McMahon–Hussein Correspondence

The McMahon–Hussein letter of 24 October 1915. George Antonius – who had been the first to publish the correspondence in full – described this letter as "by far the most important in the whole correspondence, and may perhaps be regarded as the most important international document in the history of the Arab national movement... is still invoked as the main piece of evidence on which the Arabs accuse Great Britain of having broken faith with them."^[1]

The McMahon–Hussein Correspondence^[a] was a series of letters exchanged during World War I in which the British government agreed to recognize Arab independence after the war in exchange for the Sharif of Mecca launching the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire.^[2][3] The correspondence had a significant impact on Middle Eastern history during and after the war, and a dispute over Palestine continued thereafter.^[b]

The correspondence comprised ten letters exchanged from July 1915 to March 1916,^[5], between Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca, and Lieutenant Colonel Sir Henry McMahon, British High Commissioner to Egypt. The area of Arab independence was defined to be "in the limits and boundaries proposed by the Sherif of Mecca", with the exception of "portions of Syria" lying to the west of "the districts of Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo"; conflicting interpretations of this description was to cause great controversy in subsequent years. Of particular dispute, which continues to the present,^[6] was the extent of the coastal exclusion.^[6][c]

Following the publication of the November 1917 Balfour Declaration, which promised a national home for the Jews in Palestine, and the subsequent leaking of the secret 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement in which Britain and France proposed to split and occupy parts of the territory, the Sharif and other Arab leaders considered the agreements made in the McMahon–Hussein Correspondence had been violated. Hussein refused to ratify the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, and in response to a 1921 British proposal to sign a treaty accepting the Mandate system stated that he could not be expected to "affix his name to a document assigning Palestine to the Zionists and Syria to foreigners."^[8] A further British attempt to reach a treaty failed in 1923-24, and negotiations were suspended in March 1924;^[9] within six months the British withdrew their support in favor of their central Arabian ally Ibn Saud, who proceeded to conquer Hussein's kingdom.^[10]

The correspondence "haunted Anglo-Arab relations" for many decades thereafter.^[5] In January 1923 unofficial excerpts were published by Joseph N. M. Jeffries in The Daily Mail^[3] and copies of the various letters circulated in the Arab press.^[d] Excerpts were published in the 1937 Peel Commission Report,^[12] and the correspondence was first published in full in George Antonius's 1938 The Arab Awakening,^[1] then officially in 1939 as Cmd. 5957.^[13] In 1964, further documents were declassified.^[14]

Background[edit]

Sir Henry McMahon and Sharif Hussein

Initial discussions[edit]

The first documented discussions between the British and the Sherifian family took place in February 1914, five months prior to the outbreak of World War I, between Lord Kitchener, then Consul-General in Egypt, and Abdullah bin al-Hussein, the second son of Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca.^[15] Hussein had grown uncomfortable with the newly appointed Ottoman governor in his Hejaz Vilayet, Wehib Pasha, reflecting rising tensions since the 1908 completion of the Hejaz railway which threatened to support increased Ottoman centralization in the region. Discussions eventually culminated in a telegram of 1 November 1914, from Kitchener (recently appointed as Secretary of War) to Hussein wherein Great Britain would, in exchange for support from the Arabs of Hejaz: “...guarantee the independence, rights and privileges of the Sharifate against all external foreign aggression, in particular that of the Ottomans.”^[16] The Sharif indicated that he could not break with the Ottomans immediately. However, the entry of the Ottomans on Germany's side in World War I on 11 November 1914 brought about an abrupt shift in British political interests concerning an Arab revolt against the Ottomans.^[17] Historian David Charlwood sets out the case for the failure in Gallipoli as leading to an increased desire on the part of the British to negotiate a deal with the Arabs.^[18] Lieshout gives further background on the reasoning behind the shift in British thinking.^[19]

Damascus Protocol[edit]

