"For an historian of the Middle East, the Albert Kahn collection holds some of the most startling images." "It caught a moment that is now utterly lost." "To view these films, or to look at these coloured photographs with all their startling clarity, is almost to climb into a time machine that takes you back to a Middle East that we could only imagine." "The fact that some of them are in colour make them very modern pictures, which is quite amazing, because so much has happened since they were taken." "It shows me where I belong, where I come from, where my family comes from and the tremendous changes that have taken place in the way of life from those days to these days." "At the beginning of the 2Oth century, the French millionaire Albert Kahn launched a unique photographic project" "He wanted to record the everyday life of cultures from around the world before they could be eradicated by the forces of modernity" "After the First World War," "Kahn's photographers made numerous visits to the capital of the 0ttoman Empire - Istanbul" "From here, the Sultan had ruled over the Middle East for more than four centuries" "But after years of decline and the Turks'ill-judged decision to side with Germany, the 0ttoman Empire collapsed" "The victorious Allies decided the fate of the Empire's former territories" "The British and French thought of the whole world and this area in particular as a big cake, and they divided it and decided who gets a piece of what." "The map of the Middle East was redrawn to create a new region made up of modern nation states" "This would change the destinies of countries where, for hundreds of years, Muslims, Christians and Jews had lived side by side under 0ttoman rule" "Albert Kahn wanted to make a record of the Middle East at this turning point in its history" "In 1 91 9, Kahn gave Lucien Le Saint, a veteran war cameraman, a new assignment when he sent him to Lebanon" "After the defeat of the Turks, the British forces occupying Lebanon and Syria transferred control to France" "Le Saint's camera captured the triumphant British withdrawal" "MAN:" "These are marvellous pictures of British and Indian troops marching over the mountains from inland Syria and down towards the coast." "These troops could almost have been troops in the Napoleonic Wars." "It's really fascinating to see them marching along with pack mules and camels, some soldiers driving two or three sheep in front of them, no doubt to provide the dinners for that contingent the next week." "There you see Indian troops which, of course, played a huge role in the British Army - that inexhaustible supply of Indian manpower on which the British depended in two world wars." "0ver 2-5 million British and Imperial soldiers fought in this region" "They'd been joined by Arab forces that were rising up against the 0ttomans" "This so-called Arab revolt had been promoted by the British officer TE Lawrence, the famous Lawrence of Arabia" "In return for their allegiance, the Arabs were promised independence in a self-governing united Arab state" "0ne of their leaders was this man, Amir Faisal" "In the Syrian capital, Damascus, he waited for the British to honour their promise" "But in a secret wartime accord, the British had also agreed to hand over control of Syria and Lebanon to the French" "DR PATRICK SEALE:" "The French were much interested in Syria and Lebanon, where they'd had contacts - friendly contacts - with the Maronites, the so-called Catholics of that region since the Crusades." "The French felt that they were the protectors of the Christian communities in the east, and they had large financial and commercial interests there." "By 1 91 9, France was poised to take control of an area inhabited by both Muslims and the Christian Maronites" "The French were sympathetic to the demands of their fellow Christians, who wanted to establish a separate country known as Le Grand Liban - Greater Lebanon" "Beirut and the whole of Lebanon had suffered desperately during the war" "A Turkish embargo cut off food supplies and brought mass starvation" "The British mounted a massive relief effort" "By the time Le Saint arrived, life was returning to normal" "Looking at these pictures give us an incredible insight into what life was like at that time." "0ne of the things that I really enjoyed the most about watching this film footage was the scenes of daily life in Beirut." "People are going about their shopping, transporting goods, playing, amusing themselves." "You just get a look at life in the city." "It's completely natural, we have the sense there's nothing posed about it." "There's a wonderful picture of street entertainers, a tame monkey, and some children attempting a belly dance." "The people of Beirut turned out in force to welcome their new governor" "General Henri Gouraud was a French war hero" "He'd lost his right arm fighting the Turks at Gallipoli" "Le Saint was sent to film Gouraud's inauguration, as the first French High Commissioner of Lebanon" "The power of that moment is beautifully captured in the photograph, which shows the quayside." "And there you see, in vivid colour, the red, white and blue of the French Tricolour." "And you get a sense of the massing of the people." "You can practically