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Anglo-French Relations in : From to Sykes-Picot

A thesis presented to

the faculty of

the College of Arts and Sciences of Ohio University

In partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree

Master of Arts

James L. Bowman

May 2020

© 2020 James L. Bowman. All Rights Reserved. 2

This thesis titled

Anglo-French Relations in Syria: From Entente Cordiale to Sykes-Picot

by

JAMES L. BOWMAN

has been approved for

the Department of History

and the College of Arts and Sciences by

Peter John Brobst

Associate Professor of History

Florenz Plassmann

Dean, College of Arts and Sciences 3

Abstract

BOWMAN, JAMES L., M.A., May 2020, History

Anglo-French Relations in Syria: From Entente Cordiale to Sykes-Picot

Director of Thesis: Peter John Brobst

Though the Entente Cordiale of 8 April, 1904 addressed several outstanding imperial tensions between the British and the , other imperial disputes remained unresolved in the lead- to . This thesis explores Anglo-French tensions in , from the signing of the Entente to the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement in 1916. Syria proved to be a cause of frictions that brought many buried Anglo-French resentments back to the surface and created new ones. Cultural, strategic, and economic interests were at stake, interests which weighed heavily upon the Entente powers and which could not easily be forgone for the sake of

‘cordiality’. This thesis presents evidence that unresolved Anglo-French tensions in Syria raised serious concerns among officials of both as to the larger future of their

Entente, and that even after the Entente joined in war against their common enemies, such doubts persisted. This thesis argues that the strategies developed by Britain and

France in Syria were developed to check each others’ ambitions, and that these strategies proved highly consequential to their respective post-war positions in Syria. It is concluded that tensions in Syria constrained broader Entente trust and cooperation both before and during World War I. 4

Dedication

To my wife, Krispin

5

Acknowledgments

Several professors in the Ohio University History Department deserve my thanks.

I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. John Brobst, who provided his support from the formulation to the completion of this thesis. I thank Dr. Patrick Barr-Melej and Dr.

Steven Miner for their encouragement during the courses I was fortunate enough to take with them. I would like to thank Dr. Ingo Trauschweizer and the Contemporary History

Institute, and Dr. Michelle Clouse for her guidance in my role as a teaching assistant. I would like to give a special thank you to my friend Dr. Robert Ingram for his time and counsel on many things.

I also thank my fellow graduate students, my friends, and especially my family for the encouragement and love they have gifted me over the past two years.

6

Table of Contents

Page

Abstract ...... 3

Dedication ...... 4

Acknowledgments ...... 5

Introduction ...... 7

Chapter 1: Entente Cordiale ...... 19

Chapter 2: Eve of War ...... 46

Chapter 3: Reaching Sykes-Picot ...... 94

Epilogue ...... 121

References ...... 130

7

Introduction

John Marlowe contends that Anglo-French rivalry and suspicion “had its origins in, and was mainly concentrated upon, the .”1 By WWI Ottoman Syria came to symbolize the tensions that complicated the spirit of Entente Cordiale, but those tensions had deep historic roots. It was from those roots that grew a network of interconnected interests and priorities that complicated British and French national and international relations. Before we focus on the early , let us survey those roots.

The interests of the British and the French in Ottoman Syria represented the values and visions of their respective Empires, and often the pursuit of these interests resulted in either cooperation or competition. and Britain’s position in Syria relied heavily on their standing with the . Syria was conquered by the Ottoman

Sultan in the early-sixteenth century, and it was Selim’s successor Sulieman I who began the tradition which continued until WWI of granting France capitulations in the interest of trade and diplomatic relations. These capitulations and the Ottoman tradition of the millet system allowed French missionaries to establish Catholic missions in Syria to practice and preach their faith without undue interference from Ottoman authorities, and to enjoy exemption from local courts. French kings from the start of the capitulations claimed the traditional duty, conferred by the Vatican, to serve as protector of the rights of Catholics in non-Christian Near-East regions.

This protection was not only for religious but also cultural reasons. Through

French schools and churches, the became the tongue of the educated classes in and traders in Syria, “so that it could be said that a traveler in Syria

1 John Marlowe, Perfidious Albion, The Origins of Anglo-French Rivalry in the Levant, (London: Elek Books, 1971), 7. 8

might almost consider himself in a French dependency.”2 This role as Protectorate of

Catholics in the East explains why, despite the damage done to the Franco-Ottoman relationship by the French revolutionary invasion of Ottoman Syria, ’s armies were welcomed and even aided by Syrian Christians. Napoleon saw Ottoman Syria to exert influence in . We will discuss later French and English diplomats who saw

Syria to solidify control of Egypt, India, the Persian Gulf, the wider Eastern

Mediterranean, and as part of the route to the Indian Ocean.

It was these interests which drew Britain into Egypt to head off Napoleon’s invasion, but this was far from the start of her involvement in Syria. Whereas the paramount mission of the French in Syria was religious and cultural, the British were more oriented towards economic and strategic considerations. England under Queen

Elizabeth I obtained in 1580 permission to trade with the Ottoman Empire, a privilege previously enjoyed exclusively by France. The English monopolized their trade to the

Ottoman Empire under the chartered Levant Company, which operated until 1825. The

Levant Company dealt in luxuries including Lebanese silk and Palestinian wool and oil, and English traders like the French were protected by millets and enjoyed the privileges of capitulations negotiated between the English kings and Ottoman sultans. English monarchs did not claim a role as protectors of Christians in the East and did not share the

French and wider European view of the Levant “as a Europa Irredenta, as the cradle of

Graeco-Roman civilization temporarily alienated to ”.3 However, they nevertheless used the presence of their traders and missionaries in Ottoman Syria as justification for

2 Edward Meade Earle, Turkey, The Great Powers, and the Baghdad Railway, (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1923), 153-154. 3 Marlowe, Perfidious Albion, 7-8. 9

the extension and protection of the legal rights enjoyed by their own subjects to Christian subjects in Syria.

Though the dueling Anglo-Turk and Franco-Turk relationships brought significant advantages for both European powers, from the start of the Levant Company to the turn of the nineteenth century England played second fiddle in Syria and the wider

Ottoman Empire. It was with Napoleon’s invasions that Britain seized her opportunity to gain the upper hand with an to frustrate the French advance, an alliance so welcome by the Ottoman sultan that he described George III as “his respected brother the exalted sultan of the English.”4 British military support, coupled with the destruction inflicted by Napoleon, ended French economic predominance in Syria as well as in

Egypt, where the new Khedive Muhammad Ali granted the British monopoly rights over the Egyptian trade of grain. Still, French economic interests in Egypt, which in the decades after Napoleon had begun to outpace their trade with the Ottoman Empire, as well as the support of Ali, ensured that France did not lose a foothold in Egypt.5 Though the end of the Napoleonic period with the Treaty of Westphalia marked the start of a period of relative peace between France and Britain which culminated in the Entente

Cordiale, interests in Ottoman Syria prior to the Entente continued to drive Anglo-French competition during the nineteenth century.

Anglo-French interests in Ottoman Syria were complicated in the nineteenth century by a third , , and by the signs of decline in the Ottoman Empire which by the 1840s and 1850s led many to describe the once-great power as the ‘sick

4 A. L. Tibawi, A Modern including and , (London: The Macmillan Company, 1969), 34. 5 Philip Mansel, Levant, Splendor and Catastrophe on the Mediterranean, (London: Yale University Press, 2010), 82. 10

man of ’. European interest in the declining Ottoman Empire shifted away from a focus upon commercial concerns towards a more imperial competition over the ‘Eastern

Question’, the competition over who would fill the power vacuum left by the declining

Ottomans.6 The inclusion of Russia into the ongoing Anglo-French influence in Egypt proved important in the conflict between the Ottoman sultan and Muhammad Ali which broke out in the 1830s. Like Napoleon, Ali saw Syria as a shield to the defense of Egypt.

When his petitions to be granted Syria by the sultan were ignored, he decided in 1831 to send his armies to capture Syria by force. By 1832 victories had put Egypt in a position to march on itself to depose the sultan. The eyes of Russia, Britain and France each turned towards the conflict for different reasons. As A. L. Tibawi explains,

“Russia desired to increase her influence in Istanbul and to prepare for the seizure

of the lion’s share of the inheritance of the Sick Man of Europe. Great Britain

sought to maintain the integrity of the Ottoman Empire both to check Russian

ambitions and to safeguard her communications with India. France likewise

wished to maintain the integrity of the Empire and was jealous of Russian

ambitions.”7

Ultimately the sultan granted Syria to Ali, but Egyptian rule there was short lived. In

1839-40, when the Ottoman Empire failed to retake Syria, Ali again considered the option to invade Istanbul, this time with the aid of France. However, Russia and Britain intervened, and Ali was forced to relinquish his claim on Syria, which returned to the

Ottomans. The three great powers had each shown in these crises of Ottoman power their intentions related to the ‘’. While Britain and France were both

6 Philip Khuri Hitti, History of Syria, including Lebanon and Palestine, (London: Macmillan, 1951), 698. 7 Tibawi, A Modern History of Syria, 69. 11

dedicated to keeping Russia out of the Ottoman Empire, the French were not as concerned as the British with maintaining the integrity of Ottoman control in Syria if increased French influence could be attained in exchange.8 As we will see, Anglo-French contention over Ottoman imperial integrity continued to shape and be shaped by their interests in Syria.

Another point of Anglo-French-Russian contention revolved around the cultural influence which clients in Ottoman Syria conferred upon the great powers. While the

French claim to cultural predominance had faced no serious competition by Britain, the same could not be said about Russia. With the 1774 Treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji the

Ottoman sultan was compelled to recognize the Russian tsars as protectors of the Greek

Orthodox community and to extend the privileges of capitulations to Russian subjects within the Ottoman Empire. The French saw this as a threat to their prestigious position as Protector of Catholics in the East,9 as now the Russians had their own claim to protect

Christians within the Ottoman Empire which they could leverage at the expense of

France. Though the British mission in Syria was not first and foremost a cultural one, they had in previous centuries founded informal with minority groups such as the Jews and Protestants, and in the nineteenth century they added to this group the

Druze. By 1896 the British had established religious missions throughout Syria and

Palestine,10 and though their clients were minority parties in Ottoman Syria, combined the British hoped they could counterbalance the influence provided to Russian by the

8 Marlowe, Perfidious Albion, 9-10. 9 Hitti, History of Syria, 697. 10 A detailed report of British Religious Missions in Syria and Palestine can be found in British Documents on Foreign Affairs, Part I, Series B, Vol. 16, editor David Stevenson, pages 29-53. 12

Orthodox Christians and to France by the Catholics and Maronites.11

Britain’s trade monopoly and informal alliance with Ottoman Jews helped make her the first European power to open a consulate in in 1838, but not to be outdone Russia and France quickly followed suit. These consulates paid close attention not only to the affairs of those non- they sought to protect, but also to the affairs, both religious and political, of the clients of competing great powers. This strategy demonstrates the typical dynamics of the political and cultural competition which ensued throughout Ottoman Syria in the nineteenth century between France, Britain, and Russia, where each power asserted their own, sometimes conflicting right to intervene.12 It was this competition which led to the Crimean War in the 1850s, and it was France and

Britain’s shared interest in both propping up the Ottoman Empire and keeping it out of

Russia’s hands which led the two to an alliance for the first time since the seventeenth century.13

Though the loss in the Crimean War humiliated Russia, it did not signal the end of

Russian designs on the Ottoman Empire and Syria. Russia shortly after the war founded ecclesiastical missions in Jerusalem which established monasteries and schools that taught the Russian language. The role of Britain and France in defense of the Ottoman

Empire during the Crimean War further elevated their position with the sultan

Abdulmejid I, and both saw their cultural institutions and commercial activity multiply in the following decades. Protection of the Maronites and the was the justification which led the French and British respectively to intervene in Lebanon when civil war

11 Tibawi, A Modern History of Syria, 103. 12 Tibawi, A Modern History of Syria, 104-105. 13 P. J. V. Rolo, Entente Cordiale: The Origins and Negotiations of the Anglo-French Agreements of 8 April 1904, (London: Macmillan and Co. Ltd., 1969), 21. 13

broke out between those sects in 1860, an intervention which led to the creation of the

Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate. Despite Ottoman acquiescence to Anglo-French intervention, French and British interference did not go unchallenged in Syria. The lasting memory of such interference in the Christian massacre of 1860 bred “a latent resentment against Christians and Europeans (that) continued to be felt in all areas of

Syria.”14 Lebanon was just one example of wider religious and political unrest visible throughout Syria which had been brewing since before the Crimean War. Some of this unrest came from Syrian Muslims who voiced their displeasure both against Ottoman laws which they felt favored Turks over , and great power influence which gave

Christians a path of redress unavailable to Muslims.15 In the waning years of the nineteenth century, during the reign of sultan Abdul Hamid II, such unrest and threats to

Ottoman sovereignty by great power influence caused the French and the British to fall out of favor with the .

Creation of the in 1869, financed by Britain and France, had caused significant economic strain upon the Egyptian government and had ended in a military intervention which made Egypt a British protectorate. The invasion of Egypt not only deeply scarred Anglo-French diplomatic relations, (a tension which was addressed directly by the Entente Cordiale), but also had ramifications for the position of both powers in Syria. The intervention was seen by Abdul Hamid as just the latest chapter in a humiliating history of occupation and interference in Ottoman territories by European powers. Compounded by this history were signs of a possible Arab or Christian

14 J. P. Spagnolo. "French Influence in Syria Prior to World War I: The Functional Weakness of Imperialism." (Middle East Journal vol. 23, no. 1, 1969), 61. 15 Tibawi, A Modern History of Syria, 122-123, 158. 14

independence movement against the Ottoman Empire in Syria, which led the sultan to suspect “a united European Christian front ranged against his Muslim empire,” and to tighten his grip on Syria and restrict leniency of conduct therein of European powers.16

Hamid’s anger against the traditional great powers and the precarious position of his empire led the sultan to seek support from a new ally. ’s hinted disinterest in the fate of Christian Ottomans and ’s growing economic strength made that young nation appear a viable option.17 German influence in the Ottoman

Empire in the 1880s and 1890s grew commercially and militarily, as well as culturally.

With the nation unified, nationalist sentiment demanded that “German missionaries abroad must look to their own Government for protection.”18 Progress in the Ottoman

Empire by Germany and her ally Italy, which included the establishment of churches and schools to promote their cultures, led France to seek assurances from the Holy See as to the continued French position as Protectorate of the Catholics in the .19 Pope

Leo XIII officially reinforced this recognition in 1888, but still German influence grew, influence which Germany used as leverage in their enthusiastic pursuit of a concession to build a railway through the Ottoman Empire to Baghdad.

France, Britain, and Russia each challenged Germany for the Baghdad Railway concession, but unlike Germany each of these powers had marks against them in the eyes of the sultan. During the competition, German Emperor Wilhelm II toured the holy sites of Ottoman Syria and spoke of his hope for solidarity between the German nation and the

Muslims which lived within Ottoman territories. The tone of this tour represented for

16 Tibawi, A Modern History of Syria, 170-171. 17 Ibid., 185. 18 Earle, Turkey, the Great Powers, and the Baghdad Railway, 163. 19 Earle, Turkey, the Great Powers, and the Baghdad Railway, 162. 15

Hamid a sign of German attitudes towards the Ottoman Empire which contrasted sharply with those of the other European powers.20 In 1903, Germany’s Deutsche Bank won the

Baghdad railway concession, with pledged financial support from French financiers. This project granted Germany the right to connect Berlin to commercial opportunities throughout the Ottoman Empire, potentially including Ottoman Syria. The Baghdad

Railway was only the newest of a network of railways funded by European powers which had been designed to intersect the Ottoman Empire, but Edward Meade Earle observed that at the turn of the century, “the scepter of railway power in the Near East was passing from the hands of Frenchmen and Englishmen into the hands of Germans…A German mission was blazing a trail through Syria”.21 Anglo-French involvement in bids for railway concessions through the Ottoman Empire continued to influence their relationship in Syria after 1904.

The above discussion of the tensions which preceded the Entente Cordiale in

Ottoman Syria is far from comprehensive, but it presents a framework of the complex

Anglo-French relationship there. Let us now chart the trajectory of the rest of the story.

Chapter one will focus upon Anglo-French tensions from the ratification of the Entente

Cordiale in April 1904 to the end of the decade. It was in this period that Syria, though it remained a peripheral concern compared to North Africa, increasingly began to raise questions of strategy in the minds of Entente officials as the prospects of war grew.

France had traditionally seen the survival of the Ottoman Empire, a maintenance of the status quo, as key to her continued control and the stability of Syria. British officials however sought prospects to spread British influence and weaken Ottoman control over

20 Tibawi, A Modern History of Syria, 193-194. 21 Earle, Turkey, The Great Powers, and the Baghdad Railway, 34-35. 16

areas which could be strategically valuable to their empire. Tensions due to competition over Anglo-French influence will be demonstrated by the steady emergence of commercial plans in the region crafted for the advantage of one Entente partner at the expense of the other. One prime example to be discussed was the prospective Anglo-

German and Franco-German deals over the funding of the Baghdad Railway which would run directly through Syria territory. The prospects of the rise of Arab in response to the Young Turk Revolution would also build animosity within the Entente, a topic which will be considered in this chapter as well as in chapters two and three.

Furthermore, the entrance of France’s ally Russia into the equation with the 1907 Triple

Entente fueled mutual Anglo-French distrust in Syria in ways which will be explored in this chapter as well as the second and third.

The second chapter spans 1911 to the outbreak of war in July 1914, in which the conflicts in Syria became magnified in the minds of Entente officials. Though French investment in Syria pre-war was significant, she remained behind Britain in trade with the region. French officials thus began to seek paths to compensate for their previous neglect of Syria, with the fear that if they failed to prove the sincerity of their commitment to the region, the British would be their likely usurpers. France thus directed propaganda and significantly increased funds towards the so-called ‘mission civilisatrice’ which sought to capitalize upon France’s long – if tenuous – presence in Syria. The secondary goal of this mission, to ward off the possibility of penetration into the region by Anglo-Saxon culture, did not go unperceived (or without resentment) by British officials. Lastly, as war loomed on the horizon, both Entente powers continued to consider the strategic advantages which a presence in Syria would provide them in case of war either with Germany, with Russia 17

in the case of Britain, or even with each other should they be unable to resolve their ongoing problems. Britain focused on Syria to tighten her imperial line of defense and communications between Egypt and India and use the region as a point of defense for the

Suez Canal. France believed Syria was vital not only to maintaining her presence in the

Middle East but throughout the . Such advantages were numerous and would be beneficial regardless of whether war broke out. The various tensions which arose led France’s Raymond Poincaré in 1912 to request a formal statement from Sir Edward Grey which expressed Britain’s disinterest in Syria and Lebanon, a sign of just how deeply distrust had been sewn into the fabric of the Entente by Syria.

However, as chapters two and three will show, this statement of disinterest would prove insufficient in ending suspicions between these powers in the region.

Chapter three concludes this discussion with an examination of the Entente’s antagonisms in Syria from the outbreak of war to the signing of the Sykes-Picot

Agreement. As explained above, even as they struggled against the power that had pressured them into the Entente, the French and British Empires could not put aside their disagreements in Syria. These tensions made it necessary in 1916 to create an agreement, even before the Ottoman Empire was officially defeated, which carved that empire into spheres of influence for the . This division of Syria represented the failure of the French to maintain a unified Ottoman Empire and keep the British out of Syria, a goal which had long been challenged by the British but which had been ramped up during the war in several ways. In the early months of the war, French officials continued to fear that proposed British intervention in Syria was designed to cut France out of the region, just as had been the case with Egypt in 1882. These fears compelled the French to create 18

secret plans to intervene before the British, plans which would prove unnecessary when

Theophile Delcassé received assurance from Sir Edward Grey that Britain would provide advanced warning of any intended intervention. Lloyd George’s attempts to turn

Palestine against France by capitalizing on the Zionist movement’s aspirations for the creation of a Jewish state will also be discussed, as well as increasing French suspicions during the war of British plans to envelop Syria and Lebanon into their Egyptian protectorate. Further tension arose thanks to British support of the Arab nationalist movement as a means to fragment the Ottoman Empire, a course which forced Lord

Herbert Kitchener and Grey to walk a delicate line of appeasing both the French and the

Arabs – with the result that both sides suspected British manipulation. These tensions not only led the Entente to realize the necessity of an agreement which specifically delineated their spheres of influence but would continue to complicate the negotiations which would drag on for several months as war raged. As will be discussed briefly in the conclusion to this thesis, even the Sykes-Picot Agreement was unable to put mutual Anglo-French suspicions in Syria to rest, with the result that distrust continued to damage the Entente relationship long after World War I ended.

19

Chapter One: Entente Cordiale

This chapter will explore the role of Ottoman Syria in the Anglo-French relationship during the first decade of the twentieth century. Scholars have traced this relationship at length in the years that directly preceded World War I, but many have glossed over that relationship in the first decade of the twentieth century or argued that

Britain and France were hardly interested in Syria prior to 1911. It is true that the Entente

Cordiale did not mention Anglo-French interests in the Ottoman Empire, nor were any official agreements made to divide Ottoman Syria until the Sykes-Picot Agreement in

1916. Nevertheless, the Entente changed the dynamic of Anglo-French relations in Syria.

Mission Civilisatrice

Britain and France spent centuries in competition for religious and cultural influence in Syria. Considering their Entente Cordiale, and with the alternative of

German, Italian, or Russian encroachment, it might have been expected that both powers would coordinate to grow their collective influence. There was, however, a problem:

France’s so-called ‘mission civilisatrice’ was during a crisis. Since the 1880s French

Foreign Minister Théophile Delcassé had argued that the role of France as protector of the faith was one of the most important justifications for French imperialism. He had convinced the Vatican not to accept diplomatic representation from the Sublime Porte, and convinced Leo XIII to state officially the Vatican’s preference of France as protectorate in the Levant and the Far East.22 However, in the early years of the twentieth century, France found itself embroiled in a fiery debate domestically over the separation

22 Christopher Andrew, Théophile Delcassé and the Making of the Entente Cordiale, (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1968), 85. 20

of church and state, a debate which threatened the very understanding of French imperialism.

In 1902 the anti-cleric Emile Combes became Prime Minister, and shortly after the Entente was signed, Pope Leo died. The mixture of the anti-clerical Combes and

Leo’s illiberal successor Pius X led to the sort of deterioration in relations between

France and the Holy See that Théophile Delcassé had tried to prevent. Many French statesmen voiced their concerns for what this deterioration in relations would mean for

France’s prestige in Syria. André Tardieu, First Secretary in the French diplomatic service, observed that “by breaking with the Vatican, we should sooner or later lose the profit accruing to us by the exercise of our Catholic protectorate in the Levant.”23 French ambassador to London Paul Cambon and sous-director adjoindt du Midi Maurice

Paléologue also recognized the disastrous effects of anti-clericalism for French influence and prestige in the Near East.24

The fracturing of French politics on the topic of church and state separation, which coincidentally unfolded during Anglo-French , turned Delcassé towards Britain for guidance. In May of 1904, one month after the Entente was signed,

Delcassé passed on his concerns to Edmund Monson, British Ambassador to France, who in turn relayed them to Secretary of Foreign Affairs Lansdowne, with the hope that their recent partnership on the Entente might find the Foreign Secretary sympathetic towards

Delcassé.25 The chance for these two statesmen to work together on the question was a

23 André Tardieu, France and the Alliances: The Struggle for the Balance of Power, (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1908), page 94. 24 M. B. Hayne, The French Foreign Office and the Origins of the First World War: 1989-1914, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 80, 120-121. 25 British Documents on Foreign Affairs, Part I, Series F, Vol 11., editor David Stevenson, 408. 21

moot point however, as Lansdowne and Delcassé left office in 1905 and 1906 respectively. With these departures, Paul Cambon had to defend the ‘mission civilisatrice’ and the French position in Syria without the coordination of these fellow

Entente architects.

Despite the separation of church and state in France, it soon became clear that the anti-clerics did not want to push the point abroad and damage France’s position in Syria.

