In 1916 in the middle of the First World War two men secretly agreed to divide the Middle East between them. Sir Mark Sykes was a visionary politician; Francois Georges-Picot a diplomat with a grudge. The deal they struck which was designed to relieve tensions that threatened to engulf the Entente Cordiale drew a line in the sand from the Mediterranean to the Persian frontier. Territory north of that stark line would go to France; land south of it to Britain. Against the odds their pact survived the war to form the basis for the post-war division of the region into five new countries Britain & France would rule. The creation of Britain's 'mandates' of Palestine Transjordan & Iraq & France's in Lebanon & Syria made the two powers uneasy neighbours for the following thirty years. Through a stellar cast of politicians diplomats spies & soldiers including T. E. Lawrence Winston Churchill & Charles de Gaulle A Line in the Sand vividly tells the story of the short but crucial era when Britain & France ruled the Middle East. It explains exactly how the old antagonism between these two powers inflamed the more familiar modern rivalry between the Arabs & the Jews & ultimately led to war between the British & the French in 1941 & between the Arabs & the Jews in 1948. In 1946 after many years of intrigue & espionage Britain finally succeeded in ousting France from Lebanon & Syria & hoped that having done so it would be able to cling on to Palestine. Using newly declassified papers from the British & French archives James Barr brings this overlooked clandestine struggle back to life & reveals for the first time the stunning way in which the French finally got their revenge.