This is a short but dense post based on a memorandum, a speech before parliament, a declaration, a correspondence, entries from a diary, two agreements, a protocol, a revolt, a world war, two armistices, two peace conferences, two mandates, a short war and an interim report. It recounts the intrigues and deal making that led from the outbreak of WWI to the establishment of the British Mandate in Palestine.
The Samuels Memorandum, the Balfour Declaration, the Arab Revolt, …
With the end of WWI and the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, the League of Nations gave Great Britain a legal way to take over the Holy Land under a “mandate,” a euphemism for “colony.” France, similarly, took over Syria and Lebanon. The period from 1920-1948 in the Holy Land is known as the British Mandate in Palestine – using the ancient Greek name, παλαιστίνη (Land of the Philistines) for the region. The first British High Commissioner for Palestine was Viscount Herbert Samuel, a Jew and a Zionist – who himself played a key role in events leading up to the Mandate.
Indeed, going back to January 1915, soon after the British Declaration of War on the Ottoman Empire, Samuel, as a member of the British Cabinet, circulated a memorandum, The Future of Palestine, in which he called for Jewish relocation there; this document was not generally well received by the cabinet members but was welcomed most importantly by Lloyd George, the prime minister. Interestingly and prophetically, Samuel anticipates American involvement in The Great War:
“The course which is advocated would win for England the lasting gratitude of the Jews throughout the world. In the United States, where they number about 2,000,000, and in all the other lands where they are scattered, they would form the body of opinion whose bias, where the interest of the country of which they were citizens was not involved, would be favourable to the British Empire.”
Famously, he concludes with a patriotic tip of the hat to the eminent historian-statesman Thomas Babington Macaulay; Samuel quotes from the speech Macaulay gave in support of Jewish emancipation in the U.K. back in 1833 which concluded theatrically with
“Let us do justice to them. Let us open to them the door of the House of Commons. Let us open to them every career in which ability and energy can be displayed. Till we have done this, let us not presume to say that there is no genius among the countrymen of Isaiah, no heroism among the descendants of the Maccabees.”
For the full text of the memorandum, click HERE .
For the full text of Macaulay’s speech, click HERE .
BTW Jews weren’t alone in having to deal with shabby treatment in Macaulay’s era. A significant step in the emancipation of Roman Catholics in the U.K. and Ireland took place in 1829 with the Roman Catholic Relief Act; but it wasn’t until 1920 that the last of the Catholic “disabilities” were repealed, except that the monarch cannot be a Catholic – but by a recent Commonwealth decision, the reigning King or Queen can now marry a Catholic! For more details, click HERE .
Even before WWI (aka World War I , The Great War, The War To End All Wars, … ), back in the Middle East, the British were engaged in anti-Ottoman plots. On Feb. 5, 1914, the British Governor General of Egypt and Sudan, no other than Lord Kitchener himself, had a meeting in Cairo with Prince Abdullah bin Hussein – the second son of Hussein bin Ali, the Sharif of Mecca, about British assistance to Sharif Hussein in any Arab movement for the formation of an independent Arab state. Lord Kitchener’s intrigues were furthered by the Damascus Protocol of Feb. 23, 1915, a document calling for British support for an Arab uprising against the Ottoman Empire; the document was composed by operatives of the nationalist Arab secret societies al-Fatat and al-‘Ahd and given to Prince Faisal bin Hussein, the third son of the Sharif, in Damascus for him to act as an intermediary with the British. The document proposed that the Arabs revolt against the Turks in alliance with Great Britain in return for recognition of Arab independence in all of the Middle East from the Mediterranean Sea in the West to Persia and the Persian Gulf in the East, from the Turkish border in the North to the Gulf of Aden in the South. This then formed the basis of the McMahon-Hussein Correspondence (July 14, 1915 – March 10, 1916), an exchange of ten letters between Sir Henry McMahon (Kitchener’s replacement in Egypt) and Faisal’s father, Sharif Hussein, where the British pledged support for an Arab Revolt against the Turks and agreed “on paper” to post-War Arab control of the Middle East as outlined in the Damascus Protocol. On the one hand, the Arab Revolt did take place and did significantly aid the British-French war effort; on the other hand, Britain and France between themselves had very different ideas for the Middle East but kept their Arab allies in the dark.