hear them calling out "Vive Gouraud!"" "DRJENNIFER DUECK:" "All the pomp and the ceremony and the uniforms and the horses and the parades - there really was a desire on the part of the French to show that they'd arrived and that they were important." "DR PATRICK SEALE: 0f course, the Levant postings in those days were highly prized, indeed for the whole mandate, because of the warm weather and the easy life, and the officers spent their time playing tennis with local girls," "or sitting around in cafes, and the troops, too, had a very good time." "With his cameras, Le Saint rode through the backstreets of Beirut observing the activities of French soldiers when they were off duty" "0ne scene in particular that stands out is with the prostitutes in front of a brothel, where we see mainly soldiers essentially flirting with a number of these prostitutes, and behaving in quite a lewd manner." "You can see the brothel keeper sitting at the door, rather older, plump lady." "And, of course, everybody jostling to have their photograph taken with one of the girls." "This was a part of Beirut life which is not the image that we have today of the Middle East and of Middle Eastern women." "The prostitutes themselves are quite keen to perform, as it were." "They're quite keen to be filmed and seem quite excited about this opportunity to be in front of a camera." "While his men enjoyed life in their new Middle Eastern playground," "General Gouraud had more pressing matters on his mind" "He needed to reassure the country's Maronites that their interests would be defended" "Many Maronites were convinced they were entitled to special treatment" "Having supported the Christian knights during the Crusades, they believed they shared long-standing cultural values with the French" "As you see in the images here, the delegation of Maronites that call on Gouraud could be taken for Frenchmen themselves." "They are French educated, they are French dressed." "You see them in their double-breasted suits and their ties, they're waving a flag which looks a variation on the Tricolour." "When they meet Gouraud, though you can't hear it here, they will speak a French that will be as perfect as if it were spoken on the boulevard of Paris." "The Christian Maronites lobbied for the creation of a state that they would dominate" "They wanted territory more than three times the size of their traditional homeland, centred on Mount Lebanon" "If granted, this would bring large numbers of Muslims, almost half of the country, under Christian Maronite rule" "The Maronites got their way" "In 1 920, General Gouraud proclaimed the new state Greater Lebanon" "But for the people of the region," "Gouraud's decision came at a heavy price" "The separation of Lebanon and Syria was violent." "Cities that had always enjoyed trade relations and whose people had moved freely back and forth now found themselves in two different countries, which broke long-standing economic ties, family ties, and a notion of a broader community." "To many Arabs, the transfer of power to the French was a betrayal" "They'd fought alongside the British in their battles against the 0ttomans" "Now, it seemed, the British were reneging on their promise to support the cause of Arab independence" "And in creating Greater Lebanon, from peoples of diverse religious and ethnic backgrounds, the European powers had set in motion conflict that would continue to the present day" "While France governed Lebanon and Syria," "Britain took control of Iraq, Transjordan and Palestine" "Albert Kahn sent his photographers on three separate missions to Jerusalem in the years following the Great War" "In December 1 91 7, the capture of Palestine by British troops had been one of the great military triumphs of World War 0ne" "For the first time in over 500 years, the Holy Land was under Christian rule" "By the time the British arrived, Jerusalem was battered and war weary" "More than a third of the population had either fled or died" "The British soldiers, when they came into Jerusalem, they didn't find the golden city of God." "They really found a very, very desperate village, which had gone through years of starvation and no services at all, no water, no medical services, no food." "This was a city where hunger and starvation presided, not God." "MAN:" "I remember my father told me that the hardest years were the years of the war." "They were very poor, there were years of great hunger, great, great poverty, to such a point that a simple commodity, such as table salt, was too expensive to buy." "When we look at the pictures, you see the dust." "They don't glamorise it, they don't romanticise it." "At the end of 0ttoman rule, Palestine was home to three quarters of a million Arabs" "Some were Bedouins who lived off the land" "Traditionally, the lives of Bedouin people revolved around their villages and their families" "For centuries they'd lived peacefully alongside the country's Muslims and Jews" "DR ALI QLEIB0:" "When my grandmother, for example, married my grandfather, she married him when she was 1 3." "It was the Jewish neighbour who showed her how to cook, who showed her how to domesticate her husband." "Who trained her." "Er, it's a different world." "We became very friendly