Palestine Boundaries 1833–1947
The Qur'an 17:104 - states the land belongs to the Jewish people
Palestine Boundaries 1833–1947
Resumé
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The aim of the present work is to provide, in a single source of reference, copies of those historical documents which cumulatively defined the geographical and political limits of Palestine up to the end of the British Mandate in 1947. The work is intended to establish an objective historical base, taken from the records, for understanding the evolution of the territorial idea of Palestine before the modern era.
The collection is also intended to demonstrate the extent and limits of responsibility, particularly British and French, for territorial decisions, and likewise the extent of solid international agreement on the delimitation of Palestine boundaries in the past.
Historical Overview
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In Ottoman times, no political entity called Palestine existed. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War, European boundary makers began to take greater interest in defining territorial limits for Palestine. Only since the 1920s has Palestine had formally delimited boundaries, though these have remained subject to repeated change and a source of bitter dispute.
The southern boundary (with Egypt) is the subject of Volume I of this collection. In the Ottoman Sultan´s firman (decree) of 1841, the first map appeared showing the boundaries of the area under Mohammed Ali Pasha´s rule. The eastern frontier of Egypt was shown as a straight line drawn from El Arish to Suez. East of this line was the Sinai Peninsula, almost waterless and inhabited only by a few Bedouin tribes. In 1892, however, with the possibility of Turkish troops being stationed in the Sinai Peninsula, a heated exchange of diplomatic correspondence took place between Cairo, London, and Constantinople. An administrative line between El Arish to the Gulf of Aqaba was agreed upon but no legal frontier was defined between Egypt and Ottoman territories. Stormy negotiations ensued in 1905 when the Sultan made a more determined effort to occupy the Peninsula. The Aqaba Incident brought the British and the Ottoman Empires to the brink of war in 1906.
The first volume includes a selection from the personal papers of Mr W E Jennings-Bramly, who at the time was a Frontier Administration Officer and was ordered to occupy Naqb el Aqaba with a small detachment of Egyptian troops. His papers provide an on-the-spot description of events and enhance this documentary collection for those interested in the delimitation of the boundary which today is the accepted frontier between Israel and Egypt.
The Anglo-French Accord
Volumes II and III provide an interesting overview of the Anglo-French debate over the northern boundary of Palestine. During the course of the First World War, the British and the French governments anticipated the defeat of the Turks and in the famous Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916, secretly divided the Ottoman Empire between themselves, the Russians and the Italians. However, British interest and political aspirations called for a rapid revision of the Sykes-Picot partition. Within less than a year of concluding the agreement, the government set out to modify the provisions concerning the status of Palestine.
In December 1918 the British Prime Minister Lloyd George secured French acceptance that Palestine should come under British rather than international administration. The records show how the following period of intense and sometimes bitter negotiations between British and French policy makers, with the Zionist Organization as an interested pressure group and virtual participant in the process came close to jeopardising the post-war peace settlement.
Zionist influence on boundaries
The controversy surrounding the subsequent negotiations was fuelled by conflicting wartime promises to the Zionists and to the Arabs. The Balfour Declaration of November 2nd, 1917, concerning the establishment of a Jewish National Home, formalised an alliance with the politically influential Zionist movement.
It was a matter of urgent importance to the Zionists that Palestine should acquire a defensible boundary which would circumscribe sufficient surface water supplies for the successful development of a Jewish agriculture. But while Lloyd George dedared that Palestine should be defined in accordance to its Biblical limits "from Dan to Beersheba", Dr Weizmann lobbied to extend the boundaries further north and east for economic and security considerations.
Britain´s promise to grant King Husayn of the Hedjaz an independent Arab Kingdom (Husayn-McMahon correspondence 1915-1916) in return for leading the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans during the First World War was increasingly compromised. Not only did the Hashemite states of Transjordan, Syria and later Iraq fall under British administration after the decision to apply the Mandate system to the territories was taken at San Remo in 1920, but Palestine, which was arguably promised to Husayn in 1915, was excluded from any Hashemite influence.
The eastern frontier with Transjordan
The eastern frontier was formally established in 1922 when the final draft of the Mandate for Palestine and Transjordan was approved by the League of Nations. This instrument provided the British with the authority to exclude the territory east of the Jordan river from those provisions concerning a National Home for the Jewish people. The British decided to administer Transjordan separately, leaving the Jordan river as the effective eastern boundary of Palestine.
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Documentary Importance
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Documents were selected in the main from the Foreign Office and Colonial Office series of files in the National Archives, London. Supplementary material from official British sources comes from the India Office Library and Records, London. A selection of key papers is included from the Archives Diplomatiques, Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Quai d´Orsay, Paris. The collection also makes use of a good part of the Jennings-Bramly private papers lodged with the Royal Geographical Society, London. This collection was edited by Ms Patricia Toye whose sudden death in October 1994 is a loss felt by all researchers and historians of the boundaries of the region. Volume I includes a historical preface by Ms Toye and a scholarly introduction by J.C. Hurewitz, Professor of Government Emeritus at Columbia University, New York.
Back to top
Contents Outline
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Included in Volume 1
Papers relating to the Arrangement made between the Porte and Mehemet Ali in 1833.
Communications with Mehemet Ali in 1838.
London Convention for the Pacification of the Levant 1840.
Memorandum relating to the Firman of 1841.
Summary of Turco-Egytian frontier negotiations, 1892-1906.
Correspondence respecting the Turco-Egyptian frontier in the Sinai Peninsula recapitulating the main phrases through which the Turco-Egyptian frontier question passed from its origin early in January 1906 to the presentation of a note to the Ottoman Government to comply with the British demands to evacuate Tab and to the delimitation of the frontier.
Private papers of Mr W E Jennings-Bramly, Frontier Administration Officer in the Sinai Peninsula, 1902-1947.
Demarcation of the Turco-Egyptian frontier.
Report on the 1906 Delimitation of the Turco-Egyptian boundary between the Vilayet of the Hedjaz and the Sinai Peninsula, 1907.
Future and status of the Sinai Peninsula, 1946.
Included in Volume 2
Secret war time arrangements among the Entente powers for the partition of the Ottoman Empire 1915-1918.
Constantinople Agreement, 4 March-10 April 1915.
Italo-Entente Secret Agreement, 26 April 1915.
Sykes-Picot Agreement, April-October 1916.
Saint-Jean de Maurienne Agreement, April-September 1917.
Husayn-McMahon Correspondence, July 1915-March 1916.
The Balfour Declaration, 2 November 1917.
De Bunsen Committee Report on British desiderata in the Middle East,June 1915.
Memorandum on French and Arab claims in the Middle East, December 1918.
Peace Conference memorandum respecting Palestine by Sir E Richards, January 1919.
Zionist Organisations´ memorandum to the Supreme Council at the Paris Peace Conference, 3 February 1919.
Aide-memoire in regard to the occupation of Syria, Palestine and Mesopotamia pending the decision in regard to Mandates, 13 September 1919.
Anglo-French post-war negotiations over the boundaries of Palestine 1919-1920 and the revision of the Sykes-Picot line.
Included in Volume 3
Anglo-French negoitiations regarding the northern frontier, November 1920.
Delimitation of frontier between Palestine and Syria, March-July 1921.
The Cairo Conference of 1921.
Churchill Memorandum, 1 July 1922.
