The Charity of War (eBook, ePUB)
Famine, Humanitarian Aid, and World War I in the Middle East
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The Charity of War (eBook, ePUB)
Famine, Humanitarian Aid, and World War I in the Middle East
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With the exception of a few targeted aerial bombardments of the city's port, Beirut and Mount Lebanon did not see direct combat in World War I. Yet civilian casualties in this part of the Ottoman Empire reached shocking heights, possibly numbering half a million people. No war, in its usual understanding, took place there, but Lebanon was incontestably war-stricken. As a food crisis escalated into famine, it was the bloodless incursion of starvation and the silent assault of fatal disease that defined everyday life.
The Charity of War tells how the Ottoman home front grappled with total…mehr
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The Charity of War tells how the Ottoman home front grappled with total war and how it sought to mitigate starvation and sickness through relief activities. Melanie S. Tanielian examines the wartime famine's reverberations throughout the community: in Beirut's municipal institutions, in its philanthropic and religious organizations, in international agencies, and in the homes of the city's residents. Her local history reveals a dynamic politics of provisioning that was central to civilian experiences in the war, as well as to the Middle Eastern political landscape that emerged post-war. By tracing these responses to the conflict, she demonstrates World War I's immediacy far from the European trenches, in a place where war was a socio-economic and political process rather than a military event.
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- Produktdetails
- Verlag: Stanford University Press
- Seitenzahl: 368
- Erscheinungstermin: 14. November 2017
- Englisch
- ISBN-13: 9781503603776
- Artikelnr.: 49940030
- Verlag: Stanford University Press
- Seitenzahl: 368
- Erscheinungstermin: 14. November 2017
- Englisch
- ISBN-13: 9781503603776
- Artikelnr.: 49940030
Introduction: Total War: Politics, Power, and Benevolence
chapter abstract
The Introduction establishes Beirut and Mount Lebanon as sites of total war
and a civilian catastrophe of unprecedented proportion. It outlines the
broader contributions of the book: the war's centrality to everyday life in
what has been considered a geographic and political periphery. It situates
provincial actors as important historical agents who negotiate their power
positions and shape the political landscape despite and in response to an
increasing interventionist state. It insists that the exigencies of war and
famine constituted a generative force. It introduces the concept of
politics of provisioning as a competitive engagement in war relief as one
of the many arenas in which we can see war as a productive force. In this
sense, the book's purpose is to portray the war of famine as
simultaneously, and perhaps paradoxically, destructive and formative.
1A City and Its Mountain, a Mountain and Its City
chapter abstract
This chapter places the famine into the context of long-term socioeconomic
developments and locally and historically specific configurations that
determine how civilians in Beirut and Mount Lebanon would experience the
war and the accompanying famine. Nineteenth-century economic changes, it is
argued, not only rendered Beirut and Mount Lebanon particularly vulnerable
to wartime famine but also, combined with increased access to education and
the emergence of mass politics following the 1908 Young Turk Revolution,
broadened access to politics. The result was a particular set of local,
national, and international actors in both state and civil society
institutions who had varied degrees of access to power and whose social
position dictated their capabilities to participate within the political
field of provisioning and their potential to mitigate the horrors of the
famine.
2Wartime Famine: Strategies, Logistics, and Catastrophe
chapter abstract
This chapter analyzes the totalizing process of World War I and the effect
it had on food supplies and civilian provisioning on the home front. It
outlines the historically specific social, economic, and political
relational processes linked directly to the war, with a focus on access to
food supplies. While food is indispensable both on the battlefronts and
home fronts, political negotiations and military campaigns have dominated
the historiography of World War I in the Middle East. In Greater Syria, the
famine generated an unprecedented urgency visible in talk and action around
feeding Ottoman subjects. It is argued that the famine was a unique event
contingent on the caprices of human action in times of war. It was neither
a direct result of an absolute absence of food nor an unadulterated natural
disaster. International and national wartime strategies, situations, and
struggles determined much of individuals' relationships to daily
necessities.
