The Great War in the Middle East

The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst is holding a conference on “The Great War in the Middle East” from 20-21 April 2016.

Programme:

10.30 – 10.40  Welcome and Opening Remarks

RMAS Commandant and Director of Studies

10.40 – 12.30  Panel 1: Global Strategy and the Middle East

Chair: Matthew Hughes (Brunel)

*James Renton (Edge Hill) – The British Idea of the Middle East and its Consequences

*Hervé François (Historial de la Grande Guerre) – France

*Christopher Read (Warwick) – Russia

*Peter Lieb (ZMSBw, Potsdam) – German Policy towards the Middle East in 1918

12.30 – 13.30        Lunch

13.30 – 15.30 Panel 2: Beliefs and War

Chair: John Darwin (Oxford)

*Adrian Gregory (Oxford) – Western ‘Crusading’ in the Middle East

*Roberto Mazza (Limerick) – Alone, with the Enemy or With God? The Christian Churches of Palestine during the War

*Yucel Yanikdag (University of Richmond) – Ottoman Jihad

*John Slight (Cambridge) – Jihad Beyond the Ottoman Empire

16.00 – 18.00 Panel 3: Military Operations and Adaptation

Chair: James Kitchen (RMAS)

*Kaushik Roy (Jadavpur) – Learning and Fighting: The Indian Army in Mesopotamia and Syria, 1914-1918

*Aimée Fox-Godden (Birmingham) – ‘From Experience Gained in France’: Disseminating and Adapting Western Front Lessons in the Middle Eastern Theatres, 1914-1918

*Metin Gurcan (Bilkent) – Gallipoli

19.00   Formal Conference Dinner

Old College Dining Room

            (Optional – must be booked separately)

Thursday 21 April 2016

09.30 – 11.00 Panel 4: Imperial Home Fronts and ‘Total War’

Chair: Roberto Mazza (Limerick)

*Leila Fawaz (Tufts) – Civilians and Soldiers in the Levant 1914-1918

*Mario Ruiz (Hofstra) – Martial Law, Rural Labourers, and the Egyptian Home Front, 1914-1918

*Oliver Bast (Manchester) – ‘The Rape of Persia’? – World War I in Neutral Iran as a Humanitarian Disaster

11.30 – 13.00 Panel 5: Tactics and Combat in the Middle East

Chair: Robert Johnson (Oxford)

*David Murphy (Maynooth) – The Arab Revolt, 1916-18: Sideshow or Major Campaign?

*Nikolas Gardner (RMC Canada) – Tactics and Morale in Indian Expeditionary Force ‘D’, 1915-1916

13.00 – 14.00        Lunch

14.00 – 15.30 Panel 6: Building and Challenging Post-War Empires

Chair: Peter Lieb (ZMSBw, Potsdam)

*James Kitchen (RMAS) – Egypt 1919: The British Army and Counter-Revolutionary Operations

*Robert Fletcher (Warwick) – Imperial Frontiers

*Michael Provence (UCSD) – Ottoman Military Culture and Anti-colonial Insurgency in Greater Syria

16.00 – 17.30    Panel 7: Representations of the First World War in the Middle East

Chair:  Adrian Gregory (Oxford)

*Justin Fantauzzo (Memorial University, St John’s) – Amongst Gyppos, Jews, Arabs, and Abdul: Imperial Soldiers and the Levant in Inter-war Fiction

*Nadia Atia (QMUL) – Murder in Mesopotamia: Agatha Christie’s Life and Work in the Middle East

*Jenny Macleod (Hull) – Memory/Representation of Gallipoli

*Gizem Tongo (Oxford) – Ottoman Art of the First World War

19.00    Buffet Dinner

            Victory College Dining Room