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France's Middle Eastern Ambitions, the Sykes-Picot Negotiations, and the Oil Fields of Mosul, 1915-1918 Author(s): Edward Peter Fitzgerald Source: The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 66, No. 4 (Dec., 1994), pp. 697-725 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2125155 . Accessed: 06/09/2013 18:48 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Modern History. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 142.150.190.39 on Fri, 6 Sep 2013 18:48:17 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions France's Middle EasternAmbitions, the Sykes-Picot Negotiations, and the Oil Fields of Mosul, 1915-1918* Edward Peter Fitzgerald Carleton University One of the puzzles of the territorialsettlement in the Middle East after the First World War is France's surrenderof its diplomatic claim to the Mosul region of Iraq. A remote province on the eastern marches of the Ottoman Empire, Mosul (al-Mawsil) was considered a promising area for oil exploration.' France's feeble petroleum industrypossessed no overseas production facilities, and a gasoline crisis duringthe winter of 1917-18 had heightened awareness of the military significance of dependence on foreign-controlled sources of supply. Meanwhile, the Sykes-Picot negotiations on the postwar partitionof Ottomanterritoryhad apparentlygained Mosul for futureFrench control, and this accord was formally ratifiedby Paris and London in May 1916. Thus Francepossessed both a need for Mosul's anticipatedoil reserves plus an incontrovertiblediplomaticclaim to the area.Yet threeweeks afterthe war ended, Prime MinisterGeorges ClemenceauabandonedFrance'srightsto Mosul and ceded control of all northernMesopotamiato Britain. The "Mosul cession" was agreed during a private conversationbetween Clemenceau and David Lloyd George at the French embassy in London on Sunday,December 1, 1918. No aide-memoirecommittedthis bargainto paper, nor was it mentionedin the official recordof the Allied talks that took place at Downing Street during the following two days.2 However, enough * I would like to thank Professor John ApSimon, dean of graduate studies and research of Carleton University, as well as Professor Michel Fleury of the Institut Francophonede Paris for material supportthat made possible the researchon which this article is based. Thanks are also due to the archival staff of the French Foreign Ministry for their assistance, and to the Journal's two anonymous readers for their helpful suggestions. 1 Arabic and Turkish place names mentioned in the text are spelled in their contemporaryforms (though without diacritical marks), except where a locality is likely to be more familiarin an earlierEuropeanizedversion-e.g., "Aleppo" instead of "Halab," "Zor" instead of "Dayr az-Zawr." 2 Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres (hereafter MAE), Paris, Papiers d'AgentsArchives Privees, Papiers Pichon, file 6, "Conclusions arretes a la suite d'une conversationinteralliee tenue 'aDowning Street le lundi 2 decembre a 11 heures du [The Journal of Modern History 66 (December 1994): 697-7251 X) 1994 by The University of Chicago. 0022-2801/94/6604-0002$01.00 All rights reserved. This content downloaded from 142.150.190.39 on Fri, 6 Sep 2013 18:48:17 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 698 Fitzgerald contemporaryevidence exists to make it indubitable that Clemenceau did indeed abandonFrance's diplomatictitle to Mosul, along with a rathermore precariousclaim to Palestine, duringthat Sunday conversation.3In short, the Mosul cession actually happened.But how can it be explained? Historians have developed three lines of reasoning to account for Clemenceau's action. First, there is the assumption that all of Clemenceau's decisions were governed by an overriding determinationto assure France's securityin Europe.On this readingthe Frenchprime ministerceded Mosul as well as the French claim to Palestine in order to remove a likely source of friction with the ally whose good will was critical to securing France's aims on the Rhine frontier.4To this Eurocentricreasoning is added a second and more specificallyMiddle Easternpurpose:thatof forestallingBritishdemands for wholesale revision of the Sykes-Picot agreementon the partitionof the Ottoman Empire. By giving away some elements of the 1916 deal, Clematin"; telegramto PresidentWilson, December 2, 1918; "Conclusions auxquelles a abouti une reunion ... le 3 decembre 1918, a 11 heures 15"; "Conclusionsarret6esa la suite de conversations interalliees ... le mardi 3 decembre 1918 'a 4 heures de l'apres-midi."As Italian representativestook part in these meetings, and as Colonel EdwardM. House had originallybeen expected to attend,it is hardlysurprisingthat a purely Anglo-Frenchbargainwas kept secret. 3 David Lloyd George's lapidarydescriptionof this meeting in The Truthabout the Peace Treaties(London, 1938), 2:1038, was writtenseveral years after the event and cannot be consideredcontemporarytestimony.However, when Lloyd George retumed to Number 10 that Sunday evening, he told Sir MauriceHankey,secretaryof the War Cabinet,about his talk with Clemenceau.Three days later Hankey entereda comment in his privatediary,and that entry confirmsthe essentials of Lloyd George's version of what had happened. On December 11, 1920, Hankey also recorded a more detailed version of what the prime ministerhad told him. See StephenRoskill, Hankey,Man of Secrets, vol. 2, 1919-1931 (London, 1972), pp. 28-29. The published record of the peace conferencealso includes statementsconceming Clemenceau'sarrangementabout Mosul andPalestine.Forone example, see Lloyd Georgeto Clemenceau,May 21, 1919, in Documentson British Foreign Policy, 1919-1939, ed. E. L. Woodwardand Rohan Butler, first ser. (London, 1952), 4:1092, document 684, n. 2. Finally, unpublished documents in the French diplomatic archives authenticateClemenceau's cession of Palestine and Mosul to Britain:e.g., "Note au sujet d'une entente franco-anglaisesur la question de Syrie," February11, 1919, in MAE, ser.A-Paix 1918-25, file 175. (The date on this document, which summarizesthe Quai d'Orsay's version of what had transpiredin London, is close to illegible and might possibly be the 14th.) 4 JukkaNevakivi, Britain, France and the Arab Middle East, 1914-1920 (London, 1969), pp. 89-92; Michael L. Dockrill and J. Douglas Goold, Peace withoutPromise: Britain and the Peace Conferences,1919-23 (London, 1981), p. 145; ChristopherM. Andrew and A. S. Kanya-Forstner,France Overseas: The Great Warand the Climax of French Imperial Expansion (London, 1981), p. 174; Howard M. Sachar, The Emergence of the Middle East, 1914-1924 (London, 1970), pp. 253-54; D. Stevenson, French WarAims against Germany,1914-1919 (Oxford, 1982), p. 145. This content downloaded from 142.150.190.39 on Fri, 6 Sep 2013 18:48:17 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions France's Middle Eastern Ambitions 699 menceau is said to have preserved and strengthenedFrench claims to what really mattered:control over Syria and Lebanon.s A third reason, usually introducedas a corollaryto the second, is the presumptionthat Lloyd George promisedClemenceaua significantshare-perhaps as much as 50 percent-of whatever oil might be found in a British-controlledMosul. There is an intrinsic logic to this argument,and it accords well with the considerable attention the French gave to petroleum during postwar negotiations on the Near East. Perhaps for that reason this view has found almost universal acceptancein the scholarly literature.6It is, nevertheless, mistaken.7 This article does not seek to deny that broad strategicconsiderationsmay have influencedClemenceau'sdecision to abandonFrance'sclaims to Mosul (and Palestine) on that Sunday afternoon. Instead it concentrates on the element that gave Mosul its momentarydiplomatic importance-crude oil. Recent research by British and German scholars, together with Captain Roskill's presentationof Sir Maurice Hankey's diaries, have shown how the 5 See Nevakivi, p. 93; Dockrill and Goold, pp. 145 and 150; Andrews and Kanya-Forstner,p. 174. A variantof this interpretationhas Lloyd George promising Clemenceauthat Frenchcontrol could be "upgraded"to a protectorateover the whole of Syria, as opposed to directcontrolover Lebanonalone andjust a sphereof influence au Proche-Orient(Paris, 1970), p. 54; in Syria. See Andre Nouschi, Luttespe'trolie'res Georges-HenriSoutou,L'or et le sang: Les buts de guerre economiquesde la Premiere Guerre Mondiale (Paris, 1989), p. 784; and Jean-Baptiste Duroselle, Clemenceau (Paris, 1988), p. 829 and esp. p. 854 (where the author mistakenly dates the Mosul cession in December 1919). In 1928 Clemenceau complained to his secretary that many critics had attackedhim for abandoningMosul. "But they forget to say that I used it as bait to get Cilicia, which a certain numberof our good allies would very much have liked us not to have.... I therefore said to the English, 'Which do you prefer?Mosul? Or Cilicia?' They answered 'Mosul'. I said 'I'll give it to you, and I'll take Cilicia.'" See Jean Martet, Le silence de M. Clemenceau (Paris, 1929), pp. 303-4. This account is framed in defensive and anachronisticlanguage (there is talk about a pipeline to Alexandretta),and it is obvious that the retiredstatesmanwas intent on justifying "his" peace settlementagainst its detractors.Thus it is probably betterto view this as the rationalizationof an old man in his eighty-seventhyear and not as an accurateaccount of his motives in 1918. 6 For instance, see Duroselle, p. 829, following Sartou, p. 784; Nouschi, p. 54; Nevakivi, p. 92; Andrewand Kanya-Forstner,pp. 174-75; Dockrill and Goold, p. 145; Sachar,p. 254. 7 I base this conclusion largely though not exclusively on the discovery of a private letter written in March 1920 by Philippe Berthelot, head of the Political and CommercialAffairsdivision of the ForeignMinistry.Berthelotwas the most important French participantin the postwar negotiations that culminated in the San Remo agreementon MiddleEasternoil. His position in this letteris unequivocal:Clemenceau abandoned France's claims to Mosul and Palestine without obtaining anything in return.(I discuss this matterin detail in a forthcomingarticle.) This content downloaded from 142.150.190.39 on Fri, 6 Sep 2013 18:48:17 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 700 Fitzgerald "oil factor"influencedBritain'sMiddle Easternpolicy, particularlyduringthe final months of the war.8In contrast,little is known aboutthe influence of oil on France'swartimediplomacy.This articleaims to redressthe historiographical balance by examining the role played by oil in the elaborationof French objectives duringthatcountry'sprincipalwartimenegotiationswith Britainon the partitionof the OttomanEmpire. FRENCHKNOWLEDGE OF MOSUL'SOIL POTENTALBEFORE1914 Petroleumseepages and tar sandsin northernMesopotamiahad been observed and put to local use long before the Christianera.9 During the nineteenth century diplomaticrepresentativeshad noted such sites in their dispatches,10 and Westernexperts had been reportingon the potential of the region for oil explorationsince the 1870s.11The Ottomangovernment,which administered the area as the vilayet (province) of Mosul, also commissioned European geologists to investigate the petroleumdeposits found in the area. The French Foreign Ministry obtained copies of at least three of these commissioned reports. The first was that of Emile Jacquerez, a French engineer whom Paris had put at the disposal of the Porte and who traveled throughMosul Province from Januaryto April in 1895. Thirteenyears later, the French vice-consul in Mosul persuadedprovincial authoritiesto let him see Jacquerez'sreport. They left it in his possession for two days, during which he copied it out by hand and sent his version to the Quai d'Orsay.12 A 8 MarianKent, Oil and Empire:British Policy and MesopotamianOil, 1900-1920 (London, 1976), pp. 124-26; Geoffrey Jones, The State and the Emergence of the British Oil Industry (London, 1981), pp. 197-200; V. Rothwell, "Mesopotamiain British WarAims, 1914- 1918," Historical Journal 13, no. 2 (1970): 73-94; Helmut Mejcher,"Oil and BritishPolicy towardsMesopotamia,1914-1918," MiddleEastern Studies 8, no. 3 (October 1972): 377-91, and his Imperial Quest for Oil: Iraq, 1910-1928 (London, 1976), chap. 2. The significance of the "oil factor" relative to other considerationsmotivating British policymakersis judiciously assessed by John Darwin, Britain, Egypt and the Middle East: ImperialPolicy in the Aftermathof War, 1918-22 (London, 1981), pp. 258-65. 