"ملف 61/11 X (D 170) مسائل متنوعة خاصة بالحجاز ونجد" [و‎‎١‎٩] (٥٥٤/٥٠)

THIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY OF HIS BRITANN|jCHS!tAJESTY'S GOVERNMENT
ic
ARABIA.
CONFIDENTIAL.
December 26, 1941.
S ection 1.
\ v
[E 8551/8551/25]
Copy No. 107
.
Mr. Stonehewer-Bird to i ¥r. Eden.—{Received December 26.)
(No. 47.)
HIS Majesty's Minister at Jedda presents his compliments to His Majesty's
Principal Secretary of State and has the honour to transmit to him a copy of
reports dated the 12th, 13th and 14th November, 1941, by Colonel De Gaury on
his interviews with King Saud.
Jedda, December 6. 1941.
ioSHIR E RESIDENCY.
'our No -y'r
Me :
Enclosure 1.
"Colonel De Gaury to Mr. Stonehewer-Bird.
Sir, Riyadh, November 12, 1941.
I ARRIVED in Riyadh in the mid-afternoon of the 12th November. The
King at once sent to ask whether I would prefer to be received immediately or
after darl I told the Chamberlain, Tabaishi, that I would prefer the later
audience.
I was therefore biddeuto come at 3 o'clock Arab time (about 8.30 p.m .). We
were lodged in the Murabba Palace and so only had a few yards to walk. On
the way through the corridors of the Palace some of the soldiers were brushed
aside by a chamberlain to reveal the brightly painted gates of His Majesty's
new lift.
The King looked extremely well, unchanged since 1939, and received me
cordially. After the usual exchange of compliments, I told him that it had been
thought that he might like to discuss with me our management of tribal affairs in
Syria. His Majesty immediately showed that he had been made fully aware, by
you, of the objects of my visit and that he much appreciated the courtesy of
sending someone au courant with affairs in the north to visit him.
He said, making use, for the first time with me, of the expression akhui (my
brother), that he would like to discuss this and also affairs in Iraq when we
were alone : at audiences which would begin to-morrow.
Nevertheless, he began to discuss Iraq immediately, giving me a number of
details about the events leading up to the debacle of May 1941, and describing
the arrival here in Riyadh of Naji Suwaidi and his own attitude in regard to
the latter. This is, no doubt, well known to His Majesty's Legation in Jedda,
and to the embassy in Bagdad, and in any case is not of much consequence now;
but the fact that Ibn Saud, immediately on my arrival, embarked on this now
old history made me think that he is still perturbed at what His Majesty's
Government may think of his having painted Rashid Ali less blackly than that
odious Iraqi deserves.
This audience was, of course, intended to be merely a formal one on arrival,
and we reverted for a short time to non-political subjects—the lift and the
King's health; the latter being extremely good, the former out of order! It was
not, however, for long that the King could keep off politics and within a few
minutes he was discussing the movements of Jemal al Hussaini and he said that
he would show me to-morrow a letter to him from Jemal, which I would find
very interesting. From this he went lightly off to the heavy subject of Arab
Federation, saying that, as he had often pointed out to Arab politicians, the fact
that there had not been spontantaneous concerting of plans, either in regard to
the Jews or in regard to this war—the two greatest problems with which living
Arabs were ever likely to be faced^—showed how little real hope there was for a
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