| Summary/Abstract |
The good thing about our world today is that the spread of information leaves little secret about history. To illustrate this I would like to remind our readers about the Anglo-Russian Convention signed in St. Petersburg in 1907, which left Tibet with China, put Afghanistan under British rule, and divided Iran between Britain and Russia, giving the latter control over the Caspian Sea. If the October Revolution of 1917 had not taken place, the Great Game would have been over. The Sublime Porte shrank enormously after World War I, Russia acquired new territories in Eastern Anatolia under the Sykes-Picot Agreement (a special provision gave Russia control over the Black Sea Straits), and the U.S. presence in the Middle East was barely noticeable, while Britain and France played a leading role in the region.
|