page_title: Sykes–Picot Agreement
section_title: After public disclosure (1917–18)
hierarchical_section_title: Sykes–Picot Agreement / The Agreement in practice / Syria, Palestine and the Arabs / After public disclosure (1917–18)
caption_attribution_description: English: Excerpt from the Manchester Guardian, Monday, November 26, 1917, p5. Copyright has expired. This was the first English-language reference to what became known as the Sykes Picot Agreement
context_page_description: The Sykes–Picot Agreement was a 1916 secret treaty between the United Kingdom and France, with assent from the Russian Empire and Italy, to define their mutually agreed spheres of influence and control in an eventual partition of the Ottoman Empire. The agreement was based on the premise that the Triple Entente would succeed in defeating the Ottoman Empire during World War I and formed part of a series of secret agreements contemplating its partition. The primary negotiations leading to the agreement occurred between 23 November 1915 and 3 January 1916, on which date the British and French diplomats, Mark Sykes and François Georges-Picot, initialled an agreed memorandum. The agreement was ratified by their respective governments on 9 and 16 May 1916.
  The agreement effectively divided the Ottoman provinces outside the Arabian Peninsula into areas of British and French control and influence. The British- and French-controlled countries were divided by the Sykes–Picot line.
context_section_description: Russian claims in the Ottoman Empire were denied following the Bolshevik Revolution and the Bolsheviks released a copy of the Sykes–Picot Agreement (as well as other treaties). They revealed full texts in Izvestia and Pravda on 23 November 1917; subsequently, The Manchester Guardian printed the texts on November 26, 1917. This caused great embarrassment between the allies and growing distrust between them and the Arabs. The Zionists had previously confirmed the details of the Agreement with the British government, earlier in April.U.S. President Woodrow Wilson had rejected all secret agreements made between the Allies and promoted open diplomacy as well as ideas about self-determination. On 22 November 1917, Leon Trotsky, addressed a note to the ambassadors at Petrograd "containing proposals for a truce and a democratic peace without annexation and without indemnities, based on the principle of the independence of nations, and of their right to determine the nature of their own development themselves". Peace negotiations with the Quadruple Alliance—Germany, Austria–Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey—started at Brest–Litovsk one month later. On behalf of the Quadruple Alliance, Count Czernin, replied on 25 December that the "question of State allegiance of national groups which possess no State independence" should be solved by "every State with its peoples independently in a constitutional manner", and that "the right of minorities forms an essential component part of the constitutional right of peoples to self-determination".
  In his turn, Lloyd George delivered a speech on war aims on 5 January, including references to the right of self-determination and "consent of the governed" as well as to secret treaties and the changed circumstances regarding them. Three days later, Wilson weighed in with his Fourteen Points, the twelfth being that "the Turkish portions of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development".
  On December 23, 1917, Sykes (who had been sent to France in mid-December to see what was happening with the Projet d'Arrangement) and a representative of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs had delivered public addresses to the Central Syrian Congress in Paris on the non-Turkish elements of the Ottoman Empire, including liberated Jerusalem. Sykes had stated that the accomplished fact of the independence of the Hejaz rendered it almost impossible that an effective and real autonomy should be refused to Syria. However, the minutes also record that the Syrian Arabs in Egypt were not happy with developments and absent a clearer, less ambiguous statement in regard to the future of Syria and Mesopotamia then the Allies as well as the King of the Hedjaz would lose much Arab support.
  Sykes was the author of the Hogarth Message a secret January 1918 message to Hussein following his request for an explanation of the Balfour Declaration and the Bassett Letter was a letter (also secret) dated 8 February 1918 from the British Government to Hussein following his request for an explanation of the Sykes–Picot Agreement.
  The failure of the Projet d'Arrangement reflected poorly on Sykes and following on from the doubts about his explanations of Sykes-Picot to Hussein the previous year, weakened his credibility on Middle Eastern affairs throughout 1918. Still (at his own request, now Acting Adviser on Arabian and Palestine Affairs at the Foreign Office) he continued his criticism of Sykes-Picot, minuting on 16 February that "the Anglo–French Agreement of 1916 in regard to Asia Minor should come up for reconsideration" and then on 3 March, writing to Clayton, "the stipulations in regard to the red and blue areas can only be regarded as quite contrary to the spirit of every ministerial speech that has been made for the last three months".
  On 28 March 1918 the first meeting of the newly formed Eastern Committee was held, chaired by Curzon.
  In May
caption: Excerpt from The Manchester Guardian, Monday, November 26, 1917. This was the first English-language reference to what became known as the Sykes Picot Agreement.
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