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Henry McMahon

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aliasesSir Henry McMahon, A. H. McMahon, A. Henry McMahon, H. McMahon

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Summary

Sir Henry McMahon, G.C.M.G., G.C.V.O., K.C.I.E., C.S.I., His Majesty’s High Commissioner at Cairo, the British correspondent in the McMahon–Hussein correspondence of July 1915–March 1916, printed as Cmd. 5957 in 1939 (Correspondence between Sir Henry McMahon and the Sherif Hussein of Mecca, July 1915–March 1916, PDF p.1). His five letters (No. 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10) move from deferring the Sherif’s proposed limits, to accepting them with the Mersina, Alexandretta and western-Syria exclusion and giving the five assurances of 24 October 1915, to deferring Aleppo, Beirut and Bagdad while pledging that Britain would conclude no peace without Arab freedom as an essential condition, and finally approving and despatching the Sherif’s money, stores and rifles (PDF p.4-5, 7-9, 11-12, 14-15, 17-18).

Details

  • McMahon signs as printed in three forms across the letters: A. H. McMAHON (No. 2 and No. 10), A. HENRY McMAHON (No. 4) and H. McMAHON (No. 6 and No. 8) (Correspondence between Sir Henry McMahon and the Sherif Hussein of Mecca, July 1915–March 1916, PDF p.5, 9, 12, 15, 18).

  • In No. 2 (30 August 1915) he confirms Lord Kitchener’s message to the Sherif, delivered through Ali Effendi, and calls discussion of limits and boundaries premature in the heat of war (PDF p.4-5).

  • In No. 4 (24 October 1915), writing as empowered in the name of the Government of Great Britain, he accepts the Sherif’s limits with the stated modification and gives the five assurances, the first that, subject to the modifications, “Great Britain is prepared to recognise and support the independence of the Arabs” in all the regions within those limits (PDF p.8).

  • In No. 6 (14 December 1915) he defers the vilayets of Aleppo and Beirut because the interests of Britain’s ally France are involved in them both, defers detailed arrangements for Bagdad, gives the no-separate-peace assurance — “you may rest assured that Great Britain has no intention of concluding any peace” without Arab freedom as an essential condition — and sends “a sum of twenty thousand pounds” (PDF p.11-12).

  • In No. 8 (25 January 1916) he defers Bagdad to the peaceful settlement after the enemy’s defeat and states that “nothing shall be permitted to interfere in the slightest degree with our united prosecution of this war” with France (PDF p.14-15).

  • In No. 10 (10 March 1916) he approves the Sherif’s proposed measures and requests, reports the urgent items despatched and the remainder to be deposited at Port Sudan, and gives notice of possible British hostile measures against Turkish posts on the Arabian coasts, with instructions to distinguish them from innocent Arab inhabitants (PDF p.17-18).

  • In the 1939 committee report on the correspondence (Cmd. 5974), his stated intention is in dispute: the United Kingdom representatives quote his 1937 statement that “it was not intended by me in giving the pledge to King Hussein to include Palestine in the area in which Arab independence was promised”, while the Arab representatives answer that his intention is of no consequence because he was His Majesty’s Government’s instrument and what matters is what he actually said (Report of a Committee set up to consider certain correspondence between Sir Henry McMahon and the Sharif of Mecca, lines 243-250, 255-265).

Correspondence between Sir Henry McMahon and the Sherif Hussein of Mecca, July 1915–March 1916, McMahon–Hussein correspondence, Sherif Hussein of Mecca, Britain, France, Lord Kitchener

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