The End of the Ottoman Empire | Documentary | A Bloody Legacy Episode 2

the Middle East a region scarred by conflicts Wars and implacable hatred constantly stoked by the political interests of global powers I think I think that in recent decades we've been trying to solve problems that we ourselves created namely in 1918 1919 the first world war the original catastrophe of the 20th century not only for Europe but above all for the Middle East carried by the hope of Independence Arab tribes rebel against the Ottoman Empire as a quid pro quo the Allies have promised them their own kingdom but to the big peace conference they draw borders with ruler and pencil that continue to have an effect today in the Paris suburb of sever the fate of a whole region is sealed imnan Austin zip in the Middle East it's obvious that the arbitrary dividing up of the former Ottoman Empire will be the stuff of enormous conflicts thus is propaganda makes Capital out of a secret agreement of the time called Sykes piku as you can see this is the so-called border of sex Pico alhamdulillah we don't recognize it and we will never recognize it even today in the Arab world the expression Sykes Pico stands for the infamous interest-based politics of Western States it's a useful shorthand and it expresses the frustration and fury of the Arabs and the other peoples in the Middle East that nobody consulted them when those borders were drawn for 10 years the German historian Robert gervart has studied the after effects of the post-war period is deeply entrenched in the public Consciousness everywhere in the Muslim World in Turkey too the server agreement which sealed the breakup still plays a decisive part in society and politics had been successful they would have forced something on us that would have made us long for sale at the end of the first world war is associated with further humiliation the significance of this period cannot be underestimated I think it's important to understand that in order to better analyze conflicts in the region today foreign [Music] Paris in January 1919 in the months to come the Metropolis on the scene is at the center of global politics in the French capital and its suburbs the Victorious Powers want to create a new world order [Music] the Great War plunged not only Europe into chaos but raged in many other regions too thus delegations have assembled from far away countries they're looking for recognition Independence and freedom it was one of the biggest International meetings of the 20th century and indeed of the 19th century and what was interesting about the Paris peace conference among much else was that it was truly a global conference there were countries from the Americas there were countries from Asia Japan was there Thailand was there she was dealing with the Middle East it was dealing with colonies in Africa and Asia and its impact was felt around the world in Versailles in 1919 Germany signs what must be the most notorious agreement of the 20th century cord puts everything else that is negotiated in the following months in Paris in the shade [Music] to one side and then look at the other agreements to see how it is in Europe as a whole and when we talk about Europe then this includes the whole Middle East the region was completely redesigned by these treaties sometimes for the good but often enough for the bad the versaillp treaty is only one of five that are signed in Paris all the defeated states that fought alongside Germany have to submit to the will of the allies from the point of view of the victors the defeated central powers are responsible for the catastrophe that brought starvation death and suffering to Europe and the world and now they should atone for it first and foremost the Ottoman Empire you took in 1918 turkey and Germany are two of the defeated states of the first world war the various treaties that were drawn up in Paris were signed in the suburbs of Paris and the treaty signed with the Ottoman Empire was signed in Sev which is where of course the famous serve of porcelain is made in 1920 this porcelain Factory in the Paris suburb of Seville the course is set for the future of a huge swave of the world the Ottoman Empire signs an agreement under protest that seals its fate the effects of which are still felt today [Music] and it was actually signed in the showroom of the Sarah porcelain Factory which I've always thought is appropriate because that porcelain is very beautiful it's very fine but it is quite fragile and if you drop it on the floor it'll smash into a lot of pieces and that's essentially what was happening in the Ottoman Empire the Ottoman Empire ruled for hundreds of years over huge parts of Europe and North Africa but by the 19th century the Empire had lost many of its territories on the European continent following Bulgaria's Independence in 1908 the Ottomans lose the last parts of their empire in southern Europe in the Balkan Wars the tottering Empire is governed from Constantinople today Istanbul on the Bosphorus Sultan meshmed V and his multi-ethnic State faced threats from both inside and out in the past it was only with difficulty that the ruler had managed to keep the differing ethnic groups peaceful and hold his empire together one important prop in this was the military they're now awesome for them in the Middle East before the first world war was in turmoil and there were many conflicts between individual ethnic groups and minorities but it's not the case that the Ottoman Empire which