Settlement of Bon Voisinage Agreement between Palestine and Syria, March-July 1921.
Mandate for Palestine, 24 July 1923.
Memorandum on the strategical importance of Palestine to Britain, July 1923.
Anglo-French Convention, 23 December 1923.
Agreement between the United Kingdom and Transjordan, March 1928.
Extract from memorandum on the submission of frontiers of mandated territories to the League of Nations, April 1932.
Agreement between Palestine and Syria and Lebanon amending the Agreement of 2 February 1926 regarding the frontier questions, 3 November 1938.
Treaty of Alliance between the United Kingdom and the Amir of Transjordan, 22 March 1946.
Notes on the legal status of Palestine and the termination of the Mandate.
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Maps
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Map of the Sinai boundary, 1906.
Map of Aqaba-Rafah, showing in pencil line the line described by Captain Owen and the Turkish Commissioners, 1906.
Map of the Sinai boundary annexed to the 1 October 1906 Agreement.
Map of northern Palestine and adjacent area showing the frontiers between British and French spheres of influence 1921.
Map showing proposed boundary between Jordan and Palestine, 1919.
Map showing boundaries of Palestine in the French proposals of March and June 1920, the Sykes-Picot line and the Meinertzhagen line.
Map showing Lebanese boundary according to Ms.Berthelot's proposal of 11 March 1920.
Map showing boundary between Syria and Palestine signed by Lt.Col. Paulet for French Government in 1922 and removed from the Commission's report on the boundary FO 93/292.
War Office map of Syria showing the international boundaries of 1914, 1918.
War Office base map of Palestine, 1923.
Colonial Office map showing Palestine and adjacent area with proposed frontier roughly sketched, 1921.
For full list and references see Maplist.
Back to top
Related Titles:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Arabian Boundaries 1853–1960
Arabian Boundaries 1961–1965
Arabian Boundary Disputes – Historical, Political And Legal Dossier
Arabian Treaties 1600–1960
Israel: Boundary Disputes With Arab Neighbours 1946–1964
Minorities In The Middle East: Druze Communities 1840–1974
Minorities In The Middle East: Jewish Communities In Arab Countries 1841–1974
Minorities In The Middle East: Religious Communities In Jerusalem 1843–1974
Palestine And Transjordan Administration Reports 1918–1948
Political Diaries Of The Arab World: Palestine And Jordan 1920–1965
Records Of Jerusalem 1917–1971
Records Of Jordan 1919–1965
Survey of Western And Eastern Palestine 1882-1888
Zionist Movement And The Foundation Of Israel 1839–1972, The
Resumé
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The aim of the present work is to provide, in a single source of reference, copies of those historical documents which cumulatively defined the geographical and political limits of Palestine up to the end of the British Mandate in 1947. The work is intended to establish an objective historical base, taken from the records, for understanding the evolution of the territorial idea of Palestine before the modern era.
The collection is also intended to demonstrate the extent and limits of responsibility, particularly British and French, for territorial decisions, and likewise the extent of solid international agreement on the delimitation of Palestine boundaries in the past.
Back to top
Historical Overview
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In Ottoman times, no political entity called Palestine existed. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War, European boundary makers began to take greater interest in defining territorial limits for Palestine. Only since the 1920s has Palestine had formally delimited boundaries, though these have remained subject to repeated change and a source of bitter dispute.
The southern boundary (with Egypt) is the subject of Volume I of this collection. In the Ottoman Sultan´s firman (decree) of 1841, the first map appeared showing the boundaries of the area under Mohammed Ali Pasha´s rule. The eastern frontier of Egypt was shown as a straight line drawn from El Arish to Suez. East of this line was the Sinai Peninsula, almost waterless and inhabited only by a few Bedouin tribes. In 1892, however, with the possibility of Turkish troops being stationed in the Sinai Peninsula, a heated exchange of diplomatic correspondence took place between Cairo, London, and Constantinople. An administrative line between El Arish to the Gulf of Aqaba was agreed upon but no legal frontier was defined between Egypt and Ottoman territories. Stormy negotiations ensued in 1905 when the Sultan made a more determined effort to occupy the Peninsula. The Aqaba Incident brought the British and the Ottoman Empires to the brink of war in 1906.
The first volume includes a selection from the personal papers of Mr W E Jennings-Bramly, who at the time was a Frontier Administration Officer and was ordered to occupy Naqb el Aqaba with a small detachment of Egyptian troops. His papers provide an on-the-spot description of events and enhance this documentary collection for those interested in the delimitation of the boundary which today is the accepted frontier between Israel and Egypt.
The Anglo-French Accord
Volumes II and III provide an interesting overview of the Anglo-French debate over the northern boundary of Palestine. During the course of the First World War, the British and the French governments anticipated the defeat of the Turks and in the famous Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916, secretly divided the Ottoman Empire between themselves, the Russians and the Italians. However, British interest and political aspirations called for a rapid revision of the Sykes-Picot partition. Within less than a year of concluding the agreement, the government set out to modify the provisions concerning the status of Palestine.
In December 1918 the British Prime Minister Lloyd George secured French acceptance that Palestine should come under British rather than international administration. The records show how the following period of intense and sometimes bitter negotiations between British and French policy makers, with the Zionist Organization as an interested pressure group and virtual participant in the process came close to jeopardising the post-war peace settlement.
Zionist influence on boundaries
The controversy surrounding the subsequent negotiations was fuelled by conflicting wartime promises to the Zionists and to the Arabs. The Balfour Declaration of November 2nd, 1917, concerning the establishment of a Jewish National Home, formalised an alliance with the politically influential Zionist movement.
It was a matter of urgent importance to the Zionists that Palestine should acquire a defensible boundary which would circumscribe sufficient surface water supplies for the successful development of a Jewish agriculture. But while Lloyd George dedared that Palestine should be defined in accordance to its Biblical limits "from Dan to Beersheba", Dr Weizmann lobbied to extend the boundaries further north and east for economic and security considerations.
Britain´s promise to grant King Husayn of the Hedjaz an independent Arab Kingdom (Husayn-McMahon correspondence 1915-1916) in return for leading the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans during the First World War was increasingly compromised. Not only did the Hashemite states of Transjordan, Syria and later Iraq fall under British administration after the decision to apply the Mandate system to the territories was taken at San Remo in 1920, but Palestine, which was arguably promised to Husayn in 1915, was excluded from any Hashemite influence.
The eastern frontier with Transjordan
The eastern frontier was formally established in 1922 when the final draft of the Mandate for Palestine and Transjordan was approved by the League of Nations. This instrument provided the British with the authority to exclude the territory east of the Jordan river from those provisions concerning a National Home for the Jewish people. The British decided to administer Transjordan separately, leaving the Jordan river as the effective eastern boundary of Palestine.
Back to top
Documentary Importance
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Documents were selected in the main from the Foreign Office and Colonial Office series of files in the National Archives, London. Supplementary material from official British sources comes from the India Office Library and Records, London. A selection of key papers is included from the Archives Diplomatiques, Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Quai d´Orsay, Paris. The collection also makes use of a good part of the Jennings-Bramly private papers lodged with the Royal Geographical Society, London. This collection was edited by Ms Patricia Toye whose sudden death in October 1994 is a loss felt by all researchers and historians of the boundaries of the region. Volume I includes a historical preface by Ms Toye and a scholarly introduction by J.C. Hurewitz, Professor of Government Emeritus at Columbia University, New York.
