Report of the American Section of the Inter-Allied Commission on Mandates in Turkey

Summary

The file comprises FRUS documents 375-381: the Peace Conference instructions of 25 March 1919, Lansing’s request and Wilson’s authorisation for appointing Henry Churchill King and Charles R. Crane as the American Commissioners after the other Powers had virtually withdrawn, the Commissioners’ telegrams of 20 June and 10 July 1919, and the Report itself (Paris, 28 August 1919) on Syria, Mesopotamia and the non-Arabic-speaking portions of the former Ottoman Empire, with its Confidential Appendix; on the data as the Report presents it, of 1863 petitions received in Syria, 1500 (80.4 per cent) were for a United Syria including Palestine, 1370 (73.5 per cent) for absolute independence, 1129 (60.5 per cent) made America the first choice for a mandate or “assistance”, 274 (14.68 per cent) France and 70 (3.75 per cent) Britain, and 1350 (72.3 per cent) were against the Zionist program, against 11 for its complete form (Report of the American Section of the Inter-Allied Commission on Mandates in Turkey, lines 2379-2630), and the Report recommends for Syria a limited-term single mandatory as a “sacred trust” rather than a colonizing power, the unity of Syria preserved with large local autonomy for the Lebanon, Amir Faisal as head of the united Syrian State, “serious modification of the extreme Zionist Program” with Jewish immigration “definitely limited” and “the project for making Palestine distinctly a Jewish commonwealth” given up, and the single mandate asked first of the United States and then of Great Britain, a single French mandate being held impossible to recommend; for Mesopotamia it recommends a parallel policy of unity, one Mandatory, a constitutional monarchy whose monarch the people should choose, and the mandate to Great Britain; and for Asia Minor it proposes three states — a separate Armenia (a smaller highland Armenia with a Black Sea outlet, not a large Armenia from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean), an international Constantinopolitan State directly vested in the League and administered by a single disinterested Mandatory, and a continued Turkish State in Anatolia of about ten million people under a mandate — with Kurdistan as the only further area to be handled separately, no separate Greek territory, and a general single mandate for all Asia Minor (Armenia, Constantinople and Turkey, each with its own governor under a governor-general) asked of the United States on stated conditions including Turkey’s doing justice to the Armenians and the abandonment of all spheres-of-influence plans, while the Confidential Appendix to the Report upon Syria, “For the Use of Americans Only” and prepared by Dr. Lybyer, records what the Report’s body could not say to the Allies: the occupying governments’ interference with the inquiry, the arguments for and against Zionism as presented, the ten stated Syrian reasons against France, the case that French historical ties give no “right” to Syria, the objections to a “Greater Lebanon”, Feisal’s $750,000 monthly British subsidy and his seven conditions to the Greek Orthodox, and the judgment that Syrian nationalism, not Pan-Arabism or Pan-Islamism, was what the programs presented (Report of the American Section of the Inter-Allied Commission on Mandates in Turkey, lines 5909-8860).

What the file is

• The Office of the Historian’s web presentation of FRUS 1919, Paris Peace Conference, vol. XII, documents 375-381, downloaded from https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1919Parisv12/ch10 (access basis: government). The original is the concatenated HTML; the text copy supplied with it (about 53,760 words, 8860 lines counting the final empty line) is a plain-text rendering of the seven document pages (d375-d381), each followed by the same site Contents furniture for the whole volume, with no page markers, so locators are line numbers. The printed FRUS page numbers appear in the text as [Page 746] and following.
• The file’s own title line calls the body the Inter-Allied Commission; document 380’s heading calls it the International Commission (lines 1, 802-810). Both forms are held as printed (see Open questions).
• Text quality: generally clean, but the two telegrams (documents 378-379) carry telegraphic compression, bracketed editorial readings and some garbled passages, and the petition tables are laid out as stacked numbers that must be read column by column. The map said to accompany the Report (footnote 14) is not reproduced in the text copy.

Section by section

Document 375 — Instructions for Commissioners (lines 13-181)

• The Conference will separate Palestine, Syria, the Arab countries east of Palestine and Syria, Mesopotamia, Armenia, Cilicia and perhaps further areas in Asia Minor from the Turkish Empire and place them under mandatories of the League of Nations, under the eight resolutions adopted at the Quai d’Orsay on 30 January 1919 by the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan, and agreed to by Wilson, Lloyd George, Clemenceau and Orlando (lines 29-45).
• The resolutions (lines 49-145): no German colony is to be restored; “Armenia, Syria, Mesopotamia, Palestine and Arabia must be completely severed from the Turkish Empire”; for peoples not yet able to stand by themselves, “the well-being and development of such peoples form a sacred trust of civilization”; tutelage is to be exercised by advanced nations as mandatories on behalf of the League, the character of the mandate differing with development, geography and economic conditions; communities provisionally recognised as independent nations are to receive administrative advice and assistance until they can stand alone, and “The wishes of these communities must be a principal consideration in the selection of the mandatory power”; other peoples, and territories such as South-West Africa and certain South Pacific islands, are provided for on different terms; every mandatory renders an annual report to the League.
• The Anglo-French Declaration of 9 November 1918 is quoted: its aim is “the complete and final liberation of the peoples so long oppressed by the Turks and the establishment of national governments and administrations deriving their authority from the initiative and free choice of the native populations” (lines 149-169).
• The Commissioners are to visit the regions, learn the sentiments of the people, their social, racial and economic conditions, and form as definite an opinion as time permits of the territorial divisions and mandate assignments most likely to promote order, peace and development. Dated 25 March 1919 (lines 171-181).

Document 376 — Lansing to Wilson, 2 April 1919 (lines 254-298)

• Secretary of State Robert Lansing asks Wilson’s authorisation to sign the appended letters (not printed) designating H. C. King, President of Oberlin College, and Charles R. Crane, Treasurer of the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief, as the two American Commissioners.

Document 377 — Wilson to Lansing, 15 April 1919 (lines 371-404)

• Woodrow Wilson authorises the letters. He had delayed “because the other Powers involved seem to have virtually withdrawn from their agreement to send commissioners to Syria, but in case we alone send them, these letters would be just as suitable”.

Document 378 — King and Crane telegram, Jerusalem, 20 June 1919 (lines 477-521)

• Race feeling is probably at no time so sensitive as just now; large bodies of people, especially armed forces, should move little and with great care. The careless descent of Greeks on Smyrna has produced distress all along the coast, where there was deep belief in the American, British and French declarations on self-determination. “Here older population both Moslem and Christian take united and most hostile attitude towards any extent of Jewish immigration or towards any effort to establish Jewish sovereignty over them.” “We doubt if any British Government or American official here believes that it is possible to carry out Zionist program except through support of large army.”

Document 379 — Crane and King telegram, Beirut, 10 July 1919 (lines 594-711)

• The Commission has covered the strategic points from Beersheba to Baalbek and from the Mediterranean to Amman, welcomed everywhere, with freer expression to the American section than a mixed commission could have had. Unmistakable: an intense desire for unity of all Syria and Palestine and for independence as early as possible; unexpectedly strong national feeling; determined repulsion to becoming a mere colony of any power and against any kind of French mandate, except for strong Lebanese parties demanding complete separation of Lebanon with French collaboration. A French mandate for all Syria would, in their judgment, precipitate warfare between Arabs and French. America is genuinely the first choice of most as mandatory because believed to have no territorial ambition. The same condition is generally demanded for Iraq as for Syria.
• The Syrian National Congress of 69 regularly elected Moslem and Christian representatives from Syria including Palestine and Lebanon, meeting at Damascus on 2 July, asks immediate complete political independence for a united Syria as a civil, constitutionalist, federal monarchy guarding minority rights under Prince Feisal as king, interprets a mandate as economic and technical assistance limited in time, asks it earnestly from America and then England, denies all French rights and assistance, vigorously opposes the Zionist plan and Jewish immigration, asks complete independence for Mesopotamia, and protests against the Sykes–Picot agreement and the Balfour Declaration.
• Emir Feisal is presented as a unique outstanding figure of enormous prestige in the Moslem world who should be encouraged and supported; a Paris solution putting Syria under France would set Arabs against French, oblige England to choose between Arabs and French with Egypt and India in the background, and be read in the Moslem world as hostility.

