مجموعة ٦/ ١٩ "الجزيرة العربية: (المملكة العربية السعودية) التقرير السنوي لمملكة الحجاز ونجد." [و‎‎٧‎٩] (٥٤٠/١٥٨)

[15154] b 2
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neighbouring countries in which Great Britain and France have special interests.”
Article 6, for instance, read thus :—
“ The high contracting parties undertake to co-ordinate their objects in
regard to the peoples of neighbouring Arab countries, and to exert peaceful
efforts to help these peoples towards the realisation of their aspirations for
independence.”
This would have provided for interference in both Palestine and Syria, and
the next article aimed at similar interference in the ‘ c Arab principalities in the
Arabian Peninsula.” Article 4 contained the far-reaching provision that if one
of the two parties should be the object of an act of aggression on the part of a
third State in spite of efforts made under article 3 to settle the dispute by peaceful
means, the other party should “ forthwith join efforts with the former for the
repulsion of such aggression.” The draft, moreover, contained certain other
defects which were probably due to hurried or careless drafting.
6. There seems to be little doubt that the initiative in the matter had come
from Ibn Saud, and that Italian aggression against Ethiopia, added to his
permanent suspicion of Turkey, had made him anxious to push it through.
Information given by Yasin Pasha to His Majesty’s Ambassador at Bagdad in
February makes it possible to follow the course of the negotations from the Iraqi
point of view. According to this statement Sheikh Yusuf Yasin pressed hard
for the inclusion of an article on the lines of the draft of article 4 quoted above.
He was impatient of the complications of the League of Nations, and wanted
something which would bind Iraq to hasten to the help of Saudi Arabia whenever
she claimed that she was the victim of an act of aggression. Italy’s descent on
Abyssinia had evidently alarmed King Abdul Aziz, who wished to be sure of a
friend in need. Yasin Pasha, on the other hand, was frankly disdainful of Iraq’s
backward and barbarous neighbour. He seems to have told Sheikh Yusuf Yasin
plainly that Iraq could not hope for material help from Saudi Arabia until the
country was modernised and administered in a civilised manner. For Iraq,
therefore, the treaty was little more than a gesture of sympathy between two Arab
nations; the greater share of the practical benefits would accrue to Saudi Arabia.
Moreover, the Iraqi Government could not take on any undertakings which
conflicted with her obligations as a member of the League of Nations. Sheikh
Yusuf Yasin had pointed out that there might be difficulties about slavery and
missionary enterprise if the treaty committed his Government too far to
observance of the spirit of the Covenant, and Yasin Pasha therefore agreed to
omit a reference to the underlying principles of the League which had been
inserted in the draft and to substitute a more limited undertaking to carry out
the provisions of article 17 of the Covenant.
7. The Iraq Government consulted His Majesty’s Government in the United
Kingdom throughout the negotiations, through His Majesty’s Ambassador in
Bagdad. His Majesty’s Government, while disclaiming any wish to oppose the
strengthening of friendly relations between Iraq and Saudi Arabia, the
establishment of which they had done so much in the past to encourage and
facilitate, made it clear to the Iraq Government that they took the strongest
exception to articles 6 and 7, and that they considered the Iraq Government would
be well advised, before agreeing to the remaining provisions, to take the views of
His Majesty’s Government into consideration. This advice was followed;
articles 6 and 7 disappeared from the treaty and many other defects were
remedied. The treaty ceased to be the pan-Arab document which had been aimed
at originally, though it could still be described with some reason by both parties
as a great step towards the union of all Arabs.
8. The ‘ c Treaty of Arab Brotherhood and Alliance ” was signed at Bagdad
on the 2nd April, and the text was made public in Mecca and Bagdad on the
6th April and was communicated the same day by the Saudi Ministry for Foreign
Affairs to the foreign missions in Jedda. The following are the main heads of
what was agreed upon :—
(1) Neither party to enter into any commitment towards a third Power which
might prejudice the interests of the other.
(2) All disputes to be settled by friendly negotiation, or, failing this, under
the new arbitration protocol to be negotiated in due course.