Page 49 - Arabian Studies (V)

The British Government and the Khunnah Dispute 39
contribution to the British war effort, and they especially did not
want to impair the collaboration of his forces with General
Allcnby’s operations in Palestine. The Egyptian officials also were
concerned that prolonged hostilities between the two Arab rulers
near Mecca would disrupt the pilgrimage and that the Muslim
world would hold Britain responsible for turning the Hijaz into a
theatre of war. Indeed, the possibility that the Ikhwan might seize
Mecca and close the pilgrimage to all non-Wahhabi Muslims was
greatly feared during this period.9 Consequently, the Cairo authori­
ties tried to force Ibn Sa‘ud to withdraw support from Khurmah
and allow Husayn to reassert his authority in the disputed territory.
In the summer of 1918, soon after fighting broke out at
Khurmah, the Egyptian officials marshalled their arguments
against Ibn Sa‘ud. Colonel C.E. Wilson, the British Agent at
Jedda, who was responsible to the High Commissioner in Egypt,
wrote that ‘it is really necessary for Khurma to be recaptured by the
King [Husayn] ... not only for the King’s prestige but equally, or
more important, to prevent the activities of the AKHWAN from
spreading further Westwards which might have serious conse­
quences’.10 Major Kinahan Cornwallis, director of the Arab Bureau
in Cairo, believed that ‘Khurma is in Hejaz territory, and that the
King has every right to punish his rebellious subjects’.n Brigadier-
General Gilbert Clayton, Chief Political Officer for the Egyptian
Expeditionary Force, maintained that ‘we must show him [Ibn
Sa‘ud] clearly that we support the King of the Hejaz in his endea­
vour to restore his authority in Khurma and wish Ibn Saud to keep
hands off Khurma at present’.12 Sir Reginald Wingate, High
Commissioner in Egypt, predicted that Husayn’s failure to capture
Khurmah ‘would gravely affect the King’s prestige and react most
unfavourably on Arab military effort in the North’. Wingate
concluded that ‘on grounds of practical expediency and as the best
means of preventing a conflagration I would urge Philby be imme­
diately instructed to enjoin Bin Saud against all interference in
Khurma and to require him to limit activities of Ikhwan agents who
are evidently at the root of the trouble.’13
The support which the British officials in Egypt gave to the
Sharif in his struggle for Khurmah was consistent with the policy
which they had established in 1915 to use him to lead an Arab
revolt against the Turks and to extend British influence in the Arab
territories of the Ottoman Empire after the war. By 1917 the Cairo
authorities realized that British and French imperial interests would
preclude Husayn from exercising any meaningful degree of autho­
rity in Mesopotamia and Syria. Still they sought to elevate him to a
position of leadership and dominance among the rulers of the