Introduction

Abstract

This chapter aims to discuss how Britain went about securing these lands and waterways from its rivals. It argues that to all intents and purposes, it had done this by the time of the Crimean War in 1854, when the account ends. The chapter stresses that there has been astonishingly little interest from historians in considering this region as a British problem and British opportunity in the first half of the nineteenth century. Throughout the book, the chapter uses the term “Middle East,” which is of course anachronistic, simply as the best shorthand description for the territory with which the book is concerned, the Asian and Egyptian lands of the Ottoman Empire south of the Anatolian plateau. The chapter also uncovers how the British responded to these lands of many diverse cultures, then outlines the four reasons for treating them as a coherent region, from a British perspective. It ultimately investigates the strategies and visions adopted by British officials and commentators towards the Ottoman Middle East—towards the lands themselves, and towards the empire that had ultimate authority over them.