WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.680 Welcome to The Deep Dive. It is really great 00:00:02.680 --> 00:00:04.320 to have you with us today. For this deep dive, 00:00:04.320 --> 00:00:07.660 we are digging into a massive, I mean, meticulously 00:00:07.660 --> 00:00:10.039 detailed source. We really are. We're looking 00:00:10.039 --> 00:00:12.720 at a very comprehensive Wikipedia article covering 00:00:12.720 --> 00:00:14.839 the Sinai and Palestine campaign of World War 00:00:14.839 --> 00:00:17.300 I. Right. And our mission today is to take this 00:00:17.300 --> 00:00:20.859 complex, multi -year military campaign. One that 00:00:20.859 --> 00:00:22.760 was often, you know, totally dismissed back in 00:00:22.760 --> 00:00:24.859 London as just a mere sideshow to the Western 00:00:24.859 --> 00:00:27.559 Front. Exactly, a sideshow. We wanted to distill 00:00:27.559 --> 00:00:30.910 that down for you today. transform this incredibly 00:00:30.910 --> 00:00:35.030 dense military history into a story of incredible 00:00:35.030 --> 00:00:38.630 logistical feats, brutal desert warfare, and 00:00:38.630 --> 00:00:41.350 ultimately the literal redrawing of the modern 00:00:41.350 --> 00:00:43.649 Middle East. It really is an astonishing piece 00:00:43.649 --> 00:00:46.450 of history. I mean, we all know the broader strokes 00:00:46.450 --> 00:00:48.369 of the First World War, muddy trenches, right? 00:00:48.469 --> 00:00:50.649 Yeah, the mud of France and Belgium. Right. But 00:00:50.649 --> 00:00:53.609 the context here shifts the paradigm entirely. 00:00:53.799 --> 00:00:56.340 We are moving away from the European theater 00:00:56.340 --> 00:00:59.299 and looking at a campaign fought across vast, 00:00:59.600 --> 00:01:02.520 unforgiving deserts by a wildly diverse cast. 00:01:02.719 --> 00:01:04.680 You're talking about the British Empire forces. 00:01:05.180 --> 00:01:07.540 Exactly. And that meant British, Australian, 00:01:07.659 --> 00:01:10.060 New Zealand, and Indian troops fighting alongside 00:01:10.060 --> 00:01:14.000 French and Italian contingents and the absolutely 00:01:14.000 --> 00:01:16.420 crucial fighters of the Arab revolt. All of them 00:01:16.420 --> 00:01:19.219 pushing against the central powers. Yes, entirely 00:01:19.219 --> 00:01:22.239 focused on dismantling the combined forces of 00:01:22.239 --> 00:01:25.000 the Ottoman, German, and Austro -Hungarian empires 00:01:25.000 --> 00:01:27.040 in some of the harshest terrain on earth. OK, 00:01:27.060 --> 00:01:29.900 let's unpack this, because the strategic threat 00:01:29.900 --> 00:01:33.260 to the Suez Canal in 1915 essentially forced 00:01:33.260 --> 00:01:35.540 a total rethinking of British defense in the 00:01:35.540 --> 00:01:38.620 region. It did. The Central Powers knew the canal 00:01:38.620 --> 00:01:41.239 was the main artery of the empire. It was what 00:01:41.239 --> 00:01:43.519 cut the sailing time to India and Australia. 00:01:43.739 --> 00:01:46.530 It was vital. The ultimate weak link. And in 00:01:46.530 --> 00:01:50.030 early 1915, a German -led Ottoman force commanded 00:01:50.030 --> 00:01:53.109 by Kress von Kressenstein crosses the Sinai Peninsula 00:01:53.109 --> 00:01:55.989 and attempts a surprise attack directly on the 00:01:55.989 --> 00:01:58.189 waterway. They actually managed to get a couple 00:01:58.189 --> 00:02:00.569 of companies across before the British and Indian 00:02:00.569 --> 00:02:02.769 defenders repelled them. So the attack fails. 