A Peace to End All Peace Book Summary - A Peace to End All Peace Book explained in key points

Listen to the Intro

00:00

A Peace to End All Peace summary

Name: A Peace to End All Peace
Rating: 4.6 (158 reviews)
Author: David Fromkin

David Fromkin

The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and Creation of the Modern Middle East

4.6 (158 ratings)

29 mins

Topics

Colonialism & Imperialism Wars European History

Table of Contents

A Peace to End All Peace
Summary of 12 key ideas

Audio & text in the Blinkist app

Key idea 1 of 12

What’s in it for me? Understand why the Middle East is so conflict-ridden.

The Ottoman Empire was once a powerful force. At its zenith in 1683, the empire stretched from the gates of Vienna to modern-day Somalia in the south and Mesopotamia in the east.

Encompassing modern-day states like Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey, the Ottoman Empire’s seat of power was the capital of Constantinople.

These blinks describe the end of the Ottoman Empire in the early twentieth century. Yet they don’t just tell the story of one empire. They examine the motives and history of another powerful imperial hegemony, the British Empire. Crucially, this colonial powerhouse, together with France, was instrumental in bringing an end to Ottoman rule.

Through examination of decisions and fates of these two global superpowers, you’ll learn how one of the world’s most politically volatile regions, the Middle East, became the geopolitical hornets’ nest it is today.

In these blinks, you’ll find out

how Britain thought Jewish revolutionaries were taking over the Ottoman Empire;
why Gallipoli dramatically changed Britain’s strategy in the Middle East; and
how failed promises at the end of an empire set the future course of the Middle East.

At the turn of the twentieth century, the Ottoman Empire had long been in decline.

By the turn of the twentieth century, the progress resulting from the Industrial Revolution had pushed the countries of Western Europe to grow both economically and technologically.

The Ottoman Empire, meanwhile, was called “the sick man of Europe.”

The empire was a caliphate, or an Islamic monarchy, based not on nationality but religion. In other words, while the empire was ethnically diverse, the majority of its population was Muslim.

Religion played a central role in peoples’ daily lives. Even for the empire’s minority Christian and Jewish groups, identity was synonymous with religion.

For people in western Europe, however, the Ottoman Empire seemed like a museum, with its subjects’ daily lives frozen in a past century. Constantinople introduced electric street lights only in 1912, for example – an innovation long common in major European cities.

Compared to European empires such as those of France or Britain, Ottoman political power didn’t extend much beyond the immediate Turkish heartland, covering only a small fraction of the empire.

European visitors wondered at the empire’s organization, observing that the vast majority of non-Turkish provinces were self-governed, despite the presence of Ottoman military troops.

This political arrangement did little to help the Ottomans hold territory. By the early twentieth century, the empire had lost significant areas to encroaching European interests.

In October 1912, Italy claimed the Ottoman Empire’s only remaining African territory, in what is now Libya. By that time, the majority of its southeastern European territories located in the Balkans, in Greece and in Bulgaria had also been lost.

So by the start of World War I, all that was left of the great Ottoman Empire was modern-day Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Iraq, Syria and much of the Arabian peninsula.

In 1913, the Ottoman Empire found itself facing a political crisis with wide-reaching consequences.

With the Ottoman Empire falling apart, a group called the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), also known as the Young Turks, decided it was time for a change in leadership.

The Young Turks had staged a revolution in 1908 with the goal of returning the empire to a parliamentary democracy. Sultan Abdul Hamid had banned the parliament in 1878.

At the start of World War I, the Ottoman Empire aligned itself with Germany and against the British.

As war began to seem inevitable, the Ottomans feared their power was in danger of continued and even escalated aggression from both Italy and Austria-Hungary. The logical response to this threat? Look for a European ally to help protect Ottoman territory. By the time fighting started in 1914, the Ottomans had formed a secret alliance with Germany after failing to make a pact with Britain. Germany promised to protect the Ottomans against foreign encroachment in return for the empire’s neutrality during the war.

The deal didn’t remain secret for long, however.

British Middle-Eastern policy was muddled by misinformation and one man’s lofty ambitions.

In August 1914, Herbert Kitchener became the British Secretary of State for War, an appointment that would greatly affect the country’s Middle East policy.