at that time was in control of this part of the world was already doomed to failure since the beginning of the 20th century the Ottoman Empire has been seen by many Christian nations as the sick man of the Bosphorus and an Empire where one can practically help oneself foreign with the outbreak of the first world war the political agenda shifts once and for all but the battles on the Western and Eastern fronts are only one part of this bloody conflict in August 1914 the Empire of meshmed V joins the war on the side of the Central Powers for the fragile Empire the alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary is both a risk and an opportunity with the support of Germany it is intended to modernize the badly equipped military in the hope that Victory will result in a newly strengthened ottoman rule the Sultan's troops are mainly occupied fighting soldiers from all over the British Empire which is also pushing for influence in the Middle East to weaken the enemy from the inside since 1915 British diplomats have been seeking Coalition Partners in the region the holy city of Mecca then under ottoman rule is governed by Sharif Hussein bin Ali A man with great Ambitions for himself and his powerful family his son faisa is an emerging political Talent families family was a family of Ottoman officials who had even served in the ottoman Parliament this means that they had long identified with the Ottoman Empire and were part of the system the British wanted to get the family of the Sharif of Mecca and their son Faisal on board in their plan for an Arab Uprising which would Ambush the Ottoman Empire from the real moment the family Sees In This Moment a chance the chance that really is historic and they never come again that the mightiest power in the world will give its full battle to an uprising and lead the Arabs against the Ottomans in return the British promised the Sharif and his son Pfizer a kingdom which will extend across huge swathes of the Middle East Faisal dreams of having his own Empire but Damascus as the center of power is a historic model was the Great era of a mired rule that of the first Islamic Empire's Capital as that had also been the capital of that Empire the government in London assigns Faisal an officer to assist him who will later become famous as Lawrence of Arabia foreign the plan is that together they will use a tax to occupy ottoman troops and thus help the British to Victory but the Arabs are unaware of their allies real intentions they are merely Pawns in the game of the great powers promises were made that the Allies never had any intention of keeping this was an Allied war strategy there was no intention at least not in the short term of creating an Arab state in the regions it was merely a matter of stirring up the Arab population of the Ottoman Empire against the government against the sultan and the British plan works more and more tribes joined the Arab revolt sounds but there is enormous symbolic value it was also designed to act as a kind of Lighthouse for other minorities who were agree of door who are being oppressed or for other parts of the population to rise up against the foreign together with British troops the rebels destroy important ottoman supply routes but the Arab Revolt is only one part of a bigger plan to bring the sultan to his knees the idea was to attack the Ottomans from three sides on one side with Indian troops from Iraq on another from the Suez Canal with faisal's troops and his Arab guerrillas and the third was an attack on Constantinople but under thinking was that if these attacks could be achieved at the same time then the Ottoman Empire would be finished but the attack in the north on Constantinople ends in disaster when Allied troops land at Gallipoli on the Dardanelles they are surprisingly beaten back by ultimate ottoman forces the offensive fails [Applause] Faisal and his Revolt meanwhile are making impressive progress which no one could have foreseen this is a situation that the British haven't imagined that maybe even Faisal and his family haven't imagined that that part of the planet has succeeded to such an extent that they now suddenly have to keep their promise faisal's success puts the British in the Dilemma as they had long agreed with the French to rule the region politically and exploit it economically even back then it was all about oil but these imperialistic thoughts presupposed a victory and that is a long way away in 1916. on the Western Front German troops are wearing out the Allies in devastating trench warfare the war was going very badly for the allies and they had tried their great breakthrough at the Battle of the psalm in 1916 and it hadn't gone well and there was a view that they had to win over a neutral opinion particularly in the United States but on the other side of the Atlantic there is little enthusiasm for sending troops to far away Europe U.S President Wilson hesitates as he has no domestic support for such a plan the Allies then try and get one particularly influential part of American society on their side the American Jews with their support U.S government opinion could be swayed this is at least the thinking of the British Premier Lloyd George and the foreign minister Balfour I think Balfour and Lloyd George had an exaggerated view of how powerful Jews were it they they had this belief that the Jews were enormously powerful there were all those Jewish bankers and financiers in a way I've always thought it's a form of anti-Semitism it's