Papers of the Interdepartmental Conference on Middle Eastern Affairs [‎73r] (145/290)

[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty’s Government.]
Printed for the Foreign Office. June 1919.
SECRET.
[I.D.C.E., 21st Minutes.]
FOREIGN OFFICE.
INTER-DEPARTMENTAL CONFERENCE ON MIDDLE EASTERN AFFAIRS.
Minutes of a Meeting held at the Foreign Office on Friday,
June 13, 1919, at 7 p.m.
Present:
The Right Hon. the Earl Curzon of Kedleston, K.G., G.C.S.L, G.C.I.E.
(in the Chair).
Right Hon. E. S. Montagu, M.P., Secretary
of State for India, India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. .
Lieutenant-General Sir H. V. Cox, K.C.B.,
K.C.M.G., C.S.L, Military Secretary,
India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. .
Mr. J. E. Shuckburgh, C.B., India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. .
Mr. G. L. Barstow, C.B., Treasury.
Major-General Sir P. P. be B. Radcliffe,
K.C.M.G., C.B., D.S.O., Director of Mili
tary Operations, War Office.
Captain H. E. F. Aylmer, Admiralty.
Mr. G. J. Kidston, Foreign Office.
Miss Gertrude Bell.
Major H. W. Young, D.S.O. (Secretary).
Position in the The Chairman said that at the last meeting it had been decided
Hejaz. definitely to warn Ibn Saud that we were on King Hussein’s side.
He was told that unless he immediately withdrew his forces from the
Hejaz and the Khurma area, he would be regarded as having adopted
an attitude of definite hostility towards His Majesty’s Government,
and that in that event the rest of his subsidy would at once be dis
continued, and he would forfeit all advantages secured under tbe
treaty of December, 1915. This message could not have reached
Ibn Saud via Baghdad, but a copy of it appeared to have been sent
to him from the Red Sea side, and to have been delivered to him
actually on the field of battle. 3 he military position, when it was
decided to send this message, had been that Abdulla was apparently
in the superior position, and the main object had been to prevent
the spread of hostilities. But since then the military balance had
swung round, and Abdulla had sustained a disastrous defeat. Ifie
latest reports indicated that Ibn Saud was in occupation of Tarabah,
and that Taif was seriously threatened. An ominous feature was
Colonel Wilson’s report, that Hussein and Abdulla appeared to have
lost all influence with the troops. Since the last meeting a
suggestion had been made by the Foreign Office to General Allenby
that Feisal should be sounded on the desirability of going in person
to his father’s assistance, but General Allenby had not considered it
advisable to act in this sense. He had, however, agreed that
Colonel Lawrence would be more usefully employed in the Hejaz
than in Syria. Il was not known exactly where Colonel Lawrence
was; he had apparently landed in Crete with the intention of
visiting Knossos, and he was to have proceeded by aeroplane, leaving
Rome on the 5th or 6th June. He was now presumably in Egypt,
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