9 R. J. Forbes, Vijftigeeuwen olie: De geschiedenis van de aardolie (Zeist, 1963), pp. 11-13. 1o For example, see a French consular report of August 30, 1871, signaling the working of oil pools at Mandali, Kifri, and Tuz Khurmatu,as reproducedin Charles Issawi, ed., The Fertile Crescent, 1800-1914: A Documentary Economic History (New York, 1988), pp. 402-3. " See StephenH. Longrigg, Oil in the MiddleEast, Its Discovery and Development (London, 1954), pp. 13-14; and Kent, Oil and Empire,p. 15. 12 Georges-Louis-AlexandreDugrand to MAE, March 2, 1908, with enclosed 89-page manuscriptreport, in MAE, Nouvelle Serie-Correspondance Politique et Commerciale(hereafterNS-CPC), Turquie,box 452, file "Petroles." This content downloaded from 142.150.190.39 on Fri, 6 Sep 2013 18:48:17 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions France's Middle EasternAmbitions 701 year later anotherFrench engineer, ToussaintRouzaud, wrote an optimistic report for the Ottoman Imperial Crown Lands Departmenton the potential expansion of primitive local oil operations around Mosul.13 The French commercial attachein Istanbulobtained a copy of this reportand forwarded an even more optimistic precis of it to Paris. In November 1909 the Foreign Ministry sent a copy of this re'sumeto the Finance Ministry,suggesting that they inform "financialgroups likely to be interestedin these matters."There is no indicationthatthe FinanceMinistrydid anythingof the kind. In any case, Rouzaud had put the cost of developing full-scale production and refining facilities plus a distributionnetworkat almost 55 million francs.14 That was a very substantialsum to ask Frenchfinanciersto put at risk, particularlyfor an investmentcommunitywhose preferencefor governmentpaperand other safe investments is well known. What appearsto have been the most detailed of the prewarassessments of Mesopotamia'spetroleumpotentialwas the work of ProfessorL.-C. Tassartof the prestigious Ecole des Mines. At the request of the Ottomangovernor of Mosul, Tassarttraveledthroughthe Tigris valley, the Mosul region, and what he generally called "Turkish Kurdistan" from August to October 1908. Tassartthen wrote several reportson the economic potentialof the region. His main reportdealt in some detail with various oil sites, concentratingon the areas near Qayyarah, Zakhu, and Kirkuk. After enumerating the main locations where he had actually investigatedoil seepages plus other locations he had not visited but that were already well known, Tassartreached this conclusion aboutthese "affieurements petrolifieres":"[They] certainlyappear to be signs indicating a vast oil-bearing region, the biggest part of which is admittedlylocated in Persian territory,but with a sufficiently large zone left in Turkish Kurdistan [i.e., the Mosul region] to permit the hope that particularlyrich oilfields will be discovered there" (pp. 65-66).15 Tassart's confidentialreportswere submittedto the ImperialCrownLands Department, but the well-connectedBanqueImperialeOttomanesuppliedthe Quai d'Orsay with revised copies.16 13 ToussaintRouzaud, "Note sur les gltes petroliferesde la Mesopotamie,"October 20, 1909, in MAE, NS-CPC, Turquie,box 452, file "Petroles." 14 "Gisements petrolif'eresen Mesopotamie," November 12, 1909, with enclosed resume;in Ministeredes Finances, Service des Archives Economiqueset Financieres, box B 31287, file "Turquie-Societes." 15 Tassarttempered his optimism with a realistic understandingthat the region's remotenessmeantdevelopmentcosts would be considerableif an oil field was actually discovered and that successful commercial exploitation would depend on prior constructionof an adequatetransportationcorridor. 16 They are found in MAE, NS-CPC, Turquie,box 452, file "La region de Mossoul au point de vue economique."I say "revised" because the phrasing("our interests," This content downloaded from 142.150.190.39 on Fri, 6 Sep 2013 18:48:17 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 702 Fitzgerald Thus, before 1914 the French Foreign Ministry possessed at least three reportsfrom professionallyqualifiedobserverson the oil potentialof Mosul; quite possibly there were more.'7 This information indicated that many surfacepetroleumdeposits were presentin one form or anotherin the province of Mosul and that the region possessed much the same geological layout as southwestern Iran, where the nascent Anglo-Persian Oil Company had discovered a substantial field in 1908. However, there is no evidence to suggest that these reports,or briefingpapersbased on their conclusions, were circulatedto Frenchnegotiatorseither before or during wartimetalks on the partitionof Ottomanterritory.We can be absolutely certainof only two facts relatedto the oil issue: first,a copy of the petroleumsection of Tassart'sreport was sent to one of the French oil negotiators in London early in 1920.18 Second, Tassarthimself was dispatched to London as a technical expert to assist the French delegation in working out the postwar Anglo-French agreementthatcame to be known as the San Remo accord.19While both facts tell us somethingaboutthe value the Frenchattachedto the oil factorafter the war-and after Clemenceau's cession of Mosul-they unfortunatelyreveal nothing about the perceived importance of Mesopotamian oil before and duringthe key wartimenegotiations.20 "ourindustry")shows that these could not have been exact copies of the reportsgiven to the Turkishauthorities.EitherTassartsubmitteddifferentversions to the bank,or the bank's staff revised their wording.The formermay be more likely because the Banque Imperiale Ottomanewas involved in the financing of Tassart'smission. It certainly advanced Tassart's travel funds, and it is possible that the bank, not the Ottoman government, may actually have picked up the entire bill for his trip through Mesopotamia. See "J. G." [Jean Gout], handwritteninstructions, "E[crire] a M. Berenger,"January8, 1919, MAE, series E-Levant, 1918-40, Irak, vol. 32. 17 Material in MAE, NS-CPC, Turquie,box 452, file "Petroles," shows that the FrenchPonts et ChausseesDepartmentwas awareof the local oil works at ash-Sharqat near Mosul since at least 1895. See also Jacques Thobie, Inte'retset impe'rialisme franCais dans l'Empireottoman (1895-1914) (Paris, 1977), p. 418, n. 71. 18 Jean Gout, head of the Foreign Ministry's Asia and Oceania division, had the sections of Tassart'sreportdealing with oil typed out and sent as a twenty-two-page brief to SenatorHenryBerenger,the Frenchhigh commissionerfor fuel. The phrasing of his draft covering note implies that Gout did not believe Berenger knew about Tassart'smission. "J. G.," note, "E[crire] a M. Berenger,"January8, 1919, MAE, E-Levant, 1918-40, Irak, vol. 32. 19 Berthelotto "Cherami," March 11, 1920, MAE, series E3-Relations Commerciales, 1919-40, B-Petroles, file 49. Berthelot found Tassartto be useless during the oil negotiations. In a characteristictone of detached amusementhe describedTassart as a vain and incompetentfool, incapableof doing anythinghelpful on the technical questions his expertise was needed for. 20 As for the actual situation on the ground before 1914, although French capital accountedfor the lion's share of Westerninvestmentin the OttomanEmpire, French This content downloaded from 142.150.190.39 on Fri, 6 Sep 2013 18:48:17 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions France's Middle EasternAmbitions 703 FRANCE'S INITIAL APPROACH TOPARTITION On March 20, 1915, Foreign MinisterTheophile Delcasse sent a summaryof his views on the partitionof the OttomanEmpireto the French embassies in London and Rome. The diplomatic context for Delcasse's demarche was dominatedby two factors. First, as the memorandumacknowledged,discussions were then going on between Foreign SecretarySir EdwardGrey and the Italianambassadorin LondonconcerningItaly's entryinto the war.Second, as evidenced by a Russian diplomatic note of March 4, Petrograd had put forwarda claim to Istanbuland the Straits.Both initiativesraised the issue of carving up Ottoman territory after an Entente victory; and the French particularlywanted to link their assent to Russian claims with reciprocal acknowledgmentof France's ambitions in the Levant.21 Delcasse's memorandumshows that the officials in Paris were working from the assumptionthatthe route of the Baghdadrailway would serve as the reference point for the division of the spoils. They were certain that Russia would demand more of the area closest to Istanbul and that Britain would doubtless want "the Tigris and Euphratesregion right up to the northern frontiers of Mesopotamia." Therefore France would seek to acquire the central sections along the Baghdad line running from Konya through the Anatolian plateau "up to the north of Mesopotamia, [thereby] obtaining possession of the regions which constitute the economic hinterlandof the segment of the Baghdad railway that will be awarded to France." On the ground this meant the Ottoman provinces of Adana, Aleppo, Ma'muret ul-'Aziz, and Diyarbakir.It is noteworthy that, although the Quai d'Orsay envisioned thatthe futureFrenchand Britishsphereswould meet "in the north of Mesopotamia,"acquisition of the province of Mosul was not listed as a French goal. Nor was there any mention of oil.22 Paul Cambon, the veteran French ambassadorin London, reacted to the memorandumby cautioning Delcasse against initiating discussions about a enterprisewas absent from the field of petroleumexploration.With the exception of a short-livedattemptby a Dutch promoterto draw the Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas into a scheme to obtain an oil concession in the provinces of Mosul and Baghdad, Frenchprewarinterest in Middle Easternoil was notable by its absence. See Thobie, pp. 418-20. 21 For this last point see Nevakivi (n. 4 above), pp. 14-15. 