Monday, January 3, 1916. Sykes-Picot Agreement.

The fateful Sykes-Picot Agreement was entered into between France and the United Kingdom, or rather by  Sir Mark Sykes, Assistant Secretary for Middle Eastern Affairs to the British War Cabinet, and French diplomat François Georges-Picot, regarding the fate of the Middle Eastern Ottoman lands post war.

It held:

It is accordingly understood between the French and British governments:

That France and Great Britain are prepared to recognize and protect an independent Arab states or a confederation of Arab states (a) and (b) marked on the annexed map, under the suzerainty of an Arab chief. That in area (a) France, and in area (b) Great Britain, shall have priority of right of enterprise and local loans. That in area (a) France, and in area (b) Great Britain, shall alone supply advisers or foreign functionaries at the request of the Arab state or confederation of Arab states.

That in the blue area France, and in the red area Great Britain, shall be allowed to establish such direct or indirect administration or control as they desire and as they may think fit to arrange with the Arab state or confederation of Arab states.

That in the brown area there shall be established an international administration, the form of which is to be decided upon after consultation with Russia, and subsequently in consultation with the other allies, and the representatives of the Shereef of Mecca.

That Great Britain be accorded (1) the ports of Haifa and Acre, (2) guarantee of a given supply of water from the Tigres and Euphrates in area (a) for area (b). His Majesty's government, on their part, undertake that they will at no time enter into negotiations for the cession of Cyprus to any third power without the previous consent of the French government.

That Alexandretta shall be a free port as regards the trade of the British empire, and that there shall be no discrimination in port charges or facilities as regards British shipping and British goods; that there shall be freedom of transit for British goods through Alexandretta and by railway through the blue area, or (b) area, or area (a); and there shall be no discrimination, direct or indirect, against British goods on any railway or against British goods or ships at any port serving the areas mentioned.

That Haifa shall be a free port as regards the trade of France, her dominions and protectorates, and there shall be no discrimination in port charges or facilities as regards French shipping and French goods. There shall be freedom of transit for French goods through Haifa and by the British railway through the brown area, whether those goods are intended for or originate in the blue area, area (a), or area (b), and there shall be no discrimination, direct or indirect, against French goods on any railway, or against French goods or ships at any port serving the areas mentioned.

That in area (a) the Baghdad railway shall not be extended southwards beyond Mosul, and in area (b) northwards beyond Samarra, until a railway connecting Baghdad and Aleppo via the Euphrates valley has been completed, and then only with the concurrence of the two governments.

That Great Britain has the right to build, administer, and be sole owner of a railway connecting Haifa with area (b), and shall have a perpetual right to transport troops along such a line at all times. It is to be understood by both governments that this railway is to facilitate the connection of Baghdad with Haifa by rail, and it is further understood that, if the engineering difficulties and expense entailed by keeping this connecting line in the brown area only make the project unfeasible, that the French government shall be prepared to consider that the line in question may also traverse the Polgon Banias Keis Marib Salkhad tell Otsda Mesmie before reaching area (b).

For a period of twenty years the existing Turkish customs tariff shall remain in force throughout the whole of the blue and red areas, as well as in areas (a) and (b), and no increase in the rates of duty or conversions from ad valorem to specific rates shall be made except by agreement between the two powers.

There shall be no interior customs barriers between any of the above mentioned areas. The customs duties leviable on goods destined for the interior shall be collected at the port of entry and handed over to the administration of the area of destination.

It shall be agreed that the French government will at no time enter into any negotiations for the cession of their rights and will not cede such rights in the blue area to any third power, except the Arab state or confederation of Arab states, without the previous agreement of his majesty's government, who, on their part, will give a similar undertaking to the French government regarding the red area.

The British and French government, as the protectors of the Arab state, shall agree that they will not themselves acquire and will not consent to a third power acquiring territorial possessions in the Arabian peninsula, nor consent to a third power installing a naval base either on the east coast, or on the islands, of the red sea. This, however, shall not prevent such adjustment of the Aden frontier as may be necessary in consequence of recent Turkish aggression.

