Legacy of Empire: Britain, Zionism and the Creation of Israel

It is now more than seventy years since the creation of the state of Israel, yet its origins and the British Empire's historic responsibility for Palestine remain little known. Confusion persists too as to the distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. In Legacy of Empire, Gardner Thompson offers a clear-eyed review of political Zionism and Britain's role in shaping the history of Palestine and Israel.

Thompson explores why the British government adopted Zionism in the early twentieth century, issuing the Balfour Declaration in 1917 and then retaining it as the cornerstone of their rule in Palestine after the First World War. Despite evidence and warnings, over the next two decades Britain would facilitate the colonisation of Arab Palestine by Jewish immigrants, ultimately leading to a conflict which it could not contain. Britain's response was to propose the partition of an ungovernable land: a 'two-state solution' which - though endorsed by the United Nations after the Second World War - has so far brought into being neither two states nor a solution.

A highly readable and compelling account of Britain's rule in Palestine, Legacy of Empire is essential for those wishing to better understand the roots of this enduring conflict.

ISBN-13: 9780863564826

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: Saqi Books

Publication Date: 08-02-2022

Pages: 368

Product Dimensions: 4.90(w) x 7.70(h) x 1.30(d)

Gardner Thompson is a historian of British colonialism and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He earned a BA in History from Cambridge University, an MA in East African History and Politics from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and a PhD on British Colonial Rule in Uganda from London University. Thompson taught History in Uganda, and then in London where he was Head of the History Department and the Academic Vice-Principal at Dulwich College.

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Chapter 3
THE BRITISH ADOPTION OF ZIONISM, 1914-1917

