THE INVENTION OF THE TRANSJORDANIAN-SYRIAN BORDER:

1915-1932

______

A Thesis

Presented to the

Faculty of

San Diego State University

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In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

Master of Arts

in

History

______

by

Daniel Moneef Kakish

Fall 2013

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Copyright © 2013 by Daniel Moneef Kakish All Rights Reserved

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ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS

The Invention of the Transjordanian-Syrian Border: 1915-1932 by Daniel Moneef Kakish Master of Arts in History San Diego State University, 2013

The purpose of this thesis will be to better understand the process in which the Transjordanian-Syrian border was created. This thesis argues that the Imperial Powers decided to impose this border based on a number a reasons, some indirectly related to the future states that would be Syria and Jordan. Also, I argue that the Sykes-Picot Agreement became moot and the final agreements had more to do with direct and indirect imperial relations with the Arabs. Had the Sykes-Picot Agreement remained the official agreement, the imperialist division of the Levant would not have existed in regard to direct French military control of Syria and the separation of Transjordan from it. Therefore, this thesis examines not only the agreements by the Imperialists but also the way in which the Arabs themselves, along with the imperial powers did not abide by it, but was only a framework used in the creation of the borders of the modern states of the Fertile Crescent. In relation to books directly and indirectly corresponding to this topic, primary sources such as The Fitroy Somerset Collection 1919-1921, The Deliberations of the Council of Four (March 24-June 28, 1919), Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, The Memoirs of King Abdullah I (1950) of Transjordan as translated by Philip Graves, T.E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1935). Secondary sources such as George Antonius’ The Arab Awakening (1965), Ma’an Abu Nowar’s The History of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (1989), David Fromkin’s A Peace to End All Peace (1990), and Eliezer Tauber’s The Formation of Modern Syria and Iraq (1995) as well as others have been of great help during the search for answers to the questions of why and how Sykes and Picot agreed and how the agreement was put into practice by the governments of Great Britain and France. This presentation will highlight several examples of political borders immediately before the implementation of the Imperial mandates as well as different interpretations of what borders were constituted by the mandates. The first example that will be used to show the lack of official recognition of the Sykes-Picot line will be the borders that constituted the limits of “Syria” in late 1918 to early 1919. The Euphrates town of Raqqa was to be Syria’s frontier town on its eastern border with Iraq as this was the case during the period of Ottoman administration. This was contrary to the Sykes-Picot Agreement which would have given all of northern Mesopotamia to the future French Mandate of Syria. This gives some leverage to my argument that the Sykes-Picot Agreement was not as authoritative as commonly perceived. Syria’s status at that time was a monarchy under Faisal I while Iraq was under British authority. Being on the border, Northwestern Mesopotamians obviously preferred to join an Arab-controlled state under Faisal, rather than what seemed to them to be the British Colony of Iraq. Therefore after many diplomatic and military efforts, the British agreed to attach that portion of Mesopotamia to Faisal’s Syria. Ironically, Faisal became king

v of Iraq after being ousted of Syria by the French while Northwestern Mesopotamia remained attached to French Syria, coincidentally in accordance with the Sykes-Picot Agreement. The second example will be the southern border of the Levant, separating it from the Arabian Peninsula. The southern border of Transjordan with Saudi Arabia as it currently exists was created during the Saudi Conquest of the Hashemite Kingdom of the Hejaz in 1925. The northernmost districts of the Kingdom of Hejaz included current Jordanian cities as far north as Shawbak. During the Saudi conquest of the Hejaz, the northern districts as far south as Aqaba were transferred to the government of Transjordan by Abdullah I’s older brother, Ali, who was the King of Hejaz at that time. The Saudi government did not formally recognize this transfer until 1965, claiming that the transferred areas are naturally part of the Hejaz. This was also excluded from imperialist designations and finalized almost exclusively between the Arabs themselves (the British played an advising role).

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

ABSTRACT ...... iv LIST OF FIGURES ...... vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... viii CHAPTER 1 THE SETTING FOR IMPERIALIST AMBITIONS IN OTTOMAN ASIA ...... 1 2 THE ANGLO-ARAB TERRITORIAL AGREEMENT ...... 13 3 IMPERIALIST TERRITORIAL ALLOCATIONS ...... 25 4 THE PROCESS OF ESTABLISHING THE TRANSJORDANIAN-SYRIAN BORDER ...... 39 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 53

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LIST OF FIGURES

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Figure 1. League of Nations Mandates, 1920...... 2 Figure 2. The Ottoman Levant...... 4 Figure 3. Hawran and Jebel Druze...... 6 Figure 4. Territorial agreements of the Hussein-McMahon correspondence of 1915- 1916...... 19 Figure 5. The Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916...... 31 Figure 6. The Hashemite Kingdom of Syria...... 35 Figure 7. The line dividing Transjordan and Syria...... 43 Figure 8. Territorial adjustments of the Convention Line of 1920...... 48

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to gratefully acknowledge the invaluable assistance of the professors on my thesis committee: Dr. Lawrence Baron, Dr. Farid Mahdavi, and Dr. Farid Abdel-Nour. Each contributed uniquely, whether by pointing me to specific, helpful sources and/or helping me to improve my writing in general. They were all detailed and careful in their feedback, helping me write this thesis to the best of my ability. I want to thank Dr. Baron for his consistent promptness in sending me thorough feedback of my work, referring me to helpful sources, and for his suggestion to focus the topic of my thesis to the Transjordanian-Syrian border specifically instead of all the borders of the newly created states of what was Ottoman Asia. Also, I would like to give special thanks to Dr. Mahdavi who has abundantly and patiently offered support, guidance, and encouragement, not just in this thesis but also throughout my academic career. I want to thank Dr. Abdel-Nour who pushed to make this thesis the best that it could be both in writing style and in content matter. I also want to thank Dr. Edward Beasley for taking the time to tell me about the National Register of Archives and Dr. Elizabeth Pollard for all of her feedback during my time in her Seminar class. May God bless each one in his/her life endeavors. I truly appreciate all of their help. I also want to thank my family, specifically my parents, who supported me unconditionally and helped to motivate me to achieve this goal and for their constant prayers.

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CHAPTER 1

THE SETTING FOR IMPERIALIST AMBITIONS IN OTTOMAN ASIA

The first quarter of the 20th Century saw the beginning and end of the First World War as well as the fall of the German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman empires. The latter in particular is the most significant case for this project because the northwestern portion of Ottoman Asia was carved out into four states in the Levant, as seen in Figure 1.

More precisely, the emphasis of this thesis will be on the creation of the boundary separating modern Syria and Jordan. The peace settlement established arbitrary borders and designated British and French temporary mandates and protectorates over the territories that are today’s Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian Territories, and Iraq. The positions adopted at the time by Arab political and community leaders in these territories were often in response to the presence of British, French and other foreign interests in the region. This thesis will focus on the reasons behind the creation of the Jordanian-Syrian border as a result of negotiations that took place between European powers as well as input that was provided by some of the Arabs living in the region. The leading personalities dealing with the division of the Levant in this process were mostly European, but many historians have exaggerated the external influence of the Anglo- French diplomats. Although they indeed had a significant impact, it was not to the extent commonly assumed. This is especially true in the case of the eastern border of Syria. Whereas the borders of Mandatory Palestine were indeed determined by Anglo-French negotiations, the creations of Lebanon and Transjordan were more complicated. Political miscalculations took place on the part of both the Arabs and the imperialist powers in determining the borders.

The question that I will attempt to answer in this thesis is how and why the border presently separating the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan from the Syrian Arab Republic was established. Each stroke of the pen that determined these borders impacted not only the

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Figure 1. League of Nations Mandates, 1920. Source: Alkhateeb, Firas. Lost Islamic History (blog). http://lostislamichistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/mandate.jpg. populace but also the present political state of the Middle East. Studies regarding the establishment of this specific border, however, are limited. Only after the fall of Faisal’s Hashemite Kingdom of Syria in the summer of 1920 did the part of that Kingdom east of the Jordan River become a “political vacuum.”1 And it was at that moment that the border was drawn that separated the territory of the French Mandate of Syria from the territory of the British Mandate of Transjordan. This thesis will examine the reasons why this border was drawn in this way.

1 Suzanne Lalonde, Determining Boundaries in a Conflicted World: The Role of a Uti Possidetis (Quebec: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2002), 96.

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The explanation given in the Anglo-French bilateral agreement that refers to straight lines from “the ‘e’ in Acre to the last ‘k’ in Kirkuk”2 does not suffice. The Sykes-Picot maps, especially in this case, show that the line where British Palestine is divided from French Lebanon drops south after crossing the Jordan River north of the Sea of Galilee. In other words, the northern border of the British Mandate for Palestine is noticeably further to the north than Transjordan’s northern border, giving the impression that the latter border was intentionally dropped to the south. What were the reasons for this change in the Sykes-Picot line in the case of the border of Jordan and Syria? One explanation offered in the literature is that the maps used by Sykes, Picot, and others involved in the process of the partition of the Ottoman Levant were Ottoman maps which marked the sanjaks (Turkish meaning districts) within the Ottoman vilayets (Turkish meaning provinces) and mutasarrifyat (roughly translated from Arabic to mean counties) of the Levant. The infamous straight line beginning at Acre going east through Transjordan was dropped southward after crossing the Jordan River. Rather, the puzzle involves changes to the northern “border” of Ottoman Palestine, which did not exist in its current form (as the Israeli-Lebanese border). The northern line of the Ottoman sanjak of Nablus essentially formed a straight line to the Yarmouk River. From Haifa and Acre one can easily draw a “straight” line through Nazareth then to the Yarmouk River which is at Jordan’s northern border, as, at times, the northern portion of the Galilee was administered[to the vilayet of Beirut (1888-1917) rather than to Mutasarrifiyet Jerusalem (see Figure 2). As a matter of fact, during the early process of discussions of partitioning the Levant and upon agreement of the Sykes-Picot negotiations in its most strict interpretation, the Northern Galilee was indeed thought to become a part of French territory in Lebanon and not international or British Palestine. It was a hard-fought revision of this line northward by British officials after the war and outside of what became the essentially moot Sykes-Picot Agreement that extended Palestine’s northern border to what it eventually became. Howard M. Sachar writes: Indeed, the [French] foreign minister [Stephen-Jean-Marie Pichon] rejected a British appeal even to revise the Sykes-Picot boundaries, and insisted that Northern Galilee, with its complex of Jewish settlements, must remain within the

2 James Barr, A Line in the Sand: The Anglo-French Struggle for the Middle East, 1914-1948 (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2012), 7.

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Figure 2. The Ottoman Levant. Source: ZioNation. “Map of Ottoman Levant (Land of Israel, Palestine).” Last modified June 1, 2011. http://www.zionism- israel.com/maps/Ottoman_Palestine_18 60.htm.

