Ceylal
ELITE MEMBER
- Joined
- Nov 28, 2012
- Messages
- 8,577
- Reaction score
- -7
- Country
- Location
France and the United Kingdom in the twentieth century, a struggle for control of the Middle East
Renaud Thillaye and Nonfiction
updated the 12/12/2014 at 18 h 37
Georges Clemenceau, Lloyd George and Vittorio Emanuele Orlando / Unknown, Bain News Service via Wikimedia (public domain)
To those who thought they knew most of the Middle East, Franco-British relations and French colonialism in the twentieth century.
A Line in the Sand: Britain, France and the struggle That shaped the Middle East
James Barr
BUY THIS BOOK
French translation is still pending in James Barr's book A Line in the Sand. Britain, France and the Struggle for the Mastery of the Middle East , published in 2011 in the UK (Simon & Schuster, paperback 2012). This historical survey remains stubbornly on crown heads bookshop in London. Success must of course much to the news of the Syrian-Iraqi crisis, but James Barr has transformed an archive meticulous work in a breathless story quite reach the uninitiated. The author , who plays more in political and diplomatic circles as in research, is not at his first attempt, in 2006, he had published Setting the Desert on Fire: TE Lawrence and Britain's Secret War in Arabia, from 1916 to 1918, which several chapters of A Line in the Sand echo.
A Line in the Sand tells the undeclared war that have engaged France and Great Britain in the Middle East in 1914, before the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1948, which corresponds to the birth of the State of Israel. In fact, it dates back to the Fashoda crisis in 1898, which saw the conquering ambitions of France in Egypt and Sudan stopped by a British ultimatum. He will be born in Paris, a deep resentment against the "perfidious Albion", the Entente Cordiale of 1904 and the common opposition to Germany will fail to dissipate. The Middle East (Israel to Iraq through Jordan, Lebanon, Syria) will host this competition and this distrust for three decades.
The great interest of A Line in the Sand is to trace that led to the (very artificial) current borders of the Middle East. The Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 marked the starting point since they formalized the influence boundary between the United Kingdom and France.Barr shows that these agreements mark the clumsy attempt, for the British, to reconcile three objectives: the promise to Arab nationalists of a vast territory after the withdrawal of the Ottomans; the will to retain a strong influence, especially because of its oil resources;and the need to spare the feelings of France in the front line to Germany.
The result of this sharing is endorsed by the San Remo agreements in 1920 with the formalization of the French mandate in Syria and Lebanon, and British mandates of Mesopotamia (territory including Iraq and Jordan today) and Palestine. The Arabs, however, taken by the British TE Lawrence in their revolt against the Ottomans were forced to withdraw from Damascus and Syria, and the feeling of being betrayed.
This feeling is compounded by the Balfour Declaration of 1917, second episode whose effects are evident today. The British decision to officially support Zionism aims to keep French influence in Palestine, the Sykes-Picot accord to an international administration.It is advocated by the British Jewish community, but also the United States, which entered the war is expected. Check Palestine is also a way for the UK to retain control of the ports of Haifa and Jaffa, and the Suez Canal. Opportunistic decision, therefore, that the British soon regret given the determination of the Jews to Palestine their homeland.
Barr discusses in detail the role of Britain and France in the episodes that gradually lead to the creation of two states in 1948 and the Arab-Israeli wars. In 1920, the British suspect the French of supporting Arab demonstrations in Jerusalem against Zionism and for the unification of Syria and Palestine. However, the story turns around soon. When the Jews decide to actively take up arms against the Arabs and against the British presence, it was in Paris that they will seek support. During the Arab Revolt of 1936-1939, the prospect of a conflagration which would exceed Palestine and Syria affect alarm the French.
So we will be grateful to James Barr project light on a particularly raw little-known story, the story of the rivalry or the reciprocal and continuous harassment being waged for three decades the two allied powers in the Middle East. The negotiations of the Treaty of Versailles stalled over the Syrian issue and are marked by extremely harsh exchanges between Clemenceau and Lloyd George, the President of the French Council up to say: "The day after the armistice, I found you enemy of France "((" From the very day after the armistice I found you an enemy of France ")). Twenty years later, de Gaulle's attitude is marked by the same ingratitude, the same accusations against an ally who has yet organized evacuation to London and its legitimacy. Barr recalls how de Gaulle was educated in the hatred of England and the memory of Fashoda.
