Sykes-Picot Agreement | Map, History, & Facts | Britannica

18/5/2021 Sykes-Picot Agreement | Map, History, & Facts | Britannica

Home  Politics, Law & Government  International Relations Sykes-Picot Agreement 1916

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Alternative Title: Asia Minor Agreement

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Countries of the World Quiz We and our partners store and/or access information on a device, such as unique IDs in cookies to process personal data. You may accept or manage your choices by clicking below, including your right to object where legitimate interest is used, or at any time in the privacy policy page. These choices will be signaled to our partners Sykes-Picotand will not Agreement affect browsing data., alsoCookie called Notice Asia Minor Agreement, (May 1916), secret

conventionWe an dmade our p aduringrtners p rWorldocess da Warta to pIr obetweenvide: Great Britain and France, with the assent of imperialUse Russia precise geolocation, for the dismembermentdata. Store and/or access of information the Ottoman on a device. Empire Personalised. The agreementads, and ad measurement. led to the Personalised content, content measurement, audience insights, and product development.Ring in the new year divisionLis tof o fTurkish-held Partners Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine into variouswith French-a Britannica and British-administered areas. Negotiations were begun in November 1915,Membership and the final agreement took its name from the chiefA negotiatorsccept Cookies from Britain and France, Sir Mark Sykes and François Georges-Picot. Sergey Dimitriyevich Sazonov was also present to Preference Center represent Russia, the third member of the Triple Entente. https://www.britannica.com/event/Sykes-Picot-Agreement 1/8 18/5/2021 Sykes-Picot Agreement | Map, History, & Facts | Britannica

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Sykes-Picot Agreement Map of the Sykes-Picot Agreement. Image: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

BRITANNICA QUIZ World War I: Fact or Fiction? Did Canada fight on the side of Britain in World War I? Was Italy an ally of Germany in World War I? From the Flying Tigers to the Red Baron, experience the Great War in this quiz.

We and our partners store and/or access information on a device, such as unique IDs in cookies to process personal data. You may accept or manage your choices by clicking below, including your right to object where legitimate interest is used, or at any time in the privacy policy page. These choices will be signaled to our partners Backgroundand will not affect browsing and data. provisionsCookie Notice We and our partners process data to provide: In the midst of World War I the question arose of what would happen to the Ottoman Use precise geolocation data. Store and/or access information on a device. Personalised ads, and ad measurement. territoriesPersonalised if the content,war led content to the measurement, disintegration audience of insights, “the andsick product man development.of Europe.”Ring in The the Triplenew year List of Partners with a Britannica Entente moved to secure their respective interests in the region. TheyMembership had agreed in the

March 1915 Constantinople Agreement Atocc egivept Co Russiaokies Constantinople (Istanbul) and areas around it, which would provide access to the Mediterranean Sea.France, meanwhile, had a number of economic investments and strategicPreference Crelationshipsenter in Syria, especially in the area https://www.britannica.com/event/Sykes-Picot-Agreement 2/8 18/5/2021 Sykes-Picot Agreement | Map, History, & Facts | Britannica of Aleppo, while Britain wanted secure access to India through the Suez Canal and the Persian Gulf. It was out of a need to coordinate British and French interests in these regions that the Sykes-Picot Agreement was born.

Its provisions were as follows: (1) Russia should acquire the Armenian provinces of Erzurum, Trebizond (Trabzon), Van, and Bitlis, with some Kurdish territory to the southeast; (2) France should acquire Lebanon and the Syrian littoral, Adana, Cilicia, and the hinterland adjacent to Russia’s share, that hinterland including Aintab, Urfa, Mardin, Diyarbakır, and Mosul; (3) Great Britain should acquire southern Mesopotamia, including Baghdad, and also the Mediterranean ports of Haifa and ʿAkko (Acre); (4) between the French and the British acquisitions there should be a confederation of Arab states or a single independent Arab state, divided into French and British spheres of influence; (5) Alexandretta (İskenderun) should be a free port; and (6) Palestine, because of the holy places, should be under an international regime.