On 23 May 1915, Emir Faisal bin Hussein, the third son of Hussein, was presented with the document that became known as the Damascus Protocol. Faisal was in Damascus to resume talks with the Arab secret societies al-Fatat and Al-'Ahd that he had met previously in March/April; in the interim he had visited Istanbul to confront the Grand Vizier with evidence of an Ottoman plot to depose his father. The document declared that the Arabs would revolt in alliance with the United Kingdom, and in return the UK would recognize the Arab independence in an area running from the 37th parallel near the Taurus Mountains on the southern border of Turkey, to be bounded in the east by Persia and the Persian Gulf, in the west by the Mediterranean Sea and in the south by the Arabian Sea.^[20][21]

Letters, July 1915 to March 1916[edit]

Following deliberations at Ta'if between Hussein and his sons in June 1915, during which Faisal counselled caution, Ali argued against rebellion and Abdullah advocated action and encouraged his father to enter into correspondence with Sir Henry McMahon; over the period 14 July 1915 to 10 March 1916, a total of ten letters, five from each side, were exchanged between Sir Henry McMahon and Sherif Hussein. McMahon was in contact with British Foreign Secretary Edward Grey throughout, and Grey was to authorise and be ultimately responsible for the correspondence.^[e]

An oft-quoted excerpt from a private letter sent by McMahon halfway through the eight-month period of the correspondence, on 4 December 1915, has been used by historians as evidence of possible British duplicity:

[I do not take] the idea of a future strong united independent Arab State... too seriously... the conditions of Arabia do not and will not for a very long time to come, lend themselves to such a thing... I do not for one moment go to the length of imagining that the present negotiations will go far to shape the future form of Arabia or to either establish our rights or to bind our hands in that country. The situation and its elements are much too nebulous for that. What we have to arrive at now is to tempt the Arab people into the right path, detach them from the enemy and bring them on to our side. This on our part is at present largely a matter of words, and to succeed we must use persuasive terms and abstain from academic haggling over conditions – whether about Baghdad or elsewhere.^[f]

The ten letters are summarised in the table below, from the letters published in full in 1939 as Cmd. 5957:^[13][20]

Legal status[edit]

Minutes of the Paris Peace Conference 1919. The correspondence was described by David Lloyd George as "the Treaty with the Arabs"

Elie Kedourie says that the October letter was not a treaty, and even if it were considered to be a treaty, Hussein completely failed to fulfill his promises from his 18 February 1916 letter.^[27] Arguing to the contrary, Victor Kattan firstly describes the correspondence as a "secret treaty" and references The Secret Treaties of History that includes the correspondence. He further argues that Her Majesty's Government considered it to be a treaty during the 1919 Paris Peace Conference negotiations with the French over the disposition of Ottoman territory.^[28]

Arab Revolt, June 1916 to October 1918[edit]

McMahon's promises were seen by the Arabs as a formal agreement between them and the United Kingdom. Lloyd George and Arthur Balfour represented the agreement as a treaty during the post war deliberations of the Council of Four.^[29][28] On this understanding the Arabs established a military force under the command of Hussein's son Faisal which fought, with inspiration from T. E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia"), against the Ottoman Empire during the Arab Revolt.^[30] In an intelligence memo written in January 1916 Lawrence described the Arab Revolt as

beneficial to us, because it marches with our immediate aims, the break up of the Islamic 'bloc' and the defeat and disruption of the Ottoman Empire, and because the states [Sharif Hussein] would set up to succeed the Turks would be … harmless to ourselves … The Arabs are even less stable than the Turks. If properly handled they would remain in a state of political mosaic, a tissue of small jealous principalities incapable of cohesion (emphasis in original).^[31]

The Arab Revolt began in June 1916, when an Arab army of around 70,000 men moved against Ottoman forces. They participated in the capture of Aqabah and the severing of the Hejaz railway, a vital strategic link through the Arab peninsula which ran from Damascus to Medina. This enabled the Egyptian Expeditionary Force under the command of General Allenby to advance into the Ottoman territories of Palestine and Syria. The British advance culminated in the Battle of Megiddo in September 1918 and the capitulation of the Ottoman Empire on 31 October 1918.^[32]

The Arab revolt is seen by historians as the first organized movement of Arab nationalism. It brought together different Arab groups for the first time with the common goal to fight for independence from the Ottoman Empire. Much of the history of Arabic independence stemmed from the revolt beginning with the kingdom founded by Hussein. After the war was over, the Arab revolt had implications. Groups of people were put into classes based on if they had fought in the revolt or not and what their rank was. In Iraq, a group of Sharifian Officers from the Arab Revolt formed a political party which they were head of. Still to this day the Hashemite kingdom in Jordan is influenced by the actions of Arab leaders in the revolt.^[33]

Related commitments, May 1916 to November 1918[edit]

Sykes–Picot Agreement[edit]

The Sykes–Picot Agreement between Britain, France and Russia of May 1916 was exposed in December 1917 (made public by the Bolsheviks after the Russian Revolution) showing that the countries were planning to split and occupy parts of the promised Arab country. Hussein was satisfied by two disingenuous telegrams from Sir Reginald Wingate, who had replaced McMahon as High Commissioner of Egypt, assuring him that the British commitments to the Arabs were still valid and that the Sykes–Picot Agreement was not a formal treaty.^[34] After the Sykes-Picot Agreement was published by the Bolshevik Russian government in November 1917, McMahon resigned.^[35]

Many sources contend that Sykes-Picot conflicted with the Hussein–McMahon Correspondence of 1915–1916. There were several points of difference, the most obvious being Iraq placed in the British area and less obviously, the idea that British and French advisors would be in control of the area designated as being for an Arab State. Lastly, while the correspondence made no mention of Palestine, Haifa and Acre were to be British and a reduced Palestine area to be internationalised.^[36]

Balfour Declaration[edit]

In 1917 Britain issued the Balfour Declaration, promising to support the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine.^[37] The declaration and the correspondence (as well as the Sykes-Picot agreement) are frequently considered together by historians because of the potential, real or imagined, for incompatibility between them, particularly in regard to the disposition of Palestine.^[38] In the words of Professor Albert Hourani, founder of the Middle East Centre at St Antony's College, Oxford: "The argument about the interpretation of these agreements is one which is impossible to end, because they were intended to bear more than one interpretation."^[39]

Hogarth message[edit]

Hussein asked for an explanation of the Balfour Declaration and in January 1918 Commander David Hogarth, head of the Arab Bureau in Cairo, was dispatched to Jeddah to deliver a letter written by Sir Mark Sykes on behalf of the British Government to Hussein (now King of Hejaz). The Hogarth message assured Hussein that "the Arab race shall be given full opportunity of once again forming a nation in the world" and referred to "...the freedom of the existing population both economic and political,...". Friedman and Kedourie argue that Hussein accepted the Balfour Declaration ^[40][41] while Charles D. Smith argues that both Friedman and Kedourie misrepresent documents and violate scholarly standards in order to reach their conclusions.^[42] Hogarth reported that Hussein "would not accept an independent Jewish State in Palestine, nor was I instructed to warn him that such a state was contemplated by Great Britain".^[43]

Declaration to the Seven[edit]

In light of the existing McMahon–Hussein correspondence, but in the wake of the seemingly competing Balfour Declaration for the Zionists, as well as the publication weeks later by the Bolsheviks of the older and previously secret Sykes–Picot Agreement with the Russians and French, seven Syrian notables in Cairo, from the newly formed Syrian Party of Unity (Hizb al-Ittibad as-Suri), issued a memorandum requesting some clarification from the British Government, including a "guarantee of the ultimate independence of Arabia". In response, issued on 16 June 1918, the Declaration to the Seven, stated the British policy that the future government of the regions of the Ottoman Empire occupied by Allied forces in World War I should be based on the consent of the governed.^[44][45]

Allenby's assurance to Faisal[edit]

On 19 October 1918, General Allenby reported to the British Government that he had given Faisal,

official assurance that whatever measures might be taken during the period of military administration they were purely provisional and could not be allowed to prejudice the final settlement by the peace conference, at which no doubt the Arabs would have a representative. I added that the instructions to the military governors would preclude their mixing in political affairs, and that I should remove them if I found any of them contravening these orders. I reminded the Amir Faisal that the Allies were in honour bound to endeavour to reach a settlement in accordance with the wishes of the peoples concerned and urged him to place his trust whole-heartedly in their good faith.^[46]

Anglo-French Declaration of 1918[edit]

