believed the agreement would hamper their plans for a Jewish homeland in Palestine;
Italy wanted to assert its territorial interests in the Middle East, notably concerning
the southwestern coast of Asia Minor; and the United States generally opposed all
forms of colonial expansionism.
Many British officials, including Sykes, later came to regret the agreement for var-
ious reasons, not the least of which was a desire to thwart French ambitions in the
Middle East. A year and a half after reaching the agreement, Britain issued the Bal-
four Declaration favoring a Jewish “national home” in Palestine, effectively repudiat-
ing the part of the Sykes-Picot Agreement placing Palestine under international con-
trol (Balfour Declaration, p. 24).
The Sykes-Picot Agreement ultimately established the parameters for the postwar
division of the former lands of the Ottoman Empire outside Turkey: France gained direct
control of Lebanon and indirect control of the new Syrian state; Britain established the
new states of Iraq and Jordan under its sponsorship and controlled Palestine through a
League of Nations mandate; and other powers that had territorial designs on the Middle
East, notably Italy and pre-revolutionary Russia, ultimately were excluded.
Following is the text of a letter dated May 16, 1916, from British foreign secretary Sir Edward
Grey to the French ambassador to London, Paul Cambon, incorporating the Sykes-Picot Agree-
ment for the division of Arabic lands of the Ottoman Empire following World War I. The
agreement also had the endorsement of Russian foreign minister Sergei Sazanov, representing
the third major Entente ally in the war. It is therefore sometimes referred to as the Sykes-Picot-
Sazanov Agreement.
DOCUMENT
Sykes-Picot Agreement
MAY16, 1916Letter from Grey to Cambon
I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your Excellency’s note of the 9th
instant, stating that the French Government accept the limits of a future Arab State,
or Confederation of States, and of those parts of Syria where French interests pre-
dominate, together with certain conditions attached thereto, such as they result from
recent discussions in London and Petrograd on the subject.
I have the honor to inform your Excellency in reply that the acceptance of the
whole project, as it now stands, will involve the abdication of considerable British
interests, but, since His Majesty’s Government recognize the advantage to the general
cause of the Allies entailed in producing a more favorable internal political situation
in Turkey, they are ready to accept the arrangement now arrived at, provided that the
14 FOUNDATIONS OF THE CONTEMPORARY MIDDLE EAST