it's making assumptions about Jewish power which go way back into European history but I think they felt that if the Jews in the United States for example where the British were borrowing a lot of money if the Jews thought that Britain was on their side that would help in the war effort balfa publishes a declaration of intent to the Zionist movement it stands in direct contradiction to the promise made to Faisal and the Arabs with far-reaching consequences it goes down in history as the Balfour Declaration the Balfour Declaration gave British support for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine which was part of the Ottoman Empire it didn't say a country but I think a lot of people knew that that was probably what was implied in the long run foreign these promises had the purpose of securing victory over the Central Powers us the interests of certain ethnic groups were subordinated to the general aim of winning the first world war this of course can be described as cynical which it doubtles was under the growing pressure of events in the war in 1917 the USA comes in on the side of the Allies after years of stalemate on the Western Front The Tide must now turn everything else is subordinated to this goal the fastest the almost simultaneous promises made to both Arabs and zionists could not have been realized in this form anyway that's not something that particularly concerns anyone at the moment it's a problem that is put off and put off the thinking is once the war is won there'll be a peace conference where we can then talk about the implementation of certain political goals the USA's entry into the war helps the Allies on the Western Front make decisive progress and in the Middle East too the central powers are now with their backs to the war Faisal and his Rebels Advance as far as Damascus they have kept their side of the bargain the Ottoman Empire capitulates in October 1918. Allied warships arrive in Constantinople the government there is toppled the over 600 year old Ottoman Dynasty seems to be history it was clear by the by the end of the first world war that the Ottoman Empire was was finished it was falling to pieces the Arabs had revolted in the course of the of the first world war and and the government in Istanbul wasn't able really to hang on any longer what had been held together for centuries now falls apart very different ethnic groupings of the doomed Empire now start hoping for Independence among them those Armenians who survived the terrible genocide from 1915 onwards at the hands of the Ottomans the Kurds and the Arabs who now expect the promises made to them to be uphelda government for many groups in the Middle East this was an historic opportunity to realize their own projects to bring their own identity into Focus found their own States and Achieve autonomy at the moment the idea of Nation States became on Vogue and expectations were aroused the problems began these hopes were given particular sustenance by U.S President Wilson in point 12 of his famous 14 points about the goals of the piece he wanted to create a comprehensive new order for the entire Middle East the peoples of the Ottoman Empire were intended to decide their own destiny and this is precisely what Faisal is counting on skip to I know that's what you might call a certain revolution of expectation in all the countries that participated in the war this means High demands are made and expectations aroused as far as the peace treaty is concerned in Paris in 1919 troops of the Arab Revolt take part in the parade through the actor Triumph Faisal himself appears with his own delegation and tries to turn his military success into Political facts through diplomatic means [Music] Faisal comes into contact with International politics and with the help of his advisors quickly grasps how everything works there are negotiations with the Zionist movement he sits down with the French he participates in an International Conference yeah that's the famous photo of Faisal in Versailles but Faisal now knows that his interests contradict those of his allies the British and French aren't interested in an independent Arab Kingdom the hopes of promises made now coming true rest with President Wilson but he turns out to be a very different political leader than hoped internet what Wilson actually wants is misunderstood all over the world when he talks of people's rights as self-determination for Nations he's speaking relatively explicitly of white Europeans Wilson is today an extremely controversial figure as he was the president who introduced racial segregation in the federal institutions of the United States times will be seen as a racist in Paris Faisal is confronted with the Imperial mentality of his former allies this is characterized by their tradition of subjugating Colonial peoples both the British and the French felt that the people of the Middle East had been under the Ottomans they weren't ready to be independent I mean there was a sort of really I think a racist imperialist attitude that these people were simply inferior and they couldn't probably rule themselves and they shouldn't rule themselves because they would make a mess of it if we look at the news reporting at the time we see that when one talked about Arabs one imagined Jihad Bedouins on Horseback armed with swords attacking an ottoman artillery unit shouting I wasn't thinking of the advanced culture that existed in Arab cities which were in part already sophisticated by Western standards