Page 54 - Arabian Studies (V)

44 Arabian Studies V
failing complaince, H.M.G. will break off relations with him’.36
General Clayton recommended that ‘If Ibn Saud refuses to ...
withdraw from Khurma, I am of opinion that all possible pressure—
and not merely diplomatic pressure—should be exercised upon him.’37
Sir Reginald Wingate advised that the British Government issue
‘peremptory instructions to Bin Saud to withdraw all militant Ikhwan
from neighbourhood [of Khurmah] making it clear to him that failure
or delay in compliance will entail reprisals’.38
During the closing months of 1918 the Indian officials continued
to resist Egyptian pressure for harsh measures to oust Ibn Sa‘ud
from Khurmah. Philby wrote that ‘the actions of the Sharif during
the past year have so alienated the sympathies of the people of
Khurma that they will not submit to his rule in any circumstances
whatever’.39 The Baghdad authorities noted that the ‘persistence of
Sherif in the matter of Khurma may not only precipitate actual
hostilities, but shake Bin Saud’s faith in the honesty of British
intentions’.40 Shuckburgh argued that Husayn ‘was the aggressor in
the recent fighting at Khurma’ and that ‘The fact that we are under
greater obligations to the King than to the Emir [Ibn Sa‘ud] ought
not to blind us to the merits of the dispute’.41 Hirtzel believed that
Ibn Sa‘ud ‘has hitherto met with scant justice from the Egyptian
side’42 and that Wingate’s ‘suggestion that Bin Saud sd. [should] be
pressed to withdraw the Akhwan from Khurma is not practicable’.43
Ultimately the question of British policy towards the continuing
dispute between Ibn Sa‘ud and Husayn over Khurmah was decided
by the Interdepartmental Conference on Middle Eastern Affairs. In
January 1919 the Interdepartmental Conference superseded the
Eastern Committee of the War Cabinet as the vehicle for the
formulation and coordination of high level British policy on the
Middle East. Lord Curzon, who had been Chairman of the Eastern
Committee, retained that position on the Interdepartmental
Conference. In January 1919 Curzon also became Acting Secretary
of State for Foreign Affairs when Balfour went to Paris for the
Peace Conference. Thus during the height of the Khurmah crisis in
» the spring of 1919 Curzon was able to exercise a decisive influence
on British policy in Arabia and Curzon was sympathetic to the
Indian perspective on the Middle East. In 1904, while Viceroy of
India, he had suggested that Britain should consider opening
relations with Ibn Sa‘ud in order to secure and stabilize the British
position in the Gulf, in spite of the fact that Ibn Sa‘ud was then a
Turkish vassal and the Foreign Office did not want to interfere in
the domestic affairs of the Ottoman Empire.44 Like most Indian
officials, Curzon had not been an original supporter of Husayn’s
revolt against the Turks. Regarding the possiblity of enlisting the