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Syrian enclave. Clearly, the British could not accept this literalist interpretation of the Sykes-Picot border, for their troops were even then garrisoned throughout all of Galilee as part of Occupied Enemy Territory South. Allenby and Gouraud had already smoothly worked out the military lines of demarcation on that understanding. It was also the agreement that had originally been reached (Palestine ‘from Dan to Beersheba’) between Lloyd George and Clemenceau in their London meeting of December 1918.3 Therefore, although it eventually was agreed upon and understood by both Powers that Northern Galilee would be included in future Mandatory Palestine, this territorial adjustment was not part of the Sykes-Picot agreement, like many other territorial adjustments and revisions that took place near the end and after the war.4 The above explanation, however, does not sufficiently explain the intricacies of the Jordanian-Syrian border, as its determination was a complicated process that stretched out for many years after the war. [Nor is the “straight line theory” in itself the sole explanation as the Ottoman provinces and districts were ever-changing, to the point that one wonders if they were even administered in the ways that they were drawn]. On June 18, 1919 (about a year and a half after the collapse of the Sykes-Picot Agreement), during a meeting between then Amir Faisal and Francois Georges-Picot of France, Picot informed Faisal that Great Britain was now claiming Palestine and its immediate eastern hinterland, explicitly requesting the Hawran, the plains stretching from south of the Damascene countryside ending at the Gilead Mountains in modern Jordan (see Figure 3), and its adjacent mountain, the Jebel Druze.5 This shows that Palestine’s more northern border seems to have been generally accepted at this point in the negotiations but the southern point of French Syria east of the River Jordan was still a matter of debate, as Sir Mark Sykes’ “straight line” came into question. Picot told Faisal that France rejected the British claim to include the Hawran in the British zone because Faisal was not present to discuss it, we will see later in this thesis that the French disagreement was much more motivated by France’s interests than Faisal’s.

3 Howard M. Sachar, The Emergence of the Middle East: 1914-1924 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1969), 282-283. 4 ZioNation. “Map of Ottoman Levant (Land of Israel, Palestine).” Last modified June 1, 2011. http://www.zionism-israel.com/maps/Ottoman_Palestine_1860.htm. 5 Memorandum by Colonel Cornwallis, No. 192, Fitzroy Somerset Collection 1919-1921, St. Anthony’s College; E. L. Woodward, and Rohan Butler. Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. 4 (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1952), 279.

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Figure 3. Hawran and Jebel Druze. Source: University of Texas Libraries. “Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection: Jordan Maps.” Last modified November 22, 2013. http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_asia/jordan.gif.

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Also, there was less of a sense of separate national identities among the peoples of the region, many of whom aspired to a broader pan-Arab or pan-Syrian identity. For example, there is little evidence of a “[Trans]-Jordanian” national sentiment before the fall of Faisal’s Syria and the formal implementation of the British mandate.6 The people of Transjordan and Palestine, including the Mufti of Jerusalem, al-Hajj Amin al-Husseini, desired unity under Faisal’s Syria.7 But, by then Palestinians also viewed themselves as a “separate people,” even while sharing close bonds with the other peoples of the region.8 Harry Howard cites Captain William Yale’s comments on Palestinians in the context of the King-Crane Commission in the Levant: “’…except in Lebanon,’ there was a strong expression for the unity of Syria. In Palestine, it seemed that both Christians and Muslims, because of their fear of Zionism, demanded ‘a union that they never thought of before.’”9 The feeling of Arab unity applied to the relationship between Syrians and Iraqis as well, regardless of any differences, which they were apparently aware of, between Levantines and Mesopotamians.10 At the time of the creation of the mandates and the states that they bore, there was a greater sense of a broader Arab nationhood than there was for the smaller states carved out by Great Britain and France, even though today it seems as though some of these states have succeeded in establishing a sense of nationhood within the limits of their borders. The apparent understanding of active Arab nationalists in the Fertile Crescent before the fall of Hashemite Syria was that Syria, along with the Hashemite Kingdoms of Iraq and the Hejaz would eventually constitute one greater Arab Nation, as Syria and Iraq were to be under the control of the sons of Sharif Hussein of Mecca. Other groups within the Arabian Peninsula who viewed the Hashemites as natural rivals did not share this view. Examples of these are the houses of Saud and Rashid in Nejd, the Ruwalla and the Anazza in the Syrian Desert, the Idrisi in Asir, and the Imams of Yemen. Even during the Saudi-Hashemite wars of the early 20th century, Abd al-Aziz ibn

6 Alasdair Drysdale and Gerald H. Blake, The Middle East and North Africa: A Political Geography (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 185. 7 Harry N. Howard, The King-Crane Commission: An American Inquiry in the Middle East (Beirut: KHAYATS, 1963), 200; Philip Mattar, The Mufti of Jerusalem: al-Hajj Amin al-Husayni and the Palestinian National Movement (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), 17. 8 Ibid., 11. 9 Howard, 130. 10 Eliezer Tauber, The Formation of Modern Syria and Iraq (Portland: Frank Cass, 1995), 212.

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Saud was confused over whether or not the Hashemite states constituted a single political entity that his forces would be allowed to conquer.11 Therefore, in most Arab circles in the Levant, it was the aspiration of some form of an Arab Union that was desired. Under the Ottoman Empire, the border dividing Anatolia from the Levant was a natural one. Historically, the Nur Mountains are the natural barrier separating the northern Levant from Cilicia, the southeastern coast of Anatolia.12 There is a pass in these mountains known as the Belen Pass that is also called the Syrian Gates. The geographical border north of the Jazira plains in northern Mesopotamia is made by the union of the Taurus and Zagros Mountains while the Zagros bounds the Eastern Mesopotamian hills, plains, valleys, and marshes in the east dividing Mesopotamia from Persia. The desert of the Sinai Peninsula separates the Levant and Arabia from Africa while the boundaries of the Arabian Peninsula and its islands are the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. Historically, there are three main regions within these previously described natural borders—the Levant, Mesopotamia, and Arabia. The boundaries separating these regions from one another have always been ill defined and geographically unnatural. These three have geographic regions within themselves. Palestine and Lebanon are commonly known historical regions and have always been included in the province of Syria in the empires that have controlled them. Mesopotamia in the days of the Abbasid Caliphate was divided into two provinces—Iraq and Jazira13 although the Arabs used the term al-Iraq to refer to the Mesopotamian marshlands while al-Jazira literally means “the island”, referring to Northern Mesopotamia which is surrounded by the Tigris, Euphrates, and Khabur rivers and their tributaries, and as-Sawad, meaning “the blackness” refers to the Mesopotamian alluvial plain.14

11 J. C. Wilkinson, The Transformation of Nomadic Society in the Arab East, ed. Martha Muny and Basim Musallam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 53. 12 Tetz Rooke, State Frontiers: Borders and Boundaries in the Middle East, ed. Inga Brandell (New York: I. B. Tauris & Co Ltd, 2006), 140. 13 Guy Le Strange, The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate: Mesopotamia, Persia, and Central Asia from the Moslem Conquest to the Time of Timur (New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc., 1966), 25. 14 Reeva Spector Simon and Eleanor H. Tejirian, The Creation of Iraq, 1914-1921 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), 2.

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Minor geographical havens exist within the limits previously described, such as the Maronite refuge of Mt. Lebanon, the Anti-Lebanon Mountains (which is the only surviving outpost of colloquially spoken Western Aramaic), and the hills and mountainous areas of Northern Mesopotamia where the ancient Assyrian-Syriac-Chaldean people still exist and Middle and Eastern Aramaic is still spoken. These areas are sometimes identified as natural boundaries because of the lack (or failure) of Arabization that occurred after the Muslim conquests, as Arabic did not become the lingua franca in Lebanon until at earliest the 11th century while it remains a second, and sometimes third or even fourth language among the majority of the populous in the Nineveh Plains and northern Mesopotamia. French historian Fernand Braudel attributed the lack of Arabization in the mountainous areas to the Arab dromedary, which was very capable in plains and deserts but practically useless in mountainous and hilly terrain.15 Also, conquered mountainous areas tend to be extremely difficult to control by governments located on coasts or plains. Shedding light on imperialist ambitions in the Fertile Crescent, James Barr cites the words of a British officer involved in Anglo-French negotiations of its division concluding, “The truth is that any division of the Arab country between Aleppo and Mecca is unnatural, therefore whatever division is made should be decided by practical requirements. Strategy forms the best guide.”16 Amir (and later King) Faisal al-Hashemi (son of Sharif Hussein of Mecca) presented his opinion (and probably the opinion of most Asian Arabs at this time) in regards to what constituted countries within Arab Asia at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. He called Syria, Iraq, Jazira, Hejaz, Nejd, and Yemen (obviously not mentioning the British protectorates in the Gulf) “provinces of Arab Asia [which are] very different economically and socially, and it is impossible to constrain them into one government” in distinction from the case of the Mesopotamian provinces which he describes as “two huge provinces (Jazira and Iraq) made up of three civilized towns (Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra), divided by large wastes thinly peopled by semi-nomadic tribes.”17 This is more or less the

15 Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), 96. 16 Barr, 81. 17 Zeine N. Zeine. The Struggle for Arab Independence: Western Diplomacy and the Rise and Fall of Faisal’s Kingdom in Syria (New York: Caravan Books, 1977), 217. Memorandum by the Emir Faisal submitted

10 more realistic approach to the creation of Arab nation-states, as opposed to the position held by Faisal’s father Hussein, who aspired for one United Kingdom of Arab Asia in the form of a Caliphate under himself. As Faisal says, the economic and social cultures of some of these areas are vastly different from one another. The people of the Levant Proper are mostly urbanized or at least sedentary villagers; whereas the people of the regions of Arabia (especially in the time period of 1915-1925) were nomadic or semi-nomadic shepherds or Bedouin, some who lived by raiding one another, without a sense of a centralized political governing entity or authority as in the urban areas of the Fertile Crescent. The discrepancy between nomadic, rural, and urban societies in Arabic-speaking lands was so significant that Faisal, while King of Iraq bluntly stated that there was no such thing as an Iraqi people.18 These examples provide the historical context leading to the eventual negotiations to create the states in the region and the borders separating them. It is important to understand the ambitions of the imperialists and the events that took place that gave birth to the creations of the states of the Fertile Crescent and their borders. Even if there were no natural border between Arabian Mecca and Levantine Aleppo as British Officer Wilson claimed, the boundary very much exists as a cultural and social one dividing the lifestyle of the Aleppine from that of the Meccan. T. E. Lawrence wrote, “The difference between Hejaz and Syria was the difference between the desert and the sown.”19 But, if a line must be made between the two, where would one draw it, as a natural division did not exist? A possible answer could be: The line should be drawn where the population generally tends to identify closer to Levantine communities than Hejazi ones. The authority for making this judgment resided mostly in the hands of the British and the French, giving a better understanding for what was desired by the imperialist powers in the formation of these states.

to the Peace Conference. 18 Abd al-Razaq al-Hasani, Tarikh al-Wizarat al-Iraqiyya (Sidon: Matba’at al-Ifran, 1939), 189-195, as cited in Efraim Karsh & Inari Karsh. Empires of the Sand: The Struggle for Mastery in the Middle East 1789- 1923 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999), 289. 19 T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph (New York: Anchor Books, 1935), 5:328.