In the Anglo-French Declaration of 7 November 1918 the two governments stated that:

The object aimed at by France and the United Kingdom in prosecuting in the East the War let loose by the ambition of Germany is the complete and definite emancipation of the peoples so long oppressed by the Turks and the establishment of national governments and administrations deriving their authority from the initiative and free choice of the indigenous populations.^[47]

According to civil servant Eyre Crowe who saw the original draft of the Declaration, "we had issued a definite statement against annexation in order (1) to quiet the Arabs and (2) to prevent the French annexing any part of Syria".^[48] The Declaration is considered by historians to have been misleading at best.^[h]

Post-War outcome, 1919 to 1925[edit]

Emir Faisal's party at Versailles, during the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. At the centre, from left to right: Rustum Haidar, Nuri as-Said, Prince Faisal, Captain Pisani (behind Faisal), T. E. Lawrence (known as "Lawrence of Arabia"), unknown, Captain Tahsin Qadri.

Sherifian Plan[edit]

Just one day before the end of the war with the Ottomans, the British Foreign Office discussed T.E. Lawrence's “Sherifian Plan”, in which Hussein's sons were proposed as puppet monarchs in Syria and Mesopotamia.^[i] Part of the rationale was to satisfy a belief amongst the British public that a debt was owed to the Hashemites under the McMahon correspondence.^[j] Of Hussein's sons, Faisal was Lawrence's clear favorite,^[k] whilst Ali was not considered a strong leader, Zaid was considered to be too young, and Abdullah was considered to be lazy.^[l]

Mandates[edit]

The Paris Peace Conference was held in 1919 between the allies to agree territorial divisions after the war. The correspondence was primarily relevant to the regions which were to become Palestine, Transjordan, Lebanon, Syria, Mesopotamia (Iraq) and the Arabian Peninsula. At the conference, Prince Faisal, speaking on behalf of King Hussein, did not ask for immediate Arab independence. He recommended an Arab State under a British Mandate.^[54]

On 6 January 1920 Prince Faisal initialed an agreement with French Prime Minister Clemenceau which acknowledged 'the right of the Syrians to unite to govern themselves as an independent nation'.^[55] A Pan-Syrian Congress, meeting in Damascus, declared an independent state of Syria on 8 March 1920. The new state included portions of Syria, Palestine, and northern Mesopotamia which had been set aside under the Sykes–Picot Agreement for an independent Arab state, or confederation of states. Faisal was declared the head of State as "King". The April 1920 San Remo conference was hastily convened in response to Faisal's declaration. At the conference, the Allied Supreme Council granted the mandates for Palestine and Mesopotamia to Britain, and those for Syria and Lebanon to France.^[56] The United Kingdom and France both agreed to recognize the provisional independence of Syria and Mesopotamia. Provisional recognition of Palestinian independence was not mentioned. France had decided to govern Syria directly, and took action to enforce the French Mandate of Syria before the terms had been accepted by the Council of the League of Nations. The French intervened militarily at the Battle of Maysalun in June 1920, deposing the indigenous Arab government, and removed King Faisal from Damascus in August 1920.^[57]

In Palestine, the United Kingdom also appointed a High Commissioner and established their own mandatory regime. The January 1919 Faisal–Weizmann Agreement was a short-lived agreement for Arab–Jewish cooperation on the development of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, which Faisal had mistakenly understood was to be within the Arab Kingdom.^[m] Faisal did treat Palestine differently in his presentation to the Peace Conference on 6 February 1919 saying "Palestine, in consequence of its universal character, be left on one side for the mutual consideration of all parties concerned".^[59][60] The agreement was never implemented.^[n] At the same conference, US Secretary of State Lansing had asked Dr. Weizmann if the Jewish national home meant the establishment of an autonomous Jewish government. The head of the Zionist delegation had replied in the negative.^[o]

United States Secretary of State Robert Lansing was a member of the American Commission to Negotiate Peace at Paris in 1919. He explained that the system of mandates was simply a device created by the Great Powers to conceal their division of the spoils of war, under the color of international law. If the territories had been ceded directly, the value of the former German and Ottoman territories would have been applied to offset the Allies claims for war reparations. He also explained that Jan Smuts had been the author of the original concept.^[p]

