Britain is perhaps not always seen as a main actor in the Balkan Wars. However, there are reasons for a reassessment of this view if one takes a geopolitical view of the wars, particularly the geopolitical view that was prevalent in British Imperial circles at the time.

In Britain today the Balkan Wars are not seen as having any direct connection with the Great War that followed. They are seen as isolated and localized events and largely the internal product of a troubled region. Because history is written by the victors the standard Western view is therefore very different from the view from Turkey where continuity between these conflicts is apparent.

Roger Casement and James Bourchier are two Anglo-Irish figures from the early twentieth century who have connections with the Balkan Wars. But after that, as I shall explain, the similarities between them end.

Sir Roger Casement was a British consul in Africa and South America who was knighted for his work on behalf of the Empire. But he became disillusioned with Imperial policy, developed into an Irish patriot and was hanged by the British as a ‘traitor’ to the Empire in the aftermath of the 1916 Rising in Dublin, during the Great War. His connection with the Balkan Wars was to write a geopolitical analysis in 1913 that is extremely interesting, not least because it so accurately described the place of the First Balkan War in the Imperial power politics that led onto the Great War. In it he also predicted the course of policy taken by the Triple Entente that threatened the Ottoman Empire from that point in time.

James Bourchier, on the other hand, was apparently instrumental in helping to bring about the Balkan alliance that attacked the Ottoman Empire in 1912/13. Like Casement he was born in Ireland – but he would be more accurately described as an Englishman from Ireland, like the Duke of Wellington or Lord Kitchener. He was described by his biographer as the “diplomatist who has broken up the Turkish Empire in Europe” because of his efforts in acting as a facilitator for the Balkan alliance against the Ottomans – although acting in an ‘unofficial’ capacity in this.

Sir Roger Casement wrote ‘The Problem of the Near West’ in March 1913 toward the end of the first Balkan War. ‘The Problem of the Near West’ is part of his only book, ‘The Crime against Europe’ (1), which is a collection of articles written between 1911 and 1914 about British Foreign Policy and how, according to Casement, it was leading to war against Germany. Casement had developed the view that the British Empire was intent on stopping Germany emerging as a commercial competitor and sea-power and would fight a European war, if necessary, to do so.

Casement was writing as the outcome of the First Balkan War was still unclear: “That war is still undecided as I write (March 1913), but whatever its precise outcome may be, it is clear that the doom of Turkey as a great power is sealed, and that the complications of the Near East will, in future, assume an entirely fresh aspect.” (p.100)

Casement placed the Balkan War in the context of Britain’s attempts to stop German commercial expansion into the Ottoman Empire, by utilising the nationalist impulses of the Christian Balkan countries against the Turks. He saw the result of the war and the expulsion of the Ottomans from most of South-Eastern Europe, as having placed a barrier, once and for all, in the way of German activity in the Near/Middle East – or “The Near West,” as he called it. He believed that this should have satisfied British fears of a German ‘colonisation’ of the region, but reasoned that, knowing Britain, it would not satisfy her. Britain, argued Casement, would only be satisfied with the total destruction of Germany as a commercial and maritime rival. He concluded, therefore, that the Balkan war was merely the first stage in a process that would result in an offensive against Istanbul and Anatolia.

At the same time, the result of the Balkan War, Casement argued, was an encirclement of German commercial activity that she could only break by turning increasingly to the seas, by building a bigger fleet, and, therefore, placing the Germans on a collision course with England. So Casement saw the Balkan War as not resulting in a satisfying of British interests in the region with regard to Germany but, in fact, as intensifying the process that would lead to a much larger war.
Casement saw German commercial expansion in the Balkans and Ottoman territories as a useful outlet for German energies, which would distract Germany from competing with England on the Seas – a project Casement knew would not be permitted by Britain without a general war. But the whole purpose of British policy became, according to Casement, to bottle up German energy and encircle it, creating a kind of pressure-cooker effect that would either produce revolution within the German State itself or produce destruction from without. And Germany, because it needed to participate in the world market without fear of economic strangulation by the Royal Navy, was therefore forced back to the Seas and into inevitable conflict with England.

It had been a long-standing view of British naval strategists that Germany was vulnerable on the seas because her commerce was forced to travel across them and her food and vital materials came into her ports via the oceanic waterways, controlled by the Royal Navy. It was reckoned that by 1900 Germany had become incapable of feeding her rising population. And plans had been drawn up by the Royal Navy to utilise this weakness in the form of a blockade of Germany to destroy her commerce from around this date. Therefore, in preventing another source of overland commerce for Germany, the Balkan War was, according to Casement, a very helpful thing for Britain – forcing Germany toward the seas again.