22 Delcasse to London and Rome embassies, March 20, 1915, MAE, A-Paix, 1918-25, file 177. In anotherpart of this communicationthe Quai d'Orsay speaks of instructingthe Frenchambassadorin Petrogradto insist that, in returnfor assentingto Russian occupation of Constantinople,"France intends above all to obtain all [sic] Syria includingthe region aroundthe Gulf of Alexandrettaand Cilicia up to the Taurus range." This, too, would exclude Mosul. This content downloaded from 142.150.190.39 on Fri, 6 Sep 2013 18:48:17 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 704 Fitzgerald territorialcarve-up. This subject, he argued, was bound to stir up rivalries among the Entente powers.23Cambon specifically warned against extending French claims eastwardto remote places like the province of Diyarbakir(as Delcasse had recommended),which he regardedas an economically worthless wildernessinhabitedby "a bunch of wild, thieving bandits."Cambonamused himself by wonderingaloud at Delcasse's expense abouthow the Chamberof Deputies might greet a futurerequest for loan guaranteesfor such outlandish outposts of French rule.24 However, four days before he sent this splash of cold water to Paris, Cambonput his misgivings aside and informedGrey that Delcasse wanted to arrangean unofficial exchange of views about each country's aims in Asiatic Turkey.Grey agreed,albeit with the reservationthat the Cabinet "hadnot yet had time to consider our desiderata" in the region. After expressing his personal belief that after the breakupof Turkey "there must, in the interests of Islam, be an independentMoslem political unit somewhere else," Grey specifically referredto the future of Mesopotamia.He told Cambon that the governmenthad not yet decided whether Mesopotamia should form part of this independentMuslim state "or whetherwe should put forwarda claim for ourselves in that region.",25 23 Comparethe similaropinion of Sir ArthurNicolson, permanentundersecretaryat the Foreign Office, who held that talk of partitionwould quickly engender quarrels about who was to get Jerusalem.See Elie Kedourie,In the Anglo-ArabLabyrinth:The McMahon-HusaynCorrespondence and Its Interpretations, 1914-39 (Cambridge, 1976), p. 53. 24 Cambon to Delcasse, March 27, 1915, MAE, A-Paix, 1918-25, file 177. Interestingly,Cambon believed that the British had little in the way of territorial designs on the region. In words that anticipate Robinson and Gallagher's views on London's predilectionfor "informalempire," Cambon wrote that "England is only interested in assuring her supremacy in the Persian Gulf and in preventing another power from challengingher there. It is truethat Sir E. Grey did referto 'Mesopotamia' when he spoke with me, but what he would like to see there is British paramountcy, not physical possession. It is importantto keep in mind the fact that nowadaysEngland is no longerkeen on acquiringmore territory.While intendingto maintainaccess to her existing possessions and to create new markets, she does not seem to be seeking additionaloverseas possessions, for she reckons that she already has as much as she can handle in every part of the globe" (same dispatch). 25 Grey to Sir Francis Bertie, March 23, 1915, reproducedin Viscount Grey of Fallodon, Twenty-Five Years, 1892-1916 (New York, 1925), 2:236. Grey misled Cambona bit if he did indeed say that the Cabinet "had not yet had time to consider" Britain's aims in the region, for the War Committee had just finished discussing war aims in the Middle East on March 19. At that meeting Grey had presentedarguments as to why Britain should support the creation of an independent Muslim polity to replace Turkey.But the confused characterof the discussion at this meeting shows there was no consensus about even the main lines of a futurepartition,and certainly no agreedposition on Mesopotamia.The minutesof this meeting are in C. J. Lowe and This content downloaded from 142.150.190.39 on Fri, 6 Sep 2013 18:48:17 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions France's Middle Eastern Ambitions 705 THE OIL FACTORIN BRITAIN'SVIEWOF MOSUL26 Although it does not appear that Paris subsequently pressed for these negotiations,27Cambon'sdemarchedid contributeto London's decision to set up a special interdepartmentalcommittee chaired by Sir Maurice de Bunsen to sort out Britain'sposition on the futureof the OttomanNear East, including Mesopotamia.28At that point in the war the Indian interest regarded Mesopotamiaas its special patch, for an Indianarmy was at thattime fighting its way toward Baghdad, and officials were keen on annexing at least lower Mesopotamia (i.e., the vilayet of Basra) after the war. But their ambitions arose from the traditionalpreoccupationwith strategiccontrol of the Persian Gulf, not from a plan to gain access to potential petroleumreserves. Oil had yet to be put officially on the table, and it was the de Bunsen committee that now did this. It became the first official body to incorporate access to Mesopotamianoil into the bundle of British war aims. M. L. Dockrill, The Mirage of Power: British Foreign Policy, 1902-22 (London, 1972), 3:524-27; see also Jeremy Wilson, Lawrence of Arabia: The Authorised Biographyof T.E. Lawrence(London, 1989), pp. 179-80; plus Nevakivi, pp. 16-17. 26 The works cited in n. 8 above constitutethe main sources for the influence of oil on British wartimediplomacy.For the evolution of Britain'sMiddle Easternpolicy in general, there is a very substantialliteraturefor the wartime period. In addition to Nevakivi's Britain, France and the Arab Middle East, see Elie Kedourie,Englandand the Middle East: The Vital Years, 1914-21 (London, 1956); Zeine N. Zeine, The Strugglefor Arab Independence:WesternDiplomacy and the Rise and Fall of Faisal's Kingdom in Syria (Beirut, 1960); Elizabeth Monroe, Britain'sMoment in the Middle East, 1914-1971, rev. ed. (London, 1981), chaps. 1-2; the essay by Marian Kent, "GreatBritainand the End of the OttomanEmpire,"in her edited volume, The Great Powers and the End of the OttomanEmpire (London, 1984); and David Fromkin's extensive narrativeA Peace to End All Peace: Creating the Modern Middle East, 1914-22 (New York, 1989). Kedourie's Anglo-Arab Labyrinth, Jeremy Wilson's weighty biography,Lawrence of Arabia, and Briton Cooper Busch's detailed study, Britain, India, and the Arabs, 1914-1921 (Berkeley, 1971), also supply considerable insight into the making of Britain's Near Easternpolicies. Finally, much information about Anglo-Frenchdiplomacy in general can be found in monographsdealing with the future disposition of Palestine: Isaiah Friedman, The Question of Palestine, 1914-1918: British-Jewish-ArabRelations (London, 1973); Leonard Stein, The BalfourDeclaration (London, 1961); and A. L. Tibawi,Anglo-ArabRelations and the Question of Palestine, 1914-21 (London, 1977). 27 In August 1915, a colonialist deputy, Georges Leygues, used his position in the Chamber of Deputies' foreign affairs commission to criticize both Delcasse and Cambonfor not pressingLondonfor a formalagreementon partition.See Andrewsand Kanya-Forstner(n. 4 above), p. 76. 28 De Bunsen was a career diplomat who had been British ambassadorin Lisbon, Madrid, and Vienna in the decade before the war. His committee comprised representativesfrom the Foreign and India offices, the service ministries, and the Board of Trade. This content downloaded from 142.150.190.39 on Fri, 6 Sep 2013 18:48:17 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 706 Fitzgerald The committeemet thirteentimes betweenApril and Junebefore submitting its report, "British Desiderata in Turkey and Asia," on June 30, 1915.29 Although most recommendationsdealt with traditional security concerns, "security for the development of undertakingsin which we are interested, such as oil production,river navigation,and constructionof irrigationworks" also appearedon the list of desired outcomes. The problem was that it was easy to list goals but "very difficult to lay down how to shape the opportunity now at hand for attainingthem." In any case, the Admiraltyhad pressed the committee to consider acquisition of Mosul, specifically because of its oil potential,30and the WarOffice representativeson the committee, GeneralSir CharlesCallwell and Lieutenant-ColonelSir Mark Sykes, had recommended for militaryreasonsthat British control in Mesopotamiabe extended not only from Basra up to Baghdad but even further to encompass the province of Mosul and its northernapproaches.31 The committee accepted their view, and the petroleumpotentialof the area was cited in supportof this recommenda32 tion. Thus, five months before Anglo-Frenchtalks on the partitionof Ottoman territorybegan, an official Cabinet committee had explicitly asserted the desirabilityof obtaining control of Mosul after the war. The oil factor had figured in this decision, albeit as a supplementaryrather than a primary motive. However, not too much should be made of this. Mesopotamian oil was only one among a long list of desiderata,and not a central focus of the report. Nor does it appear that this particular aim was taken very seriously.33As we shall see, by the time the Foreign Office got round to 29 The proceedings and recommendationsof the de Bunsen committee are nicely summarizedin Kedourie,Anglo-ArabLabyrinth,pp. 58-62. Its reportis conveniently reproducedin J. C. Hurewitz,ed., TheMiddle East and NorthAfrica in WorldPolitics: A DocumentaryRecord, vol. 2, British-FrenchSupremacy,1914-1945, 2d ed. (New Haven, Conn., 1979), pp. 26-46. 30 Rothwell (n. 8 above), p. 287. 31 Dockrill and Goold (n. 4 above), pp. 133-34; Aaron S. Klieman, "Britain'sWar Aims in the Middle East in 1915," Journal of ContemporaryHistory 3, no. 3 (July 1968): 242-45. 32 See pars. 21 and 22 of the report in Hurewitz, ed. A twofold "oil justification" figures in par. 26: Baghdad is cited as a protective glacis for the existing interests of Anglo-PersianOil Companyacross the frontier,"andoil again makes it commercially desirablefor us to carryour control on to Mosul, in the vicinity of which place there are valuable wells possession of which by anotherPower would be prejudicialto our interests"(Hurewitz,ed., 2:30-32). See also Mejcher,"Oil and BritishPolicy towards Mesopotamia" (n. 8 above), p. 378; and Kent, Oil and Empire (n. 8 above), pp. 121-22. 33 Kedourieassertsthat the entire de Bunsen report "was never seriously examined by the government"and that Grey ignored it. See his Anglo-Arab Labyrinth(n. 23 above), p. 104. This content downloaded from 142.150.190.39 on Fri, 6 Sep 2013 18:48:17 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions France's Middle Eastern Ambitions 707 emphasizing the importanceof Mesopotamianoil as a British war aim (in March 1916), the idea of awarding part of Mosul, the most promising location of potential oil fields in Mesopotamia,to future French control had alreadybeen accepted in Whitehall!This startlingdevelopmentsuggests that in 1915-16 oil was hardly a determiningfactor when Whitehall envisioned the shape of things to come in the Middle East.34 SOUGHT BILATERALTALKSON PARTITION WHYLONDON Given that the de Bunsen report signaled the desirability of controlling Mesopotamianoil, we have to ask why the British governmentsubsequently agreed to assign part of the most likely oil-bearing area of Mesopotamiato France. The answer is directly linked to the well-known negotiations then under way between the British authorities in Egypt and Sharif Husayn of Mecca, which the British had undertakenwith a view to inducing the Arab leader to rise against the Turks.It was this initiative that caused London to approachParisto requestofficial talks on the partitionof the OttomanEmpire. Grey realized that the Frenchwere bound to hear rumorsof the negotiations with Husayn and that they would likely conclude that ever-perfidiousAlbion was scheming to supplantFrance'slong-standinginterestin Syria by creating an Arab puppet regime. The foreign secretary (quite unlike Kitchener)had always emphasizedthe political importanceof respectingFrance'straditional ambitionsin the Levant.3sNow he wanted to head off a possible contretemps throughtimely consultation. On October21, 1915-the day after he had authorizedan official promise of British supportfor a futureArabstate-Grey told CambonthatLondonwas very worried about the situation in Persia and Afghanistan, where German officers were stirringup Islamic feeling against the Entente. Faced with the threat of impending insurgency, he explained, London had been trying to foment some subversionof its own by encouragingthe Arabs to rise against the Turks.Grey told Cambonin a general way about the correspondenceSir Henry McMahonhad been conductingwith Husayn.Then he got to the point: Husayn's ambitionsnecessitateda reconciliationof his territorialclaims to a future "Arabia" with France's aspirations in Syria. Therefore Grey asked Cambonto have Parissend over "a representativequalifiedto settle the extent of Syria's borderswith Lord Kitchener."36 34 35 See Jones (n. 8 above), p. 194. For Grey's caution about interfering with France's aspirations see Kedourie, Anglo-ArabLabyrinth,p. 55; and Friedman(n. 26 above), pp. 100-102. 