What did the treaty of Versailles do to the Middle East compared to the Sykes-picot agreement? I hear that they both partitioned the Middle East and gave it to France and Brittan, but how could both treaties do that? When one searches google for "what did the treaty of Versailles do to the middle east" you get " The two countries decided to divide the Arab territories of the Ottoman Empire between them" but when you replace treaty of Versailles with Sykes-picot agreement you get basically the same thing, so my question is what did they do different? did anything happen during the time of the treaty and the agreement to allow for the middle east to get partitioned for a second time? what am i not understanding about the two agreements? I know the Sykes picot agreement happened in 1916 and the treaty in 1919 but did one of the them divide the middle east in a different way compared to the other, or is google getting them mixed up with an end, post WWI, result?
The Sykes-Picot Agreement (1916) was a treaty signed between France and Britain, in the midst of the First World War, to essentially agree on which nation would take control of what, when the Ottomans conceded defeat. The agreement resolved that Britain would be given control of the area which today includes Israel, Palestine, Jordan and southern Iraq. While France would control the area which today includes Syria, Lebanon and northern Iraq.
I think you are conflating the Paris Peace Conference (1919-1920) with the Treaty of Versailles, which was only one of several treaties signed at the conference. The Treaty of Versailles was specifically the peace treaty between the Allied Powers and the German Empire. It was also at the Paris Peace Conference that the League of Nations was established, which was succeeded by the United Nations in 1946.
Also signed at the Paris Peace Conference was the Treaty of Sèvres (the terms of which were also discussed at the 1920 Conference of London), between the Allies and the Ottoman Empire. This treaty ceded Ottoman land in the Levant to the Allied Powers, but was never ratified.
The parts of the Treaty of Sévres dealing with the Levant were essentially incorporated into the later Treaty of Lausanne, agreed between The Allies and the Ottomans following the Turkish War of Independence. The Treaty of Lausanne was ratified in 1923, and came into force in 1924.
It was at the San Remo conference (1920) that a final partition of the previously Ottoman-controlled Levant was agreed by the Allies, broadly along the lines agreed between Britain and France in the Sykes-Picot Agreement.
This is an extremely dense and complicated topic, dealing with numerous national aspirations, and many international conferences, peace treaties and other agreements. My answer is therefore painted with fairly broad strokes.
But, one of the key distinctions to note is that the Sykes-Picot agreement was basically a ‘private’ arrangement between Britain and France, with some oversight by Italy and Russia. Whereas San Remo was essentially a League of Nations conference, which passed a resolution.
Just as two nations today could make an agreement with one-another behind closed doors, this is not the same as having the terms of this agreement passed as a resolution by the UN.