THE WORLD OIL WAR: A CENTURY OF WAR: ANGLO-AMERICAN OIL POLITICS AND THE NEW WORLD ORDER Review of F. William Engdahl’s Book BRITAIN & THE MIDDLE EAST As documented in F. William Engdahl’s book A Century of War – Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order, Britain’s interest in the Middle East was piqued when her leaders realized that oil would replace coal as the energy source of the future. At the turn of the century Britain had no first-hand access to oil and was dependent upon America, Russia or Mexico for her supplies. This was quickly understood as an unacceptable situation and through intrigues involving British spy Sidney Reilly and Australian geologist and engineer William Knox d’Arcy. Britain was able to secure drilling rights to Persian oil from Persian monarch Reza Khan. D’Arcy paid what amounted to $20,000 cash for rights to tap Persian oil until 1961, with a 16% royalty from all sales going to the Shah. The British company that Reilly persuaded d’Arcy to ally with then became known as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, which was a forerunner of the mighty British Petroleum (BP). However, even with a supply of Persian oil, Britain was losing the race to secure Middle Eastern oil reserves to the Germans. In the years prior to World War I Germany had enjoyed an astonishing economic explosion and this was helped by her alliance with the Ottoman Empire which allowed her access to their vast reserves. In 1889 the Germans worked out an agreement to finance, through Deutsche Bank, a railway from Constantinople into Anatolia, and later in 1899 the final agreement for a complete Berlin-to-Baghdad railway was signed.
Posted on: Tue, 04 Feb 2014 03:59:32 +0000
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