Despatches.

This bound volume of Colonial Office correspondence mainly with the Admiralty and the Foreign Office relates to the affairs of ‘Arabia’, especially to the King of Hejaz Hussein Bin Ali Al Hashemi and his son Faisal Bin Hussein Al Hashemi, who is the King of Iraq and the ex-King of Syria. It contains letters, telegrams, minutes of meetings and reports on:

• Subjects raised between the Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill, his advisor Colonel T E Lawrence, the Prime Minister David Lloyd George, the Foreign Secretary Earl Curzon [George Curzon], the High Commissioner for Egypt Viscount Allenby [Edmund Allenby], the High commissioner for Palestine Viscount Samuel [Herbert Samuel] and HMG Representatives in Jeddah, Aden, the Persian Gulf at Bushehr, Muscat and Cairo
• Draft treaty in which HMG would recognise Hussein as King of Hejaz
• Situation reports from Jeddah on the internal affairs of Hejaz, including railways and subsidies from HMG
• Relations between King Hussein and Ibn Saud and the threat of invasion
• Representation of Hejaz at a London conference by Brigadier General G Haddad Pasha
• Affairs of the Al Rashid dynast in Ha’il
• Disposal of Nabawi Waqfs collected in Mesopotamia
• Matters relating to the Hajj, including traffic management, quarantine provisions and access for Wahhabi pilgrims
• Salary for Dr Ali Shousha Eff’s duty in Jeddah
• League of Nations mandates for Palestine and Mesopotamia
• Relations between France and Amir Faisal, his visits to London and Egypt and his declaration concerning British pledges and Indian Muslims

The file also contains correspondence on:

• Affairs of the Imam of Yemen Yahya Mohammad Hamid Al Din
• Fighting between the troops of Ali Bin Mohammad Al Idrisi of Asir and the Imam, the situation in Kamaran, the evacuation of Hodeida [Al Hudaydah]
• Turkish property in Yemen
• Arms traffic in the Red Sea
• Removal from Yemen of the ex-Turkish Governor Mahmoud Nazim Bey
• Visit by Colonel Lawrence to Aden
• Arrival in Mokha [Mocha] of a French gunboat and the possible establishment of a French Embassy