Upon release of the Levant by the British Army and the Free French Forces in the summer of 1941, de Gaulle did everything to keep control of Syria and Lebanon and avoid too rapid transition to independence. Officers representing Vichy are confirmed in their posts in the colonial administration, snatching this comment afflicted with a British officer, "We have urged the Arabs to help us against the Vichy; and now, we confirm the Vichy to their posts and we place in their hands the future of the Arabs who are just shoot them at our own request. It's a nightmare! "((" We urged the Arabs to help us Against the Vichy. Suddenly Now we confirm the Vichy In Their posts, and to entrust Their tender mercies the future Of Those Who Arabs-have just shot them up at our request. This is a nightmare ! "))
The rivalry mixes of course a form of respect and stops where the higher interests.Lawrence of Arabia is trying to France before the accomplished fact of Arab progress but sees reined in by his own government. London subtly uses the French presence in Syria as a foil to maintain a decisive weight in Iraq and Palestine. British officials are careful not to criticize and provoke their French counterparts and accept such a book their place in the international consortium building the pipeline from Mosul to Haifa (effective in 1934).Barr makes perfectly highlight these "arrangements between friends" that local people are often the first victims.
A Line in the Sand is perhaps most disturbing in what it reveals the violence of the French colonial methods, and the active role of Paris in the rise of the Irgun, the Jewish terrorist organization. These episodes are little known French, probably because they received less attention than colonization in West Africa and the war in Algeria.
The difference with the British methods of persuasion is obvious upon arrival in Syria. As noted by a British officer: "They [the French] always seem to have a report fully 18 th or 19th century to the 'natives' "((" They still sccm to-have a completely Call 18th or 19th century attitude to 'Natives' " )) .dropoff window The colonial judicial system leaves no room for the Arab word. Henri Gouraud, High Commissioner sent by Clemenceau establish a French presence in Syria was inspired by soldier monks who responded to the call of the Crusades in the Middle Ages. In 1925, the Syrian revolt, led by Druze leader Sultan al-Atrash, is repressed in blood and bombs. The historic center of Damascus is destroyed and a peripheral belt of 12 km is built to repel guerrillas outside the walls of the city. This does will cool as the fact of internal divisions.
More fascinating still is the scope of French support for Jewish terrorism. In the late 1930s, the British decided to limit Jewish immigration to Palestine to calm Arab anger.The Irgun and the Stern Gang, two underground organizations undertake a systematic struggle against the British presence and receive weapons from the Vichy regime. They then form a connection with the free France, flattering French efforts against the transition imposed by the British in Lebanon and Syria. Barr said that the Stern Gang publishes Hebrew Fighting Front in French to highlight the parallels with the Resistance and point the finger to the British common enemy. No particular sympathy for the Jews, de Gaulle sees a new opportunity to settle accounts with London, but also to contain the Arab nationalism. At the end of the war, France is encouraging the emigration of Jews to Palestine leaving from many ships (including the Exodus) despite the British ban. Arms sales agreements were signed in 1948 with the Haganah and the Irgun, and France will remain the biggest arms supplier of Israel until 1956.
Barr and reveals the absurd mechanics historical and strategic rivalry between two neighboring countries and yet rich 1000 years of shared history. The accumulation of evidence is overwhelming, and we can salute the sense of restraint and Barr balance. The story is undeniably friendly vis-à-vis to the heights of the British era tact, but the author shows that in trying to please everyone, London opened a Pandora's box. The French pride was engulfed.
It is regrettable that Barr's story, while revealing very rich, will fail to put on this short story (30 years) in the long perspective of Franco-British relations. At most, the author suggests he end of the book that the memory of tensions between the two world wars played a role in not de Gaulle Macmillan in 1963 when the latter asked the accession of United Kingdom to the European Economic Community. But other works, including those of Andrew Moravcsik , advanced economic explanations that have played an equally if not more significant role. Conversely, one would like to go upstream Fashoda and read more about the warlike past and prejudices that have marked relations between the two countries since the Middle Ages. But that would put into perspective the subject of a separate book.
Moreover, one can not help but think, closing A Line in the Sand , the Franco-British relationship is now marked by a certain mistrust. Certainly these disagreements and tensions have nothing in common with the episodes reported by James Barr. However, it is easy to observe that despite converging interests in a world that no longer belongs to them, identities, cultures and economic relations of the two countries in the world are clearly different. The work of James Barr invites us in some way to realize this distance, the damage it may have caused and mutual knowledge of work still to be done.
