'File 8/15 Arab Series - 1933-1939' [‎177v] (354/434)

MEMORANDUM.
The paper specified below was transmitted to the Secretary, Political
Department, 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. , London, for the information of His Majesty s Sec
retary of State for India, under cover of the Foreign Secretary’s letter No.
56-M, dated the 29th July 1937.
Arabia series of 1936. [S. Nos. (51) to (93) with 4 spare copies.
(35)
Enclosure in Foreign Office covering letter dated 19th July 1937.
Note from G. W. Render, Esqr., Foriegn Office, London, No. E. 3956/
872/91, dated the 19th July 1937.
Agnlo-Italian Relations in the Middle East.
Signor Crolla, the Counsellor of the Italian Embassy, called on me this
morning and said that he had been instructed by the Italian Government to
raise the question of our policy in Arabia as it might affect Italy. As I knew,
and as he had told me on February 3rd last, the Italian Government attached
the greatest importance to the maintenance of the Rome Understanding of 1927.
[S. No. (169) in F. 427 (ll)-N/26.] But since the date of that Understanding
there had been many developments. Italy, owing to her conquest of Aby
ssinia, occupied a more important position in the Red Sea area, and her interest
were more deeply engaged and more widely extended there than they
had been before. All that occurred in Arabia was thus of importance to her,
and she had become, so to speak, much more “ sensitive ” in this area than
in past. The Italian Government had therefore been disturbed by certain
recent developments which suggested that His Majesty s Government might
be adopting a more forward policy.
2. Signor Crolla began by alluding to the recent arrival at Jedda of two
British aircraft, apparently to bring documents to Sir R. Bullard, and to Sir
R. Bullard’s immediately subsequent departure for Riyadh to interview Ibn
Saud. He had a long complicated story about reports current in Jedda as to
the objects of this visit, which had made the Italian Government very un
easy. Apparently realising that this was hardly a sufficient ground for the
uneasiness which he had been instructed to express to R 16 * h® went on ~
alleging, however, that he did so entirely on his own initiative—that he had
read in the “ Daily Herald ” about a month ago that we were extending our
authority and influence north of the Hadhramaut, apparently with a view to
establishing ourselves in the hinterland behind the \emen. His explanations
were confused and confusing, but he seemed anxious to suggest that His
Majesty’s Government were now adopting a much more forward policy in
Arabia, and that Italy, in view of her increased interest in East Africa, could
not remain unaffected or indifferent.
3. I began by telling Signor Crolla that it seemed to me increasingly
difficult to deal with these constant unjustified suspicions on the part of the
Italian Government, in view of the background of hostility and supicion
which was being created by the perpetual attacks launched against every
thing-we did by the Italian press. Hardly a day passed when I did not read
in my telegrams of some new and utterly unjustified misrepresentation
of our policy and motives in Italian newspapers. This was not my immediate
concern, but it made it much more difficult to clear up local questions such as
Ancrlo-Italian relations in Arabia and the Middle East, when one knew that
whatever we said or did would be distorted and used against us in Rome.
It made one despair of ever getting anything properly straightened out.
4. As regards Arabia, I could tell him at once categorically that we held
firmly to the Rome Understanding of 1927 [F. 427 (11) N/26] and that we at
tached oreat importance to its integral maintenance. It was clearly laid
down in that Understanding that it was a mutual and important interest
both of Italy and of Great Britain that no European Power should establish