CHAPTER TWO
Before the outbreak of the First World War it appears that Germany hoped for an accommodation with Britain over the disintegrating Ottoman Empire. In 1903 Germany had secured the concession for the building of the Baghdad Railway; Britain had shown a readiness to compromise over this and over Kuwait. By 1912 Britain was even prepared to allow for increasing French influence: an understanding – not known even to all members of the Cabinet – was reached about the disposition of the British fleet in the North Sea and the Atlantic, and the French in the Mediterranean. The French could have seen this as leading to future opportunities in Syria, and in 1913 negotiations over the Ottoman loan and the Baghdad Railway assured the French presence in Syria and Lebanon while arousing the suspicions of the local population. Indeed, in May 1913, the Kaiser thought that Britain and France were already squabbling as to which one would take over Palestine and Syria. By the end of July 1914, however, the Kaiser was prepared to launch a jihad or holy war against Britain: he assured the ruler of Afghanistan of his desire for the Muslim nations to be independent, and of the continuation of the common interests of Germany and the Muslims after war; General Liman von Sanders was commanded to stay on in Constantinople to promote feeling against Britain; a team was formed under Max von Oppenheim to arrange subversion in Muslim countries and it worked in close alliance with German Zionists. Germany hoped to sabotage, or annex, the Anglo-Persian oilfields. Contact was also made with Hussein, the Sherif of Mecca. As custodian of the holy places and a lineal descendant of Muhammad, Hussein was thought to have great influence. He agreed to aid German propaganda, and also to other unspecified operations in the area he controlled. For this Hussein was paid by the Germans until at least June 1915. As a reinsurance policy the Germans also contacted Ibn Saud, the Sherif’s main rival. But Arabia in the end seemed peripheral, and there was the difficulty that the Turkish authorities did not like the encouragement of subversion among their Arab subjects. For the first few years of the war most of the world Zionist movement wanted Germany to win. German diplomats were prepared to intercede with the Turks over the Jews in Palestine, and in November 1915 Zionist pressure secured a directive to consuls that the German government was well disposed towards Jewish aspirations in Palestine. Berlin, however, refused to make any official declaration supporting Zionism, and in August 1917 Djemal Pasha, the Turkish commander in Palestine, told Zionists in Germany that he was hostile to the idea of a Jewish Palestine as he had to consider Arab feelings.1
Before 1914, with an eye on the route to India, Britain had an interest in the stability of the Ottoman Empire. But, as early as 1909, a subcommittee of the Committee of Imperial Defence suggested that, if there were war with Turkey, Arab feeling against Turkey could be cultivated to balance any Turkish propaganda promoting Muslim sentiment. Forces could also be landed at Haifa, and British strategy would require communications and intelligence networks in the land east of Sinai, in effect Palestine.2 In 1910 Lord Kitchener visited Constantinople, and noted the German take-over. His experiences in India and the Sudan had awakened him to the political importance of Islam. Germany’s position in the Ottoman Empire appeared to threaten Britain’s position in the Persian Gulf and India. The Committee of Imperial Defence ordered reconnaissance operations in the Lebanon, Palestine and the Sinai–Negev area. Around 1912 a delegation of Syrian Muslims visited Kitchener, then consul-general in Cairo, and petitioned Britain to annex Syria to Egypt and to grant Syria an independent administration. About the same time members of the Arab secret societies approached the British consul-general in Beirut with the request that Britain assist the Arabs in their struggle against the Turks. These advances were tactfully received.3 Then, at the time when Britain was campaigning in favour of Aziz al-Masri, Kitchener was approached on 5 February 1914 by Abdullah, the son of the Sherif of Mecca, on his father’s behalf: there was trouble with the new Turkish governor in the Hejaz; should the Arab tribes in the area fight for the Sherif against Turkey would Britain stop reinforcements being sent that could prevent the Arabs from exercising their rights in their own country around the holy places? Kitchener’s reply was seemingly negative.4
On 18 March Sir Lewis Mallet reported from Constantinople that it was impossible to say what prospect there was for a united Arab movement. Any sherif of Mecca could put himself at the head of an Arab movement, and his alleged descent from Muhammad could be an asset. The present Sherif, however, would have difficulty in that he had been seen as acting for the Turkish government in his squabbles with Ibn Saud and Idris. But a combination of the Sherif, Ibn Saud (who had shown his independence from the Turks) and Seyyid Talib from Basra could result in unrest, particularly if these leaders combined in constitutional agitation for devolution of autonomy, or even in a separatist movement. Mallet thought that the Arabs looked to the British for sympathy, and if they achieved independence they would want protection; Arab officers in the Turkish army had even enquired as to the British attitude. Arab success could mean that the caliphate, the seat of the chief civil and religious leader of Islam, would pass out of Turkish hands. Europe would be faced with the partition of the Turkish Empire, and there could be repercussions in Muslim India over any prolonged struggle over the caliphate.5 In April Abdullah was in Cairo again, and this time sent for Ronald Storrs, the acting Oriental Secretary. On 18 April Storrs learnt that the Arabs would before long achieve ‘complete unity’; Abdullah wanted an agreement from Britain to maintain the status quo in the Arabian Peninsula and to eliminate Turkish aggression. The next day, on instructions from Kitchener, Storrs explained that Abdullah could not expect any encouragement from the British government. Britain’s only interest in Arabia was the safety of Indian pilgrims. Kitchener observed, however, that the Arabs were ‘much excited’.6
After the outbreak of war Sir Edward Grey, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, on 1 September, instructed that when Turkey joined Germany Britain should immediately encourage and support the Arabs to take over Arabia. After initial soundings a note drafted by Kitchener, and approved by Grey, was prepared for transmission to Abdullah: for Arab help in the war Britain would guarantee that no internal intervention took place in Arabia, and would assist the Arabs to resist external aggression. This was transmitted to Cairo on 31 October. Kitchener referred to the ‘Arab nation’; Storrs in the version passed on to Abdullah spoke only of Arabs ‘in general’, though there is confusion over what the Arabic version could have conveyed. Abdullah replied that he took this letter as a basis for action.7 Turkey became Germany’s ally in the war on 31 October 1914. Kitchener was Secretary of State for War. At a meeting of the newly formed War Council on 25 November 1914 mention was made of the 1909 recommendation that an attack on Egypt could be met by a landing at Haifa. Instead troops were concentrated in Egypt to counter a possible attack on the Suez Canal. An expeditionary force of the Indian army occupied Basra in southern Mesopotamia and in February 1915 Lord Hardinge, the Viceroy of India, promised that Turkish rule would not be restored in its old form.
