McMahon–Hussein correspondence

[b] The correspondence is composed of ten letters that were 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.

[6] 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 were to cause great controversy in subsequent years.

[7][c] Following the publication of the November 1917 Balfour Declaration (a letter written by British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour to Baron Rothschild, a wealthy and prominent leader in the British Jewish community), 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 violated.

Discussions culminated in a telegram sent on 1 November 1914 from Kitchener—who had recently been 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".

Faisal was in Damascus to resume talks with the Arab secret societies al-Fatat and Al-'Ahd that he had met 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.

[e] Historians have used an excerpt from a private letter sent on 4 December 1915 by McMahon halfway through the eight-month period of the correspondence 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 ...

"Vilayets of Aleppo and Beirut": "as the interests of our ally, France, are involved in them both, the question will require careful consideration and a further communication on the subject will be addressed to you in due course."

"Vilayet of Bagdad": Proposed to postpone discussion Other: Responds to apprehension on timing with confirmation that Britain "has no intention of concluding any peace in terms of which the freedom of the Arab peoples from German and Turkish domination does not form an essential condition."

British Prime Minister David Lloyd George and Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour represented the agreement as a treaty during the post-war deliberations of the Council of Four.

Hussein was satisfied by two disingenuous telegrams from Sir Reginald Wingate, who had replaced McMahon as High Commissioner of Egypt, assuring him the British commitments to the Arabs were still valid and that the Sykes–Picot Agreement was not a formal treaty.

The Hogarth message assured Hussein "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 ...".

[46] In light of the existing McMahon–Hussein correspondence and in the wake of the seemingly Zionist-favourable Balfour Declaration, as well as Russia's publication weeks later of the older and previously secret Sykes–Picot Agreement with Russia and France, seven Syrian notables in Cairo from the newly formed Syrian Party of Unity (Hizb al-Ittibad as-Suri) issued a memorandum requesting clarification from the UK Government, including a "guarantee of the ultimate independence of Arabia".

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 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.

[57] On 6 January 1920, Prince Faisal initialed an agreement with French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau that acknowledged "the right of the Syrians to unite to govern themselves as an independent nation.

The French intervened militarily at the Battle of Maysalun in June 1920, deposing the indigenous Arab government and removing King Faisal from Damascus in August 1920.

[o] Lansing was a member of the American Commission to Negotiate Peace at Paris in 1919; he said the system of mandates was a device created by the Great Powers to conceal their division of the spoils of war under the colour of international law.

In March 1924, having briefly considered the possibility of removing the offending article from the treaty, the UK government suspended negotiations[10] and within six months withdrew support in favour of its central Arabian ally Ibn Saud, who proceeded to conquer Hussein's kingdom.

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.

[75] 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.

[75]More than 50 years after his initial report interpreting the correspondence for the British Foreign Office, Arnold J. Toynbee published his perspectives on the continuing academic debate.

As one official, who was present, said: 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.

[78]James Barr wrote that although McMahon had intended to reserve the French interests, he became a victim of his own cleverness because the translator Ruhi lost the qualifying sense of the sentence in the Arabic version.

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.

[81]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.

[82][83] McMahon described conversations with a Muhammed Sharif al-Faruqi, a member of the Abd party who said the British could satisfy the demands of the Syrian Nationalists for the independence of Arabia.

Faroqi had said 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.

[92][93] In the public arena, Balfour was criticized in the House of Commons when the Liberals and Labour 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".

[94] 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 Palestine had always been excluded from the Arab area.

"I feel it my duty to state, and I do so definitely and emphatically, that it was not intended by me in giving this pledge to King Hussein to include Palestine in the area in which Arab independence was promised.