00:02:03.049 --> 00:02:05.609 It fails, yeah. But it triggers a massive realization 00:02:05.609 --> 00:02:07.569 for the British command. Sitting defensively 00:02:07.569 --> 00:02:09.449 on the western bank of the canal was no longer 00:02:09.449 --> 00:02:11.400 tenable. Right. You can't just wait for them 00:02:11.400 --> 00:02:13.460 to show up at the banks. Exactly. To project 00:02:13.460 --> 00:02:15.840 power and actually protect the canal, they had 00:02:15.840 --> 00:02:18.120 to push their defensive line out. They had to 00:02:18.120 --> 00:02:21.539 march eastward, straight into the harsh Sinai 00:02:21.539 --> 00:02:25.189 desert. Which brings us to the logistics. And 00:02:25.189 --> 00:02:27.430 reading through these source notes, the sheer 00:02:27.430 --> 00:02:30.530 scale of the engineering required is just staggering. 00:02:30.789 --> 00:02:32.530 It is mind blowing. They couldn't just march 00:02:32.530 --> 00:02:35.030 an army of hundreds of thousands of men and horses 00:02:35.030 --> 00:02:38.050 into the deep desert. There was no local food, 00:02:38.289 --> 00:02:41.150 no local water. They basically had to build their 00:02:41.150 --> 00:02:43.610 environment as they moved. What's fascinating 00:02:43.610 --> 00:02:46.629 here is how this campaign became an engineering 00:02:46.629 --> 00:02:50.259 problem of the highest order. To move across 00:02:50.259 --> 00:02:53.580 the Sinai, the British Royal Engineers constructed 00:02:53.580 --> 00:02:56.060 a massive pipeline. Right, the water pipeline. 00:02:56.240 --> 00:02:58.759 Yes, pushing six million gallons of fresh Nile 00:02:58.759 --> 00:03:01.400 water straight across the desert. And right alongside 00:03:01.400 --> 00:03:03.800 that pipeline, they were building a standard 00:03:03.800 --> 00:03:06.340 gauge railway. At a rate of about 15 miles a 00:03:06.340 --> 00:03:08.819 month, the source says. Which is incredibly fast 00:03:08.819 --> 00:03:10.740 for the conditions. They were laying down the 00:03:10.740 --> 00:03:13.000 industrial tracks of an empire just to keep their 00:03:13.000 --> 00:03:16.460 men alive. And doing it over deep, shifting sand, 00:03:16.879 --> 00:03:18.900 I was looking at the notes on how they moved 00:03:18.900 --> 00:03:21.319 infantry and artillery without everything just 00:03:21.319 --> 00:03:24.159 sinking to the axles. The source mentions these 00:03:24.159 --> 00:03:27.039 things called rabbit wire roads. Oh, the chicken 00:03:27.039 --> 00:03:30.060 wire? Yeah. They would literally take miles of 00:03:30.060 --> 00:03:33.300 simple chicken wire mesh, roll it out side by 00:03:33.300 --> 00:03:35.659 side over the sand, and peg it to the ground. 00:03:36.479 --> 00:03:38.300 It sounds almost comically simple, but did that 00:03:38.300 --> 00:03:40.659 actually hold up the weight of an army? It did. 00:03:40.889 --> 00:03:43.349 By dispersing the weight just enough, it kept 00:03:43.349 --> 00:03:45.750 men and light vehicles from sinking into the 00:03:45.750 --> 00:03:48.849 dunes. But you have to remember, this was a heavily 00:03:48.849 --> 00:03:51.990 mounted campaign. Lots of horses. Tens of thousands 00:03:51.990 --> 00:03:54.610 of horses. And they require immense amounts of 00:03:54.610 --> 00:03:56.930 water. And that pipeline couldn't be everywhere. 