Grey and the Cabinet were concerned about the French and Russian attitudes: Russia might want Constantinople, and France, Syria. On 10 March 1915 the War Council discussed these countries’ rival claims to the Christian holy places in Jerusalem.8 On 23 March Grey learnt that M. Delcassé thought that Britain and France should embark on informal discussions, either verbally or through private letters, about their requirements in Asia Minor. The Cabinet had not considered British desiderata, but Grey told M. Cambon that Britain had already stipulated that when the Ottoman Empire collapsed there had to be, in the interests of Islam, an independent Muslim political unit somewhere else. Its centre would be the Muslim holy places, and it would include Arabia. Britain and France would have to settle what else should be incorporated. It had not been decided whether Mesopotamia would be included in this independent Muslim state, or whether Britain should promote its own claim in that region.9
On 18 December 1914 Britain announced a protectorate over Egypt, and Sir Henry McMahon, a product of Sandhurst who had served the government of India, was appointed to the new post of High Commissioner. Another military man, Sir Reginald Wingate, was Governor-General of the Sudan. He passed on to Grey the interest in some Sudanese quarters over the British message that an Arab of true race might assume the caliphate at Mecca or Medina. As a result of this Grey authorized McMahon, should he think it desirable, to let it be known that Britain would make it an essential condition of any peace that the Arabian Peninsula and the Muslim holy places would remain under the control of an ‘independent Sovereign Moslem state’. At that time the territory to be included could not be defined. The caliphate question was to be decided by Muslims without interference. The Shiah holy places, mainly in Iraq, required separate treatment, and Grey said that he had worded the British promise so as not to commit Britain.10 With McMahon’s authority a leaflet was distributed in the Hejaz to this effect with the assurance of no annexation and independence from all foreign control. In the Foreign Office, George R. Clerk observed that this was open to a wide interpretation and went further than anything authorized.11
It is not clear whether British officials intended the Muslim holy places in Jerusalem to be covered by their guarantee. Weizmann had other ideas about the future of that city, and by the end of 1914 he was forging contacts with important people in British political life. He converted C. P. Scott, the editor of the Manchester Guardian, to Zionism. On 3 December 1914, through Scott, Weizmann met David Lloyd George, who as a young man had acted as legal adviser to the Zionists over the East African scheme, and Herbert Samuel, a Cabinet minister and a Jew who had abandoned his religion though he retained his links with the Jewish community. Samuel mentioned a memorandum he was preparing about a Jewish state in Palestine. Later, in January 1915, through an introduction from Lord Rothschild, Weizmann met Lord Bertie, the British ambassador in Paris. Bertie was sceptical of the reaction of the Pope, Italy and Catholic France with its hatred of the Jews. The Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith, recorded at the end of January 1915 that he was not attracted by Samuel’s draft memorandum on the future of Palestine: it seemed to suggest that race was everything and read like an updated edition of Disraeli’s Tancred. Asquith did not like this proposed addition to Britain’s responsibilities, and the planting of 3 or 4 million European Jews in a barren land was not practical. In March, Samuel sent a revised version: it would be too costly and dangerous for the Zionist movement to establish an autonomous Jewish state in Palestine immediately; rather there should be a British protectorate that could be a safeguard to Egypt. Britain should assist the Jews through immigration preferences and land purchases to become the majority, and achieve self-government. The inclusion of Palestine within the Empire would enhance British prestige and win the favour of Jews throughout the world, particularly the 2 million settled in the United States. The Protestant world also had a deep-rooted sympathy with the fulfilment of the prophecy that the Hebrews would have restored to them the land of their inheritance. Asquith remained sceptical, and noted that Kitchener had a poor opinion of Palestine and favoured instead the port of Alexandretta, Britain leaving the Jews and the holy places alone. The Prime Minister thought that the only protagonist of the Samuel scheme was Lloyd George: this was not through a concern for the Jews but because Lloyd George, with a background of fundamentalist Welsh Christianity, did not want the Christian holy places to go to agnostic, atheist France. This was probably an exaggeration by Asquith.12
Asquith, himself, betrayed a latent anti-Semitism: in March 1915 he described the Jews as a tribe, scattered and unattractive. But it seems that the most specific opposition at this time was formulated by Edwin Montagu, the son of a Jewish banker and later to be Secretary of State for India and husband to Asquith’s young lady friend, Venetia Stanley: on 16 March Montagu recorded that it would be disastrous to establish a Jewish state under British protection. Montagu, who had been assimilated, argued that there was no longer a homogeneous Jewish race and suggested that if the Jewish peoples stopped asking for special favours, Zionism would die.13 Samuel also saw Grey several times but, judging from his policy, the Foreign Secretary was not impressed.14 In any case a War Council meeting on 19 March revealed divisions between Kitchener and Indian government opinion on the eastern question, with Grey anxious to keep Britain out of further territorial complications.
The de Bunsen report
Asquith set up an interdepartmental committee, the Committee on Asiatic Turkey, to discuss British desiderata. Established on 8 April 1915 it was chaired by Sir Maurice de Bunsen, a 63-year-old former ambassador to Vienna, and had as its secretary Maurice Hankey who was in his thirties. The most active member, however, was Mark Sykes, also in his thirties. Sykes, a devout Roman Catholic who had had an unconventional education during which he had travelled widely in the Middle East without acquiring a proficient knowledge of Arabic, showed proconsular ambitions, and, through the advocacy of Oswald Fitzgerald, Kitchener’s personal secretary, had managed to be attached to the War Office. Sykes was Kitchener’s personal representative on the de Bunsen committee. Early on the committee decided that Britain’s interests could not be served by the status quo, and Sykes advocated a scheme of partition, or, alternatively, of spheres of interest with a British Mediterranean port at Haifa and a railway link with British Mesopotamia. These schemes were dismissed as unacceptable. Sykes then devised one of devolution, dividing the Ottoman Empire into five provinces with Britain being able to secure influence in the Asian ones. It was this which the committee finally recommended on 30 June. British desiderata included the fulfilment of the pledges already given to the Gulf and the Arab sheikhs, and, generally, of the assurances to the Sherif of Mecca and the Arabs. Palestine was considered a special case which could eventually be settled with the other powers: a self-determining Palestinian people could prove to be a neutral guardian of the holy places in Jerusalem.15
Sykes was sent east to sound British officials about their reaction to the de Bunsen report. In Cairo he saw Storrs, who had been a fellow undergraduate at Cambridge and with whom he shared an inadequate knowledge of Arabic. Storrs introduced Sykes to Gilbert Clayton, the Chief of Military Intelligence, and a former member of Wingate’s staff in the Sudan. Sykes approved of Clayton’s devout Roman Catholicism. Both Clayton and Storrs apparently influenced Sykes, who formed a close relationship with them; the mood of these officials in Cairo favoured Hussein as having political power over the Arabs. From there, on 14 July, Sykes suggested to London that if France would forgo its claims in Syria, then Mesopotamia, Syria and Palestine could fall under the government of the Sultan of Egypt and the spiritual dominion of the Sherif of Mecca. That would mean that they would be controlled from Britain. McMahon’s response to de Bunsen was to favour partition, with Haifa going to Britain, and Palestine being included in the dominions of the Sultan of Egypt. That would give Jerusalem a nominal Muslim ruler while the local self-administration could be adapted to meet international interests. The officer in command in Egypt, General Sir John Maxwell, disagreed: he favoured devolution. Mesopotamia and Palestine could be under British protection with the Sherif of Mecca as nominal suzerain.16
The Hussein-McMahon correspondence
On 14 July Hussein sent a messenger to Cairo with a note. It arrived five weeks later. McMahon’s initial reaction was favourable. Storrs, who did the translation, was not so impressed. Hussein explained that the Arabs had decided to regain their freedom; they hoped for British assistance. Emphasizing the identity of British and Arab interests, the Sherif proposed a defensive and conditionally offensive alliance. The terms included British recognition (acknowledgement) of the independence of the Arab countries from Mersina and along the latitude of 37 degrees to the Persian frontier in the north, in the east to the Gulf of Basra, in the south to the Indian Ocean with the exception of Aden, and in the west to the Red Sea and the Mediterranean up to Mersina. Storrs noted that the Sherif had no mandate from other potentates, knew that he was demanding more than he could expect and that the boundaries should be reserved for subsequent discussion. These points were taken up by McMahon in his advice to the Foreign Office: the Sherif had no mandate beyond Hejaz; and though his pretensions were exaggerated it would be difficult to negotiate in detail without discouraging him. McMahon suggested a reply acknowledging gratification at the identity of British and Arab interests, but pointing out that boundary discussions were premature during the war, and noting with regret that some Arabs were still working with Turks and Germans. After initial approval of this reply, Grey endorsed George R. Clerk’s suggestion that ‘discuss’ replace ‘negotiate’.
