Imane Drissi El-Bouzaidi
November 22, 2012
After
World War I, the Paris Peace Conference was held to resolve issues concerning the
future of the international system. Article 119 of the Versailles treaty
highlighted the issue of how to deal with “territories that were liberated from
German and Ottoman colonial authority but considered to be not yet capable of
self-government.”[1]
The solution that was established was a Mandate System, which was described in
Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations. In the Middle East,
Britain obtained the Palestinian and Mesopotamian Mandate; whereas, France
obtained the Syrian Mandate. This essay will analyze the League of Nations
Mandate System in the Middle East, and argue that it was ultimately a failure
because it masked the hidden agendas of the Mandatory powers, suppressed
minority and cultural rights, and created internal divisions.
There have been many general critiques
of the Mandate System in the Middle East, yet the most pervasive is that it was
a continuation of “imperial power policy.”[4]
At this time, a negative connotation began to establish over the concepts of
empire and colonialism because of the popularization of Woodrow Wilson’s liberalism
principles, idea of self-determination, and the lack of domestic support for
the process. As a result, Britain and France needed a way “to conceal their
division of the spoils of war under the color of international law.”[5]
Article 22 tried to portray the process as a situation where the Mandatory
powers were helping as opposed to exploiting their mandates. It referred to the
actions of the Mandatory powers as a “responsibility,” to help “peoples not yet
able to stand by themselves,” so that they can “stand alone,” and on “behalf of
the League.”[6] The
phrasing and vocabulary were used consciously as an attempt to legitimize the
process; however, in reality the system was merely a way to mask colonialism
and the continuation of foreign rule over former colonies. If the Great powers
had humanitarian and altruistic motives, then they would have been more willing
to take mandates that were in more need of assistance, yet there was tremendous
competition for the more developed Mandates that possessed resources, which
they could ultimately exploit. Robert Lansing makes the argument that there
were imperial motives to using the Mandate system because it worked to prevent
Germany from reducing its war indemnities.[7]
If the territories were given directly to Britain and France, then Germany
could ask that their value be subtracted from the Allies’ claim for war
reparations; but instead the Great Powers were able to attain both new
possessions and war reparations simultaneously.
Another failure of the Mandate
System was the weakness of the supervision, which meant that the Mandatory
states were not accountable for their actions. Robert Lansing highlights this
critique by asking: “assuming the mandatory...works an injustice upon another
party, can or ought the Mandatory be held responsible?”[8]
The League of Nations tried to create a system of accountability with the establishment
of a Permanent Mandates Commission(PMC), which was an independent institution
that acted to supervise the Mandates.[9]
Each Mandatory nation was supposed to create an annual report to give to the
commission, which would then analyze the report and issue an advisory opinion
to the Council. However, in practice the commission was ineffective because it
could not verify the reports with inspections and make sure that it was
accurate in explaining the reality of the situation; therefore, the League of
Nations had limited access to information.[10]
Another issue is that even though the members of the commissions were intended
to be independent actors, “their prescriptions usually matched the
predispositions of their own states.”[11]
Ultimately, the Mandate System lacked adequate and unbiased supervision.
The last general failure of the
Mandate System relates to difficulty in interpreting the League of Nations. The
system was approached in different ways, which meant that the League of Nations
could not establish a consistent strategy to dealing with the mandates. This
paper will assess the different approaches of Britain and France in dealing
with the mandates in the Middle East. Each of these states used different
strategies and consequently had different shortcomings. The first Mandatory
power that will be presented is France.
France: Approach
and Failures
France obtained the Mandates of Syria
and Lebanon in 1920. Their approach in dealing with the Mandates was through a
nationalistic and cultural approach. This was based on the idea of “mission
civilisatrice,” which was the belief that France had a moral duty to spread its
language and “benefits of her civilization” to the entire world.[12]
This was the tactic used in Syria and Lebanon because promoting the French
language and culture was supposed to be a way to gain political influence and
further foreign interests.[13]
The French state sponsored mission schools, such as the Mission Laique
Francaise (MLF), to spread French culture through the education system.[14]
French policy also focused on building up the political importance of the
Syrian coastal area because this had a large population of Christian and
Alawite people.
