My Amazon Review of John Broich's " Blood, Oil and the Axis: The Allied Resistance Against a Fascist State in Iraq and the Levant, 1941"

Iraq War circa 1941

Case Western Reserve history professor John Broich tells us the little known story of how a small group of British soldiers and airmen along with local allies kicked the Axis out of the Middle East. With tacit support from Germany a group of Iraqi officers known as the Golden Square staged a fascist coup in Baghdad thereby threatening British oil supplies. Along with a pro-Vichy government in Syria the Axis powers had the ability to cripple British power in region by cutting off its oil supplies in the Mediterranean. If instead of invading Russia in 1941, had Hitler moved into the Middle East, he very well could have brought Britain to its knees and won the war.   

With Britain’s position in Egypt under attack by Erwin Rommel’s panzers, there were few resources to spare for the Levant. Yet with  volunteer troops from India, consisting of Hindus, Moslems and Sikhs, and a few airman, including the writer Roald Dahl of “James and the Giant Peach” fame, the British persevered first in Iraq and then in Syria where French forces supported the Vichy regime. In this Iraq war we are reminded of the battles in early 2000s where fighting takes place in Ramadi, Baghdad and Fallujah.

The British wisely enlisted local forces from Jordan under General Glubb and Palestine where the Palmach commando unit is established. It is during a battle in Syria where future Israeli general Moshe Dayan loses his eye. From Broich’s book I learned that both the Germans and the Italians bombed Haifa to stop the flow of oil from that city’s refinery to the British fleet. Further had Hitler’s armies moved into the region the 500,000 Jews then living in Palestine likely would have been slaughtered like there European counterparts.  

Broich tells a good story, but sometimes his writing seems to be bogged down in the sands of Iraq. I better editing job would have helped. Nevertheless it is a powerful story that highlights, yet again, that the Allied victory in World War Two was a close run thing.

The full amazon URL appears at:  https://www.amazon.com/review/R3KKM2ECEIECQD/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv

My Amazon Review of Jonathan Conlin's "Mr Five Percent: The Many Lives of Calouste Gulbenkian, The World's Richest Man"

Historian Jonathan Conlin has unfortunately written a very dull biography, at least to this reader, of Calouste Gulbenkian (1869-1955) who was perhaps the founding father of the Middle Eastern oil industry. Coming from an upper-middle class Armenian trading family in the Ottoman Empire and operating out London and Paris, Gulbenkian became one of the major conductors of the global oil industry orchestra.

His friendship with Henri Deterding of Royal Dutch enabled him to meet all of the major players in the industry and helped bring about the merger with Shell. He became known as an “honest broker” and with his knowledge of the region he created what was initially known as the Turkish Petroleum Company which later became Iraq Petroleum. Now get this his partners were Standard Oil of New Jersey/Socony Mobil(now Exxon), Anglo-Iranian Oil (now BP), Compagnie Francaise des Petroles (successor to Deutsche Bank after WWI and now Total) and Royal Dutch/Shell. The four corporate partners each owned 23.75% of Iraq Petroleum and Gulbenkian owned the remaining 5%.

Gulbenkian then authored the famous “Red Line Agreement”  which along with its “self-denial clause” meant that all the parties to agreement would have to conduct their business through Iraq Petroleum (1928). Inside the Red Line were the yet to be discovered oil fields of Saudi Arabia. Thus with the exception of Kuwait, which was outside of the Red Line, Gulbenkian had a claim on 5% of all of the oil discovered in the Middle East. It made him one of the richest people in the world.

Gulbenkian was also involved in oil deals in Venezuela, Mexico, Indonesia and Russia. It is a great story, but somehow it doesn’t leap off the pages.

Conlin discusses Gulbenkian’s giant art collection came into being, some of which was directly obtained from Joseph Stalin. His family was highly dysfunctional to say the least and the 1915 Turkish massacre of Armenians did not seem to affect him. He lived in London and Paris where he had large estates, but he slept in luxury hotels. Along the way he held multiple passports which kept him safe for a while in WWII Paris, before moving on to Lisbon.

As I said from the outset, there is a great story here, but the writing is too dry for my taste.

The full Amazon URL appears at:  https://www.amazon.com/review/R2TY1UJTJWH7WW/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv