This text is from the book Patterns of the Past Prospects for the Future Edited by Thomas Hummel, Kevork Hintlian and Ulf Carmesund

On the eve of the Great War in 1914, the Arab provinces of the empire (including notably Palestine) while still nominal Ottoman rule, stood de facto under the joint suzerainty of the Porte and the European powers, a result of the interplay between the financial tutelage and the combination of the millet policy and the Capitulations as they had evolved. There was indeed a struggle between the Young Turks, who were attempting to get rid of the Capitulations altogether ( and who finally opted for war on Germany’s side in part because France and Britain would not hear of revoking them) and some Arabs of greater Syria, who wanted to use their millet status and the Capitulations to further their autonomy. France and Britain, to name only those two powers, had specific ambitions with respect to the region, before the outbreak of war. In 1912, France was recognized  (by Britain, not by Italy or Russia) as the prime protector of greater Syria (including Palestine and Lebanon), but with great reservations, as was later to become manifest with the Balfour declaration.

Findley has made a significant conceptual breakthrough with his characterization of the late Ottoman empire as ‘doubly imperial, that is to say, subject to the historical laws as they affect empire ( a political entity composed of many sub-entities). It was doubly imperial…

On the one hand, it remained a formally independent, multinational empire. On the other hand, it lost territory to separatist nationalisms and to great-power imperialism, and it slipped into economic and political dependence. We have here been dealing with a particular aspect of that doubly imperial quality, or rather one of the various ways through which it can be grasped historically. We have attempted to show unexpected results relating to this doubly imperial quality, were obtained through the particular effects of historical processes.

The interaction between sectarian policy and international politics in the late Ottoman period demonstrates the unexpected effects of particular causes, as well as the interaction of diverse policy elements in producing unanticipated results. The Capitulations were initially agreed upon under conditions where the Ottoman empire was dealing with its European partners from a position of strength; in later centuries, as the empire declined, the treaties remained and the Europeans did everything they could to interpret them in the sense of increasing their influence upon and control over various areas (port cities for example) and communities (Greeks, Jews, Armenians) in the empire, and thus over its policies as a whole