36 Cambonto MAE, two telegrams,both dated October21, 1915, in MAE, A-Paix, 1918-25, file 177. Grey apparentlywent so far as to express the fear thatPersiamight This content downloaded from 142.150.190.39 on Fri, 6 Sep 2013 18:48:17 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 708 Fitzgerald THEINmALFRENCH POSMTON The Quai d'Orsaywas suspicious of London'smotives and saw complications both in the idea of the revolt itself and in the political reward of an "Arab kingdom"that Britainproposedto bestow on Husayn.37But these drawbacks were offset by the tremendous advantage Grey's demarche offered: in Cambon'swords, "It constitutesformal and official recognitionof our rights to Syria." So two days after the foreign secretarymade his approach,Paris accepted the British invitation to undertake talks on the partition of the OttomanEmpire.38To conductthe negotiationsCambonrecommendedone of his assistants,FranqoisGeorges-Picot,"who knows the Syrianquestionbetter than anyone."39This was certainly an exaggeration, for Georges-Picot had spent relatively little time in Middle Eastern postings. But he had the advantageof already being on site (he was currentlya first secretaryat the London embassy), and he enjoyed the confidence of his ambassador.He also possessed a reputationas a forceful advocateof France'scolonial ambitionsin enterthe war.It is temptingto conclude that all this talk aboutan Islamic rising against the Allies was just a stratagemgot up for the occasion to induce the Frenchto consent to an Arabstate.However,both Cambonand Georges-Picotformedthe impressionthat the British genuinely believed this danger was imminent. Cambon believed that General Sir John Maxwell (commander-in-chief,Egypt) and Sir Henry MacMahon'neither of them especially cool heads"-were the cause of the anxiety in London.See Cambon to Briand, November 26, 1915, MAE, A-Paix, 1918-25, file 178. 37 Some French officials worried that a reinforcement of Husayn's spiritual authority might affect Muslim opinion in French North Africa: e.g., Jules-Albert Defrance (chargein Cairo) to Delcasse, January3, 1915, MAE, A-Paix, 1918-25, file 177. This dispatch also shows that French diplomats regardedBritain's strategy of backing Husayn as a way of establishing a veiled British protectorateover the Hijaz and Yemen. The Colonial Ministry was also suspicious of London's intentions and wanted prior consultationto work out a common Entente policy on the Hijaz before anythingfurtherwas done. Doumergueto Delcasse, January19, 1915, MAE, A-Paix, 1918-25, file 177. These reservations must seem ironic in light of the fact that in November 1914 French military headquartershad already put forwardthe idea of a general rebellion among the subject peoples of the OttomanEmpire,and Husayn was the leaderwhom the soldiersidentifiedas the best candidateto lead the Arabrising. See Dan Eldar,"FrenchPolicy towardsHusayn, Sharifof Mecca," Middle EasternStudies 26, no. 3 (July 1990): 329-31. 38 "Arabie," an undatednote in MAE, A-Paix, 1918-25, file 177, which summarizes the Anglo-Frenchpositions. 39 Cambon to Rene Viviani, second telegram, October 21, 1915, MAE, A-Paix, 1918-25, file 177. Cambon was so confident of his choice that he had already instructedGeorges-Picot to go to Paris to discuss this question with Prime Minister Viviani, who had temporarily taken on the foreign affairs portfolio following Delcasse's resignation. This content downloaded from 142.150.190.39 on Fri, 6 Sep 2013 18:48:17 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions France's Middle Eastern Ambitions 709 the Middle East, so he was persona grata to the vocal colonialist lobby in Paris.40 The Foreign Ministry's formal instructions to its special envoy (which Georges-Picot actually drafted himself) called for him to argue that France needed to be compensatedfor the disappearanceof its privileged position in the OttomanEmpire. (This was a circular argumentof breathtakingproportions, for it was the Entente'spartitionof the OttomanEmpirethat was going to bring about thatdisappearance!)Compensationwas to come in the form of la Syrie int6grale,"GreaterSyria,"with dimensionssuitableto its name-and to the requirementsof colonial parsimony:"This FrenchSyria must not be a dwarf state [un pays etriquel set amidst much bigger foreign possessions, eking out a precariousexistence within constrictedfrontiersand remainingan onerouschargeon the metropolitanbudget. OurSyria needs extensive borders that will make it capable of earning its own way." In practicethis meant the inclusion of Palestineto the south and Cilicia to the north-a "greaterSyria," indeed.As for the easternfrontier,this was to run along the Taurusmountains in the vilayets or mutasserifliksof Ma'muretul-'Aziz, Diyarbakir,and Van, "thence to the south following the mountainswhich define the Tigris basin, cutting across this river below [the town of] Mosul, ... and reaching the Euphratesat the borderof the province of Zor, which will also remainin our zone." This demarcationline, the instructionsnoted, would put copper, lead, and other mineral deposits found in the area within the borders of a future French Syria. Then, almost as an afterthought,the following sentence was added: "It would also be desirableto have the mining regions aroundKirkuk included in our zone, but it is to be feared that the English will refuse to go along with us on this point." This oblique reference was the only partof the French negotiatinginstructionsthat touched in any way on oil.41 40 Franqois-Marie-DenisGeorges-Picot, then forty-four years old, had served in Copenhagen, Beijing, and in the Political and Commercial Affairs Division of the Foreign Ministry.Put in chargeof the consulate-generalin Beirut at the end of January 1914, he was assigned to Cairo in November and then posted to London in August 1915. See Annuairediplomatiqueet consulaire de la RepubliqueFran9aisepour 1921 (Paris, 1921), pp. 222-23. For Georges-Picot'sposition as a strongbackerof la Syrie integrale and his high standing among the imperial enthusiasts, see Andrew and Kanya-Forstner(n. 4 above), pp. 74-75. Paris may have thoughtCambon'scandidate was the right man for the job, but the choice of Georges-Picot was denounced by Britain's Arab experts in Egypt. McMahon, who had met Georges-Picot during the latter'sbrief stint in Cairo, cabled Grey that the French special representativewas "a notorious fanatic on the Syrian question" (Wilson [n. 25 above], p. 233). 41 Briand to Georges-Picot, November 2, 1915, "Pourparlersavec les Anglais concemant les limites de la Syrie," MAE, A-Paix, 1918-25, file 177 (my emphasis). Andrew and Kanya-Forstnercite Georges-Picot's handwrittendraft of these instruc- This content downloaded from 142.150.190.39 on Fri, 6 Sep 2013 18:48:17 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 710 Fitzgerald How FRANCEDECIDEDTO PRESSFORMOSUL Grey suggested that the Anglo-Frenchtalks begin on Friday,November 19, but the first meeting actually took place at the Foreign Office the following Tuesday.42There Georges-Picot found himself faced by a seven-man interdepartmentalcommittee, with representativesfrom the Foreign, War, and India offices, chaired by the Foreign Office's permanentundersecretary,Sir ArthurNicolson. The French special representativepresented the territorial demandshis instructionscalled for, including a claim to most of the territory of the province of Mosul.43Nicolson expressed "some surprise"at the extent of France's territorialappetite, and he pointedly questioned whether direct controlwas necessaryin any case. He suggested thatthe Frenchmight well be satisfiedwith a sphereof influencecarryingexclusive economic rights and the real advantagesof indirect rule. In any case, Georges-Picotquickly realized that the British were not interested in delimiting France's ambitions on the ground.Rather,what Nicolson wanted was French supportfor a futureArab state so that Britaincould hold out a concrete goal to Husayn.This point was driven home as Nicolson pressed Georges-Picot to make clear to Paris "the gravity of the danger" the Allies faced in the Muslim world, as well as to tions (which they say is identical with the formal typescriptversion) to supporttheir argumentthatthe Frenchenvoy had authorizedhimself to negotiatefor Mosul-a goal that (they emphasize)he was confidentthe Britishwould not oppose. Theirimplication is that Georges-Picot was referring to all of Mosul province (pp. 89 and 269, nn. 14-16). I have read those same instructionsin the different file cited above, and I believe they show quite the opposite: namely, that Georges-Picot did not believe he could obtain all of Mosul. Rather, what he hoped to get, as the quotations here illustrate,was the town itself and the region to its north, not the entire province. 42 Grey to Cambon, November 17, 1915, MAE, A-Paix, 1918-25, file 177. The Britishnegotiatingteam had alreadyconvened on November 13 to work out a strategy for persuadingthe Frenchto accept the creationof an Arab state in Syria. See Wilson, p. 231. 43 The French-language minutes have Georges-Picot drawing the southeastern boundaryof the Frenchzone "following the mountainswhich delimit the Tigris basin, cutting across this river at Kirkuk,and reachingthe Euphratesat the provincialborder of Deir el Zor" (in MAE, A-Paix, 1918-25, file 178). The English language minutes speak of a line runningeastwardfrom Zor, passing "to the south of Kirkuk,"and then tuming north "to include the whole of the Mosul district" (as quoted in Wilson, p. 1018, n. 32). This request for all of Mosul province does not contradict the interpretationadvancedin n. 41 above. Like many negotiators,Georges-Picotfavored a strategy of advancing maximum demands in order to have plenty of room for subsequenthorse-trading:"Our task is to make our demands and [then] to abandon ground only foot by foot if compelled to do so; that way we shall always have some ground left" (as quoted in Andrew and Kanya-Forstner,p. 89). This content downloaded from 142.150.190.39 on Fri, 6 Sep 2013 18:48:17 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions France's Middle Eastern Ambitions 711 explain to his superiorswhy a futureArab polity would serve the interestsof both Britain and France in the Middle East.44 A week after this first meeting, Georges-Picot sent his impressions of the situationin London, and of the possibilities it presented,to PierreJacquinde Margerie,Nicolson's opposite number at the French Foreign Ministry.45He began by emphasizingthe false pretensesunderlyingthe discussions:London was not really concernedwith definingfutureterritorialboundariesin the Near East; instead, the British wanted to persuade Paris to give up its aim of colonial rule in Syria so that they could proffer statehoodto the Arabs "and dazzle them with a dream."This said, the news was not all bad. The British design did hold out potentialfor compensation:"If we accept the sacrificewe are being asked to make, the English would be disposed to be rather