51�Թ�

It shows the religious and ethnic communities of Syria just before the French gifted the Sanjak of Alexandretta on the Mediterranean coast to Turkey as a bribe to keep it neutral in World War Two.

A successful landing at Alexandretta would have split the Ottoman Empire in half.

Kitchener was keen on an invasion of the Turkish city of Alexandretta, now Iskenderun, using the new British troops along with Australian, New Zealand and Indian formations.

He explains why Alexandretta, now called of Iskenderun, on the Mediterranean near the Turkish-Syrian border, looked to Lawrence and others like the Ottoman Empire’s most vulnerable point.

Though Lawrence imagined the Syrian and Armenian uprisings that might further undermine Ottoman control of the Alexandretta region, the British looked eastward, designating the Dardanelles as the place to send wave after wave of troops.