Near East - The Eastern Questions

The Eastern Questions

At the beginning of the 19th century the Ottoman empire included all of the Balkan Peninsula north to the southern edge of the Hungarian plain, but by 1914 had lost all of it except Constantinople to the expansion of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the independence of Greece and various smaller wars of independence resulting in the creation of "the Balkan States". Some of these states were independent and some were still nominally under the Ottomans although occupied by Austro-Hungarian troops. Up until 1912 the Ottomans retained a band of territory including Albania, Macedonia and Thrace, which were lost in the two Balkan wars of 1912 and 1913.

The Ottoman Empire, believed to be about to collapse, was portrayed in the press as "the sick man of Europe". The Balkan states, with the partial exception of Bosnia and Albania, were primarily Christian. Starting in 1894 the Ottomans struck at the Armenians on the explicit grounds that they were a non-Muslim people and as such were a potential threat to the Muslim empire within which they resided. The Hamidian Massacres aroused the indignation of the entire Christian world. In the United States the now aging Julia Ward Howe, authoress of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, leaped into the war of words and joined the Red Cross. Relations of minorities within the Ottoman Empire and the disposition of former Ottoman lands became known as "the eastern question," as the Ottomans were on the east of Europe.

It now became relevant to define the east of the eastern question. In about the middle of the 19th century "Near East" came into use to describe that part of the east closest to Europe. The term "Far East" appeared contemporaneously meaning Japan, China, Korea, Indonesia and Viet Nam; in short, the East Indies. "Near East" applied to what had been mainly known as the Levant, which was in the jurisdiction of the Ottoman Porte, or government. Those who used the term had little choice about its meaning. They could not set foot on most of the shores of the southern and central Mediterranean from the Gulf of Sidra to Albania without permits from the Ottoman Empire.

Some regions beyond the Ottoman Porte were included. One was North Africa west of Egypt. It was occupied by piratical kingdoms of the Barbary Coast, de facto independent since the 18th century. Formerly part of the empire at its apogee, they were aggressively Muslim. Iran was included because it could not easily be reached except through the Ottoman Empire. In the 1890s the term tended to focus on the conflicts in the Balkan states and Armenia. The demise of the sick man of Europe left considerable confusion as to what was to be meant by "Near East". It now generally describes the countries of Western Asia between the Mediterranean Sea and (including) Iran, especially in historical contexts. There is, however, no universally understood fixed inventory of nations, languages or historical assets defined to be in it.