00:03:57.310 --> 00:03:59.969 So, Australian engineers invented a brilliant 00:03:59.969 --> 00:04:02.310 device called a spear point. I read about this. 00:04:02.370 --> 00:04:04.310 It was a perforated pipe, right? Yes, covered 00:04:04.310 --> 00:04:06.849 in fine brass mesh. They could drive it deep 00:04:06.849 --> 00:04:09.210 into the sand with a sledgehammer and immediately 00:04:09.210 --> 00:04:12.090 pump out brackish groundwater. It allowed the 00:04:12.090 --> 00:04:14.210 cavalry to operate independently from the main 00:04:14.210 --> 00:04:16.550 water pipeline for short stretches. Even with 00:04:16.550 --> 00:04:18.829 those brilliant innovations, the environmental 00:04:18.829 --> 00:04:22.069 conditions were just brutal. The source describes 00:04:22.069 --> 00:04:24.769 wildly fluctuating temperatures. Freezing at 00:04:24.769 --> 00:04:27.060 night. blistering during the day. Right. And 00:04:27.060 --> 00:04:30.120 then these calm sinned dust storms, hot southerly 00:04:30.120 --> 00:04:32.220 winds that would blow for days, turning the air 00:04:32.220 --> 00:04:35.139 into a choking haze of floating sand. And if 00:04:35.139 --> 00:04:37.220 you were wounded in those conditions, the reality 00:04:37.220 --> 00:04:40.199 was grim. The medical evacuation? Yeah, the standard 00:04:40.199 --> 00:04:42.720 medical evacuation method was transporting men 00:04:42.720 --> 00:04:45.560 in cacolets, which were basically stretchers 00:04:45.560 --> 00:04:48.060 rigidly strapped to the sides of camels. That 00:04:48.060 --> 00:04:51.399 sounds awful. The swaying, jarring gate of a 00:04:51.399 --> 00:04:54.160 camel over rough desert terrain is explicitly 00:04:54.160 --> 00:04:56.639 described in the historical accounts as a form 00:04:56.639 --> 00:05:00.100 of travel exquisite in its agony. Exquisite in 00:05:00.100 --> 00:05:02.680 its agony, wow. Despite the environment, though, 00:05:02.740 --> 00:05:05.600 the allied forces now known as the Egyptian Expeditionary 00:05:05.600 --> 00:05:08.120 Force, or EEF, pushed across the Sinai through 00:05:08.120 --> 00:05:11.459 1916. They won victories at Romani, Maghtaba, 00:05:11.560 --> 00:05:14.240 and Rafa. But then in 1917, they hit a brick 00:05:14.240 --> 00:05:16.779 wall on the border of Palestine. Gaza. That wall 00:05:16.779 --> 00:05:19.000 was Gaza. The First and Second Battles of Gaza 00:05:19.000 --> 00:05:22.339 in March and April 1917 were just absolute disasters 00:05:22.339 --> 00:05:24.600 for the British. Why was it so hard to break 00:05:24.600 --> 00:05:27.680 through? The Ottomans had spent months building 00:05:27.680 --> 00:05:30.519 incredibly strong readouts. These are highly 00:05:30.519 --> 00:05:33.779 fortified, mutually supporting defensive earthworks 00:05:33.779 --> 00:05:36.759 and trench systems. The British relied on frontal 00:05:36.759 --> 00:05:39.459 assaults. Treating it like the trenches in France. 00:05:39.839 --> 00:05:41.540 Exactly. Essentially trying to force Western 00:05:41.540 --> 00:05:44.220 Front tactics onto the desert border and they 00:05:44.220 --> 00:05:47.480 were cut to pieces. The failure was so complete 00:05:47.480 --> 00:05:49.600 that the British commander, General Archibald 00:05:49.600 --> 00:05:52.800 Murray, was sacked. Enter General Edmund Allenby, 00:05:52.939 --> 00:05:55.600 who takes over the EEF in the summer of 1917. 