Carroll Quigley - Tragedy and Hope - A History of the World in Our Time

Russia, like Romania, was forced out of the war in 1917, and forced to sign a separate peace by Germany in 1918. The Russian attack on Germany in 1914 had been completely shattered at the battles of Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes in August and September, but their ability to hold their own against Austrian forces in Galicia made it impossible to bring the war in the east to a conclusion. Russian casualties were very heavy because of inadequate supplies and munitions, while the Austrians lost considerable forces, especially of Slavs, by desertion to the Russians. This last factor made it possible for Russia to organize a “Czech Legion” of over 100,000 men. German reinforcements to the Austrian front in Galicia in 1915 made possible a great Austro-German offensive which crossed Galicia and by September had taken all of Poland and Lithuania. In these operations the Russians lost about a million men. They lost a million more in the “Brusilov” counterattack in 1916 which reached the Carpathians before it was stopped by the arrival of German reinforcements from France. By this time the prestige of the czarist government had fallen so low that it was easily replaced by a parliamentary government under Kerensky in March 1917. The new government tried to carry on the war, but misjudged the temper of the Russian people. As a result the extreme Communist group, known as Bolsheviks, were able to seize the government in November 1917, and hold it by promising the weary Russian people both peace and land. The German demands, dictated by the German General Staff, were so severe that the Bolsheviks refused to sign a formal peace, but on March 3, 1918, were forced to accept the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. By this treaty Russia lost Finland, Lithuania, the Baltic Provinces, Poland, the Ukraine and Transcaucasia. German efforts to exploit these areas in an economic sense during the war were not successful.

The Japanese intervention in the war on August 23, 1914, was determined completely by its ambitions in the Far East and the Pacific area. It intended to use the opportunity arising from the Great Powers’ concern with Europe to win concessions from China and Russia and to replace Germany, not only in its colonial possessions in the East but also to take over its commercial position so far as possible. The German island colonies north of the equator were seized at once, and the German concession at Kiaochow was captured after a brief siege. In January 1915, “Twenty-one Demands” were presented to China in the form of an ultimatum, and largely accepted. These demands covered accession to the German position in Shantung, extension of Japanese leases in Manchuria, with complete commercial liberty for the Japanese in that area, extensive rights in certain existing iron and steel enterprises of North China, and the closing of China’s coast to any future foreign concessions. A demand for the use of Japanese advisers in Chinese political, military, and financial matters was rejected, and withdrawn. On July 3, 1916, Japan won Russian recognition of its new position in China in return for her recognition of the Russian penetration into Outer Mongolia. New concessions were won from China in February 1917, and accepted by the United States in November in the so-called Lansing-Ishii Notes. In these notes the Japanese gave verbal support to the American insistence on the maintenance of China’s territorial integrity, political independence, and the “Open Door” policy in commercial matters. The outbreak of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, followed by the German victory over that country, and the beginning of civil war, gave the Japanese an opportunity in the Far East which they did not hesitate to exploit. With the support of Great Britain and the United States, they landed at Vladivostok in April 1918, and began to move westward along the route of the Trans-Siberian Railway. The Czech Legion on the Russian front had already rebelled against Bolshevik rule and was fighting its way eastward along the same railroad. The Czechs were eventually evacuated to Europe, while the Japanese continued to hold the eastern end of the railroad, and gave support to the anti-Bolshevik factions in the civil war. After a year or more of confused fighting, it became clear that the anti-Bolshevik factions would be defeated and that the Japanese could expect no further concessions from the Bolsheviks. Accordingly, they evacuated Vladivostok in October 1922.

Undoubtedly, the most numerous diplomatic agreements of the wartime period were concerned with the disposition of the Ottoman Empire. As early as February 1915, Russia and France signed an agreement by which Russia was given a free hand in the East in return for giving France a free hand in the West. This meant that Russia could annex Constantinople and block the movement for an independent Poland, while France could take Alsace-Lorraine from Germany and set up a new, independent state under French influence in the Rhineland. A month later, in March 1915, Britain and France agreed to allow Russia to annex the Straits and Constantinople. The immediate activities of the Entente Powers, however, were devoted to plans to encourage the Arabs to rebel against the sultan’s authority or at least abstain from supporting his war efforts. The chances of success in these activities were increased by the fact that the Arabian portions of the Ottoman Empire, while nominally subject to the sultan, were already breaking up into numerous petty spheres of authority, some virtually independent. The Arabs, who were a completely separate people from the Turks, speaking a Semitic rather than a Ural-Altaic language and who had remained largely nomadic in their mode of life while the Turks had become almost completely a peasant people, were united to the Ottoman peoples by little more than their common allegiance to the Muslim religion. This connection had been weakened by the efforts to secularize the Ottoman state and by the growth of Turkish nationalism which called forth a spirit of Arabic nationalism as a reaction to it.

In 1915-1916 the British high commissioner in Egypt, Sir Henry McMahon, entered into correspondence with the Sherif Hussein of Mecca. While no binding agreement was signed, the gist of their discussions was that Britain would recognize the independence of the Arabs if they revolted against Turkey. The area covered by the agreement included those parts of the Ottoman Empire south of the 37th degree of latitude except Adana, Alexandretta, and “those portions of Syria lying to the west of the districts of Damascus, Horns, Hama, and Aleppo, [which] cannot be said to be purely Arab.” In addition, Aden was excepted, while Baghdad and Basra were to have a “special administration.” The rights of France in the whole area were reserved, the existing British agreements with various local sultans along the shores of the Persian Gulf were to be maintained, and Hussein was to use British advisers exclusively after the war. Extended controversy has risen from this division of areas, the chief point at issue being whether the statement as worded included Palestine in the area which was granted to the Arabs or in the area which was reserved. The interpretation of these terms to exclude Palestine from Arab hands was subsequently made by McMahon on several occasions after 1922 and most explicitly in 1937.

While McMahon was negotiating with Hussein, the Government of India, through Percy Cox, was negotiating with Ibn-Saud of Nejd, and, in an agreement of December 26, 1915, recognized his independence in return for a promise of neutrality in the war. Shortly afterward, on May 16, 1916, an agreement, known as the Sykes-Picot agreement from the names of the chief negotiators, was signed between Russia, France, and Britain. Early in 1917 Italy was added to the settlement. It partitioned the Ottoman Empire in such a way that little was left to the Turks except the area within 200 or 250 miles of Ankara/Russia was to get Constantinople and the Straits, as well as northeastern Anatolia, including the Black Sea coast; Italy was to get the southwestern coast of Anatolia from Smyrna to Adalia; France was to get most of eastern Anatolia, including Mersin, Adana, and Cilicia, as well as Kurdistan, Alexandretta, Syria, and northern Mesopotamia, including Mosul; Britain was to get the Levant from Gaza south to the Red Sea, Trans Jordan, most of the Syrian Desert, all of Mesopotamia south of Kirkuk (including Baghdad and Basra), and most of the Persian Gulf coast of Arabia. It was also envisaged that western Anatolia around Smyrna would go to Greece. The Holy Land itself was to be internationalized.