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For example, newly created Transjordan (from the southern Yarmouk River Valley to the Wadi Hasa [Wadi Zered],20 later extending to the village of Dana, incorporating the Tafila District)21 was requested to be annexed to the bordering Hashemite Kingdom of the Hejaz by Sharif Hussein and his son Abdullah due to its similar tribal social structure and its inability to be independently economically viable, having a population of no more than 300,000 people which were mostly Bedouin and agricultural villagers. The King-Crane Commission, in favor of the British, suggested that Transjordan should be attached to Palestine rather than to the Hejaz because of its native Christian inhabitants, something foreign to the home of the Muslim Hajj.22 T. E. Lawrence confirms the existence of significant Transjordanian Christian communities during his time in the area saying, “East of [the Jordan, there live] group upon group of self-respecting village Christians who were…the least timid examples of our original faith in the country.”23 Citing John Lewis Burckhardt, Eugene Rogan estimates that in 1850, Christians made up roughly 20% of Transjordan’s population (within Transjordan’s Ottoman limits, not modern Jordan).24 Therefore, religion played a role in the formation of these states and in the invention of their borders as did economic ambitions and buffers. For example, Transjordan was thought to be a buffer between British interests and a future Jewish national home in Palestine and the expanding Saudi state. This project will focus on the methods and reasons by which the Jordanian-Syrian border was created during the first quarter of the 20th Century in the context of Anglo- French-Arab negotiations. Anglo-French relations were frustrated during this process and each vied to expand its territory in this area for economic purposes. Certain Arab groups,

20 Memorandum on Findings of Commission on Boundary between Galilee and Ajloun, 2 February 1920, Fitzroy Somerset Collection 1919-1921, St. Anthony’s College. 21 Peake to Cox, 11 May 1924, PRO. CO. 733/67, as cited in Ma’an Abu Nowar. The History of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan Volume 1: The Creation and Development of Transjordan 1920-1929 (Oxford: Ithaca Press, 1989), 128. 22 Howard, 130. 23 Lawrence, 5:332. 24 John Lewis Burckhardt, Travels in Syria and the Holy Land (London, 1822), 349, as cited by Eugene L. Rogan. Frontiers of the State in the Late Ottoman Empire: Transjordan 1850-1921 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 28.

12 such as Druze, were strategically placed on either side of the border by the imperialist powers in order to legitimize a shift of the border, but this line was not recognized as official until almost a decade after the conclusion of the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916. The territorial status (specifically where French Syria stopped and British Transjordan began) of the area immediately east of the River Jordan, and south of the French supported Druze areas was not officially demarcated during wartime Anglo-French negotiations, nor was it decided by a mere “straight line,” but rather, it was determined by imperialist economic interests with resources of this area in mind, as well as considerations of the demographics of the local inhabitants and their preferences.

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CHAPTER 2

THE ANGLO-ARAB TERRITORIAL AGREEMENT

In order to gain a better understanding of how and why the Jordanian-Syrian frontier came into being, it is important to know the history of the diplomatic efforts of the Entente powers and the Hashemites during the first quarter of the 20th century. The focus of this chapter is to show the beginnings of modern Arab nationalist movements in connection with the British against Ottoman dominion, seeing World War I as a springboard to achieve independence. This is important to understand as, from this were born the Arab states of former Ottoman Asia, and most specifically Syria and Jordan, and the line which currently divides them. This chapter is meant to be the historical preclude to the territorial negotiations of the Great Britain and France in former Ottoman Asia leading ultimately up to the negotiations of the Syrian-Transjordanian border. Also, this chapter gives a detailed account of the territorial agreements between the British and the Arabs, while giving indication that the Sykes-Picot negotiations were taking place simultaneously. This is important as it was during these negotiations that a separating line between what became Syria and Transjordan was first placed. Arab political ambitions for self-rule within the Ottoman Fertile Crescent immediately preceding the events of World War I included an underground movement led by a group called al-Fatat (“the Young Arab Society”), mostly led by Syrians and Iraqis who were officers in the Ottoman army. Arab nationalist literature and propaganda emanated from this main source. The Hashemites were the figurehead representatives due to their status as the nobility of Mecca, the holiest city in Islam. T. E. Lawrence’s decision of choosing the youngest son of Sharif Hussein, Faisal, was due to the fact that he had the closest connections to these Arab Nationalists in the Levant and Mesopotamia, while Abdullah, though his

14 father’s choice, was initially concerned with achieving Hashemite domination in the Arabian Peninsula.25 Sporadic internal disputes between Arab chiefs and Ottoman authorities often prompted Arab approaches to the British Government in Cairo for some sort of support or agreement to achieve an independent Arab entity or protectorate even before the war began. Some British promises were already made to British Persian Gulf and Arabian Peninsular leaders such as the sheikhs of Kuwait and Muhammara (modern Khorramshahr, Iran), the sultans and emirs of Muscat and Oman (including the Trucial region), as well as Bahrain and Qatar, and the rival sultans of Hadhramaut. The British though initially rejected the calls by Arab leaders for support in their revolutionary efforts against the Ottoman state before WWI. Examples of this include the Karak Revolt of 1910 led by Qadar Majali and his tribe. He sought to establish a “mini-state” repeatedly sending letters and representatives to the British consulate in Jerusalem trying to obtain protection for a Transjordanian state that included “all the land east of the Jordan.”26 Majali’s efforts to gain British support were in vain, as the British had no intention of intervening against the Ottoman Empire. The Anglo-Ottoman Convention of 1913 was signed by both states just one year prior to the start of the World War I (although it was never ratified), with the Ottomans renouncing all territorial rights to Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain, giving Great Britain sole hegemony in the Persian Gulf.27 Britain had already promised the respective sheikhs of these territories protectorates, therefore the years leading up to the war were important in achieving whatever ambitions the British had in the region before relations with the Ottomans were completely severed. Relatively small Arab uprisings in areas such as Transjordan by local tribal chiefs like Majali were not worth British support until wartime when these things could be done on a much larger scale. The Karak rebellion was eventually crushed although Majali did in fact rule the area between the Zarqa River and Ma’an for a brief period. A similar situation took place

25 Barr, 37. 26 Rogan, 199. 27 David Finnie, Shifting Lines in the Sand: Kuwait’s Elusive Frontier with Iraq (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1992), 35.

15 with the more popular and prestigious Hashemite family half a decade later. Their plea for British assistance was also rebuffed, initially. Sharif Hussein bin Ali al-Hashemi of Mecca and his family had been detained in Istanbul for over fifteen years. The reason essentially followed the saying, “keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” The Ottoman Sultan Abd al-Hamid saw Hussein as the icon of the Hashemite clan, “the noblest of all Arab families, for they traced their descent in the male line back to the Prophet’s daughter…”28 This reason in addition to Hussein’s personal qualities of being pious, “his exquisite manners and the irreproachable pattern of his life had earned him the reverence of a large circle of admirers”29 especially among Arabs, making him a political threat to the Turkish Empire during this age of nationalism. The Sultan also disliked him, which paved the way for his restoration in the Hejaz by the Young Turks. George Antonius writes, “[Abd al-Hamid] opposed the appointment, urging with canny foresight that Hussein in an office of that importance would be no mere tool, but a force and possible a danger.”30 The Sultan’s reasoning was to no avail as the Young Turks had just succeeded in their reformist/nationalist coup d’état of 1908 against the Sultan after he dissolved the parliament, restoring a pluralist Ottoman government. Soon after his return to the Hejaz from being detained at the Sultan’s palace in Istanbul, Sharif Hussein rejected new Ottoman centralization reforms (known as the Tanzimat, simply meaning ‘regulations’ in Arabic). Controlling a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual empire, the Ottomans sought to bring about a common national identity to their subjects by granting more civil and religious liberties to non-Turks and non-Muslims within the Empire. This would have helped to bring about the formation of a modern, centralized state had it succeeded. These reforms were based on the previous Tanzimat from the 19th century beginning in 1839, seeking to dissuade any nationalist movements within the empire and bring about a common Ottoman nationalism, thereby uniting the extremely diverse empire. The C.U.P (Committee of Union and Progress), also known as the Young Turks, desired to

28 George Antonius. The Arab Awakening: The Story of the Arab National Movement (New York: Capricorn Books, 1965), 72. 29 Ibid., 103. 30 Ibid., 103.

16 remove Hussein from his post in Mecca soon after propping him up there, for his resistance to Ottoman centralization. They hoped to set up their own man in the office of the Sharifate that would promote the centralization reforms. Ottoman centralization extending to the Hejaz would have been more viable due to the newly constructed Hejaz Railway, which extended from Damascus to Medina with a French sponsored detour from Daraa to Haifa (this detour is significant for the purposes of explaining the establishment of the Jordanian-Syrian border later). The Hejaz Railway brought centralization not merely by the traverse of Muslim pilgrims but also established another income for the Ottoman state. The use of the railway was expected to pay for its construction. Sharif Hussein, however did not explicitly point out his displeasure in regards to a loss of income, but it was certainly an underlying and very significant factor. The Young Turks would not act on their desire to overthrow him for fear of an Arab Revolt, due to Hussein’s prestige in the Arab world and Islamic world as well. The Young Turks attempted to set up a sturdy Ottoman governor (called a wali, literally meaning “magistrate” in Arabic) in the Hejaz to counterbalance the growing power of Sharif Hussein, but this move strongly backfired, only strengthening and legitimizing the Sharif’s position. As Antonius writes, “The wali was bidden to make his peace with the Sharif, which he had to perform at a public ceremony, kissing the hem of Hussein’s garment in token of obeisance to the sanctity of his office.”31 This diplomatic move by the Turks was apparently too little too late as the tensions between both groups were already at a breaking point.32 On the first week of February 1914, Abdullah, the second son of Sharif Hussein, was on his way to Istanbul from Mecca (as his father’s deputy, he represented the Hashemites in the Ottoman Parliament in the capital), and stopped in Cairo. He requested a meeting with a British agent in Egypt, Lord Horatio Herbert Kitchener. Abdullah informed him as well as British Secretary of the Orient, Sir Ronald Storrs of the deteriorating relations between the Hashemites and the reformed Ottoman government. After multiple meetings, especially with Storrs, Abdullah was unable to obtain any sort of British support or commitment for a Hashemite-led Arab Revolt against the Ottomans.33 The British were unwilling at this time to

31 Antonius, 125. 32 Ibid., 124. 33 Ibid., 128.

17 intervene in any internal Turkish-Arab conflicts. The British though, did come out of the discussions with Abdullah with an awareness of the Arab desire for independence from the Turks, keeping this in mind to revive these ambitions for a time better suited for themselves.34 At the outbreak of World War I, Kitchener and Storrs contacted the Hashemites to inquire whether they would be interested in aligning themselves with the British in the event of the Ottoman Empire entering the war on behalf of the Central Powers. Abdullah and Hussein happily agreed to this.35 Eight months later, on July 14, 1915, Sharif Hussein sent a letter to Lieutenant Colonel Sir Arthur Henry McMahon who was British High Commissioner of Egypt at this time, initiating the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence.36 The Hussein-McMahon Correspondence was a series of letters between Sharif Hussein and Sir Henry McMahon detailing the spoils of war to be received by Sharif Hussein in the event of an Entente victory and his leading a revolt against the Ottoman Empire to divert its troops.

