Egypt's and Tunisia's Participation in the Crimean War (the One in the 1850s)

With the Crimea so central to the news these days, Al-Arabiya reminds us that Egypt fought in the Crimean War as an ally of the Ottoman Empire. The title is a little overstated: "Arab Involvement in Crimean War 'Erased from History'". Not really, except insofar as the Crimean War itself (1853-1856) has been largely forgotten. In the English-speaking world most people know it, if at all, only for the charge of the Light Brigade, or perhaps Florence Nightingale. But it began as a conflict between Russia and the Ottomans, with Britain and France siding with the Ottomans.

Though Egypt was effectively self-governing from Muhammad Ali's time, it was still nominally under Ottoman suzerainty, and the Sultan requested naval and ground forces support from Egypt,  and also from Tunisia. Details of the Tunisian contribution are rather scanty, but the Egyptian role is fairly well known; it was written about by the scholarly Prince Omar Toussoun; and there's even a web page dealing with Egyptian uniforms in the Crimea. On the other hand, Zeinobia laments on her blog that most Egyptians have never heard of this episode.

Actually, the involvement in the Crimean War is probably better known than Egypt's dispatch of a battalion to fight for the Emperor Maximilian in Mexico a decade later.

When the Crimea Was a Muslim Power

Most of the reporting of the crisis in the Crimea has focused on ethnic Russians battling ethnic Ukrainians, but there is another ethnicity that ruled Crimea before either country: The Crimean Tartars. Under the pressure of Russification and, during World War II, of mass deportations to Central Asia and ethnic cleansing by Stalin,they are a minority in Crimea today. But from 1441 to 1783 the Crimean Khanate was a major cultural and political player between the expanding Tsarist State and the Ottoman Empire.

Crimean Khanate c. 1600 (Wikipedia)

The Khanate originated as a tribal secessionist movement from the larger Khanate of the Golden Horde. They proclaimed a descendant of Genghis Khan, Haci Giray, as their Khan. Though originating as an offshoot of the old Mongol Empire, the Crimean Tartars spoke three distinct Turkic dialects. In 1441, after a lengthy war, the Crimean Tartars won independence of the Golden Horde, ruling most of Crimea and adjacent areas of the Russian and Ukrainian steppe.

During a succession struggle, the Ottomans intervened and drove out the last Greek and Genoese colonies from the Crimean coast. The Ottomans kept the coast but left the Khanate to rule the rest as an Ottoman protectorate. Over the centuries the Tartars had been Islamized, maintaining an independent policy in loose alliance with the Ottomans.

In the 16th century the Khanate sought to portray itself as the heir of the Golden Horde and claim sovereignty over Kazan and Astrakhan, leading it into a direct rivalry with the rising Russian state. Successive wars drove back the Ottomans and brought the khanate more and more under Russian influence; in 1783, Catherine the Great annexed the Crimea to Russia. At the time, he Tartars are estimated to have constituted 98% of the population.

In the 19th century there was a reawakening of Tartar ethnic identity, and after the Bolshevik Revolution there was a Crimean Autonomous Republic. At that point the Crimean Tartars were still over 20% of the population.

Even before World War II, Stalin's ethnic policies began to repress Tartar nationalism, with widespread arrests and deportations. The language was banned and Russification imposed. Then came the German invasion in 1941, which drove into the Crimea seeking to reach the oilfields of the Caucasus. After Russia rolled back the Nazis, Stalin accused the Crimean Tartars of collaboration with the enemy. On May 18, 1944, the entire surviving population of Crimean Tartars were deported en masse, mostly to Uzbekistan but also to other Soviet regions. Half are said to have died en route. (The Chechens were also accused off collaboration and deported.) It was ethnic cleansing on a vast scale.

Tartar place names were replaced with Russian and the Crimean Autonomous Republic became first, a mere region. Then, in 1954, Crimea, previously part  of the Russian Republic of the USSR, was transferred to Ukraine, which adds to the tensions today.

It was not until 1989, in the waning days of the USSR, that the Soviet Union finally allowed the Crimean Tartars (and the Volga Germans, also deported) to return to their homelands, and only in the 1990s did the return gain momentum. The number back in Crimea is probably below 200,000, a distinct minority (11% or 12% at most) settled on relatively poor lands.

