The Emirate of Transjordan, officially known as the Amirate of Trans-Jordan, was a British protectorate established on 11 April 1921, which remained as such until achieving formal independence in 1946.
The Sykes–Picot Agreement was a 1916 secret treaty between the United Kingdom and France, with assent from the Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Italy, to define their mutually agreed spheres of influence and control in an eventual partition of the Ottoman Empire.
The McMahon–Hussein Correspondence is a series of letters that were exchanged during World War I in which the Government of the United Kingdom agreed to recognize Arab independence in a large region after the war in exchange for the Sharif of Mecca launching the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire. The correspondence had a significant influence on Middle Eastern history during and after the war; a dispute over Palestine continued thereafter.
The Arab Revolt or the Great Arab Revolt was an armed uprising by the Arabs against the Ottoman Empire amidst the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I.
The Kingdom of Iraq under British Administration, or Mandatory Iraq, was created in 1921, following the 1920 Iraqi Revolt against the proposed British Mandate of Mesopotamia, and enacted via the 1922 Anglo-Iraqi Treaty and a 1924 undertaking by the United Kingdom to the League of Nations to fulfil the role as Mandatory Power.
Colonel The Honourable Aubrey Nigel Henry Molyneux Herbert, of Pixton Park in Somerset and of Teversal, in Nottinghamshire, was a British soldier, diplomat, traveller, and intelligence officer associated with Albanian independence. He was twice offered the throne of Albania. From 1911 until his death he was a Conservative Member of Parliament. His eldest half-brother was George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon (1866–1923), who discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun.
François Marie Denis Georges-Picot was a French diplomat and lawyer who negotiated the Sykes–Picot Agreement with the British diplomat Sir Mark Sykes between November 1915 and March 1916 before its signing on May 16, 1916.
The Anglo-French Declaration was published by Great Britain and France, shortly after the Armistice of Mudros saw the capitulation of the Ottoman Empire. Some sources mention as publication date 7 November 1918, others 9 November 1918.
Sir Vincent Arthur Henry McMahon was a British Indian Army officer and diplomat who served as the High Commissioner in Egypt from 1915 to 1917. He was also an administrator in British India and served twice as Chief Commissioner of Baluchistan. McMahon is best known for the McMahon-Hussein Correspondence with Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca, the McMahon Line between Tibet and India, and the Declaration to the Seven in response to a memorandum written by seven notable Syrians. After the Sykes-Picot Agreement was published by the Bolshevik Russian government in November 1917, McMahon resigned. He also features prominently in Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T.E. Lawrence's account of the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire during World War I.
The 1921 Cairo Conference, described in the official minutes as Middle East Conference held in Cairo and Jerusalem, March 12 to 30, 1921, was a series of meetings by British officials for examining and discussing Middle Eastern problems, and to frame a common policy. The secret conference of British experts created the blueprint for British control in both Iraq and Transjordan. By offering nominal leadership of those two regions to the sons of the Sharif of the Mecca, Churchill felt that the spirit if not the actual letter of Britain's wartime promises to the Arabs were fulfilled.
The Anglo-Iraqi Treaty of October 1922 was an agreement signed between the British and Iraqi governments. The treaty was designed to allow for Iraqi self-government while giving the British control of Iraq's foreign policy. It was intended to conclude an agreement made at the Cairo Conference of 1921 to establish a Hashemite Kingdom in Iraq.
The Sharifian Army, also known as the Arab Army, or the Hejazi Army was the military force behind the Arab Revolt which was a part of the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I. Sharif Hussein Ibn Ali of the Kingdom of Hejaz, who was proclaimed "Sultan of the Arabs" in 1916, led the Sharifian Army in a rebellion against the Ottoman Empire with the ultimate goal of uniting the Arab people under an independent government. Aided both financially and militarily by the British, Husayn's forces gradually moved north through the Hejaz and, fought alongside the British-controlled Egyptian Expeditionary Force, eventually capturing Damascus. Once there, members of the Sharifian Army set up a short-lived monarchy known as the Arab Kingdom of Syria led by Faisal, a son of Sharif Husayn.