accommodatingas to our sphere of influence and the rights we could obtain there."The Frenchspecial representativeemphasizedthe fact that the British appearedto be in a panic (affoles) on account of the reportscoming in from Egypt and Mesopotamia.46Because of this the Foreign Office wanted to pursue the Arab negotiations quickly; his obvious advice was that "we need to take advantageof this situation."Georges-Picotemphasizedthat a French response must not be delayed-a point on which Cambonconcurred-and he suggested a tactical line for the next round of negotiations. First, express shock and indignation about London's "Arab kingdom" as a challenge to France's well-established claims to all of Syria. Then, "after putting up just enough resistanceto convince them of the need to alter their original plan, it 44 French-languageminutes of the meeting of November 23, 1915, MAE, A-Paix, 1918-25, file 178. Historianswho have readthe English-languageminutespresentthis meeting as a hostile confrontation, with an "adamant" Georges-Picot pressing "staggering" demands leading to an "impasse" followed by the French envoy's departurefor consultations with his government. (See Wilson, p. 231; Friedman, p. 103; and Andrew and Kanya-Forstner,p. 92.) I have not seen the English version, but the French-languageminutes convey only an atmosphereof forthrightdiscussion, spiritedbut not hostile. To some extent these differentimpressionsmay be a matterof tone, but it is simply not correctto maintainthat Georges-Picotquit London as a result of this initial "confrontation."The fact of the matter is that Nicolson insisted that Georges-Picot go back to Paris in order to convince the French authorities of the seriousness of the political-militarysituationin the Middle East. 45 Margeriewas the Quai's directorof Political and CommercialAffairs and, until Briand's restructuringof the top bureaucraticposts, the foreign minister's chef de cabinet. 46 It is importantto recall that, in addition to their general perception of Islamic unrest, the British at this time were also facing the anticipatedeffects on Muslim opinion of two specific military reversals:the lengthening impasse at Gallipoli, and General Charles Townshend'sretreatback to Kut after his expeditionaryforce was batteredby the Turksat Ctesiphon. This content downloaded from 142.150.190.39 on Fri, 6 Sep 2013 18:48:17 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 712 Fitzgerald should be possible to get the English to designate the regions where they will allow us to have exclusive economic and political privileges." In this way the Frenchcould try "to keep the maximumamountof territoryoutside the Arab kingdom and obtain the maximumnumberof privileges within the sphere of influence that will be assigned to us." Georges-Picot ended by requesting Margerieto pass his letter along to his deputy,Philippe Berthelot.If they both agreedwith his approach,they were to send him official instructionsalong the lines he had spelled out.47 While Georges-Picotwas writing to Margerie,Jean-EtienneGout, head of the Asia and Oceania division at the Quai d'Orsay, was drawingup his own appreciationof the situation. He expressed annoyance at the concept of an Arab kingdom ("this strange proposal") and at the fact that the British, "following their natural bent," wanted the French to "make the biggest sacrifices."Gout neverthelesssaw thatpolitical and militarybenefits could be gained from anArabrising, benefitsthatmightjustify Frenchacceptanceof an Arab state. In his view the easternconfines of a French "greaterSyria" could safely be placed, together with the British-zone provinces of Basra and Baghdad,inside an Arabkingdom-provided thatthis futurestate was a weak federation. In that case Husayn would be the mere nominal overlord of a clutch of local emirs "advised" by French residents, who would be the real powers behind the scene.48 Both Georges-Picot'snegotiating strategy and Gout's scheme for a "federal"Arab kingdom, including indirectFrenchrule in the province of Mosul, were incorporatedinto the new instructions drafted for the French special envoy. These instructionswere sent underBriand'sname but were obviously 47 Georges-Picotto Margerie,handwrittenletter,December 2, 1915, MAE, A-Paix, 1918-25, file 178. Berthelot was one of the most influentialofficials in the Foreign Ministry. He was Margerie's assistant, head of the European division, and the minister's chef de cabinet. For his rise to prominence, see M. B. Hayne, The French Foreign Office and the Origins of the First WorldWar,1898-1914 (Oxford, 1993), pp. 124-26 and 259-60. A week afterhe wrote this letter,Georges-Picotcrossed over to Paris to present Cambon's views on the talks and seek instructions. 48 "In this way we could set up, under a French protectorate,emirs of Damascus, Aleppo, and Mosul, who would divide among themselves the present vilayets of Damascus and Aleppo, plus the southern parts of Ma'muret ul-'Aziz, Diyarbakir, Mosul, and Zor." Handwrittennote by "J. G.," December 2, 1915, MAE, A-Paix, 1918-25, file 178. Ten days later Gout wrote anothermemo naming Husayn as the nominal ruler and his sons as the local princes. Gout's plan was to ensure French dominanceby playing the sons off against the father.See Eldar(n. 37 above), p. 334. Jean-EtienneGout was a careerdiplomat,graduateof the Ecole des LanguesOrientales vivantes, and head of the Foreign Ministry'sAsia and Oceania division since March 1914. (It is really "Gout,"by the way, not "Gout."This diplomatchose to go without a circumflex;Andrew and Kanya-Forstnerare in errorwhen they supply him with one in France Overseas.) This content downloaded from 142.150.190.39 on Fri, 6 Sep 2013 18:48:17 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions France's Middle Eastern Ambitions 713 drawnup on the basis of Gout's analysis, probablyby Berthelot.49The French negotiatingposition was to be as follows: althoughthe Arabkingdom concept prescribed a sort of double sovereignty that was utopian and chimerical, nevertheless "we must avoid annoying the English by stubbornlyadheringto logical principles."Indeed, "it can actually be an advantageto have French control set up on the fringes of our zone in the form of a protectoraterelying on indirectrule throughlocal leaders."As in Gout's draftbriefingpaper,these local princelings, including an "emir of Mosul," were to be managed by French advisers.50 Then, in returnfor accepting the extravagantnotion of an Arab federation under French protection on the borderlands of Syria, Georges-Picotwas to lay out an argumentfor "compensation"-the elements of which he had already developed in his December letter to Margerie:"A lessening of our sovereigntyover inland Syria [i.e., giving up colonial control for indirectrule] should be compensatedby an extension of our protectorate over the Arab lands on its easternborders(Zor and Mosul), with the award of the Kirkukoilfields also representingan element of this compensation."51 In short, French acquiescence to the centerpiece of London's new Middle East policy-a futureArab state for Husayn-was to be purchasedby extending the zone of French control to include Mosul and, specifically, its oil-rich southernportion. Summarizingto this point, it is evident that France'sclaim to the province of Mosul did not originate from a carefully laid plan to gain control of the petroleumresourcesof upperMesopotamia.To the contrary,this claim was an outcome of circumstanceratherthan design. The initial French demand for part of Mosul province arose only afterAnglo-Frenchnegotiationshad been proposedby London.That demandwas at first hardlyassociated with oil; nor was it considered fully attainable. It was only when Paris grasped that Britain'surgentdesire to sponsoran Arabrising had createdan opportunityto put forward furtherterritorialdemands that the French advanced a serious claim to all of Mosul province, including the promisingoil sites near Kirkuk. 49Cambon gave his view of Briand's work habits in a letter to his son on January 20, 1916: "Briand talks a lot and is a charming man, but he doesn't actually do anything except cover himself against attacks from his cabinet colleagues and parliament.He reads neither the dispatches that are sent to him nor those which Berthelotsends out in his name." Paul Cambon,Correspondance,1870-1924 (Paris, 1946), 3:98. 50 It was admittedthat the emirs in Baghdad and Basra would have to have British advisers. 51 Briand to Cambon, "Question de Syrie," December 14, 1915, MAE, A-Paix, 1918-25, file 178 (my emphasis). Many passages from Gout's handwrittendraft reappearalmost verbatimin this memorandum,which was typed on the notepaperof his Asia and Oceania division. Passages from Georges-Picot's December 2 letter to Margerieare also evident. This content downloaded from 142.150.190.39 on Fri, 6 Sep 2013 18:48:17 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 714 Fitzgerald TO FRANCE'SDEMANDFORMOSUL LONDON'SREACTION Fortified with his new instructions, Georges-Picot returnedto London on December 15. His second meeting with the British negotiating team took place six days later, this time with Sir Mark Sykes attending as a representative of the WarOffice.52Faithfulto his tacticalline, Georges-Picotpresented France's acceptance of Arab sovereignty over some part of Syria as a tremendoussacrificethatcried out for compensation.However,as most of this second discussion dealt with Lebanon,the question of the inclusion of Mosul and Kirkukin the French zone was set aside for future sessions.53 It was after this meeting that Sykes approached Georges-Picot with a friendlyproposal.If he could obtainthe requisiteauthorization,Sykes said he would like to hold private talks with the Frenchenvoy in orderto arriveat a set of territorial compromises that could then be put before the whole interdepartmentalcommittee. Nicolson gave Georges-Picothis assent to this arrangement,and after that one-on-one meetings took place at almost daily intervals in the French embassy.54 Unlike Cambon, Georges-Picot found 52 Sykes was a young Tory M.P. who had been honorary consul at the British embassy in Istanbulin 1905-7 and had publishedthree travelbooks on the Near East before the war.Throughconnectionshe got into the WarOffice as a lieutenantcolonel detachedfor political work, and his ascent to policy-advising circles came as a result of his appointmentto the de Bunsen committee, where he representedKitchener's views and played an importantrole in shapingthe final recommendations.A witty and charming man, outgoing and enthusiastic, Sykes was an engaging sort of person to whom people took an immediate liking. His superficialityand penchant for grand, improbableschemes became apparentonly afterlonger acquaintance.The professional Arabistsin Cairo had a poor opinion of his abilities, and they especially resented his pretensions to expertise on Middle Eastern affairs. See Bruce Westrate, The Arab Bureau: British Policy in the Middle East, 1916-1920 (University Park, Pa., 1992), pp. 26-29 and 153; and Kedourie's impressionistic portrayalof Sykes's outlook in Englandand the MiddleEast (n. 26 above), chap. 3. At the time of Georges-Picot'sfirst meeting with Nicolson's committee,Sykes had been in Cairopromotinghis idea for an "IslamicBureau"to coordinateMiddleEasternpolicy andpropaganda.He hadalso met with Muhammadal-Farukito see if Arab nationalistswould be willing to make some kind of compromiseto accommodateFrenchambitionsin Syria. See Kedourie,AngloArab Labyrinth(n. 23 above), p. 58; and Wilson (n. 25 above), pp. 227-30. 