This is significant because it was the first negotiation between an Arab leader and a Great Power—Great Britain, to bring about Asian Arab sovereignty in the Fertile Crescent since the Abbasid Caliphate which officially ended in 1258. George Antonius’ The Arab Awakening is not intended to be used in this thesis as showing an accurate and authoritative portrayal of the history of these events, but rather, mainly for the quotes provided of the English translation of the text of the Hussein McMahon-Correspondence and some minor detail elsewhere. Sharif Hussein’s first request in the correspondence included the boundaries of the territory that he believed should belong to the Arabs. He began with the most northwestern point to be Mersin in eastern Cilicia on the south central coast of Anatolia just above Cyprus. From Mersin the border would go east along the base of the Taurus mountains, leaving the mountains outside of the Arab territory, but including the northern most Semite-inhabited towns on the plains of Mesopotamia, such as Al-Ruha (modern Sanliurfa, Turkey), Midyat and Mardin, Jeziret ibn Umar (modern Cizre, Turkey), and Amadia in the Arab territories, ending at the Zagros mountains which

34 Antonius, 128. 35 Ibid., 134. 36 Ibid., 134.

18 made up the Persian frontier. The border would then turn south at the Zagros Mountains (leaving them to Persian sovereignty) all the way to the Indian Ocean indicating Hussein’s interest in the British Persian Gulf Arab protectorates all the way to Muscat then west to include regions of Hadhramout and Yemen. He left Aden’s status to be determined at a later time since it had been officially an annexed part of British India at that point and there was a British settlement there. Then it went up the west coasts of the Arabian Peninsula and the Levant as to make the western boundaries the Red and Mediterranean Seas respectively, before finally reaching Mersin.37 The boundary between the requested territory and the Sinai Peninsula is not specified although it is assumed that it would remain under Egypt as it had been administered as such since the British occupation of Egypt in 1882. The proposed borders therefore were natural in terms of geography but did not take into account the demographics of the populations who lived in them, as will be noticed from the British response. As previously stated, the British held the authority in this case to promote their 19th-early 20th century conditions desired and deemed appropriate in the formation of a state. These conditions included, but were not limited to, linguistic groups, which were apparently categorized as ‘races’ or ethnicities at this time. Hussein’s proposed boundaries also included speakers of non-Semitic languages such as Kurds and Turks, and therefore needed modification in the British perspective (Figure 4). Therefore Kurdish and Turkish portions of this territory should be excluded, and, this is evident in the Treaty of Sevres, which promised an independent Kurdistan. Another demand by Hussein was that this territory comprise an Arab Caliphate with him as the caliph giving all economic priority to Great Britain. The British sought to achieve an independent state or a confederation of states for the Arabs, the inclusion of territory inhabited by speakers of other languages.38 In his first response, Sir Henry McMahon told Sharif Hussein that the British Government was ready to recognize an Arab Caliphate with Sharif Hussein being the perfect man for the job, as a descendent of Prophet Muhammad. McMahon, though, refused to discuss borders saying that the Fertile Crescent resides in Turkish territory for the time being

37 The Sharif Hussein’s First Note to Sir Henry McMahon, 14 July 1915, as cited in Antonius, 414. 38 Ibid.

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Figure 4. Territorial agreements of the Hussein-McMahon correspondence of 1915- 1916. Source: Edwardsville School District. “Web page design project.” Last modified November 26, 2013. http://www.ecusd7.org/ehs/ehsstaff/jparkin/Academics/Modern_World_History/Web _Page_Design_Project/1915-H2.jpg.

20 and it would be premature to negotiate over it.39 Although it was wise of McMahon to avoid the issue of boundaries, he only refers to the Turkish occupied areas. He does not refer to the British Persian Gulf Arab protectorates or British recognition of their respective sheikhs and emirs. Sir Henry McMahon’s second response to Hussein after Hussein insists on determining boundaries40 is the famous part of this correspondence, most significantly affecting the present boundaries. It is also, more or less, honest with Sharif Hussein in regards to British intentions in the requested territory. McMahon writes: The districts of Mersin and Alexandretta and portions of Syria lying to the west of the districts of Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo, cannot be said to be purely Arab, and must on that account be excepted from the proposed delimitation. Subject to that modification, and without prejudice to the treaties concluded between us and certain Arab Chiefs, we accept that delimitation. As for the regions lying within the proposed frontiers, in which Great Britain is free to act without detriment to the interests of her ally France, I am authorized to give you the following pledges on behalf of the Government of Great Britain, and to reply as follows to your note: That, subject to the modifications stated above, Great Britain is prepared to recognize and uphold the independence of the Arabs in all regions lying within the frontiers proposed by the Sharif of Mecca.41 McMahon also writes that the vilayets (or provinces) of Baghdad and Basra will have a special administrative status to protect British interests in the Gulf region.42 Let us examine the excluded areas of McMahon’s “counteroffer.” First, McMahon notifies Hussein that the region of Mersin to Adana (eastern Cilicia) is not comprised of an Arab majority (it has a Turkish majority) and should therefore be exempted from the proposed boundaries. Hussein renounces his claims to this region in his response by saying, “…we no longer insist on the inclusion of the districts of Mersin and Adana in the Arab Kingdom.”43 The second excluded area described as “portions of Syria lying to west of the districts of Damascus, Homs, Hama, and Aleppo” is understood to mean the region of the Levantine coast including Mt. Lebanon and its port cities and the Nusayra Mountains to Antioch

39 Sir Henry McMahon’s First Note to the Sharif Hussein, 30 August 1915, as cited in Antonius, 416. 40 The Sharif Hussein’s Second Note to Sir Henry McMahon, 9 September 1915, as cited in Antonius, 417. 41 Sir Henry McMahon’s Second Note to the Sharif Hussein, 24 October 1915, as cited in Antonius, 419. 42 Ibid., 419. 43 The Sharif Hussein’s Third Note to Sir Henry McMahon, 5 November 1915, as cited in Antonius, 421.

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(present Antakya, Turkey) before reaching the Nur Mountains, which separate the Levantine coast from the Cilician coast. The area of coastal Lebanon had a Christian majority, mostly Maronites, while the northern coast had, and presently does have, an Alawite majority. The Lebanese and Alawite coasts are separated from inland Syria by two mountain ranges: the former by the Anti-Lebanon Mountains beginning with Mount Hermon in the south until a disconnect known as the Homs Gap where the Nahr al-Kabir River runs through from the coast to inland Syria and near the Crusader castle of Krak des Chevaliers. This is essentially the path from the coast to inland Syria. The Homs Gap separates the Anti-Lebanon Mountains from the Nusayra [a synonym for Alawite] Mountains separating the northern (Alawite) coast from inland Syria. The question here is whether McMahon’s statement regarding the non-Arab districts of eastern Cilicia is also applicable to the northern half of the Levantine coast as he asserts. Whether these peoples of the northern Levantine coast are Arabs or not is essentially up for their own sense of ethnic identity. Maronites (and other Lebanese Christians) are not unanimous in regards to whether or not they identify themselves as Arabs even though they are Arabic-speakers. Historically (especially during the early part of the 20th century and the establishment of the state of Lebanon) they were even more insistent on not identifying as Arabs.44 They trace their origins back to a pre-Arabized Levant and to ancient Phoenicia, formerly speakers of Syriac Western Neo-Aramaic, which is still used in their Church Liturgy. The Maronite Church is an Eastern Christian Rite in communion with the Roman Catholic Church. The Maronites have adapted some aspects of their church tradition to the Roman, Latin Rite of French Catholic clergy, but have retained Eastern attributes such as their liturgical languages of Syriac and more recently Arabic. The Alawites, who belong to a sect of Shiite Islam, do not claim to be anything other than Arabs. Apparently there existed a sort of superiority complex among the coastal populations of the Levant, distancing themselves from inland Syrians opposite the mountains.45 This could have been another possibility for a claim to separation, as the two communities might not have shared a

44 Zeine, 179. 45 Lawrence, 5:329.

22 common national sentiment with their inland neighbors. Although, the coast looked inland for its cereals and the inland looked to the coast for citrus and fruit.46 Nevertheless, Sharif Hussein did not forfeit the Arab claim on these areas as he did previously regarding the Cilician region. It is apparent in Hussein’s response that he makes the assumption that McMahon is excluding these regions to separate the Christian populations. Hussein says: As for the [districts] of Aleppo and Beirut and their western maritime coasts, these are purely Arab provinces in which the Muslim is indistinguishable from the Christian, for they are both the descendants of one forefather. And we Muslims intend, in those provinces, to follow the precepts laid down by the Commander of the Faithful, ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab, and the caliphs who came after him, when he enjoined upon the Muslims to treat the Christians on a footing with themselves, saying: they are to enjoy the same rights and bear the same obligations as ourselves. They will have, moreover, their denominational privileges, as far as the public interest allows.47 Hussein also allows for a temporary British presence in southern Mesopotamia to “facilitate agreement” while maintaining his claims on the region. 48 After Hussein responded frankly to McMahon’s requests (by renouncing his claims on Turkish-speaking eastern Cilicia but maintaining them on the Arabic-speaking northern Levantine Coast), McMahon was unable to give another reason for this region’s exclusion besides the real one. After McMahon informed Hussein of British commitments to the other Arab leaders49 [meaning the future independence of the Gulf protectorates] McMahon responded to the Levantine coastal issue by telling Hussein: But as the interests of [the Government of Great Britain’s] ally France are involved in these two [districts], the question calls for careful consideration. We shall communicate again with you on this subject, at the appropriate time.50 To which Hussein responds: …we shall deem it our duty, at the earliest opportunity after the conclusion of the War, to claim from you Beirut and its coastal regions which we will overlook for

46 Howard, 204. 47 The Sharif Hussein’s Third Note to Sir Henry McMahon, 15 November 1915, as cited in Antonius, 421. 48 Ibid., 421. 49 Sir Henry McMahon’s Third Note to the Sharif Hussein, 13 December 1915, as cited in Antonius, 423. 50 Ibid., 423.

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the moment on account of France…Thus any concession designed to give France or any other Power possession of a single square foot of territory in those parts is quite out of the question.51 Therefore, Hussein recognized there might be a possible Anglo-French agreement to divide the Fertile Crescent. I do not think that he was fully aware of the Sykes-Picot negotiations which were taking place simultaneously behind closed doors as Christopher Catherwood believes he was,52 but it did give him a sense for why the British preferred to cut eastern Cilicia and the northern Levantine Coast out of this future Arab Kingdom. While in negotiations with Sharif Hussein, the British were also in negotiations with the French and the Russians to determine the final agreement of the division of the Fertile Crescent. This is known as the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916.53 It can be assumed from McMahon’s territorial exceptions that the British had already agreed to give Lebanon (which already had French influences after the Ottoman Capitulations beginning in the 16th century) and the coast to the north as well as the Cilician coast to the French which would be why he was adamant about excluding them from the promise that he was authorized to give Hussein by the British Foreign Office.54 The Ottoman capitulations mostly entailed economic agreements between the Ottoman Empire and European nations, especially France, to maintain trade that was in place during the days of the Byzantine Empire, as well as guarantee protection for Christian, especially Catholic, Ottoman subjects from periodical massacres such as the Druze-Maronite conflicts and the violence against the old Christian Quarter in Damascus and Christian pilgrims in the Holy Land. Latin Rite Catholicism, removed since the end of the Crusades, was permanently re-installed in the Middle East via these capitulations. As for Palestine, its internationalization would be initially agreed upon while the British would get a coastal foothold in it via Acre and Haifa. Also, the British already had interests in the Persian Gulf and Asia east of that, therefore a land bridge to the Mediterranean and British Egypt was desirable. The Sykes-Picot Agreement was conditional

51 The Sharif Hussein’s Fourth Note to Sir Henry McMahon, 1 January 1916, as cited in Antonius, 425. 52 Christopher Catherwood. Churchill’s Folly: How Winston Churchill Created Modern Iraq (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2004), 57. 53 David Fromkin. A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East (New York: Avon Books, 1989), 189. 54 Ibid.

24 upon the victory of the Triple Entente after the war, while no separate treaties were to be made ahead of a final cumulative one.