3The Politics of Food: Wartime Provisioning for Civilians
chapter abstract
The Ottoman authorities at times responded to civilian food shortages, but
the central government implemented an empire-wide civilian provisioning
scheme only in the spring of 1916. In the absence of organized relief,
local actors were pivotal in organizing provisions. Representatives of the
state such as the Ottoman governor and Beirut's elites and politicians,
many of whom came from a merchant background, were particularly well
positioned to take up the responsibilities of provisioning because of their
thorough understanding of the subtleties of the local food system. The
chapter provides a close look at civilian provisioning as a competitive
arena for local and state actors to establish, maintain, and strengthen
their legitimacy as power brokers in the provinces. It showcases, in
particular, local urban wartime politics by exposing communal dynamics in
times of crisis and the intricacies of existing communal and social orders
that shaped the experience on the home front.
4Prayers and Patrons: The Politics of Neutrality
chapter abstract
Examining food distribution in rural Mount Lebanon, the chapter argues that
the Maronite Church, despite its many failures, contributed to the
reshaping of Mount Lebanon's political landscape through its active role in
wartime provisioning. The chapter outlines the church's practices of
provisioning and situates them in the larger context of diaspora politics,
foreign influence, and the relationship between Maronites, France, and the
Ottoman state, which shaped wartime provisioning politics in Mount Lebanon.
It argues that the church's existing institutions and personnel, utilized
to distribute food in the most remote corners of the mountain, and Jamal
Pasha's distinct efforts to sideline its main political competitor, the
secular Administrative Council, guaranteed and expanded its political
position. The chapter showcases the processes that allowed the Maronite
Church to solidify its position as the temporal leadership of the
Christians of Mount Lebanon, which guaranteed its seat at the postwar
political bargaining table.
5Rats, Lice and Microbes: The Struggle against Infectious Diseases
chapter abstract
Like providing food, combating infectious diseases defined much of the
wartime agenda of local officials and municipal offices in both Beirut and
Mount Lebanon. The administrative health concerns were not only front-page
news but also subject to politics of health provisioning and state
intervention. The crises of total war accelerated the consolidation of a
preexisting health regime, and interventionist policies focused on making
sick bodies a public concern to be reported, isolated, and disinfected. The
invasive nature of health provisioning made it a less competitive political
space. The state needed local knowledge, and local health administrators
needed the power of the military command to back up their work. The state
worked in society. The combined work of local municipal agencies and actors
and the state to fight disease and implement sanitary measures was exemplar
of an increasingly more militant state intervention into civilians' daily
life.
6Local Relief Initiatives: Civil Society, Women, and the State
chapter abstract
This chapter discusses the politics of provisioning in civil society,
focusing on the experience of local philanthropic societies run by local
elites. These organizations had dominated the social welfare sectors in
prewar Beirut, providing education, health care, and material charity. The
outbreak of the war and increasing Ottoman paranoia turned such
organizations into feared competitors that could undermine the state's
credibility, stir up resentment, and possibly be venues for organizing
against state authorities. In Beirut, the Ottomans incapacitated
male-dominated local charitable organizations by denying government
support, raising taxes, or simply closing them. At the same time,
government officials encouraged female volunteer work, indicating that the
Ottoman authorities did not see Lebanese women as a threat to the
legitimacy of their regime. The recruitment of women into relief efforts
closely associated with a patriotic discourse and government patronage
boosted Lebanese women's political self-confidence, not easily reversed
after the war.
7Beneficial Benevolence: International Wartime Relief Efforts
chapter abstract
This chapter tells the story of war relief rendered by international
agents, who had direct experience with the famine's inhumanity and, due to
their diplomatic relations with the Ottomans, had continued access to its
victims. American and German diplomats, missionaries, and military
officials witnessed, recorded, and responded to the local suffering based
on their political position in the empire and the international context of
World War I. The chapter discusses foreign relief workers and government
officials' engagement with or abstention from humanitarian work as a
political tool advertising the benevolence and goodwill of their nations to
local populations, while at the same time preserving their positive
relationship with the Ottoman government. The decisions of foreigners
whether to distribute aid, the chapter argues, were based on their position
within local society, international obligations, and the careful
consideration of short- and long-term economic interests.