There were many problems with
France’s approach and use of the Mandate System. Firstly, France exacerbated
sectarian tensions because it appeared to be partial to the Christian
population because of its self-proclaimed historical role as the “traditional
protector of Christians” in the Middle East. The Turks recognized France’s “right
to protect” the Christians in the Levant since the 15th century, and
this remained unchallenged until the First World War.[15]
As a result, “France’s obligations to the Catholics and Uniates of the Levant
were made out to have deep historical roots, and could be used...to justify
policies which were almost bound to be unacceptable to much of the rest of the
population.”[16] One
of the actions that France took was partitioning Syria to create the state of
Lebanon where it could serve as a “safe haven” for the Maronite Christian
population and where the Maronites could be a majority.[17]
This was not a popular decision among the Muslims in the newly formed Lebanon,
and they responded by boycotting the census and refusing to receive Lebanese
citizenship cards. In 1958, it was evident that Lebanese Muslims still
preferred unification with Syria because violence erupted between Muslims and
Christians over the matter. The Muslims were in favour of joining the United
Arab Republic (which was a union of Syria and Egypt), while the Christians were
not. Therefore, there were long-term negative effects of the Syrian and
Lebanese mandate because of how France approached the region with a cultural
and religious focus, and did not remain secular and neutral.
The second problem with the French
approach to the Mandate system was because of the alternative motives that they
had. In theory, France was supposed to take on the Mandates for the purpose of
enhancing the “well-being and development of such peoples;” however, it was
evident that French motives were largely based on competition and pride.[18]
During the war, French troops remained mainly on its own territory, defending
from a German attack, while British troops were placed outside Europe in the
Middle East, including Syria. The fact that it was agreed earlier with the
Sykes-Picot agreement that France would obtain Syria made France desperate to
obtain the Mandate as a matter of saving face. More competition came from
Italy, which wanted to replace France and take the role of “defender of the
Catholics.”[19] After
these threats and competition, Syria became a matter of pride and a way that
France could prove the strength of its empire. It also was a way to provide
itself with more security because having allies can sometimes be unpredictable,
yet if France could control these states and create an empire, then it could
ultimately force its Mandates to provide assistance.[20]
Another example of why French
motives were not based on the right motives was in the way that it resisted and
tried to undermine Syrian attempts to gain independence, which was meant to be
the ultimate goal of the Mandates. Evidence of this is with France’s action in
1930 to dissolve the Syrian legislative assembly. The government was
democratically elected, yet France objected to the fact that it “spoke of the
unity of geographical Syria and did not explicitly safeguard the French
position of control.”[21]
France wanted to prolong its control on Syria so it did not take seriously
Syrian and Lebanese attempts for independence. In 1945, violence erupted in
response to France’s refusal to transfer control of the armed forces to the
Syrian people. France responded by bombing Syria, while Britain intervened to
stabilize the situation. This was not the sole example of resistance to the
Mandatory power but rather the period was fraught with resistance, such as the
revolt led by Youssef al-Azmeh in 1920, the revolt led by Sultan Pasha el
Atrash, and the previously mentioned violence in 1945. Ultimately the Mandate
system failed because France did not fulfil its obligations to assist its
Mandate in obtaining independence. Instead the Mandatory power had other
motives, which led to resistance and violence.
Another negative effect of the
Mandate System is that France did not have support on the ground and unlike
Britain, “France did not have this advantage of a gradual buildup of on-the
ground familiarity and experience.”[22]
Britain had hundreds of thousands of troops in the Middle East during the war
so it had a lot more time to gather intelligence and analyze the situation to
determine the best approach to the region. However, France obtained the Mandate
in 1920 and did not try to establish a client base. Instead France’s tactic was
to buildup the military but this ended up undermining democracy in the
long-term because it led to military coups in the 1940s and 50s Ibid).
