Religion and violence

Religion put to the service of nationalism

Originating in societies to the north of the Mediterranean, two movements had run through the nineteenth century, one of a social nature, one of a nationalist nature. The second one, in many cases, was strengthened by reference to religion as, in the heart of the continental empires with religious pluralism (the Ottoman Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire), this helped to mobilise the population against the central authority. During the same period, the maritime powers (Great Britain, France) were rearming to compete with the new nation states of Germany and Italy. In 1911, the struggle between France and Germany over Morocco turned in France's favour with the Treaty of Fez (March 1912). In this context, and in spite of the Ottoman Empire's proposals for negotiation, Italy conquered the provinces of Tripolitania, Cyrenaica and Fezzan (September 1911-October 1912). Recognising the weak state of the Ottoman army and fearing to find themselves in the hands of European powers with little concern for the fate of the Eastern Christians, the Balkan League (Serbia, Montenegro, Greece, Bulgaria) at the same time declared war on the Ottoman Empire (October 1912).

Russia at that time presented herself as faithful to her mission to protect her “little brother Serbia” in particular and Orthodox Christians in general. But they were divided, in spite of the League's victories against the Porte of Istanbul. The differences between the Serbs and the Bulgars erupted over the partition of Macedonia. A second Balkan war broke out (June-July 1913), during which Bulgaria took on her erstwhile allies, joined by Romania. The Ottoman Empire seized this chance to retake the territories lost a few months earlier. In both cases the conflicts were very fierce and led to the displacement of populations according to religion, many Muslims taking the road east to place themselves once again under the authority of the Ottomans.

This aspect was not absent from the dispute between the Serbians and the Austrians between the end of June 1914 and the end of July, nor from the competing justifications which their allies then put forward. At the moment of declaring war at the beginning of August 1914, Germany, until then anglophile, described Great Britain as “perfidious” for invoking the Entente with Russia and France. Adolf von Harnack[1] , director of the Royal Library of Berlin, drafted Wilhelm II[2]'s proclamation to 'the German people' on 6 August: “The enemy is assaulting us in times of peace. So stand up! To arms!” A few weeks later, with 93 'representatives of German science and art', he signed an appeal to 'the civilised world' which positioned Germany as in the defensive, justifying the violation of Belgian neutrality. As for the Austro-Hungarian episcopate, it was united behind the Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Piffl[3] , who declared in October 1914: “We fight for the truth and the right, we fight for God and our holy faith, we fight for our emperor and our fatherland. In this fight for all that is most sacred to us, God is with us!” On the opposing side, the violation of Belgian neutrality was described as a 'barbarous act' against the heart of the Triple Entente. In the absence of the King, the Government and Parliament, Cardinal Mercier, Archbishop of Malines, put himself at the head of the struggle in the name of the Catholic faith. In the pastoral letter entitled Patriotism and Endurance, he sought to describe the struggle in terms of the theological concept of the 'just war' which begins with a promise of redemption .

The Catholic and Protestant authorities tried in vain to quench the fire. The sympathies of the Roman church were at first with the Austrian cause, but the words of comfort sent to Vienna after the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand[4] did not endorse war against Serbia, which had just signed a Concordat (24 June 1914). Elected Pope on 3 September 1914, Benedict XV[5] condemned all crimes and their protagonists (Ad Beatissimi, 1 November 1914). Catholics were invited to pray for peace, but each episcopate interpreted the Pope's words in the sense of 'peace for the just' in order to accord with the patriotism of the faithful. The dominant impression remains that the Pope was under pressure from the enemy from all sides. At the same time, Monseigneur Nathan Söderblom, Lutheran Archbishop of Uppsala in neutral Sweden, launched an 'Appeal for peace and the Christian communion' which fell on deaf ears . Both public appeals and diplomatic efforts by these Christian authorities were fruitless at a time when each belligerent believed they could rapidly win the day.

