'Memorandum on British Commitments to King Husein' [‎104v] (6/20)

For instance, a letter written to him by his son Sherif Ali on the 26th May, 1916,
on the eve of the revolt, and mostly occupied with military details, concludes :—
" Our Lord will not, we hope,, forget Alexandretta, Beirout, and those
regions " (Part 11, p. 41).
Again, Shei if Abdullah remarked to Colonel Wilson at Jeddah on the 1st November,
1916, 7 apropos of his father's assumption of the title of " King of the Arabs," that
" the boundaries of his kingdom were settled previous to the revolt —a misstatement
of the facts, unless it was intended, as it certainly was not, as an acceptance of the
boundaries His Majesty's Government had consented to.
On the 29tli July, 1917, King Husein expressed his views on the boundary
question to Captain Lawrence ;— s
" The main points were that he had altogether refused to permit any French
annexation of Beirout and the Lebanon. ' They are Arab countries, but 1 will
neither take them myself nor permit anyone else to take them. They have
deserved independence and it is my duty to see they get it.'
" He said tlutt he refused a detailed discussion of boundaries on the grounds
that hostilities between Turkey and the Allies still continue and all decisions taken
now would necessarily have to be modified in accordance with the actual results of
military operations, for which he must have an absolutely free hand. ' II
advisable we will pursue the Turks to Constantinople and Erzerum, so why talk
about Beirout, Aleppo, and Hail." "
He revealed the same state of mind in conversations with Colonel Wilson a few
months later. 9
From convt rsations with him during the second week of January, 1918, Commander
Hogarth gathered that he still expected France and Great Britain to fall out, and
calculated that he would be able to force the hand of the French with our backing. 10
On the 11th February, 1918, Colonel Basset wrote to Sir T\. Wingate that King
Husein had read into the terms of His Majesty's Government's " pledge' very wide
territorial boundaries, and professes the most implicit trust in the intention and ability
of Great Britain to redeem the ' pledge ' as he reads it.' 11
Relation of Commitments under (Li) to British Desiderata.
The boundaries of Aiab independence to which His Majesty s Government are
committed by Sir H. McMahon's second letter to Sherif Husein (24th October, 1915),
exclude (a) the British territory and Protectorate of Aden ; and presumably also {b)t e
British Protectorate of Bahrein, since the Sherif's claims take the " Indian Ocean as
the boundary of the Arabian Peninsula, and make no mention ot islands (see nist e er
of Julv 1915, quoted above). , t •
On the other hand, they include (c) Akka-Haifa and (d) Basra, though, m e
agreement of the 6th May, 1916, with France, and in correspondence which has passed
at various times between the Foreign Office and the India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. , it seems to be assume
that both these places will become British enclaves in the independent Ara ai V 1 '
attached in some formal way (whether by annexation, protectorate, or lease) to e
Biicish Empire. . v i
Sir Mark Sykes reported that, in his conversations with iaroki early m i ( ^. em ,
1915, the latter stated that " the Arabs would agree to Basra town and all cu iva e
lands to the south being British territory. " 12 But there is, no other recoic 0 . suc ,. .
concession on his part or on the part of any other representative of the Ara na 10 " a .
organisations in Turkey.. And King Husein has never mentioned the possi^ i 1 y 0 ^
nor have His Majesty's Government mentioned it in their correspondence wit i mi.
Again, tht right of transporting British troops, in peace or war, along a n j
owned railw r ay from Akka-Haifa to Irak and the Persian (rult lias only jeen agicvc
by France, Italy, and Russia, but has never been either demanded or consente
any negotiations between His Majesty's Government and tbe Arabs themse ves.
In these cases, then, the relation between British commitments an ( esi
remains unsettled. . . ^ , r ' p vern-
As regards the nature of the Arab independence to which His - ^i^xf -M iiiou's
inent have committed themselves within the boundaries specified m on • - v C ^
letter of the 24th October, 1915, that is limited by reservations under (iv.j
'222016/16. 8 174974/17. a 228069/17. 10 25577/18. u 4210.)/
12 p. 105 ; also 23579/16. 13 See pp. 4-5 of this Memorandum.