مجموعة ٦/ ٦٦ "المملكة العربية السعودية: حدود السعودية-شرق الأردن" [و‎‎٥‎١] (٤٢٧/١٠١)

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* THIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY OF HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY’S GOYERNMENT
EASTERN (Arabia).
CONEIDENTIAL.
[E 4422/341/25]
T
1 4 (] 9
'I o o r *
July 19, 1935.
Section 1.
Mr. Rendel to Fuad Bey Hamza.
My dear I uad Bey, Foreian Office, July 19, 1935.
I WRITE as arranged to summarise the results of our discussion of the
15th July on the question of the Transjordan frontier.
2. You will remember that I began by referring to the Saudi Government s
protest of the 3rd February last against the use by Transjordan car patrols of a
track passing through a place known as Thaniyya Taraif which the Saudi
Government claimed was not in Transjordan territory. Sir Andrew Ryan had
informed your Government before he left Jedda that this question was
necessitating exhaustive study, owing to defects in the maps, but that we should
be prepared to discuss it with you during your present visit. It was in consequence
of this communication that I was raising the matter.
3. I then explained to you that our investigations had shown that the
existing maps of this area were very seriously inaccurate. The 1:1,000,000
“ International ” map of 1918, which had been used in the negotiation of the
Hadda Agreement and in the delineation of the frontier laid down in that agree
ment (and which is, indeed, specifically referred to in article 1 ), had now been
shown to be quite unreliable, and many of the features in it either lay in entirely
different positions in relation to each other or were quite unrecognisable. In
some cases, indeed, they did not exist at all. These errors appeared to be most
serious at the southern end of the line in the neighbourhood of the place referred
to in your Government’s protest of last February. In particular, the bluff marked
on the 1918 map as Thaila Maizila had now been shown not to be an isolated
eminence lying well to the east of the Jebel Tubeik, but to be an integral part of
that massif, and so closely connected with the main portion of the mountain that
there was no practicable route between the two. The Transjordan car patrols
were thus obliged to go to the east of this bluff in order to travel round the Jebel
Tubeik on their ordinary patrolling duties, and the route round the Jebel, shown
on the 1918 map as having been followed by Carruthers and Shakespeare and
passing between the Tubeik and Thaila Maizila, had now been shown to be non
existent and impossible.
4. Without a full and detailed survey of the whole area and an agreed
decision as to precisely where the Iladda frontier should run in the light of the
new information now available, it is difficult to say that any precise point in the
particular neighbourhood now in question is definitely in Saudi Arabia or in
Transjordan. The uncertainty in regard to the relative position, and even
existence, of the various physical features makes it, in our view, impossible to
apply the Hadda frontier to the ground without a great deal of further informa
tion, and in advance of any general agreement as to the principles which should be
followed in interpreting the Hadda line. On the other hand, it is likely to be a
long and complicated business to reach a final settlement of this question, and the
boundary at present observed, which has long been tacitly accepted by both sides,
has not led to serious practical difficulty.
5. In these circumstances, I suggested two alternative possibilities. The
first was that we should agree to let this matter stand over until further progress
had been made with regard to the settlement of other outstanding questions, when
we might be better able to deal with the present question with the thoroughness
which it required. Alternatively, if your Government felt it necessary to try to
clear up the whole question without further delay, I suggested that we should
review the whole question of the Transjordan-Nejd frontier, as established bv the
Hadda Agreement, and that, for this purpose, it would be necessary to take
the following steps :—
6 . In the first place it would be necessary to obtain full and detailed
information as to the actual geographical facts, i.e., where the various physical