Volta
PoliticsJuly 1915 – March 1916

Hussein–McMahon Correspondence

Also called: McMahon–Hussein Correspondence

During the First World War Britain promised Sharif Hussein of Mecca that it would support Arab independence after the war if he rose against the Ottoman Empire.

McMahon’s letter to Hussein declaring support for Arab independence, 24 October 1915
McMahon’s letter to Hussein declaring support for Arab independence, 24 October 1915

The British Government · CC0 · Source

When the Ottoman Empire joined Germany in the First World War, Britain sought to win over the Arabs under Ottoman rule to protect the Suez Canal and the route to India. From July 1915 to March 1916 Hussein bin Ali, guardian of the holy city of Mecca, and Henry McMahon, British High Commissioner in Cairo, exchanged about ten letters. McMahon’s letter of 24 October 1915 declared that, with certain areas excepted, Britain would recognize and support Arab independence.

Trusting this promise, Hussein launched the Arab Revolt in 1916. Yet at almost the same time Britain concluded the Sykes–Picot Agreement with France, and the next year it issued the Balfour Declaration to the Jews—what is often called Britain’s "double (or triple) diplomacy". Whether Palestine lay within the excluded "districts west of Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo" became a lasting dispute: Britain held that it had been excluded from the start, while the Arab side insisted it had been promised. These clashing readings became one root of the Palestine question.

Show on the map

The map in 1915

Open the full map

OpenFreeMap © OpenMapTiles © OpenStreetMap contributors

States at the time
Great Britain
Ottoman Empire
Places
Cairo, Mecca

People

  • Henry McMahon1862 – 1949

    diplomat · British diplomat and colonial official who, as High Commissioner in Egypt (1915–1916), corresponded with Hussein of Mecca

  • Hussein bin Ali1854 – 1931

    diplomat · Sharif of Mecca who, after his correspondence with Britain, launched the Arab Revolt in 1916 and became King of the Hejaz

Before and after

Earlier
1914 World War I
Later
1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement

Themes that include this event

  • National Movements in Asia and Africa1915 – 1948

    From the Hussein–McMahon correspondence to the founding of Israel — three decades in which India, West Asia, Southeast Asia and Africa, swept up in the tide of self-determination after the First World War, pressed toward independence and modernization