Eastern Mediterranean and the ‘Long’ First World War : 1910-1923

This book provides an exploration of the ways in which the Eastern Mediterranean experienced social upheaval, revolution, and war in and around the time of the First World War.

The Eastern Mediterranean and the ‘Long’ First World War challenges both the typical periodization and the prevailing conception of a moribund Islamic empire swiftly wiped from the map by emergent nationalisms. It highlights the divergent and differing concerns of imperial, regional, and local actors as they took up the banner of the Ottoman Empire. The book also discusses the historiographical implications of the conceptualization of the ‘long’ First World War in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Bringing together an international cast of contributors, the volume bridges the gap between southern European and Middle Eastern narratives of the First World War by both detailing the distinct conflicts that emerged in the Balkans, western Asia, and North Africa by pointing towards the similar political ideas, capabilities, and motivations that fueled this extended conflagration. Furthermore, it introduces cutting-edge research and studies to generate a more comprehensive understanding of this conflict, shedding new light on regions often omitted from narratives of the First World War, such as Albania, Cyprus, Macedonia, Cilicia, Pontus, and Libya among others.

The book offers a much-needed examination of the epochal and, in most cases, devastating changes that a decade of war wrought on the Eastern Mediterranean and the former Ottoman lands, an area that, through violence, starvation, and genocide, lost up to a fifth of its population in these few short years.