Ultimately France’s management of
its Mandates became a hindrance because it was not economically beneficial and
it served to create tensions with Britain. There were not any major resources
in Syria and the Lebanese silk trade was faltering because of the Japanese and
Chinese competition so it did not nearly compare to France’s other
protectorates and was merely a major expense.[23] An example is France’s Moroccan protectorate,
in which “French exports to Morocco was four times greater than it was to
Syria, while the value of French imports from Morocco was 18 times greater than
it was from Syria.”[24]
Also, strategically Syria was of no use because no air or naval bases were
established and the state did not connect to France’s other colonial
territories so it did not serve as a link. Therefore, the Mandate System had a
negative impact on the Mandates (Syria and Lebanon) as well as the Mandatory
power, France.
Britain: Approach and Failures
After World War I, Britain obtained
the Mandates of Palestine, Transjordan, and Mesopotamia (later known as
Iraq). This approach to the Mandate
System was significantly different than the French approach. Instead of a
nationalist approach, Britain focused on capitalism and how to profit from the
region by securing interests and resources. Britain had less domestic support
for establishing an empire because of the financial crisis; therefore, it had
to be conscious of the military and administrative costs and work to minimize
expenses, which it did by having a less direct rule than France. The domestic
pressure publicized in the press as the “Quit Mesopotamia campaign,” protested
against the costs of the intervention, the number of British deaths, and the
number of troops stationed in the region.[25]
The British also saw that they were losing the support of the Iraqi people
because their major ally, King Faysal, who they relied on to maintain power, was
losing credibility.[26]
As a result, increasing Iraqi and domestic opposition led Britain to retreat
from Iraq and grant them independence earlier than was required, which
ultimately was a major shortcoming of its approach to the Mandate.
Britain believed that “the cost of
continuing to irritate and disappoint the Iraqis was greater than the risk of
promising them independence in 1932” because their failure in the state would
be reflected as a failure of the British Empire.[27]
When Britain announced its intention to grant Iraq independence, the PMC
refused on the basis that a Mandate could only end when a “community [is] able
to stand alone without the rendering of administrative advice and assistance by
a mandatory”[28] and
at this time Iraq was unable to maintain its external and internal security
without British assistance. Britain dealt with this issue by presenting a
reinterpretation of Article 22 of the League of Nations Covenant to the PMC,
and arguing that the goal of the Mandatory power should be merely to “construct
governmental institutions that could deliver the bare bones of de facto
statehood.”[29]
Britain argued that Iraq did not have to be as strong as itself but just not
worse off than any of the weaker states in the League of Nations. Although this
state was not what the PMC had intended, the Council decided to allow the Iraqi
state to be accepted into the League. A similar situation was evident with the
Palestinian Mandate because Britain could not manage the hostilities and
expense of the region so it decided to hand over the Mandate to the United
Nations. This approach to the Mandate System had negative impacts and has been
responsible for continued instability in the region.
Another failure is that Britain’s
motives were based on promoting their imperial interests. It wanted to
establish the Mandates as stable trading partners and at the same time secure
its interests in the Middle East, such as the oil resources and the links to
its colonies, India, Egypt, the Persian sea and the Red sea. This was most
clear in Iraq because of the oil resources and when Britain ceased its mandate
it did not do so not before securing a 75-year concession granted by the Iraq
Petroleum Company.[30]
Thus, the fact that the Mandate system was clearly used to mask imperialism and
geopolitics, delegitimized the system and worked to create resentment and
resistance on the ground, such as the Great Iraqi Revolt of 1920 and the
1936-39 Arab revolt in Palestine. Unlike France which did not establish clients
and local allies, Britain’s approach was to co-opt resistors and maintain local
allies.[31]
However, Britain’s allies were not always consistent and in Iraq it was said
that “with the old gang in power this country cannot hope to progress very far.”[32]
The democratic system that was established “did not allow for or could not
accommodate the peaceful transfer of power from the government to the
opposition,” and it excluded many political groups, such as the Communists,
Arab nationalists, and Islamists.[33]
Thus, there was a lot of resentment towards Britain for supporting these local
actors that were not popularly supported by the population. Britain also violated
the Mandate System’s requirement to protect minority and cultural rights. This
was mainly evident in Palestine because the League of Nations Mandate said that
when establishing a Jewish home it must be recognized that “nothing should be
done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish
communities in Palestine.”[34]Kharia
Kasmieh shows evidence of one way that Britain violated this requirement in how
its economic policies favoured the Jewish population and “threatened the
livelihood of the [Arab] peasants by dispossession and evacuation.”[35]
Ultimately Britain’s role in managing its Mandates in the Middle East has had
negative ramifications that are still apparent today.
