Coll 6/4(2) 'Asir: Relations between Saudi Arabia and the Yemen.' [‎80r] (166/796)

THIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY OF HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY’S GOVERNMENT
EASTERN (Arabia). > ^ January 22, 1934.
CONFIDENTIAL. , ~ f Section 1.
^ ^ • Q ?
[E 504/79/25] No. 1.
Sir A . Ryan to Sir John Simon.—(Received January 22.)
(No. 1.)
Sir, Jedda, January 2, 1934.
WITH reference to your despatch No^333_of the 14th December, I have the
honour to state that, in my opinion, any~claim by the Saudi Government to
Hodeida on the ground that it was formerly Idrisi territory would be untenable,
as untenable as the suggestion that the Idrisi could not validly cede rights further
north to Ibn Saud, without the Imam’s consent. When Fuad Bey spoke to
Mr. Calvert of the possibility of a claim to Hodeida, he would appear to have
been using it merely as a makeweight in his demonstration of the reasonableness
of Ibn Saud. I am confirmed in this appreciation by a conversation which I
myself had with Fuad Bey on the 29th December. I pointed out to him, among
other things, that Hodeida was in fact in British occupation for over three
months after the date assigned in the Saudi-Idrisi Treaty of 1926 to the earlier
treaty between Ibn Saud and the Idrisi. The date of that treaty is given as the
10th Safar, 1339, or about the 22nd October, 1920. The British forces evacuated
Hodeida, which the Idrisi thereupon occupied, at the end of January 1921. I
cannot discover that the Idrisi had at any previous time held Hodeida, although
he had been given possession of Loheya soon after the armistice with Turkey,
according to the Survey of International A ffairs for 1925, vol. I, p. 320.
According to p. 322 of the same volume, he was compelled to evacuate Loheya
early in 1925 and Hodeida on the 27th March of that year. So far as Hodeida is
concerned, therefore, he would appear not to have been in possession either on the
date of the Saudi-Idrisi Treaty of 1920 or on the date of the subsequent treaty of
1926.
2. I agree that it is very difficult to apply legal tests to the claims and
counter-claims as to how the frontier between what is now Saudi Arabia and the
Yemen should be drawn. Some rational conclusions may, however, be deducible
from a study of the history of the Yemen and Asir since 1872, when the Turkish
Government included both in the newly constituted Vilayet of the Yemen,
although they separated them, to the best of my belief , between 1908 and 1911. I
gave certain reasons for the latter belief in ^a memorandum which I wrote in
London before returning from leave, but of which I have no copy. Such enquiries
as I have been able to make since tend to confirm it. I have before me a calendar
in Turkish for the Turkish financial year 1327 (the 14th March, 1911, to the
13th March, 1912), which, though unofficial, shows clearly that, at that time, there
were only two outlying sanjaks of the Yemen Vilayet, viz., Hodeida and Taiz,
and that Asir was" already an ££ independent” sanjak, i.e., one directly under
Constantinople, though not administered by a Vali.
3. I am at present engaged in an attempt to put together in outline an
historical study of the kind indicated in the preceding paragraph. If Ibn Saud
and the Imam come to a real settlement in the near future it may not be worth
while to pursue this rather difficult task. Should I complete it, I will venture
to submit the results for verification and correction by experts. For the moment
I content myself with drawing your attention to the fact that the handbooks
drawn up by the Arab Bureau and the Admiralty in 1916-17 describe the Wadi A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows. f
Ain, which falls into the sea at parallel 16°, as the then limit of Idrisi expansion.
In my opinion, anv subsequent extension of the Idrisi’s authority further to the
south must be regarded as having been in the nature of a purely temporary
occupation. I think it will be found, though I am not in possession of the whole
correspondence, that even when His Majesty’s Government allowed the Idrisi
to occupy first Loheya and then Hodeida, they were unwilling to commit them
selves to the position that these places were being assigned to him permanently.
Having regard to all that has happened since, I should say that the reasonable
lie of a frontier towards the sea would be somewhere from the Wadi A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows. Tashar to the
Wadi A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows. Ain.