The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict (42 page)

We may glean something of the king’s point of view from Sykes’s letter about the meeting to Wingate in Cairo. “Unless Arab independence
²²
were assured,” the king had warned, he “feared that posterity would charge him
with assisting in the overthrow of the last Islamic power [Turkey] without setting another in its place.” Moreover, “if France annexed Syria”—perhaps Sykes mentioned this possibility after all—he “would be open to the charge of breaking faith with the Moslems of Syria by having led them into a rebellion against the Turks in order to hand them over to a Christian power.” These points were “important and worthy of sympathy,” as Sykes himself noted. We may guess then that he had not set the king’s mind at rest about them. Perhaps Sykes was not satisfied in his own mind about French, or even British, intentions. Still, he fixed a meeting for Picot and the king two weeks later, on May 19, and headed back to Cairo.

Here then were the main difficulties Sykes faced in mid-May 1917 during his mission to the Middle East. He had to persuade the king and Feisal to accept that France as well as Britain would play a role in Arabia’s future and that the two powers had already drawn up its boundaries. He had to let Picot tell them that France might annex a part of Arabia that they believed integral to it. And he had to persuade the French to relinquish claims to northern Palestine in favor of Britain, and to give up the thought of an international condominium in the rest of it. He had to be wondering also when to explain to Hussein that Britain intended to control all Palestine except the holy places, and that Britain probably would favor a significant increase in the Jewish presence there. Finally, he had to square all this with the early wartime statements about fighting on behalf of the rights of small nations, and the more recent ones about “open covenants openly arrived at,” and “no annexations.” Picot, for his part, would have been struggling to think of a way to convince Hussein that French annexation would strengthen Arab independence.

The meetings immediately preceding, during, and following May 19 are crucial in Middle Eastern history. Some forty-eight hours before the appointed date, Sykes and Picot as well as Colonel Wilson (who must have gone up earlier to Cairo for consultations), George Lloyd, and the French colonel Brémond boarded the
Northbrook
, Britain’s flagship in the Red Sea, and headed south for Jeddah. This time when the ship reached Wejh, Feisal came aboard, accompanied by Colonel Stewart Newcombe, a friend of Lawrence’s and military adviser to the Arabs. As the
Northbrook
steamed
²³
south under a broiling sun, Sykes, Picot, and Feisal held several meetings, the Europeans’ aim being to reconcile the Arab to a French presence in Syria. But the results “I understand”
²⁴
were “not entirely satisfactory,” Wilson reported. Feisal worried that the Europeans would interpret anything he said as official. Only his father could speak for the projected Arab state.

The
Northbrook
slid down the glassy, tepid Red Sea, putting in at steamy
Jeddah on Friday night, May 18. Next day Sykes and Picot came ashore in the mid-morning heat, accompanied by French, Egyptian, and Arab troops, a colorful, impressive spectacle intended to disabuse any town residents who still thought the Ottomans might win the war. They all made their way to the king’s place of residence. As a special mark of consideration, the king advanced to the door to greet the Frenchman. Sykes introduced them. The principals, Sykes, Picot, Hussein, Feisal, Fuad, and interpreters, went upstairs; Wilson and Brémond remained below.

By now the king knew pretty well from his meeting with Sykes, and from reports given him by Fuad and his son Feisal since their arrival, what the French wanted in Syria. He was having none of it.

Then he quoted an Arab proverb to the Europeans: “If you take one finger from my hand, you will torture me and let me loose, but you gain nothing by taking the finger.”

Sykes did what he could for his French ally. “Although it does not concern me,” he interjected, “I give my own opinion that if you have European advisers in Syria and give them exclusive power, it will be the best you can do.” Fuad reported, “The King was not pleased with the idea and refused it.” Sykes recorded Hussein’s reaction in almost identical words: “The King disliked the idea
²⁶
naturally.” He added, “And Fuad said that this was the end of Arab independence.” Picot suggested that the king accept an agreement with France for Syria along the same lines as the one he had accepted with Britain for Baghdad. “The King utterly refused,” Fuad wrote. He
would allow the French into Syria on his terms or none at all. The meeting lasted nearly three hours. No agreement was reached.

Afterward, on the way to Wilson’s Jeddah residence, presumably for a late lunch, Sykes confided to his host that if Picot did not change his attitude, “it appeared hopeless to try and bring France and the Sharif together.” No doubt Sykes spent a good part of the afternoon and evening attempting to modify Picot’s approach, but at some point he had a brainstorm. He got into touch with Fuad and asked him to come aboard ship. When the latter arrived, he strongly advised him to convince the king to focus on Picot’s last point: “that the relations between
²⁷
the Arab Government and France should be the same in Syria as that between the King and the British in Baghdad.” Get the king to accept that much, he instructed Fuad, and then leave everything to me. He hammered at this twice more, wiring ashore to Wilson later the same evening and then early the next morning, directing him both times to reiterate the same instructions to Fuad.

Fuad did as the Englishman wanted: “I took three hours to convince the King to accept Sir Mark Sykes’ wish.” He and the king and Feisal would have huddled all that evening, talking the matter up and down; and here Hussein’s romantic, indeed unrealistic understanding of British history and of Britain’s future intentions becomes relevant. Hussein finally accepted Fuad’s argument, not because he thought France would do good things for Syria, but rather, as Fuad explained, because the king “trusted what the British Commissioner says. He knows that Sir Mark Sykes can fight for the Arabs better than he can himself in political matters, and knows that Sir Mark Sykes speaks with the authority of the British Government and will therefore be able to carry out his promises.”

