WI: British Lebanon
- Thread starter Will Kürlich Kerl
- Start date
Depends on what France gets instead of Lebanon (and it better be big, since Lebanon has been pretty French sphere-of-influence since the 1860s). Mosul, perhaps?
The British would probably just re-establish the mutasarrifate system (maybe with a British/Druze governor?), with all religious groupings forming an administrative council of sorts. I don't think they'd incorporate the place into Palestine, if that's what you're implying.
With a post-1900 POD, France is absolutely NOT going to renounce a sphere of influence in Lebanon if she has anything resembling a choice about it. Especially if they are given Syria anyway.
The place was fairly high in their shopping list.
So, the problem is to create a scenario were Britain somehow gets Lebanon, and it looks like it isn't very easy.
The place was fairly high in their shopping list.
So, the problem is to create a scenario were Britain somehow gets Lebanon, and it looks like it isn't very easy.
IIRC whilst there were some French troops in the Levant and at the Gallipoli landings I don't remember offhand what the actual numbers were, if they made a serious contribution or were more there for political reasons. If it was the latter and Anglo-French relations break down at some point the British could well decide to keep Lebanon and Syria due to their having done all the work and being in control of them.
Cook
Banned
They amounted to a single division of colonial troops from French West Africa, what Lloyd-George referred to as "a handful of Kaffir's." (sic)
Lloyd-George hated the Sykes-Picot agreement, which was signed before he came to power and well before the invasion of Palestine and the Levant by British Imperial forces. Ll-G was not the only one; Lord Curzon referred to Sykes-Picot as "that unfortunate Agreement, which has been hanging like a millstone round our necks ever since." By the end of the war, the only cabinet member that still wanted to honour the agreement seems to have been Lord Balfour.
Moving the demarcation line between the British and the French zones of control further north to give the Lebanon to the British would have been considered another 'Fashoda Incident' by the French; another act by 'Perfidious Albion' that the French have to swallow, but which is never forgotten or completely forgiven and likely to be brought up again when relations soured.
The question is, where would Clemenceau have responded in the Paris negotiations by being more intransient?
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I am not sure about the Spring Offensive, but it is quite possible to have the british getting Lebanon and Syria. What I see as complicated is the british getting Lebanon alone.
Interesting. What do you think their position would have been over Syria if they received Lebanon as recognition of it being in their sphere of influence but with no Sykes-Picot agreement the British kept their word to Faisal and created an independent Arab state? I'm basically wondering if Lebanon would be enough to avoid them throwing a complete strop at Versailles later. Trying to map out what might happen without either the Sykes-Picot agreement or the Balfour declaration.
Hmmm... Britain takes Lebanon and Syria, while giving France Palestine. That could be ... fun.
Morty Vicar
Banned
I had a proposal along these lines in the 'AHC: Destroy the US Israel Lobby' thread. The Sykes-Picot agreement could be altered with slightly differing international objectives for those involved, which often came down to who was in charge at the time. If Britain wanted a base from which to trade with or control Cyprus, they could have pressed for control of Lebanon.
It's probably easier to just not have the Balfour declaration since it was predicated on a rather massive misunderstanding. As I understand things the British government seems to have erroneously believed that Jews held far more influence in the Russia after the revolution and in financial circles in the US than they actually did, the declaration being in large part to try and curry favour with these groups to help keep Russia actively in the war and the American loans/financial support coming. Simply have someone who knows what the reality is and Herzl gets a few sympathetic noises but nothing concrete, no Balfour declaration also probably means no Article 95 in the Treaty of Sevres.
Cook
Banned
This:
Is the actual map of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, drawn up by them in May 1916.
The blue zone (much of Anatolia, as well as the coastal region of what is now Syria and all of modern Lebanon) was to be under direct French administration, the red zones (Mesopotamia and the ports of Haifa and Acre) was to be directly controlled by the British. Zone (A) was to be an independent Arab state or states, but France would have priority as far as investments and loans, while (B) would be the same, but with Britain having priority. The yellow zone was to be an international zone, administered as a Co-Dominium between Britain and France.
It’s immediately clear that quite a lot of the Sykes-Picot agreement was substantially changed at the Paris Peace Conference, and almost exclusively to Britain’s benefit; most obvious is the Co-Dominium becoming an entirely British protectorate and Mosul being reallocated to the British sphere of influence. They had wanted more; Lloyd-George presented a map at Paris that would have given Britain control of more than half of Lebanon and the southern third of Syria, including Damascus which was still under British military control. Meanwhile, the British Government’s Eastern Committee of the War Cabinet, chaired by Lord Curzon, concluded that French control of Lebanon and Syria would necessitate the British keeping large forces in Egypt to protect the Suez Canal - so elements of the British government were already thinking of what would be necessary to defend their empire from the nation they’d just spent four years, one million lives, two million wounded, and the bulk of the empire’s wealth defending!
Since the British had the boots on the ground, if they’d decided that the security of the Suez Canal and their interests in the Persian Gulf took precedence over earlier promises, then they could have kept whatever they wanted, but at the cost of French cooperation in other spheres. Clemenceau would not have allowed a complete breakdown in relations; he desperately wanted permanent British military guarantees, but he would definitely have been far more intransient in areas where France had interests but the British did not – the Rhineland for instance.
Is the actual map of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, drawn up by them in May 1916.
The blue zone (much of Anatolia, as well as the coastal region of what is now Syria and all of modern Lebanon) was to be under direct French administration, the red zones (Mesopotamia and the ports of Haifa and Acre) was to be directly controlled by the British. Zone (A) was to be an independent Arab state or states, but France would have priority as far as investments and loans, while (B) would be the same, but with Britain having priority. The yellow zone was to be an international zone, administered as a Co-Dominium between Britain and France.
It’s immediately clear that quite a lot of the Sykes-Picot agreement was substantially changed at the Paris Peace Conference, and almost exclusively to Britain’s benefit; most obvious is the Co-Dominium becoming an entirely British protectorate and Mosul being reallocated to the British sphere of influence. They had wanted more; Lloyd-George presented a map at Paris that would have given Britain control of more than half of Lebanon and the southern third of Syria, including Damascus which was still under British military control. Meanwhile, the British Government’s Eastern Committee of the War Cabinet, chaired by Lord Curzon, concluded that French control of Lebanon and Syria would necessitate the British keeping large forces in Egypt to protect the Suez Canal - so elements of the British government were already thinking of what would be necessary to defend their empire from the nation they’d just spent four years, one million lives, two million wounded, and the bulk of the empire’s wealth defending!
Since the British had the boots on the ground, if they’d decided that the security of the Suez Canal and their interests in the Persian Gulf took precedence over earlier promises, then they could have kept whatever they wanted, but at the cost of French cooperation in other spheres. Clemenceau would not have allowed a complete breakdown in relations; he desperately wanted permanent British military guarantees, but he would definitely have been far more intransient in areas where France had interests but the British did not – the Rhineland for instance.
The British would have been happy enough to set Faisal up as a king – which of course they did do in Iraq - but under their guidance and protection, not even Sykes and Picot had really taken seriously the idea of Arab independence. The only person who did take Arab independence seriously was Lawrence, and even the Arabs thought he was more than a bit mad.
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