The Clash of Empires: World War I and the Middle East

Conference organized by the University of Cambridge Centre for the Study of the International Relations of the Middle East and North Africa (CIRMENA), the University of Utah and the Turkish Historical Society
June 13-14, 2014, Cambridge, UK

Download schedule and abstracts

Registration: (Alison Richard Building; ARB): 13:00-14:30

Opening: (Little Hall) Roxane Farmanfarmaian and Hakan Yavuz

Panel : The Origins of WWI and the Ottoman State (14:30-16:00)
Chair: Hasan Kayali

Feroz Ahmad, “The Ottoman Search for a Great Power Ally before the First World War. ”
Justin McCarthy (University of Louisville), “Political Pressure Groups and British Policy toward the Ottoman Empire 1893 to 1914.”
Feroz Yasamee,(University of Manchester), “The Problem of Turkish War Aims, 1914-1918.”

Mehmet Arisan, (Istanbul University), "The Manifestation(s) of Loss: The Case of Armenian and Turkish Nationalisms." 

 

Coffee Break (16:00-16:20): ARB

Panel II: (16:20-17:50): The Ottoman State and the War (Little Hall)
Chair: Edward Erickson

Gul Tokay, (Historian), “Anglo-Ottoman Relations and the Origins of WWI, 1912-1914: An Assessment.”
Ozan Arslan (Izmir Economics University), ““His Majesty’s or the Sultan’s Ships: the “Seized Dreadnoughts  Crisis” of August 1914 or the End of the Ottoman-British Friendship.”
Charles Jones (Cambridge University), ““Buchan’s Eastern Front: Transgression, Disguise and Gender in Greenmantle.”

Keynote Speech:

Dinner: 19:00-22:00

Friday, 14 June 2014
Little Hall

Panel III: Ottoman-British Interactions (9:00-11:10)
Chair: Gul Tokay

E. D. Steele  (Cambridge University), “The Place of Turkey in Lord Salisbury’s Foreign Policy.”
Erdal Kaynar, (IFK, Vienna/Cetobac, Paris), “The Young Turks and the Question of Anglophilia.”
Warren Dockter, (Cambridge University), “A Great Turkish Policy”: Winston Churchill, the Ottoman Empire, and the First World War.”
Benjamin Fortna, (SOAS-London), “A Man, a Plan a Canal: The Suez Canal Campaign from an Ottoman Perspective.”
Artin H. Arslanian, (Marist College-New York),“The British Imperial Ethos: Britain and Middle Eastern Nationalities During and After WWI.”

Coffee Break (11:10-11:30)

Panel IV: Armenians, Muslims and the Major Powers (11:30-13:20)
Chair: Justin McCarthy

Thomas Schmutz, (University of Zurich), “The German role in the reform discussion of 1913 – 1914.”
Hilmi Ozan Ozavci (University of Southampton), “Mehmed Djavid Bey the Statesman: Great Powers, Unionists and the Armenians.”
Odile Moreau, (University of Montpellier),“Teskilât-ı Mahsusa’s transnational activities at the Periphery and the Clash of Empires.”
Christopher Gunn, (Coastal Carolina University), “The Armenian Volunteers & the Legacy of Fedayi Culture”

Lunch 13:25-14:25 ARB

Panel V:  World War I and the Middle East (14:30-16:20)
Chair: Roxane Farmanfarmanian

Eric Hooglund, (Editor, Middle East Critique, Lund University), “Iran and WWI.”
Juan Cole, (University of Michigan), “The Shiites and the British Empire in Iraq, 1914-1918.”
Edward Erickson, (Marine Corps University), “Wasp or Mosquito? The Arab Revolt in Turkish Military History.”
Hakeem Naim, (UC-Davies),"Afghanistan's Young Turks:  WWI and the Rise of the Islamic Nationalism in Afghanistan"

Coffee Break (16:20-16:40) ARB

Panel VI: The End of World War I (16:40-18:30)
Chair: Benjamin Fortna           
Hasan Kayali, (University of California-San Diego), “The End of World War I and the Shifting Imperatives Before Settlement.”
Jonathan Conlin, (University of Southampton), “Informal Empire” or Fiscal Nationalism? The National Bank of Turkey and Ottoman Economic Development, 1909-22.”
Harun Buljina (Columbia University), “Borders, States, and the Ends of Empire: Recent Approaches to the First World War in Ottoman and Balkan Historiography"
David Saltzman (Washington DC), “"An Empire Dies, Who Pays for the Funeral?  The Question of State Succession between Turkey and the Ottoman Empire."

Conclusion: Roxane Farmanfarmanian and M. Hakan Yavuz