Abstract
The Great War of 1914-1918 saw the internment of hundreds of thousands of prisoners of war, captured and maintained by the hand of their enemy. Allegations and accounts of ill-treatment under the enemy’s care abounded during and after the war. Leading up to the Peace Conference of 1919, negotiators chose to account for the suffering of these prisoners in their demands for indemnities and reparations. This paper assesses how the British Parliament and press used stories about the suffering of British and Indian prisoners of war in Ottoman internment camps as a means to delegitimize Ottoman rule and legitimize British occupation of the Post-Ottoman State. This paper suggests that Britain used this interpretation of prisoners’ pain as a means to secure dominion over the economy and resources of the Post-Ottoman state.
Recommended Citation
Emerson, Jamie M.. "Organized Savagery: Legitimization of British Occupation in the Post-Ottoman State." The Purdue Historian 10, 1 (2022). https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/puhistorian/vol10/iss1/2
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