with the Arabs living next door." "In fact the old lady next door was almost as much of a grandmother as my real grandmother, I spent a lot of time there." "I used to call her auntie." "Both my mother and my grandmother spoke Arabic, so they could converse freely with the Arabs." "And the Arabs spoke Hebrew." "As a matter of fact, today there is no doubt that there are many more Arabs who speak good Hebrew than there are Jews who even begin to understand Arabic." "There was no awareness of difference." "There was a closeness, real closeness, between Muslims and Jews." "But this harmony was about to be torn apart by a controversial British policy" "Jewish Zionists had been calling for the creation of a national homeland in Palestine- After years of campaigning, they persuaded the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Balfour, to back their cause" "In 1 91 7 Balfour wrote a letter to one of the leaders of this movement" ""His Majesty's Government view with favour" ""the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." ""It being understood that nothing should be done which may prejudice" ""the rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine"." "The letter, which became known as the Balfour Declaration, would have profound implications for the future of Palestine" "In that seemingly simple statement," "Balfour had made actually quite a huge commitment." "He had now wedded British policy to create a Jewish entity in Palestine." "For the Muslims of Palestine the Zionist campaign was a threat" "These pictures show one of France's most senior clerics, Cardinal Dubois, arriving in Jerusalem on a diplomatic and religious mission" "Cardinal Dubois was carrying a petition signed by Palestinian Muslims opposed to the Balfour Declaration" "It read, "In the name ofjustice and of equality," ""we ask you not to allow Jewish immigration to Palestine" ""And to remove from us the Zionist danger" ""We cannot permit this without sacrificing our precious blood-"" "But Balfour ignored the protests of Palestine's Muslim population" "Britain's commitment to a Zionist homeland ignited tensions between Jews and Muslims" "Balfour belonged to a group of Christian Zionists." "He knew the kings of the Bible before he learnt anything about" "British kings, so he felt very strongly about the Holy Land." "He felt very strongly about the Jewish people." "He felt very strongly about the need to return and, of course, he saw that he had the opportunity to be the one who returns the Jews to the Holy Land." "In 1 925, Kahn's photographers followed Lord Balfour on his historic visit to Jerusalem" "In the years since he'd made his famous declaration, almost 1 00,000 Jews had arrived in Palestine" "Balfour laid foundation stones at the Hebrew University - an institution intended to turn Hebrew into a living language and give the new Jewish settlers a strong national identity" "We are now seven years after the publication of the Balfour Declaration." "Um, thousands of Jews already live in Palestine as a result of that declaration." "The Zionist dream starts to realise itself." "And here the man himself comes to Jerusalem to attend the opening of the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus in Jerusalem." "And this is an extraordinary event." "These pictures are extraordinary because this was a very, very political event in the history of this country." "R0NNIE SIVAN:" "There were about, I reckon, about 20,000 people present there." "And among them were my father and mother who were invited because my father was considered a prominent member of the Jewish community." "I can see the great enthusiasm with which, especially Balfour was greeted." "When the invited guests see him walking up Mount Scopus, to them, he is the Messiah." "He is the Redeemer." "He is the man who is actually returning the Jewish people from exile to their own country for the first time in 2,000 years." "To rapturous crowds, Balfour outlined his vision of a new Jewish homeland" ""This is a new experiment, it has never been tried before." ""Unless I have profoundly mistaken the genius of the Jewish people," ""the experiment is predestined to inevitable success." ""on which not only men of Jewish birth," ""but others sharing the common civilisation of the world," ""will have reason to congratulate themselves."" "R0NNIE SIVAN:" "I would say he looked messianic." "I can't think of any other word." "He was wearing one of these university robes, and he had this hair that was all over the place and he was using his hands a lot as he spoke." "My parents told me, "This is it!" "This is what we have been waiting for."" "After laying the foundations of the Hebrew University," "Balfour visited the new collective farms which were being set up by Jews across Palestine" "These settlements were built on land bought from the Arabs" "Lord Balfour's visit to Palestine was something of a triumphal tour of the architect of the Jewish national home coming to see the first fruits of this pledge, this promise, this policy." "I think one of the most interesting pictures is where you see the Star of David - a somewhat makeshift Star of David - and the British flag together." "And that really symbolises everything." "Many of the