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The Logistics and Politics of the British Campaigns in the Middle East, 1914–22

These two books discuss consequences of British colonial activity during and after World War I. Both have virtues, but neither achieves what it principally sets out to do or is unmarred by errors of transliteration, fact and interpretation. Kristian Coates Ulrichsen’s aim is to examine the impact of Britain’s Middle East campaigns on both the countries from which it despatched its forces (Egypt and India) and those (Palestine and Mesopotamia) which received them ‘through the prism of the enhanced extraction of resources’. His thesis is that in 1916 ‘a decisive paradigm shift’ in the scale of the logistical demands on Egypt and India introduced highly intrusive and entirely new methods of imperial political control and a deep penetration of society in 1917/18 as civil resources were diverted to military usage [sic]; and that the visibility and impact of substantially increased British rule [!] in occupied Palestine and Mesopotamia led to a postwar backlash in those countries. Ulrichsen claims that his book ‘adds another dimension to existing literature on “war and society”’ and adds value in its focus on the relationship between logistics and state control in the four countries. It is doubtful that the author has made out his case. What he is saying in outline, which is surely not new, is that the fact that the campaigns directed from India and Egypt put those two countries under strain, that the arrival of Lloyd George as prime minister changed the conduct of the war. (This is certainly true of Palestine). In addition, the invasions of Iraq and Palestine brought pressure and British control to bear on them, and that the postwar relaxation and British authority fostered a resurgence of nationalism in 1919 and 1920. (His assessment that this ‘arguably exceeded the reaction in India in 1857 and Egypt in 1882 . . . ’ seems extraordinary, in the former case at least.) The argument of the book is not helped by repeated explanations of what it is about and what it has achieved and by a style that is often wordy and cluttered with unattractive academic terminology. The logistics and the politics do not sit well together. The former, which sounds dull enough, is much the better, illuminating little known aspects of the campaigns and providing valuable information about the whole question of the mobilisation of Britain’s Middle East armies and the vital contribution of (often impressed Egyptian) labour to the Palestine victory. There are other achievements—Ulrichsen is good on the maligned General British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 2014