A Line In The Sand: The Anglo-French Struggle For The Middle East 1914-1948

Description

It was the middle of World War I. Two men—one, a visionary British politician (Mark Sykes), the other, a veteran French diplomat (François Georges-Picot)—secretly agreed to divide the Middle East. Britain would have “mandates” in newly created Palestine, Transjordan, and Iraq; France in Lebanon and Syria. For the next thirty years, this divide would make uneasy neighbors of two great powers and irreparably shape the Middle East. James Barr combs recently declassified French and British government archives and unearths a shocking secret war and its powerful effect on the local Arabs and Jews. He follows politicians, diplomats, and spies through intrigue and espionage to show us T. E. Lawrence’s stealth guerrilla terror campaigns, and he journeys behind closed doors to discover why Britain courted the Zionist movement. Meticulously well researched and character-driven, A Line in the Sand crescendos with the violent birth of Israel, all along the way brimming with insight into a historically volatile region. Contents Prologue Part One: The Carve-Up, 1915-1919 1 Very Practical Politics 2 Monsieur Picot 3 Enter T. E. Lawrence 4 Allenby’s Man 5 I Want Mosul 6 Deadlock Part Two: Interwar Tensions, 1920-1939 7 The Crusader 8 Revolt in Iraq 9 The Best and Cheapest Solution 10 The Druze Revolt 11 The Crushing of the Druzes 12 The Pipeline 13 Revenge! Revenge! 14 Fighting Terror with Terror 15 Placating the Arabs Part Three: The Secret War, 1940-1945 16 A King in Exile 17 A Squalid Episode 18 Completely Intransigent, Extremely Rude 19 Envoy Extraordinary 20 Dirty Work 21 Another Fashoda 22 Friends in Need 23 Trop de Zèle 24 The Murder of Lord Moyne Part Four: Exit, 1945-1949 25 Time to Call the Shots 26 Got to Think Again 27 The American League for a Free Palestine 28 French and Zionist Intrigues 29 Last Post Epilogue: A Settling of Scores Notes Bibliography Permissions Acknowledgments Index