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or Kurdish territories in the northeast. What was left out of the calculation in Paris, among other things, was the inability of the powers to enforce their will. Henry Wilson, chief of the British Imperial General Staff, thought the politicians completely unrealistic: “They seem to think that their writ runs in Turkey in Asia. We have never, even after the armistice, attempted to get into the background parts.” Also overlooked were the Turks themselves. Almost everyone in Paris assumed that they would simply do as they were told. When Edwin Montagu, the British secretary of state for India, cried, “Let us not for Heaven’s sake, tell the Moslem what he ought to think, let us recognize what they do think,” Balfour replied with chilling detachment, “I am quite unable to see why Heaven or any other Power should object to our telling the Moslem what he ought to think.” That went for the Arab subjects of the Ottoman empire as well.33

27

Arab Independence

ONE DAY DURING the Peace Conference, Arnold Toynbee, an adviser to the British delegation, had to deliver some papers to the prime minister. “Lloyd George, to my delight, had forgotten my presence and had begun to think aloud. ‘Mesopotamia . . . yes . . . oil . . . irrigation . . . we must have Mesopotamia; Palestine . . . yes . . . the Holy Land . . . Zionism . . . we must have Palestine; Syria . . . h’m . . . what is there in Syria? Let the French have that.’ ”1 Thus the lineaments of the peace settlement in the Middle East were exposed: Britain seizing its chance; the need to throw something to the French; a homeland for the Jews; oil; and the calm assumption that the peacemakers could dispose of the former Ottoman territories to suit themselves. For the Arab Middle East, the peace settlements were the old nineteenth-century imperialism again. Britain and France got away with it—temporarily—because the United States did not choose to involve itself and because Arab nationalism was not yet strong enough to challenge them.

At their meeting in London in December 1918, just before Wilson arrived in Europe, Lloyd George and Clemenceau found time to agree on a division of the Ottoman empire’s vast Arab territories, stretching from Mesopotamia on the borders of the Persian empire to the Mediterranean. Both men were still buoyed up by their victory over Germany and by the novel but apparently warm friendship between their two nations. Clemenceau was delighted at his reception as the London crowds went mad, cheering, whistling and throwing hats and walking sticks into the air. “Really,” said Mordacq, Clemenceau’s aide, “among such a phlegmatic and cold people, that spoke volumes.” The conversation on the Middle East was short and good-humored. “Well,” said Clemenceau, “what are we to discuss?” Lloyd George replied, “Mesopotamia and Palestine.” Clemenceau: “Tell me what you want.” Lloyd George: “I want Mosul.” Clemenceau: “You shall have it. Anything else?” Lloyd George: “Yes I want Jerusalem too.” Clemenceau: “You shall have it but Pichon will make difficulties about Mosul.”2 (Mosul was about to become important because of oil.)

Lloyd George apparently gave Clemenceau promises in return: that Britain would support France, even against the Americans, in its demand for control over the Lebanese coast and the interior of Syria, and that France would have a share of whatever oil turned up in Mosul. Clemenceau was so generous, the French later claimed, because Lloyd George had also assured him that he could count on British support for his demands in Europe, particularly along the Rhine. Lloyd George does not mention that part of the deal in his memoirs. Were the French wrong or the British being perfidious (again)? Unfortunately there was no official record of the conversation. It was an ill-omened start for an issue that was to poison French-British relations during the Peace Conference and for many years after.3

What came to be called the Syrian Question (although it really related to all the Ottoman Arab territories) need not have done so much damage. Britain and France