These zones were further divided into “Zones of Direct Control” of the colonial powers and “Zones Under the Influence” of the colonial powers. The result was the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which divided the Middle East into two zones, one French (A) and one British (B). As the war drew on and it became apparent that the Central Powers were going to lose, France and Britain, the major colonial powers of the day, laid plans to secure access to their colonies in India and Southeast Asia. Founded around the year 1300 in what is now Turkey, the Ottoman Empire lasted 600 years (from roughly 1300 to 1922) and covered at its peak a huge range of territory, including modern day Hungary, the Balkans, Greece, parts of Ukraine, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Palestine, North Africa as far west as Algeria, and the western and eastern coasts of modern Saudi Arabia.ĭuring the war, Ottoman Turkey allied itself with the Central Powers (Germany and Austria) against the Triple Entente (Britain, France and Russia) and later the United States. The end of World War I saw the defeat and ultimate dissolution of one of the most powerful empires the world had ever seen. It is impossible to make sense of events in the Middle East today-from the rise of ISIS to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict-without an understanding of the Sykes-Picot Agreement. The Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL, boasted of “the end of Sykes-Picot” when in 2014 the group took control of the Iraq-Syria border-physically removing the posts that marked the internationally recognized boundary.
An agreement made between Great Britain and France to divide up the Turkish Ottoman Empire after the end of the First World War, it was negotiated by the Englishman Mark Sykes (1879-1919) and the Frenchman François Georges-Picot (1870-1951).įar from being relegated to Leon Trotsky’s often-cited “dustbin of history,” the Sykes-Picot Agreement has influenced the history of the Middle East for a century, and there is no indication that the influence will dissipate any time soon. It is not an anniversary to be celebrated. The Sykes-Picot Agreement, one of the most fateful pacts in modern history, was signed 100 years ago on May 16, 1916.
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