1. Humanities Presentation script
(Key: AY- Ah Young, S- Simon, MJ- Min Joon, JM- Jung Min, V- Vidisha)
(One of us is going to have to speak the group question answer line because Simon has
a HUGE part. So someone has to take the line)
Hello everyone.
JM: Our topic for this assignment is Post-WWI (world war 1), which means after World
War 1. Necessary information presented in this map include political boundaries of
states & administrative districts, political influence, control by outside powers and
capitals & other major cities. We will be explaining all the essential details about this
map and its formation.
V: So how were the borders of the new countries decided? Generally, borders are
marked because conquests, imposition (force) and/or mutual agreement. For example,
the Astro-Hungarian empire was broken apart into multiple different nations and the
same occurred in the Ottoman Empire, which could now be called the ‘Middle East.’ As
you see below, the Ottoman empire has been broken off into many different countries.
And as in fact, much of the Ottoman Empire was occupied by the British and French
forces, who mandated a few countries as shown below in green and blue. So what kind
of government was established in these countries?
AY: As you know that after World War 1, the Ottoman empire was defeated, so at Paris
peace conference, they decided to help such defeated countries by setting up one of
the major countries to mandate them. Countries such as Britain, France, USA or Japan
would be one of those who would help set up independent government. The French
were mandating Syria and Lebanon while the British were mandating Palestine,
Transjordan and Iraq. While the other countries set up independent government system
and had their own leaders. Anyways, after these countries were created, so how did the
previous boundaries change?
MJ: Before the World War 1, during in seventeens and the eighteen hundreds, the
Ottoman empire was a vast and a powerful nation. But the British, French and the
Russian forces wanted to conquer more land and capture more territories so they began
to interfere in Ottoman Empire and Egypt’s affairs. After that the British and the French
and the Imperial Russian mandates executed the Sykes-Picot Agreement- which is for
the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire and then they divided the Arab world into
nation-states. So the Ottoman Empire broke down into many different countries, which
then they expanded or broke down. The problems that new boundaries created were:
Simon: After world war one, some huge empire have broke up. For example, The
Ottoman Empire, Astro-Hungary Empire and German lost a lot of land. These empire
had been split into many different and little counties. So after the war, nations such as
Yugoslavia, Iraq and Hungary started to get stronger and stronger.
2. Simon: There were some problems caused by the mandate system. For example, after
world war 1, after the ottoman empire had been defeated, British took the control of
Palestine and create the "British mandate of Palestine". Then, because of the "Balfour
Declaration", the British started importing Zionists into Palestine, where Arabs were
settled. The Jews believed that they were originally originated from Palestine, hence
they had their right to go back and settle back, but the Arabs believed that Palestine is
their land, hence the conflict between two religions. The first time Arabs revolted was
against the Jews in 1920. As time went by, the conflict between Arabs and Jews finally
became a war.
(Anyone can speak this line) So as you see in our map, we have expanded and
enlarged two nations, Palestine and Jordan. We decided to expand Palestine mainly to
the reason that there are two religions- Judaism and Islam. And because both of them
believe that Palestine is their nation and Jerusalem is their city, we decided to expand
the country so both the religions can settle into the country and divide the land among
themselves. As talking about Jordan, since Palestine was expanded, Jordan had to
move somewhere or combine with Palestine-but that would be over-crowded, so
decided that Jordan should take over some of Nejd’s land.