Mark Sykes

The documentary details the infamous Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916.

This was a secret treaty negotiated in the middle of the war between Britain and France, spearheaded by the Englishman Mark Sykes and the French diplomat Francois-Georges Picot.

Their goal was to decide how they would divide up the collapsing Ottoman Empire once they won the war.

Right.

And the details of this negotiation are almost darkly comic if the downstream consequences weren't so horrific.

The documentary points out that Mark Sykes wasn't some deep scholarly expert on the Middle East.

He essentially faked his credentials.

He walked into a meeting at Downing Street, spattering his conversation with a few Arabic and Turkish phrases he had picked up, convincing the British prime minister and the cabinet that he intimately understood the region, when in reality he couldn't speak either language fluently and had only a superficial understanding of the tribal dynamics.

So England decided that, "What are we going to do in case we win?" And in order to create allies with the other countries, they formed a secret treaty, a secret agreement called the Sykes-Picot Agreement.

What is the Sykes-Picot Agreement? In order to solidify their allying with the French, Mark Sykes and François Georges-Picot, the two of them were emissaries.

They were, uh, so, so quote-unquote "ambassadors," not quite ambassadors, but let's just say diploma- diplomats is a better word.

These two diplomats, they met in secret with a map of the Middle East.

He explained that a secret gentleman's agreement had been made in 1916 between the British government and Zionist leaders.

After an understanding had been arrived at between Sir Mark Sykes and Zionist Wiseman and Sokolow, it was resolved to send a secret message to Justice Brandeis that the British cabinet would help the Jews to gain Palestine in return for active Jewish sympathy and for support in the U.S. for the allied cause so as to bring about a radical pro-ally tendency in the United States.

In 1916, they contacted, Zionists in England contacted a Supreme Court justice in the United States secretly saying that the British cabinet would help the Jews to gain Palestine.

They would basically give them Palestine or start advocating that it was actually belonged to them.

Now, on May the 9th, as Hassan referred to it, there was the Sykes-Picot Agreement.

Here you have Sir Mark Sykes and you have Georges Francois Picot, two bureaucrats, one British and one French, who then go ahead and carve up what arguably is the most consequential document when it comes to forming the Middle East, far more than even the document with which most people are familiar that comes about a year and a half later, the Balfour Declaration.

The Sykes-Picot Agreement becomes the blueprint of who gets what, and more importantly, how to keep the peace between the British and the French.

The British or the French will get the Levant, Lebanon and Syria, control over the area north of that in what today would be southeastern Turkey.

Among those present were Lord Rothschild, Major Lionel de Rothschild, Major Neil Primrose, Captain Almsbury Gore, M.P., Mr. Sabbag Montefiore, Dr. Weitzman, Mr. Joseph Cohen, Dr. Eder, Captain Salomon R.A.M.C., Mr. M.J. Landa, Mr. L.J. Greenberg, the Reverend S. Lipson, Senior Jewish Chaplain to the Forces in England, and Sergeant Jabotinsky, about twenty in all.

Colonel Sir Mark Sykes, M.P., whose untimely death I deeply lament, and Lieutenant Colonel L.S. Amory, M.P., who were then Secretaries to the War Cabinet, also attended, both being warm friends of the movement.

I briefly addressed the meeting and explained that I had called them together to give me their advice and assistance in the formation of the Jewish Regiment.

I was, of course, aware that there was somewhat of a cleavage amongst the Jews on this question, but the bitterness and hostility shown was quite a revelation to me.

Colonel Graham, also of the War Office, came to my assistance whenever he could possibly do so, while the late Military Secretary, General Sir Francis Davies, under whom I had served in Gallipoli, was kindness itself.

General Hutchison, the Director of Organisation, was always a tower of strength and the Jewish battalions owe him a heavy debt.

Lieutenant Colonel Amory M.P. and the late Sir Mark Sykes M.P. also did what was in their power to make our thorny path smooth.

End of chapter 4 Chapter 5 of With the Judeans in the Palestine Campaign This is a LibriVox recording.

He is actually invited by

Mark Sykes, the same Sykes of, you know, the famous Sykes and Pico.

The Sykes.

Yeah, yeah, the

Among those present were Lord Rothschild, Major Lionel de Rothschild, Major Neil Primrose, Captain Ormsby Gore, MP, Mr. Sebag Montefiore, Dr. Weitzman, Mr. Joseph Cohen, Dr. Eder, Captain Salomon, RAMC, Mr. M.J. Landa, Mr. L.J. Greenberg, the Reverend S. Lipson, Senior Jewish Chaplain to the Forces in England, and Sergeant Jabotinsky, about twenty in all.

Colonel Sir Mark Sykes, MP, whose untimely death I deeply lament, and Lieutenant Colonel L.S. Amory, MP, who were then Secretaries to the War Cabinet, also attended, both being warm friends of the movement.

I briefly addressed the meeting and explained that I had called them together to give me their advice and assistance in the formation of the Jewish Regiment.

I was, of course, aware that there was somewhat of a cleavage amongst the Jews on this question, but the bitterness and hostility shown was quite a revelation to me.

Colonel Graham, also of the War Office, came to my assistance whenever he could possibly do so, while the late Military Secretary, General Sir Francis Davies, under whom I had served in Gallipoli, was kindness itself.

General Hutchison, the Director of Organisation, was always a tower of strength and the Jewish battalions owe him a heavy debt.

Lieutenant Colonel Amory, M.P., and the late Sir Mark Sykes, M.P., also did what was in their power to make our thorny path smooth.

End of Chapter 4 Chapter 5 of With the Judeans in the Palestine Campaign This is a LibriVox recording.