Orient Express: Middle East History Podcast

Vilém Strejček
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First history podcast about the Middle Eastern region, its politics, wars and society of the 20th and 21 century.

  1. 11/21/2022

    First World War: A Kurdish revolt on the Turkish-Persian Frontier (part 2)

    This episode continues with the story of Isma´il Aqa – a Kurdish chieftan known as Simko who set himself up as an independent local ruler in the borderlands of Persia, cooperating with a number of leading Kurdish nationalists and challenging the central government. Even after his ‘rebellion’ was crushed by the modernized Persian army in August 1922 and he had fled from Persian soil, he remained an influential actor in central Kurdistan, and both Turkey and Britain attempted to use him in their interests in the conflict over the status of the Mosul province during the interwar period.

    19 min

  2. 11/13/2022

    First World War: A Kurdish revolt on the Turkish-Persian Frontier (part 1)

    This episode aims to discuss a Kurdish rebellion of Isma´il Aqa – a Kurdish chieftan known as Simko who became a prominent figure during the First World War and the subsequent interwar period in the Middle East theatre. The first part is aiming to provide the listeners with the overall description of the Kurdish clan society and its customs and habits that stood behind the subsequent successful career of the Kurdish chieftain Simko. This episode will dive deeper into the structure of the Kurdish society, its decision-making processes, political role within Persia and the Ottoman empire and also the starting years of Simko´s rebellion.

    22 min

  3. 10/09/2022

    First World War: Indian Expeditionary Force in the Middle East

    This episode discuss the Indian contribution to the British war effort in the Middle East during the First World War. In this matter, the British Egyptian Expeditionary Force went through a dynamic process of Indianization through which Great Britain supplement domestic British soldiers in the Middle East with Indian expeditionary forces due to the need to continually refill its military personnel on the Western Front. As such, the Indian expeditionary force was designed to operate as the strategic imperial reserve of the British army and thanks to this role, Great Britain was able to attain its presence in various theatres of war during the First World War. Within this topic, we shall look upon the historical development of the Indian army under the British rule and its engagement and specific role in the Middle Eastern battlefields of Egypt and Palestine.

    23 min

  4. 10/02/2022

    First World War: Mesopotamian Campaign

    This episode focus on the British campaign in Mesopotamia in which the British Empire suffered one of the worst military defeats when its 6th division surrendered at Kut Al-Amara in 1916. The episode provides political-military background that describes the motives and reasons for opening up the Mesopotamian front as well as the description of which administrative bodies stood behind the Mesopotamian campaign. It also dwells into the overall campaign progress that started with the British success and capture of Basra, continued with the British failure and defeat at Kut Al-Amara until it finally ended with the British victory and capture of Baghdad and Mosul in 1918.

    34 min

  5. 09/25/2022

    First World War: Ottoman´s Secret Service Activities in Iran

    This episode aims to discuss the wartime activities of the Ottoman´s Secrete Service (Teskilat-i Mahsusa) in Iran. We shall look upon the domestic political situation in Iran and its willingness to work with the Ottoman´s Secret Service that aimed to win the support of the local population and politicians and turned them against the British and Russian interests in the region in accordance with the Enver Pasha´s dream to create a pan-Turanian alliance against the Entente powers in the Middle East and with his vision to secure eastern territory for the Ottoman Empire as an compensation for the loss of European territory before the First World War.

    32 min

  6. 09/18/2022

    First World War: The Domestic Situation in the Ottoman Empire

    In the last episode, we were focusing on the political process within the Ottoman Empire and in today´s episode, we are going to dwell deeper into the social and economic background of the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. We shall discuss the major economic shortcomings and problems that people had to encounter during the wartime as well as demographic and societal impacts of the First World War upon the population of the empire.

    20 min

  7. 09/11/2022

    First World War: The Young Turk Government

    In today´s episode, we are going to focus on the political development in the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. This episode provides the overall description of power dynamics within the empire, especially in connection to the so-called “Three Pashas triumvirate” that stood as the leading element in the political and military decision-making in the times of the Great War.

    22 min

  8. 09/04/2022

    First World War: German Expeditionary Force in the Middle East

    This episode builds upon the already discussed political motives of Germany´s engagement in the Middle East. We are going to talk about the so-called Asien-korps – the First World War relative of the more famously known Afrikakorps and its concrete military involvement in the Middle Eastern war theatres such as Palestine or Caucasus. In this matter, the experience of the German expeditionary force is supplemented with concrete memoirs of its participants that managed to return to Germany after the end of the First World War.

    21 min
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First history podcast about the Middle Eastern region, its politics, wars and society of the 20th and 21 century.

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