Britain, France, Russia and the United States signed multiple treaties during and after World War I that had a large impact on the world we know today. Britain, France, Russia, Italy and the United States faced a daunting task, after the Allied victory, of creating peace from the fragments of the German, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman empires. The peace treaties signed after World War I, though unknown at the time, redefined balance of power politics for decades to come, while setting the stage for future conflict and the most devastating war in human history, World War II. The Treaty of Versailles set the stage for future conflict in Europe since it put the entire blame for World War I on Germany. The Sykes-Picot Agreement, Treaty of Sèvres, and the Balfour Declaration were crucial in inspiring anti-western sentiment in Arabs since they negated the United Kingdom’s promises to the Arabs; created straight line borders that did not consider the actual sectarian, tribal, or ethnic distinctions; dissolved the Ottoman Empire; and ended an era of relative peace in the Middle East that has yet to return to the region after almost a century.
In Europe, through the Treaty of Versailles, Germany was made to shoulder the blame and the cost for the bloodshed of the previous four years. This treaty’s so-called war guilt clause has often been blamed for causing World War II since it created resentment and anger among the German people that Adolf Hitler exploited to win popular support. The humiliation felt by Germans had devastating repercussions – primarily the rise of Nazism and World War II. In addition to blaming the Germans, the Treaty of Versailles and its sister treaties, the Treaty of Saint Germain-en-Laye and the Treaty of Trianon, dismembered the old Austro-Hungarian and German Empires (B. Kendall, BBC); created four new countries; and re-drew borders for countries like Germany. When the Germans raised arms for the second time in 20 years, they were fighting to regain their dignity and their lost land possessions.
The Middle East, just as Europe, was divided by a series of World War I treaties, the difference being that these divisions were largely the result of agreements already made during the war. Britain fought the Ottomans in Palestine, Syria and modern day Iraq, and during the war, the British diplomats made a series of seemingly contradictory promises to its potential allies, most clearly seen in the 1915-1916 Husayn-McMahon Correspondence. British High Commissioner to Egypt Lieutenant Colonel Sir Henry McMahon agreed to recognize Arab independence after World War I “in the limits and boundaries proposed by the Sharif of Mecca”, with the exception of “portions of Syria” laying to the west of “the districts of Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo”, in exchange for launching the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans. However the 1917 Balfour Declaration and the leaked Sykes-Picot Agreement showed that Britain had conspired with France and Russia to divide and occupy the territory and completely violate any and all promises to the Arabs. The effects of this violation were seen most clearly within the Israel-Palestine conflict that persists to this day since that land was promised to the Arabs in the Husayn-McMahon Correspondence however it was also designated as a Jewish homeland in the Balfour Declaration. After the Holocaust, Britain struggled to contain the influx of Jews into Palestine, and handed the task of deciding the future of Palestine to the United Nations which voted to divide Palestine into two states: one Arab, one Jewish. In 1948, Israel declared its independence, and the Arab-Israeli war began with no end in sight.
The Ottoman Empire was home to people of many different religions, sects, tribes and ethnicities, and when Britain and France drew the largely arbitrary borders seen in the Sykes-Picot Agreement, they divided people of the same ethnicity, or from same tribes or sects disrupting a pattern of life that had developed over hundreds, if not thousands, of years. The agreement gave Britain control over Iraq and Palestine; France control of Syria and Lebanon; and Russia control of Istanbul and the Turkish Straits. The terms of the Treaty of Sèvres overlapped those of the Sykes-Picot Treaty as its stipulations included the renunciation of all non-Turkish territory, which was to go towards the Palestinian Mandate and the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon. The creation of these artificial borders based on basic imperial imposition was primarily responsible for the endless conflict in the region. The Europeans intended to install their own leaders and instill European values that were in conflict with the general sentiment among the inhabitants. Although the people came together to overthrow the colonial rulers (T. Osman BBC), the underlying tensions or differences between sects, communities and tribes did not disappear and came to the forefront. In Iraq, the British installed Faisal, son of the Sharif of Mecca, as King since they needed someone to pacify the Iraqi revolts. Resentment against the British led to the growth of Arab nationalism, and the Iraqi monarchy was overthrown in a bloody coup in 1958. This was the first in a series of coups that installed nationalist military dictatorships, culminating in the regime of Saddam Hussein. Lebanon was predominantly Christian, with Muslim and Alawite minorities, although Christians later became a minority. The French introduced a complex system of ethnic quotas for all jobs in government so Lebanese politics was highly sectarian and often unstable (B. Kendall, BBC). In Syria, as in Iraq, a rise in Arab nationalism due to resentment of European imperialism led to a series of military coups in the 1960s. In 1970 Hafez al-Assad seized power, and ruled until his death in 2000, when his son Bashar succeeded him.
In conclusion, the peace treaties agreed during and after the world war were contradictory and resulted in drawing of borders that suited the British and the French to continue their influence post World War I rather than being based on the tribal, religious and sectarian realities of the region. The borders have remained porous; the loyalties divided between tribes, sects and ethnicities; and the region has continued to boil with wars, civil wars, change of power and terrorism over the decades.