From: Lawrence DeBivort (debivort@umd5.umd.edu)
Date: Wed 04 Dec 2002 - 23:39:02 GMT
Some time ago, Grant (I think) posted an informative post in which as an
aside he suggested that Lawrence of Arabia had betrayed the Arabs by
inducing them to revolt against the Ottomans for Arab independence, knowing
that the British and French had signed a secret agreement in which they
carved up the area for their colonial aims. I posted a reply indicating that
Lawrence was innocent of this deception, as he had urged the revolt in 1915
(Hussein-McMahon correspondence), whereas the Sykes-Picot agreement followed
in 1916. So far so good. The question which I did not address was whether
Lawrence knew of the Sykes-Picot agreement and kept it secret himself from
his Arab allies. This question has been nagging at me, so I dug a bit, and
want to elaborate on my answer to Grant.
The UK-French negotiations that led to the S-P agreement began in April
1916, and ended in October 1916. Lawrence, we know, was not involved in
these ministerial negotiations; a relatively junior officer, he was fighting
with the Arabs in the Hejaz, by then. The terms of the agreement were
leaked, first in Izvestia (Nov. 24, 1917)(Russia had been an eventual
signatory to the S-P Agreement) and then in the Manchester Guardian (January
19, 1918). The leaks were brought to the attention of the Turkish
Government, which passed them on the Arabs along with an offer of Arab
autonomy within the Ottoman Empire, if the Arabs ceased their revolt. The
Arabs refused, and queried their UK 'ally' about the meaning of the S-P
agreement. This led to a flurry of reassurances by the UK (Hogarth and
Wingate Declarations, and the Declaration to the Seven). There is no doubt
that these declarations were essentially misleading, but I can find no
suggestion that Lawrence was behind them, or that he knew how misleading
they were.
So the question then is, did Lawrence know anything about the S-P agreement
between October 1916 and, say, February 1918, and if he did, did he know
that the agreement betrayed the Arabs, and if he did, did he warn his Arab
allies? I could not find any evidence that he knew of the S-P agreement
during this time, and his behavior seems to suggest that he didn't: he was
already heavily committed personally to Arab independence, putting himself
at considerable personal risk with scouting forays behind Turkish lines in
Syria. Then, with Arab victory and the Arab declaration of independence in
Damascus, he strongly backed the new state, asserting the numerous UK
commitments to such an outcome, and ensuring Arab participation in the first
peace conferences.
I can find nothing in the various volumes of Lawrence letters to suggest
that he knew of the S-P agreement; indeed in 1917 he reports on a discussion
he had with Sharif Hussein, head of the Arab Revolt, in which Hussein tells
Lawrence of the visit by Sykes to explore Hussein's post-war thoughts. This
letter does not conclusively prove that Lawrence did not know of the
agreement, but it does suggest that he only knew of it second hand and no
more than the Arabs themselves had come to suspect.
God is in the details...
So, I think this is the best I can do for now, Grant.
Cheers,
Lawry
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