Mideast: The Star-Crossed Legacy Of The King-Crane Commission
When World War I began, the Ottoman Empire stretched from Istanbul to Mecca. The Ottomans saw their territory partitioned after the War by the victorious Great Powers. How the territories were divided remains one of the most consequential geopolitical moments in modern history.
At the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, diplomats established the post-war world order, producing the League of Nations, the Treaty of Versailles, and the Treaty of Lausanne, among other key decisions. The King-Crane Commission and its report are lesser-known products of the moment and the focus of this article. What was this historical almost?
At this point in world history, European colonialism was in its final stages. Popular anticolonial sentiment was rising, and costly counterinsurgency shrank public enthusiasm for imperialism. World War I demonstrated the dangers of territory and power consolidation. Woodrow Wilson, the American President and thinker whose vision dominated the interwar period, championed ‘self-determination.’
Nonetheless, European empires, especially Britain and France, maintained vast colonial empires. Leaders in Europe pontificated on their subjects’ lack of responsibility. Accordingly, colonies still needed Europe to prepare them for independence. This outlook, condescending at best, and violently racist at worst, was pervasive.
Thus, when the Paris Peace Conference partitioned the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East, established mandates rather than settled mercantile colonies. Contemporary scholar Dr. Ussama S. Makdisi elegantly dubs this as “colonialism by euphemism.” In the mandate system, the European country in charge of the mandate selected local leaders, funded and trained security operations, delineated borders, and benefited from trade monopoly.
Starting before the end of the Great War, Britain and France were already scheming on how to dissolve the Ottoman Empire and carve out spheres of influence in the Eastern Mediterranean. British Commissioner of Egypt, Sir Henry McMahon, promised Sharif Hussein ibn Ali, the Emir of Mecca, an independent Arab land, including eastern Syria, Mesopotamia, and the Arabian Peninsula, in exchange for leading an uprising against the Ottoman Empire. After the war, Britain forgot its antebellum promises.
Scholars are keen to point out that Sharif Hussein’s correspondence with Britain only partially explains his Arab Revolt in 1916. While the Emir was certainly glad to extract these promises from Britain, his support for Arab Nationalism was already growing. He rejected Ottoman violence against Arab leaders and Armenian and Syriac minorities. In 1916, he declared independence and attacked Ottoman Mecca.
Then, World War I ended. The Sykes-Picot agreement and the Balfour Declaration guided the new mandatory Middle East. These divided the region into the modern states of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Palestine, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Iran. We live today in the world they created.
Despite the cynical imperial diplomacy, an idealistic plan for self-determination arose at the same time.
An Idealistic Commission Is Formed
In the US Department of State’s archives lives an article titled, “Instructions for Commissioners From the Peace Conference.” These were the words of the Peace Conference to a team of US scholars sent to survey the residents of Ottoman territories in “Syria and Mesopotamia” and create recommendations for the League of Nations based on their findings. The League considered the US more neutral due to its distance from the region and its anticolonial past.
The Secretary of State recommended to President Wilson two scholars, Mr. H. C. King and Mr. Charles R. Crane, President of Oberlin College and Treasurer of the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief, respectively, to lead the commission. Their instructions from the Peace Conference are summarized in the final paragraph of “Instructions.”
“You are requested, accordingly, to visit these regions to acquaint yourselves as fully as possible with the state of opinion there with regard to these matters, with the social, racial, and economic conditions, a knowledge of which might serve to guide the judgment of the Conference, and to form as definite an opinion as the circumstances and the time at your disposal will permit, of the divisions of territory and assignment of mandates which will be most likely to promote the order, peace, and development of those peoples and countries.”
They came back with fascinating findings. The King-Crane Commission received over 1,000 submissions from communities across the Levant as they trekked rapidly from city to city fulfilling their mission. They created an in-depth report to present to the Peace Conference on the wishes of the Middle Eastern peoples, and they also sent letters to President Wilson with summarized, urgent advice regarding the trends they had noticed.
The highlights of their observations presented to the Peace Conference are summarized as follows.
The people of Syria and Mesopotamia desire independence above all.
In order of preferred mandatory powers, Syrian and Mesopotamian peoples prefer the United States, then Britain, last France. But, each is secondary to independence by large margins.
The people desire a continuous Arab state encompassing the area now Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria. This nation would be based on a shared language and shared national identity across Arab Muslims, Christians, and Jews. A semi-autonomous region of Lebanon would also be acceptable. Additionally, the people of Mesopotamia desire a continuous Mesopotamian state based on a cohesive national identity.
The people of Syria and Mesopotamia strongly oppose a significant campaign of Jewish immigration or the implementation of the Zionist agenda in Palestine or anywhere else in the region. Generally, they are opposed to non-Arabs immigrating to the region en masse.
Based on these primary observations, they made the following summarized recommendations.
An American mandate in United Syria, potentially with a French-supported semi-autonomous region in Lebanon.
A British mandate in Iraqin order to relieve pressure from America.
The mandates must include end dates when the newly created nations can expect independence.
A revision of the “extreme Zionist Program for Palestine,” to limit the immigration of Jews and prohibit the removal of Palestinians, to achieve the Balfour Declaration’s protections for the “civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.”
Each of their observations is elaborated on extensively to explain the logic of the arguments, which petitioners supported which arguments, their origins, and who the petitioners represented. Similarly, each of their recommendations includes second-best or third-best options.
When the King-Crane Commission returned from their whirlwind tour of the Levant, their report fell on deaf ears at the Peace Conference. The United Kingdom and France had already decided what they wanted to do with the region, and the King-Crane report made no difference. Syria and Lebanon went to France, while Palestine, Jordan, and Iraq went to the United Kingdom. The British placed Sharif Hussein’s sons as the heads of state in Jordan and Iraq, while Sharif Hussein was overthrown in the Arabian Peninsula by Ibn Saud.
It is impossible to honestly compare what was with what could have been. The reason for investigating the King-Crane Commission and its report is not to make a qualitative comparison between Sykes-Picot and King-Crane. Instead, the commission demonstrates that some statesmen in the interwar period attempted to understand the motivations and desires of the Arab people as the Ottoman Empire dissolved. The Great Powers were not unanimous in their myopic foreign policy intentions, and they had evidence available indicating what Arabs wanted and did not want from them. It is a consequential example of politicians ignoring intellectuals.