Back to top
Contents Outline
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Included in Volume 1
Papers relating to the Arrangement made between the Porte and Mehemet Ali in 1833.
Communications with Mehemet Ali in 1838.
London Convention for the Pacification of the Levant 1840.
Memorandum relating to the Firman of 1841.
Summary of Turco-Egytian frontier negotiations, 1892-1906.
Correspondence respecting the Turco-Egyptian frontier in the Sinai Peninsula recapitulating the main phrases through which the Turco-Egyptian frontier question passed from its origin early in January 1906 to the presentation of a note to the Ottoman Government to comply with the British demands to evacuate Tab and to the delimitation of the frontier.
Private papers of Mr W E Jennings-Bramly, Frontier Administration Officer in the Sinai Peninsula, 1902-1947.
Demarcation of the Turco-Egyptian frontier.
Report on the 1906 Delimitation of the Turco-Egyptian boundary between the Vilayet of the Hedjaz and the Sinai Peninsula, 1907.
Future and status of the Sinai Peninsula, 1946.
Included in Volume 2
Secret war time arrangements among the Entente powers for the partition of the Ottoman Empire 1915-1918.
Constantinople Agreement, 4 March-10 April 1915.
Italo-Entente Secret Agreement, 26 April 1915.
Sykes-Picot Agreement, April-October 1916.
Saint-Jean de Maurienne Agreement, April-September 1917.
Husayn-McMahon Correspondence, July 1915-March 1916.
The Balfour Declaration, 2 November 1917.
De Bunsen Committee Report on British desiderata in the Middle East,June 1915.
Memorandum on French and Arab claims in the Middle East, December 1918.
Peace Conference memorandum respecting Palestine by Sir E Richards, January 1919.
Zionist Organisations´ memorandum to the Supreme Council at the Paris Peace Conference, 3 February 1919.
Aide-memoire in regard to the occupation of Syria, Palestine and Mesopotamia pending the decision in regard to Mandates, 13 September 1919.
Anglo-French post-war negotiations over the boundaries of Palestine 1919-1920 and the revision of the Sykes-Picot line.
Included in Volume 3
Anglo-French negoitiations regarding the northern frontier, November 1920.
Delimitation of frontier between Palestine and Syria, March-July 1921.
The Cairo Conference of 1921.
Churchill Memorandum, 1 July 1922.
Settlement of Bon Voisinage Agreement between Palestine and Syria, March-July 1921.
Mandate for Palestine, 24 July 1923.
Memorandum on the strategical importance of Palestine to Britain, July 1923.
Anglo-French Convention, 23 December 1923.
Agreement between the United Kingdom and Transjordan, March 1928.
Extract from memorandum on the submission of frontiers of mandated territories to the League of Nations, April 1932.
Agreement between Palestine and Syria and Lebanon amending the Agreement of 2 February 1926 regarding the frontier questions, 3 November 1938.
Treaty of Alliance between the United Kingdom and the Amir of Transjordan, 22 March 1946.
Notes on the legal status of Palestine and the termination of the Mandate.
Back to top
Maps
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Map of the Sinai boundary, 1906.
Map of Aqaba-Rafah, showing in pencil line the line described by Captain Owen and the Turkish Commissioners, 1906.
Map of the Sinai boundary annexed to the 1 October 1906 Agreement.
Map of northern Palestine and adjacent area showing the frontiers between British and French spheres of influence 1921.
Map showing proposed boundary between Jordan and Palestine, 1919.
Map showing boundaries of Palestine in the French proposals of March and June 1920, the Sykes-Picot line and the Meinertzhagen line.
Map showing Lebanese boundary according to Ms.Berthelot's proposal of 11 March 1920.
Map showing boundary between Syria and Palestine signed by Lt.Col. Paulet for French Government in 1922 and removed from the Commission's report on the boundary FO 93/292.
War Office map of Syria showing the international boundaries of 1914, 1918.
War Office base map of Palestine, 1923.
Colonial Office map showing Palestine and adjacent area with proposed frontier roughly sketched, 1921.
For full list and references see Maplist.
Back to top
Related Titles:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Arabian Boundaries 1853–1960
Arabian Boundaries 1961–1965
Arabian Boundary Disputes – Historical, Political And Legal Dossier
Arabian Treaties 1600–1960
Israel: Boundary Disputes With Arab Neighbours 1946–1964
Minorities In The Middle East: Druze Communities 1840–1974
Minorities In The Middle East: Jewish Communities In Arab Countries 1841–1974
Minorities In The Middle East: Religious Communities In Jerusalem 1843–1974
Palestine And Transjordan Administration Reports 1918–1948
Political Diaries Of The Arab World: Palestine And Jordan 1920–1965
Records Of Jerusalem 1917–1971
Records Of Jordan 1919–1965
Survey of Western And Eastern Palestine 1882-1888
Zionist Movement And The Foundation Of Israel 1839–1972, The
Resumé
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The aim of the present work is to provide, in a single source of reference, copies of those historical documents which cumulatively defined the geographical and political limits of Palestine up to the end of the British Mandate in 1947. The work is intended to establish an objective historical base, taken from the records, for understanding the evolution of the territorial idea of Palestine before the modern era.
The collection is also intended to demonstrate the extent and limits of responsibility, particularly British and French, for territorial decisions, and likewise the extent of solid international agreement on the delimitation of Palestine boundaries in the past.
Back to top
Historical Overview
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In Ottoman times, no political entity called Palestine existed. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War, European boundary makers began to take greater interest in defining territorial limits for Palestine. Only since the 1920s has Palestine had formally delimited boundaries, though these have remained subject to repeated change and a source of bitter dispute.
The southern boundary (with Egypt) is the subject of Volume I of this collection. In the Ottoman Sultan´s firman (decree) of 1841, the first map appeared showing the boundaries of the area under Mohammed Ali Pasha´s rule. The eastern frontier of Egypt was shown as a straight line drawn from El Arish to Suez. East of this line was the Sinai Peninsula, almost waterless and inhabited only by a few Bedouin tribes. In 1892, however, with the possibility of Turkish troops being stationed in the Sinai Peninsula, a heated exchange of diplomatic correspondence took place between Cairo, London, and Constantinople. An administrative line between El Arish to the Gulf of Aqaba was agreed upon but no legal frontier was defined between Egypt and Ottoman territories. Stormy negotiations ensued in 1905 when the Sultan made a more determined effort to occupy the Peninsula. The Aqaba Incident brought the British and the Ottoman Empires to the brink of war in 1906.
The first volume includes a selection from the personal papers of Mr W E Jennings-Bramly, who at the time was a Frontier Administration Officer and was ordered to occupy Naqb el Aqaba with a small detachment of Egyptian troops. His papers provide an on-the-spot description of events and enhance this documentary collection for those interested in the delimitation of the boundary which today is the accepted frontier between Israel and Egypt.
The Anglo-French Accord
Volumes II and III provide an interesting overview of the Anglo-French debate over the northern boundary of Palestine. During the course of the First World War, the British and the French governments anticipated the defeat of the Turks and in the famous Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916, secretly divided the Ottoman Empire between themselves, the Russians and the Italians. However, British interest and political aspirations called for a rapid revision of the Sykes-Picot partition. Within less than a year of concluding the agreement, the government set out to modify the provisions concerning the status of Palestine.
