The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict Page 7

  He was a remarkable character, Kitchener: private, complex, contradictory, powerful. Alone among senior figures in the British establishment, he understood from the outset that victory over Germany would not be quick; it would take at least three years, he thought. Britain’s small professional force, he knew, would be insufficient to fight it. Britain would need a vast army. Since she did not (yet) practice conscription, the army must be raised from volunteers. Soon Kitchener’s fierce chiseled features, piercing blue eyes, and silvery-gold mustache adorned posters on walls throughout the land, over the following declaration in capital letters: “YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU!” Volunteers practically stampeded to join the colors, testimony to the awe in which so many held the newly appointed secretary of state for war.

  A man of few words, he yet had a commanding presence. Many revered him as the victor of Omdurman and thus the avenger of General Gordon, slain by the forces of the Mahdi at Khartoum in 1885. He was known too as the general who had faced down the French at Fashoda thirteen years later, thereby maintaining British supremacy in the Sudan; also as conqueror of the Boer rebels in South Africa two years after that. He had been governor general of eastern Sudan, commander in chief of the armed forces in India, inspector general of the Egyptian police, sirdar (military commander) of Egypt, governor general of Sudan, and finally consul general in Egypt. His great ambition was to become viceroy of India. Had the war not intervened, perhaps he would have realized this dream. He was close to the Cecil family, a fountainhead of Conservative leaders including Prime Ministers Salisbury and Balfour. The former had advanced his career at critical junctures. Among some of his subordinates he inspired great devotion and admiration.

  But he had critics too. They drew attention, sotto voce, to defects in the imperial hero’s character: an inability to delegate authority or to organize paperwork (they called him “Lord Kitchener of Chaos” behind his back); a predilection for brutality in his dealings with colonized peoples; and very strangely, a kind of kleptomania. When he saw something he wanted (he had a particular fondness for objets d’art, antiques, and silver), he took it—even from the homes of his hosts. One of the doubters, Margot Asquith, the prime minister’s wife, said of him: “He may not be5 a great man—but he is a great poster.”

  Still, Kitchener knew the Middle East very well and grasped Britain’s strategic position and needs there. He was a close student of the fledgling Arab nationalist movement, such as it was, and of the intrigues at the Ottoman sultan’s court. Despising both Old and Young Turk methods of government, he had long hoped Britain would replace their rule with hers throughout the Middle East, not incidentally guaranteeing the British position at Suez and creating a new swath of imperial territory to complement India. The best way to win the war, he believed, was to concentrate on defeating Germany on the Western Front, but unlike other “westerners” in the British cabinet, he remained attuned to developments in the east. When Storrs’s letter reached him, he acted at once. The situation now, he recognized, was potentially more dangerous for the grand sharif than it had been six months earlier. If Hussein displeased the regime in Constantinople, it could call upon Germany to help deal with him. The first step, therefore, must be to ensure that Hussein was still interested in British assistance.

  “Tell Storrs,”6 Kitchener directed Sir Milne Cheetham, who was acting in his place in Cairo until a longer-term replacement could be appointed, “to send secret and carefully chosen messenger from me to Sherif Abdullah to ascertain whether ‘should present armed German influence at Constantinople coerce Calif against his will and Sublime Porte to acts of aggression and war against Great Britain, he and his father and Arabs of Hejaz would be with us or against us.’”

  This directive reached Storrs on September 24, 1914. He acted immediately, choosing as messenger to Abdullah X, “the father-in-law of my little Persian agent Ruhi.” Travel to Mecca with all speed, Storrs directed X. But it took X four days to reach his destination, traveling the last fifteen hours by donkey overnight. Then he waited five days more for the grand sharif and his family to return from the summer palace in Taif.