53 French-languageminutes of the meeting of December 21, 1915, MAE, A-Paix, 1918-25, file 178. A British summaryof what was decided (reproducedin Tibawi [n. 26 above], pp. 112-13) also notes that "the allocation of the Mosul vilayet" was one of the two points that the negotiatorsspecifically reserved for future discussion. The descriptionof this meeting in Friedman(n. 26 above), pp. 105-6, becomes unintentionally funny once the readeris aware of the negotiating strategemsthe French had decided on. 5 Georges-Picot to Cambon, January3, 1916, MAE, A-Paix, 1918-25, file 178. Accordingto the preface to the memorandumof understandingsigned by the two men on January4, 1916, the initiative for private discussions came from Nicolson, an This content downloaded from 142.150.190.39 on Fri, 6 Sep 2013 18:48:17 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions France's Middle Eastern Ambitions 715 Sykes understandingand easy to deal with, and the two men soon made considerableprogress.55But on the outstandingquestionof the dispositionof Mosul province, Georges-Picotreportedthat he could not obtain full satisfaction: [Uptill now]thequestionof exactlywhatzoneto assignto Franceeastof Zorhadbeen didnot concealthathe was personallydisposed kepton the shelf.Yetmy interlocutor to approachthis issuein a conciliatoryspirit;andhe proposedto leaveus [northern] Mosulby situatingthe frontieron the Big Zab river.But as for the regionaround Kirkuk,Sykesprotestedthatany concessiontherewas out of the question.... This fortheEnglishandtheywouldnot give it up.However, regionwas ... indispensable aftera long discussionhe agreedthatthe limitsof our zone couldbe fixed [farther south]at theLittleZabriver.Inthatwaytheoil depositsat Sharqatwouldfall intoour area as compensationfor droppingour demand [for Kirkuk].56 Sykes's first biographer, Shane Leslie, asserted that "giving Mosul to France"was Sykes's own idea.57This interpretationcalls for two comments. First, quite apartfrom the question of where the idea came from, it is critical to understandthat Sykes's liberalityover Mosul was only partial:Kirkukand the southernhalf of Mosul province were to stay in British hands. Second, "giving Mosul to France" was part of a broader strategy whose premises Sykes may have shared but whose conception was hardly unique to him. Britain abandoned the de Bunsen committee's recommendationto claim Mosul because of a fundamental fact of the "Great Game" in Asia. In 1915-16, as the Frenchdocumentsshow, it was anticipatedthat any partition of the OttomanEmpire would award easternAnatolia to Russia. Given that outcome, the extension of future French control eastwardthroughMosul to the Persianfrontiermade sense to London because the French sphere would constitute a buffer between the future British and Russian zones in the Near East.58This is exactly what Sykes insisted that Georges-Picotaccept: "They interpretationsupportedby Tibawi, p. 113. The account by David French, British Strategy and WarAims, 1914-1916 (London, 1986), p. 147, misleadingly has Sykes being broughtin to "replace"Nicolson. s Cambon had initially regardedSykes as a spokesmanof the colonial hardliners and believed that his presence would complicateratherthan expedite the negotiations. Cambon to Briand, December 22, 1915, MAE, A-Paix, 1918-25, file 178. 56 Georges-Picotto Cambon,January3, 1916, MAE, A-Paix, 1918-25, file 178. At no point in this discussion did Sykes mention oil as a reason for his resolve to keep Kirkukin British hands. S7 Shane Leslie, Mark Sykes: His Life and Letters (London, 1923), pp. 249. According to Marian Kent, Sykes believed the French demand for Mosul stemmed from the lobbying of a Frenchfinancialsyndicatethatwantedto build a railway across Syria to Persia (Oil and Empire [n. 8 above], p. 122). See also Nevakivi (n. 4 above), pp. 22 and 34; and Andrew and Kanya-Forstner(n. 4 above), pp. 94-95. 58 Kitchenerwas committedto getting a territorialarrangementthat would prevent Anglo-Russian collisions, but Kent believes that it was General G. M. Macdonogh, This content downloaded from 142.150.190.39 on Fri, 6 Sep 2013 18:48:17 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 716 Fitzgerald [the British] considered that our presence there was necessary to provide a guaranteeagainst the Russian threat and consequently was the precondition for their abandonmentof Mosul. If we were to renounceit [northernMosul], they would be forced to push on to where they could find a naturalfrontier readily defensible against an invasion from the northand thus incorporatethe territorythatthey had assigned to our zone. This was an absolutecondition of their present offer."59Significantly,this was precisely the reason Berthelot cited to explain why northernMosul was assigned to France: "As for Mosul, it was the Britishin 1916 who pushedus with all theirmight to take it into our zone. At that moment Imperial Russia still existed and they [the British], following a buffer-statepolicy, wantedto position us between themselves and the Russians in order to avoid any friction."60 SECURINGTHE AGREEMENT With the Mosul hurdle overcome, both Georges-Picot and Cambon became convinced that the Frenchhad gotten as good a deal as they were likely to get. Their dispatcheseven show a certainmeasureof surpriseover how much the British had conceded, especially along the Mediterraneancoast. Both saw no reason to put off formal assent; indeed, they saw dangerin delay because the Admiralty and the War Office, furious at Sykes's surrenderof the strategic port of Alexandretta,wanted the agreementrevised.61 Georges-Picothad also directorof militaryintelligence, who decisively pushed this position (Oil and Empire, p. 122). In any case, Sykes could not but have been following WarOffice instructions when he insisted that France take northem Mosul all the way to the Persian frontier. 5 Georges-Picotto Cambon,January3, 1916, MAE, A-Paix, 1918-25, file 178 (my emphasis). Sykes did requirea guaranteethat upstreamwater usage on the Tigris and Euphrateswould not compromise the needs of the regions downstream.The India Office viewed the abandonmentof northemMosul as an importanteconomic sacrifice; nevertheless,it acceptedthis as a way of forestallingunspecifiedFrenchdemandsthat it judged even more excessive. See Marian Kent, "Asiatic Turkey, 1914-1916," in British Foreign Policy under Sir Edward Grey, ed. F. H. Hinsley (Cambridge,1977), p. 449; also her Oil and Empire,p. 123. 60 Berthelot to "Cher ami," March 11, 1920, MAE, ser. E3, Relations commerciales, 1919-1940, B-Petroles, file 49. See also Briandto Cambon,February8, 1916, A-Paix, 1918-25, file 178: "Moreoverit is possible that Russia will be happy to have us as neighbors in this part of Eastem Asia [sic] so as to avoid direct contact with England." It is interesting to recall that Georges-Picot had originally believed that Britaincould be persuadedto give northemMosul to Franceprecisely for this reason. See Andrew and Kanya-Forstner,p. 89, but also n. 41 above. 61 Cambonto MAE, telegram, January5, 1916, MAE, A-Paix, 1918-25, file 178; see also an unsigned memorandum, "Syrie," January 2, 1916. As Georges-Picot pointedout, therewas anotherreasonto act quickly: "The English now seem in a hurry to finish so that they can pursuetheir negotiationswith the Arabs, and nobody knows This content downloaded from 142.150.190.39 on Fri, 6 Sep 2013 18:48:17 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions France's Middle EasternAmbitions 717 informed Cambonthat Whitehall was intent on obtaininga protectorateover Palestine, including the port of Haifa. This was a serious storm cloud, but the Quai d'Orsay chose to emphasize its silver lining: "In exchange England would accept full French sovereignty over the vilayet of Beirut and the inclusion of the Mosul region down to the Little Zab river in the French protectoratezone." Moreover,as this memorandumwent on to point out, "it is worthwhileto note that in the latterregion there are importantoil wells."62 By this time the permanentofficials at the Quai d'Orsaywere readyto agree thatit was time to accept what theirnegotiatorsin Londonhad alreadygained. For our purposes it is their view of what France was going to obtain in the eastern reaches of Syria that matters. From Georges-Picot's remarks about "the oil deposits at Sharqat"(see p. 715 above) and the "importantoil wells" mentioned in the memorandumjust quoted, one could readily draw the conclusion that the Quai d'Orsay believed France had won control of the oil-bearing sites of upper Mesopotamia. But this was not the case, and subsequentdocuments make it clear that both the officials in Paris and their representativesin Londonunderstoodthat this was not the case. For example, in a recapitulationof the territorialdispositions acceptedthus far, the Foreign Ministryacknowledgedthat, in the area to be underthe nominal suzeraintyof Husayn,the French sphere of influence would include "partof Mesopotamia including Mosul, but boundedby the Little Zab river and thereforeexcluding the oil-bearing region of Kirkuk."63And althoughCambongave weight to the fact thatthe Britishhad compromisedon the Mosul region, he pointed out that they had done so only "in reserving for themselves the area richest in oil wells, i.e. Kirkuk;our zone stops at the Little Zab, a small streamwhich flows into the left bank of the Euphrates."64 what surprisestomorrow'sevents might bring."Georges-Picotto Cambon,January3, 1916 (same file). 62 Unsigned memorandum,"Syrie," January2, 1916, MAE, A-Paix, 1918-25, file 178. In The High Wallsof Jerusalem:A History of the Balfour Declaration and the Birth of the British Mandatefor Palestine (New York, 1983), Ronald Sanders states (pp. 307-8) thatSykes "surely"conceded Mosul to Georges-Picotin returnfor French agreement to the "internationalization"of Palestine. Sanders does not supply any proof of his assertion,but documentsin file 178 make clear thatthe Britishdid link the assignmentof Mosul to the Frenchzone with an easing of France'sstandon Palestine. the solution finally adopted,was a discreet way of saying that ("Internationalization," neitherpower could get the other to relinquishits claim to Palestine.) 63 Briand to Cambon, January 5, 1916, MAE, A-Paix, 1918-25, file 178 (my emphasis). 64 "Negociationsfranco-anglaises(Syrie et empire arabe),"undatedbriefingpaper, MAE, A-Paix, 1918-25, file 178. Although the cover sheet is dated December 21, 1915, the contents show that this paper could not have been written before January 1916. This content downloaded from 142.150.190.39 on Fri, 6 Sep 2013 18:48:17 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 718 Fitzgerald Thus there can be no doubt that in January 1916 French diplomats understoodthe exact territoriallimits of the British concession on Mosul and, specifically, the implication of those limits for any future oil development: namely, that a largerportionof promisingoil territorylay south of the French zone. Furthermore,the Quai d'Orsay had no trouble accepting this outcome. Although the Foreign Ministry did ask Cambon and Georges-Picot to try to obtain some last-minutefrontieradjustments,it is highly significantthat none of these desired revisions involved extending the bordersof the French zone to include Kirkuk and its oil sites.65 Surely this is what the Quai d'Orsay would have tried to do if oil had truly been a major French objective. Sykes and Georges-Picotwere now allowed to draw up a draft memorandum of agreement,along with a map illustratingthe borderdelimitations.This they signed on January4, 1916. Georges-Picot then crossed the Channel to discuss the agreement with Prime Minister Briand and President Poincare. Even afterthis Pariswanted some small frontieradjustments,and some bright light there even came up with a brandnew requirement-the compensatory cession of Cyprusto France!66Once this bizarrenotion was disposed of, the Foreign Office circulatedthe Januarymemorandumof agreementto various sister departmentsfor comment. These comments grew into a list of desired 65 Briand to Cambon, January 5, 1916, MAE, A-Paix, 1918-25, file 178. The French were much more interestedin a last-ditcheffort to have Palestine divided into threezones. How little Mosul was valued by supposedlyinformedopinion is illustrated by a resolution adoptedat a meeting of the Societe de Geographieon June 30, 1916. This body had gotten word of the territorialdispositions of the Sykes-Picot accord (doubtless through an intentional leak), and it protested against the separation of Palestine from the future French Syria. It encouraged the government to continue negotiations in order to get Palestine placed in the French zone. What is revealing is the GeographicalSociety's advice on what to tradefor Frenchacquisitionof Palestine: "partof our projectedexpansion into the distant and inaccessible region of Mosul." Societe de Geographie, meeting of June 30, 1916, "Voeu edmis,"in MAE, A-Paix, 1918-25, file 174. 