the idea that the Orient is somehow different to us the Orient isn't rational the Orient is a tribal society when it comes down to it the people there need to be ruled by someone they're not capable of organizing themselves politically Faisal has almost no political capital he is at the mercy of the Victor's whims Damascus is claimed by the French what remains is a trade-off that has nothing to do with an independent Arab Empire [Music] the britainham's wishes regarding his kingdom in Damascus came to nothing because the French had been promised mandate rule over Syria so the British sent him to Iraq and made him a puppet they're deeply disappointed Faisal rules until his death in 1933 before his family's Dynasty comes to an abrupt end in a putch 20 years later after the removal of Faisal the Paris conference runs according to the wishes of the powerful victors they have a free hand to divide up the Middle East just as they had planned from the start and practiced in the past [Music] well they've done it throughout the 19th century I mean the Europeans took over what they saw as open bits of the world and that very much the attitude I think with which they approached the Middle East that here was territory which needed to be claimed it was up for grabs they should grab it already during the war the French diplomat Francois Piko and his British counterpart Mark Sykes agreed on how the Middle East should look according to their idea [Music] using a ruler the various different claims are ruthlessly staked this secret agreement is called Sykes be cool of course battalions economic interests lie in the region around mosul and they know if the oil deposits there and they want to secure them and there's the protection of the Suez Canal France on the other hand has a historic interest in Syria because France has traditionally seen itself as the supporting power of the Syrian Christians psyched Pico went through various changes and iterations it was an understanding the real caravap of the Middle East was done when the British and the French sat down and Drew the lines on the map foreign Factory in severe the seal is put on agreements that from now on will cause insoluble problems in the Middle East the resolutions are anything but a finely balanced political strategy but represent instead the rigorous pursuit of Imperial interests at the expense of the regional population thank you foreign receives a mandate to rule over Syria and the Lebanon Great Britain helps itself to Iraq and Palestine the Arab Sharif of Mecca can only keep what he already owned anyway [Music] and they did this without any consideration of the peoples living there the French took a big chunk of Syria and put it into Lebanon for their own purposes which has of course caused trouble ever since and the British created transjordan as Jordan used to be called and of course they allowed the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine which was also going to cause intense conflict and problems of course throughout the 20th century basically they didn't waste very much time thinking about the long-term After Effects and asking the first priority was creating new administrative units that were then divided up amongst themselves in the form of mandates from the League of Nations the thinking was to create certain economic dependencies before these newly formed States could be granted their independence but it still had consequences because at the time talks were deciding how the spheres of influence and the regions of the Middle East could be divided up among Western European States nonetheless the Middle East has been politically more highly charged in recent years than we've seen for decades the Demons of savory keep returning to the theaters of war in the Middle East in 2014 the terror organization Islamic State overruns large parts of Iraq then in June in the city of mosul the highest leader al-baghdadi proclaims a new caliphate foreign after the end of the first world war is something that is seen by many Muslims in the larger context of the breaking up of the Ottoman Empire Islamic State promised to reverse this situation this is another reason for their popularity in certain quarters thus the is propaganda uses the humiliation of old for its own claims to power at the height of their success in an act of powerful symbolism the Islamic State crossed the Iraqi Syrian border Sykes be cool the agreement of the diplomats is by no means forgotten in the Arab world every child in the Arab world knows it's a symbol and is seen in the Middle East as the epitome of the West's deviousness cunning and disingenuousness as you can see this is the so-called border of sex Pico alhamdulillah we don't recognize it and we will never recognize it and as you can see here it's a sign for the Islamic State the borders of the Middle East are a symbol of Ruthless Western interest driven politics well I will break the barrier of Iraq Jordan until we reached this is the first merist of many bears will break to this day it's a popular device in the Arab world to blame all transgressions all negative developments all self-inflicted developments on Sykes picots it's all down to Sykes people it all began with what the British and the French did back then at the end of the day they opened the gates of hell and haven't been able to close them again my own feeling is that they need also to look at some of the other reasons I mean they have had in many countries bad leadership corrupt leadership