Hussein's downfall[edit]

In 1919, King Hussein had refused to ratify the Treaty of Versailles. After February, 1920, the British ceased to pay subsidy to him.^[65] In August, 1920, five days after the signing of the Treaty of Sèvres, which formally recognized the Kingdom of Hejaz, Curzon asked Cairo to procure Hussein's signature to both treaties and agreed to make a payment of £30,000 conditional on signature.^[66] Hussein declined and in 1921, stated that he could not be expected to "affix his name to a document assigning Palestine to the Zionists and Syria to foreigners."^[8]

Following the 1921 Cairo Conference, Lawrence was sent to try and obtain the King's signature to a treaty, a £100,000 annual subsidy being proposed; this attempt also failed. During 1923, the British made one further attempt to settle outstanding issues with Hussein and once again, the attempt foundered, and Hussein continued in his refusal to recognize any of the Mandates that he perceived as being his domain. In March 1924, having briefly considered the possibility of removing the offending article from the treaty, the government suspended any further negotiations;^[9] within six months they withdrew their support in favor of their central Arabian ally Ibn Saud, who proceeded to conquer Hussein's kingdom.^[10]

Territorial reservations and Palestine[edit]

"Districts" according to the McMahon letter and their administrative category in the Ottoman Empire

McMahon's letter to Hussein dated 24 October 1915 declared Britain's willingness to recognize the independence of the Arabs subject to certain exemptions. Note that the original correspondence was conducted in both English and Arabic, such that various slightly differing English translations are extant.

The districts of Mersina and Alexandretta, and portions of Syria lying to the west of the districts of Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo, cannot be said to be purely Arab, and must on that account be excepted from the proposed limits and boundaries.

With the above modification and without prejudice to our existing treaties concluded with Arab Chiefs, we accept these limits and boundaries, and in regard to the territories therein in which Great Britain is free to act without detriment to interests of her ally France, I am empowered in the name of the Government of Great Britain to give the following assurance and make the following reply to your letter:

Subject to the above modifications, Great Britain is prepared to recognize and support the independence of the Arabs within the territories in the limits and boundaries proposed by the Sherif of Mecca.^[67]

The correspondence was written first in English before being translated to Arabic and vice versa. Who wrote and translated it is unclear. Kedourie and others have assumed that the likeliest candidate for primary author was Ronald Storrs. In his memoirs, Storrs says that correspondence was prepared by Husayn Ruhi ^[68] and then checked by himself.^[69]

The Arab delegations to the 1939 Conference had objected to certain translations of Arabic to English and the Committee arranged for mutually agreeable translations that would render the English text "free from actual error".^[70]

"Portions of Syria" debate[edit]

The debate regarding Palestine derived from the fact that it is not explicitly mentioned in the McMahon–Hussein Correspondence, but is included within the boundaries that were initially proposed by Hussein. McMahon accepted the boundaries of Hussein "subject to modification",^[72] and suggested the modification that "portions of Syria lying to the west of the districts of Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo cannot be said to be purely Arab and should be excluded." The Arabs and British disagreed over whether Palestine was meant to be one of those excluded areas, each side producing supporting arguments for their positions based on fine details of the wording and the historical circumstances of the correspondence.

Jonathan Schneer provides an analogy to explain the central dispute over the meaning:

Presume a line extending from the districts of New York, New Haven, New London, and Boston, excluding territory west from an imaginary coastal kingdom. If by districts one means "vicinity" or "environs," that is one thing with regard to the land excluded, but if one means "vilayets" or "provinces," or in the American instance "states," it is another altogether. There are no states of Boston, New London, or New Haven, just as there were no provinces of Hama and Homs, but there is a state of New York, just as there was a vilayet of Damascus, and territory to the west of New York State is different from territory to the west of the district of New York, presumably New York City and environs, just as territory to the west of the vilayet of Damascus is different from territory to the west of the district of Damascus, presumably the city of Damascus and its environs.^[73]

"Without detriment to France" debate[edit]

In the letter of 24 October, the English version is as follows:

"..., we accept those limits and boundaries; and in regard to those portions of the territories therein in which Great Britain is free to act without detriment to the interests of her ally France"

At a meeting in Whitehall in December 1920 the English and Arabic texts of McMahon's correspondence with Sharif Husein were compared. As one official, who was present, put it,

In the Arabic version sent to King Husain this is so translated as to make it appear that Gt Britain is free to act without detriment to France in the whole of the limits mentioned. This passage of course had been our sheet anchor: it enabled us to tell the French that we had reserved their rights, and the Arabs that there were regions in which they wd have eventually to come to terms with the French. It is extremely awkward to have this piece of solid ground cut from under our feet. I think that HMG will probably jump at the opportunity of making a sort of amende by sending Feisal to Mesopotamia.

Barr argues that although McMahon had intended to reserve the French interests, he became a victim of his own cleverness since the translator Ruhi lost the qualifying sense of the sentence in the Arabic version.^[74][q]

In a Cabinet analysis of diplomatic developments prepared in May 1917, The Hon. William Ormsby-Gore, MP, argued that:

French intentions in Syria are surely incompatible with the war aims of the Allies as defined to the Russian Government. If the self-determination of nationalities is to be the principle, the interference of France in the selection of advisers by the Arab Government and the suggestion by France of the Emirs to be selected by the Arabs in Mosul, Aleppo, and Damascus would seem utterly incompatible with our ideas of liberating the Arab nation and of establishing a free and independent Arab State. The British Government, in authorising the letters despatched to King Hussein before the outbreak of the revolt by Sir Henry McMahon, would seem to raise a doubt as to whether our pledges to King Hussein as head of the Arab nation are consistent with French intentions to make not only Syria but Upper Mesopotamia another Tunis. If our support of King Hussein and the other Arabian leaders of less distinguished origin and prestige means anything it means that we are prepared to recognise the full sovereign independence of the Arabs of Arabia and Syria. It would seem time to acquaint the French Government with our detailed pledges to King Hussein, and to make it clear to the latter whether he or someone else is to be the ruler of Damascus, which is the one possible capital for an Arab State, which could command the obedience of the other Arabian Emirs.^[75]

Declassified British Cabinet Papers include a telegram dated 18 October 1915 from Sir Henry McMahon to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Lord Grey, requesting instructions.^[76][77] McMahon described conversations with a man named Muhammed Sharif al-Faruqi, a member of the Abd party, who advised how the British could satisfy the demands of the Syrian Nationalists for the independence of Arabia. Faroqi had said that the Arabs would fight if the French attempted to occupy the cities of Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo, but he thought they would accept some modification of the North-Western boundaries proposed by the Sherif of Mecca. Based on these conversatuobs, McMahon suggested the language: "In so far as Britain was free to act without detriment to the interests of her present Allies, Great Britain accepts the principle of the independence of Arabia within limits propounded by the Sherif of Mecca." Lord Grey authorized McMahon to pledge the areas requested by the Sherif subject to the reserve for the Allies.^[76]

Arab position[edit]

The Arab position was that they could not refer to Palestine since that lay well to the south of the named places. In particular, the Arabs argued that the vilayet (province) of Damascus did not exist and that the district (sanjak) of Damascus covered only the area surrounding the city itself and furthermore that Palestine was part of the vilayet of 'Syria A-Sham', which was not mentioned in the exchange of letters.^[30]

Supporters of this interpretation also note that during the war, thousands of proclamations were dropped in all parts of Palestine, carrying a message from the Sharif Hussein on one side and a message from the British Command on the other, to the effect 'that an Anglo-Arab agreement had been arrived at securing the independence of the Arabs.'^[r]

British position[edit]

The left hand page is from CAB 24/68/86, November 1918, whilst the right hand page is from the Churchill White Paper of June 1922

1918 British Government map entitled "Map illustrating Territorial Negotiations between H.M.G. and King Hussein"

P 49 British memorandum on Palestine for 1919 Peace Conference^[79]

The interpretation of the British Government changed between 1918 and 1922.