Jews cheering Balfour in Tel Aviv had arrived in Palestine after fleeing persecution in Eastern Europe and Russia" "You really have a sense of how large the Zionist population of Palestine was already in 1 925." "And the fact that there is no mistaking the immigrant nature of this community - these are very European-looking people - really a people apart from the Palestinians themselves." "0bviously these are very one-sided pictures, because they only show the Zionist joy, they don't show the reaction of the Arabs to Balfour's visit." "At the time,Jerusalem's Muslim shopkeepers battened their doors and locked their shutters in protest at Balfour's visit" "People were very upset." "There was a general strike." "They dressed in mourning and, of course, what Balfour did was a great, er...betrayal, was considered as a great betrayal to the Arabs." "But we also see how inevitable the war between Israelis and Palestinians was." "It's not the fault of the British, it was just inevitable." "0pening Palestine to the Zionist dream meant war." "In 1 948, the state of Israel was established" "Almost a quarter of a century after his visit," "Balfour's promise had become a political reality" "My generation has lost a lot." "We have inherited the wars, the problems, the tensions, the hostilities that tear the Jewish people and Arabs apart." "In the years after the Great War, the destiny of the Palestinians still hung in the balance" "And the same uncertainties were faced by people all over the Middle East" "Europe's victorious powers also sought to dictate the future of the 0ttoman heartland in modern-day Turkey" "By November 1 91 8, western Turkey and the city of Istanbul, were already under Allied occupation" "But a group of young Turks plotted to regain control of the country and build a new nation from the ruins of the empire" "The new Turkey wouldn't be the ethnic patchwork of the 0ttoman era" "Its leaders were determined to create an ethnically unified nation state" "This was the moment at which the old world of the 0ttoman, multicultural, multi-religious, multi-ethnic empire came to an end and a new Turkey rose in its place, a secular Turkey for the Turks." "In 1 922, Albert Kahn sent two of his photographers " "Camille Sauvageot and Frederic Gadmer to Istanbul" "Their film and photographs document the cataclysmic events that led to the creation of modern Turkey" "When the film-makers came to Turkey, they captured a country that had been devastated by one of the most violent wars ever." "The films really capture this, the way that cities were devastated the way that infrastructure was laid low." "Photographs of derailed trains tumbling down mountains." "Cities that look like they'd been firebombed, sort of a Dresden image." "From this, the new Turkish Republic would have to be built, but how could you build a country from such rubble?" "In November 1 922," "Kahn's photographers witnessed one of Islam's most important rituals-- --the inauguration of the new Caliph, spiritual leader of all Muslims" "The Sultan had once possessed this title, but now he was in exile" "A new Caliph, the old Sultan's cousin, Abdulmecid, had been elected to take on this role" "Kahn's photographers recorded the ceremony" "The only account of the event in English was written by the British Vice Consul, George Young" ""As we cross the bridge, there passes us at a trot" ""an escort of lancers, mounted lackeys in red and a carriage." ""In it sits a portly person in a fez and frock coat." ""Abdulmecid is on his way to be invested as Caliph." ""The carriage whirls into the inner court." ""0n the pavement in front of the portico stands the golden throne," ""studded with jewels, looted from Egypt by Selim, the first 0ttoman Caliph."" "But the new Caliph faced an immediate problem" "At the end of the First World War, the Allies had occupied Istanbul, and ominously, French and British battleships remained anchored in the harbour below" "European warships in the Bosphorus were the most obvious sign that the 0ttoman Empire had lost all sovereignty, that now it was Britain and France, symbolised by their ships in the harbour here, who were controlling the 0ttoman Empire and in charge of its fate." "But the Turks were determined to fight back" "Their leader was the charismatic Mustafa Kemal, otherwise known as Ataturk, or the father of the Turks" "As one of the men responsible for inflicting a disastrous defeat on the Allies at Gallipoli," "Kemal had proved himself to be a ruthless political operator and a brilliant military strategist" "In this picture, Ataturk is looking very tired." "He has every right to be, he's been sort of in struggles, you know, for about 20 years." "He was cunning, he had to be, because he was establishing a government and an administration from scratch." "He had colleagues, some of whom he had to dispense with." "Kemal had used his political acumen to prevent his country from becoming yet another outpost of a European imperial power" "He wanted Turkey to be modern, secular and democratic" "But Kemal's policies made little provision for the country's ethnic diversity" "Fundamentally, Kemal was not interested in a sprawling state which would include large minorities of Greeks, of Armenians, of Arabs