Colonel Sir Tatton Benvenuto Mark Sykes, 6th Baronet (16 March 1879 – 16 February 1919) was an English traveller, Conservative Party politician, and diplomatic advisor, particularly with regard to the Middle East at the time of the First World War.
He is associated with the Sykes–Picot Agreement, drawn up while the war was in progress regarding the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire by the United Kingdom, France, and the Russian Empire, and was a key negotiator of the Balfour Declaration.
Early life Born in Westminster, London, Mark Sykes was the only child of Sir Tatton Sykes, 5th Baronet, who, then a 48-year-old wealthy bachelor, married Christina Anne Jessica Cavendish-Bentinck, 30 years his junior. Several accounts suggest that his future mother-in-law essentially trapped Sir Tatton Sykes into marrying Christina. They were reportedly an unhappy couple. After spending large amounts of money paying off his wife's debts, Sir Tatton published a notice in the papers disavowing her future debts and legally separating from her.
Lady Sykes lived in London, and Mark divided his time between her home and his father's 34,000 acre (120 km2) East Riding of Yorkshire estates. Their seat was Sledmere House. Lady Sykes converted to Roman Catholicism and Mark was brought into that faith from the age of three.
Sledmere House "lay like a ducal demesne among the Wolds, approached by long straight roads and sheltered by belts of woodland, surrounded by large prosperous farms...ornamented with the heraldic triton of the Sykes family...the mighty four-square residence and the exquisite parish church."Leslie, Mark Sykes, p.6 The family farm also had a stud, where Sir Tatton Sykes bred his prized Arabs.
Mark Sykes was left much to his own devices and developed an imagination, without the corresponding self-discipline to make him a good scholar. Most winters he travelled with his father to the Middle East, especially the Ottoman Empire.
Sykes was educated at the Jesuit Beaumont College and Jesus College, Cambridge. He did not finish a degree, unlike his rival T. E. Lawrence, who graduated from Jesus College, Oxford. By the age of twenty-five, Sykes had published at least four books; D'Ordel's Pantechnicon (1904), a parody of the magazines of the period (illustrated by Edmund Sandars); D'Ordel's Tactics and Military Training (1904), a parody of the Infantry Drill Book of 1896 (also with Sandars); and two travel books, Dar-ul-Islam ('The Home of Islam', 1904) and Through Five Turkish Provinces (1900). He also wrote The Caliphs' Last Heritage: A Short History of the Turkish Empire, the first half of which is a brief overview of political geography of the Middle East up to the Ottoman Empire while the second half is an account of the author's travels in Asia Minor and the Middle East between 1906 and 1913.
At his memorial service an old friend, Aubrey Herbert, diplomat and scholar, would remember Sir Mark Sykes with affection: "An effervescent personality; he could turn a gathering into a party, a party into a festival. He bubbled with ideas, and he swept up his listeners with his enthusiasm. In addition he had a remarkable talent for sketching caricatures and for mimicry ... Mark Sykes had vitality beyond any man I have ever met. When one had been in his company one felt almost as if one had been given from the fountain of life."Aubrey Herbert, a tribute to Sykes at his memorial service, SRO, HP DD/HER/53
The Boer War, travels and Parliament Heir to vast Yorkshire estates and a baronetcy, Sykes was not content to await his inheritance. In 1897 he was commissioned into the 3rd (Militia) Battalion of the Green Howards. Sykes was sent abroad with the 5th Battalion of the Green Howards during the Second Boer War for two years, where he was engaged mostly in guard duty, but saw action on several occasions. Following the war, he was promoted to captain on 28 February 1902, and returned to the United Kingdom on 15 May the same year, when the appointment was confirmed. He travelled extensively, especially in the Middle East.
From 1904 to 1905 he was Parliamentary Secretary to the Chief Secretary for Ireland, George Wyndham in the last year of Balfour's administration. He made a friend of the Prime Minister, who went on to serve as Foreign Secretary during the First World War, when Sykes worked closely with him. Transferred by Balfour, he served as honorary attaché to the British Embassy in Constantinople 1905–06, at which time he began a lifetime's interest in middle eastern affairs of state.
Sykes was very much a Yorkshire grandee, with his country seat at Sledmere House, breeding racehorses, sitting on the bench, raising and commanding a militia unit, serving as Honorary Colonel of the 1st Volunteer Battalion, East Yorkshire Regiment,Army List and fulfilling his social obligations. He married Edith Gorst, also a Roman Catholic, daughter of the Conservative party manager, Eldon Gorst. It was a happy union, and they had six children. Two of those children were Angela Sykes, a sculptor, and Christopher Sykes, author. Sykes succeeded to the baronetcy and the estates in 1913. Lady Sykes went on to found a VAD Hospital in Hull during the First World War.
After two unsuccessful attempts, Sykes was elected to Parliament as a Unionist in 1911, representing Kingston upon Hull Central. He became close to Lord Hugh Cecil, another MP and was a contemporary of F. E. Smith, later Lord Birkenhead, and Hilaire Belloc. A JP in the East Riding, he was also elected a member of the County Council.