Renaud Thillaye and Nonfiction
Renaud Thillaye and Nonfiction
updated the 12/12/2014 at 18 h 37
Georges Clemenceau, Lloyd George and Vittorio Emanuele Orlando / Unknown, Bain News Service via Wikimedia (public domain)
To those who thought they knew most of the Middle East, Franco-British relations and French colonialism in the twentieth century.
James Barr
BUY THIS BOOK
French translation is still pending in James Barr's book A Line in the Sand. Britain, France and the Struggle for the Mastery of the Middle East , published in 2011 in the UK (Simon & Schuster, paperback 2012). This historical survey remains stubbornly on crown heads bookshop in London. Success must of course much to the news of the Syrian-Iraqi crisis, but James Barr has transformed an archive meticulous work in a breathless story quite reach the uninitiated. The author , who plays more in political and diplomatic circles as in research, is not at his first attempt, in 2006, he had published Setting the Desert on Fire: TE Lawrence and Britain's Secret War in Arabia, from 1916 to 1918, which several chapters of A Line in the Sand echo.
A Line in the Sand tells the undeclared war that have engaged France and Great Britain in the Middle East in 1914, before the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1948, which corresponds to the birth of the State of Israel. In fact, it dates back to the Fashoda crisis in 1898, which saw the conquering ambitions of France in Egypt and Sudan stopped by a British ultimatum. He will be born in Paris, a deep resentment against the "perfidious Albion", the Entente Cordiale of 1904 and the common opposition to Germany will fail to dissipate. The Middle East (Israel to Iraq through Jordan, Lebanon, Syria) will host this competition and this distrust for three decades.
The great interest of A Line in the Sand is to trace that led to the (very artificial) current borders of the Middle East. The Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 marked the starting point since they formalized the influence boundary between the United Kingdom and France.Barr shows that these agreements mark the clumsy attempt, for the British, to reconcile three objectives: the promise to Arab nationalists of a vast territory after the withdrawal of the Ottomans; the will to retain a strong influence, especially because of its oil resources;and the need to spare the feelings of France in the front line to Germany.
The result of this sharing is endorsed by the San Remo agreements in 1920 with the formalization of the French mandate in Syria and Lebanon, and British mandates of Mesopotamia (territory including Iraq and Jordan today) and Palestine. The Arabs, however, taken by the British TE Lawrence in their revolt against the Ottomans were forced to withdraw from Damascus and Syria, and the feeling of being betrayed.
This feeling is compounded by the Balfour Declaration of 1917, second episode whose effects are evident today. The British decision to officially support Zionism aims to keep French influence in Palestine, the Sykes-Picot accord to an international administration.It is advocated by the British Jewish community, but also the United States, which entered the war is expected. Check Palestine is also a way for the UK to retain control of the ports of Haifa and Jaffa, and the Suez Canal. Opportunistic decision, therefore, that the British soon regret given the determination of the Jews to Palestine their homeland.
Barr discusses in detail the role of Britain and France in the episodes that gradually lead to the creation of two states in 1948 and the Arab-Israeli wars. In 1920, the British suspect the French of supporting Arab demonstrations in Jerusalem against Zionism and for the unification of Syria and Palestine. However, the story turns around soon. When the Jews decide to actively take up arms against the Arabs and against the British presence, it was in Paris that they will seek support. During the Arab Revolt of 1936-1939, the prospect of a conflagration which would exceed Palestine and Syria affect alarm the French.
So we will be grateful to James Barr project light on a particularly raw little-known story, the story of the rivalry or the reciprocal and continuous harassment being waged for three decades the two allied powers in the Middle East. The negotiations of the Treaty of Versailles stalled over the Syrian issue and are marked by extremely harsh exchanges between Clemenceau and Lloyd George, the President of the French Council up to say: "The day after the armistice, I found you enemy of France "((" From the very day after the armistice I found you an enemy of France ")). Twenty years later, de Gaulle's attitude is marked by the same ingratitude, the same accusations against an ally who has yet organized evacuation to London and its legitimacy. Barr recalls how de Gaulle was educated in the hatred of England and the memory of Fashoda.
