Summary
Damascus is the first of the four districts named in the exclusion clause of McMahon’s No. 4 in the McMahon–Hussein correspondence — the portions of Syria lying to the west of the districts of Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo are excluded from the limits demanded by the Sherif Hussein of Mecca as not purely Arab — and it is also the destination of the camels Ibn Rashid was selling to the Turks in No. 10 (Correspondence between Sir Henry McMahon and the Sherif Hussein of Mecca, July 1915–March 1916, PDF p.8, 18).
Details
- No. 4 (24 October 1915): Damascus is a district, not a vilayet, in the letter’s wording; the exclusion runs by districts, and footnote (9) prints the former reading of the whole passage (PDF p.8).
- No. 10 (10 March 1916): “We have heard that Ibn Rashid has been selling large quantities of camels to the Turks, which are being sent up to Damascus” (PDF p.18); McMahon asks Hussein to stop the practice or have the camels seized in transit.
Related pages
Correspondence between Sir Henry McMahon and the Sherif Hussein of Mecca, July 1915–March 1916, Aleppo, Beirut, Syria, Henry McMahon