00:05:55.839 --> 00:05:58.620 Here's where it gets really interesting. Allenby 00:05:58.620 --> 00:06:00.879 completely throws out the traditional Western 00:06:00.879 --> 00:06:03.500 Front playbook. He had to. He looks at the slaughter 00:06:03.500 --> 00:06:06.079 of those frontal assaults and pivots his entire 00:06:06.079 --> 00:06:08.579 strategy. So what does he do? He recognized that 00:06:08.579 --> 00:06:11.000 the Ottoman line stretched from Gaza on the coast 00:06:11.000 --> 00:06:13.420 all the way inland to a town called Beersheba. 00:06:13.639 --> 00:06:17.240 Gaza was the heavily fortified anchor. Beersheba, 00:06:17.319 --> 00:06:19.319 out in the desert, was the vulnerable eastern 00:06:19.319 --> 00:06:22.139 flank. Ah, so he goes around. Right. Allenby 00:06:22.139 --> 00:06:24.279 orchestrated a massive deception to keep the 00:06:24.279 --> 00:06:26.379 Ottomans fixated on the coast while secretly 00:06:26.379 --> 00:06:29.300 moving a massive striking force east toward Beersheba. 00:06:29.540 --> 00:06:33.120 But the catch was water. To take Beersheba, Allen 00:06:33.120 --> 00:06:35.720 B's mounted troops had to make a huge flanking 00:06:35.720 --> 00:06:38.480 march through arid wasteland. A literal race 00:06:38.480 --> 00:06:40.959 against thirst. If they didn't capture the ancient 00:06:40.959 --> 00:06:43.699 water wells inside Beersheba by nightfall, the 00:06:43.699 --> 00:06:46.279 horses would die of thirst and the entire army 00:06:46.279 --> 00:06:51.120 would face collapse. So on October 31st, 1917, 00:06:51.399 --> 00:06:54.019 the infantry fights all day. securing the outer 00:06:54.019 --> 00:06:57.220 defenses. But as the sun starts setting, the 00:06:57.220 --> 00:07:00.360 town itself is still in Ottoman hands. And Ottoman 00:07:00.360 --> 00:07:02.879 engineers are literally rigging the water wells 00:07:02.879 --> 00:07:05.939 with explosives. It was a moment of absolute 00:07:05.939 --> 00:07:08.240 desperation. The horses of the desert mounted 00:07:08.240 --> 00:07:10.600 corps had been without water for days. So the 00:07:10.600 --> 00:07:12.740 order is given for something incredibly audacious. 00:07:12.879 --> 00:07:16.139 The charge. Yes. The 4th and 12th Australian 00:07:16.139 --> 00:07:18.620 Light Horth regiments are ordered to charge the 00:07:18.620 --> 00:07:20.139 Ottoman trenches. Now these guys are mounted 00:07:20.139 --> 00:07:22.399 infantry, right? They usually ride to the battlefield, 00:07:22.600 --> 00:07:24.899 dismount, and fight on foot with rifles. Usually 00:07:24.899 --> 00:07:27.980 yes. But there's no time. They leave their rifles 00:07:27.980 --> 00:07:30.300 slung, draw their 18 -inch bayonets, hold them 00:07:30.300 --> 00:07:32.720 like cavalry swords, and charge. Thousands of 00:07:32.720 --> 00:07:35.600 horses galloping full speed over open ground 00:07:35.600 --> 00:07:38.300 directly into rapid artillery and rifle fire. 00:07:38.939 --> 00:07:41.079 I had to reread that section. How did they not 00:07:41.079 --> 00:07:43.819 get completely wiped out? The audacity of the 00:07:43.819 --> 00:07:46.139 charge actually broke the defenders' mechanics. 00:07:46.680 --> 00:07:49.079 The Ottoman defenders were so shocked by the 00:07:49.079 --> 00:07:51.600 speed of the horses coming directly at them that 00:07:51.600 --> 00:07:53.600 they failed to adjust the sights on their rifles. 