Papers of the War Cabinet's Eastern Committee [‎229v] (458/544)

ANNEX.
Shorthand Notes of a Meeting of the Committee held in Lord Cnrzon’s Room at the
Privy Council Office, on Wednesday, ISth December, 1918, at 3 p.m.
MESOPOTAMIA
LORD CURZON : We have already recorded our decisions about the Caucasus,
Syria, and Palestine, in a number of Resolutions. We did not do so with regard to
Mesopotamia. In view of the impending discussion of these subjects in the Imperial
War Cabinet, prior to the visit of President Wilson, it seems desirable to rectify this
omission. I have ventured, therefore, to draw up a number of draft resolutions
embodying the conclusions as to Mesopotamia at which we arrived ten days ago, and
I should like to interrupt our proceedings to-day, which were to begin with the Hejaz
and Arabia, by reading them to the Committee, with a view of securing their assent,
before submitting them to the Imperial War Cabinet on Friday.
LORD ROBERT CECIL : Will you read them all through once, and then go
through them one by one ?
LORD CURZON : Yes. (1) There can be no restoration of these territories to
Turkish rule. (2) There should be no annexation of any of these territories by Great
Britain, nor the declaration of a British Protectorate over them. (3) It is the object of His
Majesty’s Government to set up an Arab Government or Governments in the liberated
areas, and not to impose upon the populations any Government which is not acceptable
to them. (4) Whether there should be a single Arab State or a confederation of Arab
States in these areas is a matter upon which educated native opinion in the areas
affected is now being consulted. (5) All reports so far received appear to indicate a
universal repugnance to the inclusion of these territories in a single Arab State, or any
recognition of the temporal sovereignty of the King of the Hejaz. (6) If it is found
necessary to provide in any form for the overlordship over these areas of the King of the
Hejaz, this should in all probability be confined to a recognition of his spiritual
authority, and to the use of his name in the prayers in the mosques. (7) Whether a
single Arab State or a number of Arab States be set up in these areas, the support and
protection of a great European Power will be found indispensable. (8) If the
inhabitants of these areas, acting upon the principle of self-determination, express a
desire that Great Britain should fill this role, their recovery from Turkey by the
armies of Great Britain and India, and the predominant interest of the security of the
Indian Empire, require that the responsibility should be accepted by Great Britain.
That is a rough, but I think a fairly accurate, summary of the conclusions at which we
arrived, but, perhaps, we had better take them one by one.
MR. BALFOUR : I do not quarrel with any of them.
LORD CUKZON : No. 1. There can be no restoration of these territories to
Turkish rule.
LORD ROBERT CECIL: That is agreed.
LORD CURZON : No. 2. There should be no annexation of any of these
territories by Great Britain, nor the declaration of a British Protectorate over them.
MR. BALFOUR : The only doubt I have about that is with regard to Basra.
Although I am pretty clear that the views in 1914 and 1915 were in favour of the
annexation of Basra, I gather that has been altered.
LORD ROBERT CECIL: There is a considerable body of opinion now that we
could not treat Basra differently from the rest.
MR. BALFOUR : I do not contest that, but this is a modification of our own
old view.
LORD CURZON : Yes, that is true, and at our meetings it transpired that
whereas all of us, and not least Sir Percy Cox himself, in the early days were in favour
of a policy of close administrative control amounting to annexation (or at any rate,
almost so) in Basra, the various declarations we have made since, notably the
Anglo-French self-determination declaration* in October 1918, rendered it impolitic
to pursue that course. It also emerged from our discussions that an attempt to set up
* E.C. 2136—A.