Kitchener was previously Britain’s colonial administrator in Egypt, which had been under de facto British rule since 1882. As the only cabinet minister with any experience in the Middle East, Kitchener’s opinions on the region were highly regarded.

Changes in Britain led to a new political strategy to harness the influence of the Ottoman Arabs.

Based on Kitchener’s misguided advice and inaccurate maps, the British attack at Gallipoli – a peninsula at the entrance to the Sea of Marmara and leading to Constantinople – was a total failure.

This wartime disaster led to the installation of a new prime minister, David Lloyd George. Once in office, he decided a fresh war strategy was needed.

With an agreement in place, the scene was now set for the Arab Revolt.

T. E. Lawrence, more popularly known as Lawrence of Arabia, was a British Army officer who acted as a liaison with Hussein’s Arab forces. Much of what we know about the revolt to create an Arab state is thanks to his writings at the time.

The plan got off to a shaky start, as Hussein’s call to arms, directed at Arabic-speaking Ottoman troops, was met with silence. In short, Arab Ottoman staff officer al-Faruqi’s promise to the British that hundreds of thousands of troops would rise up spontaneously was a lie.

British and French officials began negotiations to claim territory in a post-war Middle East.

As soon as the British signed a pact with Hussein, Mark Sykes, the man who suggested the agreement in the first place, turned around and started separate negotiations with French diplomat François Picot.

Picot came from a family of French colonialists. In 1915, he articulated his ideas and personal views on France’s future in the Middle East to the French government. In meeting with Sykes, Picot was able to explain France’s colonial ambitions in Palestine and Syria.

Britain’s support for Zionism had dire consequences in the Middle East following the war.

At the end of 1917, with British troops occupying most of Palestine, France realized that the British had no intention to share the territory.

Britain’s support of Zionism, however, was largely the result of Lloyd George becoming prime minister.

The end of the war saw promises broken and Western powers grabbing territory in the Middle East.

In the last year of the war, the British and their Arab allies advanced into Ottoman territory, and it became clear that the empire’s days were numbered.

Although Sykes still clung to the delusion that the British could keep their promises to everyone, the reality of a post-war Middle East soon revealed itself. Hussein, the puppet caliph and key player in the British conquest of Palestine, was the first to be betrayed.

Britain and France faced local resistance as the new rulers of the Middle East.

With Allied forces thinly stretched throughout the region, local resistance became common. Meanwhile, on the Arabian Peninsula, the power struggle between two of Britain’s puppet leaders, Hussein and Ibn Saud, raged on.

During the war, the British had also provided Ibn Saud with funds to prop up his rule. After the war, in 1919, Saud began to encroach on territory ruled by Hussein. In a surprise attack in May, Ibn Saud decimated Hussein’s British-supported army.

Britain’s and France’s mandates in the Levant presented the countries with many troubles.

Directly after British troops withdrew from Syria, Faisal managed to secure from French leaders the promise of a more informal occupation. This arrangement would essentially grant Syria its independence, with the French acting in an advisory role.

Yet in 1920, when a new French prime minister was installed in Paris, trouble began again.

The dismantlement of the Ottoman Empire created deep issues that have yet to be solved.

By the end of 1922, the borders of the Middle East as we know them today had been drawn. Just as in the Americas and in Africa, the Middle East was divided into European-style states.

The real question was, would these countries last?

Want to see all full key ideas from A Peace to End All Peace?

Key ideas in A Peace to End All Peace

More knowledge in less time

Read or listen

Get the key ideas from nonfiction bestsellers in minutes, not hours.

Find your next read

Get book lists curated by experts and personalized recommendations.

Shortcasts ^New

We’ve teamed up with podcast creators to bring you key insights from podcasts.

What is A Peace to End All Peace about?

The Middle East today is a hotbed of violence and war. Whether the civil war in Syria or the intractable Arab-Israeli conflict, peace in the region seems a far-off dream. Yet how did the Middle East become so unstable? In A Peace to End All Peace (1989), you’ll learn that European colonial ambitions during World War I were the catalyst that led to today’s modern crises.

Best quote from A Peace to End All Peace

By the early twentieth century, Britain had attained enormous global power with an empire covering 25 percent of the planet.

—David Fromkin

Who should read A Peace to End All Peace?

