Upon the death of Yuan in 1916, rival Western-backed warlords vie for control of China.

By 1918, the Ikhwan are ready to enter Ibn Sa'ud's elite army.

The Ikhwan alone provide him with a formidable force, but his military also includes soldiers recruited from the towns and nomadic tribes.

Aided by British subsidies during the Great War, ibn Sa'ud has managed by adroit diplomacy to remain relatively inactive, despite his encirclement by enemies, including the Hashemid kingdom of Sharif Husayn ibn 'Ali of the Hejaz, also a British client.

Husayn and ibn Sa'ud each receive a monthly stipend of £5,000 to serve British interests.

In this year, ibn Sa'ud receives from the British 1300 guns, 10,000 rupees and 20,000 pieces of gold in cash.

...and December 1916.

In Germany proper, Jews are accused of evading active service despite the fact that approximately 100,000 Jews serves in the German army, 12% higher than their population ratio.

In 1916, Qatar grants Great Britain control over defense and foreign relations.

Rasputin is assassinated in 1916.

German antiwar activist Rosa Luxembourg founds the Spartacist party.

Haber’s method for synthesizing ammonia enables German production of high explosives after the Allied blockade cuts access to Chilean nirate deposits.

I. G. Farben official Wener Daitz is reportedly the first to describe “national socialism,” in 1915.

German industrialist and social theorist Walther Rathenau works to establish world socialism while organizing and directing Germnay’s War Raw Materials Department.

A small Egyptian industrial sector does develop in spite of these obstacles, devoted primarily to processing raw materials and producing perishable or bulky goods.

Industrialization gives rise to a modern working class engaged in factory labor.

By 1916 there are thirty thousand to thirty-five thousand workers employed in modern factories.

Anglo-Egyptian trade policy is based on free trade, which favors the more industrialized nations whose products undersell those produced locally.

Lord Cromer himself describes the effects of the import of European manufactures on local craft production.

He notes that quarters of the city that had been "hives of busy workmen" have shrunk or been eliminated entirely. Cafes and small stores selling European goods replace productive workshops.

Egyptian industrialization will require protective tariffs that the British will not allow.

Thus, although Egypt has a solid infrastructure, a sizeable local market, and an indigenous supply of capital, industrial development is stymied by a British trade policy that seeks to protect the Egyptian market for British products and to maintain Britain's near monopoly on Egyptian cotton.

Belgium takes Burundi from Germany in 1916.

France and Britain take Cameroon from Germany in 1916, dividing the country between them.

Greek monarch Constantine I is increasingly accused of pro-German sentiments by his political critics, led by former premier Venizelos, who forms a rival Greek government in Salonika in 1916.

In 1916, Smuts assumes command of the Allied forces in East Africa operating against the Germans there.