Blood, Oil and the Axis

The Allied Resistance Against a Fascist State in Iraq and the Levant, 1941

John Broich

• Publisher: Abrams Press
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN:
  9781468314014
• Print ISBN:
  9781468313994
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History

An "almost absurdly colorful" history of the WWII battle for the Levant: "In places . . . the material is like Casablanca meets The English Patient" ( The Wall Street Journal).
In the spring of 1941, the Allied forces had one last hope: that the Axis would run through its fuel supply. In Blood, Oil and the Axis, historian John Broich tells the vital story of Iraq and the Levant during this most pivotal time of the war.
Four Iraqi generals staged a pro-German coup in Iraq, they established military cooperation between the Axis and the Middle East. The Allies responded with an improvised and unlikely coalition: Palestinian and Jordanian Arabs, Australians, American and British soldiers, Free French Foreign Legionnaires, and Jewish Palestinians. All shared a common desire to quash the formation of an Axis state in the region.
Taking readers from a bombed-out Fallujah, to Baghdad, to Damascus, this definitive chronicle features numerous memorable figures, including Jack Hasey, a young American who fought with the Free French Foreign Legion; Freya Stark, a famous travel-writer-turned-government-agent; and even Roald Dahl, a young Royal Air Force recruit and future author of beloved children's books.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Major and Minor Figures
• Note on Sources and Methods
• Maps
• 1. “To Extinguish Peace from the Earth”
• 2. “Snares around You. And Sudden Dread”
• 3. “When They Ride in the Ships, They Call Upon God”
• 4. “Hemmed In by the Desert”
• 5. “Summon the People from All Over Israel”
• 6. “He Guides Whom He Pleases”
• 7. “Lift Up a Banner against the Walls of Babylon!”
• 8. “Set Thy Face against It, and Besiege It”
• 9. “That My Wonders May Be Multiplied”
• 10. “Go Abroad in the Land”
• 11. “He Who Practices Deceit”
• 12. “There Is No Blame on the Blind Man”
• 13. “These Curses Shall Come Upon You and Overtake You”
• 14. “They Too Suffer as You Suffer”
• 15. “The Beginning and the End”
• Notes
• Acknowledgments
• Index