In 1916, in the middle of the First World War, two men secretly agreed to divide the Middle East between them. Sir Mark Sykes was a visionary politician; Francois Georges-Picot a diplomat with a grudge. The deal they struck, which was designed to relieve tensions that threatened to engulf the Entente Cordiale, drew a line in the sand from the Mediterranean to the Persian frontier. Territory north of that stark line would go to France; land south of it, to Britain. Against the odds their pact survived the war to form the basis for the post-war division of the region into five new countries Britain and France would rule. The creation of Britain's 'mandates' of Palestine, Transjordan and Iraq, and France's in Lebanon and Syria, made the two powers uneasy neighbours for the following thirty years. Through a stellar cast of politicians, diplomats, spies and soldiers, including T. E. Lawrence, Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle, A Line in the Sand vividly tells the story of the short but crucial era when Britain and France ruled the Middle East. It explains exactly how the old antagonism between these two powers inflamed the more familiar modern rivalry between the Arabs and the Jews, and ultimately led to war between the British and the French in 1941 and between the Arabs and the Jews in 1948. In 1946, after many years of intrigue and espionage, Britain finally succeeded in ousting France from Lebanon and Syria, and hoped that, having done so, it would be able to cling on to Palestine. Using newly declassified papers from the British and French archives, James Barr brings this overlooked clandestine struggle back to life, and reveals, for the first time, the stunning way in which the French finally got their revenge.
A Line in the Sand
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Review
'With superb research and telling quotations, Barr has skewered the whole shabby story' --The Times
'Lively and entertaining. He has scoured the diplomatic archives of the two powers and has come up with a rich haul that brings his narrative to life' --Financial Times
'James Barr's history of imperial machinations in the Middle East offers a revelatory slant on the continuing crisis in that area... an outstanding piece of research and a damning take on what stoked current Middle Eastern woes' --Metro
'Barr plunges us straight into the mindset of two relatively junior officials, François Georges-Picot and Mark Sykes, in the maelstrom of 1915... And there he keeps us for the next 30 years, not hovering with the historians in high Olympic judgement on the fates of nations, but with the journalists and spies at the very grubby coalface of foreign policy...I found the entire book most horribly addictive, even if the ultimate picture it paints of the actions of the two Western powers is sordid, muddled and hypocritical' --Independent
'Barr describes the complexities of Anglo-French intrigues against each other and - in 1941 - outright war in Syria' --Sunday Times
'Masterful' --The Spectator
'James Barr has succeeded better than any author before him in telling the fascinating story of Anglo-French rivalries in the modern Middle East... Outstanding' --Eugene Rogan, author of 'The Arabs: A History'
'The book resembles a gripping spy thriller...an expertly researched and authoritative book that is easy to read' --Military Times
'Barr is particularly good at identifying and portraying officials and agents engaged in these tit-for-tat reprisals that blurred the distinction between patriotism and crime' --Literary Review
'Engaging and well-researched... James Barr's lively account provides some quite astounding sketches of bluster, bickering and bravado'
--BBC History Magazine
The struggle between Britain and France for mastery of the Middle East between 1914 and the late 1940s, is analysed by James Barr in his excellent new book.
It is a complex story of intrigue and skulduggery, which Barr pieces together in a deft, well-written narrative. A journalist by profession, he manages to bring the whole subject alive through a series of well-chosen details and characters --History Today
'Lively and entertaining. He has scoured the diplomatic archives of the two powers and has come up with a rich haul that brings his narrative to life' --Financial Times
'James Barr's history of imperial machinations in the Middle East offers a revelatory slant on the continuing crisis in that area... an outstanding piece of research and a damning take on what stoked current Middle Eastern woes' --Metro
'Barr plunges us straight into the mindset of two relatively junior officials, François Georges-Picot and Mark Sykes, in the maelstrom of 1915... And there he keeps us for the next 30 years, not hovering with the historians in high Olympic judgement on the fates of nations, but with the journalists and spies at the very grubby coalface of foreign policy...I found the entire book most horribly addictive, even if the ultimate picture it paints of the actions of the two Western powers is sordid, muddled and hypocritical' --Independent
'Barr describes the complexities of Anglo-French intrigues against each other and - in 1941 - outright war in Syria' --Sunday Times
'Masterful' --The Spectator
'James Barr has succeeded better than any author before him in telling the fascinating story of Anglo-French rivalries in the modern Middle East... Outstanding' --Eugene Rogan, author of 'The Arabs: A History'
'The book resembles a gripping spy thriller...an expertly researched and authoritative book that is easy to read' --Military Times
'Barr is particularly good at identifying and portraying officials and agents engaged in these tit-for-tat reprisals that blurred the distinction between patriotism and crime' --Literary Review
'Engaging and well-researched... James Barr's lively account provides some quite astounding sketches of bluster, bickering and bravado'
--BBC History Magazine
The struggle between Britain and France for mastery of the Middle East between 1914 and the late 1940s, is analysed by James Barr in his excellent new book.