In an attempt to demonstrate that the new government was committed to the Protectorate, the Quai d’Orsay in 1905 extended an invitation to the Uniate Patriarch of Huwayik to visit Paris, and Emile Combes for his part insisted that France’s role in Syria would remain unchanged despite his ardent anti-clericalism.26 These efforts did little to hold back Italian and German encroachment. It was clear that Italy had become “determined to capitalize on French anti-clerical sentiment at home in order to try to supersede France as protector of Catholic interests in the Middle East.”27 Cambon, who followed the Italian encroachment with dismay, wrote to the French Consul-general of Jerusalem in May

1906 to express his distaste for the whole business: “Vous avez raison de vous lamenter sur cette politique imbécile qui tue notre influence en Orient… Dans 25 ans, tout le monde pleurera la fin de notre protectorate catholique,”.28 With the upper hand, Italy forced France in 1906 “to concede modifications to the protectorate that allowed Italian orders in some parts of the Ottoman Empire to come under the jurisdiction of Italian

26 Christopher M. Andrew and A.S. Kanya-Forstner, The Climax of French Imperial Expansion 1914-1924, (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1981), 43. 27 William I. Shorrock, The Origin of the French Mandate in Syria and Lebanon: The Railroad Question, 1901-1914. (International Journal of Middle East Studies vol. 1, no. 2, 1970), 139. 28 Paul Cambon, Correspondance, 1970-1924, Tome Deuxième (1898-1911), (Paris: Éditions Bernard Grasset, 1940), 215-216. 22

diplomacy.”29

The threats of Italy were compounded by German nationalist sentiment which claimed sovereignty over their own subjects in the Ottoman Empire, and Wilhelm made clear his intentions to further insert Germany into Syria by the commission of numerous building projects in the Holy Land. This included a new church on Mount Zion which he placed under the guardianship of the German Catholic Benedictines of Beuron rather than the Franciscans who had been the traditional guardians of the Latin holy places.30

Another sign of encroachment of Germany and Italy into cultural affairs in Syria was signaled by the steady replacement of French missionaries by those of Germans and

Italians, a trend which continued to World War I.31 It was not, however, only Italy and

Germany that inspired anti-clerics to insist that the mission civilisatrice would remain intact. John Spangolo provides evidence that subsidies to Catholic missions in Syria in the years following the separation of church and state were “staunchly defended both by the Quai d’Orsay and by the consuls for their importance in Anglo-French rivalry for the domination of souls.”32 The Foreign Office had assured France that its interests in the

Ottoman Empire “were limited to economic rights and to strategic needs regarding the defence of the roads to India,”33 yet French reactions to the British presence in Syria prove that fears of British cultural penetration were far from alleviated.

When the British fleet stopped in in 1904 and was greeted warmly by the local population, the French consul-general remarked that “France has completely

29John P. Spagnolo, The Definition of a Style of Imperialism: The Internal Politics of the French Educational Investment in Ottoman Beirut. (French Historical Studies 8, no. 4, 1974), 570. 30 Abraham E. Millgram, A Short History of Jerusalem, (Northvale, N.J.: Jason Aronson, 1998), 114. 31 Andrew and Kanya-Forstner, The Climax of French Imperial Expansion, 43-44. 32 Spagnolo, The Definition of a Style of Imperialism, 570-571. 33 Jukka Nevakivi, Britain, France and the Arab Middle East 1914-1920, (London: The Athlone Press, 1969), 2. 23

abandoned Syria to England in order to concentrate on West Africa.”34 This belief that the door had been opened to British cultural penetration was reflected by Quai d’Orsay officials who identified repeated incidents of anti-Christian sentiment during this decade as “largely in terms of sectarian affiliations and the undermining British influence.”35

French officials in this light appear far more concerned with how Britain might have inspired these incidents than concerned with how their own imperial policy might have been to blame. Further, French sensitivity in Syria was evidenced by French consular dispatches which, in the wake of Sir Eldon Gorst’s six-day trip to Syria in 1909, speculated that Britain’s interest in Syria had increased in light of France’s decreased popularity and that Britain may intervene in Syria to take administration of the region for itself.36 Pichon even had Cambon clarify to the British government that France “would

(not) remain quiet while another power insinuated itself in the seat of France’s traditional influence”,37 though this warning was not enough to dissuade the British consul-general in Beirut from upsetting Pichon further by touring Lebanon to the warm reception of

Druze and Maronite alike.

Cambon himself saw less nefarious motives behind Britain’s scrutiny of France in

Syria. One telling commentary Cambon presented was in reaction to a 1907 edition of

London’s Daily Graphic, which warned of the dangers for Britain of reduced French presence in the Levant. The French ambassador viewed this article as symptomatic “of the anxiety with which the English Government follows everything which tends to

34 William I. Shorrock, French Imperialism in the Middle East: The Failure of Policy in Syria and Lebanon, 1900-1914, (Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1976), 117. 35 Spagnolo, French Influence in Syria Prior to World War I, 61. 36 Shorrock, French Imperialism in the Middle East, 119. 37 Ibid., 120-121. 24

diminish our influence in the Orient.”38 By Cambon’s estimation, this article showed that it was fear of reduced Entente prestige, rather than attempts to supersede France, which directed British actions in Syria. Despite Cambon’s view, many top officials in France became increasingly suspicious of British designs on Syria in this decade. These suspicions were further compounded with Britain’s position in relation to the rise of Arab nationalism and .

The Young Turks and Arab Nationalism

Independence and nationalist movements in Syria provided further paths for both

Anglo-French rivalry and cooperation. At the start of the twentieth century, some Anglo-

French officials, including the French consul-general in Beirut, believed that the concept of Arab nationalism was not a threat to European influence in Syria,39 and put rather indelicately his view that “You may look through the whole history of the

Orientals in what is called, broadly speaking, the East, and you will never find traces of self-government. All their great centuries…have been passed under despotisms.”40 As we will see, these dismissive attitudes were challenged by the rise of Arab nationalism and the Young Turk Revolution, with serious consequences for Britain and France in Syria.

While the precise origin of nationalism in Syria is debated, few identify it as an ideology founded first in response to the Young Turks. John Marlowe argues that Arab nationalism was an ideology which resulted from interactions between the various groups of the Arabian peninsula (and particularly Syria) with Western European powers, combined with a declined sense of connection to the Sublime Porte.41 The British and the

38 Shorrock, French Imperialism in the Middle East, 118. 39 Andrew and Kanya-Forstner, The Climax of French Imperial Expansion, 41. 40 Arthur Balfour, (qtd. in Andrew and Kanya-Forstner, The Climax of French Imperial Expansion), 42. 41 John Marlowe, Arab Nationalism and British Imperialism: A Study in Power Politics. (New York: 25

French, through their interference in Syria, had exported European values of liberalism and nationalism which served as part of the inspiration behind Arab nationalism.

Similarly, the Egyptian rulers Muhammad Ali and Ibrahim Pasha, men whose actions contributed to the early spread of conceptions of identity which helped develop Arab nationalism, had received Anglo-French sponsorship and opposition.

The other half of the nationalism question was the Ottoman Empire, an empire which in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries had become secularized and widely divided by race, religion, and language. It was in the early years of the twentieth century that Syria became the “first scene of the expression of Arab nationalism in a mass movement.”42 Syria, like much of the Ottoman Empire, was deeply divided along the lines of religion and race. Syrian intellectuals had to find a way to bridge these divides, and some “posited the idea of ‘Syria’ as a discrete homeland within the Ottoman

Empire,” and believed that “If ‘’ could discover and nurture what they had in common, then a way forward from bloody religious divisions seemed possible.”43 The shared language provided one potential path to connecting all Syrians, while another was the shared homeland, a theme which had gained currency with increased recognition of ‘Syria’ by Christian European cultural influence.44 Syrian Arab nationalism had been suppressed by Anglo-French protections of religious clients, and

Muslims had been pacified by Abdul Hamid’s “special attention to Syria, perhaps out of

Frederick A. Praeger Publishers, 1961), 11-12. 42 Rashid I. Khalidi, Arab Nationalism in Syria, The Formative Years, 1908-1914, found in Nationalism in a Non-National State: The Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, edited by William W. Haddad and William Ochsenwald, (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1977), 208. 43 James A. Reilly, Fragile Nation, Shattered Land: The Modern History of Syria, (Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc., 2019), 76. 44 Ibid., 76-77. 26

fear of the potential discontent he realized existed there.”45 However, increased signs of

Arab nationalism led to increased concerns of French diplomats that the cultural role of

France would be further eroded.46 British officials, meanwhile, were anxious to ensure that their strategic position was not disturbed by whatever regime replaced the

Ottomans.47

A year before the Young Turk Revolution, a petition was submitted to the Foreign

Office begging for British intervention “to deliver Syria from Ottoman tyranny,” and in

1909 a circular was delivered to the British embassy in Beirut “asking for British rule over the country,” both sentiments which in the view of British consul-general H. A.

Cumberbatch represented popular eagerness throughout Syria for British occupation.48

The French mission civilisatrice had alienated certain religious groups in Syria, among them Protestants and Muslims, who had been neglected by the French Mission on the grounds that French officials saw such groups as “more amenable to British influence,” and felt that supporting them might undermine the French commitment to Catholics.49

French recognition of their failure to garner support among non-Catholics, along with the continued insistence even among anti-clerics to support the French protectorate, forced

French officials to take sides in what became known as the ‘lay-clerical debate’. This debate centered on whether France should continue to focus on funding clerical schools that catered to Catholics, or to fund schools that catered to wider sets of the population.

Proponents of lay schools argued that clerical schools were outdated, and that it

45 Khalidi, Arab Nationalism in Syria, 210. 46 Shorrock, The Origin of the French Mandate in Syria and Lebanon, 139. 47 Stephen Hemsley Longrigg, Syria and Lebanon Under French Mandate, (London: Oxford University Press, 1958), 40. 48 Khalidi, British Policy Towards Syria and Palestine, 207, 214-215. 49 Spagnolo, French Influence in Syria Prior to World War I, 60. 27

would be of value for the French to support the creation of lay schools, citing “that

English, German, and American lay schools had been successful in attracting a diversified cross section of local populations.”50 French diplomat Jules Harmand feared that French officials were concerned firstly with maintaining French influence in Syria, while consideration of what would be most beneficial for Syrians themselves was only an afterthought.51 Clerical school proponents continued to offer the more traditional view that ultimately the best way to maintain French influence was to focus on the education of their religious clientele as there was no real threat of different religious communities undertaking collective political action.52 As Harmand might have predicted, this oversight had serious consequences. While the ‘lay-cleric debate’ raged in France, the British mission in Syria was characterized in the eyes of many Syrians by a respect for the interests of non-Catholic groups and sympathy towards the aspirations of Arab nationalism, even if fueled by self-interest over the protection of Egypt.53 This stood in stark contrast to the continued perception of France as among those European powers committed to the continued division of Arabs just for the sake of stability and a maintenance of the status quo.

The rise of the Young Turks brought Arab nationalism to the fore of Anglo-

French concerns like never and Arab nationalism soon proved troublesome for both the

Young Turks and the Entente in Syria. The Young Turks, who claimed to be a reform movement, were seen by some officials in France and Britain as a positive development

50 Shorrock, French Imperialism in the Middle East, 50. 51 Ibid., 53. 52 Philip S. Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate: The Politics of Arab Nationalism, 1920-1945, (Princeton: N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1987), 27-28. 53 Khalidi, British Policy towards Syria and Palestine: 1906-14, (London: Ithaca Press, 1980), 69-70. 28

for their interests there. Many in the Young Turk leadership had been educated in France and Britain, and expressed plans to modernize the government “politically, industrially, and socially according to the best of western European traditions” and were of the opinion that “the Kaiser was an autocrat…(who) had propped up the tottering regime of

Abdul Hamid and thus had aided suppression of liberalism in the Ottoman Empire.”54

These sentiments granted Britain and France new confidence in Syria, even if it was short-lived. British Ambassador to Sir G. Lowther reported to Grey in

August 1908 that pro-British sentiment was evident throughout Syria, and the report of the Consul in Longworth from earlier that month suggested that British prestige and prospects for further influence in Syria had grown with the Young Turk Revolution.55

On the issue of railways, the Young Turks were “desirous of doing everything possible to remove French and British objections to the construction of railways in the Ottoman

Empire,”56 and the British acting Vice-Consul in Alexandretta Joseph Catoni spoke in

August 1908 of hopes that the new constitutional government would “grant the long- expected Concession of a railway from Aleppo to Alexandretta.”57

Despite these positive signs, Lowther in his 1908 reported that though French support was welcomed by the Young Turks, he recognized that there was among the new regime “a suspicion that some of the financial operations recently concluded have been too much in favour of French bankers and not quite fair to the Turkish people,” and that it seemed clear the new French Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, like his predecessor,

54 Earle, Turkey, The Great Powers, and the Baghdad Railway, 217. 55 British Documents on Foreign Policy, Series B, Vol. 20, editor David Stevenson 1-2. 56 Earle, Turkey, the Great Powers, and the Baghdad Railway, 221. 57 British Documents on Foreign Policy, Series B, Vol. 20, editor David Stevenson, 3. 29

was uninclined towards coordination on financial matters with Britain.58 To make matters worse, in 1910 the French consul in upset Turkish officials when he “accused the Turks of neglecting Arab needs”, an accusation which led the Turks to double-down on their own accusation of French predation towards Syria via capitulations.59 British concerns of France’s ability to damage the Anglo-French position in Syria can be seen in conjuncture with mutual Anglo-French suspicions on financial matters in Syria to be discussed later which put distance between the two nations and the Turks.

Though the Young Turks had favored the Entente, and the Entente had been hopeful for what the new regime could accomplish, the doctrine of ‘Ottomanism’ was deeply concerning for the French and British because of its perceived threat to the stability of the Ottoman Empire in Syria. Ottomanism “encouraged the separatism movements already in operations” while in gave “Arab nationalism…a new lease on life,” throughout Syria and Lebanon.60 The Young Turk Revolution complicated

Lebanese politics, as the Maronites and Druze were split on their trust in the Young

Turks, and the French and British sought to convince their clients that “participation in the Ottoman parliament could endanger the Lebanese privileges…and (that) representation was a matter for the Powers to decide.”61 This Entente stance proved convincing to the Lebanese, who withdrew from the political reforms of the Young Turks by 1908, and the weight of popular sentiment backed by Britain and France ensured that the Young Turks did not try to force the matter.62

58 British Documents on Foreign Policy, Series B, Vol. 20, editor David Stevenson, 57. 59 Shorrock, French Imperialism in the Middle East, 77. 60 Hitti, Lebanon in History, (London: The Macmillan Company, 1957), 482. 61 Spagnolo, France and Ottoman Lebanon, 1861-1914, (Oxford: Ithaca Press, 1977), 251. 62 Ibid., 254. 30

Complications produced by local religious and political conditions in Syria by the

Young Turks were not confined to the Maronites and Druze. These complications were felt throughout the major cities of Syria, especially in the violence between Muslims and

Christians, division which underlined the feeling among Syrians of being caught in the crossfire of the Young Turk and European authority. 63 Britain and France had to be careful not to be connected to disorder by the Young Turks. Such a goal was difficult for

Britain with the French press and even the French consul-general in Beirut charging

Britain with conspiring with Arab nationalists between 1905 and 1911 including Negib

Azoury’s Ligue de la patrie arabe, despite a lack of evidence that Britain was involved with the group.64 French Charge d’Affairs Fouques-Duparc also believed that a satirical article in 1909 “which took the form of an imaginary report by Gorst on the eagerness of the local population for a British occupation” was genuine, and even after this was denied he reported to Pichon “his continued suspicions as to British ambitions in Syria.”65

Britain and France distanced themselves publicly from groups which might challenge the Young Turks, but Anglo-French officials were equally concerned with what might happen to their power in Syria if an independent Syrian nation broke free of

Ottoman control. The rise of the Young Turks, which had initially served as a sign of hope for Arabs who had felt themselves neglected under the Sultans, came to be viewed with disdain in Syria as the Young Turks implemented reforms which further enforced

Turkish legal and cultural control. There were those among the elite in Syria who, in reaction to these measures, feared that France and Britain’s influence in Syria would only

63 Reilly, Fragile Nation, Shattered Land, 76. 64 Shorrock, French Imperialism in the Middle East, 74. 65 Khalidi, British Policy Towards Syria and Palestine, 214-215. 31

increase should this wedge between the Turks and Arabs continue.66 The British government, which in a report at the end of 1910 stated that a distinctly anti-European atmosphere could be detected in Beirut and Damascus, blamed such sentiments and resulting unrest across Syria upon the connection in the minds of Syrians of Europe to the

Young Turks.67 The British consul in Damascus predicted by July 1910 that antagonism between Turks and Arabs would continue to grow,68 a statement which demonstrates the difference between the views at the start of the twentieth century towards Arab nationalism and ten years later.

Suspicion permeated Syria in this period, as the British, French, Turks, and the various nationalist movements could not be certain who was on their side on the question of authority. Anglo-French officials hoped that their influence might remain regardless of who controlled Syria and they consequently took steps to ensure that this was the case. In the first decade of the twentieth century, this meant was that the French and British challenged each other’s motives and made it difficult for either to walk the thin line between the nationalists and the Turks. In the following chapters we will see how this precarious balancing act would have wider consequences for the Entente’s future in

Syria.

Palestine and Zionism

Britain’s historical defense of Ottoman Jews and the growing sentiment of

Zionism provided another complication for Anglo-French relations in Syria. Syrian Jews at the time of the Young Turk Revolution tended to identify politically with the Ottoman

66 Khalidi, Arab Nationalism in Syria, 213-214. 67 British Documents on Foreign Policy, Series B, Vol. 20, editor David Stevenson 199. 68 Andrew and Kanya-Forstner, The Climax of French Imperial Expansion, 45. 32

Empire, or with their faith community, and as such Jewish nationalism did not gain a mass following in Syria in this period.69 This did not mean that Jewish nationalism was without its supporters. In the first years of the twentieth century, the founder of Zionism

Theodor Herzl lobbied both Kaiser Wilhelm and Abdul Hamid on the possibility of

Jewish settlement in Palestine, but to no avail. Herzl was also suspicious of France, which had recently been embroiled in the Dreyfus Affair, a scandal which proved to

Herzl that Jews could not expect to be treated with dignity even in what he considered to be one of the most enlightened of places. These failures led Herzl to Britain, as he believed Britain had demonstrated a sympathy for the Jewish settlement in the Holy

Land.70 Herzl supported British Prime Minister ’s 1903 proposal to allocate territory in Uganda as a home land for the Jews, a proposal which divided the

Zionist Congress and was ultimately rejected in 1905, a year after Herzl’s death. This offer would have further solidified the connection between Britain and and may have served as an opportunity to work together towards Palestine,71 but its failure was not the end of Britain’s alliance with Zionism. With Palestine again viewed as the primary land to house a Jewish state, a divergence in the Zionist Congress split those who wished to attain political guarantees prior to settlement in Palestine, the ‘politicals’, and those who wished to build up political capital through settlement regardless of political guarantees, the ‘practicals’. One Practical Zionist, Chaim Weizman, believed that

Zionism could be helped by the continued interest of Western Powers (and at that time

69 Reilly, Fragile Nation, Shattered Land, 84. 70 Palestine: A Study of Jewish, Arab, and British Policies, vol. 1, published for the Esco Foundation for Palestine, Inc., (New Haven Connecticut, Yale University Press, 1947), 43-44. 71 Birdwood, Lord. Britain and the Middle East. (African Affairs vol. 58, no. 231, 1959), 124. 33

particularly Britain) in the cause.72 For this purpose, Weizman met with British Prime

Minister Arthur Balfour in 1905, a relationship which proved highly consequential to

Zionism and the Anglo-French position in Syria a decade later. Balfour was charged as anti-Semetic by some in Parliament, the press, and in scholarly work for his passage of the 1905 Aliens Act. Yet as Geoffrey Lewis argues, Balfour did not despise Jews. Rather, he felt they deserved the opportunity to create a homeland which did not demand a split of their loyalty between their faith community and a foreign power.73 Lewis also emphasizes that though anti-Semitism was prevalent in Britain, there had been since the seventeenth century support in Britain for the return of Jews to Palestine, which had

“received an unexpected fillip from the surge of British imperialism in Africa and the

Near East.”74

This connection to Britain was problematic for Zionists, for though the rise of the

Young Turks strengthened the position of Practical Zionism, which “professed friendship for the new regime,” the Young Turks were suspicious of any national movement they perceived to be a threat to their authority.75 In Palestine by 1909, complaints against

Jewish immigrants and especially the special privileges afforded to them by the protection of the great powers had “become the order of the day,”76 while others “felt that the Zionists could help the Arabs to resist European encroachment.”77 As discussed earlier, British influence fell out of favor with the Young Turks in the waning years of the first decade of the twentieth century, and the Young Turk’s suspicion towards Zionism

72 Palestine: A Study of Jewish, Arab, and British Policies, 48. 73 Geoffrey Lewis, Balfour and Weizmann, The Zionist, the Zealot and the Emergence of , (London: Continuum Books, 2009), 30-31. 74 Lewis, Balfour and Weizmann, 21. 75 Palestine: A Study of Jewish, Arab, and British Policies, 50. 76 A. W. Kayyali, Palestine: A Modern History, (London: Croom Helm Ltd., 1978), 22-24. 77 Khalidi, Arab Nationalism in Syria, 284. 34

and its connection to outside influence only added to these suspicions. This led to speculation in the minds of Anglo-French officials as to the possible dangers and opportunities posed by the Jewish population in Syria and Britain’s relationship to it.

There were some in the French government who believed “that the Zionist Organization was working for Germany,”78 or those who saw Britain’s designs on Palestine as little more than a poorly conceived attempt to force the French out of Syria.79

It is certainly true that influence over a Palestine populated by Jews was considered for strategic reasons; British defense analysts for example in 1906 saw influence in , along with railway concessions through Jerusalem, as an opportunity to gain what was in their eyes the best port for the British fleet.80 However, in this period there was also a perception among British diplomats, largely originating from the British

Embassy in Constantinople, that Jews in the Ottoman Empire might cause trouble for

British relations with the Young Turks. Historian David Fromkin provides evidence that

British Ambassador Lowther and his First Dragoman Gerald Fitzmaurice inaccurately reported that Jews held significant sway over the Young Turk leadership, a misconception which won wide-spread acceptance among British officials and led

Lowther to believe that Jews could drive a wedge between Britain and her Triple Entente partners.81 At the same time, these misconceptions as we will discuss led the British to the conclusion that support for Zionism could indeed help win the Great War and secure a stable British foothold in Syria. Therefore while the British government after Balfour

78 Lewis, Balfour and Weizmann, 75. 79 Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate, 53. 80 Khalidi, Arab Nationalism in Syria, 269. 81 David Fromkin: A Peace to End all Peace: Creating the Modern Middle East, 1914-1922, (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1989), 41-43. 35

viewed Zionism with “indifference and a degree of frigidity”,82 we will see that in the years leading up to WWI and then in the Sykes-Picot negotiations that strategic considerations took center stage and British support for Zionism increased in light of strategy.

The Baghdad Railway and Ottoman Syria

The Baghdad Railway and its connection to various Syrian railway lines was yet another topic which led to Anglo-French rivalry as well as cooperation. French companies had funded numerous other lines and line extensions which could be linked to the Baghdad Railway, and it was this possibility which preoccupied the minds of officials on both sides of the Entente. The French government was in an awkward position on finance of these railways, as well as on wider questions of finance and commercialism in

Syria. When promises of cooperation with Germany were on the table prior to 1902,

Théophile Delcassé and others in the French government believed that the Baghdad

Railway and its possible extensions into Syria did not pose a threat to France’s role as

Protectorate of Catholics in the East, and in fact hoped that the railway would divert

Germany’s interests towards the Ottoman Empire and away from vital French interests like . Delcassé reasoned that this was manageable because the Quai d’Orsay, through the French representatives on the Board of Directors of the Baghdad Railway company, could keep a watchful eye over Germany.83 Prime Minister of France Maurice

Rouvier and André Tardieu too sought to allow French finance of the Baghdad Railway to continue in exchange for German relinquishment of designs upon Morocco.84

82 Lewis, Balfour and Weizmann, 75. 83 Earle, Turkey, the Great Powers, and the Baghdad Railway, 168-169. 84 Earle, Turkey, the Great Powers, and the Baghdad Railway, 170-171. 36

Others in the French government disagreed with these assessments. These included colonialists who recognized that France’s “stranglehold on the Ottoman public debt failed to give her anything approaching a stranglehold on the Turkish economy as a whole,” as well as officials in the finance and foreign ministries who “echoed colonialist complaints at ‘the tendency of our financiers to put French capital to work in the creation of foreign business enterprises.”85 When it became increasingly clear in 1901-1903 that

Russia opposed the Baghdad Railway, and that Germany wished to build connections through Syria to the Mediterranean to undermine French rail companies, Delcassé reversed his stance and tried to convince Rouvier against sanctioning French capital to participate in the Baghdad Railway.86 These sentiments won out when the Quai d’Orsay vetoed use of the Paris Bourse as a market for the floating of Baghdad securities. Still, funding of the Baghdad Railway and the construction of French railways which could connect to the Baghdad Railway was not forbidden, and the Foreign Ministry continued to cooperate with French railroad enterprises in Syria to expand France’s influence in

Syria. Let us consider to what extent these factors concerned British officials and impeded Anglo-French coordination.