The negotiations with the Arabs as to the boundaries of the Arab states shall be continued through the same channel as heretofore on behalf of the two powers.

It is agreed that measures to control the importation of arms into the Arab territories will be considered by the two governments.

I have further the honor to state that, in order to make the agreement complete, his majesty's government are proposing to the Russian government to exchange notes analogous to those exchanged by the latter and your excellency's government on the 26th April last. Copies of these notes will be communicated to your excellency as soon as exchanged.I would also venture to remind your excellency that the conclusion of the present agreement raises, for practical consideration, the question of claims of Italy to a share in any partition or rearrangement of turkey in Asia, as formulated in article 9 of the agreement of the 26th April, 1915, between Italy and the allies.

His Majesty's government further consider that the Japanese government should be informed of the arrangements now concluded.

 And the boundaries of the modern Middle East, to a large extent, and the fate of millions of people, were accordingly determined.

The British Secret Service Bureau was reorganized to create several Special Branch law enforcement departments within the SSB.  Included amongst them was Section 5 of the Directorate of Military Intelligence, MI5.

Last edition:

Sunday, January 2, 1916.

Labels: 1910s, 1916, Art, Deer, Outdoor magazines

Monday, December 31, 1945. The end of a historical episode and the dawn of a new one, additional labels, part two.

Wednesday, December 23, 1925. Things in Arabia.

Wario2, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Peace having been concluded, Nejd troops entered Jeddah.

This was the conclusion of a monumental event that had been decades in the making, recreating, with slightly larger boundaries, the former extent of the First Saudi State which had come to an end in 1818.   It also demonstrated the tricky nature of British support, as both sides in the conflict had been supported by the British during World War One, although only the Hashemite Kingdom of Hejaz had been active supporters of the British backed Arab Revolt.

It took oil, of course, to make Saudi Arabia what it is today, and in part what it is, is a house of cards, still ruled by one family.

Henri de Jouvenel was appointed High Commissioner of the Levant, the French Mandate for Syria and Lebanon.

Last edition:

Sunday, December 21, 1925. Premier of Battleship Potemkin.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, 1925 at the movies, Christmas, Movies, USSR

The Agrarian's Lament: Dreams denied and abandoned.

The Agrarian's Lament: Dreams denied and abandoned.: I've seen this place from the side of the road quite a few times, although its in a remote location.  It wasn't until earlier this f...

Dreams denied and abandoned.

I've seen this place from the side of the road quite a few times, although its in a remote location.  It wasn't until earlier this fall that I realized that it's all on Federal Land.

I walked in, as you have to do, while hunting doves.  I only saw one.

It's a full homestead.  Barns, outbuildings, and a substantial house. This is very unusual as a lot of work went into this, but for some reason, it wasn't proved up.  I'll have to see if I can figure out the history of it. So far I've had no luck.

It was well thought out, and sheltered. A substantial hay field, on Federal Land, worked by the current leaseholder remains. What's really surprising, however, is the house.  It was very well built. So much so, that for a time I debated it if was a school, but it was better built than rural schools by quite some margin, and frankly larger.  It's a house.

Usually, although not always, when you walk up on an abandoned homestead, they're on private, not Federal, land.  And that makes sense.  It only took five years to prove up a homestead, and proving it up was one of the first things the people eligible to do so did.  It protected their investment, which was substantial, both in terms of time and labor, but moreover in actual cash outlays, which were actually quite a bit more extensive than people imagine.

The peak year for homesteading was 1913, during which 11,000,000 acres were claimed.  I"m a bit surprised by that, as I thought it was 1914.  World War One caused a massive boom in homesteading which was aided by the weather.  A lot of people took up dry land farming in that period, following the naive popular assertion of the time that "rain follows the plow.

Abandoned wagon.

It doesn't.

A large part of what inspired homesteading entries at the time was the Great War. With Imperial Russia off of the farming export market, which was a huge portion of its GNP at the time, and with European farming massively impacted by the war, grain production, beef production, and horse production turned to the United  States, Canada, and Australia.

