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Middle
East at 1914 was at the crossroads. The once great Ottoman Empire that had been
the dominant political force in the Middle East for 400 years was inexorably decaying,
loosing ground to the fledgling independance movements that popped up in various
guises with differing religious and political agendas. In
the wings were the British, the French, the Germans and Imperial Russia. The British,
just passed the high tide of their prowess desired to keep her Indian empire safe
and keep everyone else out, but had to come to an accomodation with the French.
The French, still smarting over their loss of Egypt to the British, were
eyeing the ripe plum of the Ottoman territory that was about to fall from the
tree, and wanted a slice of the action. Czarist
Russia had ambitions too wanting the Black Sea to be her own lake, but after 1917
Russia withdrew from the action due to problems at home. Pissed at this, the Trotsky
government of the new Bolsheviks, showed to the world the secret Sikes-Picot agreement
of 1916 , that proved the duplicity of the French and especially the English towards
their Arab 'friends'. Germany
was on the side that lost WW1, and at the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 was emasculated,
stripped of all her colonies and forced to pay enormous war reparations -so was
effectively out of the game.
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