lenin took hold.

The transplanted European model of secular nation-states based on national citizenship functions as an alien creed in the Middle East, where populations have historically been governed by Islamic Holy Law.

European statesmen failed to comprehend the enduring hold of Islam and local religious fervor. You can observe the enduring friction in a region lacking native legitimacy and ignoring Islamic political concepts, which makes it prone to continuous wars of national survival.

The author compares the ongoing post-imperial crisis in the region to Europe's post-Roman crisis of civilization, noting that it took 1,500 years for Europe to finally settle on its accepted nation-state map after the fall of Rome. This contrasts with over a thousand years that inhabitants of the Middle East avowed faith in a Holy Law.

10 Key Ideas

1. British policy in the Middle East was driven for over a century by the obsessive goal of blocking Russian expansion to protect the road to India.
2. Desperate for protection against territorial annihilation, the Young Turk leaders secretly negotiated and signed a mutual defense alliance with Germany after being rejected by Britain and France.
3. Lord Kitchener viewed the Middle East through the lens of capturing Islamic religious leadership to secure Britain's postwar imperial interests against Russia.
4. Military stalemates on the Western Front and the Gallipoli disaster pushed British leaders to plan the complete partition of the Ottoman Empire.
5. Sir Mark Sykes negotiated a secret partition agreement with French diplomat François Georges Picot to divide Ottoman territories into spheres of influence.
6. Britain made contradictory wartime promises to Arab leaders and Zionist advocates while carving up Ottoman territories into European spheres of influence.
7. Sir Henry McMahon used deliberately evasive language in his letters to Emir Hussein to make no real commitments.
8. Britain issued the Balfour Declaration on 2 November 1917 to secure wartime support from international Jewish communities and establish a strategic British land bridge to India.
9. Prince Feisal tried to establish an independent Arab kingdom in Syria, but his government collapsed when French forces routed his partisans and drove him into exile.
10. The transplanted European model of secular nation-states based on national citizenship functions as an alien creed in the Middle East, where populations have historically been governed by Islamic Holy Law.