In December 1918 the British Prime Minister Lloyd George secured French acceptance that Palestine should come under British rather than international administration. The records show how the following period of intense and sometimes bitter negotiations between British and French policy makers, with the Zionist Organization as an interested pressure group and virtual participant in the process came close to jeopardising the post-war peace settlement.
Zionist influence on boundaries
The controversy surrounding the subsequent negotiations was fuelled by conflicting wartime promises to the Zionists and to the Arabs. The Balfour Declaration of November 2nd, 1917, concerning the establishment of a Jewish National Home, formalised an alliance with the politically influential Zionist movement.
It was a matter of urgent importance to the Zionists that Palestine should acquire a defensible boundary which would circumscribe sufficient surface water supplies for the successful development of a Jewish agriculture. But while Lloyd George dedared that Palestine should be defined in accordance to its Biblical limits "from Dan to Beersheba", Dr Weizmann lobbied to extend the boundaries further north and east for economic and security considerations.
Britain´s promise to grant King Husayn of the Hedjaz an independent Arab Kingdom (Husayn-McMahon correspondence 1915-1916) in return for leading the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans during the First World War was increasingly compromised. Not only did the Hashemite states of Transjordan, Syria and later Iraq fall under British administration after the decision to apply the Mandate system to the territories was taken at San Remo in 1920, but Palestine, which was arguably promised to Husayn in 1915, was excluded from any Hashemite influence.
The eastern frontier with Transjordan
The eastern frontier was formally established in 1922 when the final draft of the Mandate for Palestine and Transjordan was approved by the League of Nations. This instrument provided the British with the authority to exclude the territory east of the Jordan river from those provisions concerning a National Home for the Jewish people. The British decided to administer Transjordan separately, leaving the Jordan river as the effective eastern boundary of Palestine.
Back to top
Documentary Importance
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Documents were selected in the main from the Foreign Office and Colonial Office series of files in the National Archives, London. Supplementary material from official British sources comes from the India Office Library and Records, London. A selection of key papers is included from the Archives Diplomatiques, Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Quai d´Orsay, Paris. The collection also makes use of a good part of the Jennings-Bramly private papers lodged with the Royal Geographical Society, London. This collection was edited by Ms Patricia Toye whose sudden death in October 1994 is a loss felt by all researchers and historians of the boundaries of the region. Volume I includes a historical preface by Ms Toye and a scholarly introduction by J.C. Hurewitz, Professor of Government Emeritus at Columbia University, New York.
Back to top
Contents Outline
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Included in Volume 1
Papers relating to the Arrangement made between the Porte and Mehemet Ali in 1833.
Communications with Mehemet Ali in 1838.
London Convention for the Pacification of the Levant 1840.
Memorandum relating to the Firman of 1841.
Summary of Turco-Egytian frontier negotiations, 1892-1906.
Correspondence respecting the Turco-Egyptian frontier in the Sinai Peninsula recapitulating the main phrases through which the Turco-Egyptian frontier question passed from its origin early in January 1906 to the presentation of a note to the Ottoman Government to comply with the British demands to evacuate Tab and to the delimitation of the frontier.
Private papers of Mr W E Jennings-Bramly, Frontier Administration Officer in the Sinai Peninsula, 1902-1947.
Demarcation of the Turco-Egyptian frontier.
Report on the 1906 Delimitation of the Turco-Egyptian boundary between the Vilayet of the Hedjaz and the Sinai Peninsula, 1907.
Future and status of the Sinai Peninsula, 1946.
Included in Volume 2
Secret war time arrangements among the Entente powers for the partition of the Ottoman Empire 1915-1918.
Constantinople Agreement, 4 March-10 April 1915.
Italo-Entente Secret Agreement, 26 April 1915.
Sykes-Picot Agreement, April-October 1916.
Saint-Jean de Maurienne Agreement, April-September 1917.
Husayn-McMahon Correspondence, July 1915-March 1916.
The Balfour Declaration, 2 November 1917.
De Bunsen Committee Report on British desiderata in the Middle East,June 1915.
Memorandum on French and Arab claims in the Middle East, December 1918.
Peace Conference memorandum respecting Palestine by Sir E Richards, January 1919.
Zionist Organisations´ memorandum to the Supreme Council at the Paris Peace Conference, 3 February 1919.
Aide-memoire in regard to the occupation of Syria, Palestine and Mesopotamia pending the decision in regard to Mandates, 13 September 1919.
Anglo-French post-war negotiations over the boundaries of Palestine 1919-1920 and the revision of the Sykes-Picot line.
Included in Volume 3
Anglo-French negoitiations regarding the northern frontier, November 1920.
Delimitation of frontier between Palestine and Syria, March-July 1921.
The Cairo Conference of 1921.
Churchill Memorandum, 1 July 1922.
Settlement of Bon Voisinage Agreement between Palestine and Syria, March-July 1921.
Mandate for Palestine, 24 July 1923.
Memorandum on the strategical importance of Palestine to Britain, July 1923.
Anglo-French Convention, 23 December 1923.
Agreement between the United Kingdom and Transjordan, March 1928.
Extract from memorandum on the submission of frontiers of mandated territories to the League of Nations, April 1932.
Agreement between Palestine and Syria and Lebanon amending the Agreement of 2 February 1926 regarding the frontier questions, 3 November 1938.
Treaty of Alliance between the United Kingdom and the Amir of Transjordan, 22 March 1946.
Notes on the legal status of Palestine and the termination of the Mandate.
Back to top
Maps
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Map of the Sinai boundary, 1906.
Map of Aqaba-Rafah, showing in pencil line the line described by Captain Owen and the Turkish Commissioners, 1906.
Map of the Sinai boundary annexed to the 1 October 1906 Agreement.
Map of northern Palestine and adjacent area showing the frontiers between British and French spheres of influence 1921.
Map showing proposed boundary between Jordan and Palestine, 1919.
Map showing boundaries of Palestine in the French proposals of March and June 1920, the Sykes-Picot line and the Meinertzhagen line.
Map showing Lebanese boundary according to Ms.Berthelot's proposal of 11 March 1920.
Map showing boundary between Syria and Palestine signed by Lt.Col. Paulet for French Government in 1922 and removed from the Commission's report on the boundary FO 93/292.
War Office map of Syria showing the international boundaries of 1914, 1918.
War Office base map of Palestine, 1923.
Colonial Office map showing Palestine and adjacent area with proposed frontier roughly sketched, 1921.
For full list and references see Maplist.
Back to top
Related Titles:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Arabian Boundaries 1853–1960
Arabian Boundaries 1961–1965
Arabian Boundary Disputes – Historical, Political And Legal Dossier
Arabian Treaties 1600–1960
Israel: Boundary Disputes With Arab Neighbours 1946–1964
Minorities In The Middle East: Druze Communities 1840–1974
Minorities In The Middle East: Jewish Communities In Arab Countries 1841–1974
Minorities In The Middle East: Religious Communities In Jerusalem 1843–1974
Palestine And Transjordan Administration Reports 1918–1948
Political Diaries Of The Arab World: Palestine And Jordan 1920–1965
Records Of Jerusalem 1917–1971
Records Of Jordan 1919–1965
Survey of Western And Eastern Palestine 1882-1888
Zionist Movement And The Foundation Of Israel 1839–1972, The
Palestine Boundaries 1833–1947
Resumé
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The aim of the present work is to provide, in a single source of reference, copies of those historical documents which cumulatively defined the geographical and political limits of Palestine up to the end of the British Mandate in 1947. The work is intended to establish an objective historical base, taken from the records, for understanding the evolution of the territorial idea of Palestine before the modern era.
