page_title: British foreign policy in the Middle East
section_title: World War I
hierarchical_section_title: British foreign policy in the Middle East / World War I
caption_attribution_description: العربية: الجيش الهندي-البريطاني برئاسة الجنرال فريدريك ستانلي مود عند دخول بغداد في آذار 1917English: Sir Frederick Stanley Maude leads the Indian Army into Baghdad. Čeština: Britská Indická armáda při vstupu do Bagdádu v roce 1917.
context_page_description: British foreign policy in the Middle East has involved multiple considerations, particularly over the last two and a half centuries. These included maintaining access to British India, blocking Russian or French threats to that access, protecting the Suez Canal, supporting the declining Ottoman Empire against Russian threats, guaranteeing an oil supply after 1900 from Middle East fields, protecting Egypt and other possessions in the Middle East, and enforcing Britain's naval role in the Mediterranean. The timeframe of major concern stretches from the 1770s when the Russian Empire began to dominate the Black Sea, down to the Suez Crisis of the mid-20th century and involvement in the Iraq War in the early 21st. These policies are an integral part of the history of the foreign relations of the United Kingdom.
context_section_description: The Ottoman Empire entered World War I on the side of Germany and immediately became an enemy of Britain and France.  Four major  Allied operations attacked the Ottoman holdings. The Gallipoli Campaign to control the Straits failed in 1915-1916. The first Mesopotamian campaign invading Iraq from India also failed.  The second one captured Baghdad in 1917. The Sinai and Palestine campaign from Egypt was a British success. By 1918 the Ottoman Empire was a military failure/ It signed an armistice in late October that amounted to surrender.
caption: British troops entering Baghdad.
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