They not only remember their exile (which ended only in the 1990s) but, like the Chechens, are not terribly fond of the Russian populations that replaced them in their homeland. Need I tell you that in the past few days they have been regularly clashing with ethnic Russians in Crimea, which otherwise dominates that region?

Sisi Returns Triumphant from Russian Visit, Putin Endorsement

I guess if you are around long enough some things do come full circle. On a July day in 1972 I sat on  balcony by the Nile and watched wave after wave of big Antonov transports heading eastward over the city of Cairo. I wondered if troops were being moved towards the Canal, then the front line with Israel. The next day I learned otherwise: Anwar Sadat had expelled the Soviet military "advisers" (some of whom were actually pilots and such) from Egypt.

Field Marshal al-Sisi has now returned triumphant from Moscow, having concluded a $2 billion arms deal with Russia, a deal reportedly paid with Gulf funding, and, perhaps more importantly, won an apparent endorsement by Vladimir Putin himself for his likely run for the Egyptian Presidency. (Sisi was there in his capacity as Defense Minister, along with Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy, and they were technically returning the visit of the Russian Foreign and Defense Ministers to Cairo last year. But the trip, which the Russians reportedly wanted to delay until after the Olympics but Sisi refused, is clearly being played in the Egyptian media as Sisi's first big diplomatic triumph, ideally timed before Presidential elections in April. It allows him to distance himself from the long dependence on the US, echoes the theme of Sisi as a new Nasser, and the act that he wore a business suit rather than a uniform also drew attention.

Of course, Egypt hasn't broken with the US as a military supplier; it's diversifying. Sisi is not Nasser, Putin's Russia is not the Cold War Soviet Union, and it's not the 1950s and 1960s any more, but the trip does skillfully evoke memories of those days, when Khrushchev stood next to Nasser at the Aswan High Dam. Since Sisi will need to announce his Presidential intentions soon, the high-profile trip to Moscow represents a well-timed move.

Let the Games Begin: But Remember Those Who Were There First

Kizbech Tuguzhoko

Kizbech Tuguzhoko (also Tuguzhoko Kizbech), the fellow at left, may prove to be a specter haunting the Sochi Olympics. A member of the Shapsug tribe of the Circassian or Adyghe people ("Circassian" also applies to speakers of the related Kabardian language), he led the resistance to Russian expansion into Circassia until his death in 1840. A generation later, the conquest was complete, and in 1864 the Russian state began the systematic expulsion of most of the Circassian population. That was in 1864, 150 years before the Olympics will open in Sochi, the Russian town that arose in the old Shapsug territory. Most Circassians settled in the Ottoman Empire; many Shapsugs settled in Amman, Jordan, which has more Circassians today than Sochi does. Perhaps 1.5 million people were relocated from various parts of the Caucasus when Russia conquered their territories. In Turkey, Jordan, and other former Ottoman lands, some members of the Circassian diaspora have protested Sochi as an Olympic venue, as I've noted previously. But Sochi has also led to a revived consciousness of Circassian identity elsewhere, as in this article on Circassians in Turkey.

Now, no one really expects the Russians to promote the Sochi Games as "The Sesquicentennial of Circassian Ethnic Cleansing." But I also will be surprised if today's opening ceremonies even show any hint of those who were pushed out 150 years ago. Some in the Circassian diaspora have even claimed that the Olympic site is built over the site of a mass grave from the Russo-Circassian War, but I do not know if that is the case. What you're unlikely to see at the opening is a lot of Circassians.

P.N. Grunitzky, The Mountaineers Leave the Aul*

The Adyghe can be traced back as a continuous culture more or less to the Neolithic, but after a 100 Years War from the 1760s to the 1860s, those left alive were transferred by the victorious Tsarist Russian regime to the Ottoman Empire, which had at least a tenuous theoretical sovereignty over the region. (Though as Russia has learned in nearby Chechnya and Dagestan, mountaineers in the Caucasus are hard to control effectively.) (* Picture note: An aul was a fortified village.)

There is still an Adyghia Republic within the Russian Federation, but it does not include Sochi. There are still many Circassians in Russia, but not on the Black Sea Coast where Sochi stands. The size of the diaspora is hard to estimate, due to intermarriage and the fact that the Arabic and Turkish words Tcherkess, variously spelled, is sometimes used to refer to Chechens and other Caucasians speaking unrelated languages.

