Though as we have seen in our posts on the origins of the Great War in the Middle East a century ago, the British hoped until the last minute to keep the Ottoman Empire from entering the war on the side of Germany and Austria, it was hardly a complete surprise. Given Germany's role in training the Ottoman Army, building the Baghdad railway, etc., they also had plans for the contingency of Ottoman belligerency. In fact, there had been a brief threat of war and a British ultimatum in 1906, in what came to be known as the Taba crisis, or sometimes, especially on the Turkish side, the 'Aqaba crisis. It was largely forgotten until the 1980s, when in the wake of the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty, Israel and Egypt submitted a dispute over where exactly the border at Taba ran to international arbitration. Although this post draw on other sources as well, the arbitration decision handed down September 29, 1988, offers a good summary of the background to the 1906 crisis.
I've previously discussed the anomalous position of Egypt: still nominally an Ottoman province ruled by a hereditary Khedive, yet a de facto virtual British protectorate since 1882. (Later this month we'll see how Britain resolved the contradiction in December 1914.)
Before the British occupation of Egypt, the boundaries of Egypt and the remainder of the Ottoman Empire were somewhat fluid. Northwestern Sinai and the northern coast were generally administered from Egypt, while southern and southeastern Sinai were administered from the Hijaz. In the late 19th century the Ottomans considered the boundary to be, and many maps showed it as being, a line from Suez to Rafah, thus excluding most of the southern and eastern Sinai. Egypt however was allowed to garrison locations beyond this line to protect the pilgrimage trade.
After the British arrival in 1882 Britain wanted a buffer zone for the defense of the Suez Canal, A line beginning at Suez would allow Ottoman troops right up to the Canal. The British favored an ...
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