Document 380 — Report, Section One: Report upon Syria, I — Data: mission, method, itinerary, population, delegations (lines 784-1668)

• The Report is submitted at Paris on 28 August 1919 by Charles K. Crane and Henry Churchill King (as the names are printed there), in three sections: Syria; Mesopotamia; and the non-Arabic-speaking portions of the former Ottoman Empire. Section One falls into Data, General Considerations, and Recommendations (lines 802-883).
• The mission, in the press statement given out wherever the Commission went: the American Section is in the Near East “simply and solely to get as accurate and definite information as possible concerning the conditions, the relations, and the desires of all the peoples and classes concerned”, in harmony with the Covenant paragraph provisionally recognising former Turkish communities as independent nations subject to a mandatory’s advice and assistance, the wishes of the communities being a principal consideration in selecting the mandatory (lines 824-870).
• Staff for Syria: advisers Dr. Albert H. Lybyer, Dr. George E. Montgomery and Captain William Yale; Secretary and Treasurer Captain Donald M. Brodie; Dr. Sami Haddad of the Syrian Protestant College of Beirut as physician and interpreter; Laurence S. Moore, business manager; Sergeant Major Paul O. Toren, stenographer (lines 871-880).
• Method: conferences with individuals and delegations representing all significant groups, after study in Paris of the Western Asia Division experts’ material and other literature. Propaganda, pressure, prevented delegations and questionable petition authority are acknowledged, but “these anomalous elements in the petitions tend to cancel one another when the whole country is taken into account, and that, as in the composite photograph, certain great, common emphases are unmistakable” (lines 884-918). Expression was frank even under fear, an advantage of an American-only section believed to seek no territory.
• Itinerary 10 June-21 July 1919: thirty-six of the more important towns visited, delegations heard from other centres and from 1520 villages; Cilicia briefly included as disputed between Syria and the Turkish-speaking portion of the former Empire (lines 924-1161). Towns are listed under the four Occupied Enemy Territory Administration divisions: South (British, Palestine west of the Jordan), East (Arab, Syria east of the Jordan and the Lebanon boundary), West (French, Lebanon and the coast north to Alexandretta) and North (French, Cilicia).
• Population estimates, stated to be only approximate but fairly accurate for proportions: Moslems 2,365,000; Christians 587,500; Druses 140,000; Jews 110,000; others 45,000; grand total 3,247,500 — O.E.T.A. South 647,500, West 1,095,000, East 1,505,000 (lines 1162-1213).
• Classified delegations received: 442 in all — political groups 153, economic and social groups 41, religious groups 248 — with the caution that the number of delegations is no proper index of population proportions, since the Christian population’s many small groups are represented by more delegations than the Moslem majority (lines 1214-1660).

Document 380 — Petition summary tables (lines 1661-2630)

• O.E.T.A. South, 260 petitions: United Syria 221 (85.0 per cent); absolute independence 174 (67.0); first choice for mandate, Britain 48 (18.4), France 17 (6.5), America 8 (3.0); choice left to the Damascus Conference 23 (8.9); against the Zionist program 222 (85.3), for its complete form 7 (2.7) and for a modified form 8 (3.0) (lines 1669-1895).
• O.E.T.A. West, 446 petitions: United Syria 187 (41.9); independent Greater Lebanon 196 (43.9) and against it 108 (24.2); absolute independence 130 (29.1); first choice, France 215 (48.1), America 125 (28.0), Britain 8 (1.8); against the Zionist program 88 (19.7); general anti-French statements 114 (25.5); against Article 22 of the League Covenant 78 (17.4) (lines 1896-2136).
• O.E.T.A. East, 1157 petitions: United Syria 1022 (94.3 per cent as printed; see Open questions); against independent Greater Lebanon 954 (82.0); absolute independence 1066 (92.2); democratic kingdom 1006 (87.0) and Emir Feisal as king 1005 (86.9); first choice, America 996 (86.1, of which 975 asked American “assistance”), France 42 (3.6), Britain 14 (1.2), with British “assistance” as second choice 962 (82.2); against the Zionist program 1040 (90.0); general anti-French statements 983 (85.0); against Article 22 955 (82.1); against secret treaties 940 (81.3) (lines 2137-2378).
• Syria complete, 1863 petitions: United Syria 1500 (80.4); independent Greater Lebanon 203 (10.9) and against it 1062 (57.0); autonomous Palestine within a Syrian State 24 (1.29) and separate Palestine 6 (.32); absolute independence 1370 (73.5); independence of Iraq 1278 (68.5, see Open questions); democratic kingdom 1107 (59.3) and Feisal as king 1102 (59); guarding of minority rights 1023 (54.9); first choice, America 1129 (60.5, of which 1064 asked American “assistance”), France 274 (14.68), Britain 70 (3.75); against the Zionist program 1350 (72.3), for its complete form 11 (.59), for a modified form 8 (.4); general anti-French statements 1129 (60.5); against Article 22 1033 (55.3); against secret treaties 988 (52.9) (lines 2379-2630).

Document 380 — The Secretary’s Summarized Statement of Significant Conclusions, I-III (to line 2954)

• Value of the petitions (lines 2631-2743): the 1863 petitions “cannot of course be regarded as a mathematically accurate analysis of the real desires of the peoples of Syria”. Five difficulties are stated: petition numbers are not proportional to district populations (260 from the South against 1157 from the East, petitions multiplying as the Commission went north); religious petitions are not proportional to the faiths’ strength (in the South 53 Christian delegations against eighteen Moslem, though the Moslem population is fully eight times the Christian); organised propaganda is visible in identical phrasing, printed model forms, an Arab agent seen preparing petitions in four cities of Palestine and French sympathisers’ activity in Beirut; a small number of petitions were fraudulently secured (signatures in the same handwriting, three cases of repeater signatures, Beirut trade-union seals ordered by a propaganda agent); and petitions vary in weight with their signatures — 91,079 signatures in all (South 26,324, West 26,884, East 37,871), an average of 49 per petition. Despite this the petitions are held to present a fairly accurate and certainly representative analysis of present political opinion, the irregularities offsetting one another and opposition parties everywhere finding a way to present their ideas at least in writing.
• Definite programs (lines 2744-2755): six distinct political programs were revealed; 1364 of the 1863 petitions are exact copies of some of them.
• The Independence Program (lines 2756-2780): first seen at Jaffa on 11 June in four of twenty petitions, with three planks — the political unity of Syria including Cilicia, the Syrian Desert and Palestine to Rafah; absolute independence; opposition to a Zionist State and Jewish immigration. Of the South’s 260 petitions, 83 (32 per cent) were simply this program.
• The Damascus Program (lines 2781-2803): the Independence Program as expanded by the General Syrian Congress at Damascus on 2 July — American, or secondly British, “assistance”; rejection of Article 22 and of all French claims; protest against secret treaties and private agreements (by inference the Sykes-Picot Agreement and the Balfour Declaration); opposition to independence for Greater Lebanon; a democratic, non-centralised government under Emir Feisal; and independence and economic freedom for Mesopotamia. After its adoption, 1047 of 1473 petitions received contained it, 964 on printed blanks in seven distinct forms.
• The Lebanon programs (lines 2804-2832): (a) French Independent Greater Lebanon — complete separation, including the Bekaa Valley and in some instances Tripoli, with France as mandatory, in 139 of the West’s 446 petitions; (b) Independent Lebanon without a French mandate, 36 petitions; (c) Autonomous Lebanon within a United Syrian State, 49 petitions.
• The Zionist Program (lines 2833-2841): eleven petitions, all from Jewish delegations, favour a Jewish State and extensive Jewish immigration; eight others approve the Zionist colonies in Palestine without endorsing the complete program, four of them Arab peasants’ statements that they are on good terms with the Jewish colonies.
• Specific requests, territorial limits (lines 2842-2914): United Syria’s usual boundary definition is “The Taurus Mountains on the north; the Euphrates and Khabur Rivers, and the line extending east of Abu Kamal to the east of Al Jauf on the east; Rafah and the line running from Al Jauf to the south of Akaba on the south; and the Mediterranean Sea on the West”. Six of the nineteen pro-Zionist petitions ask a separate Palestine; two Christian groups in Palestine ask a separate Palestine under the British in preference to a United Syria under the French; the 203 Greater Lebanon petitions are set against 1062 protests against an independent Greater Lebanon; on the Bekaa, 11 petitions ask its inclusion in Lebanon while the narrative says eight ask that it remain in the Damascus area (see Open questions).
• Specific requests, independence (lines 2915-2945): “absolute independence” was seldom used to mean entire freedom from foreign guidance, being frequently combined with a choice of mandate or a request for “assistance”; a mandate was generally defined as only economic and technical assistance, from fear it would be used to cloak colonial annexation. With the 93 petitions for the independence of all Arab countries that do not also ask it for Iraq, 1371 petitions in all asked the independence and economic freedom of the Iraq regions (computed in the text from its own figures).
• Specific requests, form of government, begins (lines 2946-2954): a “democratic, non-centralized, constitutional” kingdom is a Damascus Program point, asked by 1107 petitions, all but five of which also ask Emir Feisal as king. The discussion is cut off mid-sentence at line 2954, the end of this part.

Document 380 — The Secretary’s Summarized Statement, C-F: form of government, choice of mandate, Zionism, protests (lines 2955-3195)

• Form of government, continued: the kingdom and Feisal requests were concentrated in the East (1005 of 1157 for both); only five of the South’s 260 petitions referred to a kingdom and two mentioned Feisal. A democratic representative (presumably republican) government was asked by 26 Christian groups in the West and eight in the East, the total printed as 24 (1.8 per cent) (see Open questions). Minority-rights safeguarding: 1023 (54.9 per cent). Five requests for Arabic as official language rather than Hebrew and ten for abolition of the foreign capitulations, from the South; nineteen (1.02 per cent) for autonomy of all the provinces of Syria (lines 2955-3010).
• Choice of mandate: definite requests, preferences “if a mandatary is obligatory” and requests for “Assistance” are grouped as total first choice. Britain first choice is given here as 66 (3.5 per cent) (see Open questions), 48 of them from Palestine, with second choice 1073 (57.5 per cent); France first choice 274 (14.68 per cent), all but 59 from the Lebanon District, second choice three; America first choice 1129 (60.5 per cent) — 1064 for American “Assistance”, 57 for America as mandatory, eight if a mandate is obligatory — second choice 11; 23 petitions at Jenin, Haifa and Nazareth left the choice to the Syrian Congress (lines 3011-3085).
• Zionism: against the pro-Zionist petitions stand 1350 (72.3 per cent) protesting Zionist claims and purposes, “a more widespread general opinion among both Moslems and Christians than any other”; in Palestine 222 of 260 (85.3 per cent) declared against the Zionist program (lines 3086-3105).
• Protests: three general anti-British statements; general anti-French statements 1129 (60.5 per cent), 24 specific criticisms of French administration in the West and 11 protests against French deportation, armed guards, threats and intimidation to prevent anti-French individuals appearing; general criticism of the Arab Government in 35 petitions, always from Christian sources fearing for Christians under independent Arab rule; protest against applying Article 22 of the League Covenant in 1033 (55.3 per cent) petitions, the protest appearing only after Article 22 had been published in a Commissioners’ statement given to all Damascus newspapers; protest against secret treaties and private agreements in 988 (52.9 per cent), the Sykes–Picot agreement and the Balfour Declaration not mentioned but usually understood to be referred to (lines 3106-3195).