Unsurprisingly, the biggest population is in Turkey, the nearest part of the Ottoman realm to Old Circassia; in the Arab Levant, Jordan has the biggest population by far, but there are significant populations in Lebanon, Israel, Syria, and to a lesser extent Iraq, the Arabian Peninsula, and even Egypt. One still meets the occasional red-haired and blue-eyed Turk or Arab who is stereotypically Circassian, but most aren't that distinguishable from their neighbors. But they remember their past.

This CBC article looks at the way indigenous culture was handled t the 2010 Vancouver games and quotes:

Canadian scholar John Colarusso argues that Russia should take a similar approach to the Vancouver Olympics in its opening ceremony – prominently embracing and showcasing indigenous culture.

The 2010 Vancouver Games marked the first time in the Olympics history that indigenous people were recognized as official partners. Four First Nations bands also played prominent roles in the opening ceremony.

Well, yes, but British Columbia's history of treatment of its indigenous people, whom it now calls First Nations, is very different from that of Russia in the Caucasus, or for that matter a certain neighbor of Canada's to the south. (Hint: where did Sitting Bull go after the Custer battle? Canada, of course, which took him in.). It would be wonderful if Sochi emulated Vancouver. And if Vladimir Putin rode at the head of the opening parade on a unicorn. I don't expect we'll see either.

Next fantasy? We can, however, remember that Sochi was built on land which until just 150 years ago (again let me emphasize the 150th anniversary is THIS YEAR, which particularly offends Circassians).

Old Circassia around 1740: (this and all other pictures in this post are from Wikimedia Commons.)

Déjà vu All Over Again: Is it 1955-1956 Yet?

I'm about to disappear for the MEI Annual Conference
through tomorrow, but may have a post or two to occupy you if I can. But first, I wanted to comment on the visit today of a senior Russian delegation to Egypt (the Foreign and Defense Ministers) to discuss new aid. The move is seen as a direct response to the growing coolness between the US and Egypt and the recent suspension of parts of the US aid package.

Déjà vu, anyone? In 1955, after an Israeli raid on Egyptian-occupied Gaza, Gamal Abdel Nasser asked the West to sell him arms and was offered conditions he couldn't accept. He turned to Czechoslovakia instead. In retaliation for this and other tilts towards the East Bloc (recognizing mainland China, attending the Bandung Conference), first Britain and then the US withdrew their previously offered aid for the building of the Aswan High Dam. In 1956, the Soviet Union stepped in and offered aid for the dam. Then Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal . . .

Nasser & Khrushchev Divert the Nile Waters

It's not quite the same; the Cold War is over and the zero-sum bipolar perceptions of those days have been replaced by a multipolar world. But then, given all the Sisi-is-the-new-Nasser hype, there are some parallels.

Middle East Circassians and the Sochi Olympics

This article, by a member of Jordan's Circassian community, discusses the international Circassian diaspora's attitude toward the Winter Olympics in Sochi, once the heart of the Adyghe or Circassian people's homeland.

Between 1860 and 1864, at the end of the Russian conquest of Circassia, there occurred one of the first great ethnic cleansings of the 19th century, one now largely forgotten except by the descendants of the victims. Hundreds of thousands died, and more were deported by Tsarist Russia to the Ottoman Empire, where they formed, and still form, distinct ethnic communities. Turkey, Syria, Lebanon,Jordan, Israel, Iraq and Egypt all have Circassian populations, perhaps most visible in Jordan where the overall population is small and they are a sizable minority. (Some of the "Circassian" communities of the Middle East include other peoples expelled from the Caucasus (particularly Chechens), but I'm speaking here of true Circassians, the Adyghe people.

The article linked to above (despite sometimes spelling Caucasus as "Caucuses," presumably due to a spell-checker) notes how the choice of Sochi for the Olympics has awakened a national solidarity among the Circassian diaspora, one not seen before.

A Syrian Deal in the Making?

