The Illustrated History of World War I: The Battles, Personalities, Events and Key Weapons From All Fronts In The First World War 1914-18 by Andrew Wiest

Author:Andrew Wiest [Wiest, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Amber Books Ltd
Published: 2014-06-10T21:00:00+00:00

AUSTRALIAN LIGHT HORSE RIDING THEIR HORSES IN THE EDGE OF THE MEDITERRANEAN NEAR THE SUEZ CANAL IN EGYPT IN 1916.

From here, Arab raids would support British advances into Palestine, and guerrilla attacks would help to sever the Turkish supply line in the area. Lawrence later publicised his exploits in his The Seven Pillars of Wisdom and his fame widened, but what made him a hero was that his victory, however small, came close on the heels of a year of stalemate and slaughter, a year in which Britain lost its national innocence on the killing fields of the Somme: the year 1916.

PALESTINE

In its efforts to win a victory in World War I, Britain made several promises that helped to muddle the situation in the volatile Middle East. In an effort to hasten the outbreak of the Arab revolt, in early 1916 British representatives promised to support the establishment of an independent Arab state after the conflict had ended. T.E. Lawrence, often known as ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ negotiated with Arab leaders in good faith, believing in the promise of independence, and pressing the Arabs to ever-greater military efforts against the Turks. However, in May 1916 the French and British negotiated the Sykes-Picot agreement which promised to carve most of the Arab world up into British and French colonial mandates. Unsure of which agreement would rule the day, the Arabs battled on against their Turkish overlords. Worse was yet to come. In November 1917, in what is sometimes seen as an effort to gain much-needed wartime capital, British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour announced what would become known as the Balfour Declaration. He stated that Britain would ‘view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people’, and would help to ‘facilitate the achievement of this object’. Thus Britain had promised the Arabs an independent state, the French slices of that state as colonial possessions, and Palestine to the Jewish people. The three goals were simply not compatible. The Arabs, often weakened by fighting among themselves, proved to be quite restless under Western colonial rule. Even worse was the implementation of the Balfour Declaration. Under British protection, Jews began to move back to their ancestral homeland; the Zionists’ dream was finally coming true. However, the Arabs in the area were unhappy with this development and conflict ensued, a conflict that still plagues the world today.

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