The Sykes-Picot Agreement

Summary

The Avalon text of the 1916 agreement between the French and British governments dividing their spheres in the Arab provinces: an independent Arab state or confederation under an Arab chief is to be recognised and protected in areas (a) and (b), with French priority in (a) and British priority in (b); France takes direct or indirect administration in the blue area and Great Britain in the red area; the brown area — the agreement’s Palestine clause, though Palestine is not named in the file — is to have an international administration settled after consultation with Russia, the other allies and the representatives of the Shereef of Mecca; and Great Britain is accorded the ports of Haifa and Acre (The Sykes-Picot Agreement, lines 29-37).

What the file is

• The agreement as reproduced by the Avalon Project at Yale Law School, downloaded from https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/sykes.asp (access basis: public-domain). The original is the HTML page; the text copy supplied with it (about 1,168 words, lines 1-104) is a plain-text rendering, with no page markers, so locators are line numbers.
• The file gives the year 1916 only. It opens at “It is accordingly understood between the French and British governments:” (line 29), with no preamble, date line, signatures or annexed map, and closes with letter matter about informing Russia, Italy and Japan (lines 59-61). The map on which areas (a), (b), blue, red and brown are marked is referred to but not reproduced.
• Text quality: clean, with as-printed forms held under Open questions.

Section by section

• Arab state areas (line 31): France and Great Britain are prepared to recognise and protect an independent Arab state or confederation of Arab states in areas (a) and (b) marked on the annexed map, under the suzerainty of an Arab chief; France in (a) and Great Britain in (b) shall have priority of right of enterprise and local loans, and shall alone supply advisers or foreign functionaries at the request of the Arab state or confederation.
• Blue and red areas (line 33): in the blue area France, and in the red area Great Britain, shall be allowed to establish such direct or indirect administration or control as they desire and as they may think fit to arrange with the Arab state or confederation.
• Brown area (line 35): “there shall be established an international administration, the form of which is to be decided upon after consultation with Russia, and subsequently in consultation with the other allies, and the representatives of the Shereef of Mecca” (line 35).
• British ports and water; Cyprus (line 37): Great Britain is accorded the ports of Haifa and Acre and a guarantee of a given supply of water from the Tigres and Euphrates in area (a) for area (b); His Majesty’s government undertakes never to negotiate the cession of Cyprus to any third power without prior French consent.
• Alexandretta (line 39): a free port for British Empire trade, with non-discrimination for British shipping and goods and freedom of transit for British goods through Alexandretta and by railway through the blue, (b) and (a) areas.
• Haifa (line 41): a free port for the trade of France, her dominions and protectorates, on the same non-discrimination terms, with freedom of transit for French goods through Haifa and by the British railway through the brown area.
• Railways (lines 43-45): the Baghdad railway shall not be extended in area (a) southwards beyond Mosul, or in area (b) northwards beyond Samarra, until a Baghdad-Aleppo railway via the Euphrates valley is completed, and then only with both governments’ concurrence. Great Britain may build, administer and solely own a railway connecting Haifa with area (b), with a perpetual right to transport troops along it; if keeping the line in the brown area only is unfeasible, France shall be prepared to consider its traversing the places named at line 45 before reaching area (b).
• Customs (lines 47-49): for twenty years the existing Turkish customs tariff remains in force in the blue, red, (a) and (b) areas, with no rate increase or conversion except by agreement; no interior customs barriers between the areas; duties on goods for the interior are collected at the port of entry and handed to the destination area’s administration.
• No cession; Arabian peninsula (lines 51-53): neither government will cede its blue- or red-area rights to a third power (the Arab state or confederation excepted) without the other’s agreement; as protectors of the Arab state, neither will acquire, or consent to a third power acquiring, territorial possessions in the Arabian peninsula, or a naval base on the Red Sea’s east coast or islands, the Aden frontier adjustment excepted.
• Arab boundaries and arms (lines 55-57): negotiations with the Arabs on the boundaries of the Arab states continue through the same channel as heretofore on behalf of the two powers; measures to control the importation of arms into the Arab territories will be considered.
• Closing notes (lines 59-61): His Majesty’s government proposes analogous note exchanges with Russia, on the model of the notes of 26 April last; Italy’s claims to a share in any partition or rearrangement of Turkey in Asia, under article 9 of the 26 April 1915 agreement between Italy and the allies, are raised for practical consideration; the Japanese government should be informed.