66 Cambon to Briand, January 18, 1916, MAE, A-Paix, 1918-25, file 178. The Frenchdocumentsgive no indicationof who was responsiblefor this harebrainedidea, but it seems that someone in the governmenthad floated it when Georges-Picotwas in Paris to brief the political authoritieson the accord. When he got back to London the French envoy was left in -no doubt that the "Cyprus exchange" was a nonstarter. Significantly,Sykes warned him that various departmentsin Whitehall were growing daily more opposed to the terms of their agreementand that a wrangle about Cyprus would sink the whole deal. Cambon reportedthat his confidential sources confirmed this warning and noted that the opposition included the India Office, "which was puttingforwardIndia's need for Mosul as a strategicfrontier."Cambonrecommended thatthe Cyprusissue be dropped,and he convinced Paris to be satisfiedwith London's promise that France could have a right of first refusal if ever the British decided to leave that island. See Cambon to Briand, January20, 1916, same file. This content downloaded from 142.150.190.39 on Fri, 6 Sep 2013 18:48:17 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions France's Middle Eastern Ambitions 719 revisions, and this delayed a final accord. More informaltalks were required, including a visit by Georges-Picotto the WarOffice to deal with Kitchener's objectionto the placementof the frontierbetween Syria and Palestine andhow it might hinder constructionof a futurerailway between Haifa and Baghdad. The Nicolson committee finally accepted the terms of the memorandumof agreementon February4, albeit with the proviso "that everything remained conditional on effective help from the Arabs and agreement from the Russians."67 But once Petrograd assented, London, at least, would be preparedto sign the accord.68As for the French, Georges-Picot returnedto Paris on February 8 to defend the deal, but the government apparently approvedthe agreementeven before he arrived.69 How FRANCE'SCLAIMTO MosuL WAS FURTHERQUALIFIED Georges-Picot and Sykes now proceeded to Petrograd,where on March 10 they submittedan aide-memoireexplaining the agreementthey had reached. The Russian government insisted on some modifications of the proposed frontier(the mountainpasses aroundBitlis and Urmia Lake were to be under Russian control),but otherwise acceptedthe accord as it stood.70This cleared the way for final ratification.After Georges-Picot returnedfrom Petrograd, Cambon wrote to the Foreign Office to request that an exchange of formal letters of ratification not be put off. A string of procrastinatingresponses convinced him that oppositionto the agreementremainedstrongin Whitehall, 67 Cambonto Briand,February5, 1916, MAE, A-Paix, 1918-25, file 178. After this final meeting Nicolson made a point of reiteratingto Georges-Picothow surprisedthe British had been by the extent of the French demands:only London's desire to reach a compromisehad led them to accept the memorandumof agreementas it stood. 68 Cambon to Briand, February 5, 1916, MAE, A-Paix, 1918-25, file 178. Interestingly,the territorialboundariesof the five zones called for in the accord were delimitedon the accompanyingmap and not spelled out in the memorandumitself. The only specific mention of Mosul came in Article 6(A), which stated that the Baghdad railway would not be extended to the south beyond Mosul without the agreementof both govemments. "Memorandumapprouvepar le Cabinetanglais" (undated),sent to Briandwith Cambon'sdispatchof February5, 1916 (same file). In the discussion that subsequently took place in Petrograd,it was emphasized that this article had been included "from a desire to prevent the completion of Germany'sBaghdad railway." "Aide-memoire,"Petrograd,March 10, 1916, MAE, A-Paix, 1918-25, file 179. 69 MAE to Cambon,February8, 1916, MAE, A-Paix, 1918-25, file 178. 70 With the proviso, of course, that Russia would obtain control of Istanbuland the Straits.See "Aide-memoire,"Petrograd,March4/17, 1916; Count Sergei Sazanov to MauricePaleologue,April 13/26, 1916, where the easternareasof the Frenchzone are called "Arabie"; Paleologue to Sazanov, April 13/26, 1916; Paleologue to Briand, April 26, 1916; all in MAE, A-Paix, 1918-25, file 179. This content downloaded from 142.150.190.39 on Fri, 6 Sep 2013 18:48:17 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 720 Fitzgerald where "a tendentious campaign was being carried out by those who keep saying that this accord will never become a reality and who openly wish for its failure."7' For that reason Cambon decided to force the issue by tackling the remainingBritish concerns head on. On May 9 he sent Grey a complete restatement of the terms of the memorandum signed on January 4 and subsequentlyapprovedin Petrograd,along with a covering letterproposingto supply assurancesabout the British schools, hospitals, and business concessions thatfell into the Frenchzone.72Grey's reply asked for an explict French pledge that "any existing British concessions, rights of navigation or development, . . . will be maintained"in those areas.73Cambonimmediately responded "that the French Governmentis ready to approve various British concessions definitelyconcludedbefore the outbreakof the war in the regions assigned to France or to French administration."74Satisfied with this guarantee,Grey forwardedofficial Britishapprovalon following day, May 16, along with a restatementof the entire accord.Acceptance was conditional on these French assurances,as well as on "the cooperationof the Arabs."75 71 "The objections put forwardby various departmentsand the delays with which they greeted my repeatedefforts demonstratedthat the enemies of the accord had not given up.... On the one hand they cited the need to reach a prior agreementon the futureof Britishmissions, schools, and hospitalslocated in the regions we will receive. Then they expressed concern over the concessions awardedto British subjects there, and about how parliamentwould make a fuss about the uncertaintyof their future status." Cambon to Briand, May 17, 1916, MAE, A-Paix, 1918-25, file 174. 72 Cambon to Grey, May 9, 1916, MAE, A-Paix, 1918-25, file 174. 73 Grey to Cambon,May 15, 1916, MAE, A-Paix, 1918-25, file 174. Grey was of course ready to extend a reciprocalguaranteeof existing Frenchinterestsin the future British zone. According to Clemenceau'sclose collaborator,Andre Tardieu,the three British firms which held 75 percent of the share capital of Turkish Petroleum Company-National Bank of Turkey,Anglo-PersianOil Company,and Anglo-Saxon Oil Company(a subsidiaryof Royal Dutch/Shell)-had vigorously lobbied the Foreign Office for a guaranteeof existing concessions. See his article, "Mossoul et le pdtrole," in L'Illustration(June 19, 1920), p. 380. Kent, whose Oil and Empire (n. 8 above) is generally well informed about such corporate pressures, does not inquire into the origins of Grey's request for the guarantee(see p. 124). 74 Grey to Cambon, May 15, 1916, MAE, A-Paix, 1918-25, file 174 (also in file 179). Someone at the Foreign Ministry criticized Cambon's formula on the grounds that he should have specified whether the phrase "ayant date certaine anterieurea la guerre"meant before August 4, the beginning of the general war in Europe,or before November 1914, the time of Turkey'sentry into the war. Unsigned handwrittennote, May 25, 1916, in file 174. 75 Grey to Cambon, May 16, 1916, MAE, A-Paix, 1918-25, file 174 (copy in file 179): His Majesty's Government"[is] ready to accept the arrangementnow arrivedat, provided that the cooperation of the Arabs is secured, and that the Arabs fulfill the condition and obtain the towns of Homs, Hama, Damascus and Aleppo." This content downloaded from 142.150.190.39 on Fri, 6 Sep 2013 18:48:17 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions France's Middle Eastern Ambitions 721 The Foreign Office regardedthe Sykes-Picot accord without enthusiasm.76 Grey's eventual recognition of the bilateral agreementbegan by noting that "the acceptance of the whole project, as it now stands, will involve the abdicationof considerableBritish interests,"77and Cambon felt he had had quite a difficulttime bringingthe Britishto the point where they would accept the accord at all. But accept it they did, no doubt because they expected it would be without consequences. Indeed, it is paradoxicalthat Grey, who had originallypressed for a bilateralagreementon partition,now believed thatthe whole business of "Arab cooperation"(and the futureArab state that would emerge from it) was "a castle in the air which would never materialize."78As for Britain's "loss" of Mosul, the foreign secretaryand his officials found that particularpill easier to swallow because they were convinced nothing would ever come of these hypothetical territorialarrangements.How wrong they were!79 CONCLUSION The argumentsand evidence put forwardin this article point toward a set of conclusions that can be grouped under three headings. 76 Nevakivi (n. 4 above) believes that the Foreign Office viewed the accord as the unfortunateprice London had to pay in orderto get Frenchconsent for furtherBritish militaryoperationsin the Levant after the Gallipoli debacle (p. 38). Ratificationof the Sykes-Picot accord did not silence the opposition in Whitehall. A campaign for revision gathered strength as British forces reversed the military situation on the ground in Palestine and Mesopotamia,and Lord Curzon's strong voice called for the reopening of "that wretched Agreement." By the fall of 1918 many signals had indicatedto ParisthatLondonregardedthe accordas a dead letter.See Nevakivi, chap. 3; Darwin (n. 8 above), pp. 153-54; and Erik Goldstein, "BritishPeace Aims and the Eastem Question:The Political Intelligence Departmentand the Eastem Committee, 1918," Middle Eastern Studies 23, no. 4 (October 1987): 421-24. 77 Grey to Cambon,May 16, 1916, MAE, A-Paix, 1918-25, file 174. 78 Grey's words to Austen Chamberlain,then secretaryof state for India, as cited in Dockrill and Goold (n. 4 above), p. 136. 