In attacking the Russian Black Sea ports, the Ottoman Empire provoked the Entente powers to declare war in November 1914. Supported by the ulema, the Sheikh – al- Islam[6] promulgated a fatwa[7] in which he exhorted all Muslims, Ottoman or otherwise, to “the sacred religious duty to participate in jihad with body and wealth”. Propaganda in favour of the Sultan was spread through preachers and students to encourage uprisings in enemy empires. Vienna had ambitions to take the place of France as the protector of Eastern Catholics. But the Austro-Hungarian authorities, more hesitant in their dealings with the Ottomans than the Germans were, did not have a clear plan for how to do so. The influence of the fatwa was weak outside the Sublime Porte. Of those of note, only the Algerian-Tunisian Salah al-Sharif[8] backed it with the brochure The Truth about Holy War (1916), in which he said that defensive jihad was “an individual, obligatory duty against the aggressor, France, England and Russia”. The work, translated from the Arabic, was published in Berlin.

On the announcement of the declaration of war, while declaring its loyalty to the Ottoman government, the Dachnak[9] raised a militia of tens of thousands of volunteers in the Transcaucasus capable of supplementing the forces of the Russian army. Aware of the risks in the light of the collapse of the Ottoman Third Army, Enver Pasha[10] ordered the transfer of Armenian soldiers to 'work battalions', where they were massacred. It was the beginning of a genocide. The bombardment of the Armenian quarter of the town of Van, ordered by Djevdet Pacha[11] in early spring 1915 because the Dachnak had refused to raise volunteers, was followed by an insurrection which resulted, on the one side, in wholesale deportations, and on the other, by the entry of Russian troops into the town. The Istanbulite elite of the Armenian millet[12] was decapitated by the arrest of several hundred leaders. The massacres were extended to other Armenian populated areas during the summer of 1915, then the deportations affected the Armenians of Cilicia, sent to the town of Deir ez-Zor on the Euphrates. The Entente powers denounced these “mass murders”, while German diplomats feared being accused of interference in favour of a minority if they raised objections. A press campaign initiated by the president of the German oriental Mission which got the backing of clerical circles and around fifty of those close to the Chancellor had no effect. All that was authorised was, thanks to the American ambassador, humanitarian aid from Armenian and Syrian Relief (later Near East Relief) for the Armenians and other hungry and oppressed communities such as the Syrians.

The Great Memorandum, presented by the Russian Prime Minister to British and French diplomats on 7 March 1915, clearly set out his aims: aside from control of the straits of Marmara, it was to seize Istanbul-Constantinople. The United Kingdom accepted a first set of agreements, but made it plain that it wanted to take a hand in the region. The Viceroy of India, opposed to counter appeal to jihad which risked putting the Muslims outside his authority, landed Anglo-Indian troops in Basra (November 1914). They established good relations with the Sheikh of Kuwait and Ibn Saud[13], head of the Najd tribe, but they were defeated by the Ottomans in April 1916. The next move of the British in Cairo was to take advantage of the Arab uprising, with the involvement of T E Lawrence[14] , working with Faisal[15] , one of the sons of the Sharif of the 'Holy Places' of Islam, Hussein ibn Ali[16] . London, which had just imposed a protectorate on Egypt, urged the latter to take part: “If the Arab nation assists the English in this war, England guarantees no interference in Arabia and will give to the Arabs every assistance against external aggression........Perhaps an Arab of pure race may assume the Caliphate of Mecca and Medina” (31 October 1914). Hussein had demonstrated his opposition to the Young Turks[17] and their project for legal modernisation. He contented himself with sending the standard of the Prophet of Islam to Damascus to accompany the army in its expedition against Suez, which failed, while ignoring two other demands: relaying the call to jihad and raising a tribal army in Hejaz. He declared a revolt in June 1916 and proclaimed himself 'King of the Arabs'. But the British recognised him only as 'King of Hejaz', after having secretly negotiated a partition of the region with the French (Sykes-Picot agreement, May 1916), backed by the Russians and Italians.