The US Administration has been rather quick to seize upon a possible exit from the dilemma it faces in Syria, where the prospect of winning support from Congress is rapidly receding and there seemed to be few favorable outcomes, the idea that Syria might give up its chemical arsenal in exchange for no US strike seems suddenly to be a realistic exit strategy that could avoid conflict. And if this proves to be a workable deal (far from certain), Vladimir Putin will deserve credit for helping throw the US a lifeline. And in the short term at least, the Senate vote has been postponed, and thus the ticking clock has been reset. At a moment when Syria and the US were eyeball to eyeball (to quote the late Dean Rusk), the Russians may be able to broker a deal which removes the chemicals from the table with neither side visibly blinking. The turnaround in rhetoric from just a day ago is striking.

But it is also worth remembering that, as I noted earlier today in a post, former Israeli Military Intelligence Chief Amos Yadlin proposed a similar solution over a week ago.

A Footnote to Today's Talk of a Possible Syrian Deal

As President Obama's efforts to persuade Congress to authorize a Syrian strike face increasing resistance, there has been a flurry of interest today in a possible deal involving Russia persuading Syria to give up its chemical weapons and transfer them to international control in exchange for avoiding an American strike. Secretary Kerry seems to have floated the idea, perhaps inadvertently, but Presidents Putin and Asad have pursued the idea.

Whether this proves to be a solution to an increasingly uncertain deadlock or a false start, a trial balloon that is quickly shot down, one thing that I haven't seen noted by most of the talking heads is that retired Israeli Gen. Amos Yadlin, former head of Military Intelligence, suggested a deal along these precise lines more than a week ago.

As The Times of Israel reported on August 31:

Were Putin to offer to take Assad’s chemical weapons out of Syria, said Yadlin in an Israeli Channel 2 news interview, “that would be an offer that could stop the attack.” It would be a “genuine achievement” for President Barack Obama to have ensured the clearing out of Assad’s capacity, and that would justify holding fire, said Yadlin. For Putin, such a deal would also keep the US from acting militarily in a state with which Russia is closely allied.

I have no idea if Yadlin's remarks had any influence on the apparent trial balloon today, but if this actually brings results, perhaps Yadlin's remarks should be noted.

The Boston Bombers: Preliminary Thoughts

This has been a wild week, here and elsewhere. Besides the events in Boston, there were ricin-laced letters in Washington, the plant explosion in Texas, and so on. The ricin seems to have been a homegrown US radical, but now that we've learned the identity of the Boston bombers, the talking heads are having a field day talking about their Chechen backgrounds.

There's obviously a lot still to be learned. I think we should learn a bit from the misreporting we've seen already this week. The New York Post printed a photo of alleged "suspects" who were nothing of the sort, and there have been other rushes to judgment, false reports of an arrest, etc.

It may well prove that this act of terror in Boston was indeed a blowback of some sort from the Chechen conflict, and the perpetrators were radicalized by that. But I would also urge caution until we understand their motives better: apparently it's not clear that either of these men ever set foot in Chechnya. Before coming to the US, they live in Kyrgyzstan and Dagestan. The older brother, who traveled to Russia last year, might have gone to Chechnya, but the links to that conflict are still pretty shaky and unclear.

Juan Cole has an intriguing, if also unproven and perhaps premature suggestion: That the father and family were supportive of the Russian crackdown in Chechnya, even perhaps with security, and that this could be a sign of sons' rebelliousness against a father (and yes, he mentions Turgenev). It might explain some of the lingering questions. But my own instinct is still, let's wait and see before we "explain" the bombers' motives.

And, as is often the case, The Onion may have the best observation: "Study: Majority of Americans Not Informed Enough to Stereotype Chechens."

October 31, 1914: Turkey Joins the Central Powers

 On October 29, 1914, the Turkish warships Yavuz Sultan Selim and Medilli, which until a short time before had been the German battle cruiser Goeben and light cruiser Breslau, attacked Sevastopol, Odessa.  and other Russian Black Sea ports. The Ottoman Empire had been neutral; but then the Goeben and Breslau, fleeing  British vessels in the Mediterranean, sailed into Constantinople and it was announced that Germany had transferred them to Turkey. The German crews put on Fezzes and became part of the Ottoman fleet.

The October 29 raid on Sevastopol was carried out without approval of the Ottoman Cabinet, though likely with the knowledge of the War Minister, Enver Pasha. On October 31 Enver ordered men to report for conscription and formally joined the Central Powers; on November 2, Russia declared war, and the British followed three days later.

