Papers of the War Cabinet's Eastern Committee [‎130v] (260/544)

4
The Question of
Basra.
administration should only last up to the cessation of hostilities,
while the War Office felt that a civil administration should not
be established until the cessation of military occupation. The
matter, therefore, had been left over without decision.
The Chairman stated that the new provisional agreement
seemed to hx even more firmly on our shoulders the agreement in
1916, the terms of which he, for one, deplored.
Mr. Montagu thought that w r e should now press for modifica
tions of the provisional agreement, in view of the elimination of
Russian claims.
Sir Mark Sykes added that the French Government agreed
that the Italian claims, which had been erected upon the basis
of the agreement of 1916, could not possibly stand.
The Chairman stated that quite apart from the provisions
as to the blue area and area A, his main objections to the agree- |
ment lay in the surrender of a monopoly interest in Alexandretta,
Mersina, and Adana to the French, and he thought that the
whole question of the future of Armenia should now be raised.
General Macdonogh pointed out that since the Anglo-French *
Agreement of 1916 had been arrived at both the British and
French Governments had made declarations to the Zionist
Organisation in regard to Palestine, which affected the terms of
the agreement, as in the latter a large part of Galilee, including
some of the Jewish colonies, were placed in Syria and outside
Palestine. Dr. Weismann had pointed out the unscientific
nature of the northern boundary of Palestine as laid down in the
agreement. For this a line w r as drawn from the centre of Lake
Tiberias to the Mediterranean, leaving the Waters of Merom and
the control of the Upper Jordan in the French sphere.
The Chairman pointed out that Banias, which was the
ancient Dan, was w 7 ell inside the French sphere.
Sir Mark Sykes stated that he was in favour of the shorter
Palestine, and that it was most undesirable from the Zionist point
of view that the Lebanonese population of Galilee should be
included in Palestine. However, he agreed that the control of
the w r aters of Jordan should go wdth Palestine, and that some
rectification of the frontier wms essential.
Lord Robert Cecil pointed out that the whole of the new
agreement was purely provisional, and did not in any way
pledge us at the Peace Conference, and he thought it would
probably be desirable to call the attention of the French Govern
ment to this fact. He also concurred in the view that it was
absolutely necessary to draw up a new agreement in regard to
Armenia^ He undertook to communicate to the French Govern
ment the view 7 of the Committee in regard to (1) Euphrates and
Tigris, (2) Armenia, and (3) Galilee, and to suggest that the
Agreement of 1916 ought now~ to be revised. He would make it
clear, in communicating the agreement, if ratified, to General
Allenbv, that the new agreement made no binding suggestions to
him wdth regard to the establishment of any civil administration.
Mr. Shuckburgh said that he understood that the policy of «
His Majesty’s Government in regard to Mesopotamia was that
embodied in Sir P. Cox’s Memorandum, which had been circu
lated in April last (E.C.-173). The Committee, when the
question had last been discussed, had regarded Basra as being in
a special category, and had expressly reserved the question of the
possible annexation of the vijayet, or at any rate of part of it.
He suggested that it w r as very desirable for the Committee to be
quite clear now as to the policv they intended to pursue in regard
to this vilayet before tying their hands by a declaration which
would preclude its annexation altogether.