TheDeclaration to the Seven was a document written by SirMark Sykes, approved byCharles Hardinge, thePermanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office and released[1] on June 16, 1918,[2] in response to a memorandum issued anonymously by sevenSyrian notables inCairo that included members of the soon to be formedSyrian Unity Party, established in the wake of theBalfour Declaration and the November 23, 1917, publication by theBolsheviks of the secret May 1916Sykes–Picot Agreement between Britain andFrance.[3] The memorandum requested a "guarantee of the ultimate independence ofArabia". The Declaration stated the British policy that the future government of the regions of theOttoman Empire occupied byAllies of World War I "should be based upon the principle of theconsent of the governed".[4]
The Declaration to the Seven is notable as the first British pronouncement to theArabs advancing the principle of nationalself-determination.[5] Although the British sought to secure their position by adopting theWilsonian doctrine ofWoodrow Wilson, neither Britain nor France was prepared to implement their promises to the Arabs nor to abdicate the position won by victory over the Ottoman Empire.[6]
The document was not widely publicised. The Declaration may explain the action of GeneralEdmund Allenby, who ordered a halt to the advance after the rout of Turkish forces outsideDamascus and allowed the city to be captured by Arab forces in September 1918 after theBattle of Megiddo acting on instructions from London, thus bolstering the Arab claim to the independence of Syria whilst simultaneously undermining the French claims to the territory under the terms of the Sykes–Picot Agreement.[5]
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