For me, the fall of the Ottoman Empire spelled the end of the Old World, and the advent of modernism. The territories of the "sick man in Europe" included: Syria, Iraq, Palestine, and Jordan; North Africa and the Balkans. Most famously, the millet system the Empire employed, saw modern day Israel under the control of another heathen nation. In 1917, the Balfour Declaration was publicly issued by the British government. [For more on this, read my article, "The Creation of the State of Israel"]. In 1921, Iran saw the coup of Reza Khan successful and the old Qajar Dynasty ousted. Both these events had British-influence permeating the history. I thought of the Bible's Cyrus and God influencing him to release the Jews to their homeland. I thought of Iraq (another millet of the Ottoman's) and the Tower of Babel and the Babylonian Captivity. At the end of 1922, all that, and more, was gone. The end of World War I saw "The Eternal State" partitioned by ...