Page 88 - Arabian Studies (II)

78 Arabian Studies II

with Italian attempts to influence Idris! policy led Sayyid Hasan in
1926 to sign the Mecca Agreement with ibn Sa‘ud which placed ‘AsTr
under a virtual Sa‘udi Protectorate.

Fa rasan

Britain first showed interest in the Farasan islands before the First
World War. In August 1913 the Idris! sent one of his ministers to
Aden to ascertain the British Government's attitude towards him,
but it was not until a second visit in September 1914 that the
Resident recommended that overtures be made to the IdrTsT. ‘We
could make Idrisi an offer of protection and friendship .... we
could also make over to him Farsan... .' However, before an
Anglo-IdrlsT treaty had been signed Britain had reluctantly planned
to seize the Red Sea islands, including Farasan since a first exchange
of views between the British and Italian Governments had failed in
the British view ‘to obviate the necessity'.1 But the Idrisi himself
seized the islands from the Ottomans on 30 January 1915. In the
Anglo-IdrlsT treaty of 30 April 1915, Britain undertook ‘to safeguard
the Idrisi Saiyid’s territories from all attack on the sea board’ and on
2 June 1915 the Foreign Office proposed that the IdrisT’s occupation
of Farasan be recognized in return for his agreeing not to surrender
the islands to any other Power.2 The British still believed that the
1915 treaty did not afford sufficient security for Farasan and so in
February 1916 the Aden Resident wrote to the IdrTsT requesting him
not to surrender Farasan to other Powers and, in the event of an
attack on the islands, to ask for British assistance.3
In December, fearing an Italian coup,4 the Union Jack was raised
on the islands as a warning that the islands were under British
protection: British troops were landed. Although this action
embittered Anglo-IdrisT relations Britain was able to sign a supple­
mentary treaty with the IdrTsT on 22 January 1917 designed to
I safeguard Farasan. By Article 2 of this Treaty Britain recognised that
= the Farasan islands had been captured by the IdrTsT and ‘have
become part and parcel of the Idrisi’s domains’. In the following
Article the IdrTsT engaged not to cede, mortgage or surrender the
islands nor the places situated on his sea board to any Power. In
return, by Article 4, Britain undertook to protect the islands and sea
board from all hostile action. By other Articles the IdrTsT engaged to
keep troops and fly his flag on the islands. Thus Farasan became a
preserve for British companies when the World War came to an end.
By virtue of Article 13 of the Treaty of London of 1915 the
Italian Government, in a memorandum dated 30 October 1918,