Colonel Sir Tatton Benvenuto Mark Sykes, 6th Baronet was an English traveller, Conservative Party politician, and diplomatic advisor, particularly with regard to the Middle East at the time of the First World War.
Lewis Yelland Andrews was an Australian soldier and colonial official who served as the acting District Commissioner for the region of Galilee during the British Mandate over Palestine. He was assassinated by Arab militants on his way to prayer services at Anglican Christ Church in Nazareth on 26 September 1937.
Sir Kinahan Cornwallis was a British administrator and diplomat best known for being an advisor to King Faisal I of Iraq and for being the British Ambassador to the Kingdom of Iraq during the Anglo-Iraqi War.
Brigadier-General Sir Gilbert Falkingham Clayton was a British Army intelligence officer and colonial administrator, who worked in several countries in the Middle East in the early 20th century. In Egypt, during World War I as an intelligence officer, he supervised those who worked to start the Arab Revolt. In Palestine, Arabia and Mesopotamia, in the 1920s as a colonial administrator, he helped negotiate the borders of the countries that later became Israel, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iraq.
Egypt–United Kingdom relations are the diplomatic, economic, and cultural relationships between Egypt and the United Kingdom. Relations are longstanding. They involve politics, defence, trade and education, and especially issues regarding the Suez Canal.
Major Herbert Garland OBE MC FCS M. Inst. Metals was a British metallurgist and army officer. An Army Ordnance Corps member, in 1906 he was stationed on Guernsey, where he wrote a novel, Diverse Affections: a Romance of Guernsey. Garland rose to become Superintendent of Laboratories at the Cairo Citadel, Egypt by 1913 and received a grant from the Chemical Society, of which he was a fellow, to conduct research into ancient Egyptian alloys. The outbreak of war saw him commissioned as a Special List officer with the Arab Bureau. Garland developed explosives for the army, including the Garland grenade and was, in September 1916, assigned to train T. E. Lawrence and the fighters of the Arab Revolt in explosives. His mines were used against the Hejaz Railway and may have been involved in the first derailing of a moving train by explosives. Garland commanded the desperate defence of Yanbu in which he forced an attacking superior Ottoman force to withdraw with almost no bloodshed. Awarded the Military Cross and appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, Garland became director of the Arab Bureau after the war and was involved in the post-war negotiations for the future of Arabia. Returning from Egypt because of poor health, Garland died within days of setting foot in England.
The Arab Bulletin was a publication published from June 6, 1916 - August 30, 1918 by Britain's Arab Bureau. It was established to provide "a secret magazine of Middle East politics" D. G. Hogarth once described the newspapers editorial policy thus:
Since it was as easy to write it in decent English as in bad, and much more agreeable, the Arab Bulletin had from the first a literary tinge not always present in Intelligence Summaries. Firstly, it aims at giving reasoned, and as far as possible definitive summaries of intelligence, primarily about the Hejaz and the area of the Arab Revolt. Secondly, the Arab Bulletin aims at giving authoritative appreciations of political situations and questions in the area with which it deals at first hand. Thirdly, it aims at recording and so preserving all fresh historical data concerning Arabs and Arabic-speaking lands, and incidentally rescuing from oblivion any older facts which might help to explain the actual situation: likewise, any data of geographical or other scientific interest, which may be brought to light by our penetration of the Arab Countries during the present war. It is part of the Editor´s purpose that a complete file on the Bulletin since its beginning should be indispensable to anyone who hereafter may have to compile for official use a history of the Arabs during the last three years, an Intelligence Handbook of any Arab district or even a map of Arabia.
British foreign policy in the Middle East has involved multiple considerations, particularly over the last two and a half centuries. These included maintaining access to British India, blocking Russian or French threats to that access, protecting the Suez Canal, supporting the declining Ottoman Empire against Russian threats, guaranteeing an oil supply after 1900 from Middle East fields, protecting Egypt and other possessions in the Middle East, and enforcing Britain's naval role in the Mediterranean. The timeframe of major concern stretches from the 1770s when the Russian Empire began to dominate the Black Sea, down to the Suez Crisis of the mid-20th century and involvement in the Iraq War in the early 21st. These policies are an integral part of the history of the foreign relations of the United Kingdom.