Austen Chamberlain, the Secretary of State for India, had earlier expressed reservations about approaches to Hussein: only diplomatic assistance should be given; material assistance could conflict with British obligations to maintain the independence of other Arab chiefs. The Arabs should be left to manage their own affairs, and Britain should avoid an adventurous policy in the interior. The terms proposed by the Sherif seemed to Chamberlain to have been dictated by extreme Pan-Arab aspirations. On 30 August McMahon replied to Hussein: it would be premature to discuss details of frontiers in the heat of war.17
Hussein, in a note dated 9 September complaining of British ambiguity, asked for a statement of British policy and an indication of what action the Arabs should take. In Cairo, Clayton and Maxwell used the apparent testimony of an Arab officer, Faruki, to promote the idea of an Arab revolt, and the need to act quickly lest the Arabs turn to Germany. McMahon, influenced by Clayton, on 20 October urged action. In the Foreign Office, Clerk suggested that Britain should accept the establishment of an Arab state and start discussions to determine the boundaries. But the Permanent Under-Secretary, Sir Arthur Nicolson, pointing to rivalries among the Arabs, supported only an interim reply. Grey authorized McMahon to give assurances of Arab independence and boundary discussions, but, in the event of something more precise being required, McMahon could give that. Grey, however, did urge circumspection. McMahon’s letter of 24 October was consequently cautious, and perhaps deliberately obscure. He suggested that the two districts of Mersina and Alexandretta, and portions of Syria to the west of the districts of Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo, could not be said to be purely Arab and should therefore be excluded. Britain’s existing treaties with Arab chiefs could not be prejudiced, and Britain was not free to act in those areas which would harm the interests of its ally, France. The Arabs should recognize Britain’s established position in the vilayets of Baghdad and Basra, which necessitated special administrative arrangements. It was also understood that the Arabs would employ only British advisers. There was subsequent confusion as to the area covered by the districts of Damascus, Homs and Aleppo, and Hussein could have been misled by the Arabic translation. This argument, however, focused on the position of Palestine, which does not appear to have been an issue uppermost in the minds of either the British or Arab negotiators.18
Grey authorized what McMahon wrote. Perhaps the Foreign Secretary was particularly influenced by the argument of Wingate and his message of 7 September 1915 that in the prevailing confusion over the future government of Syria, Mesopotamia and even the Arabian Peninsula – regions in which British actions and political arrangements would be criticized by Muslims all over the world – he was increasingly drawn to an attempted solution on Pan-Arabian lines. Wingate suffered no delusion about the political difficulties in the way, or about ‘the elusive character of Arabian political conceptions’, but he thought that it was not impossible that in the future a federation of semi-independent Arab states could exist under European guidance and supervision, linked together by racial and linguistic bonds, owing spiritual allegiance to a single Arab primate, and looking to Britain as patron and protector.19
The subsequent negotiations with the Sherif were complicated by the British withdrawal from Gallipoli, and conversations with the French. The French thought that they would have to be consulted about the boundaries of Syria. Accordingly, on Grey’s authorization, McMahon wrote to the Sherif on 13 December to explain that, as French interests were involved, reservations about the vilayets of Aleppo and Beirut required further consideration. To dispel Hussein’s hesitations, reference was made to Arab independence from Turkish domination, but it was pointed out that the strength and permanence of the agreement depended on Hussein’s ability to unite the Arab peoples, and the efficacy of the measures the Arabs would take to aid the joint cause. Hussein insisted that the issue of Beirut and the northern coast would be returned to after the war, but said that the Arabs would keep to their resolve to revolt against the Turks. Britain agreed to examine the matter of the vilayet of Baghdad at the peace, but only mentioned the friendship between Britain and France in relation to the northern territories.20 This seemed to satisfy the Sherif: in a letter dated 18 February he spoke of the ‘required understanding and intimacy’ being attained. Several Foreign and India Office officials minuted their disquiet.21
The Sykes-Picot agreement
British reservations about French interests derived from the considerations of an interdepartmental committee, chaired by Nicolson, which started negotiations with the first secretary of the French embassy in London, François Georges-Picot, a suave former consul at Beirut, on 23 November 1915. Picot demanded Syria, and Palestine apart from the holy places, for France. When Sykes returned from his eastern tour gauging reaction to the de Bunsen report, he spoke to the War Committee on 16 December: he argued that an Egyptian offensive against the Turks would win the Arabs for the Allied cause. Though Hussein and his followers liked Britain, they were frightened of the French, and so reluctant to join the fight against the Turks. Sykes was conscious of France’s traditional position in the Middle East, probably through the influence of a French Dominican, Father Jaussen, whom Sykes had met in Cairo. Sykes warned that the Arabs should not be encouraged at the expense of good relations with France. After this he was invited to attend Nicolson’s committee on 21 December. At that meeting Picot offered modified French desiderata: France was willing to accommodate the Arabs lest they went over to the enemy, and so proposed that the envisaged Arab state be divided into British and French commercial spheres of influence. The British sphere would be based on Mesopotamia, the French on Syria. France would concede a British port in Palestine in exchange for Mosul. Special arrangements would be necessary for Jerusalem. Nicolson asked Sykes to draft a memorandum with Picot outlining the requirements of the parties. Using the maps he had prepared for the de Bunsen committee, Sykes negotiated an arrangement which secured French acceptance of the Arab ‘confederation’ under the nominal leadership of the Sherif of Mecca, of most of Palestine under an ‘international administration’ with an acknowledgement that world Jewry had ‘a conscientious and sentimental interest in the future of the country’, and that Jerusalem also contained the holiest Muslim shrine outside Mecca, and of a British land link between Palestine and Mesopotamia. In his correspondence with McMahon the Sherif had acknowledged the need for British advisers.
The Sykes–Picot plan, however, envisaged an Arab confederation in which France would have economic priority in the north and Britain in the south. Furthermore, in an area along the Syrian coast, France, and at the head of the Persian Gulf, Britain, could establish such direct or indirect administration as they desired. Britain took the ports of Haifa and Acre in Palestine, and Mosul fell within the French region of economic priority, as did Homs, Hama, Aleppo and Damascus. Foreign and India Office reaction was not altogether favourable. In particular, Arthur Hirtzel of the India Office pointed to the sacrifice of Mosul and the French desire to exploit the oil deposits there. But the War Office liked the idea of a wedge of French territory between the area of British influence and Russia. In any case Nicolson saw an escape clause: should the Arab scheme fail Britain and France could make new claims. The Sykes–Picot plan was accepted at an interdepartmental meeting on 4 February, but it was pointed out to the French that the British sacrifice was dependent on the Arabs fulfilling the conditions. France agreed, but Grey insisted on Russian consent.
Sykes volunteered to accompany Picot to Petrograd, and before leaving learnt Samuel’s views on the need for a British protectorate over Palestine to promote Jewish aspirations. In Russia, Sykes was impressed with the power of Zionism, and he and Picot discussed how the Allies could secure Zionist support. But the Foreign Office did not like the suggestion of a chartered Jewish company in Palestine. Samuel introduced Sykes to the rabbi, Moses Gaster, and Sykes’s attitude to the Jews changed from one of suspicion to admiration. Picot, however, was not impressed by Gaster. Grey also considered the proposals of a Jewish, but anti-Zionist journalist, Lucien Wolf, for securing political rights and facilities for immigration and colonization in Palestine and, in time, management of internal affairs. Possibly disturbed by reports from the ambassador in Washington, Sir Cecil Spring-Rice, about Zionist sympathy in the United States for Germany, Grey overrode Nicolson’s warnings that the Zionists were possibly in a minority, and that in any case Britain could not advocate another scheme at a time when it was proposing an international administration for Palestine.
Lord Robert Cecil, the Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign Office, also pointed to the international power of the Jews. The scheme was not pursued: Russia did not object but the French had doubts. The discussions in Petrograd led to France and Russia adjusting their territorial difficulties, and exchanges of letters between the three countries during May–October 1916 made the Sykes–Picot agreement official. Grey, as he told the War Committee on 23 March 1916, doubted whether anything would come of these territorial arrangements or the Arab rising on which they depended. In any case British officials took care to ensure that there were no contradictions between the assurances to Hussein and the Sykes–Picot agreement. Britain insisted that French interests would have to be taken into account, and only mentioned the hope of Anglo-French friendship as a means of settling the matter after the war.22
On 10 June 1916 Hussein raised the Arab revolt. By the end of September forces of Arab tribesmen had captured Mecca, Jedda and Taif, but Medina remained in Turkish control. The momentum of the revolt seemed uncertain. In Cairo, following pressure from Sykes in December 1915, an Arab bureau had been formed headed by D. G. Hogarth, an Oxford orientalist, assisted by Clayton, Storrs and Kinahan Cornwallis. T. E. Lawrence was attached to the bureau in January 1916, and a shared interest in classics led to his befriending Storrs. In October 1916 Storrs secured permission to take Lawrence as a companion on a mission to Jedda to reorganize the Arab revolt.
