ARTURO MARZANO

La politica inglese in   Mesopotamia e il ruolo del petrolio (1900-1920) 

N. 179

Summary — The central theme of this article is the role of oil in British foreign policy in the Middle East, in both military and diplomatic terms, during the first two decades of the twentieth century.

Having dealt briefly with the birth of the main oil companies, a large part of the article is devoted to the events of the First World War, in order to show the influence exercised on them by oil. In particular, two British military campaigns in the Middle East (in 1915 and 1918) are analysed. In the light of a number of documents of the time, both campaigns can be seen as motivated (the first in part, the second exclusively) by the British desire to possess territories rich in oil resources.

In the same way, the diplomatic events of the early 1920s were significantly influenced by the presence of enormous oil resources in the territories of the ex Ottoman Empire. The division of the latter, the rise of Mandates, and the creation of an Anglo-French oil consortium can indeed be seen as two sides of the same coin, forged during the San Remo conference of April 1920.