Sykes–Picot Agreement

The Sykes-Picot Agreement /'saIks pi'koU/, officially known as the Asia Minor Agreement, was a secret agreement concluded between the United Kingdom and France in 1916. The main aim of the British and French was to agree on who should get which sphere of influence in Ottoman territories in Southwest Asia. In this way, they wanted to limit competition between each other after the First World War and secure strategically important territories for themselves. The line separating their respective zones of influence was called the Sykes-Picot line. The Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Italy consented to the agreement, receiving a territorial advantage in return. The agreement was named after the two diplomats who negotiated it: the British diplomat Mark Sykes and the French diplomat Francois Georges-Picot. They negotiated for five weeks, from the 23rd of November 1915 to the 3rd of January 1916, before agreeing on a memorandum. The agreement itself was concluded on the 9th and 16th of May 1916, when the British and French governments accepted and signed (ratified) the memorandum.
When the Russian revolutionaries made the agreement public in 1917 after the Bolshevik Revolution, which caused embarassment among the British and French and growing distrust among the Arabs. More than hundred years later, this agreement is still mentioned in the current conflicts and disputes in the respective regions of the Middle East.
Historical context
The Ottoman Empire, under the lead of the CUP, entered the war in autumn 1914 on the side of the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and initially also Italy) and was therefore opposed to the Triple Entente (United Kingdom, France and the Russian Empire). The Sykes-Picot Agreement was concluded with the British and French expecting victory against the Central Powers and thus the demise of the Ottoman Empire.
British and French interests in the Middle East
As scholars have argued, the Sykes-Picot agreement was signed with the aim to further the colonial and strategic interests of the British and French in the region and settle their rivalry, rather than to create viable states after the war.
The main interest of the British was to secure their access to the Mediterranean Sea and thus the route to India, as well as access to the Iraqi oil fields. At the beginning of the twentieth century, oil replaced coal as the most important resource, being the lighter raw material. This lead to an increasing dependence on oil that was inaccessible on British soil.
The French were interested in securing access to the Mediterranean through the port of Tyre in Lebanon as well as getting their longstanding claims to Mount Lebanon and Damascus validated.
Russian and Italian agreement
For the Sykes-Picot agreement to pass, Britain and France needed to satisfy the Russians. In exchange for the Russian Empire's approval of the treaty, the Russian Foreign minister Serkey Saznov and the French ambassador Maurice Paleologue concluded the Saznov-Paleologue Agreement in May 1916. They mutually agreed that the Russian Empire would get Western Armenia in addition to the already earlier attributed Constantinople and the Turkish Straits. The Kingdom of Italy also knew about the agreement and was convinced by being promised Southern Anatolia in the St-Jean-de-Maurienne agreement in 1917.
The Saznov-Paleologue agreement, the St-Jean-de-Maurienne agreement, the Balfour Declaration (between the British and the Zionists) and the Sykes-Picot agreement (with a handful of others concerning the expected partition of the Ottoman Empire) are often referred to as "The Secret Treaties".
The Hussein-McMahon correspondence
Prior to starting negotiations with the French, the British had already discussed the future of Greater Syria with Sharif Hussein, the Emir of Mecca, in 1915. In what is known as the Hussein-McMahon correspondence, the British promised the Arabs an independent state in the area of Greater Syria. In return, Sharif Hussein would incite an Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire.
Regional division
Geographically, the agreement primarily focused on the provinces outside of the Arabian Peninsula. A line separated a zone A (under indirect French rule) from a zone B (under indirect British rule). Zone A included the major inland cities of Syria as well as the Iraqi city of Mosul, zone B stretched from Iraq to the Sinai borders of Egypt. A blue zone along the Eastern Mediterranean coastline (and parts of what is today Turkey) was supposed to be placed under direct French rule. The United Kingdom was supposed to have direct control over the Iraqi provinces of Basra and Baghdad (the red zone), as well as parts of what is Israel today, ensuring British access to the Mediterranean Sea. Palestine was supposed to be placed under international administration.
The Arab state that McMahon had promised to Sharif Hussein was now supposed to be under indirect British and French control. This has led historians to call the Sykes-Picot agreement "a startling piece of double-dealing" by the British and an "outrageous example of imperial perfidy".
Conflicting promises and consequences
Following the October Revolution of 1917, the Russian revolutionaries (Bolsheviks) released a series of secret documents. Among these publications was the Sykes-Picot Agreement. The publication of the Sykes-Picot agreement made visible the conflicting promises the British had made concerning the Ottoman territory to the French, Sharif Hussein and the Arabs and the Zionists (in the Balfour Declaration).
The Sykes-Picot line after the War
The agreement is often accused of having "drawn lines in the sand", i.e. artificially dividing the Middle East without regard to ethnic or cultural factors. In fact the agreement was never (fully) implemented. It was in the San Remo Conference (1920) and Treaty of Lausanne (1923) that the lines were definitely drawn and decided who was going to govern (directly and indirectly) which parts of the partitioned Ottoman Empire, with Turkey wanting to rule areas that the French had initially hoped to govern. Although the agreement was indeed not implemented in its original form, the British and French were able to secure strategically important lands. The Arabs on the other hand did not see the establishment of an independent Arab kingdom as promised and felt betrayed.
Modern politics
The year 2016 marked the 100th anniversary of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which was heavily debated given its frequent mention by ISIS (ISIS released a video entitled "The End of Sykes-Picot" in 2014). ISIS claimed that in order to create a unified Islamic State, it intended to reverse the effects of the Sykes-Picot Agreement.
Related pages
Balfour Declaration 1917
Treaty of Lausanne, July 1923
References
1916 in France
1910s in the United Kingdom
1910s treaties
1910s in the Ottoman Empire
World War I
Imperialism
Treaties of France
Treaties of the United Kingdom