British officials in this period viewed railway concessions as one way to neutralize the threat to Egypt by providing Britain with the necessary political influence and defensive position to repel invasions from hostile foreign powers.87 The British

General Staff of the War Office was presented a report in 1905 of threats and opportunities posed by connection of Syria to the Baghdad Railway. The report

85 Andrew and Kanya-Forstner, The Climax of French Imperial Expansion, 43. 86 Shorrock, The Origin of the French Mandate in Syria and Lebanon, 138. 87 Rashid I. Khalidi, British Policy Towards Syria and Palestine76. 37

emphasized that the line’s connection with the Baghdad Railway at Aleppo would allow for troops of whichever power controlled the stations to be transported between the

Anatolia plateau and Central Syria and Damascus, and that by the connection with the

Hejaz Railway at either Damascus or Mezrib, “such troops could be moved down to

Mann ready for a further advance into Arabia if necessary.”88 Also noteworthy is the speculation in the report of British opportunities to fund Syrian rail lines which would provide connections to fertile regions in Syria, and the speculative conclusion by the author that European traffic eventually would fall under the control of one European director chosen from among those powers which financed and operated the various lines throughout Syria. This position, it was speculated, would “obtain great influence for the

Power of which he is a subject, not only at the port of Haifa, and in the districts traversed by the () line, but also in N.W. Arabia from Maan as a center.”89 Pursuance of

British railway influence therefore made a good deal of strategic sense by 1905, and this sense of importance continued to grow prior to WWI.

Some in Britain felt that such interests did not necessitate cooperation with

France. In the final decades of the nineteenth century, British imperialists such as Cecil

Rhodes and Joseph Chamberlain joined with numerous London newspapers in speculation that German control over these railways was the best chance for Britain to retain a foothold in Ottoman commerce to Syria, and that the French could not be trusted to respect British commercial interests.90 However, this optimism towards Germany soured by 1906-07, when British officials including J. L. French and Lord Curzon

88 British Documents on Foreign Affairs, Series B, Vol. 17, editor David Stevenson 249-254. 89 Ibid., 254. 90 Earle, Turkey, the Great Powers, and the Baghdad Railway, 66-67. 38

speculated as to the possibility of German railways being used to transport Turkish soldiers through Syria en masse to threaten the Suez Canal, as well as to the feasibility of a British invasion of Syria to cut off Turkish lines of communication.91 Even as trust in

German business in the early years of the twentieth century diminished, evidence suggests that expectations of cooperation with the French did not immediately improve.

In fact, even after the Entente was signed, British officials grew concerned about the threat posed to their interests in Syria by German French cooperation on railroads. A report from the British embassy in Constantinople from June 1906 concluded that

Germany and France’s cooperation could tighten their control over the Near East in such a way that Ottoman integrity would no longer be respected, and further that “in spite of the Anglo-French entente, England and English finance is out in the cold.”92

Britain’s connection between Egypt, the Persian Gulf and India was of utmost concern to British officials, and foreign control of the Baghdad Railway was viewed as a threat to that connection.93 British officials in some instances sought to cooperate with the

French to protect this connection, and French officials recognized the value such cooperation could provide them in Syria. Germany was reliant on foreign capital to fund parts of the Baghdad Railway, and negotiations over this finance proved a chance for

Anglo-French cooperation. In 1907 French Minister of Foreign Affairs Stephen Pichon told the British government that he was interested in discussing internationalization of the section of the Baghdad railway which spanned from Baghdad to the Persian Gulf, but the suggestion was rebuked by Francis Bertie, British Ambassador to France, who explained

91 Khalidi, British Policy towards Syria and Palestine: 1906-14, 62-65. 92 British Documents on Foreign Affairs, Series F, Vol. 12, editor David Stevenson 80. 93 British Foreign Policy Under Sir Edward Grey, edited by F. H. Hinsley, (London: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 150-151. 39

that the connection to the Gulf was too important for Britain to share finance and control over it.94 Bertie seemed not to share Pichon’s belief that internationalization was the only viable strategy, as it was the French minister’s expectation that Turkey was unlikely to support sole British control of the line. Britain’s refusal of internationalization therefore forced Pichon to make a new proposal, and in 1909 he stated that while he still supported internationalization as the most viable strategy, he was prepared to support the British claim in exchange for Britain’s support of French claims to concessions for connections of the Syrian lines to the Baghdad Railway.95 By this time, however, the French were not the only foreign power Britain felt obligated to consult on such matters.

Thanks to the formation of the Triple Entente, Anglo-French decisions on railways through Syria now also had to consider Russia. The British demonstrated this in

November 1909 when Grey informed French and Russian officials that Britain had been approached by Germany on an agreement over the Gulf section of the Baghdad railway.

Russian Foreign Minister Alexander Isvolsky in turn charged Britain with going behind her Entente partners – a charge which he backed away from when it dawned on him that

Britain had in fact been forthcoming with this information.96 There were some in France who believed that Triple Entente coordination on the Baghdad and would unnecessarily force the wrath of Germany. For example, Edmond Bapst furthered the earlier views of Rouvier and Tardieu who felt it was possible that German aggression towards France in Morocco was tied to France’s opposition or acquiescence to the railways, and this necessitated negotiations with Germany.97

94 British Documents on Foreign Affairs, Series B, Vol. 18, editor David Stevenson, 359-360. 95 British Documents on Foreign Affairs, Series B, Vol. 13, editor David Stevenson 70. 96 Khalidi, British Policy towards Syria and Palestine, 146-147. 97 Hayne, The French Foreign Office and the Origins of the First World War, 203. 40

Further evidence of French suspicions can be observed when an Anglo-Syrian syndicate pursued a concession to build a Tripoli- line in 1909. The Quai d’Orsay, rather than suggest partnership with British financiers, pressured the French Damascus-

Homah et Prolongements company to put forth a rival bid for the concession to undermine Britain’s chance to obtain a foothold in Syria through the political power such a railway could confer.98 Pichon disagreed with these views towards Anglo-French coordination and in April 1910 joined with Britain and Russian officials to discuss possible coordination. Triple Entente officials discussed a policy whereby France would support the British bid for a concession to railways in the Persian Gulf which could then link to Russian and , and Britain would in turn support France’s bid for the concession for the railways from Baghdad to Homs, possibly with British financial assistance.99

Despite his efforts to coordinate with the British, Pichon was not averse to French financial penetration of . He joined with André Tardieu and the Parisian

Regie Generale des Chemins de fer to suggest that British participation in the railway from Syria to Mesopotamia could be secured by allowing France a share in the planned

Persian Gulf railway, though this plan was rejected “mainly because of understandable coolness on the part of the British.”100 Anglo-French animosity was compounded by negotiations between André Tardieu and the Turkish Finance Minister on railway concessions in Syria in 1910. Tardieu was bribed by French and British promoters to secure for them a concession for a railroad from Homs to Baghdad, a scheme which

98 Khalidi, British Policy Towards Syria and Palestine, 126-127. 99 British Documents on Foreign Affairs, Series B, Vol. 18, editor David Stevenson, 383-389. 100 Nevakivi, Britain, France, and the Arab Middle East, 1914-1920, 3-4. 41

“poisoned the atmosphere for the loan negotiations between Javid and the French

Government” and placed Britain, “unwilling to go against her French ally,” in the position of having to reject the Ottoman loan request.101 A French official had, in trying to secure a concession for railways in Syria, damaged Anglo-French prestige with the

Turks and angered Britain. Tardieu was not solely to blame, as the “aggressive and occasional arrogance by the Foreign Office” in their pursuit of a concession on the

Mesopotamian railway proved to Turkey that Britain was “just as motivated by narrow self-interest” as France.102 William Shorrock identifies this incident as a “political victory for the ” because Germany seized the opportunity to provide Turkey with the loan it required.103

The railways through Syria to the Mediterranean had served as a bargaining chip that would ideally resolve competing Triple Entente financial and strategic interests in

Arabia. Yet despite these Anglo-French hopes for mutual advancement in Syria, by 1910

Entente negotiations on finance of the Ottoman Empire in Syria had advanced German interests at the expense of the Entente. The British were also beginning to question the value of continuing their railway bid in Syria due to France’s continued interference. As

Rashid Khalidi concluded in his work on British policy in Syria that these various disagreements led in 1910 to the acceptance of the Foreign Office to concentrate on the

Mesopotamian railway concessions and to leave Syria to the French.104 In the next chapter we will see how, in the years before the war, France seized upon this opportunity.

101 Shorrock, The Origin of the French Mandate in Syria and Lebanon, 144. 102 Khalidi, British Policy Towards Syria and Palestine, 184. 103 Shorrock, The Origin of the French Mandate in Syria and Lebanon, 144. 104 Khalidi, British Policy Towards Syria and Palestine, 184. 42

A Triple Entente?

As discussed in the introduction, Russian political, cultural, and economic competition in the Ottoman Empire had threatened Britain and France in Syria since the early nineteenth century. By the early twentieth century in Syria, “Few Russians lived in the territory, their language was spoken by no Syrian, and their small commerce with the country consisted mainly in the supply of petroleum products.”105 Still, politico-religious concerns drew Russia into Syria. The divide between the Entente and Russia over Syria was observed in 1902 during the heated argument over the new governor of Lebanon and proposed revisions to the Règlement Organique. Russia had pressured France into acceptance of a candidate who had proven himself amenable to Russia influence and against reform to the Règlement, pressure observed by British ambassador to St.

Petersburg Sir Charles Stewart Scott, who described France and Russia “‘at daggers drawn’ in the autumn of 1902 over the appointment of a new governor in Lebanon.”106

The result of this tension was the election of a compromise candidate, Muzzafar Pasha, who’s reign was marred by corruption and the failure to enact promised economic and judicial reforms.

France had turned her back on her preferred candidate and promising reforms in

Lebanon in exchange for political expediency with Russia.107 Russia had also mounted significant press campaigns against French participation in the Baghdad Railway, pressure some British officials including Francis Bertie considered to be the primary

105 Longrigg, Syria and Lebanon Under the French Mandate, 40. 106 T. G. Otte, The Foreign Office Mind: The Making of British Foreign Policy, 1865-1914, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 285-286. 107 Spagnolo, France and Ottoman Lebanon, 222. 43

motive behind the Quai d’Orsay’s veto.108 This represented the general assumption among British officials that “French instability and unreliability had by no means withered on the vine of the entente.”109 With these doubts of French reliability and susceptibility to Russia, it was hoped by officials such as British Permanent Under-

Secretary Sir Arthur Nicholas that a Triple Entente could strengthen the Anglo-French position in Syria.110 If Russia felt itself to be an ally rather than an opponent of Britain, perhaps all three powers could work together to prevent further German and Italian encroachment.

Above it was demonstrated that the Triple Entente ensured mutual coordination on the Baghdad Railway in Syria. The Triple Entente also meant a decrease in Russian meddling in Anglo-French coordination on the Maronites and the Druze. As negotiations for the Triple Entente entered their final month, Russia relented and allowed Yusuf Bey to replace the recently deceased Muzaffar Pasha. Yusuf Bey’s government enjoyed support from an “unusual coalition of and Maronites, of the Entente powers and the Hamidian court” which provided him “a greater measure of direct authority over his administration than any previous Governor.”111 Despite this positive development, partnership with Russia also came with its share of negatives. The Triple Entente signaled to the Young Turks that they could no longer trust that Britain and France would temper

Russian ambition.112 Britain could no longer claim itself an alternative to Russia, nor could British officials reasonably distance themselves from Russian decisions.

108 Shorrock, The Origin of the French Mandate in Syria and Lebanon, 139. 109 T. G. Otte, The Foreign Office Mind: The Making of British Foreign Policy, 331. 110 Khalidi, British Policy Towards Syria and Palestine, 94-95. 111 Spagnolo, France and Ottoman Lebanon, 237. 112 Khalidi, British Policy Towards Syria and Palestine, 75, 83. 44

The decisions of Britain were now confined as well as to what was acceptable to

Russia, though Russia would soon prove uninterested in returning that favor. In

November 1910, the Tsar concluded an agreement with the Kaiser which gave Russia a free hand to pursue railway concessions in in exchange for not obstructing German construction of the Baghdad Railway. This particularly upset the British and French because, as discussed above, it had been for Russia’s sake that France had abstained from funding the Baghdad Railway in 1903,113 as well as the reason the British Foreign Office had not moved forward on the proposal with Germany in 1909. Amid numerous other tensions, British and French insecurity in Syria only intensified in the wake of this betrayal by Russia.

Conclusion

Syria was a site of Anglo-French coordination and competition for hundreds of years, and the interests which fueled those interactions continued and evolved in the first years of the Entente Cordiale. In Lebanon near the start of the century, Britain and

France worked together to revise the Règlement Organique and appoint a progressive leader, only to find their attempt thwarted by France’s interest in preserving her alliance with Russia. Once Britain and France brought Russia into a Triple Entente, in some cases the British and French were granted more freedom of action in Syria, but their partnership was betrayed on the question of Syrian railways by Russia in 1910. The tide of anti-clericalism in France that led to a breakdown in relations between France and the

Holy See, coupled with the Sublime Porte’s mistrust of Britain and France, ensured that the threat of German and Italian encroachment was an ongoing concern. French distrust

113 Shorrock, The Origin of the French Mandate in Syria and Lebanon, 145. 45

of British plans in Syria tempered opportunities for Anglo-French cooperation on Syrian railways, though officials on both sides at times proved willing to cooperate, and the rise of Zionism and Arab nationalism in the face of the Young Turks also complicated British and French diplomacy as these nascent movements symbolized the sicknesses within the

Ottoman Empire. The next chapter will focus on how the above developments in Anglo-

French strategy in Syria continued to evolve as Europe marched towards the war that finally dissected the ‘sick man of Europe’.

46

Chapter Two: Eve of War

This chapter will explore how Ottoman Syria influenced the ongoing evolution of the Anglo-French relationship in 1911-1914. The threats of Italy and Germany grew in the years prior to war, while mutual tensions between Britain and France remained over their competing visions and from difficulties posed by their fellow Triple Entente partner

Russia. In the final pre-war years, the centrality of Ottoman Syria to Anglo-French imperial strategy set the stage for the division of Syria in the Sykes-Picot agreement.

While the long-held disagreements between Britain and France remained over Syria, the threat of war added urgency to the efforts of officials to secure their respective interests.

Anglo-French coordination proved difficult as British designs to protect her larger empire and interests via Syria conflicted with the French fixation upon predominance there.

France Seeks Predominance

Let us first consider the challenges that faced France at the onset of the 1910s, and the role of those challenges in France’s strategy shift in Syria. The most relevant French challenge for this thesis of course was Britain. In 1910 France had failed to successfully navigate a series of railway concessions, and though hindsight tells us that Britain relinquished her rail interests in Syria as a result of France’s fervent efforts, the French could not yet be certain that Britain did not remain her competitor in railways. The popularity of Britain among prominent Muslims and Christians continued to be viewed by the Quai d’Orsay as fueled by British-occupied Egypt, which served “as a haven for their political activity,” and where there were formed, “friendly contacts with the British as reinsurance in case the collapse of the (Ottoman) Empire forced them into a new 47

imperial orbit.”114 This belief that Britain and Egypt coveted Syria was reflected in the priorities of the colonialist societies, which Andrew and Kanya-Forstner demonstrate had considerable sway upon French imperial policy. The foremost concern of the Comité de l’Asie Français, fueled by Lebanese immigration to the and the increased

British presence in Syria, as the possibility that France’s shortcomings in the mission civilisatrice might turn Syrians to “to the false gods of Anglo-Saxon civilization and the

English language.”115 The fears expressed by French officials from the earliest days of the concessions, that Britain posed an existential threat to the French religious and cultural mission in Syria, lived on to the outbreak of war. John Spagnolo best summarizes the state of Anglo-French relations in the years before WWI: “The Entente had diminished French suspicions of Britain…(yet) they were far from being altogether dispelled.”116 France continued to scrutinize Britain’s every move in Syria, and we will see in this chapter that the consequences of her suspicions threatened to lose Syria for the

Entente.

The presence of Italy in Syria also continued to concern French officials and made France’s path to predominance in Syria uncertain. Though Italy itself was in the midst of an intense debate over the separation of church and state, Italian policy did not reflect the rise of domestic anti-clericalism in religious activities in Syria.117 The Quai d’Orsay was disturbed by the numerous reports in 1910-11 of Italian missionary encroachment into French circumscriptions, and as Shorrock observes, “…gone were the confident dispatches of the first half of the decade, which spoke of the security of the

114 Spagnolo, France and Ottoman Lebanon, 281-282. 115 Andrew and Kanya-Forstner, The Climax of French Imperial Expansion, 46. 116 Spagnolo, France and Ottoman Lebanon, 271. 117 Longrigg, Syria and Lebanon Under French Mandate, 38. 48

French protectorate and the lack of Italian progress in Syria, the area of major concern to

France.”118 Implicit Italian threats to France’s position were compounded by an explicit test of French prestige in the summer of 1911. The Italian Carmelites announced their intention to place all Carmelite missionaries, schools and properties under Italian protection, even those still loyal to France. This was “the first serious attempt of a Syrian- based religious order to escape the patronage of France,”119 and though not the first threat to France in Syria, it was perhaps the boldest effort at encroachment yet. France managed to repel this threat by imposing economic pressure on Italy, but it was not the end of

Italian encroachment in Syria. This event led to fears that if France did not prioritize

Syria, more religious clients might seek to escape French protection.120 This rivalry, like that with the British, forced French officials to ponder how to overcome their European rivals permanently.

Europe was not the only threat to French predominance in Syria. The middle- ground on which French policy had stood in the previous decade, between a public commitment to Ottoman integrity and secret efforts to encourage (or at the least not discourage) unrest, became more difficult to maintain in the years before the war. As

French officials continued to hedge their bets both on the Turks and on separatists, these two sides moved closer to conflict. The rise in Arab-Turk antagonism threatened to wreck

France’s position entirely as both sides came to overestimate the willingness of France to support their efforts. When requested support never came, separatists and Turks alike viewed France at best as an ineffectual ally, at worst an enemy. Despite these concerns,

118 Shorrock, French Imperialism in the Middle East, 55. 119 Ibid., 55-56. 120 Ibid., 56. 49

for reasons we will discuss, France continued to waver between the two sides and found her prestige damaged with both.

For France to maintain her position in Syria, the challenges posed by the

European rivals, Ottomans, and even the Syrians themselves had to be overcome.

Maurice Pernot explained in 1911 that “nowhere are we (the French) gaining ground. Our adversaries realize this and are redoubling their efforts.”121 This had been recognized by a number of officials in previous years, but it took a series of developments in 1911-12 for

French officials to reprioritize Syria. First, in January 1911 France learned of the Russo-

German Potsdam agreement, which signaled to French officials “that the disintegration of

Turkey-in Asia had begun.”122 The scramble was on in the minds of French officials, and if France did not secure at least part of the pie that was Syria, they would end up empty- handed. Second, Morocco was secured by France via the Franco-German Accord in

November 1911 to secure French rule in Algeria and Tunisia. The next step in this strategy became Syria, as French colonists began to argue “that control of the Muslim

Maghrib made it essential to secure French predominance in Syria.”123

With the Moroccan Protectorate established in 1912 and “as war approached…the dominant feeling among French colonialists was that Syria should remain part of the

Ottoman Empire, with the understanding among European powers that the territory was an exclusive sphere of French influence.124 To accomplish this, France created the short- lived Comité de Défense des Intéréts Français en Orient,125 which by 1913 was merged

121 Andrew and Kanya-Forstner, The Climax of French Imperial Expansion, 46. 122 Ibid., 44. 123 Ibid., 46. 124 Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate, 33. 125 Andrew and Kanya-Forstner, The Climax of French Imperial Expansion, 46. 50

with the older Comité de l’Asie Français. In April 1911 the Comité launched a fundraising campaign to rebuild the Faculté Française de Medecin, an effort which

“became the centerpiece of a campaign to reaffirm the civilizing mission in la France du

Levant.”126 Syria was thenceforth identified as the eastern pole of French policy in the

Mediterranean, and in April 1912 “the Quai d’Orsay had found occasion to observe to

Bompard that ‘as much as ever the preeminence of France in Syria must command your attention as one of the decisive factors in our Eastern policy.”127 French policy continued to revolve around the Mediterranean and Syria’s role as key to security in the Middle

East. Poincaré and all French Foreign Ministers who followed until May 1914 were

“present or past leaders of colonialist societies with a particular interest in the

Mediterranean Empire.”128 As the logic of French power in the Mediterranean with Syria as an important component became orthodoxy in the Foreign Ministry, the justifications for and methods by which to secure Syria increased.

A stronger presence and deeper influence in Syria and throughout the

Mediterranean were also devised as a safeguard against the continued threat of Anglo-

Egyptian political, cultural, and commercial influence within Syria.129 The urgency of such a strategy was heightened in the summer through winter of 1912. The Italo-Turkish war and instability in the increased anxieties within Syria and among the great powers, and the Quai d’Orsay feared “that the British might find the opportunity to exploit their imperial advantage too enticing to resist.”130 Indeed French concerns of

126 Andrew and Kanya-Forstner, The Climax of French Imperial Expansion, 46. 127 Spagnolo, France and Ottoman Lebanon, 281. 128 Andrew and Kanya-Forstner, The Climax of French Imperial Expansion, 50. 129 Spagnolo, France and Ottoman Lebanon, 281. 130 Ibid., 282. 51

European intervention in the case of unrest in Syria were founded, as the British

Government contemplated the dispatch of a warship in response to Christian-Muslim panic which spread in 1911 because of the Italo-Turkish War. This step ultimately proved unnecessary when calm was restored, but it illustrated to the French the lengths to which the British were prepared to intervene to protect civil order in Syria.131 French policy to the end of the war maintained that Syria had to be secured for economic, cultural, and strategic purposes.

With this heightened sense of urgency to secure predominance in Syria and the

Mediterranean, by the end of 1911 the Middle East replaced Africa for the first time “as the central concern of the French colonialist movement.”132 The first step for France to reassert her rights over Syria was to produce a clear statement of the scope of her interests. It was decided that France should focus on the places where her historic, economic, and educational ties were strongest. This region was identified by colonialists as ‘la Syrie intégrale’ stretched, “from the in the north to Egypt in the south and from the Mediterranean in the west to the desert in the east.”133 Shorrock contends that it was a combination of the threats from Britain, Italy, and Germany which drove France to her conclusion that “An economic basis in Syria, laid down and explicitly recognized by the Great Powers, was fast becoming a necessity for France.”134

How that economic basis could be achieved was the question which the French sought to answer in the years prior to the war.

