Sea of Troubles: The European Conquest of the Islamic Mediterranean and the Origins of the First World War

by Ian Rutledge

Overview

In the second half of the eighteenth century, approximately three quarters of the Mediterranean coastline and its hinterlands were controlled by a vast Islamic power, the centuries-old Ottoman Empire. However, by the end of the First World War in November 1918, this great civilization-once regarded by Christian Europe with awe and fear-had been completely subjugated, its territories occupied by European powers.

The history of imperialism in the Mediterranean involves not one but six European powers-Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Austria-Hungary, and Russia- jostling for control of the trade, lands, and wealth of those they saw as the existential “other.” The competition between these states made their conquest of the Islamic Mediterranean a far more difficult and extended task than they encountered elsewhere in the world. Yet, as new contenders entered the contest, and as the rivalries in the Mediterranean intensified in the early twentieth century, events would spiral out of control as the continent headed towards the First World War.

Set against a background of intense imperial rivalry, Sea of Troubles is the first definitive account of the European conquest of the Levant and North Africa in the last three centuries.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780863569500
Publisher:	Saqi Books
Publication date:	01/30/2024
Pages:	576
Product dimensions:	6.02(w) x 9.21(h) x (d)

About the Author

Ian Rutledge is an economist and historian, who previously taught at the Universityies of London and Sheffield. Rutledge has devoted the past two decades to researching the economic and political history of the Middle East. His other works include Enemy on the Euphrates: The Battle for Iraq, 1914–1921 (also by Saqi Books) and Addicted to Oil: America’s Relentless Drive for Energy Security.

Read an Excerpt

This is a story of how a great and powerful civilisation – Mediterranean Islam – which, in the mid-18th century was still regarded by Christian Europe with awe, fear and sometimes admiration, was slowly penetrated and subjugated by the fractious states occupying only the north-west corner of the Great Sea and its hinterlands. It is also a story about a particular regional episode in the development of capitalist imperialism as it emerged from its earliest forms based on trade and finance, to eventually become transformed by the ‘industrial revolution’ and the emergence of great and heavily-armed rival European nation states, preying upon older, pre-capitalist empires. Writing of the Mediterranean, the historian Linda Colley remarks that, ‘This region is often left out of the history of English and British commercial and imperial endeavour’. Since Colley’s observation the gap has been partially filled by Robert Holland’s, Blue-Water Empire. The British in the Mediterranean Since 1800; but, even this particular work – like the bulk of English language works on European Imperialism written for the general reader – is self-evidently about British imperialism. This is not intended as a criticism. The point I wish to make is that there remains an important gap to be filled (actually, more than one). For in the Mediterranean region the history of imperialism since the mid-18th century is a history of not one but six European powers – Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Austria and Spain – jostling for trade, territory and ultimately, the lands and wealth of those they saw as the existential ‘other’. The only other work which touches on this subject is the elderly classic, The Eastern Question, by M.S. Anderson (1966). However Anderson’s work was essentially a study in international relations: it generally avoids any question of ‘imperialism’ and it largely ignores any discussion of the southern shores of the Islamic Mediterranean – Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt. Its focus is mainly upon the relations between Christianity and Islam on the Ottoman Empire’s northern shore. So, this is the first of three ‘gaps’ my book is intended to fill. The second ‘gap’ I am hoping to fill is that, at the point where my narrative begins, and intermittently thereafter, the ‘existential other’ referred to above was nevertheless a neighbor: and not infrequently a business partner, and even a friend and ally. And it is this – along with the longevity of the actual process whereby the Islamic Mediterranean was subjugated – which, makes the history of European imperialism in the Mediterranean quite different from the history of imperialism elsewhere. Under the Roman Empire the Mediterranean had been mare nostrum (our sea). For centuries both its northern and southern shores constituted a largely harmonious polity sharing the same political structures, social mores and (until the emergence of Christianity) a plethora of equally tolerated religions. All this disappeared with the remarkable Arab conquests of the seventh and eighth centuries. Indeed large parts of the Mediterranean’s northern shore, notably Spain and Sicily, were invaded and conquered by the different Arab Muslim empires of the early Middle Ages. Thereafter the Mediterranean became a veritable ‘Sea of Troubles’. The continuous wars between Islam and Christianity across the Mediterranean continued in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries after the armies of the Turkish Ottoman Empire conquered Egypt in 1517 and that empire’s centre of gravity shifted southwards. And as the various Muslim states of North Africa accepted Ottoman rule between 1519 and 1545 their leaders (together with the independent ‘Empire’ of Morocco) imposed their own definition of mare nostrum: henceforth ‘our sea’ came to be interpreted as ‘the sea of Islam’ access to which was to be granted only by the payment of tribute. But even as the wars between the Muslim and Christian Mediterranean states continued, a fundamental commonality of material interests between the two civilisations insisted on reasserting itself. Trade had always been an abiding characteristic of the Mediterranean world. As the great French historian Fernand Braudel memorably described, even in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries – an age of the most fearsome and brutal conflict between Christians and Muslims – much of which took place upon the Mediterranean sea itself, Merchant vessels sailed across it every day. For it was precisely a characteristic of this singular ‘world economy’ … that it bestrode the political and cultural frontiers which each in its own way quartered and differentiated the Mediterranean world. … The economy, all-invading, mingling together currencies and commodities, tended to promote unity of a kind in a world where everything else seemed to be conspiring to create clearly-distinguished blocs. Economic ties between Muslim and Christian states in the Mediterranean continued to flourish during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries So when the emerging capitalist states of Christian Europe began to contemplate the acquisition of territory on the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean this Great Sea, and the lands which bordered it, had not only been a ‘sea of troubles’ since the early middle ages but had also been a region closely integrated by trade, travel and the circulation of silver money; and one where the two dominant politico-religious identities – Christian Europe and Islam – had ‘known each other’ for centuries.