Trouble began to set in after the war, although interestingly not immediately so.  1919 was the last year that American farmers had economic parity with those who lived in municipalities.  That started changing soon thereafter, however, and its never reversed.  The Agricultural Depression of the 1920s set in early in the 1920s, and basically carried on until the Great Depression hit in 1929.  Having said that, people continued to attempt to file homestead entries, some people naively believing that if they couldn't make it in town, they could as a farmer or rancher.

The buildings on this spread, however, are too nice to be a late homestead entry.  I've seen a few comparable ones that were abandoned, but they were all earlier homesteads in which the owners became over extended and couldn't make their bank payments during the Great Depression.  A lot of money went into some houses and whatnot while things were going well.  That must have been the case here. So what happened?

That is, at least right now, impossible for me to say.  But what seems clear is that a lot of money went into this spread during good times, and the owners pulled out when hard times hit.  That, and the fact that the abandoned equipment is horse, not vehicle, drawn would suggest that the homesteaders were doing okay during World War One but didn't weather the change in the economic climate of the Agricultural Depression of the 1920s.  If I had my guess, this was probably a World War One vintage homestead which collapsed, after a huge investment of time, effort and money, soon after the war.

They didn't last long enough in order to prove up.

Their dreams must have been crushed.  I hope, and pray, that the rest of their lives went well.  

I'd also note that, more than ever before, when I see places like this I have a maudlin tinge of regret.  My dream was something like this too.  At age 62, I won't make it.

Wednesday, October 7, 1925. Christy Mathewson

 

Hall of Famer Christy Mathewson, age 45, died of tuberculosis brought on by a weakening of his respiratory system due to accidental exposure to poison gas during World War I.

Last edition:

Tuesday, October 6, 1925. Calvin Coolidge urges tolerance. The wedding of Jesús Antonio Almeida to Susanna Nesbitt Becerra.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Billy Mitchell, Calvin Coolidge, Czechoslovakia, German Weimar Republic, Germany, Locarno Conference, Marriage, Mexico, Music, Poland, technology, The relationship between men and women, the spoken word, USSR

Wednesday, August 12, 1925. Germany demands colonies back as a precondition to entering the League of Nations.

Germany, which may have been governed by enlightened Socialist at the time, none the less indicated that a precondition to its entering the League of Nations was the return of some of its former colonies.

If I recall correctly, Wehrli was a Casper lawyer.  I've  heard of him. 

Last edition:

Wednesday, August 5 1925. Plaid Cymru.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, 1970s, 1975, Marriage, Personalities, Turkey, Wales, Welsh language, Women

Roads to the Great War: Prosperity in War—Uncertainty in Peace: The Case of American Wheat Farmers.

Roads to the Great War: Prosperity in War—Uncertainty in Peace: The Case ...: Idaho Wheat Farmer c.1920 Robert Marcell, Homestead National Monument of America Once war erupted in Europe in 1914, farmers in the United ...

Monday, July 20, 1925. Salkhad.

Druze rebels captured the French Army garrison at Salkhad.

Sheikh Sultan el-Atrash, leader of Druze revolt in October, 1925.

The Druze have been in the news recently given a conflict between the Druze, who tend to be allied to Israel, and Bedouins.  

Nobody ever wanted the French in Syria, excepting of course, the French.

Italy and Yugoslavia signed the Treaty of Nettuno.  The treaty allowed Italians to emigrate to Dalmatia, and was opposed by the Croatian Peasant Party, causing Yugoslavia to take three years to ratify it.

Boise City, Oklahoma, was incorporated.

Last edition:

Saturday, July 18, 1925. Nazi tome and Scopes trial.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Adolf Hitler, Art, Evolutionary Biology, German Weimar Republic, Germany, law, Nazi Party, Science, Tennessee, The written word

Tuesday, July 14, 1925. Getting out of the Ruhr and trying to kick them out of Vietnam.

French and Belgian troops began to depart the Ruhr.

The Tân Việt Revolutionary Party, which advocated independence from France of a "New Vietnam", was founded by Nguyễn Thị Minh Khai.  It was not a communist party at the time, but by 1929, would become so.

It's notable in that its founder, Nguyễn Thị Minh Khai.was a woman.  She was executed by the French in 1941.