The collection is also intended to demonstrate the extent and limits of responsibility, particularly British and French, for territorial decisions, and likewise the extent of solid international agreement on the delimitation of Palestine boundaries in the past.
Historical Overview
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In Ottoman times, no political entity called Palestine existed. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War, European boundary makers began to take greater interest in defining territorial limits for Palestine. Only since the 1920s has Palestine had formally delimited boundaries, though these have remained subject to repeated change and a source of bitter dispute.
The southern boundary (with Egypt) is the subject of Volume I of this collection. In the Ottoman Sultan´s firman (decree) of 1841, the first map appeared showing the boundaries of the area under Mohammed Ali Pasha´s rule. The eastern frontier of Egypt was shown as a straight line drawn from El Arish to Suez. East of this line was the Sinai Peninsula, almost waterless and inhabited only by a few Bedouin tribes. In 1892, however, with the possibility of Turkish troops being stationed in the Sinai Peninsula, a heated exchange of diplomatic correspondence took place between Cairo, London, and Constantinople. An administrative line between El Arish to the Gulf of Aqaba was agreed upon but no legal frontier was defined between Egypt and Ottoman territories. Stormy negotiations ensued in 1905 when the Sultan made a more determined effort to occupy the Peninsula. The Aqaba Incident brought the British and the Ottoman Empires to the brink of war in 1906.
The first volume includes a selection from the personal papers of Mr W E Jennings-Bramly, who at the time was a Frontier Administration Officer and was ordered to occupy Naqb el Aqaba with a small detachment of Egyptian troops. His papers provide an on-the-spot description of events and enhance this documentary collection for those interested in the delimitation of the boundary which today is the accepted frontier between Israel and Egypt.
The Anglo-French Accord
Volumes II and III provide an interesting overview of the Anglo-French debate over the northern boundary of Palestine. During the course of the First World War, the British and the French governments anticipated the defeat of the Turks and in the famous Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916, secretly divided the Ottoman Empire between themselves, the Russians and the Italians. However, British interest and political aspirations called for a rapid revision of the Sykes-Picot partition. Within less than a year of concluding the agreement, the government set out to modify the provisions concerning the status of Palestine.
In December 1918 the British Prime Minister Lloyd George secured French acceptance that Palestine should come under British rather than international administration. The records show how the following period of intense and sometimes bitter negotiations between British and French policy makers, with the Zionist Organization as an interested pressure group and virtual participant in the process came close to jeopardising the post-war peace settlement.
Zionist influence on boundaries
The controversy surrounding the subsequent negotiations was fuelled by conflicting wartime promises to the Zionists and to the Arabs. The Balfour Declaration of November 2nd, 1917, concerning the establishment of a Jewish National Home, formalised an alliance with the politically influential Zionist movement.
It was a matter of urgent importance to the Zionists that Palestine should acquire a defensible boundary which would circumscribe sufficient surface water supplies for the successful development of a Jewish agriculture. But while Lloyd George dedared that Palestine should be defined in accordance to its Biblical limits "from Dan to Beersheba", Dr Weizmann lobbied to extend the boundaries further north and east for economic and security considerations.
Britain´s promise to grant King Husayn of the Hedjaz an independent Arab Kingdom (Husayn-McMahon correspondence 1915-1916) in return for leading the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans during the First World War was increasingly compromised. Not only did the Hashemite states of Transjordan, Syria and later Iraq fall under British administration after the decision to apply the Mandate system to the territories was taken at San Remo in 1920, but Palestine, which was arguably promised to Husayn in 1915, was excluded from any Hashemite influence.
The eastern frontier with Transjordan
The eastern frontier was formally established in 1922 when the final draft of the Mandate for Palestine and Transjordan was approved by the League of Nations. This instrument provided the British with the authority to exclude the territory east of the Jordan river from those provisions concerning a National Home for the Jewish people. The British decided to administer Transjordan separately, leaving the Jordan river as the effective eastern boundary of Palestine.
Back to top
Documentary Importance
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Documents were selected in the main from the Foreign Office and Colonial Office series of files in the National Archives, London. Supplementary material from official British sources comes from the India Office Library and Records, London. A selection of key papers is included from the Archives Diplomatiques, Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Quai d´Orsay, Paris. The collection also makes use of a good part of the Jennings-Bramly private papers lodged with the Royal Geographical Society, London. This collection was edited by Ms Patricia Toye whose sudden death in October 1994 is a loss felt by all researchers and historians of the boundaries of the region. Volume I includes a historical preface by Ms Toye and a scholarly introduction by J.C. Hurewitz, Professor of Government Emeritus at Columbia University, New York.
Back to top
Contents Outline
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Included in Volume 1
Papers relating to the Arrangement made between the Porte and Mehemet Ali in 1833.
Communications with Mehemet Ali in 1838.
London Convention for the Pacification of the Levant 1840.
Memorandum relating to the Firman of 1841.
Summary of Turco-Egytian frontier negotiations, 1892-1906.
Correspondence respecting the Turco-Egyptian frontier in the Sinai Peninsula recapitulating the main phrases through which the Turco-Egyptian frontier question passed from its origin early in January 1906 to the presentation of a note to the Ottoman Government to comply with the British demands to evacuate Tab and to the delimitation of the frontier.
Private papers of Mr W E Jennings-Bramly, Frontier Administration Officer in the Sinai Peninsula, 1902-1947.
Demarcation of the Turco-Egyptian frontier.
Report on the 1906 Delimitation of the Turco-Egyptian boundary between the Vilayet of the Hedjaz and the Sinai Peninsula, 1907.
Future and status of the Sinai Peninsula, 1946.
Included in Volume 2
Secret war time arrangements among the Entente powers for the partition of the Ottoman Empire 1915-1918.
Constantinople Agreement, 4 March-10 April 1915.
Italo-Entente Secret Agreement, 26 April 1915.
Sykes-Picot Agreement, April-October 1916.
Saint-Jean de Maurienne Agreement, April-September 1917.
Husayn-McMahon Correspondence, July 1915-March 1916.
The Balfour Declaration, 2 November 1917.
De Bunsen Committee Report on British desiderata in the Middle East,June 1915.
Memorandum on French and Arab claims in the Middle East, December 1918.
Peace Conference memorandum respecting Palestine by Sir E Richards, January 1919.
Zionist Organisations´ memorandum to the Supreme Council at the Paris Peace Conference, 3 February 1919.
Aide-memoire in regard to the occupation of Syria, Palestine and Mesopotamia pending the decision in regard to Mandates, 13 September 1919.
Anglo-French post-war negotiations over the boundaries of Palestine 1919-1920 and the revision of the Sykes-Picot line.
Included in Volume 3
Anglo-French negoitiations regarding the northern frontier, November 1920.
Delimitation of frontier between Palestine and Syria, March-July 1921.
The Cairo Conference of 1921.
Churchill Memorandum, 1 July 1922.
Settlement of Bon Voisinage Agreement between Palestine and Syria, March-July 1921.