In conclusion, this essay has
attempted to analyze the system of Mandates in the Middle East, namely the
British control of Palestine and Mesopotamia (later known as Iraq), and the
French control of Syria (later divided into Lebanon and Syria). It has been
argued that the Mandate System in the Middle East failed in achieving its
obligations because of how it masked colonial policy, it violated the cultural
and minority rights of people in the Mandates, and it has led to violent
resistance, which still persists in the region. Although both Britain and
France had significantly different approaches to the Mandate system, they both
used it as a tool to pursue their interests, which was nationalism for France
and capitalism for Britain. Analyzing the failures is important to recognize
because it helps explain why major destabilization remains in the area.
[1] Nele Matz, “Civilization and the Mandate System under the League
of Nations as Origin of Trusteeship,” Max Planck Yearbook of United Nations Law 9 (2005): 54.
[2] “The Covenant of the
League of Nations: (including Amendments Adopted to December, 1924),” The
Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History, and Diplomacy, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/leagcov.asp (accessed November 22, 2011).
[3] Matz, 70.
[5] Robert Lansing, “The Peace Negotiations: A Personal
Narrative,” Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (December 13, 2003) http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=1476754&pageno=1 (accessed
November 22, 2011). 72.
[6] “The Covenant of the League of Nations: (including
Amendments Adopted to December, 1924).”
[8] Lansing, 72.
[9] Matz, 73.
[10]Matz, 90.
[11] Peter Sluglett and Nadine
Meouchy, The British and French
Mandates in Comparative Perspective (Boston: Brill Leiden, 2004)
129.
[13] Randi Deguilhem, “Turning Syrians into Frenchmen:
The Cultural Politics of a French Non‐governmental Organization in Mandate
Syria (1920–67)—the French Secular Mission Schools,” Islam and
Christian‐Muslim Relations 13, no. 4 (October 2002): 449.
[15]
Jan Karl Tanenbaum,
“France and the Arab Middle East, 1914-1920,” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New
Series 68, no. 7 (1978): 5.
[16]
Sluglett and Meouchy,
121.
[17]
Marshall Cavendish, World and Its Peoples: Arabian Peninsula (New York: Marshall Cavendish
Corporation, 2006), 966.
[18]
“The Covenant of
the League of Nations: (including Amendments Adopted to December, 1924).”
[21] “Syria: The French Mandate,” Encyclopedia Britannica
online, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/578856/Syria/29921/The-French-mandate (accessed
November 22, 2011)
[25]
Ibid 121.
[26]
Sluglett and Meouchy,
124.
[27]
Ibid.
[28]
Sluglett and Meouchy, 160.
[29]
Ibid, 161.
[30]
Sluglett and Meouchy,
123.
[31]
Ibid, 114.
[32]
Ibid, 126.
[33]
Ibid.
[34] “League of Nations Mandate For Palestine,” Communiqué au Conseil et aux
Membres de la Sociétéhttp://unispal.un.org/unispal.nsf/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/2fca2c68106f11ab05256bcf007bf3cb?OpenDocument&Highlight=0,League,of,nations,mandate (accessed November 22, 2011).
[35]
Sluglett and Meouchy,
447.
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