Italy entered the war, promised a share of the spoils of the Ottoman Empire, on condition that the Holy See would be excluded from peace negotiations (May 1915). Romania and Bulgaria, Orthodox with Catholic and Muslim minorities, fought, one on the side of the Entente powers and the other for the Central powers. Portugal's choice was determined by the announcement of German ambitions towards Angola and Mozambique. However, a Republican party had pacifist leanings and these converged with those of the Catholic Monarchist opposition which was hostile to 'atheist France' and 'Schismatic England' in a climate of 'apparitions of the Virgin of Fatima'. The germanophile party triumphed with the accession of the dictator Sidonio Pais[18] who abandoned the Portuguese expeditionary force to its fate. In spite of this, its casualties (10 000 on the battlefields of Europe and Africa) allowed her entry to the peace negotiations and the grant of modest reparations.

  1. Adolf von Harnack

    Adolf von Harnack (1851-1930): Lutheran theologian, specialist in the early centuries of Christianity, Harnack was also a doctor of law, medicine and philosophy. He represented the liberal wing of German Protestantism. One of his principal works was The History of Dogmas in three volumes. A university professor, he also took part in public life as a political adviser to Wilhelm II. His essay, Das Wesen des Christenums (The essence of Christianity) was a response to Alfred Loisy's Catholic exegesis which was a critical starting point he so-called 'modernist' crisis in the Catholic Church.

  2. Wilhelm II

    Wilhelm II (1859-1941): Member of the Hohenzollern dynasty, Wilhelm II became emperor in 1888. He favoured the technological, industrial and economic development of society. He immediately changed the direction of foreign policy towards colonial conquest which ended up losing the goodwill of the United Kingdom and to the breaking of the alliance with Russia. He was not in favour of the declaration of war that his Chancellor pushed him to in 1914. He abdicated on 9 November 1918 and took refuge in the Netherlands, avoiding being put on trial for responsibility for the war.

  3. Piffl

    Friedrich Gustav Piffl (1864-1931): Born in Bohemia, son of a bookseller, he served for a year in the Austrian army. After that, he enrolled in the Teutonic College of Saint Mary in Rome to become a priest. He was ordained in 1888, after which he studied philosophy. He was made Archbishop of Vienna in 1913, and created Cardinal in spring 1914. He gave active support to the Austro-Hungarian Emperor throughout the war and kept his position as Archbishop after the dismantling of the Empire and the creation of the Austrian Republic.

  4. François-Ferdinand

    Franz-Ferdinand (1863-1914): Archduke of Austria and Prince of Hungary and Bohemia, he was the heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire from 1889. In spite of the fact that he had favoured greater autonomy for the national minorities in the Empire, he was assassinated by a Serb nationalist during a visit to Sarajevo on the occasion of the Austro-Hungarian army's manoeuvres in Bosnia. This event set off a chain reaction which ended in the summer of 1914 with the declaration of war by Austria-Hungary and Germany, both on Serbia and the Entente powers (Russia, the United Kingdom and France).

  5. Benedict XV

    Benedict XV (18451922): Member of an aristocratic Genoan family, he studied law before entering the priesthood. He was ordained as a priest in 1878. The following year he enrolled in the Academy of Noble Ecclesiastics which prepared Italian aristocrats for diplomatic roles in the Holy See. In 1907 he became Archbishop of Bologna and in 1913 he was created Cardinal. This enabled him to participate in the Conclave of 1914, during which he was elected as Pope. On 3 September 1914 he declared the Holy See's neutrality in the conflict which had become a world war. His efforts in favour of peace, in 1914 as in 1917, failed. A doctor in canon law, he initiated what was to become the Canon Law Code of 1917. In 1919 he authorised Italian Catholics to take part in politics, which had been forbidden to them in theory since 1874.

  6. Sheikh-al-Islam

    Sunni religious authority. The title holder had had the highest official status in the Ottoman Empire since1424. The Sheikh-al-Islam was nominated by the Sultan from amongst the cadis (Islamic judges). He ensured the enforcement of sharia law.

  7. Fatwa

    Judicial ruling given by a specialist in Islamic law.