There may have been more to it than that. Hussein must have asked himself why Sykes suddenly insisted that the French have in Syria the same arrangement with him that Britain had in Baghdad. And then he would have remembered what he thought McMahon had promised him at the end of 1915: a temporary occupation of Iraq paid for by a generous monetary compensation. That would be fine for the territory along the Syrian coast too. Triumphantly Hussein turned to Fuad: “I have in my pocket a letter from Sir Henry McMahon which promises all I wish. This I know is all right as the British Government will fulfill her word.” Neither Fuad nor Feisal had seen the letter; nor did Hussein show it to them.

Let us recall what McMahon’s letters actually said. In his second note to Hussein (October 24, 1915), the high commissioner had written with regard
to the
vilayets
of Baghdad and Basra that his country’s “established position and interests there will call for the setting up of special administrative arrangements to protect those regions from foreign aggression, to promote the welfare of their inhabitants, and to safeguard our mutual economic interests.” In the third (December 13, 1915), he had written that Britain’s interests “in the
vilayet
of Baghdad necessitate a friendly and stable administration such as you have outlined.” In his fourth and final note he had added merely that “we shall examine the matter
²⁸
with the utmost care after the defeat of the enemy.” It is hard to interpret any of these statements as an unequivocal promise to recognize Arab independence. Either Hussein had received other letters about Baghdad of which historians are unaware, or wearing his rose-tinted glasses, he simply misconstrued British intentions.

For the moment, however, his aperçu was enough. The three Arabs composed a statement for Hussein to read next morning when negotiations resumed, this time aboard the
Northbrook
. The statement does not survive, but records of the next day’s meeting agree that it went roughly as follows:

And so we may guess that King Hussein went to bed that evening with a sense of triumph. He thought he had the French over a barrel.

But had he interpreted Sykes’s reasoning correctly? Perhaps he did. Sykes, after all, had read the McMahon-Hussein correspondence; he would have known what Hussein wanted for the Syrian coastal region. Possibly he may have thought he could arrange it for him. At any rate, self-confident and forceful as he was, the Englishman really did believe that he could defend Arab interests better than Hussein could. That has to be why he repeatedly told Fuad to leave everything to him.

Sykes’s attitude toward annexation at this date is difficult to pin down. Once, obviously, he had thought it the natural prerogative of a great power. Now he understood that formidable forces in America and Russia, and in England and France for that matter, opposed it. He concluded that “formal annexation is quite
³⁰
contrary to the spirit of the time and would only lay up a store of future trouble.” Anyway, as he wrote to Percy Cox, a chief British
officer in Mesopotamia, the Anglo-French agreement would enable Britain to get “what we want without
³¹
infringing the kind of theories [favored by] … President Wilson and the new Russian Government.” The problem is that he wrote the letter to Cox four days after the meeting on the nineteenth. He wrote against “formal annexation” three months after that. But two days before it, he and Picot prepared a joint statement on “general policy”
³²
in which annexation is neither endorsed nor discounted but certainly remains an option. What are we to conclude? Perhaps that Sykes played a completely lone hand during the negotiations of mid-May. Let Hussein leave everything to him; let Picot think the French would annex part of Syria; he would later persuade him, and the great men in London, to forgo annexation. England and France could attain their Middle Eastern objectives without recourse to that counterproductive, anachronistic tactic.

At this stage Sykes likely foresaw an Arab empire or confederation with Hussein as its figurehead in Mecca. It would encompass the territory outlined in the original Sykes-Picot Agreement: Red Area and Area A, Blue Area and Area B, in which France and England would have predominant interest and influence but not absolute control. The two spheres could be ruled by Feisal and one of his brothers. Formal annexation by Britain and France would not be necessary.

King Hussein, Feisal, and Fuad arrived at the jetty next morning at about 9:20, and Wilson, who would attend the negotiations that day, brought them out to the big boat. Sometime during this meeting, Sykes and Picot finally acquainted Hussein with the details of the Tripartite Agreement. They seem not to have spoken precisely of annexation. They did not leave him with a written copy. And they asked him to accept it then and there. “Any criticisms or exclamations
³³
were stopped by Sir Mark Sykes asking me [Fuad] to induce the King to agree” to focus on getting the French to act in Syria as Britain would in Iraq. Luckily for Sykes, Fuad shared Hussein’s faith in Great Britain: “I am under the belief that Sir Mark Sykes had some very good plan or proposal which will enable the formation of a whole Arab Empire to be realized; and that the plan would only be possible by following his advice and leaving all to him. Hence my course of action.”

A little later, perhaps, Hussein read aloud the statement that he, Fuad, and Feisal had prepared the previous night, and he followed up by adding that he had reversed position “because he relied entirely on the British Government keeping their agreement with him … he only knew France through Great Britain [but he] … had complete confidence in Sykes’ word as he came direct from the British government.” Sykes expressed great satisfaction. King Hussein wished “to play the game.” Picot was “obviously
delighted”
³⁴
too: “On such a reply
³⁵
he would have a useful communication to make to his Government and … he hoped that after discussing matters with his Government he would have a further communication to make. The interview then concluded with a very good feeling prevailing.” But of course it did. Hussein thought he had tricked the French; Picot thought he had tricked Hussein; and Sykes, if our reading is correct, believed he could square this circle at a later date.

If the principals were satisfied, however, some of the lesser figures were not. They shared neither Hussein’s faith in Sykes nor Sykes’s faith in Sykes. Colonel Cyril Wilson, for one, felt deep unease. When the king read his statement, “it struck me as possible
³⁶
that the sharif [Hussein], one of the most courteous of men, absolutely loyal to us and with complete faith in Great Britain, was verbally agreeing to a thing which he never would agree to if he knew our interpretation of what the IRAQ situation is to be.” He took Sykes aside: “Does the Sharif [Hussein] know what the situation at Baghdad really is?”