Papers of the War Cabinet's Eastern Committee [‎262r] (523/544)

1913-1914 with the Turks, that were never finally concluded, as being under the
sovereignty of Turkey. What his position will be after the war it is a little early to
say. Commander Hogarth, in his paper, argued that the Idrisi would never be of any
use to us at all, that we should see that King Hussein gets the port of Kunfida, about
which there h;is been some difficulty, and that the Idrisi should not get the port of
Hodeida. Colonel Lawrence, in his paper, said the Idrisi was looked upon as a heretic
and that his disappearance was only a matter of time.
The Imam of Sana’a is the only chief in these parts, if I remember right, with whom
we have no treaty at all. He was nominally under Turkish suzerainty, but, although
he was fighting for the Turks, he really claimed a considerable independence of them.
I believe the vLw of 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. is that we ought to have a treaty with him some-
what similar to that which we concluded with the Idrisi in April 1915.
The position of the Sheikh of Mavia raises a small point, not without importance,
about which 1 wish to ask 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. and the Foreign Office. This Sheikh’s
territory includes the disputed point of Sheikh Said, which those of us who have been
through the Red Sea remember on the coast opposite the island of Perim, being within
gunshot of the latter. We recollect the French claims, realiy of a very slender
description, that have been put forward to this place from time to time, and our
persistent refusals to recognise them. In the earlier stages of the war we were always
going to attack Sheikh Said, and, in Mr. Asquith’s Government, I more than once
raised the question at the War Council, with Sir William Robertson, whether a small
number of troops could not be diverted from Aden to attack this place and put an end
to the trouble for ever. My recollection is that, under the Sykes-Picot Agreement, we
had liberty to take such steps as might be required in connection with the frontier of
the Aden protectorate, and it was never argued that we were prevented from doing
this by any arrangement with the French or anybody else. It was merely the inability
to find troops at the moment.
MR. MONTAGU : General Cox did take it once.
LORD CURZON : During the war ?
GENERAL COX : Yes, on the 10th November, 1914. My Brigade took the
forts, razed all the barracks to the ground and blew up the guns, but we had to leave
again next day.
LORD CURZON : Do 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. regard that as having been a formal taking
of possession ?
MR. Ml 'NTAGU : No, because we came away again. I do not remember the
circumstances in which we had to come away.
GENERAL COX : I was ordered to rejoin my convoy as soon as I could, and go
on to Egypt.
LORD CURZON : Has there been any reassertion of authority ?
GENERAL COX : Yes. The Turks have come back.
LORD CURZON : Are they there now ?
GENERAL COX : I believe so.
LORD CURZON : I think they ought to go.
GENERAL COX : I think they are going.
LORD CURZON: Is the view of 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. that, the Turks having gone
under the terms of the armistice, it falls to us to make new arrangements ?
MR. SHUCKBURGH : New arrangements have to be made, I think.
LORD CURZON: With whom?
MR. SHUCKBURGH : Presumably with the local Arabs. It is outside the
limits of the Aden protectorate. It is in the Sheikh of Mavia’s territory, I think.
SIR A. HIRTZEL : His influence extends down there, but I do not know whether
it is actually in his territory. It is in his sphere of influence. Tnere is a local Sheikh
from whom the French claim originally to have leased it.
LORD CURZON : That is a point which 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. will have to decide.
M;iy I now put the concluding question to which we have to find an answer?
Are we to allow our relations with all these people to come under discussion at
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