The Hashemites? : the Dream of Arabia - The Peace Conferences of, 1919-23 and Their Aftermath

The Arab states at Versailles were widely considered to be pawns of the Great Powers. As the Ottoman Empire disintegrated, the Arab nationalists, led by Emir Faisal, fought for a voice within the mix of tribal, ethnic, and religious loyalties that made up the Middle East. The Arabs soon realized that their plea for self-determination had fallen on deaf ears, and they felt betrayed by both the Balfour Declaration and the Sykes-Picot Agreement. The decisions made led to decades of internal conflict throughout the Middle East, and Robert McNamara demonstrates how the boundaries decided after WWI continue to shape the history of a region that is at the center of world affairs. Read more...

The story of the Arab Revolt and the Hashemite princes who led it during the First World War is inextricably linked in modern eyes to the legend of Lawrence of Arabia as portrayed in David Lean's 1962 film. But behind this romantic image lies a harsher reality of wartime expediency, double-dealing and dynastic ambition, which shaped the modern Middle East and laid the foundations of many of the conflicts that rack the region to this day. Arab nationalists claim that British instigation for the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire was a commitment to independence for the Arab people, but in this book Robert McNamara shows how the British cultivated the Hashemite Sherifs of Mecca more as an alternative focus during the First World War for Muslim loyalty from the Ottoman Sultan, who as Caliph had declared a jihad against the Allies when the Turks joined the Central Powers, than a leader of an independent and united Arabia. At the same time, the Sykes-Picot Agreement divided up the Middle East between British and French spheres of influence. The sense of betrayal that this caused has coloured Arab nationalists' views of the West ever since. The main countries of the Middle East —Jordan, Syria and Iraq—are all the creations of the post-First World War settlement worked out at the Paris Peace Conference. The story of the Hashemite dynasty at the Paris Peace Conference is the story of the birth of the modern history of a region that is now more than ever at the centre of world affairs.

Introduction: Peacemaking In The Middle East - The Hashemites: Victors Or Victims? -- The Arab World And The Hashemites Before The First World War -- The First World War And The Rise Of Arab Nationalism -- Negotiating For The Arab State -- The Arab Revolt -- Feisal And The Peace Conference -- The Collapse Of Feisal's Kingdom Of Syria -- Reversals Of Fortune 1920-5 -- The Peace Treaties And The Fate Of The Arab Lands. Robert Mcnamara. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.