France had double the investments in Syria of her closest rival Germany and

131 British Documents on Foreign Affairs, Series B, Vol. 20, 337. 132 Andrew and Kanya-Forstner, The Climax of French Imperial Expansion, 46. 133 Ibid., 44. 134 Shorrock, French Imperialism in the Middle East, 137. 52

dwarfed the investments of Britain. Despite this, she was overtaken in commerce by

Britain, Germany, Austria and Italy by 1914.135 French officials such as Boppé pressed

French business to invest in infrastructure projects as a means to increase French prestige in Syria, hopeful that such prestige would staunch further encroachments by rival powers.136 Stephen Pichon and his ambassadors, as well as the Comité de l’Asie

Française, worked to convince other French officials that the best way to reassert French priorities was to capitalize upon and extend recent railway and port concessions.137 This idea became the basis for France’s efforts, in the final years before the war, to outcompete her rivals for concessions and to bring into her possession the railways of

Syria. As discussed in the previous chapter, the Russo-German Agreement in 1910 over the Baghdad Railway served as a sign of the threat to Syria posed by Great Power control over railways. The French commitment to deter this threat was made clear in January

1911 by Bompard’s statement to the Turks that any proposed Baghdad Railway concessions to France that did not grant connections to Syria – the system of primary importance to France – were unsatisfactory.138 Efforts towards this goal were complicated by the wariness of French financiers to become involved in ventures in Syria. Paul

Cambon expressed his frustration in French financiers to his son in February over plans discussed between his brother Jules and the German government to connect a line from

Siwas to Diarbekir to French lines in Syria. Cambon argued that this would have made a fine proposal,

135 Harry Howard, Partition of Turkey, (qtd. by Shorrock in French Imperialism in the Middle East, 139). 136 Spagnolo, France and Ottoman Lebanon, 273-274. 137 Andrew and Kanya-Forstner, The Climax of French Imperial Expansion, 44. 138 Documents Diplomatiques Français, ser. 2, vol. 13, no. 128, (qtd. by Shorrock in French Imperialism in the Middle East, 152). 53

“si une ancienne concession de Diarbékir n’avait pas été sottement abandonnée

par nos financiers et nos gouvernemants…Nous passons notre temps en France à

déployer un effort considérable, pour obtenir des avantages que nous

abandonnons sans raison.”139

The initial hesitation of French financiers had its consequences. In March 1911 an agreement between the Baghdad Railway Company and the Ottoman Government allowed the German company to build a junction from Alexandretta to the Aleppo line and to construct port facilities at Alexandretta. French officials were deeply concerned by such developments. In January 1913 Paul Cambon again wrote that such encroachments were the result of the inaction on the part of French business, and he acknowledged along with Boppé that French officials could not alone secure France’s position in Syria.140

Diplomacy, secret connections to separatists, and missionary work were not as valuable for Boppé as a true French economic commitment, which seemed a daunting task prior to the 1914 Franco-Turkish Accord.

As France pursued economic predominance in Syria, her relations with Syrians and the mission civilisatrice changed little, despite lip service to the contrary. French officials perceived that their nation would likely have to commit to the Turks or the Arab separatists if they were to reap any rewards, but found it difficult to manufacture a policy

“which could deal effectively with the contradictory phenomena of her assurances to

Turkey regarding Ottoman territorial integrity and the emerging aspirations of a Syria whose destiny France hoped to control.” 141 Each choice had its own dangers, a

139 Paul Cambon, Correspondance, vol. 2, 310. 140 M.A.E., Turquie., N.S. 122, 2-6, (qtd. by Shorrock in French Imperialism in the Middle East, 154-155). 141 Shorrock, French Imperialism in the Middle East, 81-82. 54

predicament clearly described by the French minister to Cairo when he wrote to Poincaré in . The minister told Poincaré that to abstain from action in Syria would be to lose France’s influence throughout the Mediterranean, while a premature intervention might play into the Ottoman narratives and separatist fears of French predation upon Syria or Anglo-Egyptian absorption of Syria.142

French correspondence reveals that Arab nationalism was watched carefully and taken more seriously from 1910 onwards,143 and France continued covert operations to establish contacts with religious and political groups interested in separatism and French administration. Those efforts, though unmentioned in the Documents diplomatiques français, still attracted Ottoman attention and recrimination that proved consequential during and after the war.144 France saw Arab separatists as both potential allies and enemies in her search for control of Syria. Those separatists who envisioned a post-

Ottoman Syria guided by France were praised and provided a platform in France; those who sought British guidance or independence were ignored or shunned. The Quai d’Orsay was happy to give a platform to Lebanese émigré to Paris Shukri Ganem, who painted a picture of Ottoman Syria in the words the French wanted to hear, while simultaneously ignoring voices such as the later highly-influential student group al-Fatat which were skeptical of France’s role in Syria’s past and in her future.145 As we will see, this contrast in the French treatment of pro- and anti-French Arabs was made clear in the reaction of French officials to the 1913 Arab Congress held in Paris.

French officials assured their British counterparts that they were committed to

142 Shorrock, French Imperialism in the Middle East, 80. 143 Khalidi, British Policy Towards Syria and Palestine, 370. 144 Shorrock, French Imperialism in the Middle East, 67. 145 Andrew and Kanya-Forstner, The Climax of French Imperial Expansion, 47. 55

Ottoman integrity even as they sewed seeds of support among volatile separatists and reformists. Poincaré in Décembre 1912 reaffirmed France’s commitment to Ottoman integrity and also against the intervention of other powers, as he argued that British desintérresement made it an opportune time to reinforce France’s “special and long- seated interests” in Syria and Lebanon through maintenance of Ottoman imperial integrity.146 Some Christian and Muslim leaders saw this as a sign that France herself planned an intervention to supersede the other powers, while others who felt themselves

“rebuffed by the English,” met Poincaré’s words with such gratitude that they offered

Syria to France should she eventually choose to aid separatist efforts.147 Despite any positive effects this hedged policy may have had, rumors of French intrigues allowed the

Turks to deflect Syrian Arab dissatisfaction towards France as an external threat to the

Ottoman Empire which sought to provide her Christian clients a privileged position in

Syria.148 France failed to convince either the Arabs or the Turks that she could be trusted, and thus opened herself to criticism from both.

What seems to have been lost in France’s newfound vigor for the mission cilivisatrice and her economic efforts was therefore a thorough interrogation of the internal deficiencies of French imperial policy that had left the door open to would-be usurpers in Syria. Shorrock demonstrates that French officials were convinced that

Muslims and non-Catholics, while they may have had preference for Britain, would ultimately accept French intervention if it delivered them from the Ottomans.149 We will

146 Raymond Poincaré, The Memoirs Raymond Poincaré, (New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1926), 338. 147 Shorrock, French Imperialism in the Middle East, 84-85. 148 Ibid., 69. 149 Shorrock, French Imperialism in the Middle East, 92. 56

discuss in the next chapter how disillusionment with France among Syrian separatist groups uninterested in French stewardship also haunted France during the war. It will also be further explored below how this overestimation of French support in Syria was coupled with the common misunderstanding over which groups truly represented Syrian sentiment and which were out of touch or inconsequential.

Other failures of French policy to address fundamental problems are apparent in this period. The warnings of Delcassé, Paléologue, and Tardieu, who had identified anti- clericalism as a cause of France’s damaged prestige in Syria, were still not heeded. The

1911 Carmelite trouble and the Italo-Turkish War increased the Quai d’Orsay’s awareness of France’s declining influence among Catholics in the Levant, and the continued anti-clerical deemphasis of the French role as religious protectorate in Syria was viewed with suspicion and bitterness by Christian populations both before and during the war.150 Those few who recognized this, such as Jules Harmand, Poincaré, and Pichon, continued to support a recommitment to clerical schools, yet the Ministry of the Interior made no such commitment.151 Shorrock attributes this to the anti-clerical left’s continued fight against missionary recruitment or improved relations with the Holy See, a campaign they waged due to their confidence that Grey’s formal statement of British disinterest endorsed a carte blanche policy for France in Syria.152 Despite efforts to the contrary, anti-clericalism had seeped into and disrupted France’s religious efforts in Syria. As

French officials sought to secure predominance in Syria through railroads, they failed to secure French prestige among Christians and non-Christians alike. This undermined the

150 Ibid., 64-66. 151 Ibid., 53. 152 Ibid., 59-64. 57

image of the mission civilisatrice that for so long had been France’s strongest justification for her presence in Syria. With the broad problems that faced France sketched out, let us consider the problems that faced Britain and the strategy she pursued to remedy them.

Syria and the Maintenance of the

The relinquishment of British efforts to obtain railway concessions was symptomatic of a larger British shift in strategy in Syria. Despite economic and political interests there, in the years prior to 1914 “there emerged a clear consensus in Whitehall that any further expansions of Empire would weaken rather than strengthen the foundations of British power.”153 It was viewed as advantageous to maintain strength where Britain had it, such as Mesopotamia and Egypt, and to leave the administrative responsibilities of regions where British influence was weak (like Syria) to the administration of an ally. As discussed in the previous chapter, Syria had long been considered a tool for Britain in the maintenance of her Empire, but during the first decade of the twentieth century she had also sought to expand her influence there. Several factors led British officials to reconsider this policy and to reemphasize Syria’s role in Britain’s wider imperial policy.

First among these developments was the emergence of France’s renewed commitment to Syria. The French railway negotiations of 1909-10 signaled to British officials French rail predominance in Syria, and as we will discuss further below, continued French scrutiny over Britain’s every move in Syria and insistence that Britain renounce any designs there were proof enough that France would no longer tolerate

153 Michael J. Cohen, Britain’s Moment in Palestine, (New York: Routledge, 2014), 41. 58

threats to her predominance. Grey and many others in Britain were also convinced, like their French counterparts, that the scramble for the Middle East would soon divide it in the same manner as Africa. Grey hoped that such a division would be between the Triple

Entente and not the Triple Alliance, and that Britain could use France’s desire for Syria as a bargaining chip in order to secure Mesopotamia.154

Britain also remained wary of commitments to either side in the Arab-Ottoman division. Like the French, British officials saw Arab separatists as potential friends or foes, though for different reasons. The British were aware, as evidenced in their 1911

Annual Report on Turkey, that “Turkification” had resulted in a clear loss of C.U.P. prestige in Syria,155 and Arab separatism was afforded more legitimacy by the British after 1910.156 The British considered their options and found plenty of dangers. Grey argued that growing unity and desire for reforms in Syria, in addition to his sense of growing British popularity there, made it likely that if the separatist movement succeeded, Britain would be expected to provide advisers.157 If Arab separatism was hostile to French or British stewardship and the separatist movement faced the Ottomans alone, the movement would likely be crushed, and if the Ottomans regained strength, they would become a serious threat.158 Ideally, if Arab separatism led to conflict, it would be infused with pro-Entente sentiment and be in a position to emerge victorious. Still, the sort of chaos that would emerge from an inopportune Arab rising was viewed by British officials as a potential threat to the British Empire for reasons we will discuss.

154 Roger Adelson, London and the Invention of the Middle East: Money, Power, and War, 1902-1922, (New Haven and New York: Yale University Press, 1995), 57-58. 155 British Documents on Foreign Affairs, Series B, Vol. 20, 301. 156 Khalidi, British Policy Towards Syria and Palestine, 370. 157 Nationalism in a Non-National State, editors Haddad and Ochsenwald, 228. 158 Khalidi, British Policy Towards Syria and Palestine, 232. 59

Despite concerns of what could come from worsened Anglo-Turk relations, the

British made healthy Entente relations their priority. This effort was led by Arthur

Nicolson, who took over from Hardinge at Permanent Under Secretary in 1911.

Nicholson supported “a comprehensive and binding British commitment to France and

Russia,” a policy initiative that Khalidi demonstrates led to “a more antagonistic spirit towards Turkey (in London) than ever before.”159 Britain’s intrigues with separatist groups fueled French suspicions to the point that France demanded assurances of British disinterest in Syria, which Grey gave in 1912 out of fear that relations with France would be damaged.160 Strong Anglo-French relations became a British priority thanks to another important strategic development discussed next.

As we saw in the previous chapter, British strategy by 1910 tied Egypt to Asiatic

Turkey. As potential for war grew from 1911-14, Syria was singled out by Kitchener and the Committee of Imperial Defence as the most likely path for a hostile power to pierce

Egypt. 161 Kitchener and the C.I.D. watched the events in Syria closely, and as we will discuss later, their efforts to defend Egypt proved both a blessing and a thorn in the side of the Foreign Office as they tried to balance British relations between the Entente, the

Ottomans, and the Arab separatists. By 1911 Britain had finished reconnaissance of the

Syrian coast detailed in the previous chapter; Beirut, Tripoli, and Alexandretta were detailed as alternate landing sites, a campaign had been prepared to follow such an invasion, and it was agreed that railway construction in Syria had made Egypt an easier target for invasion than ever before.162 This vulnerability was made more acute by an the

159 Khalidi, British Policy Towards Syria and Palestine, 232. 160 British Documents on Foreign Affairs, Series F, Vol. 13, Grey to Bertie, 469. 161 Khalidi, British Policy Towards Syria and Palestine, 246. 162 Ibid., 88. 60

amendment to the German Navy Law in 1912 that sanctioned increased German armament and changed the strategic landscape in the case of war. The threat of a bolstered German navy led the Admiralty to withdraw and concentrate the British navy in the North Sea.

The withdrawal of Britain from the Mediterranean necessitated a new military understanding with France to provide defense of the land and sea routes to Egypt. The urgency of such an understanding became ever more acute in the final years of peace as

British officials came to realize that Turkey itself posed a significant threat to the Empire should she join the Triple Alliance in common cause. Considering this new threat, a

British land defense of Egypt through Syria was abandoned after May 1912. British officials recognized that an Ottoman land and sea invasion of Egypt via Syria would overwhelm the British regardless of their defense efforts.163 Still, to abandon the

Mediterranean entirely would leave the British Empire vulnerable, so a solution was sought that could protect this vulnerability in the stead of British forces. Unfortunately, an Anglo-Turk alliance was not feasible. In the 1913 words of Sir Louis Mallet, a Turkish proposal of alliance would “unite Europe against us and be a source of weakness and danger to ourselves and Turkey.”164 The far more attractive alternative, proposed by the

C.I.D, was a partnership with the French in the Mediterranean.165 This need aligned with

France’s renewed interest in the Mediterranean, though logistical realities complicated this goal prior to and during the war.

Even as Britain viewed Syria as one piece of a larger strategic puzzle, there

163 Khalidi, British Policy Towards Syria and Palestine, 95-97. 164 Memorandum in Gooch and Temperley, vol. X, part I, 901. (qtd. by Kedourie in England and the Middle East, 22). 165 Khalidi, British Policy Towards Syria and Palestine, 99-103. 61

remained economic interests within Syria that Britain hoped to protect. Threats to

Britain’s substantial commercial interests in Syria led British officials to adopt a more targeted interest in Syrian economic affairs as “primarily France, Germany, and Italy, were making significant gains during the first decade of the twentieth century.”166 The cause of expanding Britain’s market in Syria could, according to a 1911 report by the special commissioner of the Advisory Committee to the Board of Trade M. E. Weakley, be accomplished through the manufacture of more cheap goods that could be afforded by

Syrians and through the adoption of the all-pervasive French language in communications with Syrian businessmen and consumers.167 It should come as no surprise that these recommendations were viewed as threats by the French, and that the years 1912-1913 saw heated exchanges between France and Britain over Britain’s intentions in Syria.168 Jean Gout, sous-directeur du Levant from 1909 and then sous- directeur d’Asie after March 1914, was a proponent of aggressive economic expansionism and saw Britain as a threat not only to her religious but also economic and territorial empire, a stance which led him to argue “that French interests should not be sacrificed at the altar of Entente solidarity.”169 British commercial activity was aimed at the maintenance of her interests in Syria, but French officials remained convinced that the

British hoped to expand. Thanks to these developments, British imperial enterprise and strategy in Syria during the pre-war years fell at the mercy of France. British officials therefore had to be more careful than ever not to foster French suspicions that could lead

166 Shorrock, French Imperialism in the Middle East, 121. 167 Shorrock, French Imperialism in the Middle East, 121. 168 Ibid, 121-122. 169 Note, June 1910, Gout to Rustem Bey, 18 Apr. 1911, AE Gout MSS, 6, (qtd. by Hayne in The French Foreign Office and the Origins of the First World War, 261). 62

to Anglo-French hostility.

Britain monitored French actions in Syria not just to avoid Anglo-French antagonism, but also for signs of continued French failures to halt Triple Alliance encroachment.170 Whether the French were up to the task continued to be doubted much as it had in the previous decade. The 1912 British Annual Report on Turkey noted that the Turks remained suspicious of France regardless of France’s stated commitment to

Ottoman integrity. This suspicion was a result of both France’s statement “that she would not abandon any of her traditions, she would not repudiate any of the sympathies she had acquired, she would not leave in sufferance any of her interests”, and her formal declaration “to the world that she considered Syria as reserved for her .”171 British concerns over French strategy and intentions forced the British to remain open to other potential strategies for the protection of her Empire.

Britain and France in Syria on the Eve of War

On the eve of war, British and French perceptions of their respective positions in

Syria influenced the decisions both powers made, yet those perceptions continued to contradict even to the outbreak of war and beyond. While French officials received reports from Syria that France enjoyed universal support among Catholics and growing sympathy from Muslims, Cumberbatch reported to Grey that “pro-Anglo-Egyptian and anti-French agitation is spreading.”172 French officials pushed for economic ventures to capitalize on France’s apparent popularity, while British officials remained careful not to upset their supporters in Syria and used the popularity of Britain to protect her regional

170 Shorrock, French Imperialism in the Middle East, 122. 171 British Documents on Foreign Affairs, Series B, Vol. 20, 371. 172 Shorrock, French Imperialism in the Middle East, 123-124. 63

interests. Both strategies caused Anglo-French friction.

The French made their commitment to predominance in Syria clear by their efforts in late 1912-13 to both expose British intrigues in Syria and to secure an official

British endorsement of France’s claim there. French suspicions continued to be fueled by the French press and colonialists who insisted that Britain’s every move was evidence of her intrigues there. Consider the French official response to a unanimous article that emerged in the Parisian Fortnightly Review in March 1912 that charged Britain with seeking to recreate the Egyptian Empire. The article gave “point and direction to French attempts to combat the growing prestige of England in Syria,”173 as it was taken seriously enough by Cambon that he requested Grey’s confirmation (which he received) that it had not originated in the Foreign Office. Numerous other articles in a similar vein emerged in the French press in 1911-13 and captured the attention and ire of British officials. The

British 1912 Annual Report on France lamented the numerous articles featured in the

Temps that year which charged Britain with engaging in propaganda or claimed Anglo-

German intrigues in Syria and Lebanon, (though no mention was made to the existence of

British connections with separatist organizations).174

Edward Grey, concerned that the French press was so heavily saturated with theories of British intrigues in Syria that Anglo-French relations would be injured, told

Cambon privately that Britain was disinterested in Syria. When Poincaré was made aware of this private statement he asked Grey if this disinterest could be made public. Grey consented, though he and Asquith made clear that this disinterest solely regarded

173 Shorrock, French Imperialism in the Middle East, 122-123. 174 British Documents on Foreign Affairs, Series F, Vol. 13, 493. 64

‘political’ matters.175 Andrew and Kanya-Forstner argue that Poincaré’s insistence upon a formal statement was demonstrative of French nationalistic, anti-Anglo imperial policy:

“Only when persuaded that the Anglo-Saxons were threatening to step into French shoes did he become an ardent defender of France’s Syrian mission.”176 We have seen that this insistence upon action in Syria to defend it from Britain was not new, and we will discuss in the next chapter how Clemenceau followed in Poincaré’s footsteps during the war.

The British were not pleased with the French reaction to Grey’s statement, which some officials felt was constructed through coordination of the French press and government. Cumberbatch charged that the French had embarked on a campaign in

November-December 1912 to “intensify interest on the part of French public opinion and to prepare the way for Poincaré’s dramatic affirmation of France’s special rights in that region.”177 Anglo-French consular reports speak to the persistence of French suspicions of Britain past Grey’s statement of disinterest and into 1913.178 Regardless of Poincaré’s speech to the French Senate in which he stated he was “happy to be able to add that the rumors about the existence of some disaffection between the English Government and us on this point are completely baseless,”179 the French press repeatedly reported that Grey’s statement of disinterest signaled a total surrender of Syria to France.180 Francis Bertie reported on the discussion in the French press in May 1913 on the:

“meaning and probable result of the reported negotiations between His Majesty’s

175 Spagnolo, France and Ottoman Lebanon, 282-283. 176 Andrew and Kanya-Forstner, The Climax of French Imperial Expansion, 50. 177 Consul General Cumberbatch to Gerald Lowther, 25 January 1913, F. O. 195/2451, no. 153, (qtd. by Shorrock in French Imperialism in the Middle East, 126). 178 Khalidi, British Policy Towards Syria and Palestine, 262-267. 179 France, Annales du Sénat: Débats, vol. 82 (Paris, 1912), p. 340. 180 Sir Francis Bertie to Sir Edward Grey, F. O. 195/2451, no. 153, (qtd. in Shorrock, French Imperialism in the Middle East, 126). 65

Government and the Porte concerning British interests in Asiatic Turkey. There is

a tendency to criticize severely French diplomacy for a too negative policy in the

Near East, and for thus allowing France to be outstripped by other nations

there.”181

Bertie specifically mentions an article in the ‘Figaro’ which urged the French government in light of 1912 Anglo-French discussions to concentrate on the region where France enjoyed influence, Syria. During French accusations against Britain, British officials were reminded by these articles of France’s intense commitment to la Syrie intégrale.

British economic pursuits, such as attempts in December 1913 to obtain oil concessions, led Cambon to complain that Grey’s statement of disinterest was dishonest.182 Grey in December 1913 responded to Cambon’s concerns with a written assurance that Britain only sought oil concessions, a response which concluded that such concessions did not fall under the heading of the type of intrigue Grey had disavowed in his 1912 assurance and was within the right of any nation to pursue. These French concerns over British economic ventures were unfounded, as evidenced by Mallet’s report to Grey in June 1914 on the issue. He reported that the Ottoman Minister of

Finance had informed him that if Germany and Britain worked together to help Turkey resist demands for oil concessions by France and Russia in Syria, Turkey would be likelier to issue the oil concessions Britain sought. To this, Mallet informed the Minister of Finance that it would be useless to seek such an assurance from Grey.183 When given the express opportunity to manipulate the Entente to gain economic advantage, Britain

181 British Documents on the Origins of the War, Vol. X, Part 2, 123. 182 Shorrock, French Imperialism in the Middle East, 135. 183 British Documents on the Origins of the War, Vol. X, Part 2, 411. 66

declined due to her commitment to Entente solidarity.

The disparity of Anglo-French interpretations of Grey’s disinterest is reminiscent of the disparity in Anglo-French interpretations of the Entente Cordiale. In both cases, the French invested higher expectations for the British than the British themselves were ready to guarantee; the French believed that the Entente signaled an Anglo-French , and that desintérresement signaled a British surrender of Syria. When

Cambon argued that he could do nothing to alter the pronunciations of the free press on the subject, Grey “hastily issued dispatches to the diplomatic corps emphasizing that his only purpose in the Grey-Cambon conferences…was to deny that Britain was carrying on intrigues or had the designs attributed to her in Syria.”184 Grey defended himself in 1914 with the argument that his statement of disinterest was necessary because not to do so would have offended both Britain’s Entente partner France and Turkey.185 Regardless of these differences in understanding, the importance of the Cambon-Grey conferences,

Poincaré’s speech, and Grey’s subsequent qualifications of Britain’s position in Syria cannot be overstated. As many authors on the subject have asserted,186 France’s efforts to pursue relationships with Arab separatists and economic ventures were inspired by her new sense of French security in Syria ensured by Britain’s statements of disinterest.

Despite public denial, it is important to note that Britain was still engaged in exactly the kinds of efforts Grey denied. In fact, “British agents, like their French counterparts, maintained close and relatively cordial contact with Syrian separatist

184 B.D., vol. IX, no. 426, vol. X, no. 476, quoted in Shorrock, French Imperialism in Syria, 127, 185 Great Britain, Hansard, The Parliamentary Debates (House of Commons), vol. 59 (London, 1914), col. 2188 (18 March 1914), quoted in Shorrock, French Imperialism in Syria, 127, 186 See Andrew & Kanya-Forstner, The Climax of French Imperial Expansion; John Spagnolo France and Ottoman Lebanon; Philip Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate; and William Shorrock, The Origin of the French Mandate in Syria and Lebanon. 67

societies…(and) It is clear that, despite the tone of the French press, no deal was made between Britain and France concerning the fate of Syria” in 1912.187 British policy towards Syria after 1912 was divided between public support for Ottoman integrity maintained by France, and a private policy of support for separatism. Correspondence between Cumberbatch and Lowther makes clear Britain’s belief that Muslims and even

Catholics would prefer British over French administration, though Cumberbatch did concede that the Maronites would remain loyal to France; at the same time these officials stressed the importance that the Turks, the Syrians, and the French were not alerted to what could be regarded as an ongoing Anglo-French rivalry for Syria.188 However, as the

Foreign Office pursued such intrigues with caution and stealth, but this was complicated by their colleagues at the Cairo office.

