1970/10/01 by Eliè Kedourie · 2 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Social Sciences · #Archaeological Research and Protection #Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies #Middle East and Rwanda Conflicts
paper · doi:10.1080/00263207008700157
openalex publication_date 1970/10/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/03
The role of Sir Mark Sykes in the formation of British Middle-Eastern policy in the First World War has always been thought to be prominent. But it is only now, when most of the relevant archives have been made available, that his role is coming to be exactly known, and the degree of its prominence to be appreciated. It is with the so-called Sykes-Picot Agreement that his name has been mostly associated. In a book published in 1956 I remarked that 'Very few people believed in the Sykes-Picot Agreement, and among those on the English side who did, it is a moot point whether Sir Mark Sykes can be included.' This tentative judgment has now found confirmation in the Foreign Office files which show that on more than one occasion after its signature Sykes disclaimed responsibility for its provisions, and expressed disagreement with them. This need not occasion surprise, for in carrying out the negotiation with Picot, Sykes was acting not as a principal but as an agent, bound by the views and decisions of ministers. Indeed, on one crucial issue in particular, he held and continued to hold views quite at variance with the arrangements envisaged in the Agreement. This was the issue of Palestine. What his views on Palestine were at the start of the war appears quite clearly from the alternative plans for dealing with the Ottoman Empire which he put before the Bunsen Committee. At the Committee's meeting of April 17, 1915, Sykes proposed either that the non-Turkish portions of the Ottoman Empire should be annexed by the various Allies, or that the Empire should be maintained intact and divided into zones of commercial and political interest. In the first case Sykes proposed that Britain should acquire the territory from Haifa in the north to Egypt in the south; if the second alternative were to be adopted Britain ought to have the predominant position in the same area.2 In a most interesting letter which Sykes wrote after Kitchener's death to his biographer, he explained how he came to be a member of the Bunsen Committee. On the outbreak of war he was introduced by Lancelot Oliphant of the Foreign Office to Kitchener's personal military secretary, Colonel 0. A. G. Fitzgerald, to whom he began giving his views on Eastern affairs, for Kitchener's benefit. 'When the Dardanelles expedition was decided upon,' Sykes went on, 'I was sent for to the War Office and worked under General Callwell, preparing books, memoranda, etc. for the forces. I was told I was going with the expedition, but at the last moment was ordered to remain in London, and then returned to my battalion for a short time, but was sent for again, and appointed at the personal request of Lord Kitchener as a member of the Committee formed to ascertain British desiderata in Asiatic Turkey.... 'Through Fitzgerald Lord Kitchener told me that he wished to keep him in touch with the situation, . . . I used to report to Fitzgerald each