In fact, during the same time period (Nov 23, 1915 – Jan 3, 1916), the British and French were engaged in secret negotiations leading to a memorandum known as the Sykes-Picot Agreement in London and Les Accords Picot-Sykes in Paris, a blueprint to carve up the Middle East after the war. The text is a masterpiece of colonial wheeling and dealing, assigning Syria, Lebanon and Mosul (in Iraq) to the French, Iraq and the Gulf States to the English etc. For the Holy Land, itself, the British are put in charge of most of Palestine plus today’s country of Jordan; but the heart of Palestine from Akko (aka Acre, the Crusaders’ last stronghold) to Haifa to Jerusalem was to be under international control; no position was taken as to whether Palestine should someday become an independent state or stay an international ward – all made more complicated by the role the French played under the Ottomans as protector of the Christian holy sites in the region, a role which went back to 1536 and the Franco-Ottoman Alliance, the time of the French king Francis I and the Turkish Sultan Suleiman I – their common antagonist was Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, King of Spain, Holland and Flanders, monarch of Mexico and other possessions rapidly accumulating around the world.
True to the Arab commitment, the Arab Revolt was officially begun at Mecca on June 10,1916 under the leadership of Faisal’s father, the Sharif Hussein ben Ali. On the other hand, although Hussein’s British correspondent Sir Henry McMahon had already been informed of the terms of the Sykes-Picot agreement, he and British Foreign Secretary Viscount Edward Grey agreed, for their part, that this information would not be revealed to Hussein – so much for honor among British aristocrats.
In what is now Jordan, in the fall of 1916, Faisal linked up with Captain T.E. Lawrence, a British intelligence officer from Cairo and the rest is history, in particular cinematic history (Lawrence of Arabia: Alec Guiness, too old for the part, plays Faisal while Peter O’Toole, brilliantly ambiguous in his part, plays T.E. Lawrence.) The real Faisal, with Lawrence’ aid, would indeed go on to play a leadership role in the Arab Revolt delivering large swaths of territory to the British. But Faisal would be thwarted after the war by the English and French and the secret Sykes-Picot agreement.
And the Arabs were not consulted either for the preparation of the extraordinary Balfour Declaration of Nov 2, 1917. This document took the form of a letter addressed by Viscount Grey’s successor as Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour, to leading British Zionist, Lionel Walter de Rothschild, the 2nd Baron Rothschild, the son of the 1st Baron Rothschild, Lionel Nathan de Rothschild, the banker who famously secured the financing for the British takeover of the Suez Canal in 1875. Most dramatically, the Balfour Declaration proposes that Palestine be a “national home for the Jewish people.” The short text, a classic example of British understatement, is surprisingly informal in tone for a missive from the British Foreign Office:
Foreign Office
November 2nd, 1917
Dear Lord Rothschild,
I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty’s Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet:
His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors 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.
I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.
Yours,
Arthur James Balfour
Clearly, it is written as a note of thanks to the British Jewish community for their continued patriotic support of English wartime policy. Looking ahead, having a pro-British presence in that area would also serve to protect the Suez Canal. As with the Samuel Memorandum, the Balfour Declaration too is considered a play for American support. What is more, the declaration was made just days before the Communist Revolution in Russia; it has been suggested that the Foreign Office wanted to send a signal of support to the Jewish members of the Communist Party hierarchy (e.g. Trotsky) to help keep Russia in the War. Even so, under Lenin, the Russians abandoned the War with the treaty of Brest-Litovsk (March 3, 1918), leaving the Germans free to concentrate on the Western front.
Aside: The British were very keen on creating peers in this era. Balfour himself was doubly honored with titles of the Scottish nobility in 1922 becoming both Earl of Balfour and Viscount Traprain of Whittingehame.
In the Middle East, aided by their Arab allies, the British and the French pushed ahead with the “Sinai and Palestine Campaign.” By the end of 1917, the British occupied Jerusalem and Damascus fell on October 1, 1918. Hostilities came to a halt with the Armistice of Mudros, October 30, 1918. Not even two weeks later, in France, the Armistice was signed at Compiègne on November 11 ending the “war to end all wars.”
Next, the Clemenceau-Lloyd George Agreement of 1 December 1918 modified the Sykes-Picot agreement and went far in determining future events in the Holy Land. This agreement was made during an informal conversation between the two Entente leaders at the French Embassy in London after a rather successful event welcoming Clemenceau and other war-time leaders to the British capital. This conversation left no official record but its gist was noted in the personal diary of British official Maurice Hankey. (Hankey began as a civil servant, served as Secretary to the War Cabinet during and after the War, and then became the 1st Baron Hankey in 1939 thus adding one more peer).