Conclusion: Beirut 1919: The Chaos of Memory and Politics
chapter abstract
In 1919, the victors of war with a stroke of their pens determined the
national futures of Beirut and Mount Lebanon. Local aspirations proved
peripheral to decision making in Europe. The Conclusion argues that 1919
was not only a Parisian year. In Beirut and Mount Lebanon, 1919 was a year
of swift changes, hopes, promises, rewards, despair, and disappointments.
Wartime suffering and postwar ambiguities persuaded various political
groups to articulate and lobby for their preferred postwar political
constellation. And their differential and at times competing territorial
and political desires entered into public discourse over national
independence, Mandatory tutelage, and humanitarian aid. The Conclusion
discusses how local and international agents of wartime provisioning, with
their main competitors-the Ottoman state-removed from the scene, used
accounts of real and fictitious wartime benevolence to construct discourses
of legitimacy.
Introduction: Total War: Politics, Power, and Benevolence
chapter abstract
The Introduction establishes Beirut and Mount Lebanon as sites of total war
and a civilian catastrophe of unprecedented proportion. It outlines the
broader contributions of the book: the war's centrality to everyday life in
what has been considered a geographic and political periphery. It situates
provincial actors as important historical agents who negotiate their power
positions and shape the political landscape despite and in response to an
increasing interventionist state. It insists that the exigencies of war and
famine constituted a generative force. It introduces the concept of
politics of provisioning as a competitive engagement in war relief as one
of the many arenas in which we can see war as a productive force. In this
sense, the book's purpose is to portray the war of famine as
simultaneously, and perhaps paradoxically, destructive and formative.
1A City and Its Mountain, a Mountain and Its City
chapter abstract
This chapter places the famine into the context of long-term socioeconomic
developments and locally and historically specific configurations that
determine how civilians in Beirut and Mount Lebanon would experience the
war and the accompanying famine. Nineteenth-century economic changes, it is
argued, not only rendered Beirut and Mount Lebanon particularly vulnerable
to wartime famine but also, combined with increased access to education and
the emergence of mass politics following the 1908 Young Turk Revolution,
broadened access to politics. The result was a particular set of local,
national, and international actors in both state and civil society
institutions who had varied degrees of access to power and whose social
position dictated their capabilities to participate within the political
field of provisioning and their potential to mitigate the horrors of the
famine.
2Wartime Famine: Strategies, Logistics, and Catastrophe
chapter abstract
This chapter analyzes the totalizing process of World War I and the effect
it had on food supplies and civilian provisioning on the home front. It
outlines the historically specific social, economic, and political
relational processes linked directly to the war, with a focus on access to
food supplies. While food is indispensable both on the battlefronts and
home fronts, political negotiations and military campaigns have dominated
the historiography of World War I in the Middle East. In Greater Syria, the
famine generated an unprecedented urgency visible in talk and action around
feeding Ottoman subjects. It is argued that the famine was a unique event
contingent on the caprices of human action in times of war. It was neither
a direct result of an absolute absence of food nor an unadulterated natural
disaster. International and national wartime strategies, situations, and
struggles determined much of individuals' relationships to daily
necessities.
3The Politics of Food: Wartime Provisioning for Civilians
chapter abstract
The Ottoman authorities at times responded to civilian food shortages, but
the central government implemented an empire-wide civilian provisioning
scheme only in the spring of 1916. In the absence of organized relief,
local actors were pivotal in organizing provisions. Representatives of the
state such as the Ottoman governor and Beirut's elites and politicians,
many of whom came from a merchant background, were particularly well
positioned to take up the responsibilities of provisioning because of their
thorough understanding of the subtleties of the local food system. The
chapter provides a close look at civilian provisioning as a competitive
arena for local and state actors to establish, maintain, and strengthen
their legitimacy as power brokers in the provinces. It showcases, in
particular, local urban wartime politics by exposing communal dynamics in
times of crisis and the intricacies of existing communal and social orders
that shaped the experience on the home front.
