The British threat to the Ottoman presence in the Persian Gulf During the era of Abdülhamid II and the responses towards it

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Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi, Uluslararası İlişkiler Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2009

Öğrenci: BİLAL EMRE BİRAL

Danışman: EBRU BOYAR

Özet:

This thesis analyzes how the Ottomans attempted to survive under the intensified British threat in the Persian Gulf during the period of Abdülhamid II (1876-1909). British statesmen at that time and Western sources inspired by these political elites have argued that there was no British menace that aimed to undermine the Ottoman presence in the Persian Gulf but that the Ottomans could not rule and hold the region. This thesis argues the contrary, that there was a formidable British threatening policy toward the Ottoman presence in the Persian Gulf which aimed at keeping the Ottomans out of the region by various effective means, particularly by using local autonomous sheikhs who served as protégés in undermining the Ottoman administration in the Gulf region. Furthermore, this thesis argues that the Ottomans generated policy for the region that has formed in response to the British threat. In this regard, the Ottoman government generated several responses, which were also reforms for the local people and administration in the Gulf region, to avert the British threat; however the Ottomans faced the serious challenges of Britain and the autonomous sheikhs in the realization of these responses. In all, this study concludes that the Ottoman Empire did not control the region completely and effectively owing not to its incompetence, yet the British policy did not allow for the Ottoman presence in the region.