A Line in the Sand: Britain, France and the struggle that shaped the Middle East

James Barr's book is a tale the activities of the British and French in the Middle East, from the Picot-Sykes agreement in 1915 to the British withdrawal from Palestine in 1949. But it is not merely a narrative, it contains a measure of analysis as well. Like many people, I knew a few of the highlights, if that's what they can be called, but this book enabled me to put the disparate pieces together. Although the activities of both the Jewish and Arab peoples are covered, the book is really about the imperial rivalry between Britain and France. The two World Wars of the 20th century have perhaps hidden to many the fact that rivalry and war between the two goes back at least 700 years, and that much of second half of 19th Century was occupied by skirmishes between the empires of the two. Given this situation, it was hardly surprising that the question of who should dominate the Middle East after the demise of the Ottoman Empire had potential for disrupting the Anglo-French alliance in the middle of the First World War. Even after an agreement between the two imperialist nations had been agreed - a line on the map from the 'e' in Acre, to the 'k' in Kirkup - each sought to undermine the other's position, and each proceeded to treat the people living in the the area they controlled in a way guaranteed to eventually cause rebellion. Reading this book is a bit like watching a slow motion train wreck. We all know what the outcome was, everyone has their own idea of what should have been done, but Britain and France continued with the same policies that had already dug both of them into a deep hole. At times one almost fears to turn the page to see what the next blunder is. I recommend this book to any one who wants to understand the history of the problems that currently beset the Middle East. To my mind it's pretty even handed in its approach to the main protagonists. Some of the uttering and beliefs of the leading characters will sound pretty appalling to the modern ear, but you have to remember that imperialism was a respectable and dominant ideology for both sides during the two wars and in the inter-war period. Recommended.

"A Line in the Sand: Britain, France and the Struggle That Shaped the Middle East" by James Barr tells the story of French-British rivalry in the Middle East to replace the Ottoman Empire as the new local powers. It starts in 1916 with the Sykes-Picot agreement and ends in 1948 with the withdrawal of British (military) rule from Palestine. It is a Europe centric account of the making of the modern Middle East in the first half of the twentieth century with diplomats, secret services, intelligence officers, terrorists and politicians taking centre stage. It is a sad story, with no good guys or happy endings. Instead it is a prime example of how years of political manipulation, arrogance, hypocrisy, opportunism, cynicism, back-stabbing and underhand dealings added further complications to an already volatile and complex region. Its outcomes still reverberate today and are unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. Barr's writing style is engaging and the topic well researched. However, this is a very detailed account of 30 years rivalry between the main protagonists (France, Britain, USA, Zionists & Arabs) and its representatives. The fluid loyalties of many parties involved, the domestic politics and individual rivalries on all sides against the backdrop of a shifting international power balance require concentrated reading. Despite the likes of Churchill, de Gaulle, T.E. Lawrence, Lloyd George, Woodrow Wilson and Menachim Begin playing important parts, there are numerous less famous characters making short appearances further adding to the complexity of the story. Overall "A Line in the Sand" is a good introduction to the making of the modern Middle East, but not an easy read.

An excellent account of the emergence from the First WW through to 1948 of many of the Middle Eastern states including Israel and how European nations including Britain and France shaped so fundamentally their collective and individual destinies. Best history book read so far this year.

