Answer each question with three or four sentences.
1.
Describe the impact of World War I and the postwar settlement on the political boundaries and conflicts in the Middle East.
2.
How did the Young Turks inadvertently create Arab nationalism?
3.
Why did the Arabs feel betrayed by the British and the French at the end of World War I?
4.
What was the purpose of the Balfour Declaration, and what were its immediate complications?
5.
How did Mustafa Kemal’s reforms of Turkey change the lives of women? Were any of the changes negative?
6.
What challenges did Reza Shah Pahlavi face as he attempted to reform Persia?
7.
Why was Turkey better able to modernize than Persia (Iran) after World War I?
8.
In the first decades of the twentieth century, the British offered Indians several compromises to full self-rule. What were the British intentions?
9.
Why was Gandhi able to win concessions from Great Britain using nonviolent tactics?
10.
What were the external factors that gave rise to ultranationalists in Japan?
Answer Key
1.
Answer would ideally include:
· During the war, the British and the French made promises to different peoples, to keep them fighting, such as the promises to create Jewish and Arab homelands. They encouraged the Arabs to rise up against the Ottomans. The League of Nations created after the war spoke of self-determination, but the Treaty of Versailles transferred the Ottoman and German colonies to the British and the French, with no self-rule. The mandates created by the Treaty of Versailles were supposed to prepare the mandate colonies for freedom, but they set no timetable as to when that would occur.
2.
Answer would ideally include:
· In their attempts to reform and modernize the Ottoman Empire, the Young Turks also wanted to preserve the empire and its traditions. They promoted Turkish identity, nationalism, language, and culture. The Ottoman Empire, however, had been multilinguistic, multiethnic, multireligious, and multicultural, and by promoting one culture over all of the others, the Turks drew out the Arabs’ nationalist identity.
3.
Answer would ideally include:
· The British convinced the Arabs to rise up against the Ottomans and made vague promises about creating an Arab homeland. In 1916, Britain and France secretly negotiated the Sykes-Picot Agreement, in which they drew up their plans for the Middle East for after the war: France would take Lebanon, Syria, and southern Turkey, while Britain would have Palestine, Jordan, and Iraq. The Arabs learned about this agreement and realized that the British had no intention of creating an Arab homeland. The Arabs also learned about the Balfour Declaration, in which the British promised to create a Jewish homeland in Palestine after the war. When the war ended, and the League of Nations created the mandate system, the Arabs learned that they had just exchanged one imperial power (the Ottomans) for two others (the British and the French).
4.
Answer would ideally include:
· The Balfour Declaration was a British promise during World War I to create a Jewish homeland in Palestine after the war was over. The Balfour Declaration was ultimately incorporated into the Versailles settlement. Arabs pointed to a Jewish homeland in Palestine and dismissed it as another form of Western imperialism, forced on the region from the outside. Furthermore, the kind of state the British were promising the Jews was very different—made up of one religion and one ethnicity—from the kinds of states the Arabs, Ottomans, and Persians in the area were accustomed to.
5.
Answer would ideally include:
· Under Kemal, Turkish women received the right to vote. Islamic law was replaced with a civil law code modeled on secular European law codes, which included the right of women to divorce their husbands. Men were also limited to one wife. Other reforms also affected women, like increased education and literacy and the promotion of Westernized and modernized clothing. However, Turkish women lost their heritage and traditions and some of the protections of traditional Islamic law.
6.
Answer would ideally include:
· Persia was a largely underdeveloped country with deserts, mountains, and very little communication. Very few of the populace could read; certainly the rural population was illiterate. In addition to Persians, the Persian state included several ethnic minorities (particularly Arabs and Kurds). The Islamic leaders were opposed to Western culture and to secular Islam. There were few Persians who were educated in the West.
7.
Answer would ideally include:
· Mustafa Kemal and Reza Shah both wanted to modernize and Westernize their respective states. But Mustafa Kemal’s Turkey had more interaction with the West than Reza’s Persia; there were few Western-educated people in Persia. The Persian Empire also had powerful religious leaders who opposed any modernization—a problem that Turkey did not have. Furthermore, Mustafa had fought with and against Europeans in World War I and, unlike Reza, was simply less isolated.
8.
Answer would ideally include:
· In 1917 the British announced a policy in India that gave Indians partial self-rule. The British created a dual administration, in which the British retained authority over taxes, police, and law courts but Indian officials (who were elected) were put in charge of agriculture and health. This attempt to address the many Indian demands for more autonomous rule largely failed. It was followed by the creation of emergency measures such as the Rowlatt Acts.
9.
Answer would ideally include:
· Gandhi’s big advantage was that he was able to mobilize the masses, not just one particular group. Previous independence movements had drawn on one particular class or group. As a lawyer trained in British law, Gandhi was able to present legal arguments as to why the Indians should have self-rule. In addition to nonviolent, mass-protest movements, Gandhi also reorganized the Indian National Congress. He lobbied for legal, social, and economic reforms. Because his methods were so diverse, it was difficult for the British to defeat him. He frustrated them, and in 1931 they began to negotiate concessions with him.
10.
Answer would ideally include:
· As the Meiji reforms modernized and Westernized Japan, the ultranationalists were aggressively anti-Western, antidemocratic, anticapitalist, and anti-Marxist. They also had an imperialist attitude toward Asia: They were determined to protect “Asia for Asians” but with themselves in power over other Asian peoples. This was their justification for taking control of the Shandong Peninsula, Taiwan, Korea, and Manchuria. They used the presence of Westerners in these areas to rally supporters. When the Great Depression in the 1930s hit Japan particularly hard, the ultranationalists used the high unemployment rate and wage collapse to rally supporters to their cause by blaming modernization and Westernization.
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