The Arab revolt and Lawrence of Arabia
T. E. Lawrence became a legend. After the war an American journalist, Lowell Thomas, helped to create a myth with a widely seen lantern slide show. In 1962 the British film director, David Lean, released Lawrence of Arabia, a film which rapidly acquired a status comparable to that of Gone with the Wind two decades previously; Lean did not attempt a definitive picture of Lawrence, for the film was structured so as to present Lawrence only through other people’s eyes. Even the female Russian agent in John le Carré’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy wanted to think of her British confessor as ‘Colonel Lawrence’. Arguably the best-known Englishman of the twentieth century, if anything, Lawrence’s fascination has been enhanced by revelations about his personal life. In a sense the legend and myth have become the reality. Whether Lawrence contributed significantly to the Arab revolt, or indeed whether that was only a sideshow, is almost irrelevant. It was through Lawrence of Arabia that Westerners learnt that Arabs did exist. Perhaps there is even an element of truth in Robert Bolt’s script for the film when Feisal is depicted as saying, in a burning Damascus, that Lawrence gave the Arabs something of inestimable value, the concept of being Arab. If this is so, Lawrence achieved what the Arab secret societies had failed to do.
Lawrence said that his main motive in Arabia was personal. His account of the revolt, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, confirms this. And, as he explained in the introduction, the book was not a history of the Arab movement, but of himself in it. The emphasis on his role, he conceded, was unfair to his British colleagues. Indeed Seven Pillars of Wisdom does not pretend to be academic history; it should rather be compared to Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace or Paul Scott’s The Raj Quartet. Lawrence’s ‘history’ can be found in his published despatches and the collection of articles he wrote after the war. Seven Pillars of Wisdom is a great work in the tradition of quest literature, comparable to Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. It is evident that Lawrence has fictionalized many of the episodes, perhaps to convey an inner truth, if only to himself. But it does offer a key to Lawrence’s motives.
Lawrence dedicated Seven Pillars to ‘S.A.’:
I loved you, so I drew these tides of men into my hands and wrote my will across the sky in stars
To gain you Freedom,….
A person? A place? People? Places? It is deliberately enigmatic. But it is known that in 1912 Lawrence discovered the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne and the significance of pain. Around that time it seems that he allowed himself to share a beating with the young Arab he loved, Dahoum, near the banks of the Taurus River. The Turks presumably thought that the Oxford graduate, dressed in his friend’s clothes, was an Arab, and a possible deserter. For Lawrence this was a formative experience. Something like it is described by Ernest Raymond in his novel of the First World War, Tell England, when the friendship between Rupert Ray and Edgar Doe is cemented at public school when they are caned together: ‘It was rather fun being whacked side by side, being twins.’ Lawrence fictionalized his experience in Seven Pillars with Daud, who is allowed to share his friend Farraj’s beating.
During the revolt Lawrence formed a bond like that between the biblical David and Jonathan with another Arab, Sherif Ali. It is possible that the Deraa incident in Seven Pillars – in which Lawrence described himself being beaten and raped for the benefit of a Turkish bey – was based on something similar that Lawrence arranged for himself to undergo at Azrak with the assistance of Sherif Ali. Perhaps Lawrence, at this time, can be best understood in terms of the relationship between the pilot and the little prince in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince. Indeed Lawrence, in his life, anticipated the philosophy which Saint-Exupéry later developed as resistentialism. After the end of the war Lawrence attended beating parties in Chelsea, and arranged similar rituals with at least two members of the armed services until the time of his death. Perhaps he underwent what Marcel Proust, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jean Genet and Andre Malraux enunciated as sado-masochism and objective love. Those ideas were later popularized in the cinema with films like Girl on a Motorcycle and Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris. The dedication in Seven Pillars could have been to Dahoum, apparently known as Saleem Ahmed, or to Sherif Ali, or possibly to both and an ideal which these two men came to represent.
The Arab revolt, and Lawrence’s role in it, cannot be considered in terms of blind impersonal forces. Rather it has to be seen in the light of a man trying to resolve his own personal contradictions on the map of Arabia. Lawrence arrived in Jedda on 16 October 1916. He left Damascus two years later. From those two years a legend emerged. On 19 October 1916 Lawrence, together with Storrs and Aziz al-Masri, travelled towards Rabegh. From al-Masri Lawrence learnt guerrilla tactics. The Arab revolt needed a leader. Lawrence rejected the obvious claimant, Abdullah, as he imprudently wanted Christian soldiers in the Hejaz. Abdullah’s liking for handsome young men possibly also disturbed Lawrence. At Rabegh Lawrence met, and rejected, two of Hussein’s other sons. Lawrence then travelled painfully on camel back to Bir Abbas to see Hussein’s other son, Feisal. On the way he caught his first sight of Sherif Ali. Feisal, arrayed in white, seemed to Lawrence both noble and tragic. He was chosen. Feisal could also speak English. Returning via Khartoum, Lawrence won over Wingate, who shortly afterwards replaced McMahon as head of the Arab bureau. Lawrence did the same with his British colleagues in Cairo. By early December Lawrence was acting as Feisal’s political officer at Yenbo. In March 1917 Lawrence was instructed to implement a British strategy, advanced under pressure from the French who feared Hussein’s growing power: the Turks were to be left in Medina lest they strengthened their Palestine front, but their railway line to the north was to be damaged to prevent a Turkish evacuation there. It was also thought necessary to capture Aqaba, an object of Anglo-French rivalry. This was done from the land side: Feisal, Lawrence and Auda, Sheikh of the Abu Tayeh clan, have all claimed that they thought of the idea. It is also possible that at this time Lawrence went off in search of Dahoum.
Conveying the news of the capture of Aqaba to Cairo, Lawrence met the new commander of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, General Edmund Allenby, and it was this rather dull professional soldier who master-minded the Arabian campaign. Lawrence had suggested that the Arabs in Syria could be useful in an attack on Palestine. Either this, or his own classical reading, impressed Allenby, and Lawrence was given the support he asked for. Aqaba was well supplied. Lawrence persuaded Feisal, engaged in attacking the Turkish railway, to allow the northern Arab army to come under Allenby’s control. Lawrence also secured the compliance of Hussein, but the Sherif, whose suspicions had been aroused by visits from Sykes and Picot, told Lawrence that he had refused French annexation of the Lebanon or Beirut. After the war Lawrence implied that he, himself, had not been honest in his dealings, but there is little to indicate that that was how he felt at the time. At the beginning of November 1917 Allenby took Gaza. With Balfour’s statement favouring a Jewish national home in Palestine, Allenby was under pressure to capture Jerusalem by Christmas, and eliminate Turkey from the war. To do this Allenby needed Lawrence’s help to recruit Arabs, and to cut off the Turkish retreat by dynamiting a railway viaduct near Deraa. Lawrence was assisted on this expedition by Sherif Ali and an Algerian, Abdel Kader, who saw the Arab movement in strictly nationalist terms and whose easy relationship with Ali aroused Lawrence’s jealousy. The viaduct was not blown up. Lawrence seems to have experienced a sense of guilt comparable to that of the artist in Ingmar Bergman’s film, The Hour of the Wolf. He needed to experience punishment and expiation. Seemingly Ali, athletic, outstandingly attractive and loved by Lawrence, complied during their time together at Azrak. This Lawrence later fictionalized as the Deraa incident. Lawrence’s failure limited the wider implications of Allenby’s entry into Jerusalem on 11 December 1917.
On 9 December Lawrence met Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen. Meinertzhagen recorded that a beautiful apparition appeared, and he enquired whether it was a boy or a girl. Lawrence told him of his loathing of the French, of his fears that the French could interfere with his dream of an Arab empire in Arabia, Mesopotamia, Syria and Palestine. Meinertzhagen reminded Lawrence of Zionism, and Lawrence promised Palestine as a self-governing province under Arab sovereignty.