00:07:53.800 --> 00:07:55.720 Well, because the distance was closing so fast. 00:07:55.879 --> 00:07:58.490 Exactly. Yeah. As the light horse rapidly closed 00:07:58.490 --> 00:08:01.089 the distance, the Ottoman bullets began firing 00:08:01.089 --> 00:08:03.589 harmlessly over the Australians' heads. They 00:08:03.589 --> 00:08:05.790 jumped their horses straight over the front line 00:08:05.790 --> 00:08:08.310 trenches, dismounted in the rear, and engaged 00:08:08.310 --> 00:08:10.870 in fierce hand -to -hand combat. And they secured 00:08:10.870 --> 00:08:12.790 the wells. Just before they could be detonated. 00:08:12.870 --> 00:08:15.149 It completely broke the stalemate. It triggered 00:08:15.149 --> 00:08:18.370 a profound domino effect. The fall of Beersheba 00:08:18.370 --> 00:08:21.170 collapsed the entire eastern flank of the Ottoman 00:08:21.170 --> 00:08:24.029 defensive line. The Ottomans were forced into 00:08:24.029 --> 00:08:26.629 a massive retreat, allowing the British to roll 00:08:26.629 --> 00:08:30.009 up the line, capture Jaffa, and by December 1917, 00:08:30.689 --> 00:08:32.990 capture Jerusalem. Which was huge news back home. 00:08:33.330 --> 00:08:36.210 Oh, massive. For the British public, reeling 00:08:36.210 --> 00:08:38.309 from the horrors of Passchendaele back in Europe, 00:08:38.649 --> 00:08:40.870 the fall of Jerusalem was an enormous morale 00:08:40.870 --> 00:08:44.350 boost. The loss was so catastrophic for the Ottomans 00:08:44.350 --> 00:08:48.070 that their regional commander, Jamal Pasha, resigned. 00:08:48.509 --> 00:08:51.990 So the EEF is poised to keep rolling north and 00:08:51.990 --> 00:08:54.850 knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war. But 00:08:54.850 --> 00:08:57.730 then global events suddenly hijack the local 00:08:57.730 --> 00:09:00.529 campaign. If we connect this to the bigger picture. 00:09:00.730 --> 00:09:02.750 We have to look at the strategic debate happening 00:09:02.750 --> 00:09:05.409 in London. The British war cabinet was deeply 00:09:05.409 --> 00:09:08.009 divided between the Westerners and the Easterners. 00:09:08.110 --> 00:09:09.710 Right. The Westerners being the faction that 00:09:09.710 --> 00:09:12.110 wanted to focus all troops on defeating Germany 00:09:12.110 --> 00:09:15.210 and France. And the Easterners, who argued for 00:09:15.210 --> 00:09:17.909 knocking Germany's allies like the Ottoman Empire, 00:09:18.269 --> 00:09:21.210 out of the war entirely. And in March 1918, Germany 00:09:21.210 --> 00:09:23.769 makes the decision for them. They launch a massive 00:09:23.769 --> 00:09:25.929 spring offensive on the Western front in Europe, 00:09:26.450 --> 00:09:27.990 shattering the British lines. And the ripple 00:09:27.990 --> 00:09:30.279 effect hits Allenby instantly. The war office 00:09:30.279 --> 00:09:32.679 panicked. Allenby was ordered to immediately 00:09:32.679 --> 00:09:35.240 strip his army of his best, most experienced 00:09:35.240 --> 00:09:37.700 British infantry and yeomanry cavalry regiments. 