or whatever." "He wanted a Turkish state, a secular Turkey for the Turks." "During the war, in what's now considered one of the 2Oth century's most appalling genocides, the 0ttomans expelled or killed at least 1 million Armenians who had been living in eastern Turkey" "By 1 922, the Turks had to contend with what they considered to be another alien presence within" "Ethnic Greeks had been living throughout western Turkey for centuries, and many believed these lands were part of their heritage" "(TRANSLATI0N) Generation after generation." "My grandfather's mother, my mother's father, my mother's and father's father, they all lived and died there." "They must have been there for a very long time." "There would be a Greek house and next door there would be a Turkish, and they all lived well together." "They ate and drank together." "They would come to yours, you would go to theirs." "They were living happily." "They lived in their own little world where the religious distinctions didn't actually amount to very much because these families had been together for generations and generations and had simply got used to each other." "But the friendly relations between the Christian Greeks and the Muslim Turks didn't last" "At the end of the Great War, the Greek army occupied part of western Turkey around the port of Smyrna" "Gradually they advanced inland" "Soon Greek forces were locked in a long and bloody struggle against the Turks" "The Greeks and the Turks fight a two-year war of tremendous violence that lays whole towns and villages low and destroyed them with a thoroughness we wouldn't see again until the firebombings of the Second World War." "By 1 922, a quarter of a million Greek soldiers encircled western Turkey" "But Kemal patiently assembled a force strong enough to take on the Greeks" "When the Turkish counterattack came, it was swift and decisive" "The Greek army was forced into rapid retreat and fled back to the coast, leaving a trail of devastation behind them" "The Greek army, when it was retreating, did what armies traditionally always have done, actually." "You can't blame them for being unprincipled about this, but they set fire to every town they retreated through so as to deny it to the oncoming enemy." "You can imagine the effect this would have had on the civilian population." "Kahn's photographers recorded the near obliteration of towns like Alasehir-- --where 95% of the houses were destroyed and around 3,000 lives were lost" "You can see from the pictures what straits people were reduced to." "For example, this picture of a man living in a hollow tree." "The man's house is uninhabitable, so he's made a tree into his accommodation." "In the town of Magnesia, only one in ten houses survived the onslaught" "There's an image of a couple of old men standing in really a landscape consisting of rubble." "Now these old men probably had quite a few of their sons killed in the war, and probably lost their daughters to abduction, and if you look at the image carefully you can see that they don't have anything on their feet except rags." "That's what war reduces you to, to sheer poverty." "According to Kahn's photographer, Frederic Gadmer, this man had been trapped inside a burning mosque" "He survived, but the experience drove him mad" "The Greek army retreated through the countryside, with Turkish forces in close pursuit" "After seeing the destruction of their towns the Turks took revenge on those Greek civilians who were left behind" "(TRANSLATI0N) Even before we had to leave, we slept in fear." "Truly we slept in fear." "From the moment the Turkish army came - would the Turks come and get us and slaughter us?" "0r wouldn't they?" "As the Greek army retreated, the Greek civilian population retreated in its wake, carrying what they could with them towards Smyrna and flooding into Smyrna in the wake of the Greek army, hoping for help, and hoping for a means of evacuation." "The port of Smyrna, which is today known as Izmir, was second only to Istanbul in its commercial importance" "It was dominated by Greeks, who had given the city a distinctively Western character" "The Greeks saw it as the jewel of Greek civilisation in the East." "And it had fine Greek buildings, Greek societies and clubs," "Greek sports and Greek newspapers." "And it was a real cosmopolitan centre." "But the city's Christian majority were about to have their lives shattered as thousands of refugees piled into Smyrna pursued by the Turkish army" "Desperate attempts to defend the city failed" "The Turkish army entered the city, there were Turkish police to keep order, but it didn't last." "Some looting started in the Armenian quarter." "Fire broke out." "As the inferno spread throughout the city, thousands of people were left trapped on the quayside" "From the deck of his ship, a British sailor, Melvyn Johnson, witnessed the panic and terror at the waterfront" ""As far as we could go, you could hear 'em screaming and hollering." ""And the fire was going on." ""The most pitiful thing you ever saw in your life." ""And the city was set in a kind of hill," ""and the fire was coming this way, towards the ship." ""That was the only way the people could go - towards the waterfront." ""A lot of them were jumping