Table of Contents

Epigraph
Preface

PART ONE c.1750 – 1830
Chapter 1: Islam, Christian Europe and the Mediterranean: Social Structures, Incomes, Living Standards and the Role of Religion
Chapter 2: Islam, Christian Europe and the Mediterranean: the Ottoman ‘Economic Mind’, Industry and Trade
Chapter 3: At the Gateway to the Mediterranean: Britain and the ‘Empire’ of Morocco
Chapter 4: State, land and taxation: the fiscal crisis of the Ottoman system
Chapter 5: The Ottoman Regencies and the Barbary Corsairs
Chapter 6: The Russians in the Mediterranean
Chapter 7: Ottoman Egypt: the Empire Fraying at the Edges
Chapter 8: A Spanish Disaster
Chapter 9: ‘Liberating the Egyptians’: the Origins of French Republican Imperialism
Chapter 10: The French in Egypt: from Military Victory to Colonial failure
Chapter 11: The Troubled beginnings of Britain’s ‘Blue-Water Empire’
Chapter 12: The Beginning of the end for the Ottoman Regencies

PART TWO 1830 – c1870
Chapter 13: The Multiple Crises of Mahmud II
Chapter 14: The French Invasion of the Regency of Algiers and the growth of the Resistance 1830-36.
Chapter 15: Saving the Sultans
Chapter 16: Algérie Francaise, Morocco, Britain and the defeat of the Resistance
Chapter 17: Syria, Suez and the France’s Second Imperial Venture in the Eastern Mediterranean
Chapter 18: The Industrialised and the Non-Industrialised

PART THREE c.1870 – c.1900
Chapter 19: The Age of the Rentiers
Chapter 20: The Bailiffs arrive
Chapter 21: The slow death of the ‘Empire’ of Morocco

PART FOUR c.1900 – 1918
Chapter 22: Imperialist Realignment and the French Intervention in Morocco
Chapter 23: Imperialism on the Northern Shore: Austria-Hungary and Bosnia-Herzegovina
Chapter 24: From Mediterranean Imperialism to World War: Morocco, Libya and the Southern Balkans

Postscript
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Enemy on the Euphrates

‘Enemy on the Euphrates is that rare treasure that combines a fascinating account of important historical events with penetrating geopolitical analysis. Anyone seeking an understanding of the role of oil in shaping modern Middle Eastern history will want to read this book.’ Michael Klare, author of The Race for What's Left: The Global Scramble for the World's Last Resources

‘Enemy on the Euphrates is a lively and well-researched account of the events leading up to the Iraqi ‘revolution’ of 1920, using a number of hitherto unused British and Arabic sources. The leading Arab and British personalities are well-drawn, and the narrow moral universe of the British administrators is especially well portrayed. The description of the military campaign is masterful, and the narrative of the campaign maintains a high level of suspense.’ Peter Sluglett, author of Britain in Iraq: Contriving King and Country

‘Ian Rutledge’s brilliant book reveals the folly and delusion of invading Iraq. Read it and shudder’ Nicholas Rankin, author of Churchill’s Wizards: The British Genius for Deception 1914–1945

‘Fascinating, lively and very readable … This gripping narrative brings to life the human side of these violent events and of the developments that preceded them through some vivid descriptions and highly relevant anecdotes’ Charles Tripp, author of The Power and the People: Paths of Resistance in the Middle East

‘Material with acute relevance to the crisis now tearing Iraq to pieces’ Robert Fisk, Independent

‘Readers will find plenty of food for thought in Ian Rutledge’s well-crafted and lively account ... This timely book delves into the early, troubled history of British controlled Iraq … While offering abundant detail on military operations, lines of communications and warfare tactics, Enemy on the Euphrates also makes for a very lively and human-centred read of imperial history. Populated by a remarkable crowd of spies, diplomats, soldiers, clerics and tribal leaders, Rutledge’s account displays a novelist’s taste for intrigue, espionage, gunboat diplomacy, personal hardship and murder.’ BBC History Magazine

‘Rutledge does an excellent job of conveying the logistical difficulties confronting any military leadership ... deserving of a wide readership’ Middle East Journal

‘A vivid book … an excellently produced book that admirably succeeds in illuminating an important episode in British imperial history’ History Today

‘Compelling, rich with such colorful personalities as Winston Churchill, Gertrude Bell and T. E. Lawrence’ Saudi Aramco World

‘Well-researched, well-written and very useful contribution to the understanding of modern Iraq’ Middle East Media and Book Reviews Online

‘Timely and rich in detail … highly readable, lively and dramatic. [Rutledge] presents fascinating accounts of the main British and Iraqi personalities involved in the narrative’ al-Hayat

‘A timely reminder of how we got here … an important book’ The National

‘Exhaustive and very readable … [Rutledge] succeeds in imparting an understanding of why relations between the Arabs and the West remain fraught to this day’ Asian Review of Books

From the Publisher