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BRITISH PROMISES TO ARABS |
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BRITISH PROMISES TO ARABS |
 Click for larger image. Map courtesy of Azanne Research. |
The earliest British discussions of the Middle East question revolved around Sharif Husayn (or Hussain) ibn Ali, scion of the Hashimite (or Hashemite) family that claimed descent from the Prophet Muhammad and acted as the traditional guardians of Islam's most holy sites of Mecca and Medina in the Arabian province of Hijaz. In February 1914, Amir Abdullah, son of Sharif Husayn, went to Cairo to visit Lord Kitchener, British agent and consul general in Egypt. Amir Abdullah inquired about the possibility of British support should his father stage a revolt against Turkey. Since Turkey and Germany were not yet formally allied, and Germany and Britain were not yet at war, Kitchener's reply was noncommittal. Shortly after the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, Kitchener was recalled to London as secretary of state for war. By 1915, as British military fortunes in the Middle East deteriorated, Kitchener saw the usefulness of transferring the Islamic caliphate to an Arab candidate indebted to Britain, and he energetically sought Arab support for the war against Turkey. (The caliph, or successor to the Prophet Muhammad, was the traditional leader of the Islamic world.) In Cairo Sir Henry McMahon, the first British high commissioner in Egypt, conducted an extensive correspondence from July 1915 to January 1916 with Husayn, two of whose sons--Abdullah, later king of Jordan, and Faysal, later king of Syria (ejected by the French in 1920) and of Iraq (1921-33)-- were to figure prominently in subsequent events. |
In a letter to McMahon enclosed with a letter dated July 14, 1915, from Abdullah, Husayn specified an area for Arab independence under the "Sharifian Arab Government" consisting of the Arabian Peninsula (except Aden) and the Fertile Crescent of Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq. In his letter of October 24, 1915, to Husayn, McMahon, on behalf of the British government, declared British support for postwar Arab independence, subject to certain reservations and exclusions of territory not entirely Arab or concerning which Britain was not free "to act without detriment to the interests of her ally, France." The territories assessed by the British as not purely Arab included: "The districts of Mersin and Alexandretta, and portions of Syria lying to the west of the districts of Damascus, Homs, Hama, and Aleppo." As with the later Balfour Declaration, the exact meaning was not clear, although Arab spokesmen since then have usually maintained that Palestine was within the pledged area of independence. Although the Husayn- McMahon correspondence was not legally binding on either side, on June 5, 1916, Husayn launched the Arab Revolt against Turkey and in October declared himself "King of the Arabs."
Husayn's drive against the Ottoman Turks was primarily selfish. This is clearly evident in the exchange of letters with McMahon which clearly demonstrate that Husayn did have an alternate, more personal agenda. He demands money, goods, and arms in exchange for his agreement to lead the rebellion. Furthermore, his claims of being able to unite the various tribes living in the Hijaz under his command were exaggerations; in reality, he was forced to pay the Bedouins to fight for him and there was a constant intertribal rivalry that he was unable to overcome. Husayn’s main demand from the British is that he, himself, be installed as the "King of the Arabs". It is hard to imagine that a man who was making demands such as these had the good of all the Arab people in mind. Nonetheless, the Revolt led by Hysayn was the turning point toward Arab Nationalism and that is its legacy.
While Husayn and McMahon corresponded over the fate of the Middle East, the British were conducting negotiations with the French over the same territory. Following the British military defeat at the Dardanelles in 1915, the Foreign Office sought a new offensive in the Middle East, which it thought could only be carried out by reassuring the French of Britain's intentions in the region. In February 1916, the Sykes-Picot Agreement (officially the "Asia Minor Agreement") was signed, which, contrary to the contents of the Husayn-McMahon correspondence, proposed to partition the Middle East into French and British zones of control and interest. Under the Sykes-Picot Agreement, Palestine was to be administered by an international "condominium" of the British, French, and Russians (also signatories to the agreement).
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