With the Bolshevik take-over in Russia, the Arabs learnt the terms of the Sykes–Picot agreement. Attention moved to the western front, and it was not until September 1918 that Arabia became important again with the move on Damascus. Lawrence, either upset by Dahoum’s death, or distressed to discover that Ali was not present but instead a convert to Kader’s nationalist cause, advanced to Damascus with great cruelty. There, after being threatened by Kader’s dagger, Lawrence managed to oust an administration loyal to Hussein and an independent Arab state, and replaced it with one headed by Nuri al-Said, who could promote British interests. Allenby arrived, and announced that Feisal would rule inland Syria with the help of the French. Lawrence would have, as a counterpart, a French liaison officer. Feisal, perhaps forgetting the later correspondence from McMahon to his father about French interests, objected that he could only accept British assistance. Lawrence told Allenby that he had not informed Feisal that the French would have a protectorate over Syria. Feisal withdrew. Lawrence refused to work with a Frenchman, and left for England.23
During the early stages of the Arab revolt, in December 1916, Lloyd George replaced Asquith as Prime Minister. Leopold Amery was appointed secretary to the Committee on Territorial Change. Amery was convinced by Sykes of the importance of Zionism for Britain’s strategic requirements. This view was shared by William Ormsby-Gore, who, while working with the Arab bureau in Cairo, had been influenced by the Zionist, Aaron Aaronsohn. In March 1917 Ormsby-Gore joined the War Secretariat. A memorandum by Amery of 11 March reflected this preoccupation: Amery argued that the objective of British policy was security, and this necessitated the retention by Britain of German East Africa, Palestine and Mesopotamia and the German Pacific colonies. Lloyd George managed foreign policy through his War Cabinet. Of the five original members Bonar Law and Arthur Henderson looked at domestic affairs; George Curzon, Lord President of the Council, and Alfred Milner managed foreign policy; Curzon had been Viceroy in India; Milner had served as Governor and High Commissioner in South Africa. Both these men were great imperialists. They were later joined by Jan Christian Smuts, who had been a republican general during the Second Anglo-Boer War. This tended to give British policy an imperial slant, and, from the Cabinet’s point of view though not that of the War Office, to shift emphasis from the western to the eastern theatre. A subcommittee on territorial desiderata, chaired by Curzon and including Robert Cecil, Austen Chamberlain and Smuts, emphasized the importance of communications in any settlement. Smuts took a profound interest in Palestine. He argued for British control of Palestine to protect Egypt and communications with the East. The subcommittee agreed, and recommended revision of the Sykes–Picot agreement to give Britain exclusive control over Palestine. On 25 April 1917 the Imperial War Cabinet discussed the ‘impossible’ provision of the Sykes–Picot agreement about the ‘internationalization’ of Palestine. Lloyd George explained that the French had been cold over his suggestion at the conference at Saint-Jean de-Maurienne that Palestine come under British control. On 1 May, however, the Imperial War Cabinet heard from Curzon that his subcommittee had been unanimous in recommending that the broad consideration of imperial security made it desirable for Britain to keep German East Africa, and Palestine and Mesopotamia.24
The Balfour Declaration
Zionists in Britain capitalized on this imperial thinking. The Manchester group, inspired by R. W. Seton-Watson’s article suggesting a Jewish state in Palestine as an Allied war aim, enlisted the assistance of journalist Herbert Sidebotham, who, with the connivance of Scott, published an editorial article in the Manchester Guardian on 22 November 1915 along similar lines. A British Palestine Committee was formed in April 1916 made up of Sidebotham, Harry Sacher, Israel M. Sieff and Simon Marks. Under the guidance of Weizmann, the committee related Zionist aspirations to the British war effort, particularly in its journal, Palestine. The first issue on 26 January 1917 spoke of a new British dominion in Palestine. This upset Sykes, who was worried about the French, and also the advocacy of a Jewish legion by Vladimir Jabotinsky. Sykes argued his case with Zionist leaders on 7 and 10 February, meeting them without official sanction. Sieff was convinced that Sykes had reached an agreement with the Arabs, and considered Jewish political aspirations in Palestine as secondary. A memorandum by Nahum Sokolow, the Executive Chairman of the Zionist International Committee, also worried Sykes: it seemed that, apart from the holy places, the Zionists intended to colonize the whole of Palestine. That would, again, upset France. Sykes suggested to Picot that the United States should act as protector. From the Foreign Office Arthur J. Balfour mentioned to Weizmann the possibility of an Anglo-American protectorate.25
By April 1917 Zionism had achieved a new status in British political thinking. Not only was Palestine necessary for the security of empire, but it was thought that Zionist sympathies for the Allied cause could help the war effort. Zionists in Russia could stop that country’s drift out of the war; in the United States Zionists could speed up the American contribution following the declaration of war on 3 April. The United States, in particular, had a large and influential Jewish population. Centred on the east coast, it numbered around 4 million. Originally the Jewish settlers had concentrated on becoming American, and Zionism had had little appeal. Between 1914 and 1918, however, the movement’s enrolled membership increased from 5,000 to 150,000. The Zionist Organization of America was founded in 1918. The movement’s early leaders included the young Rabbi Stephen Wise, Louis Brandeis, who by 1917 was the first Jew to have been appointed to the Supreme Court, and Felix Frankfurter from the Harvard Law School. It was largely through the efforts of Ormsby-Gore, private secretary to Milner and married to Robert Cecil’s niece, and Cecil who, during Balfour’s absence in the United States acted as Foreign Secretary, that the importance of Zionist sympathies was brought before the British Cabinet. By this time both Cecil and Ormsby-Gore were Zionist converts. Ormsby-Gore emphasized the importance of propaganda: in his Eastern Report of 26 April he suggested that Zionism could secure the support of Russian Jews for the Allies. But despite efforts by Sykes, this view was undermined by the British ambassador in Russia. Weizmann hoped for a resolution from a Jewish conference in Petrograd welcoming a Zionist Palestine under British trusteeship and supported by a British declaration in favour of Zionism. Cecil took this plan to Milner, explaining that it was supported by Ormsby-Gore, but it was criticized by Claude Montefiore and nothing came of it anyway. Sykes, Ormsby-Gore and Cecil concentrated on the American angle. Through Weizmann, Sykes arranged for Balfour, while he was in the United States, to meet Brandeis. These conversations apparently convinced Balfour that it was acceptable for him, as Foreign Secretary, openly to endorse Zionism.