This book covers the modern history of the Middle East and the creation of the Arab states from the remnants of the Ottoman Empire during the period 1915 to 1949. The particular thrust of this book that makes it quite different from the numerous volumes on this subject is that it specifically deals with the rivalry between Britain and France for supremacy in the area, and contains a great deal of new information on the extraordinary breadth of clandestine and thoroughly devious behaviour adopted by both Great Powers with respect to each other. The scene is set with the well known Sykes-Picot Agreement of 3 January 1916 that established the arbitrary `line in the sand' of the title and which divided the soon to be created new states of Syria and Iraq (and later Trans-Jordan, Palestine and Lebanon.) The author, James Barr, then charts the history of the defeat of Turkey and occupation of the Middle East, the Druze Revolt of 1925 and the struggle that France and Britain had in maintaining peace in their respective territories whilst denying the indigenous population self determination in defiance of the American President Woodrow Wilson. The author advances through the endless machinations between France and Britain to the Second World War, the Mandates, the growth of the nascent Jewish state and eventual evacuation of the Colonial Powers. However, this well worn path is highly dramatised by the revelation of the activities of British and French agents and the totally underhand activities of the respective governments, which I would suggest, has not before been handled in such revealing detail. The author introduces to us many interesting buccaneering characters that seem to be attracted to the area as well as many of the local leaders. I found the role of General Charles de Gaulle quite breathtaking in the depth of his arrogance, ingratitude and rudeness towards anything English. For the most part this book is entirely objective and very well researched, however, I would take issue with the somewhat sanitised description of how the Zionists obtained land from the local Arabs. This book is not just a re-hash of a familiar story, it does contain much new material and a new perspective and should be a good choice for all those with an interest in this area of history. It is astounding that we continue to endlessly meddle in the Middle East to no advantage.

As a keen student of (military) history and with an interest in 20th Century conflict in the Middle East, I believed that I already understood the Sykes-Picot Agreement (and its ramifications) but, undoubtedly, I feel much better informed after reading 'A Line In The Sand'. In it, James Barr presents a fast-paced, thought-provoking and informative tale of military action, politics, intrigue and double-dealing and rightly highlights the link between the Agreement - a secret Anglo-French attempt in 1916 to 'carve up' the Middle East between themselves - and the ongoing conflicts in that troubled region. However, in in a misguided attempt to identify a single 'villain of the piece', Barr seeks to apportion too much blame to Britain, when, in truth, no-one comes out of the affair untarnished; not Britain, not France, not the USA, and certainly not the Jewish nation nor its Arab neighbours. In fact, FROM HIS OWN ACCOUNT, it is clear that much - if not most - of the 'blame' should be borne by France; starting with their Great War leaders, continuing with their politicians and senior military officers between the Wars and ending with the Vichy Government and its internecine struggle in Syria and The Levant with the so-called Free French under General De Gaulle. Indeed, the latter's arrogance and bluster, when he was in a position of profound weakness, after the fall of France in 1940, undoubtedly prolonged the post-WW2 troubles in Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan, Palestine and Iraq, as well as poisoning Anglo-French relations for several generations. Furthermore, it was French intransigence and unwillingness to give up its Middle East Empire which generated much of the regional ill-feeling against the Western Nations, that persists to this day. Finally, in my view, Barr extracts mistaken conclusions from the evidence which he, himself, presents and also passes over without comment a number of key insights, such as a perceptive remark by a British observer between the Wars that "the Shia and Sunni Arabs in an independent Iraq would never be able to work in harmony for the benefit of that nation". How well we understand that today! Nonetheless, in conclusion and notwithstanding the above criticisms, I am very pleased that I have read the book and recommend it to any serious student of 20th Century Middle Eastern history.

