হুসাইন-ম্যাকমাহন_চুক্তি
লীগ অব নেশনসের মেন্ডেট
যুক্তরাষ্ট্রের সেক্রেটারি অব স্টেট রবার্ট লেনসিং ১৯১৯ সালে প্যারিসে শান্তি আলোচনার জন্য আমেরিকান কমিশনের সদস্য ছিলেন। তার ভাষ্যমতে, মেন্ডেট প্রক্রিয়া ছিল আন্তর্জাতিক আইনের বাহানায় যুদ্ধের অর্জিত অঞ্চলগুলো ভাগকে ঢাকার জন্য বৃহৎ শক্তিগুলোর উপায়। অঞ্চলগুলো সরাসরি সমর্পণ করলে প্রাক্তন জার্মান ও উসমানীয় অঞ্চলগুলোর জন্য ক্ষতিপূরণ প্রযোজ্য হবে। তিনি এও বলেন যে জেন স্মাটস ছিলেন মূল ধারণার লেখক। [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/10444 Project Gutenberg: The Peace Negotiations by Robert Lansing, Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company. 1921, Chapter XIII 'THE SYSTEM OF MANDATES']"If the advocates of the system intended to avoid through its operation the appearance of taking enemy territory as the spoils of war, it was a subterfuge which deceived no one. It seemed obvious from the very first that the Powers, which under the old practice would have obtained sovereignty over certain conquered territories, would not be denied mandates over those territories. The League of Nations might reserve in the mandate a right of supervision of administration and even of revocation of authority, but that right would be nominal and of little, if any, real value provided the mandatory was one of the Great Powers as it undoubtedly would be. The almost irresistible conclusion is that the protagonists of the theory saw in it a means of clothing the League of Nations with an apparent usefulness which justified the League by making it the guardian of uncivilized and semi-civilized peoples and the international agent to watch over and prevent any deviation from the principle of equality in the commercial and industrial development of the mandated territories.""It may appear surprising that the Great Powers so readily gave their support to the new method of obtaining an apparently limited control over the conquered territories, and did not seek to obtain complete sovereignty over them. It is not necessary to look far for a sufficient and very practical reason. If the colonial possessions of Germany had, under the old practice, been divided among the victorious Powers and been ceded to them directly in full sovereignty, Germany might justly have asked that the value of such territorial cessions be applied on any war indemnities to which the Powers were entitled. On the other hand, the League of Nations in the distribution of mandates would presumably do so in the interests of the inhabitants of the colonies and the mandates would be accepted by the Powers as a duty and not to obtain new possessions. Thus under the mandatory system Germany lost her territorial assets, which might have greatly reduced her financial debt to the Allies, while the latter obtained the German colonial possessions without the loss of any of their claims for indemnity. In actual operation the apparent altruism of the mandatory system worked in favor of the selfish and material interests of the Powers which accepted the mandates. And the same may be said of the dismemberment of Turkey. It should not be a matter of surprise, therefore, that the President found little opposition to the adoption of his theory, or, to be more accurate, of the Smuts theory, on the part of the European statesmen."