  8. Salah al Sharif

    Salah al Sharif (1869-1920): Jurist of the Maliki rite, having studied at the Zaytuna in Tunis, Salah al Sharif came from an Algerian family. He became professor and, at the beginning of the Twentieth century, was opposed to the reformist tendencies of Mohammed Abduh. He went to Tripoli, Istanbul and then Damascus, where he taught from 1909. Close to Enver Pasha, he preached jihad against the Italians after their conquest of Tripolitania. In 1914 he contributed to Ottoman -German propaganda to justify jihad for all Muslims against the Entente powers. He also called on Germany to liberate its colonies. On 21 November 1918 he left for Switzerland, where he died.

  9. Dachnak

    Abbreviated form of the name Armenian Revolutionary Federation, this group had an ideological basis in Socialism (Marxism, populism, Bakuninism) and was founded in 1890 in Tiflis, a Georgian region under Ottoman rule. The initial objective of this organisation, a member of the Second International from 1907, was to gain more autonomy for Armenian Ottomans through reform. They used peaceful and armed means and their most well known action was the taking of hostages at the Ottoman Imperial Bank in Istanbul in 1896.Their support for the Young Turks during the 1908 revolution was a source of disappointment, nevertheless, during the summer of 1914 the members of Dachnak met in congress to reaffirm the necessity of Armenian loyalty to the state of which they were subjects. However, from autumn 1914, groups of volunteers for the Russian army were organised. This initiative, amongst other things, gave the Ottoman authorities a justification for the genocide of Armenian populations in the Empire.

  10. Enver Pacha

    Enver Pasha or Ismail Enver (1881-1922): An Ottoman official trained at the military academy of Istanbul, Enver Pasha was made Chief of Staff of the Macedonian army in 1902. He was a member of the Committee of Union and Progress at the beginning of the Young Turk revolution in July 1908, with a view to re-establishing the 1876 Constitution. He fought the counter-revolutionary movement in 1909 and pushed for the abdication of Sultan Abdul Hamid II. Sent to Berlin, he established close relations with his German counterparts in order to modernise the Ottoman army. He distinguished himself in the Second Balkan War in 1913, after having organised a coup which gave power only to unionists. He became one of the members of the triumvirate which governed the Empire until October 1918. He was amongst the promoters of Pan- turkism. He was one of those principally responsible for the massacre of Christians (Pontiques, Syrians) in the Empire and that perpetrated against the Armenians. He took refuge in Germany and then Soviet Russia, and was condemned to death in July 1919. His attempts to create Islamic revolutionary committees failed, and he fled to Turkestan where he was killed during a confrontation with a Red Army detachment.

  11. Djevdet Pacha

    Djevdet Pasha or Djevdet Bey: Brother in law of Enver Pasha, he was the Ottoman representative in Van from September 1914. He was responsible for the Armenian genocide in the region, acting on strict orders from the Government.

  12. Millet

    Non Muslim confessional community officially recognised by the Ottoman government, granted rights (of religious practice, tribunals relating to internal affairs) and duties (special taxes) which gave it recognition and protection ranking below that of Muslims (Sunnis) in the Empire. Three communities acquired this status in the fifteenth century: Jews, Armenians and Greek Orthodox. In the nineteenth century further millets were recognised, amongst which were the Orthodox in Bulgaria and the Protestants. This status provided both protection and discrimination and became increasingly unsatisfactory with the spread of ideas of individual liberty and equality.

  13. Ibn Saud

    Ibn Saud (1875-1953): Tribal chief and emir of the Najd in the heart of the Arabian Peninsular. He was supported by an armed corps, the Ikhwan (‘Brotherhood') in weakening a neighbouring tribe, the Rashidi. During the war he fostered relations with the British, who were aware of his growing power. In 1924 he expelled Hussein Ibn Ali from Mecca, then took Medina and Jeddah (1925). He proclaimed himself King of Hejaz (1926), then founder of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (1931), however he failed to be recognised as Caliph of the Sunnis. The British assisted him in eliminating the Ikhwan, who had risen up against his authority. But Ibn Saud was able to strengthen relations with the United States to counter balance his dependence on London. The agreement with President Roosevelt took the name of the ‘Quincy Pact', from the name of the warship on which the two men met in February 1945. Oil revenue enabled him to begin to establish a financially powerful state which used some of its resources to promote Wahhabism globally.