To protect its expanding merchant navy and vital supplies Germany needed a bigger navy. But the seas were controlled by Britain, who could not permit such a development. So, according to Casement, Germany was being lured into an inevitable conflict with the controller of the seas. And that would not only lead to the destruction of Germany but also to the break-up of the Ottoman Empire, which had been developing links with the Germans – unless, of course, Germany could win a war.

The centrepiece of German involvement in the Ottoman Empire was the Berlin-Baghdad Railway. This was seen by a number of commentators (2) as a major cause of the Great War. This was because Britain looked at it and feared the economic and strategic advantages it would provide to Germany, the rest of continental Europe and Asia in trade rivalry with England. The Royal Navy controlled the global market by ruling the sea. It was feared in England that if the Berlin to Baghdad Railway was built and became fully operational trade would increasingly go across land and be beyond the guns of the Royal Navy. That would mean that Germany would not only become commercially dominant within the Eurasian heartland but also become safe from Royal Navy blockade, which had, historically been the primary means of British warfare against European rivals to its power and prosperity.

It was also feared that the Railway could potentially transport goods at a lower cost, giving the Germans a commercial advantage over Britain in the Eastern markets where German business was already threatening long-standing British trade (3). And there might even be the development of a great customs union – a kind of early European Community, with Germany at its head – that would prosper outside of the global market that Britain had established for its own benefit and which the Royal Navy policed.

Casement argued that German commercial expansion into the Balkans “would have offered a safety valve, and could have involved preoccupations likely to deflect the German vision from … the Western highways of the sea.” (p.101)

Interestingly Casement’s view is mirrored in a book published in 1916 by Percy Evans Lewin of the Royal Colonial Institute. Lewin’s ‘The German Road to the East’ describes how German economic expansion was forced toward the East by Britain’s dominating position on the sea to the West. Lewin argued that the whole of Germany’s sea commerce came out of a small triangle of which Heligoland formed the centre. From there it passed through the narrow waters between Denmark and Norway which could be easily blocked by the British fleet. Ninety-five per cent of it went through the English Channel, and the only alternative route around the Orkneys also took it through an area controlled by the Royal Navy. And even if it successfully managed to negotiate these routes it would run into British sea power again at Gibraltar.

From both Casement’s and Lewin’s positions the value of an overland route for German trade is apparent.

At the same time Casement dismissed the view, prevalent in some British Imperial circles that Germany was following a colonial policy similar to England’s: “An occupation or colonisation of the Near East by the Germanic peoples… was never a practical suggestion or one to be seriously contemplated… Germany, indeed, might have looked for a considerable measure of commercial dominance in the Near East… but it could never have done more than this.” (p.101)

Casement suggested that this was geopolitically impossible, writing: “The trend of civilized man in all great movements since modern civilization began, has been from East to West, not from West to East. The tide of the peoples moved by some mysterious impulse from the dawn of European expansion has been towards the setting sun. The few movements that have taken place in the contrary direction have but emphasized the universality of this rule… The Crusades furnished, doubtless, the classic example…” (p.101)

In his article Casement quoted one of the most well known Imperial commentators of the time, Mr. Frederick Harrison, who wrote approvingly of the Balkan War in the English Review, of January 1913: “Even a local and temporary triumph of Austria over Servia cannot conceal the fact that henceforth the way south-east to the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea is barred to the Germans.” (p.102)

Casement, himself, commented on the British geopolitical view of the Balkan War: “That is the outstanding fact that British public opinion perceives with growing pleasure from the break up of Turkey. No matter where the dispute or what the purpose of conflict may be, the supreme issue for England is ‘Where is Germany?’ Against that side the whole weight of Great Britain will, openly or covertly, be thrown. German expansion in the Near East has gone by the board, and in its place the development of Greek naval strength in the Mediterranean, to take its stand by the Triple Entente, comes to be jauntily considered, while the solid wedge of a Slav Empire or Federation, commanding in the near future 2,000,000 of armed men is agreeably seen to be driven across South-eastern Europe between Austro-German efforts and the fallow lands of Asia Minor.” (p.102)

Then Casement made a prophetic statement that the Balkan War was only the start of a planned advance of the Entente powers across Ottoman lands which would take them into Anatolia itself when the appropriate moment arrived: These latter (i.e. lands of Asia Minor) can safely be left in Turkish hands yet a while longer, until the day comes for their partition into ‘spheres of influence,’ just as Persia and parts of China are to-day being apportioned between Russia and England.” (p.103)

Sir Roger Casement’s view is significant because in many respects he was an insider and someone who understood the thrust and workings of British Imperial policy intimately. The fact that he was able to accurately predict the course of events beginning with the Balkan War and culminating in the partition of Ottoman Anatolia by the Western powers was because he was a ‘renegade’ from Imperialism and had gone over to the anti-imperialist position.

