Review James Barr, A Line In The Sand, The Anglo-French Struggle For The Middle East, 1914-1948, W.W. Norton & Company, 2012

 

Barr, James, A Line In The Sand, The Anglo-French Struggle For The Middle East, 1914-1948, W.W. Norton & Company, 2012

 

In A Line In The Sand, The Anglo-French Struggle For The Middle East, 1914-1948 James Barr delves into the imperialist rivalry between England and France for control of the Middle East starting during World War I. When the war started the two powers wanted to carve up the Ottoman Empire with Paris having eyes on Syria and Lebanon and London on Iraq, Jordan and Palestine. Initially they agreed upon this division but then came into conflict. Barr presents a very interesting history of power politics, intrigue and terrorism that left neither nation happy.

 

The 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement that divided up the Ottoman Empire between England and France is presented as the original sin by the book. Sir Mark Sykes wanted good relations with Paris after World War I and came up with the idea to give Syria and Lebanon to the French and everything below it to the British after World War I. Paris claimed the Levant was theirs based upon the Crusades and Lebanon’s Christian population while London was in the process of conquering Palestine, Jordan, and Iraq during the war. Mesopotamia also had the promise of oil which the English navy was in the process of converting to for its main fuel. This agreement quickly broke down and led to decades of disputes between the two powers.

 

Barr goes through all these arguments that continued even after the Europeans seemingly got what they wanted. The biggest one the author found was French suspicions that the British wanted Syria. After World War I the English actually conspired to form a Greater Syria that would include all the neighboring countries as a way to win Arab support in the hopes that they would accept a Jewish state in Palestine and expel the French. London encouraged Jordan’s King Abdullah to push for this idea and supported Syrian politicians and Arab and Druze insurgents against the French in pursuit of this policy that failed to materialize because of differences between the Arabs.

 

Zionism became a pawn between the two powers as well. At first, the British believed that supporting a Jewish state in Palestine would further their influence in the Middle East and deny the area to the French. That’s what led to the 1917 Balfour Declaration that supported Zionism. That changed during World War II as London prioritized Arab support as the Middle East was a major battlefield with the Axis. The French then stepped in believing that supporting Zionists was a way to undermine the British even though they were allies during the war. The French provided safe haven to the Stern Gang and Irgun in Syria, Lebanon and Paris, and even gave them financial support when they launched a terrorist campaign against the British in Europe. While there were British and French officials who really believed in Zionism Barr makes the argument that the ultimate reason why the idea was supported was the competition between the two countries.

 

Iraq is mentioned in the first half of the book and then largely disappears in the second. Barr talks about how England conquered Mesopotamia during World War I and got it as a League of Nations Mandate afterwards. It coveted the oil in the northern section of the country but ran it badly leading to the 1920 Revolt and the eventual appointment of Faisal as king which set the path for Iraqi independence. The author goes through all the machinations that led to him becoming the monarch which included fixing a referendum and exiling his two biggest rivals.

 

An interesting point that A Line In The Sand makes is that the Turkish Petroleum Company that controlled Iraq’s oil wasn’t really interested in developing it. The business was jointly owned by British, Dutch, American and French interests. While Paris wanted to boost production and build a pipeline through its Syrian mandate the other three owners were opposed because it would undermine Persian oil exports and lower international prices. The French ended up losing the argument. This policy lasted for years and was a major point of contention for the Iraqis as oil had become the major source of revenue for the government.

 

Barr wrote a very intriguing book. Paris and London were allies during two wars yet constantly worked against each other behind the scenes. The British wanted the French out of Syria and in revenge the French supported Zionists who were attacking the British in Palestine. It’s a classic story of imperialist ambitions and rivalry. Ironically both powers lost their assets in the Middle East and an unstable region was created. The Arab-Israeli conflict continues to this day and Syria had one coup after another after it was declared independent in 1946. A Line In The Sand is an excellent source on the covert war between the British and French that helped lead to the modern Middle East.

 

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