Upon release of the Levant by the British Army and the Free French Forces in the summer of 1941, de Gaulle did everything to keep control of Syria and Lebanon and avoid too rapid transition to independence. Officers representing Vichy are confirmed in their posts in the colonial administration, snatching this comment afflicted with a British officer, "We have urged the Arabs to help us against the Vichy; and now, we confirm the Vichy to their posts and we place in their hands the future of the Arabs who are just shoot them at our own request. It's a nightmare! "((" We urged the Arabs to help us Against the Vichy. Suddenly Now we confirm the Vichy In Their posts, and to entrust Their tender mercies the future Of Those Who Arabs-have just shot them up at our request. This is a nightmare ! "))
The rivalry mixes of course a form of respect and stops where the higher interests.Lawrence of Arabia is trying to France before the accomplished fact of Arab progress but sees reined in by his own government. London subtly uses the French presence in Syria as a foil to maintain a decisive weight in Iraq and Palestine. British officials are careful not to criticize and provoke their French counterparts and accept such a book their place in the international consortium building the pipeline from Mosul to Haifa (effective in 1934).Barr makes perfectly highlight these "arrangements between friends" that local people are often the first victims.
A Line in the Sand is perhaps most disturbing in what it reveals the violence of the French colonial methods, and the active role of Paris in the rise of the Irgun, the Jewish terrorist organization. These episodes are little known French, probably because they received less attention than colonization in West Africa and the war in Algeria.
The difference with the British methods of persuasion is obvious upon arrival in Syria. As noted by a British officer: "They [the French] always seem to have a report fully 18 th or 19th century to the 'natives' "((" They still sccm to-have a completely Call 18th or 19th century attitude to 'Natives' " )) .dropoff window The colonial judicial system leaves no room for the Arab word. Henri Gouraud, High Commissioner sent by Clemenceau establish a French presence in Syria was inspired by soldier monks who responded to the call of the Crusades in the Middle Ages. In 1925, the Syrian revolt, led by Druze leader Sultan al-Atrash, is repressed in blood and bombs. The historic center of Damascus is destroyed and a peripheral belt of 12 km is built to repel guerrillas outside the walls of the city. This does will cool as the fact of internal divisions.
More fascinating still is the scope of French support for Jewish terrorism. In the late 1930s, the British decided to limit Jewish immigration to Palestine to calm Arab anger.The Irgun and the Stern Gang, two underground organizations undertake a systematic struggle against the British presence and receive weapons from the Vichy regime. They then form a connection with the free France, flattering French efforts against the transition imposed by the British in Lebanon and Syria. Barr said that the Stern Gang publishes Hebrew Fighting Front in French to highlight the parallels with the Resistance and point the finger to the British common enemy. No particular sympathy for the Jews, de Gaulle sees a new opportunity to settle accounts with London, but also to contain the Arab nationalism. At the end of the war, France is encouraging the emigration of Jews to Palestine leaving from many ships (including the Exodus) despite the British ban. Arms sales agreements were signed in 1948 with the Haganah and the Irgun, and France will remain the biggest arms supplier of Israel until 1956.
Barr and reveals the absurd mechanics historical and strategic rivalry between two neighboring countries and yet rich 1000 years of shared history. The accumulation of evidence is overwhelming, and we can salute the sense of restraint and Barr balance. The story is undeniably friendly vis-à-vis to the heights of the British era tact, but the author shows that in trying to please everyone, London opened a Pandora's box. The French pride was engulfed.
It is regrettable that Barr's story, while revealing very rich, will fail to put on this short story (30 years) in the long perspective of Franco-British relations. At most, the author suggests he end of the book that the memory of tensions between the two world wars played a role in not de Gaulle Macmillan in 1963 when the latter asked the accession of United Kingdom to the European Economic Community. But other works, including those of Andrew Moravcsik , advanced economic explanations that have played an equally if not more significant role. Conversely, one would like to go upstream Fashoda and read more about the warlike past and prejudices that have marked relations between the two countries since the Middle Ages. But that would put into perspective the subject of a separate book.
Moreover, one can not help but think, closing A Line in the Sand , the Franco-British relationship is now marked by a certain mistrust. Certainly these disagreements and tensions have nothing in common with the episodes reported by James Barr. However, it is easy to observe that despite converging interests in a world that no longer belongs to them, identities, cultures and economic relations of the two countries in the world are clearly different. The work of James Barr invites us in some way to realize this distance, the damage it may have caused and mutual knowledge of work still to be done.
Renaud Thillaye and Nonfiction