Document 380 — Historical Sketch by Dr. Lybyer: South and West (lines 3196-3465)

• Introductory: the area visited in the forty-two days 10 June-21 July 1919 is Occupied Enemy Territory under General Allenby, administered under Turkish laws, in four O.E.T.A. portions under English, French, Arab and French officers; days spent: South 15, West 10, East 15, North 2 (lines 3196-3235).
• South (Palestine): the Commission arrived at Jaffa unexpectedly, arranged its program mainly without British help, sought every important group and significant minorities, and made clear it had no power of decision and that United States policy on accepting a mandate was unformed. It visited two Jewish schools and the Richon-le-Sion colony, spent a week in Jerusalem with visits to Bethlehem, Hebron and Beersheba, then heard delegations at Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin, Nazareth, Haifa and Acre. British officials from Major General Sir Arthur Money down were courteous and able, mostly with Indian, Egyptian or Soudanese experience; Allenby detailed Lt. Col. J. K. Watson as aide (lines 3236-3340 approx.).
• Wishes in the South: Moslems, about four-fifths of Palestine’s population by a recent British census, were practically unanimous for the independence of United Syria; the mandate question was mostly referred to the Syrian Congress at Damascus, whose later declaration for American assistance, British second and refusal of the French is therefore the program of the great majority of Palestine’s Moslems. Christians, less than ten per cent, were divided — northern groups in part with the Moslems, Maronites and Greek and usually Latin Catholics for France, Greek Orthodox everywhere for Britain under an agreed program, none asking directly for the United States, with the opinion expressed that most Christians would favour America if assured she would come. Jews, a little more than ten per cent, were all for Zionism under a British Mandate; the Moslem and Christian population was practically unanimous against Zionism (lines 3341-3395 approx.).
• Zionism in the South: the Jews unanimously favoured the scheme, agreeing that Palestine with a fairly large area be set aside at once as a “national home”, that political rule become sooner or later a “Jewish Commonwealth”, that free Jewish immigration, unrestricted land purchase and Hebrew as an official language be authorised at the start, and that Britain be mandatory; they differed on whether the Commonwealth should come soon or after a lapse of time, and on restoration of the ancient mode of life versus modern economic development (lines 3396-3430 approx.).
• Custody of the Holy Places: for four centuries the Turk has guarded the peace between the faiths and sects; a substitute is now needed. A Roman Catholic mandatory would be tempted to disturb the equilibrium in the Catholics’ favour; the existing Catholic “Custodian of the Holy Places” idea might be extended to a permanent Commission for the Holy Places with representatives of Greek Orthodox, Protestant, Sunnite, Shiite and Jewish communities, with authority over all places sacred to the three religions and custody disputes (lines 3431-3455 approx.).
• West (Tyre to Alexandretta): two days of interviews at Beirut and visits from Tyre to Batrun, with Tripoli, Alexandretta and Ladikiya seen by Allenby’s yacht Maid of Honor. Moslems generally followed the Damascus Program; Maronites and Catholics were for France; Greek Orthodox were divided; Druses asked emphatically to be left out of the Lebanon if it were given to France; in the areas proposed for a “Greater Lebanon” outside the Lebanon proper (Tyre, Sidon, “Hollow Syria”, Tripoli) a distinct majority was probably averse to French rule, asking mostly for America with Britain second. The Lebanon itself — set off in 1861 under six European powers with a Christian governor, largely Maronite and Roman Catholic, freed from military service with light taxes — should keep its security not as perpetual special privilege but through a large measure of local autonomy in a United Syria (lines 3456-3465 and the West narrative preceding).

Document 380 — Historical Sketch: East, Cilicia, Mesopotamia (lines 3466-3954 approx.)

• East (Damascus): nine days at Damascus, six of interviews including Emir Feisal and General Allenby, while the Syrian Congress met; bazaars were placarded “We want absolute independence” and the placards removed by government orders. At Amman and Deraa all Moslems asked complete independence without a mandatory, proposing to ask American advisers after independence was recognised, while the few Christians, in great fear, preferred Britain and annexation to Palestine. Declarations in the East were much nearer unanimity than in the South or West; government and party pressure was of undoubted weight, but “there can be no doubt that the main elements of this program represent the popular will as nearly as that can be expressed in any country”. The people declared almost unanimously for United Syria, complete independence, against any help from France and against the Zionist program; Moslems were nearly unanimous for American assistance; nearly all Christians were for a strong mandatory control, divided by sect and place between France, Britain and America (lines 3466-3650 approx.).
• The General Syrian Congress was not directly elected: survivors of the electors chosen at the last pre-war Turkish election chose its members; criticisms of the plan (unconstitutional, electors mostly of the Party of Union and Progress, members not proportional to population) are recorded; 69 members attended and about 20 elected members from the west and north had not arrived; there were Christians in the Congress but no Jews. Its program of 2 July 1919 is quoted in full: complete political independence for Syria within stated boundaries (article 1); a democratic civil constitutional monarchy on broad decentralization principles under the Emir Feisal (2); protest against Article 22 as placing the Arabs among peoples in a middle stage of development (3); if a mandate is imposed, it can only be economical and technical assistance not prejudicing complete independence, sought from the United States for not more than 20 years (4), or from Great Britain on the same conditions (5); no French right or assistance acknowledged in any part of Syria (6); opposition to the Zionists’ pretentions (as printed) to a Jewish commonwealth in Palestine and to Zionist migration to any part of the country, Jewish compatriots to enjoy common rights and assume common responsibilities (7); no separation of Palestine or of the western littoral zone including Lebanon (8); complete independence for Mesopotamia with no economical barriers between the two countries (9); and protest against, and annulment of, secret treaties and private engagements aiming at Zionism (10). Article 5 was passed by a very large majority and all other articles unanimously. The Report calls the program “the most substantial document presented to the Commission” (lines 3651-3830 approx.).
• Cilicia: not given thorough hearings, the Commission feeling it is not seriously part of Syria; a marked Moslem majority before the war; Turks wish Turkish unity under the house of Osman, Arabs (chiefly Nusairiyeh) union with Syria under a French mandate, Armenians union with Armenia under an American mandate, other Christians mostly France (lines 3831-3870 approx.).
• Mesopotamia: not visited; earnest requests for a visit at Damascus and Aleppo complained of British restriction of speech, movement and political action and of signs of intended extensive immigration from India. An Aleppo committee’s program for Mesopotamia closely parallels the Damascus Program: complete independence including Diarbekir, Deir-ez-Zor, Mosul, Bagdad and Muhammerah; a constitutional civil kingdom under a son of the King of the Hejaz (Abdullah or Zeid); protest against Article 22; American technical and economical assistance after independence; objection to all immigration, especially Hindus and Jews; Syria’s independence and no French interference in Syria. The Orthodox Syrian Patriarch from Der Zafran stated 90,000 of his people were slain in 1915 and asked that his people’s area go with Mesopotamia under an American or British mandate (lines 3871-3930 approx.).

Document 380 — Section One, II: General Considerations (lines 3931-4110 approx.)

• The Resolutions of 30 January 1919 and the Anglo-French Declaration are quoted again and made the basis of the whole policy: the promises made to the Arabic-speaking portions “not only cannot justly be ignored by the Peace Conference, but should be faithfully fulfilled”; Syria and Mesopotamia are not to be colonies or be exploited, but be assisted to national independence as quickly as possible. Syria is the birthplace of Judaism, Christianity and Islam and a bridge-land between Europe, Asia and Africa, so “No solution which is merely local or has only a single people in mind can avail.” A modern Arab State with full religious liberty should be tried now under a sympathetic mandatory and League oversight, with Feisal peculiarly fitted for its headship; to begin with division along religious lines “is to invite increasing exclusiveness, misunderstanding, and friction” — Dr. W. M. Ramsay is quoted: “The attempt to sort out religions and settle them in different localities is wrong and will prove fatal.” British and French officers in Syria seemed agreed the unity of all Syria under one mandatary was desirable. The practical obstacles to unity are then listed: British and French unwillingness to withdraw, Arab and Christian opposition to the Zionist Program, the Lebanese demand for separate independence, eastern Arab feeling against French control, Christian fear of Moslem domination, and the lack of as vigorous a Syrian national feeling as could be desired.

Document 380 — Section One, III: Recommendations for Syria (lines 4111-4760 approx.)