leadership by very few people they've had the military interfering in politics and I think just focusing on Sykes Pico is perhaps distracting attention much needed attention from some of the other causes of instability and unfairness and Injustice in the Middle East also in Turkey the successor state to the Ottoman Empire the sevra agreement has remained a powerful memory [Music] let us be honest turkey faces its biggest struggle since the war for independence this struggle is a struggle of a single nation single flag a single Homeland a single state dear brothers and sisters if we quit in this critical phase of the rebuilding of the world and our region we will return to the conditions we had at sever foreign 1920. it would not only change the Middle East substantially the Allies resolved to break up the Ottoman Empire of which the Turkish Homeland is apart in the eyes of the British premiere the once Mighty caliphate has no future and should be wiped off the map of the world forever the British Prime Minister David Lloyd George was an old-fashioned liberal and the view of the Liberals in the 19th century was the Ottoman Empire was a Despicable and backward organizations there are statements from the British prime minister saying that this agreement will satisfy turkey's worst enemies if one were to put together a list of the worst anti-turkish statements then David Lloyd George would probably be in first place and David Lloyd George follows up his words with actions at sevra the Allies forced the Turkish government to accept an agreement more drastic than the one forced on the Germans at Versailles on the 10th of August the delegation from the Metropolis of Constantinople arrived in the Paris suburb and is called into the porcelain Factory's magnificent Hall the political breakup is sealed basically the ottoman State loses its sovereignty over parts of Anatolia which is seen as part of the Turkish Homeland [Music] while Armenia is awarded territory in the Northeast Southern and Southeastern turkey are divided up into British French and Italian zones of influence in the west turkey has to seed territory to Greece in contrast to the Treaty of Versailles in which the Allies wanted to make sure that Germany wouldn't be able to make a comeback quickly but nevertheless recognized that a country is also a people with whom one will have to deal in the future and save her they really did try to choke the life out of the Ottoman Empire foreign the Greek government in Athens also has a desire for Retribution the country was ruled by the Ottomans in the 19th century it didn't regain sovereignty until the end of the war of independence in 1832. 50 ever since the 19th century when Greece was freed from the ottoman yoke there's been a new age of Hellenism all over Europe um this means that Greece is the Cradle of Western Civilization the Cradle of democracy is seen very positively in large parts of Europe and in particular in great britons the Greek delegation in Paris is hoping for The Rebirth of a great Empire prime minister eleftherius venezilos leading the way the Prime Minister venezuelos was enormously persuasive and had this vision of a greater Greece and believed that the Greeks had the right and the ability to spread out and he dreamed also of pushing Greek influence into Istanbul and possibly into the Black Sea where there had also been a Greek presence in the classical time but these were the Ambitions of a Nation Builder but for his vision the premier needs the support of powerful partners and Lloyd George has once again a plan in mind which first and foremost serves British interests La George dear britisher Lloyd George the British prime minister sees Greece as the new strong partner Mediterranean because if the Ottoman Empire was going to fail the British needed some sort of Ally at the Eastern end of the Mediterranean to protect Egypt and the route through to India this was very important for the British the Suez Canal which goes through Egypt was crucially important for the British and so they thought great the Ottoman Empire is gone we can't prop it up anymore no point with that will support a bigger grease which will be our Ally at the Eastern end of the Mediterranean it was a disaster This Disaster takes place shortly after the first World War in Smyrna today Izmir Venezuela sends in an invasion force with the express support of the British the city in those days is characterized by a multitude of ethnicities and religions mostly living together in peace was a commercial city which was completely multi-ethnic it was a city with an enormous number of Greeks and Armenians in other words a large number of Christians from the base in Smyrna Greece increasingly tries to expand its sphere of influence the Turkish government in Constantinople has been weakened and has no means of resisting its neighbors in vasory ambitions the Greek troops quickly Advance into the hinterland here they meet the first Turkish resistance made up of former soldiers of the Ottoman Empire their leader mustafikema later known as atatuk the father of modern turkey he unifies the scattered units and tries everything to stop the Greek advance the Greeks face the opposition of the Turkish resistance whose strategy was basically to lure the Greeks ever further Inland where the weather conditions were very demanding foreign that meant that when large numbers of troops had to be moved or supplies brought to the front relatively small groups of Turkish gorillas could carry out