00:09:38.000 --> 00:09:40.799 The volunteer mounted forces that had been absolutely 00:09:40.799 --> 00:09:43.820 crucial to his mobility. Gone. Packed onto ships 00:09:43.820 --> 00:09:46.600 and rushed to France. Almost overnight, Palestine 00:09:46.600 --> 00:09:48.779 goes from being a top priority to a forgotten 00:09:48.779 --> 00:09:51.360 sideshow again. Reading about how Allenby handled 00:09:51.360 --> 00:09:53.820 this is wild. He had to rebuild his army on the 00:09:53.820 --> 00:09:56.600 fly using Indian Army recruits. Many fresh from 00:09:56.600 --> 00:09:59.139 Mesopotamia or directly from India. The source 00:09:59.139 --> 00:10:02.200 notes the sheer chaos of this reorganization. 00:10:02.899 --> 00:10:05.659 In some battalions, junior British officers were 00:10:05.659 --> 00:10:08.240 totally green and the language barrier was severe. 00:10:08.460 --> 00:10:10.940 There's this one detail about a battalion where 00:10:10.940 --> 00:10:14.039 only one Indian officer spoke English and only 00:10:14.039 --> 00:10:16.399 two British officers could communicate with their 00:10:16.399 --> 00:10:18.899 men. Trying to coordinate a modern military offensive 00:10:18.889 --> 00:10:21.549 with that level of linguistic disconnect is almost 00:10:21.549 --> 00:10:23.909 unthinkable. And he did it. He did. And while 00:10:23.909 --> 00:10:26.230 Allenby was meticulously integrating these Indian 00:10:26.230 --> 00:10:28.590 divisions, he was leveraging another profound 00:10:28.590 --> 00:10:32.610 asset, the Arab revolt. Right. British forces, 00:10:32.730 --> 00:10:35.169 including T .E. Lawrence, encouraged Arab forces 00:10:35.169 --> 00:10:37.870 under Amir Faisal to attack the Hejaz Railway. 00:10:38.029 --> 00:10:40.009 Which was the main logistical artery for the 00:10:40.009 --> 00:10:42.830 Ottomans. By doing that, they isolated Ottoman 00:10:42.830 --> 00:10:45.350 garrisons and tied down massive amounts of their 00:10:45.350 --> 00:10:48.899 resources. So we fast forward to September 1918. 00:10:49.820 --> 00:10:52.460 Allenby has his army retrained and he is finally 00:10:52.460 --> 00:10:55.600 ready to launch his master stroke, the Battle 00:10:55.600 --> 00:10:58.299 of Megiddo. It's a brilliant piece of deception. 00:10:58.919 --> 00:11:01.200 The British convinced the Ottomans that the attack 00:11:01.200 --> 00:11:03.379 would come from the east near the Jordan Valley. 00:11:03.740 --> 00:11:06.100 But that was a fake out. Completely. They built 00:11:06.100 --> 00:11:08.580 fake horse lines in the east. They marched troops 00:11:08.580 --> 00:11:11.059 east during the day and secretly trucked them 00:11:11.059 --> 00:11:14.620 back west at night. So where did the actual breakthrough 00:11:14.620 --> 00:11:17.379 happen? On the Mediterranean coast, far to the 00:11:17.379 --> 00:11:19.240 west. And the collapse of the Ottoman forces 00:11:19.240 --> 00:11:22.440 was incredibly rapid from there? It was. The 00:11:22.440 --> 00:11:25.259 British Royal Air Force gained total air superiority. 00:11:25.759 --> 00:11:28.019 They systematically bombed the Ottoman communication 00:11:28.019 --> 00:11:30.919 hubs and retreating columns. In a matter of weeks, 00:11:31.120 --> 00:11:33.759 the Allied forces captured Damascus. And the 00:11:33.759 --> 00:11:35.740 source mentions that Damascus was entered almost 00:11:35.740 --> 00:11:37.779 simultaneously by the Australian Light Horse 00:11:37.779 --> 00:11:40.860 and Lawrence's Arab Irregulars. Which immediately 00:11:40.860 --> 00:11:43.120 sparked political tensions over who actually 00:11:43.120 --> 00:11:44.960 controlled the city. And then