Hankey’s diary entry of December 4, 1918 describes what transpired during that conversation:
“All went well and they all had a magnificent reception. Afterwards, I saw Ll. G. at 10 Downing St. He said Clemenceau had really been affected by his welcome. Ll. G. had seized the opportunity to demand first Mosul and then Jerusalem in the peace terms. Clemenceau, in his malleable state, had agreed.”
Hankey later added to that diary entry a pointer forward to his entry for December 11, 1920, in which he elaborated:
“[On December 4, 1918 ] Clemenceau and Foch had come over after the armistice and were given a great military and public reception. Ll. G. and Clemenceau had driven over to the French embassy … When they were alone … Clemenceau said ‘Well, what are we to discuss?’ ‘Mesopotamia and Palestine’ replied Ll. G. ‘Tell me what you want’ asked Clemenceau. ‘I want Mosul,’ said Ll. G. ‘You shall have it’ said Clemenceau. ‘Anything else?’ ‘Yes, I want Jerusalem too’ continued Ll. G. ‘You shall have it’ said Clemenceau ‘but Pichon [a member of Clemenceau’s staff] will make difficulties about Mosul.’ There was absolutely no record or made at the time, and I believe my diary of Dec. 4th 1918 contains the only record … and that was only second hand from Ll. G. for I was not present. Nevertheless, and in spite of great pressure from his colleagues and all sorts of interested parties Clemenceau, who was always straight as a die, never went back on his word, and I am bound to say Ll. G. never gave him a chance. Thus and thus is history made!”
N.B. These texts from Hankey’s diaries are taken from the second volume of Stephen Roskill’s magistral Hankey: Man of Secrets (Collins 1970). Its impressive book jacket includes favorable comments by the controversial historian A.J.P. Taylor and by the celebrated author and long time civil servant C.P. Snow.
N.B. The Sykes-Picot Agreement stipulated that Palestine, because of the holy places, should be under an “international administration.” Relinquishing all claims to Jerusalem and the Holy Land was surprising on the part of the combative Clemenceau given that the French already had an important role in protecting and administering the holy sites of Christianity and especially given his reputation as a fierce man of politics and polemics – something which earned him the sobriquet Le Tigre (The Tiger) . One wonders what Hankey really meant by Clemenceau’s being in “a malleable state.”
Faisal was present at the Paris Peace Conference (1919-1920) to represent his father, who had led the Arab Revolt; T.E. Lawrence served as his interpreter (in Arab headdress no less), but Faisal was largely ignored; in protest over the British and French claims on the Middle East, the Arab delegation did not sign the Treaty of Versailles. On the other hand, for its part the Paris Peace Conference endorsed the modified Sykes-Picot agreement.
N.B. For recent scholarship on Faisal and the Paris Peace Conference etc., see Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World by Margaret Mitchell (Random House, 2003).
The next step on the road to the British Mandate in Palestine was the San Remo Conference in April 1920 where the League of Nations made it official. For his part, Faisal in a letter to the British government stated his opposition to the Balfour proposal to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine, which naturally was ignored.
The San Remo Conference also created the French Mandate in Syria and Lebanon which got off to a rocky start when Arabs under Faisal tried to establish an Arab kingdom in Damascus, an act logical enough given the understanding that had sparked the Arab Revolt. The French reacted quickly and the Franco-Syrian War followed which ended with the French “triumphantly” entering Damascus on July 24, 1920. (The protectorate lasted until 1946.) As a compensation prize, Faisal was eventually made King of Iraq, a puppet in a British protectorate; he reigned from 1921 until his death in 1933.
On the other hand, the San Remo Conference and the League of Nations named Viscount Samuel to the position of High Commissioner of Mandatory Palestine; he started his term on July 1, 1920 staying on until June 30, 1925.
For the period July 1, 1920-June 30,1921, the first year of Samuel’s tenure, his office submitted an Interim Report on the Civil Administration of Palestine to the League of Nations. The demographics of the region are described thusly:
“There are now in the whole of Palestine hardly 700,000 people … . Of these 235,000 live in the larger towns, 465,000 in the smaller towns and villages. Four-fifths of the whole population are Moslems. …. Some 77,000 of the population are Christians, in large majority belonging to the Orthodox Church, and speaking Arabic …. . The Jewish element of the population numbers 76,000. Almost all have entered Palestine during the last 40 years. Prior to 1850 there were in the country only a handful of Jews. In the following 30 years a few hundreds came to Palestine. … After the persecutions in Russia forty years ago, the movement of the Jews to Palestine assumed larger proportions. …”
For the full text of the document, click HERE .
More to come. Affaire a suivre.
P.S. For the previous post in this series, click HERE .