Papers of the War Cabinet's Eastern Committee [‎148v] (296/544)

Views of Colonel
T. E. Lawrence on
Arab Policy.
lie hoped that the Eastern Committee would submit this request to
the Secretary ol‘ the War Cabinet.
The Committee approved the above recommendation of Lord
Robci't Cecil.
2. The Chairman, in welcoming Colonel Lawrence to the Com
mittee, stated that he and every member of His Majesty’s Govern
ment had for some time past watched with interest and admiration
the great work which Colonel Lawrence had been doing in Arabia,
and felt proud that an officer had done so much to promote the
successful progress of the British and Arab arms. He understood that
as Colonel Lawrence had accompanied Emir Feisal on his recent entry
into Damascus, he could give information regarding the vLws that
were entertained by the Arab chiefs concerning the settlement of the
conquered territories and Franco-Arab relations in particular.
Colonel Lawrence stated that he had left Emir Feisal in
possession of Damascus on the 4th October. Feisal was honest and
straightforward, and a man of considerable capacity. He was
extremely pro-British, and had always worked and would always
work in the closest co-operation with General Allenby, for whom he
had a genuine admiration. His future attitude depended on how far
we backed up French claims in the E ist. The French representatives
had made it perfectly clear to Feisal that they intended to build up a
colonial empire in the East, and although neither he nor his father
had ever been given a copy of the Anglo-French Agreement of L91(j,
he was famdiar with its terms, as these had been widely published
by the Turks among the Arab tribes. However, h eisal and the Arab
leaders relied upon our declaration of March 1918, which had been
given to seven Syrians in Cairo regarding the disposal of all territory
actually captured by Arab arms. In this declaration we had
promised unlimited Arab sovereignty for such areas. He had been
handed copies of the two documents by Nuri Shalaan, the chief of
the Roalla, who had pointed out to him their mutual inconsistency,
and he (Colonel Lawrence) had replied to the effect that he presumed
that the later of the two documents would be regarded as binding.
As regards the position of the King of the Hejaz in Syria,
Feisal and his supporters in Syria desired a constitutional regime in
Syria, and his father’s temporal authority did not extend to any
part of Syria. In fact, the only position given to the King of the
Hej;iz in Syria consisted in the insertion of his name in the Friday
prayers in all mosques as Emir-el-Homenin. Similarly, the King of
the Hejaz would have no position other than this in any part of
Mesopotamia.
The d.fficulty was bue not so much to the personality of the
King of the Hejaz as to that of his eldest son Ali, who is a rat her
narrow and pious Sunni, whereas the other sons of the King of the
Hejaz are crypto-Shiahs. Colonel Lawrence’s owm idea was the
establishment of Abdulla as ruler of Baghdad and Lower Mesopotamia,
Zeid in a similar position in Upper Mesopotamia, with Feisal in
Syria. *
In regard to Upper Mesopotamia, whence most of the best
officers and men in Fdsal’s army had been drawn, he w r as convinced
that a separate province or kingdom would have to be established
distinct from Lower Mesopotamia and from Syria. The boundary
between Upper and Lower Mesopotamia would run from the
confluence of the Tigris and the Zab to Ana on the Euphrates,
from which place to Birijik the Euphrates would form the western
boundary of the province. The northern boundary would lie
through Urfa and Diarbekr to the' Tigris. The capital of this
province would be either Mosul or Ras-el Ain. This country was
inhabited by Arabs and Arabic-speaking Kurds The Kurds would
join any local autonomous State provided it were backed by the