effective attacks in a merciless Guerrilla War Mustafa camel quickly gains decisive advantages places taken by the Greeks are retaken Mutual hatred erupts massacres of the civilian population are soon part of the tragic reality in this bloody war s the fighting escalates relatively quickly with attacks on the civilian population by the invading Greeks but also on the Christian minorities by the tax the situation continues to deteriorate in a classical escalation scenarios inhabitants against inhabitants and not about power struggles this is happening amongst the population which is actively involved the inhabitants are automatically part of the warring factions due to their ethnicity and religions where there are no civilians no prisoners it's not a question of forcing the other side to accept one's will but of liquidating and delegitimizing them the Greek troops are soon pushed back to the coast the Army flees leaving behind a defenseless population in September 1922 the Turks reached the port of Smyrna from where the Greek Invasion began Ataturk came with his troops the outskirts of the city and the Greeks knowing what was going to happen knowing they were probably going to be slaughtered and the slaughter was already starting began to flee towards the water in this situation the civilian population is completely at the mercy of the enemy who has been politically radicalized by three years of conflicts and there had already been attacks on the Muslim population in Smyrna in 1919. now the hour of Retribution has arrived [Music] the British observed the drama in Smyrna from a distance and there are these Dreadful scenes of people jumping into the waters trying to save their children but we don't know how many people died I think it's 20 or 30 000 at least and Ataturk did nothing to stop his troops I think the anger among Turks against the Greeks now was so great that they were not prepared to do anything the once so flourishing Port is the scene of the bloodiest event of the war the fires in the Greek and Armenian quarters burn for days leaving only ruins in Greece this catastrophe is still notorious today these are only estimates between 1919 and 1922 up to 250 000 people lose their lives in a conflict often forgotten in the west nonsense this terrible episode is remembered very differently in Turkey it is the birth of an independent confident and modern Turkish Society they have successfully resisted the imposition of several to this day the period casts a shadow over relations with their Greek gamers with his war of Liberation most of a camel creates military facts on the ground and forces the victors of the first world war to return to the negotiating table in lausanne in 1923 he now forces the Allies to accept his position s the second piece Tracy is drawn up in lausanne which basically makes the fledgling state of turkey the Turkish Republic one of the victors of the first world war where Kamal Ataturk manages not only to drive back invading Allied troops and defeat them but also to consolidate the Integrity of the Turkish state to Anatolia status the agreement of several is annulled Ataturk formed the turkey we know today and the borders are not the only thing he establishes he also wants a homogeneous Turkish Society there is still a large Greek minority in Anatolia and many Turkish inhabitants in Greece the lausanne agreement determines that Greek Orthodox Christians and Muslims will simply be exchanged that after the extremely bloody Greek Turkish conflict stability and peace in the region can only be preserved if the different religious communities are distant angled at the beginning of the 1920s an exchange of inhabitants is seen as a completely logical means of settling conflicts we just have to split up the people and resettle them and then peace will Reigns this has had catastrophic consequences for the region more than a million Greeks lose their homes Athens faces an unprecedented wave of refugees the consequences are homelessness and starvation in a new home they've never known [Music] this can only be seen as an extraordinary uprooting for all concerned and even if you had been a Greek in Smyrna and of course spoke Greek and would probably have been a Christian but your roots your home your way of life your family came from Smyrna and suddenly you find yourself in a suburb of Athens and you're somewhere where you don't know anyone in a place you've never seen before even if it is your country because you speak the language is it really your culture the Armenians on the other hand lose their sovereignty after only two years to Soviet Russia turkey too changes perceptibly during this period while a few years before different ethnic groups lived here together Ataturk state is now an assimilated Turkish Muslim Society diversity was an important part of the Ottoman order both in the state and in the cityscape and this gets destroyed in this period this changed turkey more dramatically than many events of the first world war Witnesses come on this people are no longer Turks because they are inhabitants of Anatolia or a subject of the Ottoman Empire now people are Turks if they have Turkish blood and are members of the Sunni Islamic faith everyone else is a guests although the sever agreement was revoked it still has enormous significance in turkey and casts a long Shadow today this can be seen after the failed putch of the 15th of July 2016 and members of the Armed Forces attempted to overthrow the government the fear of