The modern history of the Middle East is simultaneously underrated, complex, and existential to contemporary geopolitics. With all this in mind, James Barr has written a work that is engaging and intellectually worthwhile, with some caveats. Barr's analysis of Anglo-French intervention in the Middle East begins in the halls of European government, discussing the personalities behind the Sykes-Picot Agreement and their reasons for doing so. This is where Barr shines; understanding and illuminating the conflicting foreign policy objectives of two historic rivals attempting to co-operate. He turns Francois Georges-Picot, T.E. Lawrence, and especially Mark Sykes from historical names into political personalities whose prejudices and pressures cause them to stumble towards something resembling a diplomatic treaty between two empires which begrudgingly respect each other, at least in the open. Similarly, the reader is made keenly aware that the historical rivalry between Britain and France is not just a historiographic lens through which modern historians view a complex diplomatic relationship. By exploring the animosity between Free French and Vichy French agents in the Middle East as well as Gaullist French sponsorship of Zionist resistance against the British even during the Nazi occupation of France, Barr shows the reader the full extent to which to two western powers were willing to sabotage each other for reasons political, cultural, economic. A major issue with Barr's work, however, is its obsessive focus with the Sykes-Picot Agreement as the defining catalyst of modern Middle Eastern history. It is a matter of historical fact that the Agreement was drafted with the input of the Tsarist Russian foreign minister, Sergey Sazonov, and without his consent the agreement could never have possibly worked. Russian pressure inevitably shaped the territories to which France and especially Britain could lay claim to and so shaped the Agreement just as much as western European designs. By neglecting to fully account for influential Russian involvement in the Agreement, Barr fails to expound the real complexity of the political scene of the wartime Middle East and the true interplay between the formation of the Agreement, which is a necessary task of any historian of the era even despite the Russian disengagement from the Middle East following the 1917 Revolution (for a full analysis of the Russian role in Sykes-Picot, I strongly recommend Sean McKeenin's 'The Ottoman Endgame'). Despite his reductive assessment of the Sykes-Picot Agreement itself, Barr has done an excellent job of capturing the anxieties of actors in the Middle East during the Mandatory period. Personable and engaging writing has the brilliant effect of giving a 21st Century western reader a powerful insight into the hopes, ambitions, and fears of Middle Easterners from the last century, especially the Hashemites from Hussein to Feisal, and both Christian and Muslim populations within Mandatory Lebanon. His presentation of De Gaulle is particularly pertinent, given the relative lack of attention paid to the French role in militant Zionism in Britain until Barr's work and the illumination of which is a tremendous credit to this book. Barr's book is an excellent analysis of the interplay between different religious and ethnic groups from the European perspective and gives full credit to the agency of the Arabs and Israelis themselves, which is an element Imperial history often fails to achieve. In addition, Barr's writing is thoroughly imbibed with a sense of drama and truly captures the gravity of the Middle East during the period surrounding the World Wars, making the book extremely easy to read. His focus on the early-to-mid 20th Century Middle East from the Anglo-French perspective is not a bad thing, but it is something that a student of Middle Eastern history must be aware of. If rounded out with accompanying books which explore the Middle Eastern Theatre of the First World War from the Ottoman or Russian perspective, a reader will have a thoroughly holistic understanding of how the Middle East transformed from an Empire, to the plaything of foreign powers, to a cluster of states ranging from reasonably successful to embroiled in conflict today.

A little more than 200 years ago, Saint-Just, a French revolutionary leader was guillotined after having terrorised France and massacred too many people "for the greater good". All he wrote and said has then been duly forgotten, litterally throwing the baby with the bath water. But besides being responsible for instating a regime of terror he was a statesman and political thinker of the first water. Some of the things he wrote then are still valid today as geopolitical laws. For example : "Spealing plainly, there is no friendship between nations/states. They have but respective interests and force establishes the international law." That's what James Barr illustrates accurately. Granted, there's a strong anti-French bias in the whole book. Sykes was a visionary whereas Picot had a grudge (interesting difference since that line was Sykes' idea). The French were working against Britain at the time British soldiers were dying to save France: sorry? James, the WW 2 was NOT, repeat NOT, about saving France, but about defeating the Axis powers. De Gaulle did not veto Macmillans's application to join the common market just to get retribution and revenge about the end of the French mandate in syria. It's a bit more complicated than that. Anyway, following Saint-Just's principle, in 1956 France, Britain and Israel found themselves in league, through the devilish "Sevres Protocol" against Egypt in order to regain control of the recently nationalised Suez Canal. The "Sevres Protocol" is a most interesting amoral (not immoral) plot and perhaps a blueprint for many post-colonial attempts to redraw maps and international borders. Do your own research.