Anyone interested in understanding the Middle East
Political junkies
Students of history or international relations

About the Author

David Fromkin is Professor Emeritus in International Relations at Boston University. Before becoming a historian, he worked as a lawyer and political advisor. His many books include Europe’s Last Summer and The King and the Cowboy.

Categories with A Peace to End All Peace

History

Books like A Peace to End All Peace

Orientalism

Edward W. Said

Western Conceptions of the Orient

How Britain Made the Modern World

War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East

A Common Sense Guide to the Economy

The 4000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam

The Macedonian who conquered the world

Its People, Past, Religion, Fault Lines – and Future

18 min

3.9

The Porn Trap

Wendy Maltz & Larry Maltz

The Essential Guide to Overcoming Problems Caused by Pornography

A Four Thousand Year History

30 min

4.1

The Hundred Years' War on Palestine

Rashid Khalidi

A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017

The Israelis and the Holocaust

Reflections on Leadership from Wilson to May

25 min

4.2

The House of Rothschild

Niall Ferguson

Money’s Prophets 1798–1848

The book that launched a revolution

8 min

3.7

Excellent Advice for Living

Kevin Kelly

Wisdom I Wish I'd Known Earlier

A Story of Courage, Community, and War

A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

35 min

4.6

Who Will Cry When You Die?

Robin Sharma

Life Lessons from the Monk Who Sold His Ferrari

What We Should Know about the People We Don’t Know

21 min

4.1

Jerusalem

Simon Sebag Montefiore

Timeless Stoic and Buddhist philosophy

33 min

4.6

The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money

John Maynard Keynes

The “Keynesian Revolution”—the Masterpiece That Changed Economics

15 min

3.7

The Great Money Reset

Jill Schlesinger

Change Your Work, Change Your Wealth, Change Your Life

17 min

3.9

Killing the Rising Sun

Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard

How America Vanquished World War II Japan

A New History of the World

28 min

4.6

How to Read a Financial Report

John A. Tracy and Tage C. Tracy

Essential Information for Entrepreneurs, Lenders, Investors, Analysts, and Management

Reflections on the Character of Nations and the Course of History

How to free yourself from philosophical dogmas and assert your own values

The Greek Epic on the End of the Trojan War and Achilles’ Wrath

19 min

4.5

Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Friedrich Nietzsche

The Classic That Will Challenge Everything You Know

17 min

4.4

You Can Fix Your Brain

Dr. Tom O'Bryan

Just 1 Hour a Week to the Best Memory, Productivity, and Sleep You've Ever Had

The Role of the West in Rwanda's Genocide

27 min

4.5

Nudge

Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein

Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth and Happiness

14 min

4.1

Do Breathe

Michael Townsend Williams

Calm Your Mind. Find Focus. Get Stuff Done.

23 min

4.5

Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy

Joseph Schumpeter

Essential analysis on where the world economy is headed

A New History of the Middle Ages

The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England

32 min

4.5

The Romanovs

Simon Sebag Montefiore

Uncover the history of Africa’s most populous country

31 min

4.5

The Brothers Karamazov

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

A Tragic Murder Mystery on the Burden of Free Will and Morality

A Critique of Political Economy

A Manual for Surviving Worst-Case Scenarios

Achieving Success at Work and in Life One Conversation at a Time

17 min

3.6

The Black Swan

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The Impact of the Highly Improbable

18 min

4.4

The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success

Deepak Chopra

A Pocketbook Guide to Fulfilling Your Dreams

Europe Between Hitler and Stalin

Find Out Anything From Anyone, Anytime

James O. Pyle and Maryann Karinch

Secrets of Calculated Questioning From a Veteran Interrogator

15 min

4.0

People ❤️ Blinkist

Sven O.

It's highly addictive to get core insights on personally relevant topics without repetition or triviality. Added to that the apps ability to suggest kindred interests opens up a foundation of knowledge.

Thi Viet Quynh N.

Great app. Good selection of book summaries you can read or listen to while commuting. Instead of scrolling through your social media news feed, this is a much better way to spend your spare time in my opinion.

Jonathan A.

Life changing. The concept of being able to grasp a book's main point in such a short time truly opens multiple opportunities to grow every area of your life at a faster rate.

Renee D.

Great app. Addicting. Perfect for wait times, morning coffee, evening before bed. Extremely well written, thorough, easy to use.