I previously ran this clip on the Goeben/Yavuz:

And I also ran across this photo from November 11, 1914, showing the Ottoman Sheikhulislam (the chief religious figure) announcing the war and proclaiming a Jihad. The British worried that this might lead to a rising of Muslims in India, but it never did; the Sultan's claim to be Caliph of Islam was not widely acknowledged outside the Ottoman territories themselves.
The Ottoman decision to go to waron the side of the Central Powers was, of course, fatal to the Empire.

40 Years On: Sadat Expels the Russian Advisers

I'm two days late with this, but July 18 marked the 40th anniversary of Anwar Sadat's expulsion of Soviet advisers from Egypt in July of 1972.  In my musings last month on my own 40th anniversary of arriving in the Middle East for the first time, I noted that Soviet and East Bloc advisers were still very much on evidence when I got there. They remained so up to the 1973 war, but the expulsion of the military "advisers" (many of were actually flying aircraft, manning SAM sites, etc., though that was not acknowledged) in the summer of 1972, was memorable, however. I was living in an apartment along the Nile, and as we looked out from our balcony one day after we'd been there a month or so, we watched waves of big Antonov transports flying eastward over the city. In retrospect they were probably flying our of Cairo West and other bases to the west of the city, heading back to the USSR. At the time we feared it was a major buildup moving troops to the Suez Canal. Either later that day or the next day, all was explained when it was announced that the Soviet advisers (some 20,000 of them) had been kicked out.

A documentary on that era:

Mark Katz in The Moscow Times: "Your Syria is My Bahrain"

Mark Katz of George Mason University is one of the best known specialists in this country on Russian-Middle East relations. At this timely moment in Russian-US discussions on Syria, he happens to be visiting Moscow, and he has a very timely piece in The Moscow Times: "Your Syria is My Bahrain." While the title clearly underscores his main point, it's worth a read.

BBC on Russia and the Port of Tartus

The BBC has a timely assessment of Russia's use of the Syrian port of Tartus, often cited as a major reason for Russia's willingness to support the Asad regime to the last ditch. There is a tendency sometimes to overinflate the importance of access to naval facilities in assessing political calculations, and in the article Russian analysts downplay the importance of Tartus.

"Mideast UFO" Captivates Social Media; Turns Out to Be Russian Missile Test

I think it was Ronald Reagan who once reflected that one thing that would end our geopolitical rivalries would be an alien invasion. Any hopes that Middle East tensions would be relieved by the arrival of aliens has faded, however, now that it appears the great "Mideast UFO" last night was nothing but a Russian ICBM test.

I have several things I'm working on that will turn up on the blog in the coming days, but I can't think of a better way to segué into the weekend than a good UFO story. Or even a so-so UFO story.

Actually, I shouldn't be so flippant. Many people in Syria thought the regime was launching a chemical weapons attack, a reminder that even something relatively harmless (and distant) can nevertheless cause panic in a tense situation. This Storify collection on the phenomenon, put together by Andy Carvin and giving a good view of the Twitter evolution on the story, includes tweets like these:

Now to the actual sighting. Let's start with this:


Some may recall a similar "spiral UFO" from Norway in 2009 that turned out to be a failed Russian missile test. So, apparently, is this one, though Russia claims the test hit its target in Kazakhstan, and space expert James Oberg explains here that the spiral is created by a roll aimed at dumping fuel before impact, so the test may have been successful. Although supposedly the missile impacted in Kazakhstan, it was apparently high enough above the horizon to appear nearly overhead in Turkey, Armenia, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel, among others.

You can find reportage and more videos at The Huffington Post, Zeinobia's Egyptian Chronicles blog, Zeinobia also tweeted a particularly Egyptian angle to the UFO:

So it appears this dramatic phenomenon was another Russian missile test, but it clearly caused a ruckus in the Middle East, especially in Syria, where rumors of a chemical weapons attack alarmed a great many people. But the aliens were just Russians this time.

