David Pryce-Jones
Troubles in the Levant
A Line in the Sand: Britain, France and the Struggle that Shaped the Middle East
By James Barr
Simon and Schuster 464pp £25 order from our bookshop
It is plain sailing to condemn the policies of Britain and France in the days when they controlled the Middle East, and A Line in the Sand does so with gusto. The charge is that the two imperial powers engaged in a consuming rivalry that ended in disaster for all concerned.
Moreover things didn’t have to turn out like that. Once upon a time, the British occupied Egypt and gladly let the French have Morocco as a counterweight. The Entente Cordiale and alliance against Germany in the First World War marked a genuine convergence of interests. Anticipating spoils at the
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