As mentioned above, Kitchener and his subordinates took the initiative, considering new threats to the Empire, to devise and implement strategies for the defense of Egypt. As part of this strategy the Cairo staff met with pro-British separatist groups without permission from the Foreign Office. Nicolson’s private correspondence to

Lowther demonstrates the sort of concern felt at the Foreign Office about Kitchener and his subordinates’ lack of discretion in Syria, as he described Kitchener “letting his young men perambulate Turkish territory”.189 The indiscretions had exactly the sort of effect

British officials feared. Kitchener’s activities were soon detailed in pro-French Syrian newspapers, and French officials began to wonder whether such intrigues were authorized by the Foreign Office and if they represented an ongoing British commitment

187 Shorrock, French Imperialism in the Middle East, 128. 188 Ibid., 128-129. 189 F.O. 800/193A: Nicolson to Lowther, 4 Feb. 1913, (qtb. by Khalidi in British Policy Towards Syria and Palestine, 274-275). 68

to supplant French authority in Syria.190

French officials accepted the theory of British involvement with the Khedive to annex Syria because it could explain away their unpopularity in Syria, but Kitchener’s perception of Egypt as the weak-link in the Empire and the potential of a hostile power to mount a campaign into Egypt through Syria continued to fuel British intrigues in Syria through 1912.191 These French concerns were compounded as a potential Lebanese insurrection fomented in October 1912. The Quai d’Orsay and Raymond Poincaré were convinced that their previous actions had positioned them so that if the Lebanese struck against the Turks, France would have to take the side of the Lebanese or else disillusion the Lebanese and to turn them towards the British.192 Poincaré’s concerns were echoed by

“French diplomats in Syria and Egypt, the Comité Libanais in Paris and various spokesmen for the colonialist movement…all convinced that the whole future of la

France du Levant was in mortal danger,” at the hands of the British agents in Egypt who

“had long been suspected, and with good reason, of harbouring designs on Syria as a further line of defence for the route to India.”193 Kitchener animated and gave direction to

French suspicions prior to the war, and the Cairo office continued to do so during the war.

Though Kitchener’s efforts increased Ottoman anxieties of European interference, this did prove valuable for one family and eventually for the cause of Arab nationalism.

The , led by Sharif Hussain, appealed deftly to European protection against

Ottoman policies on the eve of war. Hussain’s son in February 1914 approached

190 Khalidi, British Policy Towards Syria and Palestine, 276-277. 191 Ibid., 270-272. 192 Andrew and Kanya-Forstner, The Climax of French Imperial Expansion, 49. 193 Ibid., 49. 69

Kitchener in Cairo to discuss the threats to Hijaz autonomy by the Ottoman government and to ask for support for his father. Rumors of the meeting, despite Kitchener’s polite refusal to intervene, quickly resulted in Ottoman repudiation of the proposed Law of the

Vilayets which would “destroy the special status and privileges of the Hijaz” and in return for allowing the Hijaz Railroad, Hussein was provided a great deal of compensation including a portion of the railway revenue while he and his descendants were granted his position for life.194 Hussein saw prior to the war how he could use Arab-

Turk contention to his own advantage, and we will discuss in the next chapter how the

Hashemites continued to do just this with great success. We will also discuss further ways Kitchener’s efforts prepared Britain for her eventual mandate over Palestine.

Regardless of the positives, Kitchener demonstrated clearly to Europe that the British were guilty of the French accusations they railed against.

French officials were right to charge Britain with intrigues in Syria, but they arrived at the wrong conclusions about motivation. Britain’s motivations behind meetings with Arab separatist groups were not as nefarious or anti-French as French officials insisted. What is clear from the correspondence of British officials is that the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire was indeed seen as a great threat to the British Empire. While the

French feared Britain’s administration in India and Egypt because it served as a basis for

Anglophilia in Syria, Edward Grey believed that British popularity in India could be damaged with British acquiescence in the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, not to mention the damage to European relations the dissolution of the Empire would cause.195

194 The Origins of Arab Nationalism, editors Rashid Khalidi, Lisa Anderson, Muhamad Muslih, and Reeva S. Simon. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), 209-211. 195 Zeine N. Zeine, The Emergence of Arab Nationalism, (New York: Caravan: 1973), 103. 70

Kitchener and Fitzmaurice too viewed dissolution of the Ottoman Empire through Syrian rebellion as a threat to Egypt and to the general defense of the British Empire.196 Contact with Syrians was undertaken reluctantly and was not a feature of a pro-dissolution policy.

Instead these intrigues were pursued as a “bargaining point with France in case the

Turkish regime should collapse.”197 If war broke out and France could not be relied on to secure Syria and the Mediterranean, the British had to have a contingency plan. This was buttressed by the popular belief within the British government that Syrians would be more likely to turn against the Turks if Britain, not France, was prepared to support them.198 Britain did not seek to usurp France in Syria. To do so, it was believed, would damage her prestige and the Entente, and thus damage the Empire. Britain’s popularity with Syrians was fostered instead to protect British prestige, to preserve Entente and wider European relations, and as a failsafe in case of French failures to prevent chaos in

Syria.

Britain’s official assurances of disinterest provided France the sense of security necessary so that she could recommit herself to Ottoman territorial integrity. French officials believed the status quo was the best means to confirm her sphere of influence over Syria and therefore beyond into or Asia Minor.199 However, this parallel commitment to Ottoman integrity and predominance in Syria sometimes put her in uncomfortable positions. Arabs hoped that a France interested in Ottoman peace would support their efforts of reform in Syria and chose Paris as the site for an Arab Congress in

1913. The Arabs were rebuffed when the Quai d’Orsay’s postponed the Congress out of

196 Khalidi, British Policy towards Syria & Palestine, 1906-14, 245-246. 197 Shorrock, French Imperialism in the Middle East, 133. 198 Ibid., Chapter 9. 199 Andrew and Kanya-Forstner, The Climax of French Imperial Expansion, 50-51. 71

fear of the repercussions from the Turks if France appeared supportive of whatever reform demands were produced by the Congress, as clear a sign as any that France was caught between the two sides it had sought to appease simultaneously.

Eventually France relented to the Arabs for fear of the damage continued postponement might incur, but the Quai d’Orsay employed informants to report on the

Congress. The French informants reported that there had been a pro-French delegation, a separatist delegation not particularly inclined towards France, and a delegation which vacillated between partnership with Britain, France, or neither.200 Naturally the Quai d’Orsay and the Comité de l’Asie Français praised the pro-French delegation and their program of non-separatist reforms presented to and adopted by the Turkish government.

The French government fostered the image that those who spoke of a paternalistic vision of France in Syria were the official spokesmen of the Congress,201 and overlooked veiled references throughout the Congress that hinted “at French ambitions and the possibility of foreign intervention as dangers resolutely to be warded off.”202 This tendency to misunderstand or misrepresent the extent and nature of Arab separatism will later be explored further, but for now we will focus on the outcome of the Congress as it demonstrates how France’s renewed commitment to Ottoman territorial integrity contradicted and undermined her efforts to increase her prestige in Syria.

The Porte denounced the Congress from the start and attempted to discredit its representatives, but when this failed Porte representatives were dispatched to Paris to negotiate.203 French officials knew their efforts to gain favor with the Arabs could

200 Andrew and Kanya-Forstner, The Climax of French Imperial Expansion, 51-52. 201 Ibid., 52. 202 The Origins of Arab Nationalism, editors Khalidi, Anderson, Muslih, and Simon, 103, 104, 116. 203 , The Arab Awakening, (New York, G. P. Putnam Sons, 1946), 115-116. 72

therefore upset the Ottomans, and to walk this line Poincaré urged Turkey to recognize that respect for the wishes of the various communities within her borders would ward off internal instability. 204 At first, this strategy seemed to work. The negotiations resulted in an agreement of reforms which seemed to accept many of the key Arab demands. While the French praised the outcome of the Paris Congress, the British argued that it was brokered by non-representative parties and amounted to nothing substantive. The British consul general in Beirut assessed the result of such a reform program as “only too evident that nothing definite whatever has been granted but that each article is couched in the vaguest terms and may mean anything or nothing.”205 This was closer to the mark. Much like the excitement which accompanied the initial rise of the Young Turks among Arabs and Britain and France, the excitement which attended this apparent move towards reform was short-lived. Though the Young Turks acceded to the demands, as Khalidi proposes, “The willingness of the C.U.P. to come to terms with the Arabs in Paris was perhaps prompted by the understandable fear that if the Syrian agitation continued, the meddling of Britain and France would become unmanageable.”206 The Turks had accepted the demands as a means to keep the threats of Entente encroachment and Arab separatism at bay, but this strategy had been tried before. Like so many proposed reforms, the Turks proved by August 1913 that they planned to manipulate the plans so that little changed and Arab-Turk-Entente tensions heightened.

French inaction also played an important role in the lack of lasting reform. France had tried to halt the Congress, then had been cautious to stand behind enforcement of the

204 Poincaré, Memoirs of Raymond Poincaré, 338. 205 F.O. 195/2451, no. 484, (qtd. by Shorrock in French Imperialism in the Middle East, 97). 206 Khalidi, British Policy Towards Syria and Palestine, 314. 73

accepted demands. This French caution became more apparent when the Arabs, afraid that their work at the Congress would be nullified, turned to the French for assistance.

Arab leaders in Syria urged the French to make a loan requested by Turkey contingent on

Turkish adoption of true reform and put France in the same difficult position it had found itself in when it had been asked to support the Congress. The Quai d’Orsay remained guarded against the appearance of preference for either the Arabs or the Turks,207 and

French policy continued to seek ways to walk the line between the two. Even as French officials allowed the Arabs to believe that France would help enforce the reforms, the enforcement of reform was not made a requirement of the French loan awarded to Turkey in 1914.208 This loan, as we will discuss next, both solidified France’s sphere of influence over Syria and built resentment towards France on multiple fronts.

France demonstrated her commitment to securing her sphere of influence in Syria during the Franco-Turkish Accord negotiations of 1913-14. In May 1913 Bompard took the initiative to link potential French loans to Turkey – sorely needed in the wake of the

Italo-Turk War – to her inclusion in the funding of the Baghdad line. That same month

France convinced Britain not to make any agreements with Germany on Baghdad railway funding until France and Germany had themselves reached an understanding on the railway.209 Such an understanding was part of France’s newest strategy to consolidate and protect her position in Syria: détente with Germany.210 By late 1912 Poincaré and Jules

Cambon both envisioned a closer relationship with Germany as a path to continued

207 Defrance to Delcassé, 5, 9, 12, 13 Nov. 1914, AE A Guerre 867, (qtd. in Andrew and Kanya-Forstner, The Climax of French Imperial Expansion, 52). 208 Delcassé to Defrance, 13 Nov. 1914, AE A Guerre 867, (qtd. in Andrew and Kanya-Forstner, The Climax of French Imperial Expansion, 52). 209 D.D.F., ser. 3, vol. 7, no. 5., (qtd. by Shorrock in French Imperialism in the Middle East, 157-158). 210 J. F. V. Keiger, Raymond Poincaré, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 151. 74

French influence in Syria and as a defense against Italian religio-cultural influence and

British economic influence.211 Why had such threats become so acute in the minds of

French officials that they saw Germany as a solution?

French détente with Germany came as a result of unrest in Syria that threatened to force international intervention that would damage France’s prestige. French consuls in

Damascus and Beirut observed in 1912-13 another rise of separatist sentiment as they received requests for aid from the leaders of their Christian clients, while simultaneously it was observed that the Muslim separatists had reverted to an anti-French tone and sought to join Syria to Egypt.212 French officials feared that if Syria devolved into revolt, other powers might decide to intervene either on the side of the Turks or the Syrians, as any intervention by another power might put the whole of Syria under international supervision similar to that which existed in Lebanon.213 Following the dissolution of the

Comité des réformes de Beyrouth in April 1913, British and French consuls alike observed the apparent solidarity between Christian and Muslim separatists, and Bompard sympathized with yet advised moderation to those who appealed to France for support.214

Poincaré was also alarmed by Russia’s diplomatic support of Italy in the Italo-

Turk War as part of the Russian bid to control the Straits and to expand her

Ottoman railway concessions. 215 France had nothing to gain and much to lose from the premature dissolution of the Ottoman Empire or from being dragged into the war to support Russia. Paléologue, a stringent supporter of France’s alliance with Russia, made

211 Keiger, Raymond Poincaré, 138. 212 Shorrock, French Imperialism in the Middle East, 87-89. 213 Ibid., 88-89. 214 Ibid., 89-90. 215 Keiger, Raymond Poincaré, 139. 75

clear to his Russian counterpart Izvolski in April 1913 that Russia’s efforts to weaken the

Ottoman Empire conflicted with French efforts to maintain the Empire’s integrity.216 The

Ottoman Empire, Paléologue and his government concluded, had to be protected from premature dissolution to protect Syria.

Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Pierre de Margerie shared

Cambon’s sentiments on her Entente allies. He trusted Britain’s loyalty, but because of his staunch support of Ottoman integrity as the best means to grow France’s economic prospects and maintain her religious protectorate, he often was placed “in the unenviable position of trying to strengthen links with Russia on the one hand while keeping the ‘big bear’ out of Asiatic Turkey on the other.”217 Phillippe Berthelot took a particularly severe view of Russia, and argued that Britain was not doing enough for the Entente and was indeed a competitor in the Near East.218 Bompard was hostile to the idea of a French

Syria, as he too was convinced of the importance of Ottoman integrity for peace in the

Near East. He harbored not only deep suspicions of Russian intrigues but also remained convinced of British intrigues to supplant French influence in Syria and throughout the

Ottoman Empire.219 These sentiments were reminiscent of Jean Gout’s sentiment, mentioned earlier, that French interests were worth more than Entente solidary. Keiger demonstrates that as the strategic importance of Syria grew under Poincaré and Pichon, and Russia continued to pursue an Ottoman strategy incompatible to France’s, the Quai d’Orsay made it a diplomatic priority to foster détente with Germany.220 From the

216 D.D.F., ser. 3, vi, no. 222, (qtd. by Taylor in The Struggle for Mastery of Europe, 505). 217 The French Foreign Office and the Origins of the First World War, 258-259. 218 Ibid, 260-261. 219 Ibid, 267. 220 Keiger, Raymond Poincaré, 156. 76

evidence above, it is also clear that continued suspicions of British designs in Syria and the wider Ottoman Empire can be added to the motivations for pursued Franco-German détente.

The historic rivalry of France and Germany in Syria was not easily overlooked.

Poincaré recalled in his memoirs how German representatives in the negotiations recognized the mutual interests their nation shared with France over Syria, but also made clear that if France raised objections to German terms, “Germany might well obstruct our intellectual and moral expansion in Syria and elsewhere.”221 Negotiations remained tense and drawn out, as complained of German “haggling…over a few kilometers of railway in Syria,” and Doumergue pressed the Porte to guarantee peace in the Levant as a condition to the French loan.222 Despite initial road blocks with the

Germans, the Turks had much more to gain from cooperation with France than did the

Germans, and Franco-Turk negotiations moved proceeded apace. The Sublime Porte was

“anxious to dissolve lingering French hesitations over the Baghdad railway…the most promising hope for economic development and improved communications and defense.”223 In December 1913 Turkey submitted to a set of conditions set by France, whereby in exchange for the desired French loan and French acceptance of Turkey’s taxation of French clients, France obtained Turkish recognition of certain immunities for missionary schools and religious establishments in Syria, in addition to railroad and port concessions through Syria.224 Despite this victory, the acceptance of these conditions by

221 Poincaré, The Memoirs of Raymond Poincaré, 98-99. 222 Ibid., 100, 108. 223 J.C. Hurewitz, The Middle East and North Africa in World Politics, (New Haven: Yale University Pres, 1979), 571. 224 Shorrock, French Imperialism in the Middle East, 158-159. 77

Turkey was not enough to win Syria as a sphere of influence. It was acceptance by the

Great Powers that could truly legitimize and ensure that France’s economic sphere over

Syria was no longer threatened by her rivals. This acceptance was granted by the completion of the 1914 Franco-German railways agreement, by which France recognized

Germany’s authority over the Baghdad Railway and Germany recognized France’s sphere of influence over Syria.225 Jules Cambon boasted that the railways agreement would make France the “definite master of Syria,” 226 a sentiment that was also trumpeted in the French press. Germany, not Britain, was the Great Power that conferred legitimacy upon France’s claim to Syria in the final months of peace.

France had thus won her sphere of influence, but it also cost her. French and

British officials alike took notice of the growing Syrian apathy towards France, even as

France’s economic and political position there seemed relatively secured. Andrew and

Kanya-Forstner conclude about French pre-war aims in Syria that French policy in Syria, even after the Franco-Turkish Accord, still failed to secure her sphere of influence. This was because French policy was afflicted by “A curious schizophrenia...evident in colonialist attitudes on Syria on the eve of the First World War.”227 This schizophrenia was the belief both that France faced significant challenges to her claim, and that her claim could have been secured if not for the lack of initiative among French diplomats and French businessmen. This was compounded by a French policy in Syria that, because it vacillated between support for Ottoman integrity and Syrian influence, injured French prestige with both sides.228 France had economic predominance, but popular opinion was

225 Ibid., 162-163. 226 Keiger, Raymond Poincaré, 157. 227 Andrew and Kanya-Forstner, The Climax of French Imperial Expansion, 53. 228 Ibid., 54. 78

largely against France and her mission civilisatrice.

Anti-French sentiment ran rampant in the four months from the Franco-Turk agreement to the outbreak of war, as “A massive propaganda campaign was waged…against French influence in Syria. France was accused of abandoning the Syrian-

Arab reform movement for an exclusive sphere of economic influence in Syria.”229 These campaigns against France and the general lack of faith in her was confronted by French consul-general to Beirut, François Georges-Picot. Picot’s concern that Syrians, particularly the Lebanese, might place their trust in another European power led him to provide assurances beyond what the Quai d’Orsay was comfortable with, and these assurances inspired confidence in Picot among the Maronites.230 The next chapter will discuss how respect for Picot among Syrian notables proved consequential in the Sykes-

Picot negotiations. Despite Picot’s assessment, most French officials believed that popular sentiment in Syria was behind foreign, and preferably French intervention, and

Shorrock asserts that it was this overvaluation of French prestige in Syria and abandonment of reform in exchange for economic concessions that killed any residual faith in France.231 As Khoury concludes, “Although she (France) had helped to guarantee her claim to Syria, she hampered her ability to win popularity and political influence amongst the vast majority of Syrians.”232 The French abandoned the Arab nationalist movement in 1914, just as the British started to increase their interactions with the Arabs.

Poincaré also recognized the damage these negotiations, fueled by French suspicions of her Entente partners, could have upon Entente relations. He insisted that the

229 Khoury, The French in Syria, 30. 230 Andrew and Kanya-Forstner, The Climax of French Imperial Expansion, 52-53. 231 Shorrock, French Imperialism in the Middle East, 100-101. 232 Khoury, The French in Syria, 30. 79

agreement did not signal a French departure from the alliance system.233 Some British officials agreed, including Grey and Bertie, who felt that the agreements would ease tensions and open the door for Britain to provide her own financial support of the

Imperial and the Baghdad Railway.234 Lowther also agreed with Grey by

1914 that to surrender Syria to France was the path towards British authority over

Mesopotamia and Russian authority over North East Anatolia.235 These officials remained focused on how Syria could help maintain the British Empire, and rather than dwell on any potential negative ramifications of Franco-German détente, they sought to integrate this development into their strategy.

Not all British officials were so quick to overlook the dangers of Franco-German détente and France’s newly secured position in Syria. British consular reports noted the growth in separatist sentiment among Muslims after the Franco-Turkish Accord, who now held out little hope for European assistance and felt it was necessary that they move forward alone.236 Sir Louis Mallet sent a letter to Edward Grey in which he described the agreements between France, Germany, and Turkey as the latest step towards the destruction of Turkish independence.237 Mark Sykes identified this victory in resentful terms as a French scheme for the plundering of Turkey and French annexation of

Syria.238 Mallet and Sykes voiced concern that France by 1914 had the potential to dominate Syria in the same way Britain dominated other regions of the Middle East.

Their concerns were compounded by the fact that French efforts to secure railways and

233 Keiger, Raymond Poincaré, 157. 234 British Documents on the Origins of the War, Vol. X, Part 2, 218-219. 235 British Documents on the Origins of the War, Vol. X, Part 1, 447. 236 French Imperialism in the Middle East, 99. 237 Great Britain, Hansard, Parliamentary Debates, vol. 59 (London, 1914), cols. 2169-2170, (qtd. by Shorrock in French Imperialism in the Middle East, 163). 238 Earle, The Baghdad Railway, 251-252. 80

provide infrastructure funding had been so successful that by 1914 “French companies not only owned all but one of the railroads that crisscrossed Syria…but French capital had also been put into public utilities in Beirut, Damascus, and Aleppo.”239 The reactions of Mallet and Sykes reveal the mixture of disdain and indifference that remained among some British officials over French activity in Syria the eve of World War I, and the recognition that French predominance in Syria was all but secured.

British resentment towards France after the conclusion of the Franco-Turkish

Accord was further fueled by tensions that had brewed throughout the preceding years due to Germany and Russia. As Germany’s navy complicated Britain’s strategic position in Syria, so too did the fact that German influence rose throughout the Ottoman Empire in

1911-14. As German influence over military and economic matters in the Ottoman

Empire grew, she watched Triple Entente’s actions in Syria with increased scrutiny.240

German officials had reviewed the articles in the French press that charged Britain with intrigues in Syria, and when Grey provided his statement of disinterest to France, he had been forced to affirm to the Germans that the statement did not signal the true beginning of Ottoman partition. 241 This was not the end of Britain’s troubles with Germany on account of her Entente partners. On January 6, 1913 British Ambassador Rennell Rodd reported to Grey a conversation he had with Gottlieb von Jagow, who the next week assumed the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs. Jagow told Rodd that Germany was not covetous of Syria, notwithstanding Syrian efforts to assimilate Syria to Egypt and

239 Khoury, The French in Syria, 32. 240 D. K. Fieldhouse, Western Imperialism in the Middle East, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 18- 19. 241 FO 800/193B/108: Lowther to Nicolson, 16 Jan. 1913, (qtd. by Khalidi in British Policy Towards Syria and Palestine, 282-285). 81

France’s claim of a traditional sphere of influence there. Still, he made clear that even though Germany was not interested (as yet) to secure Anatolia as a definitive sphere of influence, popular German interest in Anatolia and the Baghdad Railway meant that any efforts by the Triple Entente to exclude Germany from Asia Minor and Syria “would inevitably mean war.”242 While Jagow told Rodd he did not believe Britain had designs upon Syria, he mistrusted French and Russian interests there, and was concerned that

Britain as their ally might be brough into such intrigues.

Grey responded to Rodd: “I quite agree that France, Russia and ourselves cannot treat Asia Minor as Morocco…Indeed, we could truthfully say the same thing to

Germany about Anatolia as we said to France about Syria: that we have no political designs there.”243 Grey reported to Goschen that German Ambassador Lichnowsky had communicated his government’s commitment to the integrity of Asia Minor, and that “If

Russia was to move into Armenia and France into Syria, Germany could not be indifferent.”244 While Grey told Lichnowsky that he did not believe Russia “had any designs on the integrity of Asia Minor,”245 by the end of the year Britain became acutely aware of Russia’s desire to see portions of Asiatic Turkey invaded and to control the

Daranelles Straits to prevent further German encroachment.

German influence over the Turkish Army brought Russia’s preoccupation over the Ottoman Empire to the forefront, and pressed home the importance of Syria to defense of Egypt and the Suez Canal.246 The Triple Entente’s apprehension of Germany’s

242 British Documents on the Origins of the War, Vol. X, Part 2, 660-661. 243 Ibid., 663. 244 British Documents on the Origins of the War, Vol. X, Part 1, 424-425. 245 Ibid., 424-425. 246 Khalidi, British Policy Towards Syria and Palestine, 185-186. 82

potential threat to these vital strategic zones was demonstrated by their reaction to the appointment of the German Liman von Sanders to the command of the First Turkish

Army Corps. In December 1913, British diplomat to St. Petersburg Hugh O’Beirne reported Russian Foreign Minister Sazanow proposal that the Triple Entente take financial measures against Turkey. Sazanow argued that if such measures were unsuccessful the Entente ought to then move to “the occupation of Turkish ports, for instance of Smyrna and Beirout respectively by Great Britain and France, and of

Trebizond by Russia.”247 Russia was prepared by December 1913 to defend her interests in Turkey against Germany with force, and O’Beirne concluded that his efforts to dispel the minister’s designs against Germany fell on deaf ears. Otte demonstrates that British resentment over Russia’s bombastic posturing towards the Ottoman Empire was seen as a threat to her position in the Persian Gulf, and that France’s inaction in restraining her ally led Nicholson to the conclusion that Anglo-French relations in spring 1914 were on

“exceedingly loose ties.”248 Not only had France continued to allow Russia to threaten

Entente prestige with the Ottomans, but she had pursued a selfish policy of railway negotiations instead. When war came, however, British resentment towards Franco-

German détente faded as the Entente worked to secure and divide Syria amongst themselves.