25

CHAPTER 3

IMPERIALIST TERRITORIAL ALLOCATIONS

The Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 was a part of a larger scope of “secret” agreements by the Allied Powers that included other territorial promises like the London Agreement of 1914 and the Treaty of London of April 26, 1915, entailing a larger geographical scope than just the Middle East. These agreements were deemed necessary as due compensation for participants on the side of the Triple Entente during World War I against the Central Powers of the German, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman Empires. Some of those involved in these agreements were attempting to achieve pre-existing nationalistic goals, such as Serbia, which sought to achieve a greater Slavic state in the Balkans. Others aimed for economic and prestigious cessions, such as the Orthodox Russian Empire which was to receive Constantinople, not only the capital of the Eastern Orthodox Church but also the gateway into the Russian Black Sea. While others, such as Italy, had a combination of the aforementioned motives simultaneously. To restore Dalmatia and Carthage under the dominion of Rome while regaining Greek islands in the Eastern Mediterranean. This was economically and ideologically driven. A quick summary of the clauses of the agreements were as follows: Russia was promised control of the Bosporus (including Constantinople) and Dardanelles Straits and patronage of Western Armenia (the Kars, Ardahan, and Artvin provinces in modern Turkey), Greece’s territory was to extend beyond the Evros River while regaining Smyrna, giving Greece a foothold in Anatolia. Italy was to receive Trieste and the Dalmatian islands from Austria-Hungary, as well as Ottoman controlled Greek populated islands like Rhodes and the Dodecanese, while Serbia would achieve its objective of uniting a greater Slavic state in the Balkans at the expense of Austria-Hungary. For the intents and purposes of this thesis however, the Sykes-Picot Agreement will be isolated and narrowed to focus merely on its application to the Fertile Crescent, and even more specifically to the Jordanian-Syrian border. The argument being presented is that the Sykes-Picot Agreement ceased to be relevant as an agreement or promise. The demarcation lines set within it became unofficial

26 and up for negotiation. The motivating factors of the imperial powers in controlling territory in the region will be examined to gain a better understanding of their intentions for this region. There are apparently contradicting reasons as to why the Sykes-Picot lines were placed where they were. For example, as previously quoted, James Barr writes that Sir Marks Sykes simply drew a straight line from “the ‘e’ in Acre to the last ‘k’ in Kirkuk.”55 It was a much more complicated process. Barr also says that Sykes had a personal vendetta against the cities of Damascus and Mosul, intentionally leaving them out of the British zone for their “filth and muck.”56 The reason for this was his personal experiences in these cities. He apparently felt that the inhabitants were unkind and unclean, selling one another for profit or gain. The British had thought of Sykes as an expert on the Middle East because he began traveling in the Middle East when he was eleven years old. His father, Sir Tatton Sykes, had an extreme interest in church architecture in the region and, therefore, used to take his family with him on his trips.57 Though Finish Professor Dr. Jukka Nevakivi writes that Sykes (and the British) saw a strategic diplomatic advantage in a global perspective to be the advocates for the Arab, Zionist, and Armenian causes, and that “Arabs, Zionists, Armenians alike [Sykes] thought were useful as future ‘assets for a peace conference’…Sir Mark [Sykes] had been persuaded by the Zionists that, if Palestine were offered to the Jews, American opinion would veer in favor of the United States’ entry into the war on the allied side.”58 During this period of nationalism the Arabs, Jews, and Armenians did not have their own respective states and therefore, efforts increased in the political arena to establish these. The vast majority of the Arabic-speaking populous were under Ottoman dominion while the Armenians were divided under the Russian and Ottoman Empires. Due to the Armenian Genocide in which one and a half million Armenians were killed at the hands of the Ottomans (this is one of multiple ethno-religious massacres carried out by the Ottoman Empire during World War I—three hundred thousand Assyrian [Nestorian]-Syriac [Miaphysite/Jacobite]-Chaldean [Uniate] and

55 Barr, 7. 56 Ibid., 6. 57 Ibid., 4. 58 Jukka Nevakivi, Britain, France and the Arab Middle East 1914-1920 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1969), 51.

27 nine hundred thousand Pontic Greeks were also systematically massacred; these numbers exclude the count of Arab villages, Muslim and Christian, that were wiped out during the War.),59 a stronger case was made for them to be given their own state. The Jews were intercontinentally dispersed and the Zionists sought to eventually achieve a Jewish State in Palestine, making aliyot (plural form, literally meaning ‘ascensions’ in Hebrew, used for Jewish immigration to Palestine) to Palestine since 1882, purchasing land and settling it, aiming to return to the land of their ancient kingdoms. Their goal was eventually realized, and its preliminary step is known as the Balfour Declaration. The Balfour Declaration is dated November 2, 1917 and the collapse of the Sykes- Picot Agreement is generally understood to have taken place in the immediately preceding October. Here is the text of the letter from Lord Balfour to Lord Rothschild: 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 favor 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 the 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 sincerely, Arthur Balfour 60 The commitment for a Jewish National Home in Palestine to the Zionists, specifically Lord Rothschild by Lord Balfour of the British Foreign Office, could be seen as a British claim on what became a political vacuum in Palestine, as it was previously agreed to make Palestine an international zone. The collapse of the Sykes-Picot Agreement did away with the necessity for Palestine having an international status, and, as Acre and Haifa were to be

59 T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom (New York: Anchor Books, 1991), 1:93. 60 Christopher Sykes. Crossroads to Israel (New York: The World Publishing Company, 1965), 3. The Balfour Declaration of 1917.

28

British-controlled ports anyway, the British gained from this move both politically and economically, seeming to be fighters for the Zionist cause as well as uniting their massive land empire via Palestine. The United States officially entered into the War about six months prior to the date of the Balfour letter. This was to win over American Jews to support the war and was based on an exaggerated estimate of Jewish influence in the United States. It is plausible that US involvement in the war was a motive for wanting Palestine in the British sphere, although the French did not wish to see it separated from what was to be their Syria, and Russia did not approve for it to be under French Catholic control. But it should be understood that even if this was a factor, it is but one of many underlying factors for drawing the line where it was drawn. Economic and politically strategic factors in the determination of buffers or allies were also points that were taken into consideration. Great Britain kept in mind their interests that already existed in the Arabian Peninsula, Asia, and Africa. Barr cites Herbert Samuel, in defense of Sykes’ line, “I think that what Sir Mark Sykes means is that the line will commence at the sea-coast at Haifa. These Arabs”—he jabbed at the Arabian Peninsula—“will then come under our control.”61 British control south of a horizontal line across the Fertile Crescent would bind the tribes, already in the British economic sphere to a de facto British protectorate status. The determination of the limits of this horizontal line, however, is related to the question proposed as the main topic of this thesis: namely the establishment of the Jordanian-Syrian border. Although the details of Sykes-Picot lines do not answer that question alone, they do provide an understanding for the criteria in which lines were drawn in the general region arbitrarily by the imperial powers. There are some “givens” in determining how the Fertile Crescent was to be divided. These are somewhat fair generalizations in order to provide a simple understanding of the framework of the Sykes-Picot line. France had played the patron of Christians (especially Catholics) in the Middle East since about the late 15th-early 16th century and had previously been the frontrunners of the crusades. Therefore, the Maronites had already formed a centuries-strong relationship with the French, and even preferred a French Mandate of Lebanon over Faisal’s greater Arab, unified state. France’s role in Lebanon was all but

61 Barr, 7.

29 guaranteed and assumed by all parties in negotiations, and was even hinted to, as previously stated, by Sir Henry McMahon to Sharif Hussein. Therefore, determining the southern boundary of what eventually constituted “Greater Lebanon” separating it from what became British Palestine was the beginning of the horizontal line west to east in determining the British and French spheres. This line though, especially in the case of where Lebanon ends and Palestine begins, was not officially demarcated until later. As previously mentioned, the northern Galilee was initially expected to be included in Greater Lebanon. One attempt to resolve the line that would determine the Lebanese-Palestinian border was a Biblical resolution, that Palestine would constitute “Dan to Beersheba” but the final authority on this matter was the “managing director of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company.”62 This was because the British had intended for an oil pipeline to be constructed from Iraq to Haifa and a railroad from the Persian Gulf to Egypt.63 This is an important point because due to this complication, the Anglo-French Sykes-Picot negotiations never reached any recognized agreement on the territorial means of this pipeline coming successfully and safely from Mesopotamia to Palestine, therefore never having a clear agreement on what constituted the boundaries separating British and French Mesopotamia, as well as the division of the Syrian Desert, and finally and most significant for this thesis, the separating boundary of Transjordan from Syria. The lines of division drawn in these vast, sparsely populated, and occasionally nomadic areas were never officially agreed upon in the negotiations, not only because an agreement could not be reached on the part of the imperialist powers, but also because these territories were not deemed to be strategically important or economically resourceful at this time. Also, it was probably assumed that an agreement could be reached at any time on what should constitute the limits on these territorially vague regions. What was understood by both sides was that British Iraq and International Palestine would be contiguous (with British-controlled ports at Haifa and Acre), and the French would control Lebanon, and play a significant role in the remainder of the Levant and Mesopotamia that was given to them in the agreement.

62 Barr, 81. 63 Nevakivi, 47.

30

France had retained somewhat of a crusader ideology in regards to its role in the Levant according to Barr. The French general who would be posted to the region following the Ottoman defeat in World War I was determined to succeed in finally conquering Damascus for France, something the Franks could not do during the crusades.64 Barr writes, …the French general [Gouraud] headed straight to the center of the ancient city [Damascus], to the austere tomb of the Muslim world’s most famous warrior, who had been buried there over seven hundred years before. ‘Saladin,’ he announced when he arrived, ‘we’re back.’65 Therefore, France’s motives were more ideologically spurred than those of Great Britain. Although some geographically vertical proposals (from north to south as opposed to from west to east) for the Sykes-Picot Agreement were initially discussed (giving the whole Levant to France, and all of Mesopotamia to Great Britain)66 it was concluded that a horizontal solution would best serve imperial interests (Figure 5), especially for the British, who were much more involved and invested (both politically and financially) in the region than the French were. Also, the British war effort in the region succeeded almost single- handedly, therefore the British could legitimately take priority in any territorial dispute during the negotiations. A horizontal agreement, as previously mentioned, creates a contiguous British zone of interest as far as Burma in Southeast Asia to the Mediterranean via Palestine, which is also bordered by British Egypt. Egypt is connected to the other British colonies of Africa all the way to South Africa. The demography of the sides of this line was also a significant factor, as the northern region included a more significant Christian population than south of the line. Although that is not to say that there were no Christians in the British sphere, indeed there were, the French sphere though contained more, and this was preferred by the French, and was not viewed as significantly relevant by the British. Mesopotamian Christians almost exclusively reside in what was to be French Northern Mesopotamia, specifically the former Ottoman vilayet (province) of Mosul. Captain Yale of the King-Crane Commission which came later said, “…the British should be allowed to work

64 Barr, 88. 65 Ibid., 94. 66 Nevakivi, 20.

31

Figure 5. The Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916. Adapted from: Wikimedia. “Sykes- Picot agreement map- signed 8 May 1916.” Accessed December 2, 2013. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/MPK1- 426_Sykes_Picot_Agreement_Map_signed_8_May_1916.jpg.