• Recommendation 1: any foreign administration should come as a Mandatary under the League, not a colonizing Power, the “well-being and development” of the Syrian people being a “sacred trust”: a limited term set by the League; sufficient period and power for educational and economic undertakings; a strong educational emphasis; training of Syrians to self-government as rapidly as conditions allow; tutelage not unduly prolonged; complete religious liberty and care for minorities; no dangerous indebtedness or financial entanglement with the Mandatory, no monopolistic control, and foreign privileges preserved subject to League review. The Damascus Congress’s fear of becoming under another name a colonial possession “must be completely allayed”.
• Recommendation 2: the unity of Syria be preserved, in accordance with the great majority’s earnest petition; the country is very largely Arab in language, culture, traditions and customs, and too small and unified for independent states within it. Boundaries should be fixed by a special commission, but the claim to include Cilicia in Syria is not justified; the Lebanon should receive a large measure of local autonomy within the Syrian State, with a four-fold safeguard against Moslem domination (its autonomy, a strong Mandatary, League oversight, and the Arab Government’s need to commend itself to the League). A similar statement is made for Palestine, its unique position as the Holy Land being reserved to the Zionism recommendation.
• Recommendation 3: Syria be placed under one Mandatory Power; a divided or joint mandate would not secure unity, and the Syrian people, obliged to live together, will be helped rather than hindered by a single mandatary, with local autonomy to reduce friction; hearers themselves often blamed past group friction on Turkish instigation.
• Recommendation 4: Emir Feisal be made head of the new united Syrian State, as the Damascus Congress unanimously asked; a constitutional democratic monarchy suits Arab tribal tradition and respect for chiefs; Feisal, son of the Sherif of Mecca and a leader of the Arab uprising, is “tolerant and wise, skillful in dealing with men, winning in manner, a man of sincerity, insight, and power”, with no stronger general appeal possible.
• Recommendation 5: “serious modification of the extreme Zionist Program for Palestine of unlimited immigration of Jews, looking finally to making Palestine distinctly a Jewish State”. The Commissioners began predisposed in Zionism’s favour. On the strict terms of the Balfour statement, “a national home for the Jewish people” is not equivalent to making Palestine into a Jewish State, and such a State cannot be erected without the gravest trespass upon the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine; “the Zionists looked forward to a practically complete dispossession of the present non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine, by various forms of purchase”. Wilson’s 4 July 1918 principle of settlement by the free acceptance of the people immediately concerned is quoted; the non-Jewish population of Palestine, nearly nine-tenths of the whole, are emphatically against the entire Zionist program, and to subject them to unlimited immigration and pressure to surrender the land “would be a gross violation of the principle just quoted, and of the peoples’ rights, though it kept within the forms of law”. “No British officer, consulted by the Commissioners, believed that the Zionist program could be carried out except by force of arms. The officers generally thought that a force of not less than fifty thousand soldiers would be required even to initiate the program.” The Zionist representatives’ claim of a “right” to Palestine “based on an occupation of two thousand years ago, can hardly be seriously considered”. Because Palestine is the Holy Land of three religions, Moslems and Christians could not feel satisfied to have the places most sacred to them in Jewish custody; only a greatly reduced Zionist program should be attempted, and that very gradually: “Jewish immigration should be definitely limited, and that the project for making Palestine distinctly a Jewish commonwealth should be given up”. Palestine could then be included in a united Syrian State, the holy places cared for by an International and Inter-religious Commission under the Mandatary and the League, with Jewish representation.
• Recommendation 6: the single mandate. The ideal Mandatory’s qualifications are listed (freely desired by the people, willing to withdraw, passion for democracy and education, sympathy and patience, experience, abundant resources). “America was the first choice of 1152 of the petitions presented—more than 60 per cent—while no other Power had as much as 15 per cent for first choice” (see Open questions); the people’s stated grounds (America’s unselfish war aims, Syrians who had been in America, American educational institutions in Syria especially the College in Beirut, no territorial or colonial ambitions, Cuba and the Philippines, democratic spirit, ample resources) are given. Objections (American willingness uncertain, British and French withdrawal uncertain, the encouragement given to Zionist aims embarrassing given America’s large Jewish population, and an Asia Minor mandate possibly more natural for America if she took only one) are stated and answered. “The Commissioners, therefore, recommend, as involved in the logic of the facts, that the United States of America be asked to undertake the single Mandate for all Syria.” If America cannot take it, Great Britain: 1073 petitions named her if America did not take the mandate, and more than 60 per cent protested directly against any French Mandate; a single French mandate is impossible to recommend — it would, there is grave reason to believe, precipitate war between Arabs and French and force a dangerous alternative on Britain — contrary to the Commissioners’ own earlier hope for France. The Syrian misgivings about a British mandate (colonizing power of the old kind, expensive civil service, subordination to Empire needs, exploitation, no real withdrawal, no belief in universal education, too much territory already) are frankly added. If France’s feeling over her claims threatened Allied relations, a mandate over the Lebanon (not enlarged) separated from Syria is a possible arrangement the Commissioners cannot recommend. Section One is signed Charles R. Crane and Henry C. King.

Document 380 — Section Two: Report upon Mesopotamia (lines 4761-4930 approx.)

• Syria and Mesopotamia are classed together by the January 30 Resolutions and the Anglo-French Declaration with the same promises, so a parallel policy is recommended in order that the Anglo-French Declaration may not become another scrap of paper. (1) Any administration should come as a Mandatory under the League with a limited term; Syria Recommendation 1 applies point by point. (2) The unity of Mesopotamia be preserved, probably including at least the Vilayets of Basra, Bagdad and Mosul, with the Southern Kurds and Assyrians possibly linked up. (3) One Mandatory Power; division and “spheres of influence” would bring only waste, confusion and friction. (4) A constitutional monarchy like Syria’s, the people to indicate their choice of monarch in a plebiscite reviewed and confirmed by the League; the Aleppo program (presented by representative Mesopotamians headed by Jaafar Pasha) is believed generally supported, but whether that extends to naming a son of the King of the Hedjaz the data do not determine. (5) The Mesopotamian program chose America with no second choice, but petitioners’ charges of British interference with opinion, expression and travel, and the British-collected pamphlet Copies and Translations of Declarations and other Documents relating to Self-Determination in Iraq, are weighed; it being unlikely America could take Mesopotamia as well as Syria and Asia Minor, the mandate for Mesopotamia is recommended to Great Britain — best fitted by long Arab relations, her sacrifices in delivering Mesopotamia (with no acknowledgement of right of conquest), her interests from nearness to India and connections with Arabia, and work already done — with an express warning against exploitation, monopolistic control and especially large Indian immigration, which Mesopotamians dread as threatening their Arabic civilization even if confined to Moslems. Section Two is signed in brackets, [Charles R. Crane] and [Henry C. King].

Document 380 — Section Three: the non-Arabic-speaking portions — method, and I: Peace Conference action (lines 4931-5280 approx.)

• The Asia Minor inquiry’s method necessarily differed from Syria’s: no Syria-like community inquiry was feasible for a proposed Armenian State (territory and boundaries unsettled, Armenians not largely present, the State in a sense penal for the Turks), for a Constantinopolitan State (a world rather than local interest, shifting population, a large official element), or for the portions to remain with the Empire (Turkey long independent, a mandate a matter of her own choice and agreement, opinion in Constantinople unfree under government pressure and partisan press censorship, and fear of punishment if declarations for America were made and America did not accept). The country’s need of a prompt settlement led the Commission to give up visits to various parts of the Empire. Its method was two months’ Paris study using Western Asia Division material, the Syria survey, representative groups and individuals seen at Constantinople, American Embassy and Consular reports (through Admiral Bristol and Commissioner Ravndal), and investigations by American missionaries, A.C.R.N.E. representatives and American business corporations, the material studied by the three advisers — Dr. Albert H. Lybyer, Dr. George B. Montgomery (as printed here; see Open questions) and Captain William Yale. The report has five divisions.
• I: the Peace Conference’s Instructions commit it for Asia Minor to permanent separation of “Armenia, Cilicia, and perhaps additional areas in Asia Minor” and to the mandatory, not colonial, system; the January 30 Resolutions and the Anglo-French Declaration are quoted a third time and held to form a solid basis for policy in Asia Minor, against which stand “the still active policies of the old diplomacy of secret treaties and understandings and of division of spoils among victors”.

Document 380 — Section Three, II: dangers of a selfish division (lines 5281-5560 approx.)

• The Allies’ drift toward selfish and divisive national and corporate policies in the Turkish Empire should be challenged at once; “Constantinople is once again a nest of selfish, suspicious, hateful intrigue, reaching out over the whole Empire, if not the world.” Six dangers of a division of spoils are given: (1) it would be forced on the peoples, every occupation resented (the Turkish feeling over the Greek occupation of Smyrna is illustrative); (2) it would require large troop numbers, turning Turkey into an armed camp breeding brigandage, as in Macedonia 1903-06 and Yemen; (3) it would provoke violent retaliation visited also on the Christian population generally, the Allies sharing the guilt; (4) it would call out American resentment and alienate the best Allied sentiment; (5) it would sow dissension among the Allies themselves, whose moral unity is already perhaps only a fraction of what it was; (6) it would convince independent moral judgment worldwide that Allied aims had become as selfish and ruthless as the Germans’. American servicemen’s spreading disillusionment and cynicism are described; only a clear large-scale demonstration of the Allies’ high aims honestly carried out can change it, and the righteous settlement of the Turkish Empire offers that opportunity peculiarly.

