The Paulet–Newcombe Agreement or Paulet-Newcombe Line, was a 1923 agreement between the

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

and French governments regarding the position and nature of the boundary between the Mandates of

Palestine __NOTOC__ Palestine may refer to: * State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia * Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia * Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East ...

and

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...

, attributed to Great Britain, and the Mandate of Syria and Lebanon, attributed to France. The 1923 line defined the border of

Mandatory Palestine Mandatory Palestine ( ar, فلسطين الانتدابية '; he, פָּלֶשְׂתִּינָה (א״י) ', where "E.Y." indicates ''’Eretz Yiśrā’ēl'', the Land of Israel) was a geopolitical entity established between 1920 and 1948 ...

from the Mediterranean up to

Al-Hamma, Tiberias Al-Hamma ( ar, الحمّة) was a Palestinian Arab village in the Tiberias Subdistrict, southeast of Tiberias. It was situated on a narrow salient in the Yarmouk Valley bounded by Syria to the north and Transjordan to the south and east. Al-H ...

. The 1920 line defined, in less detail, the border of the French Mandate for Syria and Lebanon from the Mediterranean up to Jeziret-ibn-Omar. The Agreement takes its name from the two

Lieutenant colonel Lieutenant colonel ( , ) is a rank of commissioned officers in the armies, most marine forces and some air forces of the world, above a major and below a colonel. Several police forces in the United States use the rank of lieutenant colone ...

s who were in charge of precisely mapping the border lines and drafting the Agreement, i.e. French Lieutenant colonel N. Paulet and British Lieutenant colonel

S. F. Newcombe Lt Col. Stewart Francis Newcombe (1878–1956) was a British army officer and associate of T. E. Lawrence. He was commissioned in the Royal Engineers in 1898 and fought in the Second Boer War. He served with the Egyptian army from May 1901 un ...

. Together with a preliminary 1920 agreement, these are known as the Franco-British Boundary Agreements. The Iraq-Syria border was subsequently finalized in 1932 following a

League of Nations The League of Nations (french: link=no, Société des Nations ) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference that ...

commission review. Today's

Iraq–Syria border The Iraqi–Syrian border is the border between Syria and Iraq and runs for a total length of across Upper Mesopotamia and the Syrian desert, from the tripoint with Jordan in the south-west to the tripoint with Turkey in the north-east. Des ...

Jordan–Syria border The Jordan–Syria border is 362 km (225 m) in length and runs from the tripoint with Israel in the west to the tripoint with Iraq in the east. Description The border starts in the west at the tripoint with Israel, though the precise locatio ...

and Israel-Lebanon border, apart from the areas disputed as a result of Israel's conflicts with Lebanon and Syria, are defined by these agreements.

Sykes Picot and the Franco-Syrian War

The line separating the British and French spheres of interest in the area was first defined in the 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement. Britain's military occupied the region during the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, and in 1920 the French army invaded Syria. On 8 August 1920, during the Transjordan interregnum period, the French confirmed to the British that they would respect the Sykes-Picot line, and not move any military forces south.

December 1920 agreement

Boundaries in Northern Palestine, The Times, 25 October 1920

The boundary between the forthcoming

and French mandates was first defined in broad terms in the 1920 "Franco-British Convention on Certain Points Connected with the Mandates for Syria and the Lebanon, Palestine and Mesopotamia", signed in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

by the

British Ambassador to France The British Ambassador to France is the United Kingdom's foremost diplomatic representative in France, and is the head of Britain's diplomatic mission in Paris. The official title is ''His Majesty's Ambassador to France''. Traditionally, the ...

Charles Hardinge Charles Hardinge, 1st Baron Hardinge of Penshurst, (20 June 1858 – 2 August 1944) was a British diplomat and statesman who served as Viceroy and Governor-General of India from 1910 to 1916. Background and education Hardinge was the second ...

and the French Foreign Minister, Georges Leygues, on 23 December 1920.Text available in ''American Journal of International Law'', Vol. 16, No. 3, 1922, 122–126.Text available in That agreement placed the bulk of the

Golan Heights The Golan Heights ( ar, هَضْبَةُ الْجَوْلَانِ, Haḍbatu l-Jawlān or ; he, רמת הגולן, ), or simply the Golan, is a region in the Levant spanning about . The region defined as the Golan Heights differs between di ...

in the French sphere. The treaty also established a joint commission to settle the precise details of the border and mark it on the ground. The 1932 commission concluded that the 1920 agreement had been reached on the basis of the “British International 1:1,000,000 map published in 1916 and revised in 1918”, formally known as the ''Asia 1: 1,000,000. Projection of the International Map compiled at the Royal Geographical Society under the direction of the Geographical Section, General Staff. Drawn and printed at the War Office, 1916,'' today known as "GSGS 2555".

