Eastern Committee

It discussed the strategy Great Britain would follow at the planned after-war peace conference and the goals to achieve in the East, in order to protect its imperial interests.

[2][3] The full members were: Lancelot Oliphant (Persia) and Mark Sykes (Middle East) from the Foreign Office were to act as liaison officials with the Secretary and attend when their area was under discussion.

[7] On 21 October 1918, the War Cabinet asked Smuts to prepare a negotiation brief for use by the 1919 Paris Peace Conference delegates.

In November, T. E. Lawrence presented to the EC a map with proposals for a modification of the Sykes–Picot Agreement, which would redraw the borders in the Middle East.

[10] Having prepared British desiderata for the Paris Peace Conference, the Committee asked the Cabinet on 7 January 1919 to be dissolved.

For two years thereafter, the Eastern Committee was in turn replaced by the ad-hoc Interdepartmental Conference on Middle Eastern Affairs, Lord Curzon of Kedleston (Lord President of the Council) still in the chair while deputizing for Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Arthur Balfour in his absence at the Peace Conference.