The Hussein-McMahon correspondence (1915 / 1916)

04The Hussein-McMahon correspondence (1915 / 1916)

• Sharif Hussein and Henry McMahon, the British High Agent, exchanged correspondence (1915–1916); the Sharif expressed his ambitions and the views of some of the Syrian Arab leaders.

The Arab demands

• That the Sharif take over the Islamic Caliphate instead of the Ottoman Caliph.
• The independence of the Arab lands from Mersin and Adana in the north to the Iraqi–Persian frontier and the Arabian Gulf in the east, and the Arabian Peninsula and Syria — that is, setting up an Arab state including Iraq, Syria and well-nigh the Arabian Peninsula.

The British position

• The English rejected the demand about the Caliphate and rejected his request to be king over the Arabs, on the plea that many sheikhdoms of the Peninsula were bound by treaties with Britain and would not agree to any change in their status.
• Abdel Aziz bin Saud had made the treaty of Darin with England in 1915, and so had the Idrisi, ruler of Asir, and the rulers of Oman and the sheikhdoms of the coast (today's Emirates) — so only the Hejaz was left to be under the Sharif's sovereignty, on the basis that Yemen was independent.
• As for Syria, the High Agent pointed out that France had interests in what lay west of Hama, Aleppo, Homs and Damascus; and since the southern part of Iraq (Basra) had fallen to the English forces, he excluded it from the Sharif's project; he also excluded Mersin and Adana from the Arab state on the ground that they were not Arab.