The nascent Anglo-German tensions — they did not become acute until after 1906 — were sharpened after the discovery of oil in Mesopotamia — by German “archaeologists” — and by a second visit that Wilhelm paid to Turkey in 1898. Traveling through Palestine and Syria, the Kaiser laid a wreath on Saladin’s tomb, and in Damascus, where he appeared in public dressed as a Bedouin sheik, he commemorated the friendship between Haroun al-Raschid and Charlemagne and pledged Germany’s armed might to help his friend, the Caliph Abdul Hamid, defend the cause of Islam.
The reason today Muslims are apologized to