  When X finally did enter the palace in Mecca, he dined sumptuously with the grand sharif and his sons. Afterward he gave Abdullah the message Storrs had composed according to Kitchener’s instructions. Presumably Abdullah gave it to his father, who quickly read it, for soon a servant appeared: Grand Sharif Hussein would receive X in another room. X climbed stairs to the top of the palace and entered a very fine, large chamber. There the emir, pacing back and forth, informed him that he no longer felt obliged to honor his duties to the Ottomans because they had “made war upon our rights.” Throwing back the sleeve of his garment in a dramatic gesture, he declared: “My heart is open to Storrs, even as this. Stretch forth to us a helping hand and we shall never at all help these oppressors. On the contrary we shall help those who do good.” As always with Hussein, religious conviction spurred activity: “This is the Commandment7 of God upon us: Do good to Islam and Moslems—Nor do we fear or respect any save God.”

  The emir had taken a first step toward rebellion. He thereby risked his life and those of his sons, as Kitchener and the other Britons well knew. But we have no record of the meeting except for Storrs’s translation of X’s subsequent oral report. When it came to putting his sentiments down on paper, the grand sharif was exceedingly cautious. Since Kitchener had addressed himself to Abdullah, Hussein had his son write and sign the reply and place it in an unaddressed sealed envelope inside a larger one that was addressed to a third party; then he had Feisal convey it to the sharif’s agent at Jeddah. The latter finally gave it over to X, but only when he was safely aboard the Japanese freighter that would take him back to Suez.

  The written message was carefully conceived, yet is vague in a crucial respect. The first part was plain enough: According to a résumé of the letter that Cheetham sent to Kitchener, Abdullah had replied (for his father of course) that the grand sharif looked forward to “closer union”8 with England but awaited “written promise that Great Britain will … guarantee Emir against Foreign and Ottoman aggression.” In short, Hussein would not risk putting his neck into a Turkish noose without receiving written pledges of protection from Britain. But this was not his only caveat: Hussein and his sons also refused to put themselves in jeopardy, only to discover that Britain had replaced Turkey as their foreign overlord. And here in retrospect two ambiguities are apparent.

  First, even in this initial letter Hussein appears to have been looking beyond his own kingdom of Hejaz and claiming to speak for Arabs throughout the Middle East. Before he took any sort of action, he warned Kitchener and Storrs, he must receive Britain’s promise to “abstain from internal intervention in Arabia.” The indeterminate term was crucial: By “Arabia,” did he mean not merely the Hejaz but the entire Arabian Peninsula? Did he even perhaps mean Mesopotamia and Syria too, including Palestine? He did not specify.

  Let us pursue this ambiguity. On the one hand, Hussein’s letter was just what the British had been hoping for. Only a great leader of “Arabia” could successfully countermand the caliph’s appeal for jihad against Turkey’s enemies. On the other hand, this first wartime exchange between the two parties sowed the seeds of future conflict and misunderstanding. Cheetham appears to have discerned the looming difficulty and tried to protect against it. As he cabled to the Foreign Office, Abdullah’s letter was very promising. “Reply is being prepared subject to your approval disclaiming all intention of internal intervention and guaranteeing against external aggression only independence of Sherifate” (emphasis added). In other words, the British wanted the grand sharif to speak for all Arabia, of undefined boundaries, but they would guarantee to protect his authority only in the territory he governed already.

  “Does Kitchener agree?”9 Sir Edward Grey, the foreign secretary back in London, queried in his spiky handwriting at the bottom of Cheetham’s cable. “If so I will approve.” But Kitchener did not accept Cheetham’s quali
fication. Instead he directed that the sharif be informed: “If the Arab nation assist England in this war … England will guarantee that no internal intervention takes place in Arabia and will give the Arabs every assistance against external foreign aggression.” He had accepted the emir’s original broad formulation of “Arabia,” although whether this meant to him the Hejaz, or the peninsula, or the peninsula plus Syria and Mesopotamia, remains unclear. And since Grey signed off on it too, he presumably also accepted the broad but vague understanding of “Arabia.”

  But did they truly accept it? Quite possibly Grey did. A lifelong Liberal, he soon would argue in a War Council meeting that “Arabia, Syria10 and Mesopotamia were the only possible territories for an Arab Empire,” and that in those countries Britain could “set up a new and independent Moslem State” over which Hussein would be ruler. But Kitchener, hardly a Liberal, rejected this argument at the War Council, suggesting instead that Britain should annex Mesopotamia at the least. It is likely, therefore, that he rejected the idea when Hussein first broached it as well. Probably he was prepared to fudge the matter of boundaries or was being consciously misleading in order to induce Hussein to take action.