  14. T E Lawrence

    T E Lawrence (1888-1935): Arab-speaking British archaeologist, he passionately espoused the life of the Bedouin in the Arab Peninsula, at the margins of the ‘modern' urbanised west of the Ottoman Empire. At the same time he worked for the British military, which led to his temporary arrest in spring 1914. After the declaration of war, as a reserve lieutenant, he joined the Intelligence Service which was working to use the Sharif of Mecca to divide the Ottoman Empire. He participated in several of Faisal's actions and entered Jerusalem with the British army (December 1917). He supported Faisal's position during the peace conference in vain. He left the army with a feeling of failure, before joining up again under an assumed name, and was killed in a motorcycle accident.

  15. Faisal

    Faisal (1883-1933): Son of Sharif Hussein Ibn Ali, he failed to take Medina from the Turks in January 1917, but succeeded with a surprise attack in taking the port of Aqaba. On 1 October 1918, he made a triumphant entry to Damascus with Lawrence, where he hoped to be proclaimed king. However he failed to unify the Sham Arabs around his name and his project to obtain a conditional agreement with Weizmann was very badly received by the Arabs and immediately rejected by the British and French at the peace conference. He did receive some support from the British, but this was not sufficient to keep him in Damascus, from which the French army expelled him in July 1920. London granted him the throne of Iraq under British mandate.

  16. Hussein ibn Ali

    Hussein ibn Ali (c1853-1931): Hashemite Arab suspected of disloyalty to the Ottomans, he took advantage of the revolution of 1908 to be named emir and sharif of Mecca. After the Ottoman Empire's declaration of war against the Entente powers and the sheikh-al-Islam's call to jihad, he entered secret negotiations with the British, who promised him an Arab kingdom from the ashes of the Empire. He proclaimed the independence of Hejaz from the Ottomans in 1916 and encouraged his sons to lead the revolt. He later discovered that the British had signed a secret agreement with the French (the Sykes-Picot Accord) to share control of the Arabian Middle East, and that Balfour had promised the Zionists a ‘homeland' in Palestine. He refused to ratify the Treaty of Versailles or the Anglo-Hashemite Treaty. For this he lost the support of the British who now backed Ibn Saud. In 1924 after the abolition of the Caliphate by the Turkish parliament, he proclaimed himself Caliph. But he received little recognition and was expelled from Mecca by Ibn Saud. He took refuge in Transjordan with his son Abdullah, where he died.

  17. Young Turks

    Secret political movement started in 1899 by students at the school of military medicine in Istanbul. Their ideas spread rapidly, especially in the Military and Naval Academies and the civil service college. As well as the military their ideas reached some liberal ulemas, where there was disagreement with the authoritarian policies of Sultan Abdul Hamid II. The members of the organisation belonged to different linguistic groups and worked with Ottoman exiles, especially the Committee of Union and Progress (formed from the Ottoman Union in 1876) which campaigned in the press. In December 1907, after a period of disagreement on strategy, the Young Turks decided to take action, from strikes to armed insurrection. The mutiny began in Macedonia before reaching Istanbul. On 23 July, the movement achieved the reestablishment of the 1876 constitution and the organisation of free elections. A counter-revolution was defeated in the following spring and the Sultan was forced to abdicate. However, the Young Turks were confronted by significant loss of territory between 1908 and 1913 which cost them some of the people's support. In January 1913 after a coup d'état, they imposed a one party regime and leadership of the Empire by a triumvirate. This vanished with the Empire's military defeat, when it was forced into an armistice in October 1918.

  18. Sidonio Pais (1872-1918)

    Portuguese officer and professor of mathematics, Sidonia Pais was made a government minister in 1911, then ambassador to Germany between 1912 and 1916. On 8 December 1917 he led a coup d'état and dissolved the Assembly. As fourth President of the Republic, his opponents called him ‘President-King'. He was assassinated in December 1918 by a militant republican.

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