This images give us an idea of the paper the countries within the Near East played on the agenda of the politics of the world and also give a more specific and clear vision of what the Near East meant for the powerful countries of the world at that time -the 19th century and the begining of the 20th - individually and as a hole. Finally they also show the paper the region took in the geopolitics of the moment.
1875: Making their way to India
In the 19th century, Egypt and Sudan were considered strategic regions for imperial powers in terms of continental and possible global control. In 1875, Britain bought Egypt's shares in the Suez Canal for £4 million, making them the largest shareholder and safeguarding the water route to India.
While Britain held these until 1956, this strategic move marked the beginning of imperial Britain's control over Egypt.
1915: Dividing up the Ottoman Empire
Two days after the British navy lost against the Turkish army, the British government signed a secret agreement with Russia that included a hypothetical post-WWI division of the Ottoman Empire into spheres of influence.
What it said?
1. Russia would claim Constantinople, the Bosporus Strate, the Dardanelles, the Gallipoli peninsula and more than half of the European section of Turkey.
2. Britain, on the other hand, would lay claim to other areas of the former Ottoman Empire and central Persia, including Mesopotamia, which was known to be rich in oil.
The sneaky agreement signified a change in alliances during the Great War, as Britain promised away territory it sought to defend a few years earlier.
1876-82: Protecting Egypt before taking over
By 1876, Egypt's ruler, the Khedive Ismail Pasha had run up debts of about £100 million, in spite of Egypt's sale of its holdings in the Suez Canal to Britain in 1875. As a result, he was forced to accept Anglo-French control of his treasury, customs, post offices, railways and ports.
Following riots in Alexandria, heightened tensions and the rise of a nationalist movement, Britain ordered the bombardment of Alexandria which led to the Anglo-Egyptian War of 1882 between British and Egyptian defenses, and eventually the seizure of both the canal and the country by British troops.
1914-18: World War One and the Fall of the Ottoman Empire
Although the German attempt to take over Europe was stopped, the Middle East was also affected in the process. The Ottoman Empire, once the greatest Islamic power in the region, sided with Germany and declared war against France, Russia and Great Britain in November 1914.
Considering the Ottoman Empire a serious threat to the British Empire, London launched preemptive strikes and attacks to knock Turkey out of the war and take down the Ottoman Empire.
The war ended with Great Britain occupying territory that would eventually become Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine and Trans-Jordan.
1916: Encouraging the Great Arab Revolt
British sparked and encouraged an Arab uprising in 1916, known as the "Great Arab Revolt," against the Turks.
However, after the war, the victorious allies failed to grant full independence to the Arab people, and instead placed them under British and French control according to the mandate system under the Treaty of Versailles.
1914-18: Sowing the seeds for the Israel-Palestine conflict
After World War I, the British government was given a mandate to rule Palestine in the carve-up of the Ottoman Empire, including a commitment to Britain's Jewish community to create a Jewish "national home" in the region put forth by British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour. Eager to make sure Britain kept good on their promise, Arabs also demanded an Arab state on the same land.
and the last one, the end of the Near and the beginning of the Middle
1916: Carving up the Middle East
More than a year after the agreement with Russia, Great Britain and France also signed a secret agreement known as the Sykes-Picot agreement, by which most of the Arab region under the Ottoman Empire would be divided into British and French spheres of influence after World War I.
European representatives (french and british), Sir Mark Sykes and Francois Georges Picot, believed that the Arab people were better off under European empires and divided up the region with a ruler and without Arab knowledge.