  Again, someone recognized the dissonances, and given the imprecision of future letters from Cairo to Mecca in which his influence was less important, the stickler may have been Cheetham. He, Clayton, and Storrs would have had input on the letter now to go to Abdullah, and perhaps under his guidance they took it upon themselves to limit Kitchener’s pledge. They adapted and narrowed the original language so that it now read: “If the Amir and Arabs in general assist Great Britain … Great Britain will promise not to intervene in any manner whatsoever whether in things religious or otherwise. Moreover recognizing and respecting the sacred and unique office of the Amir Hosayn Great Britain will guarantee the independence, rights and privileges of the Sherifate [emphasis added] against all external foreign aggression, in particular that of the Ottomans.”

  This early wartime correspondence sowed seeds of future difficulties but also displays the reluctance of at least some British officers in situ to engage in ambiguities and sophistries. These were early days; once the French became involved, and the Russians, Italians, and Zionists, the opportunities for obfuscation and double-dealing would multiply. It would lead some British officers nearly to despair.

  As for the second ambiguity, Hussein’s demand that Britain “abstain from internal intervention”: Did he mean that Britain must give him an absolutely free hand in determining the domestic policies of his kingdom? Did he mean that she must give him a free hand in external matters as well? In the letter Abdullah wrote on his behalf, he appears to say so. Abdullah wrote that Britain must promise to protect “clearly and in writing” the emirate’s “independence in all respects, without any exceptions or restrictions.” But why then, during the previous spring, had he held up to Storrs the relationship between Britain and Afghanistan as his model? There British advisers abstained from interference, even in internal matters, only when it pleased them. In any event, British diplomats had their own interpretation of what an “independent” emirate (whatever its boundaries) would mean: Hussein’s kingdom would become independent of Turkey only. On important matters, the grand sharif would refer to them; they would advise; and the grand sharif would consent to their advice. Few in Britain’s governing circles doubted the necessity of such an arrangement. They could not conceive of Arabs ruling themselves without Western assistance.

  A third aspect of the British reply to Grand Sharif Hussein would prove an additional source of future troubles. Kitchener’s letter to Abdullah concluded:

  Till now we have defended and befriended Islam in the person of the Turks; henceforward it shall be in that of the noble Arab. It may be that an Arab of true race will assume the Caliphate at Mecca or Medina, and so good may come by the help of God out of all the evil which is now occurring. It would be well if Your Highness could convey to your followers and devotees, who are found throughout the world in every country, the good tidings of the Freedom of the Arabs and the rising of the sun over Arabia.

  This was Kitchener reaching deep into the British arsenal for any deadly weapon to hurl against Turkey. He would nourish, or if need be plant, the seed of religious ambition within the sharif’s breast, hoping thereby to cause maximum disruption within the Ottoman realm. But unlike the pope of the Catholics, the caliph of Islam was not solely a spiritual leader. He held both spiritual and temporal authority because he was also sultan of the Ottoman Empire. Indeed, Muslims believed that in the fullness of time the caliph would come to exercise temporal authority over all Muslims, wherever they lived. In dangling the inducement of the caliphate before the grand sharif, therefore, Kitchener was offering far more than Britain ever could deliver or even wish to deliver. Nor would it help the sharif of Mecca to become known as Christian Britain’s candidate for caliph. Nor would it help Britain to be seen as meddling this way in Muslim affairs. Even Britons would soon point this out. Kitchener had taken a false step. But then, the letter he had inspired was riddled with false steps.

  Once again X made the wearying journey from Suez to Mecca, this time bearing promises and inducements. Once again the emir replied in writing through his son Abdullah: “We are doing that which is more important than the performance of that which is naturally imposed upon us, regardless of whether or not these negotiations take place and whether or not an agreement is arrived at.” This characteristically opaque pronouncement seems to mean “We are preparing to rebel against the Turks despite their natural hold over us and we will proceed with or without British support.” This was promising news from the British point of view.

