Anti-Semitism had a long history in the 19th century. There had been discussions among a small minority of Jewish peoples of finding land for a nation-state for the Jewish people. Many different options were considered. This long-felt need was given expression in 1917 just at the point in the 1914-18 war when both sides knew they might lose. The Balfour Declaration was one final consequence of the 1914 war which we need to examine here. It has had a lasting effect and led 30 years later to the creation of the state of Israel.

One of the keys to understanding the period between 1914 and 1945 is the continuation of colonialism. Stated or unstated, the expansion and control of foreign states was a major war aim of Britain, France, and Germany. The winners, Britain and France took everything. The one major part of the world uncolonised until this period was the Islamic world of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans had been a strong precapitalist Empire some hundreds of years old. During the 19th century, as the Europeans expanded, the Ottomans declined in wealth, power, and territory. By 1900, they only existed because the European powers supported the Ottomans geographically to stop the Russian Empire from expanding southwards into the Mediterranean.