In another sign of British dissatisfaction with Sykes-Picot, Sykes wrote a “Memorandum on the Asia Minor Agreement” in August, which amounted to advocating its renegotiation, otherwise the French should be made clear that they are “doing good – that is, if they cannot reconcile the military effort with their policies, they should change their policies.” After much discussion, Sykes was tasked with reaching an agreement with Picot or an amendment to Sykes-Picot (“Draft Arrangement”) on the “future status of the Hejaz and Arabia,” and this was achieved at the end of September. [64] At the end of the year, however, the agreement still had to be ratified by the French government. [65] George Curzon stated that the great powers were still committed to the Organic Settlement Agreement, which concerned governance and non-interference in the affairs of the Maronite, Orthodox Christian, Druze, and Muslim communities in relation to the Beirut vilayet of June 1861 and September 1864, adding that the rights granted to France in modern Syria today and in parts of Turkey under Sykes-Picot are incompatible with this agreement. [78] On September 18, Faisal arrived in London and the next day and on the 23rd he had long meetings with Lloyd George, who explained the aide-memoire and the British position. Lloyd George said he was “in the position of a man who had inherited two types of obligations, those to King Hussein and those to the French,” and Faisal noted that the agreement “appeared to be based on the 1916 agreement between the British and the French.” Clemenceau, who responded in reference to the aide-memoire, refused to travel to Syria, saying the issue should be left to the French to deal directly with Faisal. Loevy makes a similar point regarding sections 4 to 8 of the agreement, referring to the British and French practicing “Ottoman colonial development as insiders” and that this experience served as a roadmap for subsequent war negotiations. [51] While Khalidi pointed to the negotiations between Britain and France in 1913 and 1914 on the Homs-Baghdad railway line and their agreements with Germany in other regions as a “clear basis” for their subsequent spheres of influence under the agreement. [52] The agreement was based on the premise that the Triple Entente would successfully defeat the Ottoman Empire in World War I, and was part of a series of secret agreements that considered its division. The main negotiations leading to the agreement took place between 23 November 1915 and 3 January 1916, when British and French diplomats Mark Sykes and François Georges-Picot initialled an agreed memorandum.
[3] The Convention was ratified by their respective governments on 9 and 16 May 1916. [4] After the outbreak of war in the summer of 1914, the Allies – Britain, France, and Russia – had many discussions about the future of the Ottoman Empire, which was now fighting alongside Germany and the Central Powers, and its vast territories in the Middle East, Arabia, and southern Central Europe. In March 1915, Britain signed a secret agreement with Russia, whose plans on the territory of the Empire had led the Turks to merge with Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1914. Under his terms, Russia would annex the Ottoman capital of Constantinople and retain control of the Dardanelles (the extremely important strait that connects the Black Sea to the Mediterranean) and the Gallipoli Peninsula, the target of a major Allied military invasion that began in April 1915. In return, Russia would accept British claims to other parts of the former Ottoman Empire and central Persia, including the oil-rich region of Mesopotamia. In his introduction to a symposium on Sykes-Picot in 2016, law professor Anghie notes that much of the agreement is devoted to “trade and trade agreements, access to ports, and railway construction.” [50] More than a year after the agreement with Russia, British and French representatives Sir Mark Sykes and François Georges Picot drafted another secret agreement on the future spoils of the First World War. Picot represented a small group determined to secure control of Syria for France; Sykes, for his part, has raised British demands to compensate for influence in the region. The deal largely failed to facilitate the future growth of Arab nationalism, which the British government and military were using to their advantage against the Turks at the same time. On September 15, the British distributed an aide-memoire (which had been discussed privately two days earlier between Lloyd George and Clemenceau [103]), in which the British would withdraw their troops in Palestine and Mesopotamia and hand over Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo to Faisal`s troops.While accepting the withdrawal, Clemenceau continued to insist on the Sykes-Picot agreement as the basis for all discussions. [104] The agreement effectively divided the Ottoman provinces outside the Arabian Peninsula into areas under British and French control and influence. The lands controlled by the British and French were divided by the Sykes-Picot line. [5] The agreement gave Britain control of present-day southern Israel and Palestine, Jordan and southern Iraq, as well as a small additional area that included the ports of Haifa and Acre to allow access to the Mediterranean. [6] [7] [8] France was to control southeastern Turkey, northern Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. [8] The Frenchman elected Picot as French High Commissioner for the soon-to-be-occupied territory of Syria and Palestine. The British appointed Sykes chief political officer of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force. The 3. In April 1917, Sykes met with Lloyd George, Curzon, and Hankey to obtain his instructions to keep the Frenchman on his side while pushing for British Palestine. First Sykes in early May, then Picot and Sykes visited the Hejaz together later in May to discuss the deal with Faisal and Hussein. [55]:166 Hussein was persuaded to accept a formula according to which the French in Syria would follow the same policy as the British in Baghdad; as Hussein believed that Baghdad would be part of the Arab state, this had finally satisfied him. Subsequent reports from participants expressed doubts about the exact nature of the discussions and the extent to which Hussein had really been informed of Sykes-Picot`s conditions.
[61] The formal agreements between Britain, France and Russia included the following eleven letters. The agreement is seen by many as a turning point in Western and Arab relations. He denied Britain`s promises to the Arabs[9] regarding a national Arab homeland in the Greater Syria region in exchange for British support against the Ottoman Empire. The agreement, along with others, was published by the Bolsheviks[10] in Moscow on November 23, 1917 and repeated in the British Guardian on November 26, 1917, so that “the British were embarrassed, the Arabs dismayed, and the Turks delighted.” [11] [12] [13] The legacy of the agreement has aroused much resentment in the region, especially among arabs, but also among kurds, who have been denied an independent state. [14] [15] [16] [17] In the Sykes-Picot Agreement, concluded on May 19, 1916, France and Great Britain divided the Arab territories of the former Ottoman Empire into spheres of influence. In the area envisaged, it was agreed that each country should be allowed to establish a direct or indirect administration or control that it wishes and that it deems appropriate in agreement with the Arab State or the Confederation of Arab States. Under Sykes-Picot, the Syrian coast and much of present-day Lebanon passed to France; Britain would take direct control of central and southern Mesopotamia around the provinces of Baghdad and Basra. Palestine would have an international administration, since other Christian powers, namely Russia, would have an interest in this region. The rest of the territory in question – a vast area that includes present-day Syria, Mosul in northern Iraq and Jordan – would have local Arab leaders under French supervision in the north and British in the south. Moreover, Britain and France would maintain free passage and trade within each other`s sphere of influence.The agreement was drafted and negotiated by the countries` diplomats in the coming months and signed by the Allies between August 18 and September 26, 1917. [38] Russia was not represented in this agreement because the Tsarist regime was in the midst of a revolution. The lack of Russian approval of the Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne Agreement was then exploited by the British at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 to invalidate it, a position that greatly enraged the Italian government. [41] As Sykes-Picot`s centenary approached in 2016, the media and universities[110] generated great interest in the long-term effects of the agreement[109] and universities[110]. .