It is a complex story of intrigue and skulduggery, which Barr pieces together in a deft, well-written narrative. A journalist by profession, he manages to bring the whole subject alive through a series of well-chosen details and characters --History Today
About the Author
James Barr has worked for the Daily Telegraph, in politics, and in the City, and has travelled widely in the Middle East. He is the author of Setting the Desert on Fire, a history of T.E. Lawrence and the secret war in Arabia. During the research for A Line in the Sand he was a visiting fellow at St Antony's College, Oxford.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 21 people found the following review helpful
By R. Pavey
Format:Hardcover
This is another excellent offering form the author of 'Setting the Desert on Fire'. Like his previous work, this book reads like a novel, with a cast of characters that would be dismissed as implausible in fiction. As well as being a first-rate read, it is also meticulously researched and clearly presented. It throws a disturbing light on the contemporary Middle East and helps to explain some of the animosities and entrenched grievances. It also partly explains why Western intervention or mediation is so often unsuccessful, unhelpful or simply ignored. Having said this, Barr avoids the temptation to make obvious but potentially misleading analogies with the current situation; this is a work of history and he allows readers to make their own connections and draw their own conclusions (why does the US maintain military bases in the Gulf for example?).
Nobody emerges from this account with very much credit. The short-sighted cynicism of the declining imperial powers Britain and France is breathtaking, and their motivations seem difficult to understand at this distance; in what way did possession of Palestine create any kind of strategic depth for vital British interests in India and the Suez canal for example? And yet, this is one of the reasons brought clearly to life by Barr in this book, and within the world he describes, it is possible to follow the logic. Likewise the Zionists emerge in a singularly unpleasant light, with the appearance of Irgun and the Stern gang, and the bloody struggle to establish the state of Israel.
In short, this book is well worth a read, especially if you happen to be one of the leaders of the free world.
Nobody emerges from this account with very much credit. The short-sighted cynicism of the declining imperial powers Britain and France is breathtaking, and their motivations seem difficult to understand at this distance; in what way did possession of Palestine create any kind of strategic depth for vital British interests in India and the Suez canal for example? And yet, this is one of the reasons brought clearly to life by Barr in this book, and within the world he describes, it is possible to follow the logic. Likewise the Zionists emerge in a singularly unpleasant light, with the appearance of Irgun and the Stern gang, and the bloody struggle to establish the state of Israel.
In short, this book is well worth a read, especially if you happen to be one of the leaders of the free world.
35 of 36 people found the following review helpful
By Mac McAleer
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is the story of Britain and France eagerly burdening themselves with mandates over the carcass of the Ottoman Empire. It covers the time from the last year of the First World War to the end of the 1940s and it describes the "30 year-long gasp of empire" and "the struggle between Britain and France for the mastery of the Middle East".
These were mandates, not colonies. US President Wilson would not have approved of the word colony and anyway, surely colonies and overt imperialism were going out of fashion in those ever more enlightened days after the First World War?
It is a story of Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Transjordan and Mesopotamia and of attempts to found a Greater Syria and a Jewish homeland. For France it often seems to be a story of glory and honour. For Britain it seems to be a story of Iraqi oil, the misleadingly named (Anglo-American-French) Turkish Petroleum Company and a search for a pipeline route to the Mediterranean.
The locals dreamed of independence and a new Arab nation. On the western fringe of the area a few Zionists dreamed of their freedom in their own homeland. The British dreamed of their oil terminal for the pipeline, fuel security for the Royal Navy and a buffer zone for the Suez Canal, the gateway to India - still a colony and definitely not a mandate.
The story has an intriguing cast, both on and off stage. Mr Sykes and M. Picot and their eponymous line in the sand make an appearance, as do Churchill, Allenby, Weizmann, Balfour, Lawrence, de Gaulle, Feisal, Abdullah and a list of others less well known.
I liked this book very much. Towards the end I started flagging, but no matter, this is a book to revisit and use as a reference. It is of moderate size at just under 400 pages plus extensive notes, bibliography, index and a few black and white plates which help to put faces to names of some of the people mentioned.