32 out the Zionist Question according to their lights and along reasonable lines.”67 Therefore, Britain’s acquisition of at least the northern port cities of Palestine would put them in important proximity to deal with Zionists and major Jewish settlements already existing in Palestine, which were dependent on foreign patronage. Besides France’s own reasons for control of Lebanon and the northern Levant, The British also desired to include northern Mesopotamia into the French sphere as it was also agreed to that the Russian Empire would control Western Armenia in what David Fromkin calls the “Sykes-Picot-Sazanov Agreement,”68 and France would naturally become a buffer between Great Britain and Russia. After the Communist Revolution in October, 1917, Russia withdrew from the war on a separate peace deal, essentially voiding the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement, which they later published to show the Arabs that the imperialist powers were going to divide their lands between themselves after the war. The Balfour Letter is dated just a few days before the peace agreement between Russia and the Central Powers.69 This is important because it gives indication of the future of that specific region. Due to the Balfour Declaration, Palestine became essentially excluded from a future Hashemite state the same way Lebanon was. Although Great Britain made this commitment to the Zionists, it was not until one year later, in December of 1918 that British control of Palestine and Mosul was formally agreed to by both the British and French governments. The conversation is cited as follows, “After we [the British] reached the French Embassy, he [Clemenceau] asked me [David Lloyd George] what it was I especially wanted from the French. I instantly replied that I want Mosul attached to Iraq and Palestine from Dan to Beersheba under British control. Without any hesitation he agreed.”70 This agreement took place as the French wanted a British guarantee against any future German invasion or militarization of the Rhine as well as a share of the British controlled Middle Eastern oil.71

67 Howard, 130. 68 Fromkin, 189. 69 Nevakivi, 90-91. 70 Ibid., 93. 71 Ibid., 92.

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On the Arab front, the Sharifan Arab Army rode into Damascus unopposed on September 30, 1918. It was on this date that the Hashemite government headed by Faisal, the youngest son of Sharif Hussein of Mecca established Arab authority in the Levant while maintaining claims north to the Taurus and Nur Mountains, the Levantine coastal regions, and Palestine. Arab military control was not present in those areas due to the British and French presence there. Essentially, Faisal’s Syrian state, which was yet to be formally declared a kingdom, controlled, more or less, modern inland Syria (without clear demarcations on the Syrian Desert) and Jordan (the southern boundary was undefined as it was deemed unnecessary to hurriedly fix a line between Faisal’s Kingdom and the realm of his father in the Hejaz). Northwest Mesopotamia was a late addition to Faisal’s Syria as Iraqis against British occupation pushed for union with Hashemite Syria which they expected to be independent under an Arab government in accordance with the Sykes-Picot Agreement and the Hussein- McMahon Correspondence, as opposed to Iraq which, under both agreements was to have a temporary British administration under direct British control. The territories on the central and northwest Euphrates, given their close proximity to Arab controlled Syria where they received much support, produced the strongest armed resistance against British control. While wishing and fighting for an independent Iraq, these nationalists expected an eventual Hashemite Union of Iraq and Syria and attempted to speed up this unity by having parts of British Iraq ceded to Faisal’s Syria in the meantime. Requesting via tribal sheikhs, Arab officials to the British and French administrations, and Hashemite representatives in Damascus to be annexed to Syria, they hoped to be eventually reunited with the remainder of Iraq after the British ultimately give it to Faisal’s brother Abdullah after which both would unite with their father’s kingdom in the Hejaz. At first the British were reluctant, as Lloyd George clarifies in the Council of Four, “…the cession of Mosul would be without any value…Mosul would be at the mercy of the power which controlled the nearest oasis.”72 In September of 1919, the British and the French agreed to move the Syrian-Iraqi border from the Balikh River to the Khabur River, the official reason stated was to maintain the unity of

72 Conversation between President Wilson and M. M. Clemenceau and Lloyd George, 22 May 1919, 11 A.M, The Question of Syria, as cited in Paul Mantoux. The Deliberations of the Council of Four (March 24- June 28, 1919), trans. and ed. Arthur S. Link (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 163.

34 the tribes in these areas under one state (this actually further separated tribes). Eventually the line was moved further east, to the Sinjar Mountains and giving the entire Khabur River area and its valleys and south to Abu Kamal to Syria.73 Unfortunately, a cruel twist of fate subverted the efforts of those Arab nationalists as Faisal’s Syria was soon to be overcome by the French, who established direct military control. In recompense, Faisal would be awarded a throne in Iraq by the British, and the Khabur and Euphrates regions ceded to Syria prior were to remain in Syria and are still to this day. During Faisal’s brief reign, Arab military administration was in place throughout the new Hashemite state, which was formally declared an independent kingdom in March of 1920 (Figure 6). Three of its eight provinces were east of the Jordan River. These three provinces, which Eugene Rogan calls the ‘Transjordanian provinces’ were (from north to south) the province of Hawran with its capital at Daraa, the province of Balqa, and the province of Karak.74 It was the first of these provinces that was divided between French Syria and British Transjordan, making the modern border of the two countries. The roughly two-year period between the conquest of the Levant by the British and Arabs until the implementation of French control in Syria, consisted of much Franco- Hashemite negotiating, as the French insisted that Faisal submitted to certain French conditions in order to proceed as the ruler of this state. It seems as though the original intentions of Great Britain and France were to indeed maintain the Sherifan regime in Syria because even in the days of Sykes-Picot, the division of the inland territories, although agreed in principle to be under French and British influence, were thought to possibly still comprise areas of the same state or a confederation. Also, the Hashemite regime had proved to be cooperative and in favor of relations with the Western Powers while willing to negotiate a certain type of recognition of a Jewish colony in Palestine. This is shown in what is known as the Faisal-Weizmann Agreement of 1919. One of the clauses of this agreement encourages the influx of the world’s Jews to Palestine stating:

73 Tauber, 230. 74 Rogan, 242.

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Figure 6. The Hashemite Kingdom of Syria. Adapted from: Imgur. “Hashemite Syria.” Last modified May 2, 2013. http://i.imgur.com/XWXOCL4.png.

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All necessary measures shall be taken to encourage and stimulate immigration of Jews into Palestine on a large scale, and as quickly as possible to settle Jewish immigrants upon the land through closer settlement and intensive cultivation of the soil. In taking such measures the Arab peasant and tenant farmers shall be protected in their rights and shall be assisted in forwarding their economic development.75 While recognizing this agreement, Faisal and the Hashemites had the intention of including the whole of Palestine into the Arab Kingdom of Syria while simultaneously giving autonomy to the Jewish areas. The British could not accept this separate Zionist-Hashemite agreement due to a possible conflict of interest with France which had not yet made an agreement with Faisal. Eventually it was understood by both the French and the British that a Greater Syrian state would not be in their best interests with reasons being the desired separations of Lebanon and Palestine from Syria as well as the impractical notion of two powers influencing the same state in two different areas, while the capital (Damascus) would lie in the French zone, making France the de facto leading power in that situation.76 During the Lloyd George-Clemenceau negotiations of 1919, George is quoted by Barr to have said to Clemenceau, “For us, the friendship of France is worth ten Syrias.”77 Therefore, another part of the Sykes-Picot Agreement was discarded. British control of Palestine, French control of Syria, and the division of Syria and Transjordan with the intention of making them separate states were not objectives of the Sykes-Picot Agreement. On the contrary, Faisal’s Kingdom of Syria could have been implemented, and would have been a natural fit within the framework of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, while what gradually became a new Anglo-French agreement was much different from Sykes-Picot. During the Council of Four, territorial discussions and negotiations in regards to the newly acquired territories of WWI between US President Woodrow Wilson, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, and Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Orlando, Lloyd George told Clemenceau that, if he insisted on the implementation of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, that “Damascus, Homs, and Aleppo were to be placed, not in the

75 Sykes, 31-32. Faisal-Weizmann Agreement of 1919. 76 Sykes, 33. 77 Barr, 81.

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French zone, but in the Arab state or confederation.”78 Lloyd George was responding to Clemenceau’s rejection of the new map proposed by Great Britain to France dividing the Middle East differing from the Sykes-Picot map. France apparently preferred the Sykes-Picot Agreement to the new agreement because the new agreement raised the northern border of British Palestine (on the Transjordanian side) as well as giving more of the Syrian Desert and Syrian Mesopotamia to the British sphere in order to better establish an oil pipeline and railroad. In specific reference to the area most important for this thesis, Clemenceau stated, “But I don’t accept the establishment of a boundary which cuts in two the Druse mountain region—one of the areas with which France has the oldest ties of affection, which reduces Syria substantially.”79 “The Druse mountain region” referring to the Jebel Druze and possibly the whole Hawran is precisely where the Jordanian-Syrian border is presently located, and this shows that the agreement as to where the line should be fixed was not easily agreed upon. It is better to understand the Sykes-Picot Agreement as having been outdated and done away with rather than simply edited. This development deserves to be highlighted as a turning point in the formation of the current border between Jordan and Syria. The significance of the failure of the Sykes-Picot agreement lies in the reality that, along with the collapse of the terms of this former agreement, came a whole new set of negotiations and territorial arrangements. This new set of negotiations and agreements came about after the Russian withdrawal from the war. Almost nothing was maintained from the Sykes-Picot Agreement. Lebanon was to be in the French sphere regardless, while Mosul was removed from French inland Syria, the eastern boundary of which became undetermined, and would only be determined by the requests of the local inhabitants of the west central Euphrates years later. No real importance was placed on demarcating the boundary between the French and British zones of Syria and Transjordan and there was no hurry to change that as, it was assumed, at least the inland Levant and eventually all of Mesopotamia would constitute a

78 Mantoux, 162. Conversation between President Wilson, M. M. Clemenceau and Lloyd George. 22 May 1919, 11 A.M The Question of Syria. 79 Ibid, 161-162.

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Hashemite federation according to the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence. This was necessary because the British had to find a way to reconcile their wartime agreements to both the French and the Hashemites. By giving the French a sphere of influence of the Hashemite controlled northern Levant, both sides appear to receive a sort of fulfillment from their respective negotiations. Since the British did not agree to commit Lebanon and the Alawite coast to the Hashemites, nothing was breached on that end, although the British did not hand Palestine over to the Hashemites while not excluding it from the promised territory to Sharif Hussein, probably due to the fact that the Balfour Declaration came after. Possible compensation for this by the British was the cession of Iraq to Hashemite control, something requested by Sharif Hussein but not guaranteed by Sir Henry McMahon. Therefore, the region of Transjordan, among others, did not have an official beginning or end point from north to south as it was not yet necessary, due to Faisal’s arrival in Damascus and his father’s rule from Mecca in the Hejaz, just south of Transjordan. This region remained under the authority of Damascus, as it had been in Ottoman times and prior. After the fall of Faisal’s postwar Syria, Transjordan (a vaguely defined region at this point), became a political vacuum, forcing the hand of the imperialist powers to fix the boundaries between their spheres of interest. The formal separation of Transjordan from Damascus’ jurisdiction took place after the fall of the Hashemite Kingdom of Syria and the establishment of the French Mandate of Syria. This caused the British and the French to speed up the process to establish the official border, while vying to expand their respective zones by almost any means. The next chapter elaborates on the struggle of imperialist powers to enhance their gains in the region and shows more specifically how the direct repercussion of the failure of the Sykes-Picot agreement is the current location of the Syrian-Jordanian border. It was single-handedly the failure of this agreement that offered imperialists the freedom to abide by one simple motive in the demarcation of the border, the enhancement of economic gains in the region.

