ABSTRACT
Britain came out of the Second World War with its empire ostensibly intact. There were British soldiers in almost every Middle Eastern country, from Iran in the East to Libya in the West and Eritrea and Ethiopia in the South. British military installations could be found throughout the area, including the largest of Britain’s overseas bases on the Suez Canal, where about 200,000 soldiers were stationed. Britain viewed the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf and the adjacent regions as its ‘natural dominion.’ Egypt, Cyprus and the Sudan had been under British rule since the end of the nineteenth century, while after the dismembering of the Ottoman Empire following the First World War, Britain obtained a mandate over Iraq, Transjordan and Palestine.1