Casement’s article also draws attention to the new ‘ethical’ basis of foreign policy held by the Liberal Government in England, which had a strong Christian ‘moral’ dimension. He noted how the joining together of the Christian states and the expelling of the Ottomans from Europe was seen in Nonconformist English Liberal circles as a ‘divine judgement’: “This happy consummation… has fallen from heaven, and Turkey is being cut up for the further extension of British interests clearly by the act of God. The victory of the Balkan States becomes another triumph for the British Bible; it is the victory of righteousness over wrong-doing.” (p.103)

Although at this time England was becoming increasingly lax in its Christianity the governing Liberal Party had a strong Nonconformist Protestant character which, since the time of Gladstone, had always shown great sympathy to the Christians in the Balkans. Gladstone had made famous his desire for the Moslem Turks to be driven out of the Balkans “bag and baggage” and this phrase was increasingly referred to in Britain from 1912 to 1922 by those wishing to limit Ottoman power in the region.

Casement, however, did not see this moral Christian impulse as the driving force of Imperial policy but as a kind of ethical veneer on the core values of British policy in exerting its power against potential competitors. He saw the Balkan Christians as mere pawns in Imperial power politics and wrote: “ The true virtue of the Balkan ‘Christians’ lies in the possibility of their being moulded into an anti-German factor of great weight in the European conflict, clearly impending, and in their offering a fresh obstacle, it is hoped, to German world policy… Hemmed in by Russia on the East and the new Southern Slav States on the South-east, with a vengeful France being incited on her Western frontier to fresh dreams of conquest, Germany sees England preparing still mightier armaments to hold and close the seaways of the world…” (p.104)

Casement’s analysis is confirmed by British Imperialist activity from 1912 onwards and particularly in its repeated attempts to enlist all these Christian Slav States as fighting forces against Germany, Austro-Hungary and Ottoman Turkey. It is particularly accurate in relation to the Greek State. This activity led to British military interference in Greek neutrality and the Greek tragedy in Anatolia after the government under Venizélos, installed in Athens through Allied force, was enlisted as a ‘catspaw’ to bring the Turks to accept the Treaty of Sèvres.

On this point, the American author, Joseph Starke, argued in 1921 that Britain had utilized the inherent instability of the Balkans region to further its interests in preparing the ground for the Great War on Germany. In ‘Light and Truth after the World Tragedy’ he wrote: “England is directly responsible for this exasperating and baffling state of affairs. By nourishing in these peoples, under the impulse of Gladstone’s humanitarian eloquence, an inordinate sense of importance quite beyond their deserts and the nationalistic possibilities of the situation as it stood at that time, she directly encouraged their restlessness and violence, increased the racial jealousies between them and interfered with the natural evolution of these related countries to a strong and united Slavic state under Austrian guidance – the fertile scheme of the murdered prince Francis Ferdinand.” (p.39)

The achievement of the Ottomans in managing these, what Starke called, “wreckage peoples” of the Balkans was put into perspective during the twentieth century when the Balkans passed out of the Ottoman sphere and into the realm of Christian European influence. But, as Starke contended, the Balkan region might still have remained stable if the other great Empire in the region, Austro-Hungary, had been allowed to stabilize it.

It is interesting that Casement marks the Balkan Wars as the point at which the fate of the Ottoman Empire was sealed because when Turkey entered into the War in November 1914 it was argued in Britain that she had made the fateful choice herself – in a kind of act of suicide. Casement’s insight is revealing in that it locates the Balkan Wars within a part of a desired process designed to achieve the demise of both Germany and the Ottoman Empire on England‘s part.

Casement, perhaps alone amongst Western writers, subscribes to the view that the Balkan Wars represents the start of a ten year war launched against the Ottoman Turks from the West. In this he is very different from the standard Western view that has largely seen the Balkan Wars forgotten in the shadow of the Great War that came later.

The alliance that Britain entered into with Russia in 1907, therefore, was the single most important event that made a British war on Turkey inevitable.