Last edition:

Monday, July 13, 1925. Pregnant lady.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Apostolic Christianity, Art, Cartoons, Christianity, Czechoslovakia, Greek Orthodox Church, Orthodox, Personalities, Prehistory, religion, Sex, Turkey, Women

Thursday, June 18, 1925. Death of Robert La Follette.

"Battling Bob" La Follette, Socialist Senator from Wisconsin, died at age 70.  He'd been ill since 1923.

The German  Reichsgericht, struck down a law confiscating of all the demesne lands of the Dukes of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to widespread public dissatisfaction.

Last edition:

Wednesday, June 17, 1925. The Geneva Protocol.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Cartoons, children, It was because of World War One, law, Marriage, Soviet-Afghan War, The relationship between men and women, Vietnam War, Weapons

Wednesday, June 17, 1925. The Geneva Protocol.

The Geneva Protocol, officially the "Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare", was signed in Switzerland by representatives of Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Hungary, Japan, the Netherlands, Russia, Turkey, the United Kingdom United States Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, Denmark, Egypt, El Salvador, Estonia, Ethiopia, Greece, British India, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Nicaragua, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Siam, Uruguay and Venezuela.

Arguably US use of CS gas in Vietnam violated the treaty.  The USSR violated it with lethal gas in Afghanistan.

The first National Spelling Bee was held in Washington, D.C. 

The competition was won by 11-year-old Frank Neuhauser of Kentucky, who became a patent lawyer in his adulthood.

A sad Flapper Fanny went to print.

Last edition:

Monday, June 15, 1925. Flying out.

Labels: 1910s, 1911, 1920s, 1925, Aircraft, baseball, Exploration, Sports

Sunday, June 7, 1925. The Death of St. Max Talbot.

Reporting Matt Talbot’s life and death, then and now

The Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial was unveiled in France on grounds where the Battle of the Somme had been fought.

Last edition:

Saturday, June 6, 1925. The Great Syrian Revolt.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Art, Automobiles, Druze, France, French League of Nation Mandates, Golf, Great Syrian Revolt, It was because of the Crusades, It was because of World War One, Lebanon, Levant, Syria, The Crusades, Transportation

Saturday, June 6, 1925. The Great Syrian Revolt.

Walter P. Chrysler incorporated the company that bears his name.

The Great Syrian Revolt against the French started when representatives of the Jabal Druze State were treated poorly by the French administrator.  Syrian rejection of French rule, however, had been smouldering since the end of World War One.

Indeed, this ties right into the events we've been otherwise cataloging regarding France at the end of World War One.  Syria and Lebanon had been granted near independence during the war, which France tried to renege on as soon as the Germans were defeated. Only British intervention, which nearly resulted in fighting between the French and British, stopped that from occurring and assured rapid Syrian and Lebanese independence.  French insistence on occupying the same territory at the end of the Great War nearly resulted in fighting between the same two European powers then and France had never been welcome by most of the regions inhabitants.

French attachment to the region is hard to really explain, but it is in part cultural and goes all the way back to the Kingdom of Jerusalem,1099–1187, 1192-1291, the long running "Crusader Kingdom" in the same region. Lasting almost two hundred years, the kingdom, which was mostly governed by French Crusaders, formed a strong cultural attachment to the region with the French.

The Saturday magazines hit the stands.

Last edition:

Wednesday,. June 3, 1925. Blimps and Stormy Weather.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Blog Mirror, Iowa, Lighter than air aircraft, Nebraska, Petroleum, Weather

Thursday, April 2, 1925. Oklahoma.

 

Oklahoma adopted its current flag.

The prior flag:

France and Turkey agreed on the autonomy of Alexandretta, which is today party of Syria.

The Police Forces Amalgamation Act 1925 went into effect in the Republic of Ireland consolidating the Garda Síochána and the Dublin Metropolitan Police into a single national police force.

Last edition:

Monday, March 30, 1925. Cougars win the Stanley Cup.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Canada, Cartoons, entertainment, Hockey, Opus Dei, religion, religious organizations, Spain, Sports