Syria: Trapped in the Web of Geopolitics

The Russian and Chinese vetoes of the Security Council Resolution on Syria and the closing of the US Embassy in Damascus are further reminders that, more than any other "Arab Spring" case, Syria's agony is caught up in the complex geopolitics of the region. Like the Lebanese civil war a generation ago, the Syrian conflict is exacerbated, and perhaps fueled and funded on both sides, by regional players. With growing signs that the new Egypt will be estranged from, if it does not entirely abandon, its traditional strategic alignment with the US (and less overtly, Israel), some no doubt see Syria as a way to rectify the balance; lose one from "our" camp, win one from "theirs." That's bipolar, Cold War kind of thinking, but it's true that Syria's role as Iran's one Arab ally, and as the bridge through which Iran supplies Hizbullah in Lebanon, means the outcome of the struggle has implications far beyond the boundaries of Syria. As was the case in Lebanon during the war years, that is not good news for the ordinary people on either side of the struggle, since it tends to prolong the conflict. Unlike Libya, where Qadhafi had few friend left near the end (well, okay, Burkina Faso, but they're no match for NATO), Iran and arguably Russia have an investment to protect in Syria, while the West sees a chance to alter the balance.

I am not an advocate of Western intervention in Syria, not from any lack of horror at the humanitarian toll if the conflict continues, but due to the lack of practicality as well as the danger of escalation. In Libya, where most of the population and economic resources were on the Mediterranean, with NATO airbases in Sicily, southern Italy and Cyprus and French and Italian aircraft carriers in the Med, the logistics were easy. In Syria,where the major cities are inland, one would have to operate from eastern Turkey or enter from the sea via the Latakia corridor, or else overfly Lebanese airspace.  Logistically it would be a problem, and while Turkey is actively working against the Asad regime, use of Turkish bases would further complicate the geopolitical tangle.

For all the Western outrage about the vetoes, Russia and China are no doubt acting in what they perceive  to be their own interests, or those of their client. (Bear in mind that the overwhelming majority of US vetoes in the Security Council have been on resolutions involving Israel.)

The Syrian tragedy will go on, UN resolution or no, until something changes either the balance on the ground (where there are signs of gradual strengthening of the rebels) or a transformation of the geopolitical mosaic. An Israeli attack on Iran could make the Syrian civil war (or whatever you choose to call it) part of a much larger regional struggle, in which anything could happen.

Oddities of International Wheeling and Dealing: Sheikh Khalifa and Two Russian Bosses

Via a reader who follows the intricacies of international finance, an odd report of how Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayid, President of the UAE and Ruler of Abu Dhabi, was apparently involved as a middleman between the famous/or notorious Russian businessman Boris Berezovsky and another Russian wheeler-dealer.

Make of it what you will. I wouldn't have ever seen this without my readers (it's on the NASDAQ site), so I assume some of you won't have either.

Bibi's Mystery Tour

UPDATED: It sounds like they've figured out who's going to take the fall for the whole affair.

For the past few days a controversy has been building in Israel over a mysterious trip Prime Minister Netanyahu appears to have made on Monday, when he disappeared for more than 12 hours (some accounts say 14) with his military advisor and National Security Advisor apparently being the only ones to know where he was.

By most accounts he was in Moscow. After a few stray reports that he had gone to some Arab country to talk about Iran, the story coalesced around a secret, and short, trip to Moscow. Now the secrecy imposed by the PM's office, and the fact that even the senior Cabinet apparently didn't know where he was, is still raising hackles with the media. Here's a Haaretz report, and a Los Angeles Times blog post.

Although Vladimir Putin's office sort of issued a denial that he had seen Netanyahu, a "senior Kremlin official" supposedly confirmed the trip, saying that "this kind of development could only be related to new and threatening information on Iran's nuclear program."

Other speculation has been that it involved an Israeli warning of a possible attack on Iran, or was linked to Iran's acquisition of Russian S-300 surface-to-air missiles (which would be a real deterrent to an attack on nuclear sites), or even to the recent curious incident of the "hijacked" cargo ship Arctic Sea, which remains shrouded in mystery but which has provoked rumors that it was carrying S-300s or other sensitive equipment to Iran or another rogue state.

Whatever the reason for the mysterious trip, Israel and the Russians have both seen their efforts at secrecy blown out of the water, as the whole thing has turned into a controversy in Israel and reinforced a perception that Netanyahu's Prime Ministerial office is divided and disorganized.

Unless, of course, he made a secret trip somewhere other than Russia. If that's the case the diversion is working cleverly.