political influence from outside along with enemies on the inside is often Justified with the Old Paris agreement in Turkey it is known as sevra syndra the 15th of July is the second war of Liberation for the Turkish nation and we should recognize it as such if this push had been successful we would have been forced to accept something that would have made us long for the sevra agreement in the several agreement you can find everything that can be construed in turkey as a conspiracy against them and the sephra agreement has established itself in the Press popular culture and films and especially of course in the propaganda speeches of different heads of states and in particular erdogan um for different nationalities it includes a Kurdish Stace or statehood which is not clearly stated it could be an autonomous area or a state but ataturk's Triumph seals the fate of an independent Kurdish state in the lausanne agreement there is no mention of possible Independence for this ethnic group s agreement transformed turkey from a Vanquish state to a victor of the first world war and thus buried any hope of independent statehood um the rejection of any right to autonomy and in particular demands for independent statehood are basically conflicts that from this moment onwards from the first world war onwards and from the agreements made in Paris still reverberate today today between 20 and 30 million Kurds live on the borders of various States is thus the largest ethnic group in the world without its own state the Kurds are one of these very unfortunate people who live in a world that is difficult and have a great many enemies and none of the governments in those countries really want an independent Kurdistan but the rise of the Islamic State in 2014 creates new political facts Civil War torn Syria and the weakened government in Baghdad are not capable of stopping the extremists triumphant progress the International Community seeks new allies in the fight against the is and finds them above all in the form of the Kurds the Americans and other powers in the region aroused expectations in the Kurds by saying to them you're really the only good allies we have against the Islamic State and against the Terror weapons were supplied advisors dispatched and a certain level of expectation was cultivated the Kurdish Fighters are one of the few warring parties in the region whose ground troops can effectively push back the Islamic State they liberate and occupy areas in Northern Syria by now it's clear that they link their actions to the long-held hope of founding their own State as soon as they have driven the is out of the region we've taken their ammunition we've killed a lot of them in this attack we were successful we have taken this position back from them now we'll beat them everywhere and we'll Advance we'll manage it for the benefit of everyone we will liberate Kurdistan for the first time in decades there is something like a Kurdish state project in both Syria and Iraq although in very different forms one can accuse the Americans and other powers including the Russians of is that they have used the Kurds as a playing card and made promises or aroused vague expectations as their allies against the Islamic State in the end this will cost human lives because turkey hasn't the slightest intention of coming even close to fulfilling such hopes when the USA withdraws its troops from northern Syria in 2019 they abandoned their former allies there is no longer any talk of moral responsibility in Washington you don't have any regret for giving erdogan a green light to to invade I didn't give him a green light we paid a lot of money to the Kurds tremendous amounts of money we've given them massive fortunes and you know what it's wonderful they fought with us but we paid a lot for them to fight with us we have a situation where turkey is taking land from Syria Syria is not happy about it let them work it out [Music] shortly after the American withdrawal Turkish tanks crossed the border into Syria Kurdish areas should now be transformed into Turkish security zones the dream of Kurdistan has once again evaporated [Music] you often hear comparisons and memories from Kurds of the time after the first World War [Music] we are basically the Eternal Losers of political power games and intrigues and rivalry in the Middle East power games that reach their peak in Paris after the first World War the victors didn't create order and peace in the Middle East in Anatolia but instead made false promises disappointed allies new states were created which had enormous potential for conflict and which if you look from 1918 to the present keep returning to the political agenda um the wounds of the past have not healed but are in fact still open and bleeding and no one knows how this conflict can ever be brought to an end we only talk in terms of powder kegs and conflagrations all the Expressions that we associate with the Middle East the perception that this region will never have peace creates facts on the ground in the politics in the powerful way people conduct politics in the region and they don't look at the big pictures they don't start to think creatively they only think of short-term interests and it's my impression that this attitude this view of the region is a consequence of this period of the several agreement of the post-war order after the first world the bloody Legacy of several the porcelain Factory is a symbol of just how fragile the world in the Middle East remains today