February 12, 1919

The postponed meeting which took place one day later was not only interesting because of the confrontation of the Arab sheiks with their former champions, of short memories, but because it gave us an opportunity to fathom Mr. Balfour’s extremely shallow knowledge of at least one of the secret treaties which has so frequently figured in international discussions and even in the debates of our own Senate.

Through Colonel Lawrence, Emir Faisal, in language that was but thinly veiled if it can be said it was veiled at all, pointed out the duplicity with which the Arab world had been treated by the Great Powers. He read the original agreements between King Hussein, Lord Kitchener, and General McMahon that brought the Arabs into the war. He dwelt with emphasis on the promises His Majesty’s Government had made to the Syrian Covenanters on June 11, 1918.

“And now we are told,” he shouted, “that none of these promises can be fulfilled because of the Sykes-Picot pact, an agreement to divide many of the Arab lands between France and England, negotiated months before, in May, 1916. We are told,” continued Faisal, with a biting irony which he made no attempt to restrain, “that this secret arrangement cancels the promises that were made to us openly before all the world.”

[The date of this secret treaty should be carefully noted. It was signed and sealed eleven months before the day on which, it is asserted by the opposition senators in Washington, that Mr. Balfour was standing in the White House and pleading with President Wilson for an opportunity to unburden his soul and tell the world about the secret misdeeds of Old-World diplomacy. And yet in February, 1919, he, Balfour, showed his ignorance of at least one of them and not the least important one. Certainly Mr. Balfour’s bearing and attitude at the meeting gives no support to the senatorial indictment.] It was plain that Mr. Balfour was bewildered and that he only recalled the existence of the Sykes-Picot document in a vague and general way. “That’s the treaty that gives Mosul to the French,” said one of the bright young men who sat at his elbow. He at least had read some part of the agreement that distributed the lands of the Middle East.

“How extraordinary,” commented Mr. Balfour. But unlike his daring chief, Lloyd George, Balfour, minister of foreign affairs, was not inclined to dive into “troubled waters” unless his theologians and geographers were standing by or within hailing distance.

Baffled he may have been, but certainly he was not flustered. As cool as an icicle, Balfour now announced: “Owing to the tragic death of our expert, the review of these complicated negotiations, so generally misunderstood, will have to go over to another day.” And so it was ordered, to the relief of many who recognized that Anglo-Saxon diplomacy was in for an unhappy hour. The subsequent proceedings were, wisely, carried out quite privately.

[1923. As long as Balfour was minister of foreign affairs they never “got on” with the Arab problem. Four years later when he had been succeeded by Lord Curzon, who took advice from Winston Churchill and from Lawrence, what appeared to be a fair if temporary settlement was achieved through long negotiations in Cairo and Bagdad.]