Overview
After August 1914, in the new context of a world in turmoil, Zionism’s fortunes and prospects were unexpectedly and improbably transformed. Though not immediately, World War One changed everything. In an age of empire, this was at heart a war between empires. At its end, the victorious empires shared out the territories of those they had defeated. In particular, the British formally acquired Palestine from the Ottoman Turks. By that time, in the Balfour Declaration of November 1917, they had declared their support for Zionism. This represented an astonishing, unanticipated, turn in British policy, brought about by the war. In December 1916, political crisis in Britain brought to power David Lloyd George, already drawn to Zionism. At just this time, Palestine – to which he was emotionally attached – looked as though it could be prised from the Turks. Given the worrying wartime context elsewhere, of stalemate on land and crisis at sea, it now appeared to make sense to issue an appeal for help to ‘world Jewry’. Lloyd George and many of those around him believed that Jews in America and in Russia, especially, were highly influential and that they would support the Zionist plan for a Jewish National Home. They would welcome Balfour’s promise that the British would ‘facilitate’ this project; they would do everything possible to keep America and Russia committed to the war on Britain’s side; and they would thus enable Britain both to secure victory and to support Zionism in Palestine. In the event, as a wartime cri de coeur, the Declaration failed. Based on fantasy, it proved fruitless. Its issue did not change the course of the war. However, Lloyd George remained committed to it; and its retention, afterwards, would change the course of Jewish and Middle Eastern history. BRITAIN AND PALESTINE It is of more than passing interest that, during the premiership of Asquith, the British did not seek to acquire Palestine. It was certainly not the government’s priority. Palestine was a land of relative insignificance which could be dealt with once the war was over. If we review four relevant documents of this period, 1914-1916, we see that under Asquith the prevalent official British view was that Palestine was a region of limited strategic value; and that, assuming the war was won, the British could then conclude with the French acceptable arrangements for this and all the lands of the Ottoman Empire. First, a caution. We must beware hindsight and too narrow a focus. Before and during World War One, Palestine was not the defined, separate, entity that appeared first on the post-war map, then imprinted itself on the minds of later generations and, most importantly, foreshadowed the state of Israel. For the Ottomans, it was a remote region of limited importance. For Zionists, this was a once Promised Land from which the Jews had been exiled. But for the Arabs it was a part of Greater Syria and an integral part of the extensive Arab world which Europeans termed the Middle or Near East. Far from being a distinct territory, Palestine had long been, in the laconic words of a reflective British Arabist in 1946, ‘a somewhat arid prolongation of Syria’. When, in 1920, the Arabs declared their leader, Feisal, King of Syria, there was a general Arab assumption that this territory included Palestine. It was only when the French deposed Feisal, to take control of Syria, that Arab nationalists from the south focussed their attention on, now British, Palestine. In other words, it was to be a fateful post-war decision, and a break with continuity, for the British and the French not to cultivate a united Arab world but instead to divide that world and seize the pieces they each wanted. ‘Palestine was chipped out of Syria’. Nevill Barbour emphasises the ‘bitterness’ caused, even in the hearts of ‘moderate’ Palestinian Arabs, when they ‘found themselves, for the first time in history, a distinct political unit, cut off from the rest of Syria’. But this lay in the future. During the war, and before Asquith’s fall, there were indications that the British would be content afterwards with both Arab unity and a considerable degree of Arab independence. — Early evidence of British strategic thinking and war aims came in January 1915, shortly after the Ottoman Empire entered the war. The British Cabinet considered a memorandum entitled ‘The Future of Palestine’ forward by one of their number, Herbert Samuel. Samuel was the only Jew in this Cabinet: indeed, he was the first Jew to serve at this highest level of British government. He was also a Zionist, and his paper was a heartfelt appeal to his colleagues for Britain to acquire Palestine as a homeland for the Jews. Samuel was nothing if not direct. ‘A feeling is spreading’, he insisted, ‘that now, at last, some advance may be made towards the restoration of the Jews to the land to which they are attached by ties almost as ancient as history itself’. This required ‘the annexation of the country to the British Empire’. Then ‘in course of time, the Jewish people, grown into a majority and settled in the land, may be conceded such degree of self-government as the conditions of that day may justify’. Samuel appreciated that he had to convince his colleagues that such a vision was in line with, and would further, British interests. He struggled, however. His five ‘arguments’ contained more wishful thinking than sound strategic calculation. He blithely maintained, for example, in wishful thinking to which many of his colleagues in London would fall prey, that British administration would bring so many benefits that the present inhabitants of Palestine would ‘not merely acquiesce, but rejoice, in the change’. In addition, according to Samuel, possession of Palestine would raise Britain’s prestige – ‘would add lustre even to the British crown’ – and win for England ‘the lasting gratitude of the Jews throughout the world’. More prosaically, Samuel argued that in a post-war settlement it would be wiser for Britain