In London Cecil authorized propaganda instigated by Sykes and Ormsby-Gore, with the assistance of Aaronsohn, about alleged Turkish anti-Semitic outrages. They also played on the fear that Germany could use the Zionist movement. This was used over the American proposal to approach Turkey for a separate peace. That initiative, originating from Henry Morgenthau, a former American ambassador to Constantinople, appeared to entail a solution for Palestine other than the Zionist one. Ormsby-Gore argued that this could lead to a Zionist shift towards Germany. Weizmann elaborated in correspondence with the Foreign Office. He offered to use his personal influence with Morgenthau, accompanied by Frankfurter, to stop the American mission. Weizmann also continued to ask the British government for a statement supporting Zionism. Ronald Graham of the Foreign Office, a Zionist sympathizer, also urged this on Balfour, pointing to French support for Zionism. Lord Rothschild, regarded as the head of the Jewish community in Britain, asked Balfour to see Weizmann and himself. The three men met on 19 June, and Balfour asked for a draft of Zionist aspirations. Shortly afterwards Weizmann, in Gibraltar, impressed on Morgenthau and Frankfurter that Britain felt there could be no peace with Turkey unless Palestine, Syria, Armenia and Mesopotamia were detached from the Ottoman Empire.26
In Weizmann’s absence Harry Sacher, a member of the British Palestine Committee, and Sokolow worked on the Zionist draft. They disagreed. Lord Rothschild handed Balfour a draft approved by the Political Committee on 18 July. This envisaged recognition of Palestine as the national home of the Jewish people and of the Zionist organization. Sacher persuaded the Labour Party to endorse the return of the Jewish people to Palestine: the party’s manifesto even included the phrase ‘Jewish Palestine’. A favourable reply was drafted for the War Cabinet’s approval. This was partly dictated by fears of Russian withdrawal from the war, and the reluctance of Jewish businessmen to support President Woodrow Wilson’s call for support for the War Loan. The reply was revised, particularly by Milner. Milner approved of an autonomous Jewish community in Palestine under a British protectorate, but not of an independent Jewish state. In the Jewish zone Britain would also have to insist on fair treatment for Christians and Muslims. Milner eliminated ‘national’ and made ‘the’ home merely ‘a’ home. The Jewish minister, Montagu, opposed the whole idea. In a memorandum called ‘The anti-Semitism of the present government’, dated 23 August, he dismissed Zionism as ‘a mischievous political creed untenable by any patriotic citizen of the United Kingdom’. The Jews were not a nation, and a national home would make them aliens in the countries in which they lived. The editors of the Morning Post and others supported Zionism because they wanted Jews to leave Britain. Though not intentionally anti-Semitic, British policy would ‘prove a rallying ground for anti-semites in every country in the world’. He objected to the proposals for a Jewish regiment on similar grounds. Lloyd George and Balfour were not present when the War Cabinet discussed the memorandum on 3 September. It seems that Montagu was isolated. Cecil insisted that the Allies needed Zionist support: the Zionists were particularly strong in the United States, and it was important that nothing should be done to risk a breach with them. The War Cabinet asked Cecil to find out how Wilson viewed London’s proposed declaration of sympathy with the Zionists, and then to inform the American government.27
Wilson, acting on the advice of Colonel Edward M. House, was cautious: there could be a statement of sympathy provided it did not convey a real commitment. This was used by Montagu to suggest that Palestine could be a place of ‘refuge’ for Jews. Graham was annoyed with the attitude of certain rich Jews who feared they would be asked to leave Britain and cultivate farms in Palestine. Weizmann tried to see Lloyd George, and also to change Wilson’s attitude. Weizmann contacted Brandeis, who saw the President. Balfour also asked Lord Rothschild to urge American Zionists to lobby Wilson. Graham, in a note to Lord Hardinge, pointed once again to propaganda urging German protection for a Jewish settlement in Palestine, and how useful Zionists in Russia and the United States could be. On 3 October Lord Rothschild and Weizmann asked Balfour to consider the Zionist case in the light of British imperial interests: a favourable British declaration would enable them to counteract the demoralizing influence of the enemy press. Just before the War Cabinet met on 4 October, Milner and Amery worked on the British draft. Milner, possibly influenced by warnings from Gertrude Bell, the Assistant Political Officer in Baghdad, that neither Arabs nor Muslims would accept Jewish authority, insisted on guarantees for the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine. With that, he allowed ‘national’ to creep back. Milner recorded in his diary that the Cabinet meeting was ‘a tiresome and time-wasting sitting largely concerned with Zionism’. Balfour stated the case for the Zionists: the danger of German sympathies; a sympathetic declaration by France; Wilson approved of the Zionist movement. Montagu was angry: how could he negotiate with the peoples of India if the British government announced that his national home was in Turkish territory. Curzon, the Lord President, enquired how it was intended to move the Muslims from Palestine, and to introduce Jews. Following this, at Balfour’s request, Wilson was shown the Milner–Amery draft and agreed to it, but insisted that his approval should not be mentioned. Soundings of Jewish opinion in Britain suggested considerable support for Zionist aspirations, but when Graham learnt that Curzon was preparing a memorandum counselling delay, the Assistant Under-Secretary reinforced Balfour in his earlier arguments with a briefing on developments. At a meeting of the War Cabinet on 25 October, Curzon explained his concern about the nature of the British commitment. Palestine could only support a small population and the 500,000 native Muslims would not be content ‘either to be expropriated for Jewish immigrants, or to act merely as hewers of wood and drawers of water’. Sykes, with his apparent expertise in Middle Eastern affairs, took it upon himself to refute Curzon’s arguments. In a memorandum of 30 October, Sykes claimed that the barrenness of Palestine was a consequence of neglect: the Arabs were a ‘naturally idle and indolent race’. With proper support the population of Palestine could be doubled in seven years.
On 31 October Balfour, using arguments provided by Graham and Sykes, addressed the War Cabinet. A declaration in favour of Zionism would help propaganda in Russia and the United States. Scientific development could enable Palestine to sustain a larger population. By ‘national home’ Balfour understood some form of British, American and other protectorate enabling Jews to build up ‘a real centre of national culture and focus of national life’. That did not necessarily involve the early establishment of an independent Jewish state, ‘which was a matter for gradual development in accordance with the ordinary laws of political evolution’. By a strange logic Balfour argued that this would eliminate any danger of the Jews having a double allegiance or non-national outlook. Curzon objected. His information was that Palestine could not be developed in this way. It was necessary to retain the Muslim and Christian holy places in Jerusalem and Bethlehem. That would mean that the Jewish people could not have a political capital in Palestine. Some expression of sympathy with Jewish aspirations could help British propaganda, but this would have to be carefully worded. The War Cabinet authorized Balfour to make a declaration of sympathy with Zionist aims:
His Majesty’s Government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use its best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.
Graham urged immediate publication, and on 2 November a letter was sent from Balfour to Lord Rothschild. The same day Graham met Weizmann, Sokolow, Aaronsohn and Sykes to arrange the requisite propaganda.28 Initially Weizmann appears to have been disappointed. Indeed the declaration that finally emerged, after Milner’s careful alterations, just offered a national home, presumably only in part of Palestine, and one which would not prejudice the existing 90 per cent of the population. Despite Curzon’s repeated warnings, the declaration was open to manipulation. Zionists for over twenty years had discussed the nuances of the meanings of commonwealth, national home and state. Some, like Weizmann, were prepared to give one interpretation to one listener, and another elsewhere. For most, the objective was a Zionist state, though it was recognized that that might have to be obscured for tactical reasons. And the British Zionists excelled at tactics. The Manchester School converted newspapermen and Cabinet ministers. It worked on Foreign Office officials and military personnel. By October 1917 most of the key people concerned with Middle Eastern affairs in the War Cabinet and its secretariat, in the Foreign Office, and even in the military and intelligence services, were either convinced Zionists or Zionist sympathizers. It is not clear whether Lloyd George admired the Zionists or even liked Jews, but he thought they would be useful in his eastern policy, and it was the Prime Minister himself who, under pressure from Weizmann, placed the Zionist declaration on the Cabinet agenda. Milner, though possibly sympathetic, was a great liberal imperialist, as had been shown by his concern for the non-white races in Southern Africa a decade earlier. He and Curzon were particularly conscious of the position of the Arabs, but, even so, over 90 per cent of the population of Palestine was referred to negatively as the ‘existing non-Jewish communities’. Smuts was a Zionist, and later it was a cause he preached with passion. He was a Dutch Reform Calvinist. Like the Jews his religion was that of the Old Testament. Like the Jews Smuts’s people, the Afrikaners, had also been chosen and led across the desert: they had trekked into the interior of South Africa when the British placed slaves on an equal footing with Whites. Smuts had been offered the command of the Palestine campaign, but refused as it seemed that it would not be a first-class campaign. He was an ambitious man and an astute opportunist: ‘slim Jannie’. But even at a time when his fellow Afrikaners did not like the Jews, Smuts remained a Zionist; part of a development in Israel was named after him. One of the last people to see Balfour before he died was Weizmann, but it is possible that Balfour suffered from a latent anti-Semitism. The secretaries to the War Cabinet, Ormsby-Gore and Amery, were Zionist sympathizers, as was Philip Kerr, Lloyd George’s personal secretary. But most significant of all were the activities in the Foreign Office of Sykes, Cecil and Graham. At crucial times they arranged for suitable information to be passed on, selected propaganda material and, with apparent expertise, undermined counter-arguments whether from the India Office or British representatives in the Arab world.29
References
1Jon Kimche, The Second Arab Awakening (London 1970), pp. 17–40; Fritz Fischer, Germany’s Aims in the First World War (London 1967), pp. 3–50; Marian Jackson (trans.), War of Illusions: German Policies from 1911 to 1914 (London 1975), esp. pp. 205–207, 330–354; Walter Laqueur, A History of Zionism (London 1972), pp. 172–178; William I. Shorrock, French Imperialism in the Middle East. The Failure of Policy in Syria and Lebanon 1900–1914 (Madison 1976), pp. 65–169; Briton Cooper Busch, Britain and the Persian Gulf 1894–1914 (Berkeley 1967), pp. 357–369; K. A. Hamilton, ‘An attempt to form an Anglo-French “Industrial Entente”’, Middle Eastern Studies, XI (1975), pp. 45–73; ‘Great Britain and France 1905–11’, ‘Great Britain and France 1911–1914’, in F. H. Hinsley (Ed.), British Foreign Policy under Sir Edward Grey (Cambridge 1977), pp. 113–132, 324–341.