Document 380 — Section Three, III: reasons for a division; the Armenian case (lines 5561-5908)

• Two great reasons justify dividing Asia Minor: Turkey’s hideous mis-government and massacres, and her utter inadequacy to her strategic world position. (1) Mis-government: concessions are made to Turkish personal qualities, the old negative indolent tolerance, and European intriguing, but the government has been a wretched failure of “incessant corruption, plunder, and bribery” — Ramsay is quoted: “The Turk is not naturally a good officer or a good official” and “Bribery is the universal rule”. For subject races nothing was secure; the massacres of the Armenians especially since Abd-ul-Hamid’s time and similar deportations of the Greeks were deliberate government action. The Bryce report, The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, 1915-16, is quoted at length (Lord Bryce on the evidence: nearly all from eye witnesses, from independent sources, with Danish and German witnesses, much of it from trustworthy neutral witnesses) and Moorfield Storey’s verdict to Bryce is quoted: the evidence “establishes beyond all reasonable doubt the deliberate purpose of the Turkish authorities practically to exterminate the Armenians”. There is almost nothing to show repentance among the majority or its leaders. Lord Bryce is quoted again on the Turkish rulers’ record: “an almost unbroken record of corruption, of injustice, of an oppression which often rises into hideous cruelty”. The Haskell High Commissionership and the Harbord mission are cited as further indications of an intended Armenian State. A general mandate over all Asia Minor is considered as the only substitute for a separate Armenia and rejected, because at the mandate’s end a Turkish majority might relapse into oppression; the reasons for a separate Armenian State are listed at length (Turkish unfitness, massacres as deliberate state policy, lack of penitence, no repatriation or reparations, continuing hostile feeling, the failure of the Treaty of 1878’s protective clauses, the Armenians’ earned right by sufferings and self-reliance, and no adequate substitute).
• (2) Strategic position: Turkey is held by “a people whose incompetence to convert nature’s gifts into use or profit is historically patent” (Dominian, Frontiers of Language and Nationality in Europe, p. 236), whose rule has been a blight — Ramsay: “The action of the Turks in every department of life has simply been to ruin, never to rebuild.” Turkey is a roadway and bridge-land at the junction of three continents, the Eastern Question being the momentous problem of who shall control the Straits; under the League the question should become recognition of a world interest. As debatable land between Eastern and Western spirit, Turkey might become mediating-land, preserving priceless Oriental values — the Senussi sect’s achievements in Africa are given as illustration of Islam’s spiritual values — and the Entente should publicly renounce further political encroachments on the Moslem world. Constantinople and the Straits demand international rule: “a Constantinopolitan State, directly and permanently vested in the League of Nations, but best managed probably through a single mandatary as trustee”, which would also free the Turkish people’s own government from a centre of boundless intrigue.
• (3) Further reasons for dividing the Empire as a whole: the danger of a later Turkish revival if it were kept intact even under a mandate, and its lack of true unity — Syria, Mesopotamia and Arabia each has a kind of unity of its own, and the Arabic-speaking portions offer at least two strong national states, Syria including Palestine and Mesopotamia, under mandatories for a time.
• IV, Resulting Problems, begins: the problems are a separate Armenia, an international Constantinopolitan State, a continued Turkish State, the Greeks and other minority races. (1) A separate Armenia: it is expressly not proposed to establish rule of a minority of Armenians over a majority of others; the State should be an area Armenians could enter with assurance of never being put under Turkish rule, under a strong Mandatory Government doing justice to all elements, which should not withdraw until Armenians constitute an actual majority or at least Turks are fewer than Armenians, so full Armenian self-government will be long delayed and the mandate cannot be short-term. The Armenians desire an American mandate, generally approved by the Allies, and the Turks would probably favour an American mandate for Armenia if there must be one; the conditions for America taking it include the Armenians’ genuine desire, cordial Allied moral support, Armenian willingness to bear a long term and give up revolutionary committees, sufficient territory, and that the Armenia mandate not be America’s only mandate in Turkey. Dr. Lybyer’s statement on extent and boundaries begins: the Armenians should have a definite territory organised as soon as practicable into a self-governing independent state; the area should be taken from both Turkish and Russian territory; they are entitled to Turkish territory taking into account their losses by the massacres of 1894-6, 1908-9 and 1915-16, estimated at one million; they should not be given an excessive amount of Turkish territory — the statement is cut off mid-sentence at line 5908, the end of this part.

Document 380 — Section Three, IV: Lybyer’s statement concluded, and the population tables (lines 5909-6408)

• The statement concludes that the Armenians should not be given an excessive amount of Turkish territory: Turks, Kurds and others should not be left with a just grievance; Armenian readiness for self-government is questioned even by many Armenians; the League or a mandatory cannot be asked to hold down a large majority so a small minority may multiply; and there is a limit beyond which producing an Armenian majority is not feasible. Armenia as a buffer between the Turkish and Arab Moslem areas is a burden it cannot bear in any conceivable time.
• A large Armenia, Black Sea to Mediterranean, is held probably impossible: Armenians never exceeded about 25 per cent of such an area before 1914, would be only about one-third even if the estimated million dead were restored, and are reduced to about 10 per cent allowing for survivors’ return, or about one-fourth with optimistic migration; no such Armenia ever ruled all that territory, the Cilician Lesser Armenia being the product of expulsion and flight, so the demand for both areas is called an imperialistic claim. No European power would undertake the mandatory task of defending that minority, and a large Armenia would likely remain a mixed state the mandatory could never leave.
• A small Armenia — the highlands in Turkish and Russian territory, the Turkish portion approximating the area Russia held in 1917, with a Black Sea outlet — is held practicable: if the million dead were restored Armenians would be about half its population, a majority is attainable within a few years, the mandate would be shorter and need fewer troops, the frontiers are defensible, and the economic opportunity is ample, the area being crossed by the Erzingan-Erzerum route between Anatolia and Persia and the Trebizond route toward the Persian Gulf, with Kars, Erivan, Erzerum, Mush and Van as nodal towns. If the restricted state is securely established, connecting Cilicia could be reconsidered later.
• The appended estimates compare the plans in six tables: A (before 1914, from Magie and Westermann: Larger Turkish Armenia total 4,329,000, Armenians 933,000 at 21½ per cent; Smaller 2,017,000, Armenians 472,000 at 23½ per cent); B (1920, on guessed losses of 50 per cent of Armenians in the Smaller area and 75 per cent in the Differential Area: Larger total 3,059,000, Armenians 351,000; whole-area losses printed as 1,270,000 — see Open questions); C (adding the full one million Armenian losses back: Smaller Armenians 1,236,000 at 50 per cent); D (1925, on 20 per cent of Moslems leaving and 300,000 Armenians arriving: Smaller total 1,547,000, Armenians 536,000 at 35 per cent; the Larger row’s figures do not sum to its printed total — see Open questions); E (1920 with Russian Armenia, estimated at 1,500,000 from Lynch’s c.1890 figures of 1,095,710: Smaller with Russian Armenia total 2,967,000, Armenians 986,000 at 33 per cent); F (1925 complete: Smaller with Russian Armenia total 3,047,000, Armenians 1,536,000 at 50 per cent; Larger 4,367,000, Armenians 1,651,000 at 38 per cent). The conclusion drawn is that by 1925 Armenians could be a small majority in a smaller-basis Armenia but would not exceed 40 per cent in a larger one.

Document 380 — Section Three, IV: the Constantinopolitan State and the Turkish State (lines 6409-7150 approx.)

• The Constantinopolitan State is conceived as directly in charge of the League, administered through a single Mandatory appointed by, responsible to and removable by the League but permanent except for cause, and territorially and strategically disinterested; an international commission on the Danube model is considered and rejected because actual governmental functions are involved. The State would include Constantinople and territory on either side of the Straits, fortifications abolished, the city no longer Turkey’s capital, the Sultan possibly still residing there, and full consideration given to Moslem sentiment.
• Reasons given: Wilson’s twelfth Point on the Dardanelles as a free passage under international guarantees, the Straits having been closed almost continuously since 1911; Woolf’s The Future of Constantinople is quoted — Constantinople has “occasioned the world more trouble, have cost humanity more in blood and suffering during the last five hundred years, than any other single spot upon the earth”, and “Constantinople is the test of the Great War’s result”; the responsibility is too heavy for any single power and Turkey has forfeited any claim to it; separation would benefit Turkey’s own new government by removing it from the centre of intrigue; and only an international state ends the intrigues, the Greeks having already declared their ambition for Constantinople.
• Boundaries, by Dr. Lybyer: at minimum both sides of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles and the whole Sea of Marmara shore; on the European side the remnant of Turkey in Europe to the 1915 Turco-Bulgarian frontier, Turkish Thrace being at least 60 per cent Turkish in 1914 on the figures given, the Greek claim (147,000 Greeks, 42 per cent, before 1912 between the Enos-Midia line and the Bulgarian frontier, falling to not over 25 per cent in 1914 after the population exchange) being held unjustified; on the Asiatic side a line east of the Sakaria river to south of Mt. Ida, Brusa left to the Turks as their first Ottoman capital, the whole Troad going with the Straits. The area’s population at the outset would be about two millions, about 60 per cent Turks, 25 per cent Greeks, 10 per cent Armenians.
• The continued Turkish State: Anatolia, larger than France, with approximately ten millions (some eight millions Moslems, about seven millions of them Turks, and one and one-half millions Greeks), under a mandate to secure good government, minority rights, economic development, disbandment of most of the army and abolition of conscription, universal education and training in self-government. A trustworthy university-trained Turkish journalist is quoted — “most of them are ready to submit themselves to some regular schooling, instead of making any hazardous experiments with new ignorant leaders” (quotation reassembled across the [Page 835] break) — listing the National Congress of 53 societies, the National League of about 40 citizens and Senators, the Nationalist Party, professors, lawyers, teachers, technicians and merchants for an American mandate; a second journalist, the women’s intellectual delegation, the Smyrna congress delegates representing 1,800,000 people, and the expected declaration of the Sivas Congress of 20 August are added, and it is held highly probable that a large majority of Turks wishing a mandate would favour the American one.

