Coll 6/74 'Foreign Office memorandum entitled "The Seven Independent Arabian States." (Yemen, Asir, the Hejaz, Nejd, Kowait, Jebel Shammar, and Jauf.)' [‎11r] (21/28)

15
long strip of the coast, and in the interest of peace and order it will be
essential for the Power that controls the Gulf to have a working agreement
with him. The extent, therefore, to which his claims must be met must be
measured not only by the immediate services, which he may be expected to
render, but also by the potential powers for mischief which, in the event
of success, he will possess, and if permanently estranged will doubtless
exercise ”
Negotiations for the treaty were protracted, but the instrument was
eventually signed at Qatif by Sir P. Cox and the Emir on the 26th December,
1915.( l0 ) Ratification by the Viceroy and Governor-General of India tolloy/ed
on the 18th July, 1916.' By this treaty His Majesty’s Government recognised
Ibn Saud as independent ruler of Nejd, Hasa, Qatif and Jubail, and engaged
to support him against aggression by any foreign Power to such extent and
in such a manner as the British Government, after consulting Ibn Saud, may
consider most effective for protecting his interests and countries. For his part
Ibn Saud covenanted to have no relations with any foreign Power, and absolutely
not to cede, sell, mortgage, lease or dispose of any part of his territories to any
foreign Power or the subjects of a foreign Power without the consent of His
Majesty’s Government. . . .
Three other points in particular may be noticed regarding the provisions ot
the treaty :—
(a) That article I, after defining the several ‘‘countries" recognised by
His Majesty’s Government as being under the independent rule of
Ibn Saud, added the words “ and their dependencies and territories,
which will be discussed and determined hereafter . . . . .” These
words appear to have committed His Majesty’s Government to
arbitrate in any territorial disputes that might arise between Ibn
Saud and his neighbours—King Husein, for instance—and, by
implication, might have taken them even further.
(5) That 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. , soon after the treaty was ratified,' laid down the
important decision that ‘ ‘ we cannot admit that article II (promising
His Majesty’s Government’s support against aggression by any
foreign Power) is binding on us against other Arabs.”
(c) That article VII engaged His Majesty’s Government and Ibn Saud to
conclude a “ further detailed treaty ”
We must now consider the relations which existed between Ibn Saud and the
Emir of Mecca from the outbreak of war in 1914 to the beginning of the Arab
rising in June 1916. This period covers the secret negotiations between His
Majesty’s Government and the Emir. Of these negotiations Ibn Saud was
unaware, though the ultimate success or failure of the action contemplated in
the negotiations could not leave him unaffected. Both Emirs feared the Turks
(Husein, once pro-Turkish, having adopted a hostile policy since 1913), and would
have been glad to see them ejected from Arabia; but each was jealous of the other
as an Arab ruler and rival chief, whose large ambitions could only be satisfied
at the other’s expense. Moreover, fertile sources of discord lay in the uncertainty
of the claims and obligations of each in the absence of boundaries, and in the
fluctuating allegiance of nomad tribes, who passed from one region to another
with slight concern for questions of sovereignty. Such matters notwithstanding,
the two Emirs had been drawn together immediately before the war by their
common dread of the Turks, and were in amicable correspondence in the spring
of 1914. In January 1915 Ibn Saud, in conversation with Captain Shakespear,
declared it as his view that the Caliphate would revert to the family of the
Prophet, of which Emir Husein was the representative, if it dropped from the
hand of the Sultan of Turkey. This expression of opinion can hardly be taken
as indicating unfriendliness towards Husein on the part of the speaker.
Towards the close of 1915 a definite change appeared in the relations of the
two Emirs. The expedition despatched to Qasim and Sedeir by the Emir of
Mecca, under his son Abdullah in 1910, has already been noticed. In November
1915 Abdullah again appeared in Nejd with a Hejazi force, this time on the
direct route from Mecca to Riyadh, for the ostensible purpose of collecting dues
from the Ateibah tribe, over whom the Emir of Mecca claimed sovereignty. To
( l0 ) Printed as appendix to P.O. 11820*.