V. Colonial Rule: The Making of the Kingdom

One humid Sunday afternoon in Cairo, in 1921, Winston Churchill, with a mere “stroke of a pen” he would later brag, created the British mandate of Transjordan, now known as Jordan today. The Secretary of State for the Colonies was rumored to have been drinking, and his penmanship was as a result, rather wobbly. 

The “particularly erratic borderline” as would be described in a New York Times article by Franc Jacobs some ninety years later, created a country. A wonky, almost whimsical line delineated my homeland, Jordan. We can still see the result very visibly across the quite bizarre zigzagging of the border between Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Something that is sometimes known today as “Winston’s Hiccup” or “Churchill’s Sneeze.” “The British regarded Transjordan’s value primarily as a transit zone between Palestine and Iraq,” Jacobs writes, “but also as part of an aviation corridor (back when flights were short and refuelings were plentiful) between Britain and India.” The location of Transjordan’s eastern border with Iraq was also considered crucial in relation to the anticipated building of the Kirkuk–Haifa oil pipeline. 

It was in fact during their fighting with the Ottomans, that the European forces began drawing political dividing lines for colonial purposes across the landscape of the Middle East. These lines are reflective of the Middle East we know today.  These lines included hypothetical divisions that were developed by TE Lawrence, who had a vision for a liberated Arab World (which he proposed to the Eastern Committee of the War Cabinet).

Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia, also had his own ideas on divisions, having served in the region. Lawrence did not immediately enlisted in the British Army in August 1914. A few months later, he was called upon by the archaeologist and historian Lieutenant Commander David Hogarth, to the newly established Arab Bureau Intelligence Unit in Cairo. He arrived to Cairo in December of 1914. At the Arab Bureau, Lawrence was responsible for supervising maps preparation, and was a consistent advocate of an independent Arab Syria. In October 1915, a crisis took hold, as Sharif Hussein, the Arab Bani Hashim tribe leader, who was, from 1908, the Sharif and Emir of Mecca, asked for a commitment from Britain to secure his rule, threatening to support the Ottomans otherwise. 

Sharif Hussein bin Ali Al-Hashimi proclaimed the Great Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire, and from 1916 to 1924 was the King of the Hejaz , and his third son Faisal was selected to lead with Lawrence, who had strategic contributions to the Arab Revolt, and liaised with the British armed forces.

Figure 18:  Map by Lawrence – November 1918

Source: Lawrence, 1918

It was thus that the Arab World suggested by Lawrence marked a “Greater Syria,” which was to be ruled by Sharif Faisal, and outlined zones which were to be ruled by his brothers Zeid and Abdullah. A competing proposal floated was that of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, where British diplomat Sir Mark Sykes and the French diplomat François Georges-Picot shaded the map to reflect zones of their respective control and influence. Central to their plan was a designated “Holy Land” and a Jerusalem under French, Italian, Russian and Greek control. Another 1947 proposal showed an internationalized Jerusalem. These ideas did not materialize, however.

General Allenby took control of the region by 1918, and the British initially rejected Sykes-Picot and developed their own temporary boundaries. France was mandated in Lebanon and Syria, and the British in Mesopotamia and Palestine.

The British Mandate for Palestine, which was established at the San Remo Conference in 1920, included Transjordan, which is named from its location east of the Jordan River. The Balfour Declaration, which envisioned a Jewish homeland in Palestine, was recognized by that mission. Churchill’s “stroke of the pen” separated Transjordan, about three-quarters of Palestine, from the initial British mandate created in San Remo in 1920 to construct the kingdom for Sherif Abdullah. The Yarmouk River was the border decided between French Syria and British Transjordan.

Transjordan would be allowed into the mandatory region as an Arab entity separate from Palestine, and it would not be included in the Jewish national home to be built west of the Jordan River, according to Churchill and Abdullah. In April 1921, Abdullah was appointed Emir of the Transjordan region. The area west of the Jordan River was administered as Palestine, and the area east of the Jordan was administered as Transjordan. Transjordan was framed beneath the League of Nations Palestine mandate, this was modified in 1921 through Article 25, which included language that the Jewish national homeland did not apply east of the Jordan. The League of Nations by approving this meant that it gave the “Jordan” boundary that the PEF had drawn international recognition, and so the Jordan River was the border now between two independent countries. 

Figure 19:  Sykes-Picot Map

Source: Sykes-Picot Map, 1921

In 1922, the British Foreign Office marked the edges of Transjordan (which was to become Jordan) and Palestine (which the British would later name Israel) by drawing a line through the Jordan River. As Faisal was crowned the King of Iraq, Sherif Abdullah became the first Emir of Transjordan.

Conclusion

I started this project with the aim in mind to track maps of Jordan across history, finding four distinct time periods during this investigation: the ancient and biblical world, the early modern period during the Age of Discovery and Christian exploration, the Ottomans and the 19^th Century, and colonial rule.

It was clear during my research that the maps of Jordan have been a consequence of the cartographer’s, rather than nature’s, decisions. Over the ages, geography and landscape have had little to do with how the maps were drafted and oriented. Starting in the biblical and ancient age, maps of Jordan reflected the worldview narrated in the Bible and were governed by a spiritual ideology. The geography of the Christian Holy Land, which imagined it as the center of the world, in a Western construct, affected how the maps were drawn, and oriented, during that time. Across the later periods, even as maps grew more scientific, from the age of the Ottomans we see administrative lines governing how maps were drafted, ignoring natural borders, such as the Jordan River, and the maps became political. The final split of the Middle East was in fact a result of the politics between the British War Office and the Palestinian Exploration Fund. It fascinates me that the map representing the Jordan I live in today is one defined almost arbitrarily by individuals, developed almost in isolation of the natural boundaries.

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