We and our partners store and/or access information on a device, such as unique IDs in cookies to process personal data. You may accept or manage your choices by clicking below, including your right to object where legitimate interest is used, or at any time in the privacy policy page. These choices will be signaled to our partners and will not affect browsing data. Cookie Notice ImpactWe and oandur partne rlegacys process data to provide: Use precise geolocation data. Store and/or access information on a device. Personalised ads, and ad measurement. Ring in the new year The pactPersonalised excited content, the ambitions content measurement, of Italy, audience to whom insights, it was and communicatedproduct development. in August 1916, after List of Partners with a Britannica the Italian declaration of war against Germany, with the result that itMembership had to be

supplemented, in April 1917, by the AgreementAccept Co oofkie Saint-Jean-de-Mauriennes , whereby Great Britain and France promised southern and southwestern Anatolia to Italy. The defection of Russia from the war canceled the RussianPrefe raspectence Ce nofte rthe Sykes-Picot Agreement, and the https://www.britannica.com/event/Sykes-Picot-Agreement 3/8 18/5/2021 Sykes-Picot Agreement | Map, History, & Facts | Britannica Turkish Nationalists’ victories after the military collapse of the Ottoman Empire led to the gradual abandonment of any Italian projects for Anatolia.

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The Arabs, however, who had learned of the Sykes-Picot Agreement through the publication of it, together with other secret treaties of imperial Russia, by the Soviet Russian government late in 1917, were scandalized by it. This secret arrangement conflicted in the first place with pledges already given by the British to the Hashemite dynast Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī, sharif of Mecca, during the Ḥusayn-McMahon Correspondence (1915–16). Based on the understanding that the Arabs would eventually receive independence, Ḥusayn had brought the Arabs of the Hejaz into revolt against the Turks in June 1916.

Despite the Sykes-Picot Agreement, the British still appeared to support Arab self- determination at first, helping Ḥusayn’s son Fayṣal and his forces press into Syria in 1918 and establish a government in Damascus. In April 1920, however, the Allied powers agreed to divide governance of the region into separate Class “A” mandates at the Conference of San Remo, along lines similar to those agreed upon under the Sykes-Picot Agreement. The borders of these mandates split up Arab lands and ultimately led to the modern borders of Iraq, Israel and the Palestinian territories, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.

Even though the borders of the mandates were not determined until several years after the Sykes-Picot Agreement, the fact that the deal set the framework for these borders stoked lingering resentment well into the 21st century. Pan-Arabists opposed splitting up the mostly Arab-populated territories into separate countries, which they considered to be little more than imperialist impositions. Moreover, the borders split up other contiguous We and our partners store and/or access information on a device, such as unique IDs in cookies to process populations,personal data.like Ytheou may Kurds accept and or manage the Druze your choices, and by left clicking them below, as minorityincluding your populations right to object inwhere several countries,legitimate depriving interest is their used, orcommunities at any time in the of privacy self-determination policy page. These choices altogether. will be signaled Moments to our partnersof and will not affect browsing data. Cookie Notice political turmoil were often met with declarations of “the end of Sykes-Picot,” such as the We and our partners process data to provide: establishment of the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq in 1992 or the rise of the Use precise geolocation data. Store and/or access information on a device. Personalised ads, and ad measurement. IslamicPersonalised State in content,Iraq and content the measurement, Levant (ISIL) audience in 2014.insights, Meanwhile, and product development. the Sykes-PicotRing in the new Agreement year List of Partners with a Britannica is often criticized together with the Ḥusayn-McMahon CorrespondenceMembership and the Balfour

Declaration as contradictory promises madeAccept byCoo Britainkies to France, the Arabs, and the Zionist movement.

Preference Center https://www.britannica.com/event/Sykes-Picot-Agreement 4/8 18/5/2021 Sykes-Picot Agreement | Map, History, & Facts | Britannica The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

This article was most recently revised and updated by Patricia Bauer, Assistant Editor.

Learn More in these related Britannica articles:

20th-century international relations: War aims of the belligerents

The Sykes–Picot Agreement in May also divided much of the Ottoman Empire into British and French spheres. The Agreement of Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne of April 1917 promised Italy concessions on the Anatolian coast; one Allied motive in this was to persuade Rome to scale down its claims on…

Palestine: World War I and after

… had reached an agreement (the Sykes-Picot Agreement) according to which, inter alia, the bulk of Palestine was to be internationalized. Further complicating the situation, in November 1917 Arthur Balfour, the British secretary of state for foreign affairs, addressed a letter to Lord Lionel Walter Rothschild (the Balfour Declaration) expressing…

Ottoman Empire: Allied war aims and the proposed peace settlement

By the Anglo-French Sykes-Picot Agreement (January 3, 1916), the French sphere was confirmed and extended eastward to Mosul in Iraq. A British sphere of influence in Mesopotamia extended as far north as Baghdad, and Britain was given control of Haifa and Acre and of territory linking…

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Sykes-Picot Agreement QUICK FACTS

DATE May 1916

PARTICIPANTS France Russia United Kingdom

KEY PEOPLE Sir Mark Sykes, 6th Baronet

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