areas where Great
Britain was "not free to act without detriment to the interests of
France." This last clause was of course a "joker." However, it achieved
its purpose. The Arabs, knowing nothing about the secret treaty,
supposed it referred merely to the restricted district of the Lebanon.
They went home jubilant, to prepare the revolt which broke out next
year.

The revolt began in November, 1916. It might not have begun at all had
the Arabs known what had happened the preceding May. In that month
England and France signed another secret treaty, the celebrated
Sykes-Picot Agreement. This agreement definitely partitioned Turkey's
Arab provinces along the lines suggested in the initial secret treaty of
the year before. By the Sykes-Picot Agreement most of Mesopotamia was to
be definitely British, while the Syrian coast from Tyre to Alexandretta
was to be definitely French, together with extensive Armenian and Asia
Minor regions to the northward. Palestine was to be "international,"
albeit its chief seaport, Haifa, was to be British, and the implication
was that Palestine fell within the English sphere. As to the great
hinterland lying between Mesopotamia and the Syrian coast, it was to be
"independent Arab under two spheres of influence," British and French;
the French sphere embracing all the rest of Syria from Aleppo to
Damascus, the English sphere embracing all the rest of Mesopotamia--the
region about Mosul. In other words, the independence promised the Arabs
by Sir Henry McMahon had vanished into thin air.

This little shift behind the scenes was of course not communicated to
the Arabs. On the contrary, the British did everything possible to
stimulate Arab nationalist hopes--this being the best way to extract
their fighting zeal against the Turks. The British Government sent the
Arabs a number of picked intelligence officers, notably a certain
Colonel Lawrence, an extraordinary young man who soon gained unbounded
influence over the Arab chiefs and became known as "The Soul of the
Arabian Revolution."[178] These men, chosen for their knowledge of, and
sympathy for, the Arabs, were not informed about the secret treaties, so
that their encouragement of Arab zeal might not be marred by any lack of
sincerity. Similarly, the British generals were prodigal of promises in
their proclamations.[179] The climax of this blessed comedy occurred at
the very close of the war, when the British and French Governments
issued the