A Line in the Sand: The Anglo-French Struggle for the Middle East, 1914-1948

by James Barr

Overview

“A provocative history . . . helps us to understand why the Arab spring is so important and valuable.”—David Ignatius, National Interest

In the twentieth century, while fighting a common enemy in Europe, Britain and France were locked in a clandestine struggle for power in the Middle East. From the first agreement to divide the region between them to the birth of Israel, A Line in the Sand is a gripping narrative of the last gasp of imperialism, with tales of unscrupulous double-dealing, cynical manipulation, and all-too-frequent violence that continues to the present day.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393082968
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	03/11/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	480
Sales rank:	1,032,106
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

James Barr is the author of Setting the Desert on Fire. During the research for A Line in the Sand he was a Visiting Fellow at St Antony’s College, Oxford. He lives in London.

Table of Contents

Prologue ix

Part 1 The Carve-Up 1915-1919

1 Very Practical Politics 3

2 Monsieur Picot 15

3 Enter T. E. Lawrence 31

4 Allenby's Man 41

5 I Want Mosul 56

6 Deadlock 71

Part 2 Interwar Tensions 1920-1939

7 The Crusader 87

8 Revolt in Iraq 96

9 The Best and Cheapest Solution 108

10 The Druze Revolt 118

11 The Crushing of the Druzes 131

12 The Pipeline 143

13 Revenge! Revenge! 154

14 Fighting Terror with Terror 166

15 Placating the Arabs 181

Part 3 The Secret War 1940-1945

16 A King in Exile 191

17 A Squalid Episode 202

18 Completely Intransigent, Extremely Rude 212

19 Envoy Extraordinary 222

20 Dirty Work 232

21 Another Fashoda 244

22 Friends in Need 253

23 Trop de Zèle 262

24 The Murder of Lord Moyne 272

Part 4 Exit 1945-1949

25 Time to Call the Shots 283

26 Got to Think Again 298

27 The American League for a Free Palestine 311

28 French and Zionist Intrigues 320

29 Last Post 333

Epilogue: A Settling of Scores 351

Notes 361

Bibliography 405

Permissions 423

Acknowledgments 425

Index 427

Editorial Reviews

Toward the end of WWI, as the Ottoman Empire’s collapse seemed imminent, French and British imperial designs turned to the Mideast. The two war allies arrived at a simple solution: the 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement (later supported by the League of Nations), which gave France control of Lebanon and Syria, while the British received Palestine and Transjordan. Between them, the two divided much of Mesopotamia. But during the next three decades, things got more complex. The British endorsed Zionist ambitions in Palestine with the Balfour Declaration; oil was discovered in southern Iraq; and Arab nationalism led to revolts against both France and Britain during the 1920s and ’30s. British historian Barr (Setting the Desert on Fire) shows how the French and British tried to extend their influence, and undermine each other, in part by ingratiating themselves with various Arab and Jewish leaders and factions. Near the end of WWII, Britain’s Lord Moyne favored a “greater Syria” that would comprise Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan, and Palestine. Conversely, after the war ended, members of the French government facilitated arms shipments to factions of the anti-British Zionist revolt. Barr’s extensive archival research, evocative historical vignettes, and a superb sense of narrative pacing produce a first-rate work. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

"Lively and entertaining. . . . [Barr] has thrown some light on hitherto unexplored corners."

Financial Times

"An outstanding, revealing, and disturbing glimpse behind the closed doors of power politics."

Booklist

"Combines the narrative pace of a spy novel with meticulous archival research."

Eugene Rogan

A British historian methodically traces the pernicious ramifications of the French-British rivalry in Syria and Lebanon after World War I. Barr (Setting the Desert on Fire: T. E. Lawrence and Britain's Secret War in Arabia, 1916-1918, 2008) carefully places the fragments of the Middle East puzzle together after the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, from the divisive, arbitrary British-French Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916 to the Zionists' use of terrorism to oust the British and establish the state of Israel in 1948. Reluctant allies against the Germans, the British and French had to divide the Ottoman spoils, and the agreement essentially "drew a line in the sand" from Acre to Kirkuk, the north falling under French protection and the south to the British. Both sides ignored the incipient rise of Arab nationalism, except when Sharif Hussein's revolt of June 1916 promised the British a way of undermining French influence in the region, with T.E. Lawrence being a convenient tool of organizing the Arabs. Meanwhile, the British were quietly promising the Zionists a homeland in Palestine as a way of courting the Americans. Britain's need for oil prompted a tidy exchange with the French: oil-rich Mosul and Jerusalem for the recovery of Alsace-Lorraine. Self-determination vaguely promised to the Arabs by the victorious powers at the close of WWI would only arrive after revolt against both British and French rulers, all while the Jewish emigration aroused the ire of the Palestinian Arabs. Barr sure-footedly wades through this political morass, noting some startling developments, such as Charles de Gaulle and the Free French's brazen tenacity in holding on to Syria and Lebanon, and French assistance in arming the Zionist terrorists against the British. A carefully constructed chronicle of a shameful imperialist carve-up.

Kirkus Reviews