to seek ‘compensations’ in the Ottoman lands of Mesopotamia and Palestine than in Germany’s African possessions, for fear of arousing ‘intense bitterness among the German people’. Bitterness among Arabs was of no comparable concern. As for imperial strategy, Samuel had just one argument: that his proposal would help to secure the Suez Canal (though he somewhat undermined his case by acknowledging that ‘Palestine in British hands’ would itself be open to attack). Samuel ended as he had begun, with a fervent appeal to support ‘the Jewish race’. Palestine might be able to ‘hold’ in time up to 4 million of the world’s 12 million Jews and ‘the character of the individual Jew, wherever he might be, would be ennobled’. ‘The Jewish brain’, he concluded, with a flush of racial pride, ‘is a physiological product not to be despised’. Unfortunately for Samuel and his cause, the Prime Minister was not interested. Asquith did not support Zionist ambitions. He dismissed his ministerial colleague’s advocacy as a frenzied (‘dithyrambic’) outburst; and ‘despatched Samuel’s memorandum to the wastepaper basket’. Zionism would have to wait. It was significant that there was at least one zealous Zionist at the heart of public affairs, and a triumph of sorts that Zionist goals were being discussed in Cabinet and were thereby reaching a wider circle of British decision-makers. But Asquith’s government saw no strategic value in Palestine - so no gain from its acquisition - and was unmoved by Zionism. This episode illustrated that something important would have to change– in the course of the war and/or the course of British politics – for Zionism to receive the endorsement it needed. — The indication, in the story of Samuel’s paper, that ‘Palestine in British hands’ had no priority at this time in the strategic thinking of this imperial power, was emphatically confirmed a few months later in the Report of the de Bunsen Committee of Imperial Defence: Asiatic Turkey, published in late June 1915. On 8 April 1915, Asquith asked an interdepartmental committee to determine what British policy should be towards the Ottoman Empire. In particular, what should be British strategic priorities in the aftermath of war (and victory)? Chaired by Sir Maurice de Bunsen, the committee published its report less than three months later. It is full of interest, but one assessment above all catches the eye. In a concluding paragraph it says: ‘Still less do the Committee desire to offer suggestions about the future destiny of Palestine’. The committee’s analysis was to have considerable influence on subsequent British policy-making, albeit in matters other than the future of Palestine. With the security of, and access to, India always at the back of their minds, the committee was in no doubt that the major British concern, regarding the territories of the Ottoman Empire, was Mesopotamia. Moreover, ‘mankind as a whole’ would benefit from Britain’s development of Mesopotamia, in which the British would bring back into cultivation 12 million acres of fertile soil; meanwhile, ‘we could develop oil fields’. The acquisition of Baghdad would ‘guard the chain of oil-wells along the Turco-Persian frontier’. Relating to this, ‘one of the cardinal principles of British policy in the Middle East’ is ‘our special and supreme position in the Persian Gulf’. No mention of Palestine here. Nonetheless, more was probably required to keep British interests safe: a ‘back door into Mesopotamia from the Eastern Mediterranean’. Conceding that the French had a lasting interest in the best port of that coast, Alexandretta, they recommended as second-best Haifa, which was ‘capable of development into a sufficiently good port, and of connection by railway with Mesopotamia’. So the committee imagined securing for Britain the lands contained in a cartographical triangle ‘whose base is from Aqaba to the Persian Gulf, and whose sides run from Acre on the west, and Basra on the east, to Mosul at the apex’. This was the marginal importance of (one part of) Palestine: that one of its ports should be developed, so as to provide secondary support for British interests elsewhere, in Mesopotamia. Early in the report, Britain’s nine ‘desiderata’ are enumerated. Number One is ‘final recognition and consolidation of our position in the Persian Gulf’. The last, number Nine, is ‘a settlement of the question of Palestine and the Holy Places of Christendom’. To underline Palestine’s minor significance, this item is one of three ‘which may, for the moment, be set aside’, to be dealt with later ‘in concert with other Powers’. We notice that insofar as there was British interest in Palestine, it was religious and also historic. This history was not only ancient but recent. With disputes over the Holy Places, especially Jerusalem, among the causes of the Crimean War, these sites again needed international deliberation. However, the committee concluded that ‘His Majesty’s Government should be prepared to make no claim themselves to the possession of the Holy Places, and to leave their future to be decided as a separate question, in discussion with those who stand for the national and religious interests involved’. The report is revealing about Britain’s attitude to France, the most important ‘other Power’ referred to here. When it was written, in the middle of 1915, Britain and France were allies, committed to standing side by side against Germany in a conflict for which neither end nor outcome was in sight. There is little sense that France, with whom the entente cordiale was quite recent, might (again) become a threatening imperial rival. The committee ruled out a successful bid by France for sole control of the Holy Places, since ‘the world-wide interests affected by the destiny of the Holy Land will not allow this’. Britain acknowledged that France would claim a ‘liberally defined Syria’, but there was no reason to fear serious French ambition in Palestine. We may add that no threat was anticipated from Russia, either (in Palestine, as distinct from Mesopotamia). Reading this report, we seek in vain any endorsement of Herbert Samuel’s argument, above, that Palestine was needed for the protection of the Suez Canal. Rather, we may infer that there was such confidence in British Egypt’s capacity to provide all the security the canal needed, as it had for 30 years, that there was no need to waste words on the issue. In ‘The Future of Palestine’, Samuel did not specify a threat to Britain’s strategic position, but we may assume that he had France uppermost in mind. But the Committee of Imperial Defence had few such concerns. It was bound to speculate about a future war in the area against France (and Russia). But to imagine was not to anticipate. Rather, the assumption was that European countries would recognise each other’s imperial spheres of interest in the region and agree compromises. In particular, it was asserted in this report that any difficulty in securing a deal with France ‘should not prove insuperable’. Indeed, the Sykes-Picot agreement was negotiated just a year later. In short, in 1915 the Committee for Imperial Defence did not see ‘Palestine’ as a priority. Haifa would be an asset; the Holy Places would need attention. But the acquisition of the whole territory was not regarded as being in Britain’s strategic interest. There is more to this report than is generally acknowledged. Writers on the period tend not to go far beyond quoting from the solitary, late, paragraph devoted to Palestine: ‘It will be idle for HMG to claim the retention of Palestine in their sphere’. However, we need to acknowledge also the thinking and the calculations behind this conclusion. A product of its age, the report was certainly cynical. The casual discussion of ‘partition’ and ‘annexation’ is striking. But its authors were thorough, and they looked carefully at the long-term implications of each of the strategic options they considered. The Balfour Declaration, issued two years later, was by contrast romantic in its vision and naïve in its neglect of consequences. — ‘Oceans of ink’ have been spilled on the subject of another British documentary relic of 1915, the first full year of World War One. The McMahon letter, 24 October, 1915, was part of a lengthy correspondence between Sir Henry McMahon, British High Commissioner in Egypt, and Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca, whose Hashemite clan claimed descent from the Prophet Mohammed. It was the first of three separate agreements which the British concluded, for the post-war partition of Ottoman Arab lands, between 1915 and 1917. ‘One of the challenges of British post-war diplomacy’, comments Eugene Rogan with a degree of understatement, ‘was to find a way to square what were, in many ways, contradictory promises’. Different parties have, unsurprisingly, accorded the McMahon letter different levels of significance. This controversy will continue. We consider it here for the light it sheds on, first, Britain’s relationship with the Arabs at this stage of the war; secondly, the status of Palestine at this time; and, thirdly, on Arab rejection of the Balfour Declaration which was to follow two years later. McMahon wrote: ‘I am empowered in the name of the Government of Great Britain to give the following assurances… Great Britain is prepared to recognise and support the independence of the Arabs within the territories included in the limits and boundaries proposed by the Sharif of Mecca… I am convinced that this declaration will assure you beyond all possible doubt of the sympathy of Great Britain towards the aspirations of her traditional friends, the Arabs, and will result in a firm and lasting alliance, the immediate result of which will be the expulsion of the Turks from Arab countries and the freeing of the Arab peoples from the Turkish yoke.’ There was a political deal here. Recognition of an independent Arab Kingdom, under Hussein, would be in return for the Hashemites leading an Arab revolt, with British support, against Ottoman rule. How extensive would this kingdom be? Hussein had earlier asked for all of Greater Syria as well as Mesopotamia and the Arabian Peninsula. In reply, the exceptions which McMahon stipulated, elsewhere in the same letter, were: Cilicia (the southern coast of Turkish Asia Minor); the area of Syria west of the towns of Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo (sought by the French); and Baghdad and Basra (which the British wanted for themselves). Palestine was not another exception: Britain would substantially recognise Arab independence across a region defined by the Sharif. Palestine was not mentioned at all; it fell within Hussein’s boundaries. It is worth emphasising that, according to this British pronouncement of late 1915, Palestine was not to be detached from Syria. It lay south of the specified Syrian towns, not west. As Joseph Jeffries, political correspondent for the Daily Mail, was to observe, in 1939: ‘There was no mention of its exclusion. We gave our word that on its soil the Arabs should be free of all foreign control save such as they chose of their own free will’. He added: ‘For this reason, today, more than twenty years after this Anglo-Arab treaty was concluded, the treaty remains of momentous importance to Palestine’. Jeffries exaggerated: this was not, strictly, an Anglo-Arab treaty. But it was an official, written, wartime pledge. It preceded the Balfour Declaration by two years. Later, after the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans, and the Ottoman defeat, Arabs expected it to be honoured. In the end, the question whether or not Palestine was, or was to be, included is academic: the British reneged on the whole promise. — The Sykes-Picot agreement, the following year, retains a reputation – for secret imperialist double-dealing and cynical manipulation of subject peoples and their resources – which may exceed what it deserves. Our special interest lies in what it says, or does not say, about (British) imperial interest in Palestine at that time, two years into the war. It was agreed on 16 May 1916. However, being a war-time understanding between the British and French imperial governments, about the possible partition of Ottoman territories, it was not published until the Bolsheviks exposed the text, along with other ‘secret treaties’, on coming to power in Russia in November 1917. The agreement was to share out the Ottoman territories, apart from a Turkish Turkey (Anatolia) and an Arab Arabia (to include Mecca and Medina). The negotiators, Sir Mark Sykes and Georges Picot, drew ‘a line in the sand’ from the coast of the eastern Mediterranean to the north-western frontier of Persia (Iran). In place of Ottoman rule, there would be ‘protected’ Arab states, both north and south of the line. These would be subject to, respectively, French and British influence (financial, economic, political). Moreover, as illustrated on an accompanying coloured map of the region, within each sphere there were to be special zones, for ‘direct administration or control’: a blue zone in the north (including Alexandretta, the north-east Mediterranean port, and Damascus) for France; and a red zone in the south (the north-western shores of the Persian Gulf and extending north through Basra to Baghdad) for Britain. The signatories agreed that no changes in these arrangements should be made by one party without the prior consent of the other - and that Russian consent, too, would be sought for the whole. That was the partition plan. In the light of the de Bunsen committee’s findings, which in general it closely resembles, two details catch the eye. First is the allocation of Mosul to the northern, French, sphere. Elizabeth Monroe’s explanation is that Lord Kitchener ‘wanted France to have Mosul province for the classic Indian army reason that nowhere must Britain run the risk of sharing an Asian frontier with Russia’. In fact, Mosul itself had not been mentioned by name in de Bunsen’s list of nine priorities. It was regarded in that report as of secondary importance, the army valuing its ‘good hill stations for white troops’, while its native Kurds afforded ‘excellent material for recruits’. As in the de Bunsen report, Palestine is not mentioned by name at any point. Rather (much of) what became the post-war mandated territory is shown, and referred to, as merely ‘the brown area’. This, it was agreed by Sykes and Picot, would come under ‘international administration’, the form of which would be decided later after consultation with Russia, other allies, and the Sharif of Mecca. This outcome may reflect an unwritten assumption: that what mattered in ‘the brown area’, which included Jerusalem, was authority relating to the Holy Places. However, there was one special case: it was agreed that ‘Great Britain be accorded’ Haifa, the sole location in Palestine which the de Bunsen committee had focussed on. Haifa, along with neighbouring Acre, was to be an addition to the British red zone: a British enclave, that is, which lay within France’s blue zone. This was a nice case of inter-empire accommodation. Haifa, the agreement spelled out, would serve as the Mediterranean terminus for Britain’s railway link eastwards to Baghdad in distant Mesopotamia. In trying to assess the significance of the Sykes-Picot agreement, in view of Britain’s subsequent policy towards Palestine, just a year or so later, three aspects are of interest. First, there is confirmation that Palestine as a territory had, in general, a very low priority. In not taking this negotiating opportunity to push for its inclusion in the British sphere – let alone ‘the red zone’ – Sykes was expressing the consistent, considered, view of Asquith’s government. Palestine was not a strategic priority for British imperial interests. Haifa was the exception, as ‘the back door’ to Britain’s primary region of interest, Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf. Secondly, this agreement was merely one more illustration of government’s thinking, while war was raging (and would continue to rage for two more years). While profound imperial strategic interests were constant, the context remained in flux; similarly, international agreements such as this would, as the context changed and once victory was won, be subject to review and adaptation. Thirdly, here was evidence, in no way surprising, that the British and French governments could talk to each other about the future of the Middle East in a businesslike manner, recognising the interests of each other. There was nothing naïve about these dealings. As the de Bunsen report had put it, the previous year: ‘It is of course obvious that British desiderata in Asiatic Turkey are circumscribed by those of other Powers, and that any attempt to formulate them must as far as possible be made to fit in with the known or understood aspirations of those who are our Allies today, but may be our competitors tomorrow’. There would be rivalry, certainly; but hard-nosed compromise would remain both desirable and achievable. There is no sense in 1915 or 1916 that the French might pose a threat to British interests, in the region generally or to Suez in particular, after the war. James Barr comments that the Sykes-Picot arrangement over Palestine was ‘a compromise, which neither power liked’. Though something of a tautology, this is surely the point: neither party fully obtained what it wanted, yet they could find a compromise. Lastly, we note insistence on the need for secrecy regarding these dealings with the French: the terms had to be kept ‘from knowledge of Arab leaders’. — The question remains: why Palestine? Or rather, why did British policy suddenly change from indifference towards Palestine, to a determination to acquire it? Asquith’s British imperial government repeatedly demonstrated that Palestine was not a strategic priority: in rejecting Herbert Samuel’s paper; in accepting the recommendations of de Bunsen’s committee on imperial defence; in