Anglo-French relations also faced a dilemma over Palestine. France considered

Palestine part of la Syrie intégrale, yet France was unpopular in Palestine and in the years

247 British Documents on the Origins of the War, Vol. X, Part 1, 365-366. 248 Otte describes Britain’s mounting frustrations with Russia in The Foreign Office Mind, 348, 369, 380. Nicholson’s assessment of Anglo-French relations is found in Nicholson to de Bunsen, 27 Apr. 1914, De Bunsen Mss, box 15, (qtd. by Otte in The Foreign Office Mind, 376). 83

prior to war no other Great Power had a clear influence there.249 Palestine became, in the twelve months prior to the war, an area of focus by the General Staff and Foreign Office, and Kitchener urged for a survey of southern Palestine to aid in the preparation of military defenses of, and for eventual offensive action across, the Egyptian border.250 The implications of Palestine grew in the minds of officials, who saw the region as part of an envisaged strategic corridor from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf, “both to provide an adequate ‘bridgehead’ on the east bank of the Suez Canal, and to enable the development of the port of Haifa…seen as an important potential link in the imperial system of communications.”251 Britain made efforts to protect against the encroachment of her rivals there in a few key instances prior to the war.

Protection of Palestine led Grey to make clear his objections to the drafted French loan proposal to build a to al-‘Arish railway. Grey cited Britain’s official commitment to Ottoman integrity and the continued perception of Egyptian vulnerability through Syria as justification for his objection, and as a result France modified the line so that it ran from Riyaq to ‘Afula and thus “prevented French economic of political penetration of Central Palestine…the Haifa-Der’a line was thereby preserved as a buffer zone outside the sphere of influence of any Power, with important implications for

Britain’s position in that part of the Ottoman Empire.”252 Additionally, when Entente opposition to Sanders’ appointment led to the suggestion that he assume command in

Smyrna as an alternative, Britain’s previous insistence that Palestine was not encroached

249 A. L. Tibawi, Anglo-Arab Relations and The Question of Palestine, 1914-1921, (London: Luzac and Company Ltd., 1978), 28. 250 Khalidi, British Policy Towards Syria and Palestine, 332. 251 Marlowe, Arab Nationalism and British Imperialism, 18. 252 Khalidi, British Policy Towards Syria and Palestine, 308-309. 84

upon led Jules Cambon to remark to the Russian Ambassador that Britain held a special interest in and Palestine. This special interest was due to the proximity of these regions to Egypt, and Britain would thus not submit to the appointment of a

German commander over those regions.253 Kitchener’s strategic justification for Britain’s interest in Palestine, assurances promised Britain by France on Palestinian railway concessions, and France’s agreement that Sanders’ appointment was not to be permitted as it threatened those interests, “measurably strengthened Britain’s post-war claim to that county.”254 The next chapter will explain how Britain, as she mediated between Arabs and Zionists, ultimately carved Palestine from France’s desired Syrie intégrale for her own sphere of influence.

One more example should be briefly discussed to illustrate the contrast between the British and French approaches in Syria, as it proved to be of monumental importance in the war and the Sykes-Picot Agreement. Major Aziz Ali al-Masri, a former member of the C.U.P. was arrested for his affiliation with the cause of Arab nationalism in August

1913. al-Masri was popular among the Arab population, and his arrest was met with considerable protest. While French officials refused to intervene, British officials took time to consider popular Syrian and Egyptian Muslims sentiment that called for his release from a death sentence, as well as the plea of the Governor of Cairo, al-Masri’s brother-in-law, for his pardon. Led by Mallet, the British government entered into negotiations over a few weeks that resulted in a pardon for al-Masri, a pronouncement

“hailed with delight throughout the Arab provinces” including Syria.255 The intervention

253 Khalidi, British Policy Towards Syria and Palestine, 338-339. 254 Ibid., 338-340 255 For Mallet’s account of the British intervention on behalf of Aziz Ali al-Masri, see British Documents on the Origins of the War, Vol. X, Part 2, 832-838. 85

of the British also contrasted sharply with the poorly timed conclusion of the Franco-

Turkish loan negotiations which arrived at the height of the Muslim campaign against al-

Masri’s imprisonment.256 These actions added to the images of Britain as fair and efficient and France as purely self-interested.

The Case of Internationalized Lebanon

Anglo-French relations in Ottoman Lebanon provides a few interesting points worth consideration. Shorrock demonstrates best the contrast between France’s approach to Syria and her approach to Lebanon. It is ironic, he writes, that France made such an effort to guard against the internationalization of Syria, a region that came to distrust her, yet internationally secured Lebanon remained largely pro-French through and beyond the war.257 International efforts to reform the Reglement Organique brought prestige to

France because the reforms, unlike those in Syria, were supported and guaranteed by a coalition of great powers, and France took real action to pioneer the reforms. The Quai d’Orsay also made clear, despite the hopes of some to the contrary, that Lebanese emancipation was not the goal of the French government as it was “contrary to our eventual interests in Syria.”258 Though this approach upset some in Lebanon, it ensured that the Lebanese did not expect France to liberate them from the Turks. The Lebanese therefore did not resent France to the same level as other Syrians when France undertook efforts to secure la Syrie intégrale.

Given the stated aims of the mission civilisatrice and the difference in religious affiliations between the Syrians and Lebanese (the Syrian-Arab movement was a

256 Shorrock, French Imperialism in the Middle East, 136. 257 Ibid., 102-103 258 AE/T/SL/NS 112, 21 Dec. 1909, (qtd. by Spagnolo in France and Ottoman Lebanon, 267). 86

combination of Christians and Muslims, while most Lebanese were Christians led by the

Maronites), it is not surprising that the French were quicker to recognize and support the

Lebanese.259 Unfortunately for France, any reform would require the consent of the other

Great Powers. The upside to this was that France could gain prestige if she were the power that took the initiative to set such reforms in motion. To achieve international consent for France’s lead role in the 1912 reforms to the Reglement Organique, the

French relied on the British. Bompard convinced Lowther that France’s special concern for the welfare of the majority of Lebanese Christians gave France the right to lead the reforms, even as Lowther complained that Bompard had delayed just to be seen as the power that initiated reform.260 Time was of the essence, as the term of the Lebanese governor general Youssouf Pasha who France hoped to replace was within its final months by the time Bompard set forth his proposals in May 1912. British discontent with

France’s delays were undoubtedly compounded by the French dismissal of Britain’s proposal to reappoint Youssef, on the grounds that the French felt was too easily swayed by Cumberbatch.261 Similarly the Quai d’Orsay “was little inclined to be tolerant” of

Lebanese reformers living outside the Mountain, and remained wary of those associated with the Ottoman Decentralisation Party hosted by the British in Egypt.262

Bompard also leveraged Anglo-French relations to gain Lowther’s acceptance of a proposal which would allow French religious clients “a voice in the election of an additional Maronite representative to the Administrative Council,” even though that

259 Khoury, The French in Syria, 29. 260 Shorrock, French Imperialism in the Middle East, 110. 261 FO 371/1491/8186, 24 July 1912, Marling (British Chargé in Istanbul) to Grey, (qtd. by Spagnolo in France and Ottoman Lebanon, 285). 262 Spagnolo, France and Ottoman Lebanon, 279. 87

scheme was opposed by Cumberbatch because he believed it “would further diminish the

Druze voice in Lebanese affairs.”263 France’s position of authority received the fillip it needed to ensure its provisions were accepted when the Liberal Entente party removed the Ottomans from power in July 1912. The Liberal Entente was more open to French reform suggestions, and by December 1912 the Ottomans and Great Powers agreed to provisions that among other steps placed an Armenian Catholic as governor general, required examinations into the tax structure in Lebanon to inform future tax reform, increased the gendarmerie, opened ports to unrestricted steamship traffic, expanded the

Administrative Council electoral basis and required that Council members were provided a review of their case before the entire council if they were to be dismissed by the governor general.264 British officials accepted reluctantly much of the French reform agenda.

France took seriously the political aspirations of the Lebanese from the start of the century and capitalized on this image in 1912.265 As we have seen, Syrian political reform efforts in contrast were overlooked or incomplete as France sought firstly to secure religious and economic interests at the exclusion of the other Great Powers. Still, just as

France’s unpopularity in Syria had negative ramifications in the war and post-war, so too did her policies in Lebanon have a variety of consequences. The 1912 reform program did not halt the forces within Lebanon which increasingly looked forward to a modern, more autonomous Lebanon,266 and though reforms were enacted and France enjoyed a

263 FO 371/1491/8186, 4 May 1912, Lowther to Grey, (qtd. in Spagnolo, France and Ottoman Lebanon, 274-275). 264 Shorrock, French Imperialism in the Middle East, 112. 265 Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate, 29. 266 Spagnolo, France and Ottoman Lebanon, 288. 88

good deal of popularity in Lebanon before the war, we will see how her policies sewed seeds of discontent.

Even with such trouble under the surface, prior to the war Lebanon was a more attainable French goal than the rest of Syria and remained more loyal to France after the war than Syria. This chapter has made clear however that predominance over la Syrie intégrale was the true prize for France, an approach that alienated her ally Britain and the

Syrians themselves whose interests and sentiments French officials largely misunderstood or overlooked. The contrast between France’s popularity in Lebanon and

Syria highlights the consequences of her strategy after 1911 in Syria that stressed economic predominance and underestimated the value of true reform.

Perceptions of Arab Discontent

Before any conclusions are made on Anglo-French relations in Syria before WWI, we should discuss the ways both nations viewed Arab separatism in this period and how that shaped their approach to Syria. What becomes clear as one considers the correspondence of British and French officials and the authors of Arab nationalism is the contrast between Anglo-French conceptions of Arab unity and reality. We have discussed above the consistency of some Anglo-French officials to believe that Syrians longed for

European intervention. However, even as the movement gained traction in these years,

Arab nationalism remained in its nascent stages prior to World War I and were not united behind any one European power.267 Tibawi argues that the average Syrian Muslims still looked to the Porte as representative of ‘the state of the caliphate’, and points to the popular Ottoman Administrative Decentralisation party formed a year prior to the

267 See the work on Arab nationalism of, among others, Adeed Dawisha, Mahmoud Haddad, Philip Khoury, Rashid Khalidi, and Zeine N. Zeine. 89

Congress as a voice for the “more experienced and thoughtful Syrians…still striving for a basis of collaboration with the Turks.”268 As the governor of Beirut reported, there was a growing apprehension amongst Syrians that if they did not take the initiative to push for reform themselves, Britain and France would be all too happy to lead the charge for reforms in exchange for increased influence over Syria.269 In fact, a number of groups emerged in this period to combat Ottoman oppression that were anti-foreign intervention and/or anti-separatist. One such group, which styled itself The Progress of Islam, published in February 1913 a “violently anti-British and anti-French” that called for

“every Muslim to rise to the assistance of the ‘country of the Caliphate’ (Turkey) which was ‘the last refuge of Islam’.”270 The charge to achieve reform without foreign intervention was also undertaken by the Club of the Reform Society of Beirut in early

1913.271 There were also those within the Beirut Reform Committee that feared that the efforts of Syrian Christians (especially the Maronites) to seek out foreign advisors would lead the foreign powers to cement their grip over Syria.272 The Decentralization Party,

The Progress of Islam, and the Reform Society of Beirut were just a few of a number of societies that formed between 1909 and 1914 and provided the Arab movement models for how to organize and achieve collaboration with the Turks or Arab separatism free of

European influence.273 The notion we have seen in Anglo-French reports from this period, that a majority of Arab separatists or even most Syrians were eager for and united

268 Tibawi, A Modern History of Syria, 203-204. 269 K. T. Khairallah, Les régions arabes libérés, (Paris, 1919), p. 39, (qtd. in Zeine, The Emergence of Arab Nationalism, 88). 270 Zeine, The Emergence of Arab Nationalism, 78. 271 Ibid., 90-91. 272 Al-Manar, 16:4, 280, 7 April 1913, (qtd. in Nationalism in a Non-National State, editors Haddad and Ochsenwald, 227). 273 The Origins of Arab Nationalism, editors Khalidi, Anderson, Muslih, and Simon, 103. 90

behind Entente intervention, seems a stretch.

Some authors have advanced explanations for why Anglo-French officials felt

Syrians were united either for or against them. Ernest Dawn argues that British and

French diplomats favored Arab separatism, contrary to the official stance of their government, and that their prepared documents and post-war accounts generalize and overemphasize the popularity of pre-war Arab nationalism in Syria.274 Khalidi recognizes the potential biases of these Anglo-French documents, yet he points out that these documents represent reports of observed instances of Arab nationalist demonstration, reports which were relatively infrequent pre-1910 and which became so numerous by

1912 to 1913 that it came to be considered by Anglo-French officials to be a majority tendency.275 Regardless of the unity or disunity of Syrian separatism, therefore, the perceptions among officials that the movement was unified behind a single European power was enough to direct Anglo-French relations.

This is not to suggest that British and French observers were oblivious to the possibility that Arabs were uncertain of foreign intervention. As war approached, even though British officials knew they needed Arab support for strategic reasons, they were wary of Arab nationalists who they knew would reject British tutelage just as they rejected Ottoman rule.276 The British observed the activities of organizations such as the

Decentralization Party that warned against foreign intervention, and as Cumberbatch reported to Lowther in May 1913, he had been made aware that the delegates to Paris were not claimed by Muslim leaders in Aleppo and Damascus.277 There were, too, those

274 Ibid., 12-13 275 Ibid., 52-53. 276 Nationalism in a Non-National State, editors Haddad and Ochsenwald, 233. 277 B.D., vol. X, 825-826, (qtd. by Shorrock in French Imperialism in the Middle East, 94). 91

in France who recognized that European policy had complicated her position in Syria.

Directly before the war, the French writer Ludovic de Contenson recognized that

Europe’s recent recognition of Albanian self-government for both Christians and

Muslims would logically lead them to eventually accept the same for the Syrians who expressed similar aspirations, though he also warned of the potential consequences of further European legitimization for the integrity of the Ottoman Empire.278 The constant suspicion of the French towards British intrigues and the popularity of Egypt within Syria also speaks to French concerns that the nationalist movement, should it break out, might not be uniformly pro-French.

While there were a variety of Anglo-French perceptions on Arab separatism, those officials who spoke of the importance of reform to Syrians were correct. Hourani stresses that there was across the various strands of the Syrian population a consistent opposition to, and desire for reform of, Ottoman policy.279 The British consul-general in

Beirut observed in 1911 that even within the C.U.P. the Arab members were frustrated, owing to “the growing spirit of discontent in Syria at the neglect by the Government of what they consider their Constitutional rights.”280 In the wake of the Beirut Reform

Club’s closing in April 1913, the leaders of the movement led shopkeeper’s strikes and nearly all Beirut newspapers decried the Club’s dissolution. The French consul to Beirut in his report on the demonstrations reflected again his government’s belief that reform appealed broadly in Syria:

“L’unanimité avec laquelle les Beyrouthins ont protesté contre le coup de force du

278 Conteston, Les réformes en Turquie d’Asie, 3, 68, (qtd. by Zeine in The Emergence of Arab Nationalism, 100). 279 Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 286-87, (qtd. by Pipes in Greater Syria, 22). 280 Nationalism in a Non-National State, editors Haddad and Ochsenwald, 219-220. 92

Vali est d’autant plus significatif, qu’ils ont obéi plutôt à une idée qu’aux ordres de chefs d’une autorité contestable…elle indique…qu’une certaine solidarité s’est créée entre chrétiens et musulmans en vue d’atteindre un but commun.”281

These two chapters have provided numerous examples of how Anglo-French popularity ebbed and flowed with their support for reform efforts. On the eve of war, the tide began to turn. Khalidi argues that after the C.U.P.-manipulated elections of April 1914, given the fragility and unsophistication of the nationalist movement, the nationalists were faced with the dilemma of whether to accept defeat or to seek foreign support. This was not, for most Syrians, an easy decision to make as “their desire to see Syria and the rest of the

Arab lands free of the Turks was matched by their reluctance to submit to partition by

Europe. Unfortunately, it was impossible to obtain European aid without being burdened with European interference.”282 Britain had already capitalized on to

Turkish rule and continued to do so in wartime. France, meanwhile, stumbled in her attempts to do the same.

Conclusion

In the final years of peace, French officials remained suspicious that British and

French strategies in Syria were contradictory. The suspicion that British intrigues were a menace to French predominance in Syria drove the French to a rigid policy against any signs of British interference. British officials meanwhile tried to convince their French counterparts that Anglo-French strategies were complimentary, as Britain strove to retain her current interests in Syria and hoped that Syria could remain a buffer for her Empire in

281 M.A.E., Turquie, N.S. 120, Couget to Pichon, 15 April 1913, (qtd. in Nationalism in a Non-National State, editors Haddad and Ochsenwald, 229). 282 Nationalism in a Non-National State, editors Haddad and Ochsenwald, 233. 93

India and Egypt under the supervision of a friendly power. Despite these hopes, France’s history in Syria and her policies in 1911-14 drove the British to devise contingency plans, which only further aggravated the French. We will see in the next chapter that the features of the Sykes-Picot Agreement and post-war Syria were direct consequences of these different strategies.

94

Chapter Three: Reaching Sykes-Picot

Britain and France reached an agreement over Syria in the first two years of

World War I. The Sykes-Picot Agreement was intended to resolve Triple Entente tensions in the Middle East that had evolved over the centuries since the capitulations, and to achieve the twentieth century visions of Britain and France in Syria discussed in the previous two chapters. This chapter explores how peacetime Entente tensions and strategy developed after the outbreak of war, how the Sykes-Picot agreement was reached, and the outcome of this new arrangement for the future of Britain and France in

Syria. During war, the shortcomings and successes of Anglo-French strategies in Syria were demonstrated, and the plans laid out in the first decade of the Entente Cordiale were modified as each power adjusted to their new bargaining positions. While Anglo-French relations in this period were far from cordiale, it was ultimately their unwillingness to cross each other at the end of the war and the efforts of key diplomats that ensured both

Britain and France spheres of influence over Syria.

The Entente Rallies its Clients

We have seen that the long Anglo-French presence in Syria earned the Entente its fair share of religious, political, and economic clients. In each of those realms this history also earned the Entente several hostiles. Britain and France had seen their respective clients as tools to achieve their goals in Syria since the Capitulations, and this tradition continued during the war. British officials recognized that a united Arab movement needed direction if it could be harnessed against the Turks. This was made especially apparent when the Ottomans declared a jihad at the announcement of her entrance into the war in , and thus sought to make the conflict a matter of faith. This 95

failed to convince many in Syria. Many recognized the irony of Turkey’s own alliance with Christian powers, the presence of German soldiers among the Ottoman ranks, and the relative popularity of Britain and France among segments of the Syrian population who believed the Allies would better foster the aspirations of Muslim and non-Muslim

Syrians alike.283 This image was partly the result of the historic presence of Britain and

France, but also thanks to the efforts of both powers to incentivize and promote their support for the various groups hostile to the Turks.

British officials remained guarded in their approach to separatists. It remained in

Britain’s best interest in summer 1914 to see the Ottoman Empire sit out of the war.

However, British officials were very much alive to the evidence that this might not be the intention in Constantinople. On 15 August Sir G. Buchanan reported to Edward Grey of rumors spreading that Turkey was preparing troops in Syria “with a view to an attack on

Egypt should there be war between Turkey and Great Britain.”284 By the end of August

Grey advised Mallet to make explicit to the Turks the stakes of joining the Triple

Alliance, namely that Britain would feel free to follow her own prerogatives in Egypt and free to support Arabs against Turkey.285 Mallet responded on September 4th that while an

Arab revolt could be “one of the most effective weapons…an Arab movement vague in its objects would lead to nothing. I am of the opinion that it would require most careful organisation.”286

The Turks, aware that Britain watched their empire’s every move, tried to use

France to dispel British suspicions. On 23 October, the Ottoman Minister of Marine told

283 Zeine, The Emergence of Arab Nationalism, 115. 284 British Documents on Foreign Affairs, Series H, Vol. 1, 24. 285 Ibid., 55. 286 Ibid., 68. 96

Bompard, who relayed it to Mallet, that the Turks considered Egypt part of their dominion in much the same way as France regarded Alsace-Lorraine, and thus watched closely any sign of British designs there.287 This, the Minister argued, explained the preparations in Syria, and he denied absolutely that an agreement existed by which

Turkey would join the Triple Alliance if certain terms were fulfilled by Germany. Mallet concluded that this signaled more than ever that Germany hoped to win the Ottomans to her side. He also speculated that perhaps the Ottomans would go so far as to incite a Holy

War and would smuggle pamphlets into Egypt like the ones recently reported upon by the

Beirut consulate which spoke of a possible war with Europe in religious terms. Grey responded to Mallet with his own discoveries of activity in Syria that threatened Britain’s position in Egypt, including the efforts of the German Dr. Curt Prüfer to incite Syrians to take up arms against Britain.288 Grey also made mention of the spread of an anti-British document that urged Muslims across the British Muslim Empire to do the same.

However, there were encouraging signs that public support of the Turks was fraying.

Cumberbatch reported to Mallet at the start of August 1914 that though the

Muslim population in Beirut was pleased to see the Christian Powers fighting amongst themselves, they took considerable exception to the calling of all Muslims to arms and in fact this had caused a reversion of feeling against the Turks for fear that the Turkey intended to join the Triple Alliance.289 In that same report, Cumberbatch argued that the

Muslims unquestionably preferred the Triple Entente and especially Britain to the Triple

Alliance, and reported that Maronite notables felt that if the Entente provided support by

287 British Documents on Foreign Affairs, Series H, Vol. 2, 131. 288 Ibid.,133. 289 Ibid., 35. 97

way of Anglo-French soldiers and weaponry, the Muslims would join them in resistance to the Turks. Cumberbatch advised these notables to keep their heads down, to try and patch up any ongoing feuds with the Turkish authorities and, given that France and

Russia were unlikely to help given their own share of wartime difficulties, to only consider these ideas further if the situation further deteriorated.

The sense that an was in the offing was provided a fillip in October

1914 by the arrival in Cairo of an Arab deserter from the Turkish army. Milne Cheetham reported the deserter’s claim that Arabs were united behind Hussein and planned to either be led by Britain against the Turks or, if such help did not come, to throw in their lot with the Turks.290 Grey advised Cheetham that he should tell the Arabs that Britain would remain friendly to the Arabs as long as they did not take an overt action against Britain, though he had “the utmost confidence they will not do (so) even under coercion.291 On 26

October, Cheetham reported to Grey that the general sentiment among Arab leaders was that they expected nothing more:

“than a benevolent attitude towards their aspirations for self-government and an

assurance of her moral support, should the time come for putting their plans into

execution. But there is little doubt that in case of war, if anything more is expected from them than passive resistance, we should have to provide them arms and ammunition.”292

France and Russia upon Grey’s request joined Britain in her commitment against any attacks to the Arabian Holy Places in case of war with Turkey.293 On November 14th, two

290 British Documents on Foreign Affairs, Series H, Vol. 1, 120. 291 Ibid.,121. 292 Ibid., 134. 293 Tibawi, Anglo-Arab Relations and the Question of Palestine, 1914-1921, 35. 98

weeks after the entrance of the Ottoman Empire into the war, Grey authorized Cheetham to spread the assurance that the British government encouraged the Arab movement “in every way possible.”294

Incidents within the Ottoman Empire also helped turn Syrians against the Turks.

Jamal Pasha was appointed governor-general of ‘Syria-Lebanon-Palestine’, and he ran that area from Damascus with an aim to suppress all anti-Ottoman sentiment. Jamal abolished Lebanon’s autonomy and through “intimidation, deportation, torture and suppression of all nationalist activity…(led) a reign of terror” against suspects of nationalist tendencies.295 He imposed military conscription and forced the populace to provision his troops. As the Allies continued their blockade, diseases and a locust plague swept through Ottoman Syria and resulted in an estimated death toll in Lebanon alone of between 100,000 and 200,000.296 Jamal later justified his actions on the grounds that

Syrians were coordinating with Britain and France, though as Zeine argues, this did not justify wholesale accusations and widened the gulf between Arabs and Turks.297 As

Ottoman credibility in Syria dissolved in late 1914 through 1915, Entente credibility and prestige grew. It now fell to the Entente to harness this new reality.

