Page:PhilipK.Hitti-SyriaAShortHistory.djvu/249

Rh out of their lands among themselves. The secret Sykes-Picot agreement of May 1916, whose contents were first divulged by the Bolsheviks in Russia, divided the Fertile Crescent between Britain and France. In October of the preceding year Henry McMahon, British high commissioner in Cairo, recognized in the name of Great Britain the independence of the Arabs within certain boundaries defined by the Sharif to include the Fertile Crescent and accepted with certain vague reservations. The Sharif had assumed the leadership of the Pan-Arab movement. On November 2, 191 7, Lord Balfour made his famous declaration that the British Government c views with favour the establishment of a national home in Palestine for the Jewish people 5 — whatever that may mean. Seven days later a joint Anglo- French declaration, emanating from the general head- quarters of their expeditionary force at Cairo, assured the people that the goal envisaged by these two powers was 'the complete and final liberation of the peoples who have for so long been oppressed by the Turks, and the setting up of national governments and administrations that shall derive their authority from the free exercise of the initiative and choice of the indigenous populations'. These promises echoed the doctrine of self-determination previously enun- ciated by President Woodrow Wilson and his insistence that the post-war settlement should be based upon 'the free acceptance of that settlement by the people immediately concerned 5. By Armistice Day, November 11, 19 18, Allied troops under General Allenby, supported by Arab troops under Faysal, son of King Husayn, had occupied Syria- Lebanon- Palestine. In pursuance of their newly enunciated doctrine of self-determination the Allied leaders at the Peace Conference of Versailles in 19 19, where Faysal repre- sented his father in arguing the Arab case, agreed to send a commission to Syria. But only the United States sent its King- Crane Commission, England, France and Italy having failed to act. In its report, which was not made public until Rh