Michelle Tusan is the author of interesting books and articles about the interface of international history and humanitarian work, notably before, during, and after the First World War. This work derives from eighteen months’ research leave, with pandemic-related archive restrictions. The author engages with her theme in seven chapters, which incorporate previously published material and explore conflict and humanitarian work in the period following the First World War until the Treaty of Lausanne in July 1923.

Tusan seeks to illuminate “the voices of the people and non-European-based institutions involved in the war: refugees, aid-workers and soldiers” (8). She does so, in a limited sense, in part one of the book, before doing so, more directly, in part two, which is richly detailed in that regard. There she explains the emergence of refugee camps in the Middle East, including the impetus behind their construction, both conceptual/theoretical and practical: a process “systematized” by Britain, “as a military response to humanitarian disaster” (89). It did so alongside France and “international and regional humanitarian aid organizations” (84), including the Lord Mayor's Fund, Armenian Red Cross, and American Relief Commission. The camps provided temporary homes chiefly for members of the region’s minorities, displaced by the war. More specific detail is provided about the three camps near to or at Baghdad, Jerusalem, and Port Said. The discussion includes reference to who the refugees were, why, when, and under what circumstances they were displaced from their homes, and in what number. There is also some description of camp life. Reference is also made to their closure and the dispersal of their residents. The conjunction of the humanitarian and military spheres is explained, but the interface of humanitarian effort and general strategy is less apparent.

Within part three of the book, Chapter 6 is especially interesting in illuminating what the author refers to as “humanitarian crusades.” These were conducted by various organizations, including Save the Children, Near East Relief, and the International Committee of the Red Cross, and comprised various mediums. Tuson dwells upon humanitarian film, which percolated into church halls and cinemas across Britain, highlighting the expansive problem of famine and displaced populations, in the Middle East, Russia, and Eastern Europe. There were echoes of nineteenth-century humanitarian impulses, including passing reference to sympathies among some Anglicans towards Eastern Orthodox sufferers. Perhaps the specifically religious side of these efforts might have been explored further. Occasional glimpses of (sometimes skeptical) British official responses to these initiatives are provided. Further, and more direct, commentary on the convergence and divergence of strategic policy and humanitarian effort would have enhanced the discussion.

It is when “exploring the inner workings of the official mind that prosecuted the war in the Middle East from London and Paris” (8), that the book is less convincing. Having noted the tendency of historians to focus upon key individuals when discussing the wartime Middle East, the author does so with Lloyd George (whose name is missing from the index), and with Mark Sykes (co-author of the May 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement), whose prewar experiences of, and travels within, the region are overlooked. The real “inner workings” reflected partly in now, largely digitized, India Office material (which provide a more critical appraisal of Sykes's ideas), FO 371 files at The National Archives, Kew, presumably inaccessible to the author, and various secondary works, are overlooked. For this reviewer, the interpretation offered of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, and its significance in the conflict, is not very convincing. The agreement was primarily a constraint which British strategists wished to abandon to fulfil ambitious prewar strategic aims. Quite how the latter were reconciled with a focus upon the humanitarian crisis following the Great War for Civilization is not discussed.

Tuson’s claim that European historians have overlooked the connections between the First World War and the conflict that occurred in its aftermath is puzzling. Likewise, her suggestion that historians overlook the coexistence of conflict alongside efforts to impose mandatory control on parts of the region. Martin Gilbert wrote about this in the 1970s. The connection between the war and postwar conflict is clear in works cited in her bibliography, by Briton Cooper Busch and David Fromkin, and others which are not, including Keith Jeffery's, The British Army and the Crisis of Empire (1984).

As a general observation, closer contextualization would have sharpened the specific conjunction of strategy and humanitarian work. The description of “the Middle Eastern Front” is misleading. There were several fronts separated, in the case of Gallipoli and Basra, by some 1300 miles, and Cairo and Basra by around 900 miles. Separate field forces emerged, as did rivalries between them, and their respective commanders, for scarce resources. These distinctions are not clearly drawn. Also, the geographical lens is too limited. Operations in the Caucasus, Persia, and Transcaspia require some mention to comprehend what statesmen were dealing with. The postwar conflicts there also emerged (at least in part) from the First World War, and these places were also affected by the chaos in Russia. While mentioned in passing, at several points in the book, the latter isn’t fully explained. The civil war led to a surge of refugees from Russia into the shattered Ottoman Empire, where they rubbed shoulders with British relief officers, some of them spies.

There are some opaque sentences which Professor Tuson's editor at CUP should have noticed: “Looking backward from Lausanne shows how the narrative arc of the First World War as a good war gone bad was wrong from the beginning” (14). The titles of some figures (for example, Montagu) are incorrect, as are the references to “Montagu at the Foreign Office” (160), and to Sir Andrew Ryan as “a career diplomat” (198). Professor Tuson refers to “the December meeting” of the War Cabinet’s Eastern Committee (126), but it met repeatedly that month.