• MintyFresh@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    1 day ago

    I always thought the British got a slightly worse rap than they deserved there. When the Ottoman empire collapsed, things were chaotic to say the least. Rising nationalism in an area where ethnicities are all over the place. A pocket here, a few villages there. Political systems that had been in place for a thousand years disintegrating. Large groups of nomads who are notoriously difficult to fit into ordered nation states.

    Huge demographic shifts underway. People tend to overlook just how much more crowded the world is now than it was in 1920. What worked in 1890 was a nonstarter in 1990.

    I don’t think any line on that map would have substantially changed things one way or another.