Sykes was also a friend of Aubrey Herbert, another Englishman influential in Middle Eastern affairs, and was acquainted with Gertrude Bell, the pro-Arab Foreign Office advisor and Middle Eastern traveller. Sykes was never as single-minded an advocate of the Arab cause as Bell, and her friends T. E. Lawrence and Sir Percy Cox. His sympathies and interests later extended to Armenians, Arabs and Jews, as well as Turks. This is reflected in the Turkish Room he had installed in Sledmere House, using the noted Armenian ceramic artist David Ohannessian as designer.Moya Tönnies. Colonial Diplomacy through Art. Jerusalem 1918–1926. Leiden: Brill, 2024, chapter „Mark Sykes and David Ohannessian," p. 47-51, figs. 2.9–2.10, 6.1–6.2, 20.7.
The author H. G. Wells noted in the Appendix of his 1913 publication Little Wars, an early publication about the hobby of wargaming with miniature soldiers, that he had exchanged correspondence with "Colonel" Mark Sykes about how his hobby war game might be converted into a proper "Kriegspiel" as played by the British Army and be used as a training aid for young officers. This Appendix then proceeds to set forth the modifications and additions to the original rules to convert them to this new purpose.pg 101, Appendix, Little Wars,
Protégé of Kitchener When the First World War broke out in 1914, Lieutenant-Colonel Sykes was the commanding officer of the 5th Battalion of the Green Howards. However he did not lead them into battle, as his particular talents were needed by the Intelligence department of the War Office working for Lord Kitchener, the Secretary of State for War. Kitchener placed Sykes on Sir Maurice de Bunsen's Committee advising the Cabinet on Middle Eastern affairs.
Although Sykes never got to know Kitchener well, they shared a similar outlook, and Sykes had gained a new confidence. He soon became the dominant person on the committee, and so garnering great influence on British Middle Eastern policy, later becoming a prominent expert. For the Intelligence Unit he wrote pamphlets promoting Arab independence, fomenting revolt against the Turkish Empire. He was introduced to Colonel Oswald FitzGerald, Kitchener's assistant secretary. London still hoped to persuade Turkey to abstain from fighting, or to join the Allies' side in the war against the Central Powers.
It was Sykes's intelligence that informed the Foreign Office that Turkey would fight alongside Germany – which Fitzgerald carried by letter to Kitchener.Schneer, p.45 (Turkey became a belligerent in November 1914.) Sykes only saw Kitchener briefly once in his life at York House, on which occasion he was presented with a list of points for discussion. Sykes's advice was clear: "Turkey must cease to be...should be done up to the nines and given money and food....Then premiums might be offered for camels...then a price for telegraphic insulators...then a price for interruption of Hejaz Railway line and a good price for Turkish Mausers and a good price for deserters from the Turkish Army...if possible keep the whole of the Hejaz Railway in a ferment and destroy bridges".Sykes to Herbert, spring 1915, SRO, HP, DD/HER/34Schneer, Jonathan. The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Random House Publishing Group, 2010, p.383
Upon Sykes's instigation, but not completely according to his wishes, the Foreign Office set up the Arab Bureau in Cairo in January 1916. Sykes designed the flag of the Arab Revolt, a combination of green, red, black and white. Variations on his design later served as flags of Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Sudan, Kuwait, Yemen, the United Arab Emirates and Palestine, none of which except for Egypt had existed as separate nations before the First World War.
With the rise of the Lloyd George ministry in December 1916, he was appointed to the War Cabinet Secretariat, and assigned to the British section of the Supreme War Council at Versailles, France.Amery, Leopold, "My Political Life, Vol. II", pg. 92
Britain's strategic conundrum
Sykes had long agreed with the traditional policy of British Conservatives in propping up Ottoman Turkey as a buffer against Russian expansion into the Mediterranean. Britain feared that Russia had designs on India, its most important colonial possession. A Russian fleet in the Mediterranean might cut British sea routes to India. British statesmen such as Palmerston, Disraeli and Salisbury had held this view. Liberal Party leader, William Ewart Gladstone, was much more critical of the Turkish government, deploring its misgovernment and periodic slaughter of minorities, especially Christian ones. A Liberal successor, David Lloyd George, shared a progressively disdainful attitude towards the 'sick man' of Europe.
Compounding Britain's difficulties, France sought to secure a Greater Syria, where there were significant minorities, that included Palestine. Another ally, Italy, advanced claims to the Aegean Islands offering protection to Christian minorities in Asia Minor. Then Russian claims had to be considered, particularly with respect to control of the Straits leading from the Black Sea to the Aegean and protection of the Christian population of Turkish Armenia and the Pontic Greeks of the Black Sea coast. Greece coveted historic Byzantine territories in Asia Minor and Thrace, claims that conflicted with those of Russia and Italy, as well as Turkey. Greece had already landed its troops in western Asia Minor capturing Smyrna, a coastal Aegean city. David Lloyd George favoured the Greek cause. Complicating this was the desire of Zionists to have an independent Jewish state in the region of Palestine.