79 See Kent, "Asiatic Turkey" (n. 59 above), p. 450. British military forces occupied the town of Mosul and its northem approachesin the final days of the war, therebygiving Britainpossession on the groundduringthe peace conference.Although all of Mosul province was includedin the League of Nations' mandateof Iraq,the new Turkish Republic vigorously advanced an irredentistclaim to the area, so London became embroiledin a diplomaticwranglewith Ankara.In December 1925 the League Council approvedan arbitrationawardthat confirmedIraq'spossession of Mosul. See Peter J. Beck, " 'A Tedious and Perilous Controversy':Britain and the Settlementof the Mosul Dispute, 1918-1926," Middle Eastern Studies 17, no. 2 (April 1981): 256-76. This content downloaded from 142.150.190.39 on Fri, 6 Sep 2013 18:48:17 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 722 Fitzgerald The Quai d'Orsay's initial The origins of the French claim to Mosul. approachto the partitionof the OttomanEmpiredid not call for Frenchcontrol of Mosul, thoughit did envision thatthe borderbetween the futureFrenchand British zones in Asiatic Turkeywould lie somewhere in northernMesopotamia. It was London's invitation to undertakeformal talks on partition that caused Paris to redefine its territorialaims and advance a claim for the province of Mosul. The Foreign Office had sought these talks because it wantedFrenchassent to a futureArab state for Husayn.The French,although hardly keen on Grey's "Arab kingdom," grasped that acquiescence would provide an opening to extend their territorialdemands as "compensation." This realizationwas the true origin of France's demand for Mosul. After the war the The importance of the oil factor for the French. French governmentdevoted considerable attentionto the question of Mesopotamianoil, a fact that leads us to expect that the oil reserves of Mosul had been an importantobject of wartime diplomacy.Yet the evidence shows that on the eve of the Sykes-Picot talks Paris gave no special attentionto the oil potential of the Mosul region, which was alluded to only in a general phrase about "the Kirkukmining basin" (which, in any event, the French did not expect they could obtain). This was so despite the fact that the Quai d'Orsay possessed at least three detailed reports contending that the Mosul region might be of considerablefuture worth as oil-bearing territory. The "oil factor" came to play a minor role only after Paris understoodthat London's perceived need for Arab supportallowed the French to up the ante in the partition stakes. The new instructions given to Georges-Picot in mid-December1915 reflectedthis, with theircall for an eastwardextension of the areato be placed undera Frenchprotectorateas compensationfor agreeing to nominal Arab sovereignty over inland Syria. French possession of the Kirkuk oil sites was to be part of this compensation. But the Foreign Ministry'sfiles show that even at this stage the petroleumpotentialof Mosul figuredmore as an illustrationof the area's interest than as a cardinalobject of policy. In short,duringthe war Frenchdiplomacy was not strainingevery nerve to obtain Mosul on account of its oil. Indeed, throughoutthe Sykes-Picot talks there is no evidence that the Quai d'Orsay made any use at all of the detailed information we know it possessed on the area's petroleum potential. This negligence is not easy to understand.It is truethatthe oil riches of Mosul were anticipated,not proven;it is also true that the strategicsignificanceof oil was more apparentat the close of the war than it was in 1915-16. Yet even when these qualifications are borne in mind, this relative disregard for the "oil factor" remains an awkward testimonial to the limitations of the Foreign Ministry's outlook. This content downloaded from 142.150.190.39 on Fri, 6 Sep 2013 18:48:17 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions France's Middle Eastern Ambitions 723 Three reasons were London'sacceptance of France's claim to Mosul. involved here. First, Sykes was ready to agree because a "French Mosul" dovetailed nicely with the traditionalaim of maintaininga buffer separating areas of British and Russian influence in Asia. Second, contrary to what almost all historiansof wartime diplomacy have written, the French did not really "get Mosul" in the Sykes-Picot agreement.The province was in fact partitionedat the Little Zab river;this meantthatthe known oil-bearingregion to the south (the "Kirkukoilfields" referredto in Georges-Picot'sinstructions) was excluded from the Frenchzone-an exclusion thatthe Frenchnegotiators clearly understood.Third, London insisted that the agreementinclude reciprocal guarantees of existing business interests in the territorybeing partitioned. This meant that the Turkish Petroleum Company-the Britishcontrolledfirmthatclaimed to hold a monopoly concession from the Ottoman governmentfor Mosul and Baghdad provinces-now enjoyed French diplomatic recognition of its legal rights even in the part of Mosul allocated to futureFrench administration.80 In summary,it is inaccurateto say that the Sykes-Picot accord gave France possession of a hard-woneconomic asset, "les petroles de Mossoul," which Clemenceau nonchalantlygave away in 1918. Although Sykes-Picot had secureda Frenchdiplomaticclaim to Mosul, the areaBritainconcededcomprised only the northernportionof the province,not the whole vilayet. Thatnorthern portion included some of the areas where the presence of surface deposits indicatedpotentialundergroundreserves, notablyAl-Qayyarah,Ash-Sharqat, and Hammamal-'Alil.81 But the portionof Mosul province slated for British control contained even more sites of this kind-for example, Tikrit, Tuz Furthermore,the accord's Khurmatu,Kifri, Sulaymaniyah,andJabalGurgur.82 provision for reciprocal guaranteesof existing concessions meant that Paris would find it almost impossible to challenge Turkish Petroleum's right to develop oil reserves everywherein Mosul province. In short, whatever the two prime ministers actually said to each other in London on that December afternoon,what Clemenceau gave up was a great 80 For the complex question of Turkish Petroleum's prewar concession and its slender legal basis, see Kent, Oil and Empire,pp. 103-12. 81 Ash-Sharqatwas the only place the French seem to have specifically mentioned during the negotiations. 82 All of these were among the places mentioned by Tassartin 1908. Although it does not bearon the questionof Frenchperceptionsin 1915-16, geological luck would have favored the British even if the Sykes-Picot partitionof Mosul province had been maintainedafter 1918. The main postwar discovery came in the Jabal Gurgurfield to the south of Kirkuk,and the only field of significancein the erstwhile "Frenchzone" turnedout to be near Qayyarah. This content downloaded from 142.150.190.39 on Fri, 6 Sep 2013 18:48:17 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 724 Fitzgerald deal less than French ownershipof Mosul's oil fields. It was, at best, a claim to about half of a promisingregion whose oil reserves, if actually discovered and successfully developed, were going to be worked by a British firm even if the producing fields fell within the French zone. Thus France's future political and economic rights in northern Mesopotamia were really quite circumscribed.This fundamentalfact cannotbe emphasizedtoo stronglyif we wish to understandthe logic of the "Mosul cession." It is not, however, the whole story.The limited natureof France'sclaim in Mosul needs to be linked to the broaderpolicy context then being created in France by the "cooperationist"views of Clemenceau's influentialtrade and industryminister,EtienneClementel.Since 1916 Clementelhad been pressing for the extension into the postwar period of inter-Allied controls over raw materials.83Strong American opposition to any scheme involving administered marketsmeant that his ideas would not prevail at the peace conference. But for our purposes we need to rememberthe authorityClementel's views enjoyed in Paris during the last months of 1918. Indeed, by the end of SeptemberClemenceauhad endorsedClementel's plan for creating a permanent inter-Allied economic bloc built around preferential tariffs and joint controlover raw materials.This scheme was intendedto be the cornerstoneof France's foreign economic policy after the war.84 Both the limited natureof France'sclaim to Mosul and the endorsementof Clementel's cooperationistpolicies worked to convince Clemenceau's petroleum adviser,SenatorHenry Berenger,thatthe realistic route to a nationaloil policy had to pass throughLondon and The Hague: London, where Berenger hoped that the government could be persuaded to set up an Anglo-French petroleum partnershipin Rumania, Persia, and the Middle East; and The Hague, where Berenger knew that the ambitious Henri Deterding was more than ready to have Royal Dutch/Shell provide France with the production expertise its small domestic companies so conspicuously lacked. These two postulates shaped Berenger's public statementsin London after an important 83 For Clementel's approachto postwar economic planning and the central place that administered markets for raw materials occupied in his scheme, see Marc Trachtenberg," 'A New Economic Order':Etienne Ciementel and French Economic Diplomacy during the First World War," French Historical Studies 10, no. 2 (Fall 1977): 315-41, esp. 319-20, as well as his Reparationin WorldPolitics: France and European Economic Diplomacy, 1916-1923 (New York, 1980), pp. 1-10. See also Richard F. Kuisel, Capitalism and the State in Modem France (Cambridge, 1981), pp. 43-47; and Dan P. Silverman, Reconstructing Europe after the Great War (Cambridge,Mass., 1982), p. 17. 84 Trachtenberg,"Clementel and French Economic Diplomacy," pp. 329-31. This content downloaded from 142.150.190.39 on Fri, 6 Sep 2013 18:48:17 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions France's Middle Eastern Ambitions 725 roundof inter-Alliedoil negotiationsduringNovember.85Assuredly they also figuredin the private conversationsBerengerhad with Clemenceauwhen he got back to Paris. Two weeks later the Frenchprime ministermet with Lloyd George and "gave away" Mosul. Truthto tell, there was less for him to give away than historians have traditionallythought. French oil firms possessed neither the technical capacity nor the marketingchannels needed to exploit Mosul's oil fields on their own, and in any case the terms of the Sykes-Picot accord had foreclosed on their legal right to do so. As things turned out, Berenger's vision of an Anglo-French petroleum partnershipwas realized only in Iraq, where France became Britain'sjunior associate in the developmentof the Kirkukfield. Although that denouement lay several years in the future,the point to underlinehere is that Berenger's oil strategy had already ceased to be based on the principle of territorial possession by the end of 1918. That fact also forms part of the historical context within which the puzzle of the "Mosul cession" finds a logical explanation. 85 Henry Berenger was in Britain from November 16 to 23 for the Inter-Allied PetroleumConferencethatwas convened a fortnightbefore Clemenceau'sofficial visit to London. He held several talks, particularly with Walter Long, dealing with "questionsrelatingto our oil policy and to such agreementsas it might be possible to make, notably with the British Government,concerningjoint exploitationof various oilfields." Berenger to Pichon, "Note no. 2 sur la politique franqaisedu petrole et la paix," MAE, E-Levant, 1918-40, Irak, vol. 32 (my emphasis). Berenger's florid speech at the closing banquetpraisedAllied economic collaborationand called for its extension into the postwarperiodin the form of cooperativecontrolover raw materials. He linked this goal to the League of Nations ideal-an astute maneuverto drape a Wilsoniancloth over Clementel'spolicy. See his book, Le petrole et la France (Paris, 1920), p. 179. This content downloaded from 142.150.190.39 on Fri, 6 Sep 2013 18:48:17 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions