Hundreds of thousands of Arab conscripts and recruits serve the colonial powers on both sides, and suffer disproportionately high casualties.

The decline of the Ottoman Empire, the fall of Sultan Abdul Hamid II, the rise of the young Turk government in his place – and the history of the Ottoman-Germany relationship which led to the Treaty of Alliance between them in August 1914

The secret Sykes-Picot agreement between Britain and France and the way the two imperial powers carved up the former Ottoman Empire between them, regardless of the rights and demands of rights and nationalist movements across the Arab world