مجموعة ٦/ ١٩ "الجزيرة العربية: (المملكة العربية السعودية) التقرير السنوي لمملكة الحجاز ونجد." [و‎‎٦‎٥] (٥٤٠/١٣٠)

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when a preliminary survey had been made they decided to drill for oil in the
Farsan Islands. Drilling had begun when the year came to an end, but had not
got very far.
Other British Governments.
127. Nothing to report.
France and Syria.
128. Syria was of interest to Saudi Arabia mainly because of the
Alexandretta question (paragraph 155) and as the centre of the agitation about
Palestine, though in fact no Saudi delegate attended the Bludan Conference
which was held to discuss that subject (paragraph 25). Sheikh Yusuf Yasin paid
a visit to Syria during which he made a pan-Arab speech of the kind which
might be expected from him. He also caused much unnecessary correspondence
(paragraph 123) by reading assurances into conventional remarks about the Hejaz
Railway made by the President of the Council in Syria.
129. At the end of the year it was expected that M. de Martel, the French
High Commissioner in Syria, would pay a visit to Saudi Arabia in the month of
January 1938, if his work permitted. Fuad Bey informed His Majesty’s Minister
that the visit was purely private, and that it was the result of a suggestion made
to Sheikh Yusuf Yasin by M. de Martel when the former was visiting Syria.
M. de Martel’s visit was eventually postponed.
130. The marriage between the Amir Saud and the granddaughter of Nuri
Shalan (paragraph 82 of 1936) did not last very long. She was divorced during
the summer of 1937.
Italy.
131. If the 1936 report was correct in stating that the acute anxiety of the
Saudi Government in regard to Italy had perhaps calmed down towards the end
of that year, the calm did not last long. The attitude of Ibn Saud is
described fully in the section on his relations with His Majesty’s Government.
There seems to be no room for doubt that he dislikes and distrusts Italy and her
policy, and looks to His Majesty’s Government in the hope of finding there some
support against Italian designs in Arabia. His feelings are not softened by the
urgent Italian offers to give him something for (ostensibly) nothing, or at any
rate for very little, but, on the other hand, they are complicated by the Palestine
policy of His Majesty’s Government.
132. It was expected that the departure of M. Persico, the Italian Minister,
would perhaps be followed by the appearance of a Fascist thruster who would
inaugurate a more vigorous policy, but the new Minister, M. Sillitti, who had
spent most of his previous service in consular posts in the United States, where
he seems to have developed into a “ regular guy,” does not appear to be a great
force, while the replacement of an Italian Levantine vice-consul by a first secretary
from Vienna has improved the correctness of the Legation's behaviour. On the
other hand, it was understood at the end of the year that the Libyan Arab who
had been the Legation’s interpreter was to be appointed to reside permanently in
Mecca.
133. The endeavours made by the Italians to ingratiate themselves with Ibn
Saud through services to Saudi aviation received little encouragement. The
remaining two of the three Caproni aeroplanes which the Italian Government had
decided to present to the Saudi Government (paragraph 89 of 1936) arrived on
the 27th April, 1937, but their cool reception in Jedda, where they were met by
no one but the commandant and a customs officer, was a marked snub which the
Italian pilot then in charge, Colonel Ciancio, resented keenly, the more so in that
when, shortly afterwards, the Saudi Arabian Mining Syndicate made the Saudi
Government a present of a far from new Bellanca monoplane, the presentation
was made the occasion of an imposing ceremony. The Italian pilot in charge,
first Colonel Ciancio and later a Major Ciccii, who had been in Jedda before as
a captain, was given almost no work to do, and personal facilities, e.g., in the
matter of transport, were withheld or granted very grudgingly. British officers
and their Government would neither have submitted to such treatment, nor been
content to acquiesce in the maintenance of a mission which was doing nothing, but
it seems clear that the Italian Government are prepared to keep the air mission
here, under any conditions, until it is asked to withdraw. Possibly they are