Document 380 — Section Three, IV: territorial conditions in Anatolia, and the Greeks (lines 7151-7408 approx.)

• Of the claims on the remaining Turkish area, only Kurdistan is held advisable to handle separately: a natural area between Armenia and Mesopotamia, west boundary the Euphrates-Tigris divide, east the Persian frontier, with autonomy under close mandatory rule, possibly about a million and a half people nearly all Kurds after voluntary population exchange, full security for the Syrian, Chaldean and Nestorian Christians, and placement under the Mesopotamia power rather than Armenia or Anatolia. “Pontus” is refused (about 200,000 Greeks in each of its two portions in 1914, too small for an autonomous province); Cilicia stays with Anatolia (Armenians and Syrians each claimed it as minorities not exceeding 25 per cent in 1914, and the Albistan-Malatia-Kharput region likewise); Italy’s Adalia claim is rejected outright (no native Italians, Moslems to Greek Orthodox as ten to one).
• Smyrna and the west: outside the Sanjak of Smyrna and certain coastal Kazas the Greek Orthodox are nowhere in a majority, and complete proof awaits an impartial census (footnote 42, the accompanying sketch map). “The Greek army and all authority of the Greek government ought to be withdrawn from an area where better order was kept by twelve British Officers than can be maintained by one hundred thousand Greek troops.” A separate Greek region is rejected on four grounds — no natural boundary that is not markedly Moslem (about three to one), an arbitrary line no defence against smugglers and brigands, an economic barrier between coast and interior, and both peoples’ belief that a League grant means later Greek annexation, producing a Macedonian system of brigand warfare. The maximum advised is a single mandate for all Anatolia with special protection in the west and possibly a limited locally autonomous Greek area.
• A mandate for Anatolia itself, and a single Mandatary for Armenia, Anatolia and Constantinople under separate mandates and administrations, are argued on nine grounds: centuries of ties, economic unity, repatriation and population exchange, the public debt, railroads, police and brigandage, the urging of well-informed foreigners, the elimination of friction between mandataries, and readier Turkish acceptance.
• The Greeks’ problem is distinguished from the Armenians’: deportations but no such extensive massacres, a refuge in the Greek Islands and settlement opportunities in Greece’s new territories, and wider scattering. No independent Greek territory is recommended; local autonomy where Greeks are in a decided majority is the most at present, Ramsay being quoted that “The Turks and the Greeks will united make a happier country than either race could by itself”, and a trial of life in the new Turkish state under mandate and League supervision is prescribed.

Document 380 — Section Three, V: Recommendations (lines 7409-7760 approx.)

• The Commissioners recommend: (1) an Armenian State completely separated from Turkey under a Mandatary (Cilicia not separated from Anatolia at present); (2) an International Constantinopolitan State completely separated from Turkey; (3) a Mandatary for the continued Turkish State, in line with the apparent wishes of the majority of the Turkish people; (4) no independent territory for the Greeks, with local autonomy for the Greek-majority portion of the sanjak of Smyrna under the Turkish mandate; (5) boundary commissions for Asia Minor, also defining Syria’s and Mesopotamia’s northern boundaries with reference to Kurdish autonomy and the Syrian, Chaldean and Nestorian Christian minorities; (6) a general single mandate for the whole of Asia Minor — Armenia, the Constantinopolitan State and the Turkish State, each with its own governor under a governor-general; (7) that the United States be asked to take that general mandate.
• Recommendation 7 is developed at length: America cannot wisely take the difficult Armenian mandate without the rest of Asia Minor, the states’ problems being too closely related, and spheres of influence around Armenia would make its mandate well-nigh insuperable; America is the only Great Power territorially and strategically disinterested for Constantinople, and the Turks’ desired mandatory for their own state. Her fitness is argued from the convictions Syrians and Turks recognised in her (passion for peace, democracy and universal education, respect for another people’s values, religious idealism with separation of Church and State — Ramsay is quoted that “Robert College has done more to render possible a safe solution of the ‘Eastern Question’ in Turkey than all the Ambassadors of all the European Powers have succeeded in doing to render that solution difficult”), from her belief in the League and prompt withdrawal, from her record in Cuba and the Philippines and her reluctance, and from duty: if the League is not to be “a sham and a delusion” she must bear her share, and undertaking the mandate would renew men’s faith in one another in a “moral world panic”. Large initial capital would be needed, with no expectation of large profits. Six conditions are stated on which alone America would be justified in accepting: she is really wanted by the Turkish people; Turkey does justice to the Armenians by territory, repatriation and reparation; Turkey gives evidence of readiness to become a modern constitutional state and abolish conscription; Russia renounces all claims on Russian Armenia; the Allies cordially welcome America’s help; and all plans for cutting up Turkey into spheres of influence and exploitation areas are abandoned. Section Three is signed in brackets, [Charles R. Crane] and [Henry C. King]. The FRUS footnote texts for the Report are printed after the signatures, unnumbered in the text copy; several record omissions indicated in the original report, and two record the accompanying map and sketch map as “Not attached to file copy”.

Document 381 — Confidential Appendix to the Report Upon Syria (lines 7761-8860 approx.)

