162 A Short History of the Middle East

Declaration and the Mandate. Refusing to compromise on this
point, he forfeited Britain's support and subsidy. At the same time
he had been misguided enough to intrigue against Ibn Sa'ud with
such enemies or potential rivals of his as the Shammar, tribal chiefs
of outer Najd, and the Imam of the Yemen. He became in-
volved in an unnecessary quarrel with Egypt about the medieval
sanitary conditions of the Holy Places; and in 1924 he alienated
what remaining support he had in Islam by having himself pro-
claimed Caliph. Ibn Sa'ud invaded the Hijaz. Husain abdicated in
favour of his eldest son Ali; but the Wahhabi prince in the follow-
ing year drove out Ali and annexed the Hijaz. His former 'semi-
vassal* relationship to Britain was now clearly out-of-date; and in
1927 by the Treaty of Jidda Britain recognized him. as sovereign
and independent King of the Hijaz, Najd, and its Dependencies,
which were later fused as the Kingdom of Sa'udi Arabia. Ibn
Sa'ud in return undertook to maintain friendly relations with the
British-protected sheikhdoms of the Persian Gulf. He had already
acknowledged the presence of Husain's two sons Faisal and
Abdullah on the thrones of Iraq and Transjordan, and allowed
Britain to determine his frontiers with these two states; but in
respect of his frontier with Transjordan he has always maintained
mental reservations which may yet disturb relations between the
two kingdoms.

The Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1915 had arranged that the Fer-
tile Crescent should be divided into four areas, two to be directly
administered by France and Britain respectively, while the other
two should be administered by Arab governments under the
guidance and protection of France and Britain respectively.
France's direct share was to be the Syrian coastlands and Cilicia,
while her protectorate was to consist of the hinterland of Syria
including the vilayet of Mosul. By 1919 British troops had how-
ever occupied the Mosul vilayet after driving out the Turks; and
Lloyd George succeeded with great difficulty in persuading
Clemenceau to give up the French claim, so that this oil-bearing
district could be added to Iraq. The French were compensated by
the transfer to them of the German quarter-share in the Turkish
Petroleum Co., now renamed the Iraq Petroleum Co., and the
promise that France should have a quarter-share of its output.