The mandate system

The mandate system was a euphemism for continued imperialism. Former German and Ottoman territories were assigned to victorious powers (especially Britain and France) under League of Nations supervision, with the theoretical goal of preparing them for independence. In practice, mandates were colonies in everything but name.

• British mandates: Palestine, Transjordan, Iraq
• French mandates: Syria, Lebanon
• Other arrangements: Japan took former German Pacific islands; South Africa took German Southwest Africa; etc.

Why this matters for later units: The mandate system in the Middle East created the modern borders of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel/Palestine. The Balfour Declaration of 1917 (in which Britain pledged support for a Jewish national home in Palestine while ruling that territory under mandate) set up the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Almost every Middle East crisis of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries has roots in decisions made at Paris in 1919.