line in the sand

In 1916, in the midst of World War I, two men secretly agreed to divide the Middle East between them. Sir Mark Sykes was a visionary politician; François Georges-Picot was a bitter diplomat. The deal they struck, designed to ease the tensions that threatened to contain the Entente Cordiale, drew a dividing line from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian border. The lands north of this dividing line were to be France's; those south of it to Britain. Against all odds, their alliance held firm during the war, forming the basis for the postwar division of the region into five new states ruled by Britain and France. The establishment of British "mandates" over Palestine, Transjordan, and Iraq, and French mandates over Lebanon and Syria, made the two powers uneasy neighbors for the next 30 years. Through a constellation of politicians, diplomats, spies, and soldiers, including T.E. Lawrence, Winston Churchill, and Charles de Gaulle. *A Line in the Sand* tells the story of a brief, but crucial, era when Britain and France ruled the Middle East. The book meticulously explains how the ancient animosity between these two powers fueled the familiar, modern rivalry between Arabs and Jews, ultimately leading to war between the British and French in 1941, and between Arabs and Jews in 1948. In 1946, after years of intrigue and espionage, Britain finally succeeded in expelling France from Lebanon and Syria, hoping to then hold on to Palestine. Using newly declassified papers from British and French archives, James Barr recreates this forgotten, secret conflict and reveals, for the first time, the astonishing way in which the French finally got their revenge.