• The Appendix is undated, headed “For the Use of Americans Only”, and prepared by Dr. Lybyer (file number Paris Peace Conf. 181.9102/10). Its Introductory explains that the Report’s body was written so copies could be furnished to all the Allied Powers, so material involving criticism of the Allies was gathered here for the American Delegation and the State Department, with supplementary discussions of important aspects of the inquiry.
• I, Interference of the occupying governments: in O.E.T.A. South the British prepared most programs, some governors procured votes for Britain and orders at Jaffa forbade declaring for complete independence, but no group was discerned to be hindered, and many British officials acted as though expecting to remain permanently in Palestine; in O.E.T.A. West “It was too evident that in all O. E. T. A. West, the French military governors had worked with varying energy and success to obtain the reality or at least the appearance of a desire for a French mandate” — inspired press articles, browbeating, espionage, soldiers hindering groups, officials freshly appointed in place of those removed for declining to support France, threats, bribes, imprisonment and banishment, the management at Tyre, Baabda and Tripoli being so bad as to be insulting to the intelligence and almost to the dignity of the Commission (the phrase as printed across the page break); in O.E.T.A. East the Arab Government pressed all elements onto the Congress program by persuasion, cajoling and threats, without good evidence of violence, imprisonment or banishment, Feisal’s agreements with the Druses and the Greek Orthodox involving a request for a British mandate which those groups stood by while the Congress asked America first — and Feisal himself, who told the Commission America and England were equally satisfactory, is suggested to prefer Britain in his inmost heart for the benefits he receives and the prospect of a larger Arab union under one supervision, Balfour being reported to have messaged, through Allenby, that Britain would decline a Syria mandate after the America-first declaration.
• II, Summaries of arguments presented: for Zionism (ancient belonging and expulsion, two thousand years of longing, a refuge state, present persecution in Poland, restoration of language and culture, no displacement needed since modern methods could multiply the land’s capacity, good prices for sellers with room in other Arab countries, the colonies’ benefit to Arabs, prosperity for all) and against it, as the native Arabs and Christians urged it (the land is theirs and was theirs before the Jews came; Jewish immigration, cruelty, short and divided rule, Roman expulsion and 2000 years’ residence elsewhere against 1300 years of continuous Arab possession; Christians and Moslems can honour all the Holy Places, Jews only their own; the Jews are a religion not a nation; a Jewish government would forbid Arabic; the colonies have shown no benevolence; Jewish money, education and shrewdness would buy out and manoeuvre away the present inhabitants; friendship for long-resident Arabic-speaking Jews, but “they will resist to the uttermost the immigration of foreign Jews and the establishment of a Jewish Government”). Arab feeling toward the French is then analysed: tested against the propaganda explanations and held deep-rooted, with ten Syrian reasons (French irreligion and political Catholic support, attitude to women, superficial education, unequal treatment in Algeria and Tunisia, favouring of Christians and especially Catholics, aggravation of religious divisions since the occupation, colonisation and language substitution, postwar lack of men and inferior officials, postwar lack of money, financial exploitation), and the Jemal Pasha executions laid partly at France’s door through Picot’s unsecured 1914 correspondence, the “Arab Martyrs” commemorations strengthening both independence sentiment and feeling against France. The request for an American mandate is analysed by group (Jews for Britain because of the Balfour Declaration; Maronite and Catholic separatists sincere for France; most Moslems, about four-fifths of Syria, for America first, the Palestine declarations having been referred to Damascus after Jaffa) and by ten reasons (Wilson, gratitude for relief, unselfish war entry, non-colonising record in Cuba and the Philippines, reliability of withdrawal, wealth, American education through the Syrian Protestant College against French denationalisation, fairness between sects, supply of experts, “lovers of humanity”); many British officials, Allenby not excepted, are recorded as thinking an American mandate over all Syria the best solution.
• III, Special Discussions: (1) French feeling toward the British — resentment that under the Sykes–Picot agreement France is threatened with loss of her whole sphere (Damascus, Cilicia, to Sivas and Harpoot) while Britain holds hers and extends her influence, that Britain used France’s necessity to occupy more of Syria, subsidises Feisal, arms the Arabs and is more or less directly responsible for the anti-French feeling, aiming to connect Egypt with Mesopotamia as a bulwark of India; some French contentions are held difficult of refutation and British honour cleaner if Britain withdrew wholly, yet Britain cannot leave Syria to France without abandoning friends to enemies. (2) French “Rights”: none of the relationships arising from centuries of Catholic missions, commerce, the French language and the 1860 Lebanon intervention give the least “right” to claim territory or mandatory control, the doctrine that such work establishes political claims being one that would compromise all missionary work. (3) The “Greater Lebanon” (Tyre to Tripoli to the crest of the Anti-Lebanon, to France if the rest of Syria goes elsewhere) is objected to on seven grounds, including the majority’s apparent wish in the area itself, outside Syrians’ inclination to make war rather than accept it, the “Hollow Syria” property figures (Christians 65 per cent of property, 40 per cent of population, by their own figures), Horns’s water supply (as printed), and the intensification of religious separation alongside a separated Palestine. (4) Feisal’s position: third son of the Sherif Hussein, his Clemenceau agreement to allay anti-French feeling abandoned when he believed the French playing false, his pre-Damascus effort for a British mandate, the British subsidy of $750,000permonth(LE150,000),ofwhichhedrawsabout200,000monthlyforpersonalexpenses,staff,propagandaandagents,thebalancesupportinganarmyof7,000andgendarmerieof4,500;anestimatedsettledsalaryof$125,000 a year; regional variations in attachment to him; and the proviso that as head of Syria he should renounce all rights of inheritance of the crown of the Hejaz. (5) Minority rights: the Moslem answers (no minorities where all are equal; constitutional guarantees; the Congress’s discussed half-and-half legislative proposal), Feisal’s seven conditions promised to the Greek Orthodox (rule without despotism, constitutional government, respect for all religions, equal rights, public security with private rifles prevented, equal public instruction, office only by fitness), and the reminder that Moslem and Druse minorities in the Lebanon, and Moslems and Christians in a Jewish-majority Palestine, would equally need protection. (6) “Complete independence”: the extreme supporters (Bedouins, southern and eastern villagers, younger Moslem men, the Syrian Union Party, the “Arab Martyrs” relatives) against the learned and older Moslems and the unanimous non-Moslem view that a strong mandate is necessary; the League’s Article 22 decision is held just, the Damascus Program’s definition of a mandate as economical and technical assistance too restrictive, and the demand for complete independence judged “to an extent artificial”, motivated partly by fear of a French mandate and of permanent possession, so that America or Britain would probably be allowed as much control as the League Council judged wise. (7) Syrian nationalism, Pan-Arabism and Pan-Islamism: the programs of all Moslems and about two-thirds of Christians were nationalistic, Moslems affirming no desire for Moslem privilege or political union with the Hejaz and holding the Caliphate to belong now to King Hussein at Mecca as religious head only; the Christian counter-claim (nationalism new and feeble, Moslems preferring Pan-Arab or Pan-Islamic schemes) is recorded with the rejoinder that “those who speak for themselves strike nearer the truth than others who assume to speak for them”; no sign of any desire to restore Turkish rule, of Arab-Turkish federation, or of a restored Saracen Empire was found, and the discussion closes on whether the Moslems of Syria, who offer to put religious separation out of sight, shall be taken at their word. The file ends with the site Contents furniture, with no further substantive text.

Key passages

• “the well-being and development of such peoples form a sacred trust of civilization” — the January 30 resolutions as quoted in the Instructions (lines 49-145).
• “The wishes of these communities must be a principal consideration in the selection of the mandatory power” — resolution 6, and again in the Covenant paragraph quoted in the Report (lines 49-145, 863-870).
• “the complete and final liberation of the peoples so long oppressed by the Turks and the establishment of national governments and administrations deriving their authority from the initiative and free choice of the native populations” — the Anglo-French Declaration as quoted in the Instructions (lines 149-169).
• “We doubt if any British Government or American official here believes that it is possible to carry out Zionist program except through support of large army” — King and Crane telegram, 20 June 1919 (lines 485-521).
• “these anomalous elements in the petitions tend to cancel one another when the whole country is taken into account, and that, as in the composite photograph, certain great, common emphases are unmistakable” — the Report on its method (lines 893-910).
• “cannot of course be regarded as a mathematically accurate analysis of the real desires of the peoples of Syria” — the Secretary on the 1863 petitions (lines 2640-2651).
• “No British officer, consulted by the Commissioners, believed that the Zionist program could be carried out except by force of arms. The officers generally thought that a force of not less than fifty thousand soldiers would be required even to initiate the program” — Recommendation 5 on Zionism (lines 4455-4954 approx.).
• “Jewish immigration should be definitely limited, and that the project for making Palestine distinctly a Jewish commonwealth should be given up” — Recommendation 5 (lines 4455-4954 approx.).
• “The Commissioners, therefore, recommend, as involved in the logic of the facts, that the United States of America be asked to undertake the single Mandate for all Syria” — Recommendation 6 (lines 4455-4954 approx.).
• “We oppose the pretentions of the Zionists to create a Jewish commonwealth in the southern part of Syria, known as Palestine” — article 7 of the General Syrian Congress program as quoted in the Historical Sketch (line 3664; “pretentions” as printed).
• “Constantinople is the test of the Great War’s result. If it can be, and is, given to any one State, it means the rule of the world by war” — Woolf, The Future of Constantinople, as quoted in Section Three on the Constantinopolitan State (lines 6409-6650 approx.).
• “The Greek army and all authority of the Greek government ought to be withdrawn from an area where better order was kept by twelve British Officers than can be maintained by one hundred thousand Greek troops” — Section Three on Smyrna (lines 7151-7408 approx.).
• “It was too evident that in all O. E. T. A. West, the French military governors had worked with varying energy and success to obtain the reality or at least the appearance of a desire for a French mandate” — Confidential Appendix, document 381 (lines 7909-8150 approx.).
• “they will resist to the uttermost the immigration of foreign Jews and the establishment of a Jewish Government” — the Arab and Christian arguments against Zionism as summarised in the Confidential Appendix (lines 7909-8150 approx.).
• “None of these relationships, however, give the least “right” to claim territory or mandatory control” — the Confidential Appendix on French “rights” in Syria (lines 8409-8650 approx.).

Evidence the work relies on

• The Peace Conference’s own instruments as printed in the Instructions: the January 30, 1919 resolutions and the Anglo-French Declaration of 9 November 1918 (document 375).
• The Commission’s conferences with individuals and delegations in thirty-six towns and 1520 villages, 10 June-21 July 1919, and the petitions presented there — 1863 petitions with 91,079 signatures — tabulated by the Commission’s Secretary by O.E.T.A. district and for Syria complete (documents 379-380).
• Reports and material of the Western Asia Division of the Experts of the American Section of the Peace Conference, and other literature on the Near East studied in Paris before departure, as the Report presents them (lines 884-892).
• The Commissioners’ interim telegrams to the Commission to Negotiate Peace of 20 June and 10 July 1919 (documents 378-379).
• The Bryce report, The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, 1915-16, quoted in Section Three through Lord Bryce’s introduction and Moorfield Storey’s letter to Bryce, and the works of Ramsay (Impressions of Turkey) and Dominian (Frontiers of Language and Nationality in Europe) quoted there (lines 5455-5908).
• The General Syrian Congress program of 2 July 1919, quoted in full in the Historical Sketch, and the Aleppo committee’s parallel program for Mesopotamia and the pamphlet Copies and Translations of Declarations and other Documents relating to Self-Determination in Iraq weighed in Section Two (lines 3651-3930 approx., 4761-4930 approx.).
• For Section Three’s Asia Minor settlement: the population estimates of Drs. Magie and Westermann for before 1914 and Lynch’s Armenia, Vol. I, p. 451, for Russian Armenia, worked into six projected tables (1914, 1920, 1925, with and without Russian Armenia) appended to Lybyer’s statement; Woolf’s The Future of Constantinople (1917), quoted for the Straits argument; and the statements of two Turkish journalists, delegations at Constantinople, and the Smyrna and expected Sivas congresses for Turkey’s desire for an American mandate (lines 5909-7150 approx.).
• For the Confidential Appendix: Dr. Lybyer’s gathered material on the occupying governments’ conduct in the three O.E.T.A.s, the arguments presented to the Commission for and against Zionism and against France, and Feisal’s finances and agreements as the Appendix states them, including the British subsidy of $750,000 per month (lines 7761-8860 approx.).