If you want to have some understanding of the Middle East now, and perhaps of Britain and France too, then you need to know about the Middle East then. This is the book. Under the surface, the entente was not so cordiale.
These were mandates, not colonies. US President Wilson would not have approved of the word colony and anyway, surely colonies and overt imperialism were going out of fashion in those ever more enlightened days after the First World War?
It is a story of Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Transjordan and Mesopotamia and of attempts to found a Greater Syria and a Jewish homeland. For France it often seems to be a story of glory and honour. For Britain it seems to be a story of Iraqi oil, the misleadingly named (Anglo-American-French) Turkish Petroleum Company and a search for a pipeline route to the Mediterranean.
The locals dreamed of independence and a new Arab nation. On the western fringe of the area a few Zionists dreamed of their freedom in their own homeland. The British dreamed of their oil terminal for the pipeline, fuel security for the Royal Navy and a buffer zone for the Suez Canal, the gateway to India - still a colony and definitely not a mandate.
The story has an intriguing cast, both on and off stage. Mr Sykes and M. Picot and their eponymous line in the sand make an appearance, as do Churchill, Allenby, Weizmann, Balfour, Lawrence, de Gaulle, Feisal, Abdullah and a list of others less well known.
I liked this book very much. Towards the end I started flagging, but no matter, this is a book to revisit and use as a reference. It is of moderate size at just under 400 pages plus extensive notes, bibliography, index and a few black and white plates which help to put faces to names of some of the people mentioned.
If you want to have some understanding of the Middle East now, and perhaps of Britain and France too, then you need to know about the Middle East then. This is the book. Under the surface, the entente was not so cordiale.
42 of 44 people found the following review helpful
By Glynmyfyr
Format:Hardcover
This excellent work is extremely well researched and throws an amazing and distressing light on the creation of the modern Middle East. Barr points out that during the First World War, in between the wars, and during the second World War Britain and France were more concerned with their own rivalry than with any of the esablished peoples of the region. The cynical power stuggle between the two after the Sykes Picot agreement illustates why the area is still in such disarray.The creation of the State of Israel had little to do with Britain's support of Zionism but rather was a sop to the US and a means of Britain keeping the French out of Palestine. T.E.Lawrence comes out of it in a much better light, supporting as he does the local Arab cause throughout. Lloyd George emerges as a coniving manipulator.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Violence pays
James Barr has been in the archives, and he's shocked - shocked!- to discover that the British and French were intriguing against each other in the Middle East, even while they... Read more
Published 11 days ago by John Fletcher
5.0 out of 5 stars
A real Education!
I just recently finished my copy, and found the book to be truly enjoyable, a genuine education about the genesis of the situation that plagues the Middle East, and the cut throat... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Mr. Andrew Crabtree
5.0 out of 5 stars
A fascinating book.
Very useful and one can see how badly the Middle East was handled by Britain and France after the First World War.
Published 1 month ago by GIEL
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good read
Interesting reading, very good for those like my husband who are keen on this issues.
Well researched we think, perhaps a must.
Well researched we think, perhaps a must.
Published 2 months ago by D. Katsirea
5.0 out of 5 stars
Heroes and Villains
Detailed how Western interests determined the creation of the Middle East as we know it today.Vivid portraits of De Gaulle, Spears, Truman, Churchill along with reconfirming our... Read more
Published 2 months ago by virginia constable maxwell
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic book
I chose this book due to its interesting title and was not dissapointed. The information is fascinating and eye opening with some never before mentioned histirical data - a really... Read more
Published 2 months ago by M. D. Eve
5.0 out of 5 stars
The 150 Years War?
This is an excellent book. It seems clear to me that allowing for the intervals of the Crimea & the Great War, the British and French have been at war from 1800 to the late 1940s. Read more
Published 2 months ago by T. Lindley
4.0 out of 5 stars
The scramble for the Middle East
A better title for this book would have been `the scramble for the Middle East'. After the Brits and French Empires had scavenged, plundered and divided Africa and the China... Read more
Published 2 months ago by D. Schotman
5.0 out of 5 stars
Secrets revealed.
I have been interested in Middle east affairs for many years but this book covers areas of history that seem to have dropped out of sight. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Paul Bell
5.0 out of 5 stars
Reasons
Good book. Explains a lot of the reasons behind the troubles in the Arab world. Easy to read for what is a detailed book.
Published 3 months ago by Maurice
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