Mandate for Palestine, 24 July 1923.
Memorandum on the strategical importance of Palestine to Britain, July 1923.
Anglo-French Convention, 23 December 1923.
Agreement between the United Kingdom and Transjordan, March 1928.
Extract from memorandum on the submission of frontiers of mandated territories to the League of Nations, April 1932.
Agreement between Palestine and Syria and Lebanon amending the Agreement of 2 February 1926 regarding the frontier questions, 3 November 1938.
Treaty of Alliance between the United Kingdom and the Amir of Transjordan, 22 March 1946.
Notes on the legal status of Palestine and the termination of the Mandate.
Back to top
Maps
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Map of the Sinai boundary, 1906.
Map of Aqaba-Rafah, showing in pencil line the line described by Captain Owen and the Turkish Commissioners, 1906.
Map of the Sinai boundary annexed to the 1 October 1906 Agreement.
Map of northern Palestine and adjacent area showing the frontiers between British and French spheres of influence 1921.
Map showing proposed boundary between Jordan and Palestine, 1919.
Map showing boundaries of Palestine in the French proposals of March and June 1920, the Sykes-Picot line and the Meinertzhagen line.
Map showing Lebanese boundary according to Ms.Berthelot's proposal of 11 March 1920.
Map showing boundary between Syria and Palestine signed by Lt.Col. Paulet for French Government in 1922 and removed from the Commission's report on the boundary FO 93/292.
War Office map of Syria showing the international boundaries of 1914, 1918.
War Office base map of Palestine, 1923.
Colonial Office map showing Palestine and adjacent area with proposed frontier roughly sketched, 1921.
For full list and references see Maplist.
Back to top
Related Titles:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Arabian Boundaries 1853–1960
Arabian Boundaries 1961–1965
Arabian Boundary Disputes – Historical, Political And Legal Dossier
Arabian Treaties 1600–1960
Israel: Boundary Disputes With Arab Neighbours 1946–1964
Minorities In The Middle East: Druze Communities 1840–1974
Minorities In The Middle East: Jewish Communities In Arab Countries 1841–1974
Minorities In The Middle East: Religious Communities In Jerusalem 1843–1974
Palestine And Transjordan Administration Reports 1918–1948
Political Diaries Of The Arab World: Palestine And Jordan 1920–1965
Records Of Jerusalem 1917–1971
Records Of Jordan 1919–1965
Survey of Western And Eastern Palestine 1882-1888
Zionist Movement And The Foundation Of Israel 1839–1972, The
Resumé
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The aim of the present work is to provide, in a single source of reference, copies of those historical documents which cumulatively defined the geographical and political limits of Palestine up to the end of the British Mandate in 1947. The work is intended to establish an objective historical base, taken from the records, for understanding the evolution of the territorial idea of Palestine before the modern era.
The collection is also intended to demonstrate the extent and limits of responsibility, particularly British and French, for territorial decisions, and likewise the extent of solid international agreement on the delimitation of Palestine boundaries in the past.
Back to top
Historical Overview
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In Ottoman times, no political entity called Palestine existed. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War, European boundary makers began to take greater interest in defining territorial limits for Palestine. Only since the 1920s has Palestine had formally delimited boundaries, though these have remained subject to repeated change and a source of bitter dispute.
The southern boundary (with Egypt) is the subject of Volume I of this collection. In the Ottoman Sultan´s firman (decree) of 1841, the first map appeared showing the boundaries of the area under Mohammed Ali Pasha´s rule. The eastern frontier of Egypt was shown as a straight line drawn from El Arish to Suez. East of this line was the Sinai Peninsula, almost waterless and inhabited only by a few Bedouin tribes. In 1892, however, with the possibility of Turkish troops being stationed in the Sinai Peninsula, a heated exchange of diplomatic correspondence took place between Cairo, London, and Constantinople. An administrative line between El Arish to the Gulf of Aqaba was agreed upon but no legal frontier was defined between Egypt and Ottoman territories. Stormy negotiations ensued in 1905 when the Sultan made a more determined effort to occupy the Peninsula. The Aqaba Incident brought the British and the Ottoman Empires to the brink of war in 1906.
The first volume includes a selection from the personal papers of Mr W E Jennings-Bramly, who at the time was a Frontier Administration Officer and was ordered to occupy Naqb el Aqaba with a small detachment of Egyptian troops. His papers provide an on-the-spot description of events and enhance this documentary collection for those interested in the delimitation of the boundary which today is the accepted frontier between Israel and Egypt.
The Anglo-French Accord
Volumes II and III provide an interesting overview of the Anglo-French debate over the northern boundary of Palestine. During the course of the First World War, the British and the French governments anticipated the defeat of the Turks and in the famous Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916, secretly divided the Ottoman Empire between themselves, the Russians and the Italians. However, British interest and political aspirations called for a rapid revision of the Sykes-Picot partition. Within less than a year of concluding the agreement, the government set out to modify the provisions concerning the status of Palestine.
In December 1918 the British Prime Minister Lloyd George secured French acceptance that Palestine should come under British rather than international administration. The records show how the following period of intense and sometimes bitter negotiations between British and French policy makers, with the Zionist Organization as an interested pressure group and virtual participant in the process came close to jeopardising the post-war peace settlement.
Zionist influence on boundaries
The controversy surrounding the subsequent negotiations was fuelled by conflicting wartime promises to the Zionists and to the Arabs. The Balfour Declaration of November 2nd, 1917, concerning the establishment of a Jewish National Home, formalised an alliance with the politically influential Zionist movement.
It was a matter of urgent importance to the Zionists that Palestine should acquire a defensible boundary which would circumscribe sufficient surface water supplies for the successful development of a Jewish agriculture. But while Lloyd George dedared that Palestine should be defined in accordance to its Biblical limits "from Dan to Beersheba", Dr Weizmann lobbied to extend the boundaries further north and east for economic and security considerations.
Britain´s promise to grant King Husayn of the Hedjaz an independent Arab Kingdom (Husayn-McMahon correspondence 1915-1916) in return for leading the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans during the First World War was increasingly compromised. Not only did the Hashemite states of Transjordan, Syria and later Iraq fall under British administration after the decision to apply the Mandate system to the territories was taken at San Remo in 1920, but Palestine, which was arguably promised to Husayn in 1915, was excluded from any Hashemite influence.
The eastern frontier with Transjordan
The eastern frontier was formally established in 1922 when the final draft of the Mandate for Palestine and Transjordan was approved by the League of Nations. This instrument provided the British with the authority to exclude the territory east of the Jordan river from those provisions concerning a National Home for the Jewish people. The British decided to administer Transjordan separately, leaving the Jordan river as the effective eastern boundary of Palestine.
Back to top
Documentary Importance
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Documents were selected in the main from the Foreign Office and Colonial Office series of files in the National Archives, London. Supplementary material from official British sources comes from the India Office Library and Records, London. A selection of key papers is included from the Archives Diplomatiques, Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Quai d´Orsay, Paris. The collection also makes use of a good part of the Jennings-Bramly private papers lodged with the Royal Geographical Society, London. This collection was edited by Ms Patricia Toye whose sudden death in October 1994 is a loss felt by all researchers and historians of the boundaries of the region. Volume I includes a historical preface by Ms Toye and a scholarly introduction by J.C. Hurewitz, Professor of Government Emeritus at Columbia University, New York.