in, committing suicide." ""It was a sight all right."" "For four days, Smyrna was consumed by flames" "L0UIS DE BERNIERES:" "It was like a firestorm." "You can see the houses are roofless and windowless." "The buildings have fallen apart." "Nobody really knows how or why it happened and everybody blames everybody else." "The Turks say that the Greeks did it to stop them having the place." "The Greeks say the Turks did it to stop them coming back." "DR EUGENE R0GAN:" "Smyrna really was the last battlefield of the war between Turkey and Greece." "And with the fall of Smyrna to the Turks, it really spelt the end of the Greek presence in modern Turkey." "After the fire was extinguished," "Turkish leaders visited the scene of their triumph" "Mustafa Kemal, who visited Smyrna soon after it was occupied by the Turkish army, felt," ""Well, so be it." "If this city is destroyed," ""never mind, we shall reclaim and rebuild it as a Turkish city," ""and after all, the population which made it what it was," ""which was largely the Greek Christian population, will be gone."" "With Smyrna now under control, Mustafa Kemal could get on with the job of building a new Turkish homeland" "He set about ridding his country of the last remnants of the Greek civilian population and gave the Greek army a 1 5-day deadline to withdraw from Turkey" "Kahn's photographers captured on film the plight of thousands of Greeks after they were forced from their homes" "A young American reporter, Ernest Hemingway, described this exodus for his newspaper, the Toronto Daily Star" ""20 miles of exhausted, staggering men, women and children," ""walking blindly along in the rain beside their worldly goods." ""It is a silent procession." ""Nobody even grunts." ""It is all they can do to keep moving."" "L0UIS DE BERNIERES:" "There's footage of what must be thousands of refugees marching away and none of them has any belongings with them whatsoever." "What you have is part of what you are." "So when you have to leave with nothing, you lose some of your identity." "(TRANSLATI0N) 0ne morning we received notice to evacuate our town." "We collected all our belongings and handed them over to the Turks, including jewellery and clothes." "My mother only took a few spare clothes with her, because she thought we would be coming back." "And then the boat came..." "and took us away." "As the refugees flooded into the sea ports and railway terminals," "Kahn's photographers captured the desperation of people fleeing for their lives" "L0UIS DE BERNIERES:" "The most haunting of all of those pictures is of... an old lady and three children peering out of a little opening in the side of one of these trucks with a soldier lying on the roof above them." "And they're all looking straight into the camera and this immediately makes you think of the deportation of people to the concentration camps in the Second World War." "If it wasn't for the soldier and his uniform, you could easily think it was people being transported to Auschwitz." "It proved impossible to evacuate the entire Greek population in time" "Thousands died of starvation and disease" "Those who did manage to escape faced an uncertain future when they reached Greece" "(TRANSLATI0N) When we arrived in Athens and Piraeus, they said," ""It's full, you can't come through."" "And send us to Tzia." "We stayed a year there." "There was no sign of my father and there had always been three of us girls until my sister passed away there in Tzia." "She died in Tzia because we were staving." "In the space ofjust six months, around one million Greeks were expelled from Turkey" "In retaliation, the Greek government deported half a million Turks who were a minority community living in Greece" "In January 1 923, the League of Nations gave its stamp of approval to the population exchange between Greece and Turkey" "Their decision made forced migration a legitimate means of solving ethnic conflicts in the 2Oth century" "It might have seemed a wonderful idea to separate the populations in order to Turkey-fy Turkey and Greek-ify Greece and prevent any future conflict." "In the abstract it seems like a wonderful idea." "But what it amounts to is an irreversible mucking-up of other people's lives." "What you're left with is a lifetime of nostalgia, longing for what you've lost and can never have back." "(TRANSLATI0N) I've been longing to go back there, but I haven't managed to get there." "How could I not feel for my homeland?" "Especially the place where I was born." "Ataturk's nationalism helped to rebuild Turkey from the shattered ruins of the 0ttoman Empire" "Yet his policies left a legacy of deep antagonism between the Turks and many of their minority groups, among them the Kurds, whose culture has been repressed by Turkey ever since" "The film and photographs shot by Albert Kahn's photographers are a unique record of a pivotal period in the history of the Middle East" "They witnessed the destruction of empires and the birth of nations, the triumphant realisation of political dreams for some, and the nightmarish experience of dispossession for others" "Kahn's cameras captured some of the most important events of the age" "preserving moments that changed the face of this troubled region for ever"