March 1923 agreement

The commission submitted its final report on 3 February 1922, which included a number of amendments. The amendments included: * North East boundary moved westward (reducing the area of Palestine) to avoid splitting the lands of Emir Mahmud El-Fa’ur of

Quneitra , ''Qunayṭrawi'' or ''Qunayṭirawi'' , population_density_metro_sq_mi = , population_urban = , population_density_urban_km2 = , population_density_urban_sq_mi = , population_blank1_title = , population_bla ...

* Northern boundary moved northward (increasing the area of Palestine) to include the entire Sea of Galilee and the Yarmuk valley It was approved with some caveats by the French and British governments on 7 March 1923, several months before Britain and France assumed their Mandatory responsibilities on 29 September 1923.Agreement between His Majesty's Government and the French Government respecting the Boundary Line between Syria and Palestine from the Mediterranean to El Hámmé. Paris, March 7, 1923.
Treaty Series No. 13 (1923), Cmd. 1910. Also Louis, 1969, p. 90.FSU Law
. The agreements fixed the line of the Syrian-Palestinian border (now the Syrian-Israeli border) between the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ea ...

and the town of Al-Hamma. The 1923 agreement takes its name from French Lieutenant Colonel N. Paulet and British Lieutenant Colonel

, who was appointed to lead the Boundary Commission.The Seven Villages: Origins and Implication, Nicholas Blanford
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1932 Iraq-Syria border commission

The League of Nations appointed a commission to review the Iraq-Syria border, ahead of the October 1932 accession of Iraq to the League of Nations.League of Nations
Report of the Commission entrusted by the Council with the Study of the Frontier between Syria and Iraq
C. 578. M. 285. 1932. VI, Geneva, September 10th, 1932 The commission carried out a detailed review of the 1920 agreement.

Gallery

Paulet–Newcombe Agreement Sheet I.jpg Paulet–Newcombe Agreement Sheet II.jpg Paulet–Newcombe Agreement Sheet III.jpg

Notes

Bibliography

* * John J. McTague Jr. (1982)
Anglo-French Negotiations over the Boundaries of Palestine, 1919–1920
Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 11, No. 2. (Winter), pp. 100–12. * Franco-British Convention on Certain Points Connected with the Mandates for Syria and the Lebanon, Palestine and Mesopotamia, signed Dec. 23, 1920. Text available in
American Journal of International Law
', Vol. 16, No. 3, Supplement, 1922, pp. 122–6. * Agreement between His Majesty's Government and the French Government respecting the Boundary Line between Syria and Palestine from the Mediterranean to El Hámmé, Treaty Series No. 13 (1923), Cmd. 1910. * Gideon Biger (1989), Geographical and other arguments in delimitation in the boundaries of British Palestine, in "International Boundaries and Boundary Conflict Resolution", IBRU Conference, , pp. 41–61. * Yitzhak Gil-Har (1993), British commitments to the Arabs and their application to the Palestine-Trans-Jordan boundary: The issue of the Semakh triangle, ''Middle Eastern Studies'', Vol. 29, No. 4, pp. 690–701. * Muhsin Yusuf (1991), The Zionists and the process of defining the borders of Palestine, 1915–1923, ''Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies'', Vol. 15, No. 1, pp. 18–39. * Gideon Biger (1995), ''The encyclopedia of international boundaries'', New York: Facts on File. * Gideon Biger (2005), ''The Boundaries of Modern Palestine, 1840-1947''. London: Routledge. . * US Department of State, International Boundary Study series:
Iraq-JordanIraq-SyriaJordan-SyriaIsrael-Lebanon
{{DEFAULTSORT:Paulet-Newcombe Agreement 1923 in the United Kingdom Treaties of the United Kingdom (1801–1922) France–United Kingdom treaties Borders of Israel Borders of Lebanon Borders of Syria 1923 in Iraq 1923 in Mandatory Syria 1920s in Lebanon 1923 in Mandatory Palestine Boundary treaties Interwar-period treaties Treaties concluded in 1923 Treaties of the French Third Republic Treaties extended to Mandatory Palestine Treaties extended to Mandatory Iraq Treaties extended to the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon Israel–Lebanon border