Key passages

• “That France and Great Britain are prepared to recognize and protect an independent Arab states or a confederation of Arab states (a) and (b) marked on the annexed map, under the suzerainty of an Arab chief.” (line 31, as printed)
• “That in the brown area there shall be established an international administration, the form of which is to be decided upon after consultation with Russia, and subsequently in consultation with the other allies, and the representatives of the Shereef of Mecca.” (line 35)
• “That Great Britain be accorded (1) the ports of Haifa and Acre, (2) guarantee of a given supply of water from the Tigres and Euphrates in area (a) for area (b).” (line 37)
• “For a period of twenty years the existing Turkish customs tariff shall remain in force throughout the whole of the blue and red areas, as well as in areas (a) and (b)” (line 47)

Evidence the work relies on

• The file is the agreement text itself, as the Avalon Project reproduces it; it cites no outside evidence. Its own internal references are the annexed map (not reproduced, line 31), the Anglo-Russian and Franco-Russian note exchanges of 26 April (line 59), and article 9 of the agreement of 26 April 1915 between Italy and the allies (line 59).

Analysis

• Method and form: operative clauses without recitals — a partition of functions (recognition and protection, priority of enterprise and loans, supply of advisers, direct or indirect administration, free ports, railways, customs, arms control) distributed between the two governments by coloured and lettered areas whose geography the file itself does not supply, because the annexed map is absent.
• Perspective: the two governments are the only actors who decide; the Arab state or confederation appears as the object of recognition, protection and arrangement, the Shereef of Mecca’s representatives as consultees for the brown area only, and Russia, Italy and Japan as powers to be notified or accommodated.
• Limits, on the file’s own terms: Palestine, Syria and every other place in the divided territory except the named ports, rivers and railway towns are nowhere named, so which area any given place falls in cannot be told from this file alone; the brown area is identified with Palestine only by other ingested sources (see How it relates).

People, organizations, places and events

Sykes–Picot agreement, Britain, France, Sherif Hussein of Mecca, Haifa, Acre

Concepts

Self-determination

How it relates to other sources

• The 1939 committee report treats this agreement as one of the subsequent documents bearing on the McMahon–Hussein correspondence: the United Kingdom side cites it as showing France maintained her rights as regards Palestine after 1915; Annex B holds Sir Mark Sykes negotiated it in the belief the 24 October 1915 reservations justified its form, Palestine there being admittedly international with the Sharif to be consulted; the Arab Observations answer that it was a breach of faith, kept from the Sharif for eighteen months (Report of a Committee set up to consider certain correspondence between Sir Henry McMahon and the Sharif of Mecca, lines 237-250, 465-479, 649-655). This file supplies the text those arguments are about, including the brown-area international administration and the Haifa and Acre clauses, neither of which the correspondence itself contains.
• Tucker argues the Balfour Declaration seemed motivated by a British desire to rewrite this agreement’s terms to engage international support for unilateral British control of Palestine (A Brief Genealogy of Jewish Republicanism: Parting Ways with Judith Butler, PDF p.37); the declaration’s text is now ingested at The Balfour Declaration.
• Said places the Sykes and Picot team among the Anglo-French commissions dividing up the Orient, with equitable division of geographical space as the rule (Orientalism (1978), PDF p.229-230 / printed p.220-221).

Open questions

• The file gives no day or month in 1916, no signatories and no preamble, and opens with “accordingly” (line 29); what precedes the operative clauses in the complete instrument is not in the file.
• The annexed map is not reproduced, so the boundaries of areas (a), (b), blue, red and brown cannot be recovered from this file; in particular the file nowhere names Palestine, and its identification of the brown area with Palestine rests on other sources.
• As printed at line 31, “an independent Arab states” (singular article with plural noun); at line 45 the route string “the Polgon Banias Keis Marib Salkhad tell Otsda Mesmie” is garbled as printed; at line 59 “turkey in Asia” has a lowercase t, and “as soon as exchanged.I would also venture” has no space after the full stop. All held as printed.
• The closing matter (lines 59-61) is written as a letter from His Majesty’s government to “your excellency”; the addressee is not named in the file.

Coverage

lines 1-104 of 104, read in full.