The alliance with Russia was obviously the main factor that spelled trouble for the Ottoman Empire. But what was it that made this alliance so important to Britain that she overturned her traditional foreign policy of preventing Russia from having Constantinople?

The reason is connected to the fact that Britain was an island nation and it was primarily a sea power. It did not have a large army and it had been traditionally opposed to military conscription. Therefore it would have been impossible for Britain to have defeated Germany by itself. Therefore, it needed the large French army and the even larger Russian Army to do most of the fighting on the continent for it. The Russian Army was particularly important and it was described in the English press as a ‘steamroller’ that would roll all the way to Berlin, crushing German resistance by its sheer weight of numbers.

The problem for Britain was that the Russians (unlike the French who wanted to recapture Alsace/Lorraine after their loss to the Germans in 1871) had no real reason to fight Germany. Therefore, something substantial had to be promised to the Czar for his help in destroying Germany. That something was his heart’s desire, Constantinople.

The Balkan Wars represented the beginning of this process. They certainly came about as one of the consequences of the Anglo-Russian Agreement of 1907. Without the restraining forces of England and France Russia saw itself as having a much freer hand in the Balkans and saw its way down to Constantinople clearing. And all restraints were removed from the various Balkan nationalisms by the ending of the historical antagonism of the ‘Great Game’ between England and Russia in favour of the Great War against Germany.

Casement argued that the Balkan War played a part in the isolation and encirclement of Germany that the Entente Powers were promoting prior to the European War. But there is also evidence supporting the view that British diplomacy, at least in an ‘unofficial’ capacity, was partly behind the Balkan War.

Such events are usually accomplished through quiet diplomacy and are never officially recognized as official acts of state, for good reason. There are also precedents for them being accomplished on a ‘freelance’ basis by private individuals (One thinks of the Jameson Raid prior to the Boer War).

But there is actually a book devoted to another ‘Irishman’ who, it is claimed, acted as England’s agent in this, and, apparently, accomplished wonders in that respect.
The ‘Inner History of the Balkan War’ by Lt.-Col. Reginald Rankin, Special War Correspondent of The Times was published in early 1914, and is dedicated to James David Bourchier. Lt.-Col. Reginald Rankin called Bourchier “the unattached diplomatist who has broken up the Turkish Empire in Europe” on the opening page of his book. Quoting Who’s Who of 1913 the author has this description of Bourchier’s background, which reveals him to be ‘Anglo-Irish’ rather than ‘Irish’: “Was for some years Assistant Master at Eton; in 1888 acted as Special Correspondent of The Times in Roumania and Bulgaria and has subsequently represented that journal in South-Eastern Europe…” (p.1)

The bulk of Lt.-Col. Reginald Rankin’s book is made up of articles written by Bourchier and published by The Times, Daily Telegraph, Daily News, Fortnightly Review and other periodicals in England. But Chapter I of this book, entitled James David Bourchier, describes the rise to power of the Young Turks, Bourchier’s growing hostility toward them, and his role in organizing the Balkan Alliance, which expelled the Ottoman Empire from Europe.

Rankin notes that “The behaviour of the Young Turks in Macedonia in 1910 convinced Bourchier that only a resort to arms could free the subject Christians from an intolerable persecution.” (p.7)

Bourchier and his biographer seem to have shared the anti-Semitic mindset of many in the British ruling class at the time and blamed much of the situation in the Balkans on what they called “the Jew-inspired Young Turks”. Rankin suggested that the “silence” of the press over Macedonia “was due largely to the influence of the financiers and Jews who control the European Press and whose interests are wrapped up in the preservation of Turkey. The Young Turk movement started in Salonika, a Jewish town, and from the first Jews were at the back of it.” (p.8)

What is clear from any reading of ambassadorial correspondence and other material (One thinks of the dragoman Gerald Fitzmaurice and Ambassador Lowther, for instance) is how many within British ruling circles were concerned at the so-called ‘power of the Jew.’ This was because many in the Imperial ruling elite had formed the notion that the Jews were a dangerous element in international affairs (4). It was reasoned that because they had no country and no national existence they were internationalists of a disruptive kind. It was noticed that Jews were both prominent in international finance and international socialism. Many British Imperial civil servants and writers saw them as being associated with German commercial success and even as the ‘hidden hand’ behind the Young Turks, many of whom came from the great Jewish city of Salonika. This was a popular view within powerful circles in England even before the Great War.

