ottoman

The British and French had tried to fix borders before, he said, when they took the Middle East from the dying Ottoman Empire during the First World War.

It was also the first targeting of the Christian community in Syria since a massacre in 1860, when a conflict broke out between Druze and Maronite Christians under Ottoman rule.

Maps showing the full reach of the Indian Empire were only published in top secrecy, and the Arabian territories were left off public documents to avoid provoking the Ottomans or later the Saudis.

The setting was an Ottoman- era palace on the shores of the Bosphorus in Istanbul.

Britain took control of the area known as Palestine in World War One, following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, which had ruled that part of the Middle East.