The undated memorandum, GT 6185 (from CAB 24/68/86) of November 1918 ^[80] was prepared by the renowned British historian Arnold Toynbee in 1918, while working as a temporary Foreign Office clerk in the Political Intelligence Department. Crowe, then The Permanent Under-Secretary, ordered them put in the Foreign Office dossier for the Peace Conference. After arriving in Paris, General Jan Smuts required that the memoranda be summarized and Toynbee produced the document GT 6506 ^[81] (maps illustrating it are GT6506A ^[82] ). These two last were circulated as E.C.2201 and considered at a meeting of the Eastern Committee (No.41) of the Cabinet on 5 December 1918 ^[83] chaired by Curzon (General Jan Smuts, Lord Balfour, Lord Robert Cecil, General Sir Henry Wilson, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, and representatives of the Foreign Office, the India Office, the Admiralty, the War Office, and the Treasury were present. T. E. Lawrence also attended.)^[84]

The Eastern Committee met nine times in November and December to draft a set of resolutions on British policy for the benefit of the negotiators.^[85]On 21 October, the War Cabinet asked Smuts to prepare the peace brief in summary form and he asked Erle Richards to carry out this task. Toynbee's GT6506 and the resolutions of the Eastern Committee were distilled by Richards into a "P-memo" (P-49) for use by the Peace Conference delegates.^[86][87]

In the public arena, Balfour had come under criticism in the House of Commons, when the Liberals and Labor Socialists moved a resolution 'That secret treaties with the allied governments should be revised, since, in their present form, they are inconsistent with the object for which this country entered the war and are, therefore, a barrier to a democratic peace.'^[88] In response to growing criticism arising from the seemingly contradictory commitments undertaken by the United Kingdom in the McMahon-Hussein correspondence, the Sykes–Picot Agreement and the Balfour declaration, the 1922 Churchill White Paper, took the position that Palestine had always been excluded from the Arab area. Although this directly contradicted numerous previous government documents, those documents were not known to the public at the time. As part of preparing this White Paper, Sir John Shuckburgh of the British Colonial Office had exchanged correspondence with McMahon, and reliance was placed on a 1920 memorandum by Major Hubert Young, who had noted that in the original Arabic text, the word translated as "districts" in English was "vilayets", a vilayet being the largest class of administrative district into which the Ottoman Empire was divided. He concluded that "district of Damascus", i.e., "vilayet of Damascus", must have referred to the vilayet of which Damascus was the capital, the Vilayet of Syria. This vilayet extended southward to the Gulf of Aqaba, but excluded most of Palestine.^[89][90][3]

1939 Committee (Cmd 5974)

While some British Governments have occasionally stated that the intent of the McMahon Correspondence was not to promise Palestine to Hussein, they have also occasionally acknowledged the flaws in the legal terminology of the McMahon–Hussein Correspondence that make this position problematic. For example, the weak points of the government's interpretation were acknowledged in a detailed memorandum by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in 1939. ^[91][s]

A committee established by the British in 1939 to clarify the various arguments observed that many commitments had been made during and after the war – and that all of them would have to be studied together. The Arab representatives submitted a statement to the committee from Sir Michael McDonnell^[92] which explained that whatever McMahon had intended to mean was of no legal consequence, since it was his actual statements that constituted the pledge from His Majesty's Government.^[92] The Arab representatives also pointed out that McMahon had been acting as an intermediary for the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Lord Grey.^[92] Speaking in the House of Lords on 27 March 1923, Lord Grey had made it clear that, for his part, he entertained serious doubts as to the validity of the Churchill White Paper's interpretation of the pledges which he, as Foreign Secretary, had caused to be given to the Sharif Husain in 1915. ^[t] The Arab representatives suggested that a search for evidence in the files of the Foreign Office might throw light on the Secretary of State's intentions.^[92]

List of British interpretations over time[edit]

A list of interpretations by British politicians and civil servants is below, showing the evolution of the debate between 1916 and 1939:

See also[edit]

Wikisource has original text related to this article: McMahon–Hussein Correspondence

• Pan-Arabism
• Anglo-Persian Oil Company
• T. E. Lawrence

Notes[edit]

References[edit]

Bibliography[edit]

Specialised works[edit]

General histories[edit]

Works by involved parties[edit]