The solution to this ‘Jewish problem’ for Britain later presented itself in the form of the Zionist objective in which Jews could be made into a national people within British-occupied Palestine no longer disrupting the international affairs of the British Empire.

Here is Rankin’s description of the contribution of Bourchier to the creation of the Balkan War:

“Bourchier, with a knowledge of the conditions prevailing in Turkey and in the Balkans, on the one hand, and at the councils of the Great Powers, on the other… realised that the only remedy was a combination of the free nations, kinsman of the oppressed peoples, either to bring pressure on the Young Turks… or to put them out by force. He came to this conclusion at the end… of 1910… Bourchier turned his attention to the… possible solution to the problem. What forces could the four states of the Balkans – Bulgaria, Servia, Greece and Montenegro – command for the purpose of bringing pressure, of one kind or another on the oppressors of their co-religionists and kinsmen?… Here was the germ of the Balkan League, the first cause of the war which drove the Turks out of Europe after nearly five hundred years… a calculation simmering in the brain of an unofficial Irishman…

So it came about that during the winter of 1910-11 Bourchier had long talks with M. Venizélos, the Greek Prime Minister, and the two men discussed the scheme of a defensive, and then offensive, alliance between the Balkan States against the Turk. Events marched rapidly in favour of the project. The difficulty in achieving secret unity and cooperation between nations whose sole common ground was their hatred of the oppressor, gave way before the blundering rancour of the Jew-inspired Young Turks…

The pressure put on Bulgars and Greeks alike caused a rapprochement between the peasants of the two races. Warfare between them, almost chronic in the past, ceased between them… This… naturally strengthened the hands of Venizélos and Bourchier. At this time the latter was striving to bring about a Greco-Bulgarian alliance, which the other states might subsequently join…

M. Venizélos is a very old friend of Bourchier, and their talks… that were to change the face of Europe for all time, were not held in the official atmosphere of council chambers; they met in various places and made a pilgrimage to the tomb of Byron at Mesolonghi… At last one day in 1911, the decisive step was taken… Venizélos told Bourchier that he had finally approved the draft treaty of an alliance with Bulgaria against Turkey. Thus did Bourchier achieve his purpose that will make his name ever famous… Some months later Bourchier went to Sofia and… persuaded the Bulgarian Government to fall in line with Greece… Bourchier had not left Servia out of the hunt. At the end of December 1911 he went to Belgrade and broached his plan to M. Milovanovitch, the Foreign Minister. He urged on him the idea of a combination between the Balkan States… In due course, the Serbo-Bulgar Treaty was signed a week or two before the Bulgar-Greek Treaty.

Bourchier went back to England in July 1912 and at that time the Balkan League was practically formed… He had done his part in the great task… for the futures of the peoples his statesmanship was to liberate… At last on September 30 the four States mobilised simultaneously…

The four States, temporarily united by the force of his genius, by common respect for his abilities, and by common knowledge of his devotion to their cause, sank their ancient differences; allied themselves; simultaneously made war; conquered the Turk and drove him out of Europe… Vast tracts of territory have changed hands; millions of people have changed their rulers; a power and a creed that at one time threatened to dominate Europe have been practically evicted. Christianity has triumphed over Islam, civilization over barbarity; the European has proved himself a better man than the Asiatic; the apple of discord has been lifted out of the reach of the Great Powers;… Fifty years hence, or much less, the Crescent will not float over Constantinople…

The names of Byron, of Gladstone, of Bourchier, will be remembered and treasured in the hearts of millions… The statues that will rise in the Macedonian towns will be time-bound witnesses to the love and admiration which the unofficial Irishman… excited in the hearts of the people he liberated.” (‘The Inner History of the Balkan War’, pp.11-21)

There is no hard evidence that Bourchier was acting on behalf of the British State in helping to bring about the Balkan alliance. But he was acting within the general thrust of British policy in the area, was never censored for his activities, but rather feted for them. The establishment of Christian Slav buffer-states between Germany/Austria and the Ottoman territories was a geopolitical objective of British Imperial policy, according to Casement and a general reading of English commentaries from this period confirms as such.