  X had another audience with the grand sharif in the splendid room at the top of the palace. This time he took shorthand notes. They are more direct than the letter was. “Our relations with the11 [Ottoman] Empire are waning, dying even as a flickering lamp whose oil had run out,” the emir told him. He heaped scorn upon the Young Turks of the CUP. They “declare openly that the cause of the degeneration of the Moslem Nations is Religion and they set themselves to efface it … therefore we are no longer bound to obey them.” They had betrayed the caliphate: “The Caliphate means this, that the rules of the Book of God should be enforced (and this they do not do).” And they had overthrown Sultan Abdul Hamid, to whom Hussein had sentimental ties: “I cannot forget the favors the Reigning House bestowed upon me. But the reins of power have passed from the hands of this Family.”

  Nevertheless the grand sharif was not yet prepared to throw down the gauntlet to the Turks. He put it this way in his written response: “Religion which justifies it and which is the sole foundation of action prevents us from working at once.” And in that attic chamber he said more plainly to X: “I am of opinion that it will be better now to put off action.”

  We do not know why “religion” prevented action at this point; perhaps Hussein did not wish to interfere with the annual hajj, which would soon take place. In any event, he was anxious that the British understand that he was merely postponing action, not ruling it out. “When the time shall come, and it is not far distant, we cannot but accomplish it,” the letter says, “even though the Ottoman Empire be not occupied and even though it should muster against us all its army.” And on the roof he told X, whom he addressed by name: “Ali, do your best to make Mr. Storrs understand that he should not consider my answer as a breaking up of relations. It simply came late, and if she [Britain] had granted our demand when we made it, things would have been better. The day will come when we shall demand more of her than she is now prepared for and perhaps soon.”

  Certainly this news, faithfully reported by Ali to the authorities in Cairo after the long trek back, lifted their spirits. They would wait until the sharif deemed the moment ripe. In the meantime the focus of anti-Ottoman planning shifted temporarily from Egypt to London.

  In the imperial metropolis the mood was robust. The war had stoked a nationalist fever. During it
s first weeks mobs coursed through the streets of the East End where many immigrants lived, smashing and looting homes and shops owned by people with German-sounding names. Young men crowded the recruiting offices, clamoring to join the armed services. They feared the Allies would win the war before they had a chance to see action and adventure. Soldiers in uniform were everywhere. Soon young women would be handing out white feathers to men still wearing civilian dress, to shame them into joining up too.

  The Liberal government that brought Britain into the war was ambivalent about the passions it had unleashed. The prime minister, Herbert Henry Asquith, and the foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey, knew how to play political hardball, but jingoistic bumptiousness discomfited them and many of their allies and supporters. Moreover the war had unleashed the passions not only of their countrymen but of Britain’s foreign allies as well. The Russians, shortly after declaring war upon Turkey, let it be known that one of their war aims would be annexation of Constantinople and control of the Dardanelles. At last they would attain access to the Mediterranean Sea and a warm-water port. At first Britain and France maintained their traditional opposition; such gains by Russia would disrupt the European balance to their disadvantage. But they desperately needed Russia to keep German troops busy on the Eastern Front; they even feared Russia might sign a separate peace with Germany. So eventually they gave way. But if Russia was to gain from the war at Turkey’s expense, then so must they, or at least some members of the British and French governments thought so.

  Here those letters circulating among London, Cairo, and Mecca became relevant. Grand Sharif Hussein had insisted upon British backing for an independent “Arabia” under his leadership. But to the extent Britain acceded to this demand, she must deny herself territory in the region. To Liberals who still believed in the nineteenth-century Gladstonian principles of retrenchment and reform, such a renunciation would be no sacrifice. “We have not the men12 or the money to make new countries out of barren and savage deserts,” wrote the Liberal secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defense, “and if we try, and as far as we try, we shall arrest progress at home and in the other countries for which we are now responsible, and we shall saddle the British taxpayer with huge liabilities for defense and construction on top of the appalling liabilities of this country.” But such sentiments went against the temper of the times.