Back to top
Contents Outline
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Included in Volume 1
Papers relating to the Arrangement made between the Porte and Mehemet Ali in 1833.
Communications with Mehemet Ali in 1838.
London Convention for the Pacification of the Levant 1840.
Memorandum relating to the Firman of 1841.
Summary of Turco-Egytian frontier negotiations, 1892-1906.
Correspondence respecting the Turco-Egyptian frontier in the Sinai Peninsula recapitulating the main phrases through which the Turco-Egyptian frontier question passed from its origin early in January 1906 to the presentation of a note to the Ottoman Government to comply with the British demands to evacuate Tab and to the delimitation of the frontier.
Private papers of Mr W E Jennings-Bramly, Frontier Administration Officer in the Sinai Peninsula, 1902-1947.
Demarcation of the Turco-Egyptian frontier.
Report on the 1906 Delimitation of the Turco-Egyptian boundary between the Vilayet of the Hedjaz and the Sinai Peninsula, 1907.
Future and status of the Sinai Peninsula, 1946.
Included in Volume 2
Secret war time arrangements among the Entente powers for the partition of the Ottoman Empire 1915-1918.
Constantinople Agreement, 4 March-10 April 1915.
Italo-Entente Secret Agreement, 26 April 1915.
Sykes-Picot Agreement, April-October 1916.
Saint-Jean de Maurienne Agreement, April-September 1917.
Husayn-McMahon Correspondence, July 1915-March 1916.
The Balfour Declaration, 2 November 1917.
De Bunsen Committee Report on British desiderata in the Middle East,June 1915.
Memorandum on French and Arab claims in the Middle East, December 1918.
Peace Conference memorandum respecting Palestine by Sir E Richards, January 1919.
Zionist Organisations´ memorandum to the Supreme Council at the Paris Peace Conference, 3 February 1919.
Aide-memoire in regard to the occupation of Syria, Palestine and Mesopotamia pending the decision in regard to Mandates, 13 September 1919.
Anglo-French post-war negotiations over the boundaries of Palestine 1919-1920 and the revision of the Sykes-Picot line.
Included in Volume 3
Anglo-French negoitiations regarding the northern frontier, November 1920.
Delimitation of frontier between Palestine and Syria, March-July 1921.
The Cairo Conference of 1921.
Churchill Memorandum, 1 July 1922.
Settlement of Bon Voisinage Agreement between Palestine and Syria, March-July 1921.
Mandate for Palestine, 24 July 1923.
Memorandum on the strategical importance of Palestine to Britain, July 1923.
Anglo-French Convention, 23 December 1923.
Agreement between the United Kingdom and Transjordan, March 1928.
Extract from memorandum on the submission of frontiers of mandated territories to the League of Nations, April 1932.
Agreement between Palestine and Syria and Lebanon amending the Agreement of 2 February 1926 regarding the frontier questions, 3 November 1938.
Treaty of Alliance between the United Kingdom and the Amir of Transjordan, 22 March 1946.
Notes on the legal status of Palestine and the termination of the Mandate.
Back to top
Maps
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Map of the Sinai boundary, 1906.
Map of Aqaba-Rafah, showing in pencil line the line described by Captain Owen and the Turkish Commissioners, 1906.
Map of the Sinai boundary annexed to the 1 October 1906 Agreement.
Map of northern Palestine and adjacent area showing the frontiers between British and French spheres of influence 1921.
Map showing proposed boundary between Jordan and Palestine, 1919.
Map showing boundaries of Palestine in the French proposals of March and June 1920, the Sykes-Picot line and the Meinertzhagen line.
Map showing Lebanese boundary according to Ms.Berthelot's proposal of 11 March 1920.
Map showing boundary between Syria and Palestine signed by Lt.Col. Paulet for French Government in 1922 and removed from the Commission's report on the boundary FO 93/292.
War Office map of Syria showing the international boundaries of 1914, 1918.
War Office base map of Palestine, 1923.
Colonial Office map showing Palestine and adjacent area with proposed frontier roughly sketched, 1921.
For full list and references see Maplist.
Back to top
Related Titles:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Arabian Boundaries 1853–1960
Arabian Boundaries 1961–1965
Arabian Boundary Disputes – Historical, Political And Legal Dossier
Arabian Treaties 1600–1960
Israel: Boundary Disputes With Arab Neighbours 1946–1964
Minorities In The Middle East: Druze Communities 1840–1974
Minorities In The Middle East: Jewish Communities In Arab Countries 1841–1974
Minorities In The Middle East: Religious Communities In Jerusalem 1843–1974
Palestine And Transjordan Administration Reports 1918–1948
Political Diaries Of The Arab World: Palestine And Jordan 1920–1965
Records Of Jerusalem 1917–1971
Records Of Jordan 1919–1965
Survey of Western And Eastern Palestine 1882-1888
Zionist Movement And The Foundation Of Israel 1839–1972, The
Resumé
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The aim of the present work is to provide, in a single source of reference, copies of those historical documents which cumulatively defined the geographical and political limits of Palestine up to the end of the British Mandate in 1947. The work is intended to establish an objective historical base, taken from the records, for understanding the evolution of the territorial idea of Palestine before the modern era.
The collection is also intended to demonstrate the extent and limits of responsibility, particularly British and French, for territorial decisions, and likewise the extent of solid international agreement on the delimitation of Palestine boundaries in the past.
Back to top
Historical Overview
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In Ottoman times, no political entity called Palestine existed. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War, European boundary makers began to take greater interest in defining territorial limits for Palestine. Only since the 1920s has Palestine had formally delimited boundaries, though these have remained subject to repeated change and a source of bitter dispute.
The southern boundary (with Egypt) is the subject of Volume I of this collection. In the Ottoman Sultan´s firman (decree) of 1841, the first map appeared showing the boundaries of the area under Mohammed Ali Pasha´s rule. The eastern frontier of Egypt was shown as a straight line drawn from El Arish to Suez. East of this line was the Sinai Peninsula, almost waterless and inhabited only by a few Bedouin tribes. In 1892, however, with the possibility of Turkish troops being stationed in the Sinai Peninsula, a heated exchange of diplomatic correspondence took place between Cairo, London, and Constantinople. An administrative line between El Arish to the Gulf of Aqaba was agreed upon but no legal frontier was defined between Egypt and Ottoman territories. Stormy negotiations ensued in 1905 when the Sultan made a more determined effort to occupy the Peninsula. The Aqaba Incident brought the British and the Ottoman Empires to the brink of war in 1906.
The first volume includes a selection from the personal papers of Mr W E Jennings-Bramly, who at the time was a Frontier Administration Officer and was ordered to occupy Naqb el Aqaba with a small detachment of Egyptian troops. His papers provide an on-the-spot description of events and enhance this documentary collection for those interested in the delimitation of the boundary which today is the accepted frontier between Israel and Egypt.
The Anglo-French Accord
Volumes II and III provide an interesting overview of the Anglo-French debate over the northern boundary of Palestine. During the course of the First World War, the British and the French governments anticipated the defeat of the Turks and in the famous Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916, secretly divided the Ottoman Empire between themselves, the Russians and the Italians. However, British interest and political aspirations called for a rapid revision of the Sykes-Picot partition. Within less than a year of concluding the agreement, the government set out to modify the provisions concerning the status of Palestine.