2Cab 16 (Public Record Office, London), 12; Frank Hardie and Irwin Hermann, Britain and Zion. The Fateful Entanglement (Belfast 1980), p. 19.
3British Documents on the Origins of the War, 1898–1914 (hereafter cited as BDOW), Vol. X, pp. 824–825; George H. Cassar, Kitchener: Architect of Victory (London 1977), pp. 220–221; Jukka Nevakivi, ‘Lord Kitchener and the partition of the Ottoman Empire, 1915–1916’, in K. Bourne and D. C. Watt (Eds), Studies in International History (London 1967), pp. 317–318.
4BDOW 1898–1914, Vol. X (2), p. 827; FO 6672/6672/14/44, No. 22, Kitchener to Grey, Secret, 6 February 1914 received 14 February 1914 (available in FO 371, 2130, which also contains other pertinent correspondence), pp. 831–832, Abdullah’s account of conversation with Kitchener.
5BDOW 1899–1914, Vol. X (2), pp. 827–830; FO 13871/4588/14/44, No. 193, Mallet to Grey, 18 March 1914 received 30 March 1914 and Enclosure and Minutes.
6Ibid., p. 831, Kitchener to Sir W. Tyrrell, 26 April 1914; FO 371, 1973, 87396, Enclosure, Note by Storrs, 19 April 1914.
7Relevant documentation can be found in FO 371, 2139, esp. 65589/44923; 1973, esp. 87396.
8Cab 42, 2/14, Meeting of War Council, 10 March 1915.
9FO 371, 2486, f. 2, 34982, Grey to Sir F. Bertie (Paris), 23 March 1915.
10Ibid., f. 7, 44598, Grey to McMahon, Confidential, Telegram No. 173, 14 April 1915.
11Ibid., ff. 43–46, 34982/87023, McMahon to Grey, Telegram No. 306, 30 June 1915; for an analysis of the ‘inadequate’ comprehension of the Middle East by British officials see Roger Adelson, London and the Invention of the Middle East: Money, Power and War, 1902–1922 (New Haven, Conn. 1995).
12C. P. Scott in T. Wilson (Ed.), Scott Journal, Political Diaries 1911–1928 (New York 1970), p. 113, Diary, 27 Nov. 1914; Chaim Weizmann, Trial and Error (London 1949), pp. 192–193; Lady Algernon Gordon Lennox (Ed.), The Diary of Lord Bertie of Thame 1914–1918, Vol. I (London 1924), pp. 105–106, Diary, 25 Jan. 1915; H. H. Asquith, Memories and Reflections, Vol. II (London 1928), pp. 59–60, Diary, 28 Jan. 1915; pp. 66–67, Diary, 13 March 1915; John Bowle, Viscount Samuel (London 1957), pp. 170–178; Viscount Samuel, Memoirs (London 1945), pp. 39–44; FO 800 (Public Record Office, London), 100 Memorandum by Samuel on the Future of Palestine, 22 Jan. 1915; Cab 37, 123/43; 126/1; Michael G. Fry, Lloyd George and Foreign Policy. The Education of a Statesman: 1890–1916 (Montreal 1977), pp. 260–261.
13Martin Gilbert, Exile and Return. The Emergence of Jewish Statehood (London 1978), pp. 83–84 quoting Memorandum by Montagu, 16 March 1915, in the Lloyd George Papers; Hardie and Hermann, op. cit., pp. 80–83; Stephen Koss, Asquith (London 1976), p. 126.
14Keith Robbins, Sir Edward Grey. A Biography of Lord Grey of Fallodon (London 1971), pp. 310–311.
15Cab 27, 1, Report of the Committee on Asiatic Turkey, 30 June 1915; this volume also contains important memoranda by Sykes; Roger Adelson, Mark Sykes, Portrait of an Amateur (London 1975), pp. 180–185; Marian Kent, ‘Asiatic Turkey, 1914–1916’, in Hinsley, op. cit., pp. 443–444; the de Bunsen Committee maps, drawn by Sykes, are reproduced in Hardie and Hermann, op. cit., pp. 116–117; Christopher Sykes, Two Studies in Virtue (London 1953), pp. 109–235; Nevakivi, ‘Lord Kitchener and the partition of the Ottoman Empire’, pp. 325–326; for an explanation of the area names used by the de Bunsen Committee see David Fromkin, A Peace to End all Peace. Creating the Modern Middle East 1914–1922 (London 1989), pp. 146–149.
16FO 371, 2490, 108253, No. 12, Sykes to Charles Callwell, Director-General of Military Operations, 14 July 1915; No. 14, 14 July 1915; 1476, 106764, No. 11, Sykes to Callwell, 12 July 1915; Elie Kedourie, ‘Sir Mark Sykes and Palestine’, Arabic Political Memoirs and Other Studies (London 1974), pp. 236–242; ‘Cairo and Khartoum on the Arab question, 1915–1918’, The Chatham House Version and other Middle Eastern Studies (London 1970), pp. 13–32; Adelson, op. cit., pp. 187–188.
17FO 371, 2486, ff. 39–40, 84355/34982, J. W. Holderness (India Office) to Foreign Office, Secret, 24 June 1915; ff. 43–46, 87023/34982, McMahon to Foreign Office, Telegram No. 306, 30 June 1915 and Minutes; ff. 99–102, 117236/34982, McMahon to Foreign Office, Telegram No. 450, Secret, 22 Aug. 1915, Minute by Grey; ff. 103–109, 118580/34982, Minute by Clerk, 25 Aug. 1915; Minute by Grey, undated; Sir A. Hirtzel (India Office) to Foreign Office, 24 Aug. 1915; ff. 124–145, 125293/34982, McMahon to Grey, No. 94, Secret, 26 Aug. 1915; Hussein to Storrs, 14 July 1915; Statement of Messenger, Alexandria, 18 Aug. 1915; Note by Storrs, 19 Aug. 1915; McMahon to Hussein, 30 Aug. 1915.
18FO 371, 2486, 152901/34982, McMahon to Foreign Office, Telegram No. 623, 18 Oct. 1915; 153045/34982, McMahon to Grey, Telegram, 18 Oct. 1915; Minutes by Clerk and Nicolson; 54122/34986, McMahon to Foreign Office, Telegram No. 627, 20 Oct. 1915; 155203/34982, Grey to McMahon, Telegram No. 796, 20 Oct. 1915; McMahon to Hussein, 24 Oct. 1915.
19Ibid., f. 183, 138500/34982, Wingate to Grey, 7 Sept. 1915.
20Ibid., 181834/34982, Grey to McMahon, Telegram No. 961, 10 Dec. 1915; 198266/34982, McMahon to Grey, No. 172, Secret, 14 Dec. 1915 and Enclosures; 2771, 16451, McMahon to Foreign Office, Telegram No. 70, 26 Jan. 1916.
21Ibid., 2767, 40645/938, McMahon to Foreign Office and Enclosures, 1 March 1916. Besides the copies in the Public Record Office printed versions of the McMahon-Hussein correspondence exist based on both Arabic and English sources. See George Antonius, The Arab Awakening. The Story of the Arab National Movement (London 1938), pp. 413–427 for versions based on the Arab sources; Antonius was also consulted about the texts printed in British Parliamentary Papers, Vol. XXVII, Cmd. 5957, Correspondence between Sir Henry McMahon and the Sharif Hussein of Mecca in 1915 and 1916, 1939; Vol. XIV, Cmd. 5974, Report of a Committee set up to consider Certain Correspondence between Sir Henry McMahon and the Sharif of Mecca in 1915 and 1916, 1939. Recent discussions of the material include Isaiah Friedman, ‘The McMahon-Hussein correspondence and the question of Palestine’, Journal of Contemporary History, 5 (1970) pp. 83–122; Correspondence from Toynbee in same volume, pp. 185–201; A. L. Tibawi, Anglo-Arab Relations and the Question of Palestine 1914–1921 (London 1977), pp. 64–100 is interesting on the Arabic translations; Elie Kedourie, In the Anglo-Arab Labyrinth (Cambridge 1976), pp. 65–137 quotes extensively from Foreign and India Office minutes. See also: Bruce Westrate, The Arab Bureau: British Policy in the Middle East, 1916–1920 (Pennsylvania 1992); Eliezer Tauber, The Emergence of Arab Movements (London 1992); The Arab Movements in World War I (London 1993); Liora Lukitz, ‘The Antonius papers and The Arab Awakening fifty years on’, Middle East Studies, XXX (1994), pp. 883–896; Efraim Karsh and Inari Karsh, ‘Myth in the desert, or not the Great Arab Revolt’, Middle East Studies, XXXIII (1997), pp. 267–312.
