History of the Mediterranean

The area the Mediterranean is not one of most important for the Histoire of the world and constitutes the starting point of the Western civilization. In turn “Roman lake” , then “Moslem lake” , its domination was a central stake with the geostrategic perception of the capacities bordering it, until this sea was supplanted by the oceans revealed by the Grandes discoveries .

Antiquity: expansion of civilizations

Two among the first known civilizations were born in this area. The valley of the the Nile was unified under the reign of the Pharaon S during the fourth millenium before Jesus-Christ. A little later another civilization appeared in Mésopotamie and quickly extended in the fertile Croissant to the east coast from the Mediterranean through the Raising. These areas in common had the climate and the geography, but it was much more difficult to extend know-how and the cultures to other areas of the Mediterranean basin.

About the same time, of large Empire S settled in minor Asia, the such Hittites. Their expansion was however delayed until enough robust ships to cross the seas are built. Cyprus and the other islands developed, and the Minoan Civilization thrived in the island of Crete. While the ages of the rivers always were populated, they are the commercial companies of the coastal regions which became most prosperous and dominated them.

Empires

Greece, Phénicie, Macedonia

Two more important among these last were the States cities of the Greece and the Phéniciens. The Greeks pushed their expansion in north until the Black Sea and in the south until the Red Sea. Phéniciens extended towards the Western Mediterranean, in North Africa and Spain. The Phénicie was still dominated by powers based more in the East in Mésopotamie or in Perse and Phéniciens often provided the naval forces of the Persian empire. The prosperity of the Greeks remained a long time related to the sea; in North, the Macedonians, forts of a long tradition of war of cavalry, had forged the superiority of the Greeks in the area of the technology and the organization. Under the reign of Alexandre Large the, this force turned to the East, and by a series of three decisive battles, put in rout the Persian armies and conquered their empire. Phénicie and Egypt were annexed. For the first time in the history, all the great centers of the Mediterranean were joined together under the same capacity. The empire of Alexandre disintegrated quickly and the the Middle East, Egypt and Greece were again independent. The conquests of Alexandre nevertheless spread in all the area the know-how and the ideas of the Greeks.

Carthage and Rome

These power Eastern were exceeded soon by those appeared more in the west. In North Africa, old the colony phenician of Carthage constituted an empire which gathered the majority of the counters phenicians of the area. However, it is a city of the Italian peninsula, Rome, which will end up dominating the totality of the Mediterranean basin.

After having annexed all Italy, Rome overcame Carthage at the time of the Punic Wars, becoming the dominant power of the area. Rome continued its expansion by annexing the Greece, and the Greek heritage played a great part in the Roman empire. From this moment, the commercial companies of the coasts definitively dominated the ages of the interior valleys which had been the heart of the preceding powers. In Egypt, the center of the capacity moved cities of the Nile towards those of the coast, particularly towards Alexandria. Mésopotamie became an area border between the Roman empire and Persia. During several centuries, the Mediterranean was a “Roman lake” surrounded by all shares by the empire which called it Mare Nostrum , our sea. The Judaea, which belonged to this empire, gave rise to a news Religion, the Christianisme, which was spread in all the empire and ends up becoming the official religion about it. Then empire émietta before collapsing during the 5th century. For a time, the West was still dominating with the Byzantine Empire formed by the oriental party of the Roman empire. The Western part of this last, the Gaulle, the Iberian peninsula and the Numidie were invaded by hordes with horse of nomads invaders come from the Steppe S Eurasia. These conquerors who settled quickly, adopted many the local habits, formant many small warlike kingdoms.

L'" Orient": Byzance and Islam

the East is between quotation marks since the relative perception of the Occident for the close geographical area was forged. This cutting which does not have anything any more to see with the cardinal points persists today .

Another power was then born in the East, the Islam. In a phase of conquest rapids, this new belief which justified the combatants swept all Middle East. In Anatolia, its expansion was blocked by the still powerful Byzantines. In North Africa, the Byzantine governors and the indigenous kingdoms were not size to resist, and the area was swept by the Moslem conquerors, who reached the Atlantic and, crossing the sea with Gibraltar, occupied Spain before being stopped in the south of the France.

North Africa became a marginal zone compared to the Moslem centers of the Middle East, but in the west, Morocco and Spain experienced an autonomous development and gave rise to one of the most advanced companies time. On the sea and along the dimensions in operations the Barbaresques left.

See the article detailing the Mediterranean world in XIIe century.

The return of the Occident

Crusades and Rebirth

Europe however started to reappear, of more centralized and better organized States starting to take form at the end of the Moyen-âge. Animated by the religion and dreams of conquests, the kings of the countries of Europe launched several Croisades to try to take again the control of the holy Lieux occupied by the Moslems. The crusades were a failure, but they weakened the Byzantine empire which started to yield important territories to the Othoman Turks. They also caused to modify the reports/ratios of capacities in the Muslim world, Egypt reappearing as the center dominating of the Eastern Mediterranean.

Europe continued to increase its power with the Renaissance which started in the North of Italy. The Islamic States were never important naval powers, but on the other hand of excellent navigators and explorers, in particular in the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf, and the Red Sea, and the exchanges of the East with Europe were quickly controlled by the Italian tradesmen who drew some from immense profits.

See the article detailing the Spanish Africa

See the article detailing the Christian Occident.

The apogee of the Othomans

The Othoman power continued to grow bigger, and in 1453, the fall of Constantinople ended final at the Byzantine Empire. The Othoman dominated Greece and most of the Balkans, and quickly started to extend their capacity on North Africa except Morocco which was under the reign of the dynasty of the Saadiens. This one had developed thanks to the Trans-Saharan trade, but the Portuguese, which had undertaken with the other Christian powers of évincer the Moslems of the Iberian peninsula, had found the means of circumventing this traffic by trading directly with the Western Africa. That was made possible by a new type of ships, the caravel S. the reduction in the Trans-Saharan traffic weakens North Africa which was an easy prey for the Othomans.

The naval prowesses of the united European powers enabled them to stop the expansion of the Othomans in the area with the Bataille of Lépante where the Othoman fleet was crushed, leaving the seas to the free trade of the Italians and gradually of the Spaniards.

See the article detailing the geostrategic Situation of the Ottoman Empire.

Decline of the Mediterranean

The development of oceanic navigation started to affect all the Mediterranean region. Whereas until there all the exchanges with the East had forwarded by the Mediterranean, the Circumnavigation sailing round Africa allowed gold, spices, and the dyeings to arrive directly in the European ports of the Atlantique. America was also a source of significant development, whose certain Mediterranean States were completely cut. The base of the power in Europe rocked thus towards North and Italy, before does not thrive, was not any more but one outlying area dominated by the foreign powers. The Ottoman Empire also started to decline gradually, leaving its independent North-African possessions de facto and its territories in Europe to be reduced vis-a-vis the reappearing power Austria and Russia.

The Mediterranean today

From the 19th century, the States of the North of Europe had become definitely more powerful and started to colonize North Africa. France made the conquest of the Algérie starting from 1830. Great Britain took the control of the Egypt in 1882. The Ottoman Empire collapsed during the First World War and its possessions shared between France and Great Britain. But the Turkey quickly recovered its independence in the form of a new State.

See too

Euro-Mediterranean Partnership

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