tents had been in touch with
the British authorities in Egypt. They were warmly welcomed and
encouraged in their separatist schemes, because an Arab rebellion would
obviously be of invaluable assistance to the British in safeguarding
Egypt and the Suez Canal, to say nothing of an advance into Turkish
territory.

The Arabs, however, asked not merely material aid but also definite
promises that their rebellion should be rewarded by the formation of an
Arab state embracing the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire.
Unfortunately for Arab nationalist aspirations, the British and French
Governments had their own ideas as to the future of Turkey's Arab
provinces. Both England and France had long possessed "spheres of
influence" in those regions. The English sphere was in southern
Mesopotamia at the head of the Persian Gulf. The French sphere was the
Lebanon, a mountainous district in northern Syria just inland from the
Mediterranean coast, where the population, known as Maronites, were
Roman Catholics, over whom France had long extended her diplomatic
protection. Of course both these districts were legally Turkish
territory. Also, both were small in area. But "spheres of influence" are
elastic things. Under favourable circumstances they are capable of
sudden expansion to an extraordinary degree. Such a circumstance was the
Great War. Accordingly the British and French Foreign Offices put their
heads together and on March 5, 1915, the two governments signed a
secret treaty by the terms of which France was given a "predominant
position" in Syria and Britain a predominant position in Mesopotamia. No
definite boundaries were then assigned, but the intent was to stake out
claims which would partition Turkey's Arab provinces between England and
France.

Naturally the existence of this secret treaty was an embarrassment to
the British officials in Egypt in their negotiations with the Arabs.
However, an Arab rebellion was too valuable an asset to be lost, and the
British negotiators finally evolved a formula which satisfied the Arab
leaders. On October 25, 1915, the Shereef of Mecca's representative at
Cairo was given a document by the Governor-General of Egypt, Sir Henry
McMahon, in which Great Britain undertook, conditional upon an Arab
revolt, to recognize the independence of the Arabs of the Ottoman Empire
except in southern Mesopotamia, where British interests required special
measures of administrative control, and also except