4Prayers and Patrons: The Politics of Neutrality
chapter abstract
Examining food distribution in rural Mount Lebanon, the chapter argues that
the Maronite Church, despite its many failures, contributed to the
reshaping of Mount Lebanon's political landscape through its active role in
wartime provisioning. The chapter outlines the church's practices of
provisioning and situates them in the larger context of diaspora politics,
foreign influence, and the relationship between Maronites, France, and the
Ottoman state, which shaped wartime provisioning politics in Mount Lebanon.
It argues that the church's existing institutions and personnel, utilized
to distribute food in the most remote corners of the mountain, and Jamal
Pasha's distinct efforts to sideline its main political competitor, the
secular Administrative Council, guaranteed and expanded its political
position. The chapter showcases the processes that allowed the Maronite
Church to solidify its position as the temporal leadership of the
Christians of Mount Lebanon, which guaranteed its seat at the postwar
political bargaining table.
5Rats, Lice and Microbes: The Struggle against Infectious Diseases
chapter abstract
Like providing food, combating infectious diseases defined much of the
wartime agenda of local officials and municipal offices in both Beirut and
Mount Lebanon. The administrative health concerns were not only front-page
news but also subject to politics of health provisioning and state
intervention. The crises of total war accelerated the consolidation of a
preexisting health regime, and interventionist policies focused on making
sick bodies a public concern to be reported, isolated, and disinfected. The
invasive nature of health provisioning made it a less competitive political
space. The state needed local knowledge, and local health administrators
needed the power of the military command to back up their work. The state
worked in society. The combined work of local municipal agencies and actors
and the state to fight disease and implement sanitary measures was exemplar
of an increasingly more militant state intervention into civilians' daily
life.
6Local Relief Initiatives: Civil Society, Women, and the State
chapter abstract
This chapter discusses the politics of provisioning in civil society,
focusing on the experience of local philanthropic societies run by local
elites. These organizations had dominated the social welfare sectors in
prewar Beirut, providing education, health care, and material charity. The
outbreak of the war and increasing Ottoman paranoia turned such
organizations into feared competitors that could undermine the state's
credibility, stir up resentment, and possibly be venues for organizing
against state authorities. In Beirut, the Ottomans incapacitated
male-dominated local charitable organizations by denying government
support, raising taxes, or simply closing them. At the same time,
government officials encouraged female volunteer work, indicating that the
Ottoman authorities did not see Lebanese women as a threat to the
legitimacy of their regime. The recruitment of women into relief efforts
closely associated with a patriotic discourse and government patronage
boosted Lebanese women's political self-confidence, not easily reversed
after the war.
7Beneficial Benevolence: International Wartime Relief Efforts
chapter abstract
This chapter tells the story of war relief rendered by international
agents, who had direct experience with the famine's inhumanity and, due to
their diplomatic relations with the Ottomans, had continued access to its
victims. American and German diplomats, missionaries, and military
officials witnessed, recorded, and responded to the local suffering based
on their political position in the empire and the international context of
World War I. The chapter discusses foreign relief workers and government
officials' engagement with or abstention from humanitarian work as a
political tool advertising the benevolence and goodwill of their nations to
local populations, while at the same time preserving their positive
relationship with the Ottoman government. The decisions of foreigners
whether to distribute aid, the chapter argues, were based on their position
within local society, international obligations, and the careful
consideration of short- and long-term economic interests.
Conclusion: Beirut 1919: The Chaos of Memory and Politics
chapter abstract
In 1919, the victors of war with a stroke of their pens determined the
national futures of Beirut and Mount Lebanon. Local aspirations proved
peripheral to decision making in Europe. The Conclusion argues that 1919
was not only a Parisian year. In Beirut and Mount Lebanon, 1919 was a year
of swift changes, hopes, promises, rewards, despair, and disappointments.
Wartime suffering and postwar ambiguities persuaded various political
groups to articulate and lobby for their preferred postwar political
constellation. And their differential and at times competing territorial
and political desires entered into public discourse over national
independence, Mandatory tutelage, and humanitarian aid. The Conclusion
discusses how local and international agents of wartime provisioning, with
their main competitors-the Ottoman state-removed from the scene, used
accounts of real and fictitious wartime benevolence to construct discourses
of legitimacy.