Treaty with Ibn Saud ratified

On 18 July 1916, at Simla, the summer capital of British India, the Viceroy and Governor-General of India, Lord Chelmsford, together with his council ratified the Treaty of Darin. Half a year earlier, on 26 December 1915, it had been signed on the island of Tarut in the Persian Gulf by the British Resident in the Gulf, Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Percy Cox, and the ruler of Najd, Abdulaziz ibn Abdul Rahman Al Saud, known as Ibn Saud. The British chronology of the war states that the treaty was ratified that day by the British government. According to the official collection of treaties of the Government of India (Aitchison, A Collection of Treaties, Engagements and Sanads), however, it was done by the Viceroy “in Council”, that is, by the Government of India. Below the text of the document, next to the signatures of Ibn Saud and Cox, is Chelmsford’s signature, and the note of ratification was countersigned by the Secretary to the Government of India in the Foreign and Political Department, A. H. Grant.

Why Simla and not London

Ratification in India was no accident. According to Aitchison’s collection, until 1921 Britain’s relations with Najd were conducted by the Government of India, to which the Resident in the Persian Gulf and his political agents answered. It was the Indian authorities that from 1914 had sought Ibn Saud’s friendship, and Cox negotiated the treaty as their man. Chelmsford had not been a party to these negotiations. He became Viceroy only in April 1916, succeeding Lord Hardinge, under whose administration the treaty had been negotiated. In Aitchison’s collection the agreement appears as an instrument of 1916, precisely from the date of ratification.

What was approved

The ratified text had seven articles. Britain recognised Najd, al-Hasa, Qatif and Jubail as the lands of Ibn Saud and his forefathers, and him as their independent ruler, with the right of succession for his sons, provided that the successor was not hostile to the British. In the event of aggression by a foreign power, it promised assistance to such an extent and in such a manner as it considered effective after consultation with the emir. Ibn Saud undertook not to maintain relations with other states, not to cede land or concessions to foreigners, to protect the pilgrim routes to the holy places and not to attack Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and the sheikhdoms of the Trucial Coast. Article 4 also contained a sentence that best captured the nature of the agreement: the emir was to follow the advice of the British government “unreservedly”, provided that it was not damaging to his own interests. The last article announced the conclusion of a further, detailed treaty. The borders of Najd with its neighbours were to be fixed later.

Arabia in the summer of 1916

The ratification came in a new situation. At the beginning of June the revolt of the Sharif of Mecca, Hussein bin Ali, had broken out with the support of the British in Cairo, and Hussein was Ibn Saud’s chief rival in Arabia. According to Aitchison’s collection, British policy from then on consisted in keeping the peace between the rulers of the peninsula and in trying to reconcile Ibn Saud with his enemy of the Rashidi dynasty, which ruled Jabal Shammar and supported the Turks. According to some accounts, in 1916 Ibn Saud received from the British a thousand rifles and £20,000. The historian Mohammed al-Mutari also writes that after the outbreak of the revolt the Ottoman commander in Medina, Fahreddin Pasha, called on Ibn Saud to attack the Sharif and take Mecca, but the emir did not respond. The treaty did not oblige him to go to war with the Turks.

In November 1916 Ibn Saud came to Kuwait for a gathering organised by the British and attended by the sheikhs of Kuwait and Mohammerah and many Bedouin leaders, and then visited Basra, which the British had occupied. The detailed treaty that had been announced was never concluded. The Treaty of Darin remained in force until 1927, when it was replaced by the Treaty of Jeddah, in which Britain recognised the full independence of Ibn Saud’s state.