The Balkan Wars of 1912-13 did not lead directly to a Great War because the other parties to the Triple Entente – England and France – had no interest in seeing Russia capture the Straits without bringing Germany into the conflict. As the French historian Alfred Fabre-Luce concluded in his 1926 book, ‘The Limitations of Victory’:

“England’s representatives had been instructed, ever since 1909, at all costs to prevent the eastern crises from becoming general; and in 1914 she still maintained this point of view, as she refused to intervene until France and Belgium were drawn into the conflict. ‘Our idea,’ Grey said to Cambon on the 29th July, ‘has always been to avoid being drawn into a war for a Balkan question.’” (pp. 97-8)

England required German involvement in a European War to bring about her demise as a competitor. So a Balkan War was useless to England unless Germany could be involved in it. Germany could only become involved through the intervention of Austria, and the Hapsburg’s attitude in the Balkans after 1909 was largely concerned with the preservation of order among the diverse nationalities inhabiting the Empire, to ensure survival. A much greater provocation would be necessary to bring about Austria‘s entry into any conflict in the Balkans something that occurred in 1914. Fabre-Luce, considering the understanding England had with France to go in to a war with Germany and the preparations the military men had made for this war, put it like this:

“There was only one doubt in the midst of all this optimism: under certain circumstances, public opinion, which is the final arbiter of English policy, might refuse to sanction intervention… Now, if the many repercussions of the alliances are carefully considered, they lead to the paradoxical conclusion that nothing but a Balkan conflict, in which, however, neither France nor England would be directly interested, could have brought about a combined Triple Entente offensive… It was consequently necessary for Germany to be indirectly involved in the quarrel. This was also essential in order to be sure of Russia’s co-operation…

On the other hand, it would not have done for the claim to Constantinople to have appeared responsible for the conflict, for this would have been risking an Anglo-Russian conflict, even before Austria’s hostility had been raised or Germany intervened… Their (Russia’s) only chance of inducing England to recognize their right to Constantinople was to formulate it after the outbreak of a war waged in common for another cause, at a moment when anxiety for victory was the chief concern and made the most painful concessions easy between allies (This is, in fact, what happened in 1915).

Here, then, we have the whole Triple Entente interested in Balkan crises. This was something new, and it brought about an analogous change in the policy of the enemy group, whose alliance was correspondingly firmly cemented, its centre of gravity being similarly shifted to the east.” (‘The Limitations of Victory’, pp.158-9)

That is an important insight into why the Ottomans found it difficult not to become drawn into the European conflict in 1914. The Entente’s special interest in the Balkans as the site of ‘detonation’ for a war on Germany shifted the centre of gravity of the conflict eastward.

If Russia had taken Constantinople in 1913 as a result of a Turkish collapse, the Czar would have had little motivation for joining in a war with Germany. And since a war with Germany was necessary for the French recovery of Alsace/Lorraine and the general destruction of German power, desired by Britain, then Britain and France used diplomacy (in conjunction with Germany) to end the Balkan conflict, for another day, and prevent it leading to a Russian takeover of Constantinople.

Sir Edward Grey’s conducting of affairs in relation to the Balkans in 1913 is sometimes cited as an example of Britain’s peaceful intentions in Europe. But it was more the case that the 1913 situation in the Balkans did not provide a suitable ‘detonator’ for the European conflict desired to achieve the overall objectives of the Entente vis-à-vis Germany.

The Balkans remained important, however, as the one area over which a European war might be provoked and at the same time ensure that a Russian mobilisation against Germany could take place, so that the general conflagration necessary to ensure the German and Ottoman destruction could be brought about. It’s purpose in the general scheme of things was akin to a detonator.

Additional Notes:

(1) Athol Books (Belfast) 2004 Reprint
(2) See, for example, Professor Maurice Jastrow (1917) ‘The War and the Baghdad Railway’, p.99; Frederic Howe (1919) ‘The Only Possible Peace’, pp.146-53; Charles Woods in ‘New York Times’ January 9 1918 for example. Woods, in particular, had a large output on the subject and conducted speaking tours to the U.S. to gain American entry into the war.
(3) See, for example, Richard Coke (1925) ‘The Heart of the Middle East’, p.130.
(4) See, for instance, the classic of British geopolitics by Sir Halford Mackinder (1919) ‘Democratic Ideals and Reality’, pp. 173-4; Elie Kedourie’s ‘Young Turks, Freemasons and Jews’, Middle Eastern Studies, January 1971, pp. 95-102, for a review of the output of the British Foreign Office; E.H. Benson’s ‘Crescent and Iron Cross’ (1915), Chapter IV, for a propagandist version linking Jews and German power; Also ‘The Round Table’, March 1918 for the Chatham House version. My book ‘Britain’s Great War on Turkey – An Irish Perspective’ extensively deals with this aspect in the creation of Palestine (pp. 268-288)