22FO 371, 2486, 34982, Foreign Office Note, 27 Nov. 1915 and Minutes; Cab 42, 6, 9–10, War Committee Meeting, Secret, 16 Dec. 1915 and evidence of Sykes; FO 882, 2, Memorandum on Third Meeting of Nicolson Committee, 21 Dec. 1915; Cab 42, 11, Arab Question by Sykes and Picot, 5 Jan. 1916; FO 371, 2767, 8117, Hirtzel to Foreign Office, 13 Jan. 1916; 3851, Macdonough to Nicolson, 6 Jan. 1916; War on Turkey File, Meeting of Nicolson Committee, 21 Jan. 1916; 26444, Meeting of Nicolson Committee, 4 Feb. 1916; Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919–1939 (hereafter cited as DBFP), 1st series, Vol. IV, pp. 241–251 (correspondence embodying the Sykes-Picot agreement); pp. 340–349, 132187/2117/44A, Memorandum by Balfour on Syria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia, 11 Aug. 1919; pp. 479–489, 143507/2117/44A, Lloyd George to Clemenceau, 18 Oct. 1919; Shane Leslie, Sir Mark Sykes: His Life and Letters (London 1924), pp. 242–243; Adelson, op. cit., pp. 196–209. For the Wolf approach see Robbins, op. cit., pp. 332–333; Isaiah Friedman, The Question of Palestine, 1914–1918 (London 1973), pp. 48–64; Hardie and Hermann, op. cit., pp. 48–52. For the oil question see Marian Kent, Oil and Empire. British Policy and Mesopotamian Oil 1900–1920 (London 1976), pp. 122–124. See also Jukka Nevakivi, Britain, France and the Arab Middle East 1914–1920 (London 1969), pp. 13–44. For a map illustrating the Sykes-Picot agreement see Hardie and Hermann, op. cit., p. 115.
23Desmond Stewart, T. E. Lawrence (London 1977), esp. pp. 110–112, 137–211, 237–255; Phillip Knightley and Colin Simpson, The Secret Lives of Lawrence of Arabia (London 1976), pp. 147–174, 415–441; Ernest Raymond, Tell England. A Study in a Generation (London 1928), pp. 38–42; T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, a Triumph (London 1962); John Bagot Glubb, Britain and the Arabs. A Study of Fifteen Years, 1908 to 1958 (London 1959), pp. 79–89; Richard Meinertzhagen, Middle East Diary 1917–1956 (London 1959), pp. 28–30, Diary, 10 Dec. 1917; Lawrence of Arabia, Great Britain, 1962, directed by David Lean; Girl on a Motorcycle, Great Britain, 1968, directed by Jack Cardiff; Last Tango in Paris, Italy/France, 1972, directed by Bernado Bertolucci; Hour of the Wolf, Sweden, 1968, directed by Ingmar Bergman. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Le Petit Prince (London, 1958); Curtis Cane, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. His Life and Times (London 1970). Jeremy Wilson, Lawrence of Arabia. The Authorised Biography of T. E. Lawrence (London 1989), pp. 459–461 accepts the version of the Deraa incident given by Lawrence in Seven Pillars of Wisdom and explains Lawrence’s knowledge of the Sykes-Picot agreement as the reason for his spreading the revolt into Syria so as to provide an Arab occupation as a fait accompli (pp. 1035–1036), and his subsequent feelings of guilt and fraud. Lawrence James, The Golden Warrior: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia (London 1990), denied access to the official papers, insists that Lawrence made up the story of rape at Deraa. See also J. N. Lockman, Scattered Tracks on the Lawrence Trail: Twelve Essays on T. E. Lawrence (Whitmore Lake, Mich. 1996). It has been claimed that Meinertzhagen’s accounts of T. E. Lawrence are largely fabrication: see J. N. Lockman, Meinertzhagen’s Diary Ruse: False Entries on T. E. Lawrence (Grand Rapids 1995).
24Cab 24, 10, Note on Possible Terms of Peace by Amery, 11 March 1917; Cab 21, 77, Meetings of Subcommittee on Territorial Desiderata, April 1917; Cab 23, 2, Imperial War Cabinet, 25 April 1917; 40, Minutes of Imperial War Cabinet, 1 May 1917; Kimche, Second Arab Awakening, pp. 52–56; L. S. Amery, My Political Life, Vol. II, War and Peace 1914–1929 (London 1953), pp. 114–115.
25Jon Kimche, Palestine or Israel (London 1973), pp. 93–123, also quotes pp. 119–120, Sieff to Weizmann, 17 Feb. 1917; Adelson, op. cit., pp. 214–128; Laqueur, op. cit., pp. 181–193.
26Friedman, The Question of Palestine, pp. 63–64, 119–219; Laqueur, op. cit., pp. 190–196; Jon Kimche, The Unromantics. The Great Powers and the Balfour Declaration (London 1968), pp. 31–40; Hardie and Hermann, op. cit., pp. 66–74; William A. Yale, ‘Ambassador Henry Morgenthau’s Special Mission of 1917’, World Politics, I (April 1949), pp. 308–320. In his memoirs Cecil does not mention his Zionist activities at this time. See Robert Cecil, All the Way (London 1941); A Great Experiment (London 1941).
27Friedman, The Question of Palestine, pp. 254–261; Cab 21, 58, Note by Milner, 18 Aug. 1917; Cab 24, 24, GT 1868, Memorandum by Montagu on the anti-Semitism of the Present Government, 23 Aug. 1917, also in FO 371, 3083, Cab 23, 24, Minutes of War Cabinet, Secret, 3 Sept. 1917.
28FO 371, 3083, 143082, Graham to Harding, 24 Sept. 1917; Rothschild and Weizmann to Balfour, 3 Oct. 1917; 3059, 162432, Hirtzel to Graham, 30 Aug. 1917, Enclosing Memorandum by Gertrude Bell on the Turkish provinces in Asia, Syria, 23 June 1917; Cab 23, 4, WC 245 (18), 4 Oct. 1917; John Marlow, Milner, Apostle of Empire (London 1976), p. 333, quoting Diary, 4 Oct. 1917. Extracts of the soundings of Jewish opinion are printed in Doreen Ingrams (Ed.), Palestine Papers 1917–1922, Seeds of Conflict (London 1972), pp. 13–16; Cab 23, 4, WC 257 (12), 25 Oct. 1917; FO 371, 3083, 143082, Drummond to Balfour, 30 Oct. 1917, Enclosing Memorandum by Sykes on Palestine, Sykes asked that his memorandum be anonymous; Cab 23, 4, WC 261 (12), 31 Oct. 1917; Friedman, The Question of Palestine, pp. 259–281; Gilbert, op. cit., pp. 92–108; see also Leonard Stein, The Balfour Declaration (London 1961); D. Z. Gillon, ‘The antecedents of the Balfour Declaration’, Middle Eastern Studies, V (May 1969); Majir Verete, ‘The Belfour Declaration and its makers’, Middle Eastern Studies, VI (Jan. 1970).
29H. C. Armstrong, Grey Steel (J. C. Smuts) (London 1939), pp. 218–220; W. K. Hancock, Smuts, The Sanguine Years 1870–1919 (Cambridge 1962), pp. 432–435; W. K. Hancock and Jean van der Poel, Selections from the Smuts Papers (Cambridge 1966), pp. 493–495, 523. I am indebted to Dr K. A. Hamilton for pointing out that Harold Wilson presumably means Lord Robert Cecil when he writes Lord Robert Balfour in The Chariot of Israel. Britain, America and the State of Israel (London 1981), p. 48 note; Zara Steiner, ‘The Foreign Office and the war’, in Hinsley, op. cit., pp. 516–531 at p. 528.