In December 1918 the British Prime Minister Lloyd George secured French acceptance that Palestine should come under British rather than international administration. The records show how the following period of intense and sometimes bitter negotiations between British and French policy makers, with the Zionist Organization as an interested pressure group and virtual participant in the process came close to jeopardising the post-war peace settlement.
Zionist influence on boundaries
The controversy surrounding the subsequent negotiations was fuelled by conflicting wartime promises to the Zionists and to the Arabs. The Balfour Declaration of November 2nd, 1917, concerning the establishment of a Jewish National Home, formalised an alliance with the politically influential Zionist movement.
It was a matter of urgent importance to the Zionists that Palestine should acquire a defensible boundary which would circumscribe sufficient surface water supplies for the successful development of a Jewish agriculture. But while Lloyd George dedared that Palestine should be defined in accordance to its Biblical limits "from Dan to Beersheba", Dr Weizmann lobbied to extend the boundaries further north and east for economic and security considerations.
Britain´s promise to grant King Husayn of the Hedjaz an independent Arab Kingdom (Husayn-McMahon correspondence 1915-1916) in return for leading the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans during the First World War was increasingly compromised. Not only did the Hashemite states of Transjordan, Syria and later Iraq fall under British administration after the decision to apply the Mandate system to the territories was taken at San Remo in 1920, but Palestine, which was arguably promised to Husayn in 1915, was excluded from any Hashemite influence.
The eastern frontier with Transjordan
The eastern frontier was formally established in 1922 when the final draft of the Mandate for Palestine and Transjordan was approved by the League of Nations. This instrument provided the British with the authority to exclude the territory east of the Jordan river from those provisions concerning a National Home for the Jewish people. The British decided to administer Transjordan separately, leaving the Jordan river as the effective eastern boundary of Palestine.
Back to top
Documentary Importance
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Documents were selected in the main from the Foreign Office and Colonial Office series of files in the National Archives, London. Supplementary material from official British sources comes from the India Office Library and Records, London. A selection of key papers is included from the Archives Diplomatiques, Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Quai d´Orsay, Paris. The collection also makes use of a good part of the Jennings-Bramly private papers lodged with the Royal Geographical Society, London. This collection was edited by Ms Patricia Toye whose sudden death in October 1994 is a loss felt by all researchers and historians of the boundaries of the region. Volume I includes a historical preface by Ms Toye and a scholarly introduction by J.C. Hurewitz, Professor of Government Emeritus at Columbia University, New York.
Back to top
Contents Outline
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Included in Volume 1
Papers relating to the Arrangement made between the Porte and Mehemet Ali in 1833.
Communications with Mehemet Ali in 1838.
London Convention for the Pacification of the Levant 1840.
Memorandum relating to the Firman of 1841.
Summary of Turco-Egytian frontier negotiations, 1892-1906.
Correspondence respecting the Turco-Egyptian frontier in the Sinai Peninsula recapitulating the main phrases through which the Turco-Egyptian frontier question passed from its origin early in January 1906 to the presentation of a note to the Ottoman Government to comply with the British demands to evacuate Tab and to the delimitation of the frontier.
Private papers of Mr W E Jennings-Bramly, Frontier Administration Officer in the Sinai Peninsula, 1902-1947.
Demarcation of the Turco-Egyptian frontier.
Report on the 1906 Delimitation of the Turco-Egyptian boundary between the Vilayet of the Hedjaz and the Sinai Peninsula, 1907.
Future and status of the Sinai Peninsula, 1946.
Included in Volume 2
Secret war time arrangements among the Entente powers for the partition of the Ottoman Empire 1915-1918.
Constantinople Agreement, 4 March-10 April 1915.
Italo-Entente Secret Agreement, 26 April 1915.
Sykes-Picot Agreement, April-October 1916.
Saint-Jean de Maurienne Agreement, April-September 1917.
Husayn-McMahon Correspondence, July 1915-March 1916.
The Balfour Declaration, 2 November 1917.
De Bunsen Committee Report on British desiderata in the Middle East,June 1915.
Memorandum on French and Arab claims in the Middle East, December 1918.
Peace Conference memorandum respecting Palestine by Sir E Richards, January 1919.
Zionist Organisations´ memorandum to the Supreme Council at the Paris Peace Conference, 3 February 1919.
Aide-memoire in regard to the occupation of Syria, Palestine and Mesopotamia pending the decision in regard to Mandates, 13 September 1919.
Anglo-French post-war negotiations over the boundaries of Palestine 1919-1920 and the revision of the Sykes-Picot line.
Included in Volume 3
Anglo-French negoitiations regarding the northern frontier, November 1920.
Delimitation of frontier between Palestine and Syria, March-July 1921.
The Cairo Conference of 1921.
Churchill Memorandum, 1 July 1922.
Settlement of Bon Voisinage Agreement between Palestine and Syria, March-July 1921.
Mandate for Palestine, 24 July 1923.
Memorandum on the strategical importance of Palestine to Britain, July 1923.
Anglo-French Convention, 23 December 1923.
Agreement between the United Kingdom and Transjordan, March 1928.
Extract from memorandum on the submission of frontiers of mandated territories to the League of Nations, April 1932.
Agreement between Palestine and Syria and Lebanon amending the Agreement of 2 February 1926 regarding the frontier questions, 3 November 1938.
Treaty of Alliance between the United Kingdom and the Amir of Transjordan, 22 March 1946.
Notes on the legal status of Palestine and the termination of the Mandate.
Back to top
Maps
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Map of the Sinai boundary, 1906.
Map of Aqaba-Rafah, showing in pencil line the line described by Captain Owen and the Turkish Commissioners, 1906.
Map of the Sinai boundary annexed to the 1 October 1906 Agreement.
Map of northern Palestine and adjacent area showing the frontiers between British and French spheres of influence 1921.
Map showing proposed boundary between Jordan and Palestine, 1919.
Map showing boundaries of Palestine in the French proposals of March and June 1920, the Sykes-Picot line and the Meinertzhagen line.
Map showing Lebanese boundary according to Ms.Berthelot's proposal of 11 March 1920.
Map showing boundary between Syria and Palestine signed by Lt.Col. Paulet for French Government in 1922 and removed from the Commission's report on the boundary FO 93/292.
War Office map of Syria showing the international boundaries of 1914, 1918.
War Office base map of Palestine, 1923.
Colonial Office map showing Palestine and adjacent area with proposed frontier roughly sketched, 1921.
For full list and references see Maplist.
Back to top
Related Titles:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Arabian Boundaries 1853–1960
Arabian Boundaries 1961–1965
Arabian Boundary Disputes – Historical, Political And Legal Dossier
Arabian Treaties 1600–1960
Israel: Boundary Disputes With Arab Neighbours 1946–1964
Minorities In The Middle East: Druze Communities 1840–1974
Minorities In The Middle East: Jewish Communities In Arab Countries 1841–1974
Minorities In The Middle East: Religious Communities In Jerusalem 1843–1974
Palestine And Transjordan Administration Reports 1918–1948
Political Diaries Of The Arab World: Palestine And Jordan 1920–1965
Records Of Jerusalem 1917–1971
Records Of Jordan 1919–1965
Survey of Western And Eastern Palestine 1882-1888
Zionist Movement And The Foundation Of Israel 1839–1972, The
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