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CHAPTER 4

THE PROCESS OF ESTABLISHING THE TRANSJORDANIAN-SYRIAN BORDER

The first agreement to divide Transjordan from Syria in order to establish separate spheres of influence by France and Great Britain took place during the Sykes-Picot negotiations in 1916 and officially during the Franco-British Convention of December 23, 1920.80 Negotiations on the boundary took place for the following decade and an official agreement was finally reached in 1931. Though there was general agreement, the details of where the official border would actually be were vague. As previously stated, the line needed to be south of the Jebel Druze because the French felt that they had established important relations with the Druze (who originally belong to an offshoot of Shiite Islam), and, more importantly, there was also a significant Druze population in Lebanon which was to go to France. Even after the fall of Faisal’s Syria, the division of the Yarmouk River Valley region was not immediately agreed upon. Daraa, being south of the Yarmouk River’s central course, was not included in the Transjordanian administration due to French claims, but the British Foreign Office did not yet give its officials in Transjordan a definite decision of its final status.81 Although, some indication on the boundaries existed on the ground noted in a letter to Major Somerset in 1919 referring to Al-Laja (a volcanic mountain near Jebel Druze, known as Lajat in English) and Jebel Druze (both are Druze territories) being excluded from Transjordan and that the whole of the Hawran was to be under a different mandate.82 This is interesting because the Hashemite regime was still in place in Syria in 1919, giving indication of possible Anglo-French plans of its removal and the installation of mandates by

80 V. M. Amadouny, The Formation of the Transjordan-Syria Boundary, 1915-1932, vol. 31, bk. 3, Middle Eastern Studies (New York: Taylor & Francis, Ltd., 1995), 533. 81 Major Somerset to his father, 24 August 1920, Fitzroy Somerset Collection 1919-1921, St. Anthony’s College. 82 Deedes to Major Somerset, 16 November 1919, Fitzroy Somerset Collection 1919-1921, St. Anthony’s College.

40 that time, violating the terms of the Sykes-Picot Agreement which was already agreed to have become outdated in the Council of Four and prior. One of the reasons the Galilee was initially debated over on whether to be attached to Lebanon or to Palestine was because of its significant Christian and Druze populations which France patronized. Also a small portion of the Golan Heights was renegotiated by Britain and France (as it was originally thought to be attached to what was to be the Mandate of Palestine) to be given to the French as part of the same official agreement separating Transjordan from French Syria since the inhabitants there were exclusively Druze. Apparently, demography played a decisive role in the Anglo-French partition of these territories. By 1921 (after deposing the Hashemites from Damascus and Abdullah’s arrival in Amman), the general regions of the Hawran, the Golan Heights, the Jebel Druze, and the Laja were assumed to be going to the French zone against the desire of their inhabitants who wanted to be joined to Transjordan.83 Although there were no official demarcations in place by this time, the French military already controlled Daraa, and violently put down any attempts to join or promote Abdullah and the Hashemites.84 Also, the Hawranis referred to, (none of which were known to be Druze), most probably wanted to be joined to Transjordan rather than French Syria because of Transjordan’s relatively autonomous status compared to Syria as well as preferring a British administration to a French administration, which was a common sentiment in all of the Levant except Lebanon. After a general Anglo-French understanding of where the boundary between Syria and Transjordan would be, Chaim Weizmann, the leader of the World Zionist Organization, sought to include Transjordan, as far east as to include the East Jordan Valley and the Gilead Mountains into the promised Jewish national home according to Major General Fredrick Gerard Peake, who quotes Weizmann to have said “the beautiful Transjordanian plateau lie neglected and uninhabited save for a few scattered settlements and few roaming Bedouin tribes.”85 Peake refutes this saying that Transjordan had at least 120,000 settled inhabitants,

83 Fortnightly Report, Captain, British Representative of Ajloun, 13 March 1921, Fitzroy Somerset Collection 1919-1921, St. Anthony’s College. 84 Ibid. 85 Observations on Dr. Weizmann’s Letter to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, with reference to Trans-Jordania, Major General Fredrick Gerard Peake, 14 March 1921, Fitzroy Somerset Collection 1919-1921,

41 at least 16,000 of which are Christians, and about 100,000 Bedouin (a total of about 220,000 inhabitants) and calls Weizmann completely ignorant of Transjordan, and his statements imaginative and fiction.86 This helped bring about the decision of the British Government in August of 1920, against the will of British High Commissioner of Palestine Herbert Samuel, to politically detach Transjordan, which had already been detached from Damascus, from Palestine also, making it an independent entity. The railways existing in the Hawran region as well as the planned building of more railways there must have had some impact on the decision of the demarcations of borders. On the twists and turns of the Syrian-Jordanian border are the intersections of the old Hejaz railway, as previously mentioned, from Daraa, the railway has a Haifa route which was financed by the French. Amadouny writes: The Hejaz Railway bisects the Transjordan-Syria boundary south of Daraa, while the branch line of the railway running from Daraa to Haifa (currently out of service) crisscrosses the Yarmouk River in several places. The Iraqi Petroleum Company’s oil pipeline from Kirkuk to Haifa (currently out of service), and the Haifa-Baghdad Road run parallel to each other approximately 20 miles south of the boundary line.87 Therefore the borders of the former mandates and especially the border between Syria and Jordan is littered with the economic aspirations of their former lieges. The French branch from Daraa to Haifa which “crisscrosses the Yarmouk River in several places” gives indication for why Jordan’s border with Syria is, in places, exactly at the Yarmouk River, and in other places, as in the case of Daraa, under it. This French-financed bisection from Daraa to Haifa most likely ensured that “Daraa and its environs will remain in the territory under the French Mandate”88 in accordance with the Franco-British Convention of 1920 previously mentioned, therefore, solidifying its position along with Jebel Druze, which was all but official in the earliest stages of negotiations, to be the southern extremities of the French

St. Anthony’s College. 86 Ibid. 87 Amadouny, 533. 88 The Franco-British Convention on Certain Points Connected with the Mandates for Syria and the Lebanon, Palestine and Mesopotamia, Article 1, as cited in American Society of International Law. “The Franco-British Convention on Certain Points Connected with the Mandates for Syria and the Lebanon, Palestine and Mesopotamia.” American Journal of International Law, 16, no. 3 (1922): 122.

42 zone. While securing the southern limit of what was to be Syria from British aspirations, the French did not yet recognize Transjordan’s northern most limit under British security, pushing for what seems to be whatever inches they can south of what became the recognized line. In response, the British posted military officers to five towns in Transjordan in an effort to prevent France from taking advantage of whatever vagueness existed within their various territorial agreements.89 In the early stages of the specified negotiations on delimiting the boundary between Transjordan and Syria spurred by the League of Nations in 192090, the Yarmouk Valley in its entirety was agreed to be in the French zone with the following exception: …the southern bank of the [Yarmouk] River [should be given] sufficient territory [within] the British Mandated area for the construction of a proposed railway link between the eastern Mediterranean an Baghdad.91 In addition, an amendment for the boundary to be pushed a little further north, to the town of Nasib (which was to remain on the French side of the boundary) was available for the British within a ten year window in the event of constructing a railway or pipeline (Figure 7).92 Amadouny writes: In political terms, Article 5.3 proffered an amendment that would suit British interests. But the process of delimitation after 1921 was slowed up by the French, and on occasion this was deliberate and was an attempt by the French to retain as much territory for Syria as they could. Indeed, much of the history of the formation of the Transjordan-Syria boundary is concerned with diplomatic, rather than geographical issues, even though the final demarcation of the boundary did not radically amend the 1920 Convention, and offered reasonable concessions for both sides.93 This statement supports the argument that the preservation of geographical integrity of regions within the partitioned regions of Ottoman Asia was ignored with few exceptions in favor of imperialist designs with intentions of the exploitation of the resources of these areas and the furthering of imperialist economic aspirations.

89 American Society of International Law, 535. 90 Ibid. 91 Amadouny, 536. Franco-British Convention of 1920. 92 Ibid. 93 Ibid, 536.

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Figure 7. The line dividing Transjordan and Syria. Adapted from: Bragger, Roger. “Hejaz Railway route.” Last modified May 6, 2013. http://www.rogersstudy.co.uk/hejaz/hejaz_railway/railway_map.html.

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Since the ousting of Faisal from Damascus and the military occupation of Syria by the French, constant raids were conducted by Syrian nationalists, using northern Transjordan as a safe haven. Abdullah who officially became Amir of Transjordan in 1921 was indifferent to this, possibly even encouraging, while the British were vehemently opposed to these, clamping down their security in these areas while allowing French soldiers to move south of the 1920 Convention line in order to better patrol Syria against the nationalist raiders. In 1925, the Druze began to join the anti-French effort and started a rebellion of their own. Due to the freedom granted to French soldiers to move south of the line and the continual conflict with nationalists north and south of the agreed boundary, according to Amadouny, the French took advantage of the chaos and attempted to establish what he calls, “a permanent Druze presence” in two Transjordanian border villages (Semme and Umm Jemal) by removing Druze from their villages in Lebanon and instructing them “to claim settlement rights” in these villages south of the Convention line “dating back to Ottoman times.”94 The French, according to Amadouny, did this as a “pre-emptive measure in advance of any formal negotiations on the Transjordan-Syria boundary.”95 Amadouny says that this was also done to give the French “a bargaining advantage in the negotiations over the Syria- Iraq boundary that were taking place at the time.”96 The motivation for this would have been to claim more territory for Syria where there were Druze communities, as France wanted to ensure that it would have the Druze of Syria and Lebanon under its control. It is important in understanding why both powers were vying to make their respective zones larger in this specific region. The British were very much worried that if they ceded territory to the French in this area, it would prevent them from building an oil pipeline from Iraq and (maybe eventually Persia) to the Mediterranean and what would eventually have been a transcontinental railroad from India to the Mediterranean. The French on the other hand wanted to push this line south mainly to prevent these British aspirations. This shows that although oil was recognized by both Great Britain and France to be an important

94 Telegram from High Commissioner to Colonial Secretary, 24 February 1928; Report by Amir Lewa [Arab Legion] to British Resident, 25 February 1928; Group-Captain Rees to RAF HQ [Jerusalem] 27 February 1928, CO 831 1/1, as cited in Amadouny, 538. 95 Amadouny, 537. 96 Ibid.

45 resource to be exploited in their time of hegemony in this region, the interests of the oil companies in regards to the oil pipelines that would come across Iraq to the Mediterranean came second to the political struggle between France and Britain. France wanted to push as far south into Transjordan and east into Iraq as possible as to forcibly bring the oil pipeline and railway through Syria to Lebanese port of Tripoli on the Mediterranean. By the time the border was agreed to in 1931, after concessions were made by both sides, the territory secured on the British side of the line was sufficient to build the Baghdad-Haifa railway and the Iraq Petroleum Company pipeline.97 The pipeline and railway were never built, but this gives indication of the possible involvement of the Iraq Petroleum Company as well as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company in the Syrian-Transjordanian border negotiations as Great Britain was able to secure the territory necessary to build the pipeline. The Anglo-Persian Oil Company, as previously explained was the final authority on the border between British Palestine and French Lebanon, as an oil pipeline outlet to the Mediterranean was certainly anticipated. The fact that the Anglo-Persian Oil Company played such a significant role in determining the border between the Mandate of Palestine and Lebanon gives strong indication that oil companies also played a role in negotiating the Transjordanian-Syrian border as well to ensure the necessary area of land large enough and safe enough to successfully bring a railway and oil pipeline from Mesopotamia through the Syrian Desert to the Mediterranean. Transjordanians and British officials on the ground understood where the line ought to be in the disputed area. Amadouny writes, “The Emir Abdullah was mostly concerned that Transjordan retain the village lands where there had been time-honored rights to grazing and cultivation. These views were supported by the British Resident, Lt-Col. Cox…”98 Therefore, if a line had to be placed, it should be placed in a way protecting the long time grazing and watering rights of the villages in this area so as not to cut off the people from their traditional means of acquiring the resources necessary to their livelihoods. The French though attempted to hold on to these two Transjordanian villages turned Druze colonies in order to further their

97 Memorandum on Syria-Iraq and Syria-Transjordan frontier, 12 November 1931, CO 732/50, as cited by Mary Wilson. King Abdullah, Britain and the Making of Jordan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 101. 98 Cox to High Commissioner, 12 November 1928, CO 831 1/1, as cited by Amadouny, 539.

