SYKES-PICOT AGREEMENT

SYKES-PICOT AGREEMENT (in official terminology, the 1916 Asia Minor Agreement),
secret agreement reached during World War I between the British and French governments
pertaining to the partition of the Ottoman Empire among the Allied Powers. The terms were
specified in a letter dated May 9, 1916, which Paul Cambon, the French ambassador in
London, addressed to Sir Edward Grey, the British foreign secretary. It was ratified in a letter
from Grey to Cambon on May 16. Russia was also privy to the discussions and consented to
the terms. The agreement became official in an exchange of notes among the three Allied
Powers on April 26 and May 23, 1916. In a subsequent stage Italy, too, gave her consent
and the notes, which had been exchanged between April 10 and September 27, 1917, and
were confirmed in the Treaty of St. Jean de Maurienne.
Background
When Sir Henry McMahon, the British high commissioner in Egypt, had reached a crucial
stage in his negotiations with Sharif Hussein of Mecca (see *Israel State of: Historical
Survey), Grey expressed concern that the advocated support of Arab demands on Syria
would create the impression in France that the British merely intended to establish their own
interests at the expense of the French. "Our primary and vital object," he emphasized, "is not
to secure a new sphere of British influence, but to get the Arabs on our side."
An agreement with France was indispensable to avoid the impression that Britain had acted
in bad faith. France regarded Syria as a dependency, and a separate arrangement with the
sharif without France's participation could have had a chilling effect on the cordiality of
the entente. Grey therefore suggested that Paris send a competent representative to discuss
the matter.
The first round of discussions took place in London on November 23, 1915. The French
government was represented by Franois-Georges Picot, a professional diplomat with
extensive experience in the Levant, who before the war had been consul-general in Beirut.
The British delegation was led by Sir Arthur Nicolson. Picot was uncompromising; he insisted
that Syria was a purely French possession, and by Syria he meant the region bounded by
the Taurus ridges in the north and the Egyptian frontier on the south.
The second round of discussions took place on December 21. The British were represented
by Sir Mark *Sykes, a leading expert on the East. This time Picot was in a more
accommodating mood. Having juxtaposed the desiderata of all the parties concerned, the
British, the French, and the Arabs, the two statesmen worked out a compromise solution.
Terms of the Agreement
It was agreed that France was to exercise direct control over Cilicia, the coastal strip of
Syria, the Lebanon, and the greater part of Galilee, up to the line stretching from north of
Acre to the northwest corner of Lake Kinneret (Sea of Galilee), referred to as the "blue zone."
East of that zone, in the Syrian hinterland, an Arab state was to be created under French
protection (Area "A"). Britain was to exercise control over southern Mesopotamia (the "red
zone"), the territory around the Acre-Haifa bay in the Mediterranean, with rights to build a
railway from there to Baghdad. The territory east of the Jordan River and the Negev, south of
the line stretching from Gaza to the Dead Sea, was allocated to an Arab state under British
protection (Area "B"). South of France's "blue zone," in the area covering the Sanjak of
Jerusalem, and extending southwards toward the line running approximately from Gaza to
the Dead Sea, was to be a "brown zone" under international administration.
Assessment
In the years that followed, the Sykes-Picot Agreement became the target of bitter criticism,
both in France and in England. Lloyd George referred to it as an "egregious" and a "foolish"
document. He was particularly indignant that Palestine was inconsiderately mutilated. As
seen from the perspective of 1917 this was, perhaps, true, but in the winter of 191516,
when negotiations were in full swing, the strategic importance of Palestine had not yet been
fully appreciated in British official circles. The overriding aim was to make an Arab uprising
possible, and this hinged on French concessions to Arab demands in the Syrian hinterland.
Nor could military operations on the eastern front take place without French concurrence.
Without a British offensive, there could have been no Arab revolt, and without the Sykes-
Picot Agreement there would have been no British offensive. The compromise solution with
the French was the price that the British had to pay. The true progenitor of the Sykes-Picot
Agreement was the McMahon-Hussein correspondence.
From this point of view Arab criticism is even less justified. The two negotiations showed
meticulous consideration for Arab interests and blended it with healthy realism. The power
vacuum created by the destruction of the Ottoman Empire had to be filled by a new authority;
the alternative was chaos. Absolute independence for the Arabs would have invited anarchy
or an outside invasion. There was no material incompatibility between the agreement and the
pledges made to Sharif Hussein.
The Agreement and Zionism
During the discussions Sykes and Picot took note that the Jews throughout the world have "a
conscientious and sentimental interest" in the future of the country. Zionist aspirations were
passed over. This lapse was severely criticized by William R. Hall, head of the Intelligence
Department of the British Admiralty. He pointed out that the Jews have "a strong material,
and a very strong political interest in the future of the country and that in the Brown area the
question of Zionism [ought] to be considered."
It took Sykes several months to appreciate the fact that he had committed a blunder. The
growing awareness of Germany's ambition to dominate the Middle East was the decisive
factor that prompted him to embrace the concept of a British-controlled
Proposed partition of the Middle East
under the Sykes-Picot Treaty, 1916. Based on Zev Vilnay, New Israel Atlas, Jerusalem,
1968.
Palestine. A condominium with France in Palestine was fraught with danger, since the very
principle of an international regime left the door open to Germany. Hence, as the historian Sir
Charles Webster put it, "a situation had to be created in which the worst features of the
Sykes-Picot Agreement could be got rid of without breaking faith In these circumstances
Dr. Weizmann's offer was an attractive one." Herein lay the raison d'tre of the alliance with
British Zionism. It provided a way to outmaneuver the French without a breach of faith, and
was a useful card at the future peace conference to play against any move by Germany.
The agreement was officially abrogated by the Allies at the San Remo Conference in April
1920, when the Mandate for Palestine was conferred upon Britain.