accepting implicitly Palestine’s allocation to a post-war Arab state, in the McMahon letter; and in negotiating the Sykes-Picot agreement with France. Yet the conventional view remains that the British felt an overriding strategic need for Palestine, relating to the defence of Suez and more. To be sure, Winston Churchill, guided by Zionism, had written in 1908 that ‘a strong, free Jewish state astride the bridge between Europe and Africa, flanking the land roads to the East, would be … an immense advantage to the British Empire’. Zionism moreover would offer a convenient propaganda device by which the British could disguise a fundamentally imperialist purpose. According to James Barr, ‘by publicly supporting Zionist aspirations to make Palestine a Jewish state, they could secure the exposed east flank of the Suez Canal while dodging accusations that they were land-grabbing’. And Jonathan Schneer writes: ‘Of course … for imperial-economic-strategic reasons, Britain meant to keep the primary governing role in Palestine for herself’. Much of this is questionable: there are grounds for challenging the easy assumption that continues to be made. It is true that the British had taken control over Egypt in 1882 in order to safeguard the canal as a critical stretch of the sea-route to India. As a consequence, they had fallen out with France. A period of vexatious colonial rivalry ensued, and in 1898 the two powers came close to open warfare over Fashoda, on the Upper Nile (Egypt’s life-line). Egypt straddled the Suez Canal, but the canal’s eastern bank was exposed: the Ottomans were no threat, but the French, in pursuit of their own Greater Syria, might be. However, a surer guide to Anglo-French relations during and after World War One is the entente cordiale which in 1904 marked the resolution of outstanding imperial rivalries between the powers. This understanding expressed the shared view that on balance the British and the French had more to gain as allies than as foes, especially in view of the threat to each from Germany. Their fighting side by side against a common enemy from 1914 was therefore no abnormal, unexpected, alignment; it had been anticipated and prepared for (and was the restoration of a previous alliance against a common foe, Russia, in the Crimean War). In the event, Clemenceau’s post-war fears of Germany did far more to bring the French and British together, than Near Eastern rivalry did to separate them. Meanwhile, Asquith’s government had had no appetite for Palestine. And it accepted France as a power with whom it could do business: for the foreseeable future, in war and peace, in the Middle East and elsewhere. France was certainly not perceived as a danger serious enough to overcome Britain’s reluctance to take on still more imperial responsibilities. In the sobering words of the de Bunsen Report, ‘Our Empire is wide enough already, and our task is to consolidate the possessions we already have’. Palestine was not a strategic priority. Not, that is, before the change of Prime Minister in December 1916. In December 1916, a major domestic political crisis in Britain removed Henry Asquith, Prime Minister at the outbreak of the war, and brought David Lloyd George to power as his successor. By late 1916, Asquith was coming under increasing pressure. In the last years of peace, he had achieved much – in social welfare, for example – but he was failing now as a war leader. He had survived the ‘shell shortage’ crisis, but he continued to lack vigour and enterprise in pursuit of victory. Towards the end of 1916, with the slaughter on the Somme fresh in everyone’s mind, a cross-party triumvirate of leading politicians – Lloyd George, Asquith’s Liberal War Minister; Edward Carson, leader of the Ulster Unionists; and Bonar Law, leader of the Conservatives - urged the irresolute Prime Minister to institute, beneath him, an elite war cabinet, consisting of themselves. This pressure, along with considerable support in the press for a change of national leadership, induced Asquith to step aside. On 6 December 1916, Lloyd George – by chance already an enthusiastic Zionist, though this had nothing at all to do with his rise to power - replaced him as Prime Minister. Quite coincidentally, there was a tipping of the military balance in one, remote, theatre of war. By early 1917, there were no signs of the war’s end. Where Britain and France faced Germany on the Western Front, there was stalemate. There were indications that the Germans would win the war at sea. But the Ottoman Turks had become vulnerable. In January 1915, an Ottoman army had invaded Sinai, though it was held before threatening Suez. For much of that year, the focus of the Middle Eastern Front turned to the Dardanelles and Gallipoli, where an ambitious strategic action by British and ANZAC forces ended in defeat and withdrawal. ‘The Turk’ was underestimated at this time - along with ‘the African’, and ‘the Arab’. There followed in 1916 the surrender of British forces to the Ottomans in Kut, south of Baghdad; and a sustained contest for Sinai. But then the military situation improved. A contributory factor was the Arab revolt. In June 1916, encouraged by the British, the Arabs rose against the Turks. This revolt, supported by T. E. Lawrence, pressurised the Ottomans and gave Britain the advantage. At the year’s end, British and again ANZAC forces at last had victories to report. In December 1916, the British secured El Arish. This was the one theatre of operations where British armies were actually advancing. In January 1917, they completed the recapture of Sinai. This opened up Palestine. Lloyd George’s coming to power at just this time was to have profound and long-term consequences for the Near East. In the middle of the war, the government of a Prime Minister indifferent to both Palestine and Zionism was replaced by another, committed to both. The coincidental reversal of British military fortunes was such that, within days of taking office, Lloyd George was able