46 cause along the Syrian-Iraqi line, claiming that a portion of the Sinjar Mountains (where Yazidi Kurds live) belongs to Syria, holding the two Transjordanian villages hostage to achieve a British agreement on the other front. Keep in mind; the Iraqi-Syrian issue is the result of the Iraqi nationalists years earlier already discussed, moving the border significantly in the favor of France. It can be said that the Syrian-Iraqi border negotiations of the Sinjar Mountains would not have taken place had not the line been moved from the Balikh River east to incorporate the Khabur River Valley south to Abu Kamal at the request of the Iraqis seeking unity with the Hashemite state that once existed in Syria. Therefore the creation the Syrian-Iraqi border had a direct effect on the demarcation line between Syria and Jordan. The French attempted to use the two Transjordanian villages as bargaining chips to enhance their imperialist claims along the Syrian Iraqi border. The connection between these two border lines, the way the formation of one affected the location of the other and vice versa is important to note. More importantly, however, the source of this connection is, as this thesis claims, the imperialist economic gains that would result as a consequence of the location of the border lines. Productive negotiations to officially determine the boundary between the Hashemite Emirate of Transjordan and the French Mandate of Syria did not take place until October 7, 1931 in Paris.99 From the wartime Sykes-Picot negotiations until 1931, there was not a specified and bilaterally-agreed official line separating the French and British spheres in the inland Levant (Syria and Transjordan) and this is obvious by the Syrian-Jordanian border, which will always be a memorial of the complications of the negotiations and imperialist competitive struggle by its odd shape and indentations amid the relatively straight lines of most of the other borders in the region. During the final negotiations, the British demanded that the Transjordan-Syria border be negotiated separate from the Iraq-Syria border, which the French reluctantly, and after many threats agreed to do. The first agreement was on the village of Khirbat Awad which is located at the southern extremity of Jebel Druze, setting the border between Transjordan and Jebel Druze in Syria back to the Convention line of 1920 except in the case of Khirbat Awad which was to go to Syria. Khirbat Awad was to be in

99 Amadouny, 540.

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French Syria while the land immediately south of it would be in Transjordan.100 Figure 8 shows a slight indentation on what would have been a relatively straight line just south of the Salkhad near the Jordanian border (highlighted in red), this indentation is the agreement of the inclusion of Khirbat Awad in Syria. Agreement was also reached on the villages lying east of the Yarmouk Valley (in blue). The southwest villages in this area were to be Transjordanian while the northeast villages - Daraa and its immediately surrounding villages were to remain in Syria in accordance with the previous agreements on this area as well as on account of the French-financed railroad there. One of the villages on the Transjordanian side, Turrah, would have access to the pools in the Wadi Meddan, one of the valleys of the Yarmouk River within Syria.101 On the west, the agreement was reached that the middle course of the Yarmouk River, called the “thalweg”102 would be the boundary except where the Daraa- Haifa railway crossed, that would be Syrian land. This was an advantage to Transjordan, giving it access to the Yarmouk Valley, something that it did not have under the terms of the Franco-British Convention of 1920. East of Jebel Druze, the line turned northeast in a simply straight line, as this area made up the Syrian Desert which was uninhabited, giving the northern Syrian Desert to Syria, the southwest to Transjordan, connecting it with Iraq, which was given the southeast portion of the Syrian Desert, wide enough, after the Hadda Agreement of 1925, also known as Winston’s Hiccup, with the Saudis, to ensure safe travel and space to build a railway and pipeline from Iraq to Transjordan. The Hadda Agreement recognized Saudi sovereignty over the Wadi Sirhan, which is just south of the Syrian Desert, encompassing the territory from Al-Jawf (Sakakah) to Kaf (Qurayyat) , in return for Saudi recognition of the borders of Transjordan, Iraq, and Kuwait and the end of Saudi raids into those states. The British and French governments agreed on the Transjordan-Syria boundary

100 Amadouny, 541. 101 Tyrrell to Foreign Secretary, 14 October 1931; Humphrys to Colonial Secretary, 23 October 1931, CO 732 50/1, as cited by Amadouny, 541. 102 Cosmo Parkinson [Colonial Office] to Humphrys, 29 October 1931, CO 732 50/1, as cited by Amadouny, 542.

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Figure 8. Territorial adjustments of the Convention Line of 1920. Adapted from: Veterans Today. “Jordansyria Border Map.” Last modified December 2, 2013. http://www.veteranstoday.com/wp- content/uploads/2011/12/jordansyria-border-map-312x320.jpg. on October 31, 1931 and it was approved by the Council of the League of Nations in January 1932 and officially demarcated that same summer.103 While the creations of the borders of the former Ottoman territories in Asia have been of great interest, especially in the case of the Jordanian-Syrian border as it is one of the more complicated, mysterious cases, having less available information published than others, it is also interesting that these borders have been relatively stable ever since. Even in the wake of independence, nationalism, and military take-overs, the arbitrary borders serving the interests of the foreign imperialist powers of Great Britain and France have held through, possibly

103 League of Nations to Foreign Secretary, 17 March 1932, CO 732 54/1, as cited by Amadouny, 543.

49 playing a significant role, along with the government aided propaganda, of establishing a new form of state-bound nationalism. This has especially been the case in Jordan, mostly among native Transjordanians who make up a minority of the population. This was also seemingly popular in other Arab states until recent days, the Arab Spring bringing all things to question. The Jordanian-Syrian border is currently at the forefront of Middle East interest due to the Syrian civil war and the massive Syrian refugee influx to Jordan. Could this result in a shift of one of the rock-solid borders of the Arab states? Jordan, being in the middle of the Middle East seems to be the home of Arab refugees, but this time things could be different due to the possible renaissance of ties between Syrians and Jordanians who are now forced to live together, again. The city of Mafraq in northern Jordan for example is now called ‘The Syrian City’ due to its overwhelmingly Syrian majority. Syrians and Jordanians might begin to remember that the line between them is not a line of their choice, but was forced on them by others, and that they are in position to keep it exactly the same, amend it, or remove it completely, a choice perhaps forgotten due to the 81-year old border that they have grown accustomed to. There have been times, such as Black September of 1970, which was the attempted coup of the Hashemite regime in Jordan by the Palestine Liberation Organization that have at least threatened the integrity of the Syrian-Jordanian border, as Syria was involved in the conflict against Jordan on the side of the PLO. Although the military conflict with Syria was resolved after the Jordanian air force destroyed the invading Syrian tanks, the border was at least destabilized. From the end of this conflict until 2005, Syria had occupied 125 square kilometers (about 48 square miles) of Jordanian land while Jordan held on to 2.5 square kilometers (about one square mile) of Syrian land. The territory occupied by the two countries was uninhabited as it was in the Syrian Desert area near the Iraqi border. In early 2005, both states agreed to withdraw from the occupied portions of territory reaffirming the demarcation line of 1931.104 Although the Middle East is probably the most contested region in the world, the stability of the borders there is uncanny. Even though the Arabs have sovereign states, they

104 Abdul Jalil Mustafa & Agencies, “Syria and Jordan Sign Border, Other Accords,” Last modified March 1, 2005, http://www.arabnews.com/node/263053.

50 maintain the borders placed by Great Britain and France. Perhaps reasons for this include the divisions of geographical regions where border communities will maintain access to their historic deposits of natural resources, therefore not hindering on this basis the economic livelihoods of these communities. Abdullah I of Transjordan and the British prioritized this, as previously mentioned, in their bout with the French over the Syria-Transjordan border. For example in the case of Lebanon and Syria, it is known that France attempted to create an Arab Christian state in Lebanon, although it did not include exclusively Christian communities on the Lebanese-Syrian border, such as the villages of the Anti-Lebanon Mountains and the Wadi An-Nasara (Valley of the Christians) into Greater Lebanon, but left these two border regions to Syria. Reasons for this again may be that the communities of these areas had a closer socio-economic connection to the cities and towns of what was to be Syria than those of Lebanon. Also natural terrain might have played a significant role in preserving these borders. As previously explained, the Anti-Lebanon and Nusayra (Alawite) Mountains beginning at Mount Hermon in the south to the Nur Mountains on the Syrian- Turkish border separate the coast of this area from the inland. Today the Anti-Lebanon Mountains serve almost as a natural border of Lebanon with Syria, while no known claims or requests by the Lebanese Republic nor the residents of these Christian regions in Syria near the Lebanese border are made to attempt to change this. Therefore a reason for the stability of these arbitrary borders over the years could very well be that the imperialist powers of Great Britain and France did their part to understand where communities would need to be included in which region based on the geographical and historical needs in regards to the livelihoods of these border communities. In no way are these borders “natural,” they just are tolerable for the border communities in their respective cases, therefore making for a decent place to make the line, the best of a horrible situation in which divisions were made by foreign powers. Time and state-bound nationalism also play a significant role in upholding these borders. Jordan has historically been a hinterland of its neighbors. The northern Transjordanian town of Ajloun had most of its connections and dealings with Nazareth and the Galilee in the west and the Syrian Hawran in the north. Salt, Transjordan’s Ottoman capital, and Karak were economically attached to Nablus and Hebron respectively, while Ma’an was considered a Northern Hejazi town. Therefore a completely artificial state and

51 nation was formed out the area surrounding these towns, cutting them off from their previous political and economic ties. After its creation, it has had, in comparison to other Arab states, relative ease in maintaining its borders. Jordan’s southern (extended in a bilateral agreement with Saudi Arabia in 1965, giving Jordan a longer coastline in exchange for inland desert) and eastern borders with Saudi Arabia and Iraq are sparsely populated and roamed by Bedouin. Jordan acquired the West Bank during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and lost it during the Six-Day War of 1967. Jordan renounced all rights to the West Bank in 1988, recognizing the PLO as the legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people and occupied Palestinian land. Jordan’s western border with Israel and the West Bank is the Jordan River and the Wadi Arabah. All of the Border States mentioned have cordial relations with Jordan and the maintenance of these borders is not as not difficult as it was during the state’s infancy, during which it felt threatened by Saudi Arabia in the south and east, and pressured to go to war with Israel on the western border. The Syrian-Jordanian border though is the most complicated as the towns are so close to one another without separation of river or valley as those are shared by the two states, and the common social life and culture (in terms of common foods and dishes, and linguistic dialect) of people on both sides of the line is difficult to ignore. The Jordanian from Ramtha and the Syrian from Daraa are both Arabs from Hawran. The stability of this particular border then, besides the possible reasons mentioned above, could simply be governmental loyalty. The residents on the Jordanian side of the border may be loyal to the Hashemite regime while, Daraa, the historic capital of Hawran, is the capital of the Syrian Civil War. It is safe to say, that, being the capital of the Syrian Revolution against the Ba’athist Regime of Syria, the people of Daraa would most likely not want to replace a presidential dictatorship with a Hashemite monarchy. That is not to say that the Jordanian Hawranis are not fighting in the Syrian Revolutionary efforts, they are. But would they be willing to do the same in their own state? If they did, would this cause a shift in the border? If the Syrian Revolution was successful, would this region of Jordan, so closely tied to their neighbors across the border, desire an unprecedented shift in a seemingly immovable frontier? Reasons given for the stability of this border and the borders of the Middle Eastern nations created by Great Britain and France are essentially theoretical because one cannot factually determine the

52 reasons for their stability until a major shift takes place. This will definitely show why the shifted border remained the same for so long by contrast to the reasons why it shifted.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

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