T.E. Lawrence noted in 1915 that ‘Syria’ and ‘Syrian’ were foreign words to the residents of the lands the Arab nationalists later came to refer to as Greater Syria, even if autonomy was something they understood.298 This lack of Syrian unity was another complication that Britain sought to remedy. A few British officials speculated that

294 British Documents on Foreign Affairs, Series H, Vol. 2, 165. 295 Philip K. Hitti, Syria: A Short History, (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1959), 238. 296 Hitti in his 1959 Syria: A Short History estimated 100,000, while Christian Taoutel and Pierre Wittlouck in their 2015 Le peuple libanais dans la tourmente de la grand guerre 1914-1918 present evidence of around 200,000. 297 Zeine, The Emergence of Arab Nationalism, 112-114. 298 Daniel Pipes, Greater Syria: The History of an Ambition, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 20. 99

unification could be manufactured by the leadership of an Arab king. Such a leader would, through his challenge of the legitimacy of the jihad and through the allure of independence, sow further discord within the Ottoman military and communities.299 At the meeting between Kitchener and Hussein in February 1914, Kitchener had declined to help because the Ottoman Empire had not been an enemy. War allowed Britain to associate openly with the Arabs against their common enemy, and even before Turkey officially entered the war Grey advised the India Office that if Turkey joined Germany,

“His Majesty’s Government should at once give every support and encouragement to the

Arabs to possess themselves of Arabia and the holy places.”300 When Kitchener was appointed Secretary of State for War, he left the newly declared Egyptian protectorate in the hands of officials such as Sir Reginald Wingate, Sir John Maxwell and Ronald Storrs, men highly influential upon British Middle Eastern policy and who agreed that an Arab rising should be encouraged in wartime.301 Andrew and Kanya-Forstner describe these officials fittingly as an ‘Egyptian party’ as influential and as enthusiastic in their cause as the French ‘Syrian enthusiasts’.302 Kitchener himself sent a message in September 1914 with the question of if the Arabs were loyal to Britain or to Turkey, to which Hussein’s son Abdullah replied that assurances that Britain would protect them from the Turks would be required before any definitive answer could be provided.303 Syrian separatism, once seen as a grave threat to the future of Britain and France in Syria, came to be seen by the British as a path to preserving Entente interests post-war.

299 C. J. Lowe and M.L. Dockrill, The Mirage of Power, vol. 2, 1914-1922, (Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972), 208-215. 300 Tibawi, A Modern History of Syria, 211. 301 Lewis, Balfour and Weizmann, 98. 302 Andrew and Kanya-Forstner, The Climax of French Imperial Expansion, 87. 303 Tibawi, A Modern History of Syria, 213. 100

Later in November the British sent a message to Sharif Hussein of which both reminded him of Britain’s record of defending Muslims and promised that if

Hussein assist Britain against Turkey, they could expect similar treatment after the war.304 This offer signaled the start of a negotiation for Hussein, who in July 1915 claimed that Arabs as a whole were united behind the proposition of Arab independence, and asked the British to endorse the proclamation of an Arab Khalifate of Islam.305 This could be believed, as the reports of civil authorities in Egypt including Sir John Maxwell reported that pro-British and anti-French sentiment was prevalent among all but the

Maronites.306 At the same time, the failures of the Dardanelles campaign also forced

Britain to consider alternative paths to victory in the Middle East, and the idea of an Arab kingdom began to gain further traction.307

The aspirations of the Arabs, kindled by the British, continued to be complicated by France, however. On 2 November Grey asked McMahon if the Arabs, who accepted the idea of post-war British advisers, would also accept French advisers. Grey believed this could warm France to the surrender of Damascus, Hama, Homs and Aleppo, and he knew the French would likely insist on their own advisers. McMahon however responded that the Arabs did not welcome French influence and would accept British advisers only.308 Alternatively, Mark Sykes reported that Hussein’s representative in Cairo was ready to accept French advisers in those industries over which France had concessions and over those institutions built and maintained for the purposes of the mission

304 Aaron Kleiman, Foundations of British Policy in the Arab World, (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1970) 6. 305 Kleiman, Foundations of British Policy in the Arab World, 8. 306 Tibawi, A Modern History of Syria, 212-213. 307 Lowe and Dockrill, The Mirage of Power, Vol. 2, 214-215. 308 Nevakivi, Britain, France and the Arab Middle East 1914-1920, 28. 101

civilisatrice.309 Despite Anglo-French optimism these statements might have engendered,

Hussein made clear that France’s presence was contingent upon France’s renunciation of the coastal regions of Syria, and Britain did not intend to force such a condition upon

France.310 British officials began to search for a reconciliatory path between the Arab and

French expectations in Syria.

Kitchener and Grey agreed that Cairo could move forward with the terms being discussed in the McMahon-Hussein correspondence, with the sole specification that the coast of Syria claimed by the French was out of bounds.311 Britain wished to win over the

Arabs to their cause, but not at the price of fairness and good relations with France. The

British hoped for the Arabs to join them for the prize of freedom from the Turks, while

Hussein hoped for guarantees of his own post-war kingdom. These two goals, though similar, were not identical, a problem that became apparent in the McMahon-Hussein

Correspondence between July 1915 and March 1916. As Kleiman explains, while

McMahon tried to avoid any discussions of specific boundaries which might delay the

Arab commitment and complicate Anglo-French relations, Hussein “was specific both with regard to the nature of military and financial support expected from Britain and to the territorial dimensions of future Arab rule.”312 The British government, regardless of these difficulties, still went forward with the correspondence because it was believed that the details could be ironed out between the various parties of interest, and the time was right for Britain to capitalize on the groundwork she had laid over the previous decades.

This seemed confirmed when Hussein made it clear that while he was concerned about

309 Ibid., 28-29. 310 Ibid., 29. 311 Adelson, London and the Invention of the Middle East, 125. 312 Kleiman, Foundations of British Policy in the Arab World, 9. 102

Britain’s lack of specificity as to the borders of the potential Arab state, Britain was the one power he preferred and trusted most to sponsor the Arab revolt.313 In mid-October

1915, shortly after Grey authorized McMahon to present the British proposals to Hussein, he alerted the French that such negotiations were in the offing and that he would leave it to the French to determine which concessions to make in Syria.314 Britain made sure that

France was informed of the McMahon-Hussein correspondence.

The Arab revolt began in June 1916, a movement which necessitated further

British military involvement in ways we will touch upon later. What remained unanswered was how this new understanding would be received by the French, especially with the Sykes-Picot Agreement signed just a month prior to the revolt’s commencement.

Regardless of the complications which arose later, the British had secured the partnership they had envisioned during all those secret pre-war meetings with Arab separatists and reformists, and in all their careful demonstrations of solidarity with Arabs. British officials recognized that though these intrigues may have upset the French in the past— and inevitably would continue to upset them in the future because France was so prone to misinterpretation of British motives—a little more French agitation was a price worth victory in the Middle East.

British officials continued to be clear that France’s interests were not to be injured by the McMahon-Hussein correspondence. Kedourie presents the evidence for this conclusion, as he explains that it was made clear to the Hashemites that Syria was to be excluded from the future Arab state for the sake of France, and Grey “took care to ascertain from the Sharif and his friends whether his commitments to France were

313 British Documents on Foreign Affairs, Series H, Vol. 1, 201. 314 Poincaré, vol. VII, 206, 250, (sourced from Kedourie, England and the Middle East, 35-36). 103

acceptable to the Arab conspirators.”315 Kedourie further details the Arab response to

French interests, conveyed via the British. The representative of the Arab leaders,

Muhammad Sharif al-Faruqi, told Grey that while French occupation of Aleppo, Hama,

Homs and Damascus would be opposed by Arabs, they were prepared to accept the

French and British claims to economic privileges and the right of administrative guidance.316 Contrary to a number of other authors on the subject, Kedourie demonstrates that these conditions became the framework within which Britain and France entered the

Sykes-Picot negotiations.

Nowhere did the McMahon-Hussein correspondence discuss Palestine, and the

British made clear that other areas of Syria over which France had a claim would be excluded from Hussein’s demands. These stipulations reflect clearly the British policy in

Syria, for no commitments would be made that did not provide Britain a path by which to appease each of her current and potential allies. Geoffrey Lewis points out that

“McMahon himself believed that the letters had no binding force and would neither

‘establish our rights…or bind our hands’.”317 The outcome of these correspondence provided Britain with a local ally against the Ottoman Empire without express contradiction of her commitments to France and potentially to Zionism. As McMahon explained to Grey, even as he added Damascus, Hama, Homs and Aleppo to the Arab sphere, he had worded the agreement in such a way as “to provide for possible French pretensions in those places.”318 The Arabs interpreted the vague language of the

315 Elie Kedourie, England and the Middle East: The Destruction of the Ottoman Empire: 1914-1921, (Hassocks, Sussex: The Harvester Press, 1956), 36. 316 Kedourie, England and the Middle East, 37. 317 Lewis, Balfour and Weizmann, 101. 318 Elie Kedourie, In the Anglo-Arab Labyrinth, 94-103. (qtd. by Andrew and Kanya-Forstner in The Climax of French Imperialism, 89). 104

agreement as British acceptance of Palestine as part of the future Arab state, while Britain designed the language so they officials could later “deny that there had been any such intention.”319 For his part Grey doubted that the Arab uprising would in fact materialize in a post-war Arab state, and thus remained unconcerned that his assurances to the Arabs would contradict with the Entente.320 Still, the language allowed for any outcome, including one that had begun to percolate in British official circles since the link of

Palestine to wider British imperial security: a Jewish home state.

At the outbreak of war, the international Zionist movement was in danger of folding. Weizmann hoped that with the help of the United States he could gain Anglo-

French support to secure the Jewish state once the fighting concluded.321 Weizmann got his wish. Though British support for Zionism had waned since the 1905 Aliens Act, in the first two years of the war Zionism was again in diplomatic correspondence related to

Syria. In November 1914 the first representative of the Jewish community to sit in a

British cabinet, Herbert Samuel, found sympathy with Grey, Lloyd George, and Haldane for argument that the establishment of the Jewish home state could serve as a strategy by which to dismember the Ottoman Empire.322

A few ideas were floated as to how such a state should be governed following the war. One idea was French annexation of Palestine, but this was quickly dismissed.

Asquith argued that this was the result of Lloyd George’s insistence that the Holy Places not fall into the hands of “Agnostic, Atheistic France”, and Samuel concluded that a

British protectorate was the best option as the Jews were not by his estimation in a

319 Bernard Wasserstein, The British in Palestine, (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, Inc., 1978), 10. 320 Andrew and Kanya-Forstner, The Climax of French Imperial Expansion, 90. 321 Lewis, Balfour and Weizmann, 81. 322 Lewis, Balfour and Weizmann, 82-82. 105

position to govern themselves and Palestine could serve as a safeguard for Egypt.323

Despite Lloyd George’s anti-French rhetoric, he was also convinced that British control of Palestine was vital to British security.324 Weizmann met with many top British officials in the final months of 1914 and found that despite their caution in promising anything, they were sympathetic and considered Zionism a question of importance in the midst of war.325 Despite the optimism of Zionists and British officials alike, during the war one issue would continue to bedevil this new strategy in Palestine: France’s continued insistence that Palestine was within her sphere of influence.

French officials remained convinced that Syria was ready for French occupation.

Robert de Caix argued in 1915 that conquest of Syria was unnecessary thanks to the popularity of French activity there over the previous centuries.326 Despite confidence of

French popularity among Syrians, French officials looked upon the Hashemites as a threat similar to that posed by the ‘false gods’ of Anglo-Saxon culture. The Hashemites and their vision of Syria united under an Arab king was an influence which, if unchecked, could ebb away at support among France’s minority clients and eventually push her out of Syria.327 France had to keep her popularity among these clients if she were to retain power in Syria, and thus fears of the Hashemites had to be placated. One such example was in the case of the Maronites, who made clear their fears of an independent Sunni

Arab Kingdom in Damascus.328 Placating the Maronites and other groups was difficult, however, as France found it difficult to promise her own clients the future they hoped for.

323 Ibid., 84-85. 324 R. J. Q. Adams, Balfour: The Last Grandee, (London: John Murray, 2007,) 332. 325 Lewis, Balfour and Weizmann, 87-89. 326 Pipes, Greater Syria, 25. 327 Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate, 53. 328 Pipes, Greater Syria, 23. 106

This was because French religious clients, like the British and Zionists, hoped for a division of Syria to protect their interests. French officials paradoxically found themselves in agreement with the Hashemites that Syria should remain one amalgamated zone, even if both sought this for different reasons.329 The complexities of their nation’s position continued to induce anxieties among French officials as they found themselves unsure which path to take in Syria.

Syria in the War

While French officials had seen Syria as a path through which to build a Middle

Eastern empire, British officials had foreseen Syria as integral to the defense of the

British Empire’s most valuable possessions. These two visions for Syria became more pronounced in the strategies and actions of these two powers there in World War I.

It was unclear at first which side the Ottoman Empire would join at the start of the war. Ottoman officials had a few reasons to consider alliance with the Entente, including extensive British trade and French investments and railroads in Syria. However, Germany was committed to withholding badly-needed loans until the Ottomans joined on the side of the Alliance, and the Turks lacked confidence that Britain and France could rein in

Russian territorial aggrandizement.330 When the Ottomans refused to turn over two

German warships that had entered the Straits, and in fact adopted them as their own and drew up plans to attack Russia in the , Anglo-French fears that their ally had damaged their position in the Ottoman Empire were proven correct.

The entry into the war of the Ottoman Empire in 1915 signaled to the Entente that questions over the division of Syria now had to be answered. Upon the declaration of

329 Ibid., 25. 330 Fieldhouse, Western Imperialism in the Middle East, 41. 107

war, British policy became focused upon keeping her communication open “between the

East and the Mediterranean by means of the Red Sea and the Suez Canal”, and “To nullify by action both within the Turkish Empire and outside the Turkish efforts to set

Moslem against Christian by their declaration of a Holy War.”331 It soon became clear that Syria would play a large role in this mission, as it became clear that the Fourth

Turkish army had indeed been mobilized to remove the British from Egypt via Syria.332

By 7 January 1915, Cheetham reported to Grey that intelligence suggested that:

“a large proportion of the population of Syria and Palestine would welcome

advent of British force, and might even afford active assistance provided that they

were assured that an occupation of their country would be permanent…On the

other hand, there is evidence that similar feelings are not entertained with regard

to advent of the French or Russians, except among Maronites of the Lebanon,

who are pro-French.”333

All this suggested to Cheetham that it was within Britain’s interest to find a definite understanding in Syria prior to any military operation, that permanent British occupation was the best strategy towards partnership with the Arabs, and that

Alexandretta was the best place to cut Turkish lines of communication and to establish a naval base from which to command the Eastern Mediterranean and safeguard the entrance to the Suez Canal. These plans of course inspired the reorientation of France’s thinking on Syria as well. Autonomous rule in Lebanon was abolished as were the

Capitulations, and if France was no longer permitted within Syria, the mission

331 British Documents on Foreign Affairs, Series H, Vol. 2, 326. 332 Tibawi, A Modern History of Syria, 209-210. 333 British Documents on Foreign Affairs, Series H, Vol. 2, 214. 108

civilisatrice threatened to wither. Just before the Ottomans entered the war, Defrance and

Picot insisted that Britain was eager to be the first into Syria to supplant France, and that

France had to dispatch an expeditionary force to intervene in Lebanon and elsewhere if necessary to prevent a British conquest in the style of Egypt in 1882.334 It became the goal of ‘Syrian enthusiasts’ in the Quai d’Orsay “to secure France’s claim to Syria by international agreement…which meant, above all, agreement with England…and to ensure that the Syria which France gained was ‘la Syrie intégrale’…which included

Palestine.”335 Some at the Quai d’Orsay continued to demonstrate that the concept of perfidious Albion resided in their opinion of Britain even in the midst of war.

Picot, Flandin and Leygues all insisted that France’s history in Syria, her popularity there, and the necessity to extend her imperial borders to protect her rule over the Mahgrib all necessitated her rule in Syria.336 Not all French officials however were convinced that Syria was worth damaged relations with Britain. This group included

Delcassé, Bompard, and Cambon, who did not buy the supposed importance of Syria to

French strategy, economics, or culture. Through summer 1915 a parliamentary debate raged between these two sides and muddled French cohesion over what her official stance was towards Syria. By October, however, Picot had convinced Bompard and

Cambon that ‘Anglo-Egyptian intrigues’ in Syria required France to take a hardline stance against Britain that included Palestine as part of French Syria.337 Even if French popular opinion was not yet sold on la Syrie intégrale, the ‘Syrian enthusiasts’ had

334 Andrew and Kanya-Forstner, The Climax of French Imperial Expansion, 66-67. 335 Ibid. 74. 336 Ibid., 75. 337 Andrew and Kanya-Forstner, The Climax of French Imperial Expansion, 77. 109

convinced the public that a British Syria was unacceptable.338 This was again a sign that some French officials, while perhaps unconvinced of Syria’s economic and cultural value, still remained guarded against any damage to their nation’s prestige which a

British Syria could incur. This had been the case throughout the previous decades and continued to be the case through the war and after.

Under these pressures, Cambon asked Grey on 9 January in their discussion on the matter that any British landing in Syria should be preceded by consultation with

France. Grey replied that Britain hoped France could be involved in any action in Syria, but that any action would likely be confined to efforts to halt a Turkish invasion of

Egypt.339 However, if before the war some French colonialists had argued that partition of the Ottoman Empire would damage France’s prestige there, the failures of the

Dardanelles campaign united colonialists in the belief that partition was inevitable and that France had to make as clear as ever her claim to la Syrie intégrale to deny British claims.340 France however remained reluctant for Syria to become a theater of war, and

Russia wanted assurances that she would benefit at the end of the war if she were to continue to fight even as her military position deteriorated. British officials had to convince their Russian and French counterparts that some of their interests had to be sacrificed for the war effort, and that only together could they secure Syria.

French and Russian officials, anxious to establish Syria’s part in the Entente’s war aims and to make sure Britain’s claims did not overlap with their own, urged Britain to make clear her designs. In June 1915 the committee tasked with the formulation of such a

338 Ibid., 77. 339 British Documents on Foreign Affairs, Series H, Vol. 1, 216. 340 Andrew and Kanya-Forstner, The Climax of French Imperial Expansion, 74. 110

statement, led by Sir Maurice de Bunsen, submitted a report to the War Council that enumerated Britain’s ‘desiderata’ in Asiatic Turkey.341 This report stated that Britain’s

Empire was “wide enough already,” and thus the government hoped to maintain and consolidate her interests there, to see that Muslim holy sites and Arab rights were protected, to see that conflicts over Palestine and the holy places of Christendom were resolved, all under decentralized Ottoman rule.342 This report maintained Britain’s pre- war position that any activity in Syria and Asiatic Turkey was primarily to maintain, rather than expand her imperial control in the Middle East. It speculated that the Arabs and Christians could be placated under the Ottoman Empire so long as the provinces were no longer tyrannized by Constantinople. Mark Sykes submitted a report to the committee that suggested that a British zone of interest over Turkey should comprise Palestine, but the committee had rejected this and “firmly declined to make any recommendation at all about Palestine,”343 because despite agreement among several key members of the British cabinet that Palestine should be secured under Britain’s sphere of influence, it was likely to be rejected by France and ought to be decided “in special negotiations, in which both belligerents and neutrals are alike interested.”344 Even as the committee members spoke of Ottoman integrity as the preferable outcome, they also took time to consider the demands that would be made of France and Russia in the case of the partition that seemed likelier than ever.345 The de Bunsen committee therefore demonstrated Britain’s new pessimism about the future of Ottoman Syria. Dissolution had previously been a distant

341 Cabinet, Ad Hoc Committees (secret), “Report, Proceedings and Appendices of a Committee Appointed by the Prime Minister. 1915.British Desiderata in Turkey-in-Asia,” CAB 27/1, p. 4. 342 Kleiman, Foundations of British Policy in the Arab World, 237. 343 Lewis, Balfour and Weizmann, 95. 344 Report of the Committee on Asiatic Turkey, 10, (qtd. by Nevakivi in Britain, France and the Arab Middle East, 22). 345 Nevakivi, Britain, France and the Arab Middle East, 24. 111

inevitability, but it now appeared to be on the horizon. Still, at the time of its proposal, the report remained committed to the status quo.

The proposals of the de Bunsen committee’s report, compatible with British pre- war strategy, were nevertheless not endorsed by the British government in wartime. As

Kleiman argues, intensified resentments towards Turkey were partly responsible for this shift, but it was also a product of continued fears among British officials that their current allies could soon enough be their rivals, and it was therefore dangerous to lose out to them in the scramble for Turkey.346 Further, the de Bunsen report and its rejection have been identified by a number of historians as characteristic of Britain’s lack of clear consensus on the government’s interests in the Middle East or on acceptable action for agents who sought to advance that unclear agenda.347 Perhaps the claim is fair that Britain lacked a concrete wartime strategy towards the Middle East that caused internal contradictions and broken promises. However, the question that arises from this is first whether this characteristic of British wartime strategy represented a break in Britain’s general approach to Syria, and second if it was in sum a hinderance to Britain in Syria.

Given the pre-war expectations of Britain and France for their post-division position in

Syria versus their understanding at Sykes-Picot and then under the Mandates, the superficial image of British wartime strategy as disorganized gives way to the reality that such a strategy provided, even if unwittingly so to British officials themselves, a level of flexibility and adaptability that contrasted sharply with the rigid and narrow approach taken by France.

346 Kleiman, Foundations of British Policy in the Arab World, 6. 347 See, for example, Kleiman: Foundations of British Policy in the Arab World, and Lowe and Dockrill: The Mirage of Power, vol. 2. 112

Since Entente diplomats and citizens were expelled from Syria at the outbreak of war, Britain devised remote ways to divide Syrians from the Ottomans. Among other propaganda methods, British airplanes dropped propaganda leaflets wrapped around cigarette packets into Palestine that convinced many Arabs that Entente forces already occupied Gallipoli, and that Ottoman defectors were well-treated in Egypt’s prisoner-of- war camps.348 However, British officials recognized that remote tactics were not enough to defeat the Turks, and talks began over how best to attack the Ottoman Empire. Despite

French fears of British military control over Syria, there was little she could commit to the Eastern Front as she fought for her survival on the home front. Heavy losses and expenditures forced France to rely on Britain in the first years of war far more than

French officials had expected, while Britain attempted to sustain a war on both fronts.349

French officials had underestimated such an ambitious plan of Middle Eastern operations that was the ill-fated Dardanelles campaign, and soon Millerand complained that British operations were a threat to France’s prestige in the Middle East while

Augagneur argued that it must be a top priority to keep Britain out of Syria.350 Augagneur was worried that Kitchener would convince the British government to move forward with the invasion of Alexandretta without French coordination. Britain again made clear that this was not the case and that coordination with France was their priority, as Churchill reiterated that such a landing was unlikely, and that if this changed France would be consulted before any decision was made.351 These tensions emphasized the necessity that

Britain and France reach an understanding soon over their interests in Syria, as such an

348 M. Talha Cicek, Syria in World War 1, (United Kingdom: Routledge, 2015), 62-63. 349 P.M.H. Bell, France and Britain, 1900-1940, (New York: Longman Publishing, 1996), 64-65. 350 Andrew and Kanya-Forstner, The Climax of French Imperial Expansion, 71. 351 Ibid., 71. 113

understanding might inspire deeper Anglo-French military trust. When Mark Sykes returned from a six-month trip through the Middle East, he argued that Britain had to come to a clear arrangement with the French over Syria. He particularly stressed that such an understanding had to be reached over Palestine, which he saw as a buffer between the French and the future Arab kingdom. If such an understanding could be reached, a campaign from Egypt could be launched into the Middle East without fear of

French recrimination.352 In fact such discussions had begun a month prior, and British interests in Palestine proved a key point of contention.

The Sykes-Picot Negotiations

Anglo-French relations in Syria, from the earliest capitulations to the first years of war, brought the two powers to the Sykes-Picot negotiations. With these negotiations

Britain and France would, in theory, resolve the disagreements in Syria that has hindered the Entente Cordiale and complicated the war effort. It should be no surprise that these negotiations, like the issues they sought to resolve, were complicated. It should also be unsurprising that the resolutions proved unsatisfactory to some in Britain, France, and

Syria.