Analysis

• The work is a primary record in three registers: diplomatic appointment papers and interim telegrams (documents 375-379); the Report’s own presentation of its data and its recommendations (document 380); and a confidential appendix that states, for American readers only, the criticisms of the Allies and the fuller argument summaries the Report’s body withheld (document 381). The telegrams state conclusions in compressed form weeks before the Report; the Data section then builds the petition tables on which the Considerations and Recommendations rest.
• Its method is self-consciously approximate in Syria: population figures are stated to be estimates, delegation counts are expressly said not to index population proportions, and the Secretary lists five qualifications on the petitions before holding them representative. The tables’ internal conflicts (see Open questions) are part of the record as printed and are not resolved in the work.
• The Recommendations state the conclusions the earlier ingested accounts summarise — the fifty-thousand-soldiers judgment and the “serious modification” of the Zionist program appear in the Commissioners’ own text, with their reasoning (the Balfour statement’s own limiting clause, Wilson’s free-acceptance principle, and the Holy Land custody argument) given in full. The Recommendations’ America-first-choice figure (1152) differs from the Secretary’s tables and narrative (1129); both are held as printed (see Open questions).
• Section Three changes method and the Report says so: for Asia Minor there was no petition inquiry, and the case rests on quoted authorities (Bryce, Ramsay, Dominian, Woolf), on population estimates its own tables project forward on stated guesses, and on reports the Report lists but does not reproduce. Its division of Turkey is argued as a measure of justice for the Armenian massacres and as a world interest in the Straits, not from ascertained local wishes — except for the Turkish mandate, where the desire for America is argued from journalists, delegations and congresses rather than from a Syria-style count. Its Armenian tables are the weakest figures in the file: the 1920 and 1925 rows are projections on assumed death, migration and return rates, and two of the printed rows do not sum to their own totals (see Open questions).
• The Appendix complicates the Report’s own data claims in the Commissioners’ favour and against them at once: it documents manufacture and pressure by all three occupying authorities, including the Arab Government whose program dominates the East’s petitions, while also recording that the America-first preference survived that pressure and that Feisal himself had tried and failed to obtain a British-mandate declaration at Damascus.

People, organizations, places and events

Henry Churchill King, Charles R. Crane, Robert Lansing, Woodrow Wilson, Amir Faisal, King-Crane Commission, General Syrian Congress, League of Nations, Occupied Enemy Territory Administration, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Balfour Declaration, Sykes–Picot agreement, Anglo-French Declaration of 1918, Albert H. Lybyer, Armenia, Edmund Allenby, Damascus, Constantinopolitan State, Kurdistan, Turkey

Concepts

Self-determination, Mandate system, Damascus Program, Zionism

How it relates to other sources

• The file is the primary text behind the King-Crane Commission as other ingested sources present it in summary: Sayegh, through Antonius, quotes its finding on the non-Jewish population’s opposition to the Zionist program; Christison gives its two weeks in Palestine, its predisposition and its three years unpublished; Makdisi gives its mandatory-as-sacred-trust recommendation and the force-of-arms warning. Those accounts are held on the King-Crane Commission page beside this Report’s own data and recommendations, without resolving them into one account.
• Its Congress material extends the General Syrian Congress page: where Sayegh quotes the Congress’s 2 July resolution on Zionist pretensions, this file’s telegram and Secretary’s statement give the Congress’s wider program and its adoption as the Damascus Program in 1047 later petitions.
• The Instructions quote the Anglo-French Declaration of 1918 in full and the January 30 resolutions that frame the Mandate system; the petitions’ protests against secret treaties are presented in the file as aimed by inference at the Sykes–Picot agreement and the Balfour Declaration.
• The Congress program as quoted in full in part 2 supplies the text behind the Damascus Program page’s summary and Sayegh’s single-article quotation: the Report records the indirect election method, the attendance (69, with about 20 elected members absent), and that article 5 alone was not unanimous — material held beside Sayegh’s description of the 2 July resolution as unanimous, without resolving the two accounts.
• The holy-places custody proposal in part 2 (a permanent Commission for the Holy Places, and in Recommendation 5 an International and Inter-religious Commission) is this file’s own contribution to the Holy Places record, distinct from the McMahon assurances and the 1939 committee’s argument over them.
• The Confidential Appendix’s account of Feisal’s British subsidy, his failed effort to obtain a British-mandate declaration, and his seven conditions to the Greek Orthodox sits beside the Faisal-Weizmann Agreement and the 1921 memorandum on the Amir Faisal page as the Commission’s own record of his position in mid-1919, attributed to the Appendix and not merged with his own documents.
• Its Asia Minor recommendations (a small Armenia, an international Constantinopolitan State, a mandated Turkish state, autonomous Kurdistan under the Mesopotamia mandatory) are this file’s alone in the wiki so far; no other ingested source in the catalog treats that settlement.

Open questions

• Inter-Allied or International: the file’s title line and the Instructions call the body the Inter-Allied Commission on Mandates in Turkey; document 380’s heading calls it the International Commission on Mandates in Turkey. Both forms are as printed in their places.

• Crane’s initials: documents 376-379 name him Charles R. Crane / C. R. Crane; the Report’s submission line prints “Charles K. Crane”. Both forms are as printed.

• United Syria, East district: the East table gives 1022 petitions for United Syria at 94.3 per cent; 1022 is 88.3 per cent of the East total of 1157 (computed), and the three district counts for United Syria sum to 1430, not the complete table’s 1500. The complete table’s count and percent agree with each other (1500 of 1863 is 80.4 per cent). Both accounts are held as printed.

• Independence of Iraq: the district counts (South 26, West 76, East 976) sum to 1078, not the complete table’s 1278, whose percent (68.5) agrees with 1278 of 1863 (computed). The Secretary’s narrative, using the complete figure, computes 1371 petitions for Iraq’s independence and economic freedom (1278 + 93). Both accounts are held as printed.

• The Bekaa: the complete table gives 4 petitions for inclusion of the Bekaa with Damascus and 11 for inclusion with Lebanon; the narrative (lines 2842-2914) says 11 petitions make especial reference to its inclusion in Lebanon “while eight ask that the Valley remain in the Damascus area”. Both are held as printed.

• Small printed percent slips in the complete table: abolition of foreign capitulations, 10 petitions, percent printed as “53.” (10 of 1863 is 0.53 per cent, computed); general anti-British statements, 3 petitions, percent printed as “15”. In the East table, “Autonomy for all Provisions of Syria” is as printed for Provinces, and in the complete table a line “For American Mandate as second choice” appears inside the French second-choice block. In document 378 the Anglo-French Declaration’s date is printed “November 97” in the telegram text; the footnote identifies the declaration of 9 November 1918.

• The Haifa and Nazareth sentence in the Independence Program discussion is garbled in the text copy (“if [it] constituted 35 and 10 respectively, of the 60 and 18 petitions presented”); the numbers are held as given, the syntax as printed.

• Republican government total: the narrative (lines 2955-3010) gives 26 Christian groups in the West and eight in the East asking a democratic representative government, and a total of 24 (1.8 per cent); 26 and 8 sum to 34 (computed). Both are held as printed.

• Britain first choice: the complete table (part 1) gives 70 (3.75 per cent); the Secretary’s narrative in this part gives 66 (3.5 per cent), of which 48 from Palestine. Both are held as printed.

• America first choice: the tables and the Secretary’s narrative give 1129 (60.5 per cent), built up as 1064 + 57 + 8; Recommendation 6 gives 1152 — exactly 1129 plus the 23 Jenin, Haifa and Nazareth petitions that left the choice to the Syrian Congress, which the narrative says mean “an additional 23 for American first choice”, though the Recommendation does not say this. Both figures are held as printed, with the possible explanation noted as an inference, not stated in the text.

• Montgomery’s middle initial: the Syria staff list and Section One give Dr. George E. Montgomery (line 872); Section Three’s method passage prints “Dr. George B. Montgomery” (line 4985). Both are held as printed.

• Footnote numbering in Section Three runs 24-29, then 31 for the Treaty of 1878 and 35 for a page cross-reference (“See Page 16”), and on through 50 in the Recommendations. The FRUS footnote texts are printed after Section Three’s signatures as an unnumbered list in the text copy, so individual numbers cannot be matched to their texts from the text copy alone, and what footnotes 30 and 34 are is still not identifiable. Several footnote texts record omissions indicated in the original report, and the map and sketch map are recorded as “Not attached to file copy”.

• Armenian population tables, Table B losses: the four printed loss components (615,000; 582,000; 57,000; 17,000) sum to 1,271,000 (computed), not the printed total of 1,270,000, and the Moslem loss implied by Tables A and B for the Larger area is 614,000 (computed), not the printed 615,000. Both accounts are held as printed.

• Armenian population tables, Table D (1925) Larger Armenia row: the four components (1,867,000; 651,000; 232,000; 17,000) sum to 2,767,000 (computed), not the printed total of 2,867,000; the Differential and Smaller Moslem figures sum to 1,967,000 (computed), not the Larger row’s 1,867,000, while the Differential components’ sum (1,320,000, computed; no total is printed for that row) plus the Smaller total (1,547,000) does give the printed 2,867,000; and the row’s printed percentages (60½, 23, 8, ½) sum to 92, not 100 (computed). All figures are held as printed.

• “Horns” is the text copy’s spelling throughout for the town the itinerary’s Contents heading also lists as Homs (lines 1112, 8453); both forms are held as printed in their places. “soldier [solider?]”, “fee divided” for be divided, “indifferences” and “arid” for and in the Appendix’s anti-French reasons, and “not longer” for no longer in the Constantinople discussion are likewise held as printed, with the bracketed reading being the FRUS text’s own.

• What, if anything, the Office of the Historian presentation omits from the Report as submitted beyond the unattached map and sketch map and the omissions the footnotes themselves record is not stated in the file.

Coverage

lines 1-8860 of 8860, read in full in parts 1-3 of 3.