eventually they 00:11:44.960 --> 00:11:48.559 take Aleppo. But... We really need to tally the 00:11:48.559 --> 00:11:51.480 grim human cost here to underscore the scale 00:11:51.480 --> 00:11:54.379 of this campaign. Yeah, the casualties. The Allies 00:11:54.379 --> 00:11:58.679 suffered roughly 168 ,000 casualties, but a huge 00:11:58.679 --> 00:12:01.399 portion of that, over 100 ,000, were evacuated 00:12:01.399 --> 00:12:04.299 sick, mostly from diseases like malaria in the 00:12:04.299 --> 00:12:06.779 Jordan Valley. For the Ottomans, the losses were 00:12:06.779 --> 00:12:09.259 catastrophic. Estimates put their casualties 00:12:09.259 --> 00:12:12.700 at over 230 ,000. Effectively wiping out their 00:12:12.700 --> 00:12:14.720 fighting force in the region. Yes, and directly 00:12:14.720 --> 00:12:17.909 forcing the armistice of Mu - in October 1918. 00:12:18.269 --> 00:12:20.730 So what does this all mean? Why should you, listening 00:12:20.730 --> 00:12:23.409 to this today, care about this historical deep 00:12:23.409 --> 00:12:25.750 dive? It matters because of the monumental legacy 00:12:25.750 --> 00:12:28.149 of this campaign. The long -lasting effect was 00:12:28.149 --> 00:12:30.490 the complete partitioning of the Ottoman Empire. 00:12:31.210 --> 00:12:33.210 Secret treaties like the Sykes -Paco agreement 00:12:33.210 --> 00:12:35.509 led to the creation of the British mandates of 00:12:35.509 --> 00:12:37.809 Palestine and Mesopotamia and the French mandate 00:12:37.809 --> 00:12:41.039 for Syria and Lebanon. So the map of the contemporary 00:12:41.039 --> 00:12:44.460 Middle East, the borders of Israel, Jordan, Syria 00:12:44.460 --> 00:12:47.379 and Lebanon, and the geopolitical tensions that 00:12:47.379 --> 00:12:50.500 exist there today, that map was literally drawn 00:12:50.500 --> 00:12:53.220 in the aftermath of these very cavalry charges 00:12:53.220 --> 00:12:56.179 and desert pipeline projects. This raises an 00:12:56.179 --> 00:12:58.620 important question. Consider how much of our 00:12:58.620 --> 00:13:01.720 21st century global geopolitics is just an echo 00:13:01.720 --> 00:13:04.700 of a 100 -year -old conflict that the British 00:13:04.700 --> 00:13:07.620 public originally dismissed as a mere sideshow 00:13:07.620 --> 00:13:10.759 to the real war in Europe. A sideshow that shaped 00:13:10.759 --> 00:13:13.500 the modern world. Exactly. How many sideshows 00:13:13.500 --> 00:13:15.559 happening in the world today are actually quietly 00:13:15.559 --> 00:13:18.080 drawing the maps of tomorrow? And think about 00:13:18.080 --> 00:13:21.039 Beersheba. In the 20th century, global conflicts 00:13:21.039 --> 00:13:24.110 were largely driven by land and oil. But as we 00:13:24.110 --> 00:13:26.509 look ahead to a rapidly changing climate, will 00:13:26.509 --> 00:13:28.649 the major geopolitical conflicts of the future 00:13:28.649 --> 00:13:31.950 return to the harsh reality of 1917? Will the 00:13:31.950 --> 00:13:34.149 wars of tomorrow simply be desperate struggles 00:13:34.149 --> 00:13:37.090 over access to fresh water? That is a fascinating 00:13:37.090 --> 00:13:39.230 and sobering thought to leave on. Thank you for 00:13:39.230 --> 00:13:41.029 joining us on this deep dive. Keep questioning 00:13:41.029 --> 00:13:42.690 the history behind the headlines, and we'll catch 00:13:42.690 --> 00:13:43.230 you next time.