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In retirement, Anthony Eden, the British Prime Minister at the time, maintained that the military response had prevented a much larger war in the Middle East. In the context of the massive armament of Egypt via Czechoslovakia, Israel had been expecting an Egyptian invasion in either March or April 1957, as well as a Soviet invasion of Syria. [241]
British foreign policy in the Middle East has involved multiple considerations, particularly over the last two and a half centuries. These included maintaining access to British India, blocking Russian or French threats to that access, protecting the Suez Canal, supporting the declining Ottoman Empire against Russian threats, guaranteeing an oil supply after 1900 from Middle East fields ...
Britain had supported, through British intelligence officer T. E. Lawrence (aka Lawrence of Arabia), the establishment of a united Arab state covering a large area of the Arab Middle East in exchange for Arab support of the British during the war.
Britain's involvement in this became one of the most controversial parts of its Empire's history and damaged its reputation in the Middle East for generations. [ xxxviii ] According to historian Elizabeth Monroe : "measured by British interests alone, [the declaration was] one of the greatest mistakes in [its] imperial history."
British colonial architecture, such as in churches, railway stations and government buildings, can be seen in many cities that were once part of the British Empire; [280] Western technologies and architecture had been globalised in part due to the Empire's military and administrative requirements. [281]
The Sinai and Palestine campaign was part of the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I, taking place between January 1915 and October 1918.The British Empire, the French Third Republic, and the Kingdom of Italy fought alongside the Arab Revolt in opposition to the Ottoman Empire, the German Empire, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The Middle East was essential to the British Empire, so Germany and Italy worked to undermine British influence there. Hitler allied with the Muslim leader Amin al-Husseini—in exile since he participated in the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine—as part of promoting Arab nationalism to destabilize regional British control.
The Great Game was a rivalry between the 19th-century British and Russian empires over influence in Central Asia, primarily in Afghanistan, Persia, and Tibet.The two colonial empires used military interventions and diplomatic negotiations to acquire and redefine territories in Central and South Asia.