With the celebration of the Balfour declaration this turned out to be a topical purchase. Its an entertaining narrative that is so much more than the current limited reporting of the Middle East. It embraces the history from the collapse of the Ottoman empire, puts the exciting Lawrence of Arabia story into context, illuminates the period between the world wars with a very informative explanation of Anglo French "differences", explains WWII at this end of the conflict, shattered my views on what the French did for Britain and helped me understand the politics of the foundations of modern Palestine and the Jewish state. I have now learnt what we have to thank the French for. An excellent introduction to the period, easy to read and a compelling story for anyone wishing to lean more about the period and the area..

Zeer sterk naar kritische analyse. iedereen zou de achtergronden van de confliceten in het Midden-Oosten moeten kennen. Geen 5 sterren omdat er heel veel figuren aanbod komen die dan ook nog eens vaak van mening veranderen, waardoor het soms moeilijk is de grote lijnen te onderscheiden.

James Barr’s A Line in the Sand is a work of formidable insight, unflinchingly peeling back the layers of cynicism, incompetence, and arrogance that shaped today’s Middle East. I picked up the book seeking answers to fundamental questions: why these nations exist as they do, how Jews came to settle in Palestine, and why modern Israel stands where it does, flanked by borders drawn with the presumption that their occupants were pawns in a European game. What I discovered was a deeply human tale, one drenched in tragedy and folly, punctuated by moments of bitter irony. Barr’s account stands out not merely for its scope but for the rigor of its research. His story isn’t one of abstract historical forces or inevitable outcomes; rather, he examines history as a tangled web of human motivations—fear, jealousy, hubris, greed—that drove decisions on the fly, often with little regard for the consequences. His meticulous archival work brings to life the figures behind these decisions, revealing just how contingent and petty the march of history can be. One of Barr’s triumphs is his portrayal of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, that notorious line drawn across a map with the casual confidence that the Ottoman Empire would soon dissolve and that Britain and France, with all their imperial wisdom, could effortlessly carve up the remains. Britain and France, intoxicated by their own delusions of control, underestimated the very real resistance of local Arab leaders, who were prepared to claim land and power for themselves. Barr illustrates how, from this fateful line onward, Middle Eastern borders and politics were determined not by the lived realities of those who inhabited the land but by Western presumption—a presumption soon met with fierce defiance. The Balfour Declaration, which Barr rightly positions as a pivot in this tale, begins a sequence of missteps and backroom deals that transformed Palestine into a British Mandate, and eventually, an arena for conflict and displacement. What strikes one most profoundly in Barr’s narrative is the sheer amateurism with which Britain and France, ensnared by their own imperial rivalries, attempted to manage Palestine and the wider region. It is a parade of bungled decisions and knee-jerk policies, all leading to the inevitable unraveling of their influence and, finally, their ouster. In the end, A Line in the Sand is a reminder that the Western planners of the early 20th century, high on postwar victory, were hopelessly blind to the agency of the people they sought to rule. They imagined a chessboard of empires, but it was a land with a will of its own, and in time, it struck back. Barr’s tale, though historical, reads as a cautionary one, warning us about the dangers of underestimating those whose lives are directly shaped by the borders and policies we impose. This is a book for anyone willing to see the painful birth of a modern tragedy, told with intelligence, empathy, and brutal honesty.

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Ricostruzione molto interessante delle vicende che hanno interessato il Medio Oriente a partire dal XIX secolo. Utile per una migliore comprensione della situazione geopolitica attuale.

The book starts in the early 20th century with the Sykes-Picot between the French and the British who did draw a line (on the book cover) dividing their influence in the middle east, North for the French, South for the British. However the idea of the Promise Land for the Hebrew is already present in the Bible, and conflicts there in Palestine have existed since those times. The French and British colonial influence have enormously aggravated the conflicts, nobody, absolutely no-one in this book is to be commended for their actions before, during and after both WW. I am pessimistic that the tensions and wars in the former Palestine will ever be resolved. The book is long, keep reading!