The Declaration to the Seven was a document written by Sir Mark Sykes, approved by Charles Hardinge, the Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office and released on June 16, 1918, in response to a memorandum issued anonymously by seven Syrian notables in Cairo that included members of the soon to be formed Syrian Unity Party, established in the wake of the Balfour Declaration and the November 23, 1917, publication by the Bolsheviks of the secret May 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement between Britain and France. The memorandum requested a "guarantee of the ultimate independence of Arabia". The Declaration stated the British policy that the future government of the regions of the Ottoman Empire occupied by Allies of World War I "should be based upon the principle of the consent of the governed".
- ⭐ Core Definition: Declaration to the Seven
- Declaration to the Seven in the context of Henry McMahon
Declaration to the Seven in the context of Henry McMahon
Sir Vincent Arthur Henry McMahon GCMG GCVO KCIE CSI KStJ (28 November 1862 – 29 December 1949) was a British Indian Army officer and diplomat who served as Foreign Secretary in the Government of India from 1911 to 1915 and as High Commissioner in Egypt from 1915 to 1917. As the Foreign Secretary McMahon conducted the tripartite negotiations between Tibet, China and Britain that led to the Simla Convention. Even though China did not in the end sign the Convention, the agreement governed the British relations with Tibet till 1947. In Egypt, McMahon was best known for the McMahon-Hussein Correspondence with Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca, and the Declaration to the Seven in response to a memorandum written by seven notable Syrians. After the Sykes-Picot Agreement was published by the Bolshevik Russian government in November 1917, McMahon resigned. He also features prominently in Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T.E. Lawrence's account of the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire during World War I.
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