In 1915 Britain and France took up the task of negotiating with Russia over the respective Entente territorial demands in the Ottoman Empire. They eventually accepted

Russia’s claim to Constantinople, subject as Grey said, “to the disiderata of Great Britain and France in the Ottoman Empire and elsewhere being realized.” 353 This agreement kicked off what Wasserstein describes as “an undignified scramble in which Britain,

France and Italy jostled to secure from one another promissory notes of ‘compensation’

352 Lewis, Balfour and Weizmann, 102. 353 Leonard Stein, The , (Ann Arbor: Simon and Schuster, 1961), 240-241. 114

elsewhere in the Middle East.”354 With Russia satisfied, Britain and France could now turn to negotiations directed to a clear settlement of their respective ‘disiderata’.

The British had also just reached a series of agreements with the Arabs in the

McMahon-Hussein Correspondence. Britain did not hesitate to pursue an agreement with

France, as the very day after Grey provided Hussein with the ‘cordial assurances’, he requested that the French choose a representative to negotiate with Kitchener an official

Anglo-French agreement over Syria.355 Picot was one of the most stringent of the ‘Syrian enthusiasts’, yet he was also appraised of British ambitions in the Middle East and had considered at length paths to cooperation.356 Picot was not concerned about the budding

Anglo-Arab alliance. Like Grey he understood Britain’s assurances to Hussein as a strategic ploy to help the Entente cause, but which was unlikely to end in the realization of a broad Arab state.357 The fact that the French representative did not present any explicit objections to the Anglo-Arab understanding boded well for the Anglo-French negotiations.

Picot was outnumbered by the British in the negotiations, but as one of the most ardent of the ‘Syrian enthusiasts’, he was not quickly deterred from the wide interpretation of la Syrie intégrale he had convinced his colleagues of. France would not,

Picot avowed, settle for less than the annexation of Syria. This however was a ploy to strengthen France’s bargaining position and to conceal the fact that the ‘Syrian party’ envisioned a liberal Syria with broad autonomy and that the Quai d’Orsay recognized that

354 Wasserstein, The British in Palestine, 8. 355 Andrew and Kanya-Forstner, The Climax of French Imperial Expansion, 89. 356 Fieldhouse, Western Imperialism in the Middle East, 1914-1958, 47-50. 357 Andrew and Kanya-Forstner, The Climax of French Imperial Expansion, 90. 115

direct control might surpass French capabilities and thus injure her prestige.358 Regardless of his belief in la Syrie intégrale, Picot recognized that France’s position in Syria and her bargaining position was tenuous, and the Quai d’Orsay believed that the Hashemites and their alliance of Arab sheriffs could be leveraged to win Muslims throughout Syria to the cause of French administration.359 Picot had convinced a number of his colleagues that

Arab ambitions were a positive factor for French Syria.

It is not surprising that Nicolson and his team fell for the French act, given

France’s consistent efforts over the previous years to push her rivals out of Syria. Picot was therefore pleased that in this initial round of negotiations his insistence on French annexation had led Nicolson to concede that French “the possibility of direct French control over Lebanon and the Mediterranean coast further north.”360 Mark Sykes’ return from Cairo at the time of deadlock between Nicolson and Picot was fortuitous. His recent experience and knowledge of the region, along with his Francophilia and understanding of the French mission in the Levant, made him a suitable choice for the new negotiator.361

Sykes represented the interests of Cairo much in the same way Picot represented the interests of the ‘Syrian enthusiasts’.362 That these qualifications were similar to those of

Picot is not surprising. The French and British governments had both come to recognize the need to cut through the deadlock that prohibited action in Syria.363

Sykes believed that Britain and France had to work together to destroy German influence in the Middle East, and that independent Arab rule was more likely to avoid

358 Ibid., 92. 359 Ibid., 93. 360 The Climax of French Imperial Expansion, 92. 361 Nevakivi, Britain, France and the Arab Middle East, 1914-1920, 31-32. 362 Fieldhouse, Western Imperialism in the Middle East, 1914-1958, 50. 363 Nevakivi, Britain, France and the Arab Middle East, 1914-1920, 36-37. 116

sectarian violence against their religious clients than was continued Turkish rule over the

Arabs.364 Nevakivi attributes France’s acceptance of Arab control over the four towns as a result of Sykes’ tactics and French concerns not to antagonize Britain and especially

Kitchener to the point that they withdrew from negotiations.365 Andrew and Kanya-

Forstner argue however that France was not swayed by Sykes’ logic, but instead Picot’s conditions in the second round of negotiations defined France’s true goal in Syria, guised as a concession. Picot told Sykes that France would accept indirect control over the

Syrian interior with her sphere of influence extended east to . If accepted, these conditions would allow France to exert her influence over Lebanon, where she enjoyed great popularity, and from there she could monitor the Syrian interior.366 France had not surrendered her ambitions to the entirety of Syria, but rather Picot believed that once the war ended, his nation could control Syria and allow the Arabs a certain level of political autonomy. The French had painted themselves as ready for compromise, yet they continued to fundamentally misunderstand the goals of the Arabs and focused upon their own ambitions.

The terms of the Sykes-Picot Agreement reached Grey from Cambon on 10

October. After his review, on 15 October Grey requested that Cambon provide assurance that in those regions designated to French administration, British concessions and other navigational, economic, religious, or educational interests there would remain secured.367

He assured Cambon that Britain would, with this assurance, also reciprocate in those areas to be placed under British administration. That same day, 15 May, Cambon

364 Ibid., 33. 365 Ibid., 35. 366 Andrew and Kanya-Forstner, The Climax of French Imperial Expansion, 92. 367 British Documents on Foreign Affairs, Series H, Vol. 2, 325. 117 responded that France was “prêt à sanctionner les diverses concessions britanniques…dans les régions qui lui seraient attribuées ou qui relèveraient de son action.”368 When Grey received this correspondence the next day, he responded that though the terms of Sykes-Picot involved “the abdication of considerable British interests” the British government recognized “the advantage to the general cause of the

Allies entailed in producing a more favourable internal political situation in

Turkey…(and) are ready to accept the arrangement now arrived at, provided that the co- operation of the Arabs is secured.”369 A week later Britain and France accepted Russia’s terms, and the Triple Entente appeared finally united behind a plan of partition for

Ottoman Syria.

The Zionists remained uninformed of the McMahon correspondence and Sykes-

Picot agreement until later. Lewis argues that the British largely ignored the problems that might arise from support for both a Jewish Palestine and for an Arab kingdom that would exercise predominance over the region, and French desires that Palestine remain part of a French Syria.370 Was this simply oversight by the British, or was it another factor taken into consideration?

The evidence suggests that British officials, while aware of the difficulties that might arise from their appeasement of the Zionists, were prepared to meet the challenge if it provided them a moral claim to Palestine. The Cairo office and Herbert Samuel had convinced much of the British cabinet that Palestine as a buffer to the Suez Canal was vital to imperial security, and this necessitated that France be held back from their claim

368 Ibid., 326. 369 Ibid., 326. 370 Lewis, Balfour and Weizmann, 105. 118

there.371 This strategy was complicated by Sykes-Picot, which placed Palestine under a post-war international administration and thus would have given France a path in.

However, this decision by the Asquith government, as discussed in the conclusion, was overturned by Lloyd George and the Balfour Declaration to prevent France from gaining a foothold in Palestine.

Many authors have presented their appraisal of Sykes-Picot, and it seems appropriate now to discuss them at some length. Khoury, who argues that Britain and

France suffered from a lack of clear priorities and strategy, sees Sykes-Picot as another

Anglo-French decision made without real thought to the consequences and made regardless of contradictions with other commitments to allow for an attack upon the

Ottoman Empire.372 Albert Hourani proposes too that the McMahon-Hussein

Correspondence, the Sykes-Picot Agreement, and the Balfour Declaration were each designed so that Britain was not forced to make a decision during the urgency of war, and that these agreements were written “to be interpreted in more than one way, and to leave the question of which interpretation should prevail to be decided by the balance of strength when war was over.”373 Lowe, Dockrill and Longrigg argue that top Anglo-

French officials saw little chance that an Arab state would emerge.374 Andrew and

Kanya-Forstner agree and argue that the assurances reached by the McMahon-Hussein correspondence were nothing more than a British ploy to use the Arabs as long as possible until the inevitable dissolution of the Arab forces incapable of lasting unity, and

371 Cohen, Britain’s Moment in Palestine, 43-44. 372 Albert Hourani, The Arab Awakening Forty Years After, and Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate, 35. 373 Albert Hourani, The Emergence of the Modern Middle East, (London, 1981), 210. 374 Longrigg, Syria and Lebanon Under French Mandate, 59, and Lowe and Dockrill, The Mirage of Power, vol. 2, 222 119

thus such correspondence did not conflict with Sykes-Picot.375

Still others argue that the negotiations and decisions of Sykes-Picot represent an

Anglo-French belief that their partnership and a paternalistic relationship with the Arabs were complementary and could thus be achieved simultaneously. Kleiman for example argues that these negotiations assumed Anglo-French post-war cooperation regardless of their heated rivalry, and that Britain’s role as intermediary would ensure that Arab,

British, and French interests “could be adjusted reasonably and honorably once Turkey had been defeated.”376 Indeed British officials made clear that the Arab concession that allowed France to provide advisers was an important reason why they felt comfortable with Sykes-Picot, and correspondence suggests that at the time of Sykes-Picot the other

Entente powers were prepared for the formation of an Arab state should such a reality materialize.377 Kedourie even dispels the charge that Britain and France kept Sykes-Picot a secret from the Arabs until after the revolt. Instead, he concludes that the Agreement was kept secret from the international stage not to keep the Hashemites in the dark but rather because Anglo-French officials recognized the Agreement did not mesh well with

Wilson and his vision for the .378 That the Arabs were aware of Sykes-

Picot yet decided to move forward with their revolt regardless suggests that even Hussein believed an agreement could later be reached with the French over territory and administration.

What becomes apparent from the evidence above it that the Sykes-Picot

Agreement was a product of the British and French approaches to Syria developed in the

375 Andrew and Kanya-Forstner, The Climax of French Imperial Expansion, 90-91. 376 Kleiman, British Policy in the Arab World, 13. 377 Nevakivi, Britain, France and the Arab Middle East, 1914-1920, 38-39. 378 Kedourie, England and the Middle East, 40-41. 120

pre-war years. Britain continued to prepare for a variety of contingencies, and perceived better than the French what the Arabs expected in exchange for their loyalty. France on the other hand continued to interpret the McMahon-Hussein correspondence and Sykes-

Picot as compatible with French influence in Syria. French officials accepted the concept of an Arab state because they believed it would fall under the French sphere of influence, and despite British statements to the contrary, French officials interpreted the push for

Arab independence there as a deliberate attempt to supplant France in Syria379 Once again the British found that a solution beneficial to all parties involved in Syria was made difficult by French officials who remained prepared to oppose any and all challenges to la

Syrie intégrale, even those which would benefit the war effort and Entente solidarity.

When the Arabs reiterated their interest in an independent Arab caliphate, France became unwilling to work within the parameters Britain and the Arabs had presented in the first years of war.

379 Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate, 34-35. 121

Epilogue

Sykes-Picot did not officially divide Syria, but its terms provided the blueprint for further negotiations and eventually the League of Nations’ Mandate System. The legacy of Anglo-French relations before Sykes-Picot cast a long shadow over Syria. What was also apparent from the early days of the Mandate for Syria and Lebanon was the persistence of long-standing problems between the Entente and Syria, and within the

Entente itself. Though France and Britain had both attained many of their territorial ambitions, Sykes-Picot and the Mandate did not signal the resolution of Anglo-French tensions and resentments in Syria.

P.M.H. Bell observes that while from 1915 to 1916 Britain and France accepted their respective spheres of influence, from 1917 to 1918 their disagreements – though suppressed for the sake of the war effort – again turned them into enemies over the fate of

Syria.380 The British took several steps that indicated that the Sykes-Picot Agreement was not the final say on Entente spheres of influence in Syria. First was their actions in the

Arab Revolt that concluded in Damascus. The Arabs, alongside Lawrence of Arabia, reached Damascus and on October 1st, 1918 allowed Feisal to lead the march into Syria.

This decision was symbolic not just because it presented Feisal as the liberator of Syria, but because it demonstrated that the British preferred an Arab over a French administration in Damascus.381 France had hoped that the Hashemites might be an ally in the cause of French Syria, but that illusion was quickly dispelled.

Under Sykes-Picot, the French had assumed that the Arab state was part of her sphere of influence, and thus any and all efforts by Arab nationalists to secure an

380 Bell, France and Britain, 1900-1940, 88. 381 Pipes, Greater Syria, 23. 122

independent Syria was seen as fomented by the British as a ploy to wrest Syria for themselves.382 The Balfour Declaration of early November 1917 seemed to confirm this judgement, raising both French and Arab concerns despite efforts by Balfour and others to frame the declaration as a positive development for all sides involved.383 The Balfour

Declaration that Britain was committed to the establishment of a Jewish home state in

Palestine tied into Lloyd George’s attempt to reign in the designs of France there, as it gave Britain a firm moral reason for which to occupy Palestine that could be defended to

Wilson and the future League of Nations.384

Sykes-Picot was a mutual Entente agreement, one which preserved the Entente during the war even if on shaky grounds by the time of armistice. Despite this, Britain officials had remained open to new opportunities to secure imperial defense. The Balfour

Declaration came to be seen as key to a “solution to all the problems of the Middle

East…(which) lie(s) in Anglo-French cooperation to set up an Arab-Jewish-Armenian bulwark against the Turco-German combination.”385 Britain believed that the war necessitated a combination of any groups she could unite, and hoped that this could be achieved with French approval. When such French cooperation did not materialize,

British officials came to suspect that despite the burdens inherent in the support of a

Jewish homeland, they paled in comparison to the damage French administrative and strategic control over Palestine would cause to the British Empire.386 Palestine was in fact referred to by Robinson and Gallagher as “the one interest with which British cabinets

382 Khoury, The French in Syria, 34. 383 Adams, Balfour: The Last Grandee, 334-335. 384 Cohen, Britain’s Moment in Palestine, 44. 385 Tibawi, Anglo-Arab Relations and the Question of Palestine, 1914-1921, 216. 386 Marlowe, Arab Nationalism and British Imperialism, 18. 123

could not afford to gamble.”387

British administration of Palestine had not been the goal of most British officials before the war, yet they had recognized the possibility that such administration could become necessary if French stewardship was deemed too dangerous. As Geoffrey Lewis observes, “French resentment against Britain after the war was caused not so much by the

Sykes-Picot agreement, but by its alteration unilaterally by Britain after Allenby’s conquest of Palestine.”388 Wasserstein too explains that despite the terms of Sykes-Picot,

Britain’s right to Palestine “was decided primarily by ‘the occupation of Palestine by a predominantly , and the establishment of a wholly British administration’”, which allowed Lloyd George to elicit from Clemenceau his secret acceptance of British administration over Palestine.389 Britain had protected France’s claim to Syria, but

Palestine was deemed too vital to be left to French imperial ambitions and unreliable administration. Widespread pro-British sentiment in Palestine, cultivated by Egypt and

Britain’s image as an effective administrator of Muslim interests also facilitated British

(rather than French) control of Palestine.390 Britain had therefore taken the necessary steps to prepare for their administration of Palestine, and had secured it when it was deemed necessary.

In the week before the armistice, Britain and France issued a joint statement that they remained committed to “the complete and final liberation of the peoples who have for so long been oppressed by the Turks, and the setting up of national governments and

387 R. Robinson and J. Gallagher, Africa and the Victorians: The Official Mind of Imperialism (London 1961), 159, (qtd. by Wasserstein in The British in Palestine, 8. 388 Lewis, Balfour and Weizmann, 104. 389 Wasserstein, The British in Palestine, 8-9. 390 Nevakivi, Britain, France and the Arab Middle East, 1914-1920, 56-57. 124

administrations that shall derive their authority from the free exercise of the initiative and choice of the indigenous populations.”391 Some Syrians expressed their doubts on the honesty of this statement, but gravitated to it. They later resented British clarifications that it was not meant to apply to Palestine,392 and were not alone in their concerns over Britain’s military administration. The French were deeply concerned about the approach Allenby took to the wartime administration of Syria, which suppressed

French civil representation and political activity to the same degree as all other political entities within Syria.393 What was more, in Palestine all foreign nationals were answerable to the British Military Authority, a decision which alarmed Picot and led him to push the British to an agreement over the rest of Syria to ensure that France was not cut out of the equation.394 Picot again partnered with Sykes to reach a mutual understanding.

The Occupied Enemy Territory Administration divided Syria into three military administration zones between 1918 and 1920. Britain oversaw roughly what became

Mandatory Palestine, the French administered the coastal region between Israel and

Turkey which encompassed Beirut and Lebanon, and Feisal was charged with

Transjordan and in-land Syria and Lebanon including Damascus and Aleppo.395 Though it was hoped that this division would appease all three groups Britain had made commitments to, Feisal and the Sunni Arabs were disappointed, as they had expected

Arabian rule over the whole of historic Syria. To appease these concerns, Britain and

391 Declaration text presented in Antonius, The Arab Awakening, Appendix E. 392 Wasserstein, The British in Palestine, 10. 393 Nevakivi, Britain, France and the Arab Middle East, 1914-1920, 58. 394 Ibid., 58. 395 Pipes, Greater Syria, 23. 125

France declared that the division was only military in nature, and Pichon explicitly stated that France was committed to Syrian unity.396 The French had plenty of motivation to make this point as well. The French remained under intense restrictions in Syria, and the lines of division remained closer to McMahon-Hussein than Sykes-Picot.397 There was still work to do if the French were to secure their future in Syria.

The ambiguous or even nonexistent resolutions to key points of contention was one of the main causes of ongoing tension. One of the most telling episodes of these disagreements was in the personal feud that erupted between Lloyd George and

Clemenceau. When Lloyd George suggested that Syria would go to the Arabs,

Clemenceau accused the British of exactly the same sorts of intrigues his fellow French officials had thrown at many a British counterpart over the previous decades.398 The

Anglo-French battle over Syria had reached its diplomatic zenith in these heated exchanges, which turned the anti-Syrian Clemenceau into a stringent ally of the Comité, and was renewed twenty years later by and Winston Churchill.399

Britain by 1919 relented and allowed Syria to be occupied by the French for a couple of reasons. That year British soldiers stationed in the Middle East had to be requisitioned to deal with strife at home with Ireland, and for the occupation force in

Germany.400 More importantly, British officials came to recognize that their demands were not altogether rational given their vision for Syria and their wider Empire. The difficulties posed by the continued acceptance of Arab control over Syria were not worth

396 Ibid., 23-24. 397 Nevakivi, Britain, France and the Arab Middle East, 1914-1920, 76. 398 Bell, France and Britain, 1900-1940, 127. 399 Ibid., 127. 400 Ibid., 127. 126

sustained damage to Entente relations, and British officials returned to the conventional wisdom that a French Syria would provide a path towards the resolution of Turkey’s dissection.401

The best Lloyd George could do on behalf of Feisal was remind Clemenceau as

Britain withdrew from Syria that the Arabs would oppose any partition of Syria, yet he also stated that, “For us, the friendship of France is worth ten Syrias.”402 This was a far- cry from the arguments presented by French officials such as Jean Gout that France’s interests in Syria couldn’t be sacrificed for the purpose of Entente solidarity. Britain allowed France to forcibly remove Feisal in April 1920, and in June prevented Abdullah from invading the French mandate, both proof that the British chose their agreements with France over those with the Hashemites.403 Even as British officials chose their relationship with France over sponsorship of Feisal, they “continued to exasperate the

French by finding him a new kingdom next door to Syria.”404

Following the San Remo conference in 1920, Britain was granted Palestine and worked towards independence of the mandate as soon as it was determined feasible;

France received Syria and Lebanon which it sought to control directly and imbue with

French culture and civilization.405 French officials purposely poisoned any potential for

Franco-Syrian negotiations and drove the Hashemites out of Syria with fervency demonstrative of their commitment to French dominance.406 Syrians, unlike their

Lebanese counterparts, did not even initially accept French tutelage. Syrian hostility to

401 Nevakivi, Britain, France and the Arab Middle East, 1914-1920, 260. 402 Pipes, Greater Syria, 25. 403 Marlowe, Arab Nationalism and British Imperialism, 22. 404 Bell, France and Britain, 1900-1940, 127. 405 British Interests in the Mediterranean and Middle East, (London: Oxford University Press, 1958), 6-7. 406 Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate, 40-41. 127

France was so strong that resistance and outright revolt characterized the French Mandate in Syria.407 France created the Mandated State of Greater Lebanon, a region which was initially warmer to French guidance than the rest of Syria. However, France’s failures to account for the political and religious interests in Lebanon caused tensions there before the war to eventually bubble to the surface. An interreligious coalition eventually formed against foreign interference. During World War II this coalition of Muslims and

Christians worked “to wrest their country’s independence by skillfully taking advantage of the perennial rivalry in the imperial objectives of Britain and France.”408 The French mandate dissolved in 1943, thus ending the long and embittered reign that France had worked so hard to win and keep.

The Mandate of Palestine also proved difficult to administer for Britain. John

Marlowe explains that “Anglo-French ambitions had diverted and delayed, but had not extinguished, the prospects of Arab independence…Except in Palestine,” where Arab nationalist resentment was not reduced as the goal was not eventual Arab-led independence but of eventual Jewish-led independence.409 The consequences of this,

Marlowe continues, were grave for the future of the British Empire. Though Britain seemed to have secured her interests in the Middle East with only minor concessions to

France, when she reneged on her agreement with Hussein and promised Arab lands to the

Zionists, she drove a wedge between herself and the Arabs.410 Before the war Britain had found itself on the receiving end of Palestinian Arab anger for tentative efforts to cultivate and implant Zionism in Palestine. Her official support for Zionism and

407 See Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate, Part II and beyond. 408 Spagnolo, France and Ottoman Lebanon, 300. 409 Marlowe, Arab Nationalism and British Imperialism, 24. 410 Ibid., 25. 128

administration of Palestine therefore built upon and sharply increased tensions between

Arabs and Jews.411 Just as France faced a resentful population is Syria, so too did Britain in Palestine.

Anglo-French tensions in Syria continued, as hinted above, to World War II and the heated exchanges of Churchill and de Gaulle. In the 1920s and 1930s Lawrence of

Arabia was seen as the foremost agent and symbol of British intrigues to undermine

France’s position in Syria,412 his intrigues speculated upon in French popular culture in much the same manner French newspapers had hounded Kitchener and Grey in the years before and during the war. Khoury sums up the tensions that remained: “In the French view, Britain surrounded Syria with Hashemite thrones, pushed a Hashemite for the

Caliphate, and promoted Zionist expansion, all to curtail and threaten French influence.

Anglophobia was particularly virulent during the first seven years of the French Mandate, but was then latent until the Second World War.”413 That Britain had chosen France over the Hashemites and had not explicitly denied France’s right to Syria since the Entente

Cordiale seems to have been lost on French officials. However, Britain too worried that

France was behind Arab nationalist sentiment in those regions under British guidance, and mutual suspicions continued to be a significant hinderance to Anglo-French relations throughout the Middle East.414

The Sykes-Picot Agreement and the Mandate for Syria and Lebanon divided

Ottoman Syria between Britain and France in a manner reminiscent of the Entente

Cordiale. Despite hopes to the contrary, Anglo-French-Syrian tensions were not resolved

411 Wasserstein, The British in Palestine, 14-17. 412 Bell, France and Britain, 1900-1940, 128. 413 Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate, 53. 414 Anglo-French Relations since the Late Eighteenth Century, 139. 129

by the new political arrangement, as the strategies pursued by Britain and France were unable to perfectly account for the numerous factors that complicated the Sykes-Picot negotiations and the post-war settlement. This does not mean that these strategies were similar in substance or in effectiveness. The British hoped to protect their empire, but the path to that goal through Syria was ambiguous and flexible. The French hoped to control

Syria, and this meant French officials had to remove her rivals and increase her own presence there whenever possible. Britain’s strategy achieved its goals, and then it even won Britain a mandate in Palestine. France’s strategy did not save la Syrie intégrale, nor did it enhance French prestige in the sections of Syria that she did gain control of. Today the legacy of Anglo-French relations in Ottoman Syria remains relevant.

130

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