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Was Transjordan administratively separate from Mandatory Palestine in 1920–1921?
Executive summary
Transjordan was included within the geographic scope of the British Mandate for Palestine at San Remo in 1920 but was administratively treated as a separate entity by Britain from about late 1920–1921, with Article 25 and the 1922 Transjordan memorandum formalizing its special status (Article 25 added March 1921; Gen. Council approved separate administration 16 Sept 1922) [1] [2]. Contemporary British acts and later League of Nations approval created a separate “Administration of Trans-Jordan” while leaving nominal mandatory authority with Britain over both sides of the Jordan River [1] [3].
1. The legal frame: one mandate on paper, two practices on the ground
At San Remo the Allies awarded Britain the Mandate for Palestine, which on paper encompassed lands both west and east of the Jordan River; that meant Transjordan initially fell within the Mandate’s geographic ambit [2] [4]. To reconcile competing promises, Britain inserted Article 25 into the Mandate in March 1921 to permit withholding certain Mandate provisions in Transjordan; the League later accepted a British memorandum on 16 September 1922 effectively approving a separate Transjordan administration [1] [2].
2. Administrative reality: separation begins in 1920–21
After Ottoman rule ended, Britain ran military administrations, but following the French defeat of Faisal in July 1920 Britain deliberately avoided “any definite connection” between Transjordan and Palestine and began treating the area east of the Jordan as a distinct administrative zone; Abdullah’s arrival in late 1920 and his installation as Emir in 1921 gave the territory a de facto autonomous administration under British supervision [3] [5]. Churchill’s Cairo/Jerusalem decisions in 1921 and his discussions with Emir Abdullah concretized British intent to govern western Palestine and recognize Abdullah’s rule east of the Jordan [4].
3. What “separate” meant: autonomy under British supervision
Sources stress that separation was emphatic in practice but qualified in legal form: Britain retained mandatory authority over both territories while excluding many Palestine-specific obligations (notably those implementing the Balfour Declaration) from Transjordan via Article 25 and the 1922 memorandum; official documents thereafter often treated them as two separate mandates though technically one Mandate continued to exist [1] [3] [5].
4. Timelines and milestones you should note
Key markers: San Remo award (April 1920) placed Transjordan inside the Mandate’s geographic scope [2]; British reluctance to integrate Transjordan administratively after July 1920 and Abdullah’s arrival in November 1920 marked the start of separate administration on the ground [3] [5]; Article 25 was added in March 1921 and implemented by the Transjordan memorandum approved by the League Council on 16 September 1922 [1] [2].
5. Competing perspectives and political motives
Historians and contemporaries differ on emphasis. Some narratives describe Churchill’s “stroke of the pen” as intentionally “severing” Transjordan from Palestine to accommodate Hashemite rule and to avoid applying the Jewish national home provisions east of the Jordan [6] [7]. Other accounts stress procedural nuance: Britain used the Mandate framework to create a legal rationale for Transjordan’s separate administration rather than immediately establishing an independent mandate of its own [7] [5]. Implicit agendas matter: Zionist sources protested excluding Transjordan from the clauses on a Jewish national home, while British policymakers sought a diplomatic balance among wartime commitments to Arabs, France, and Zionists [8] [7].
6. How long did the separation last and what followed
Although administrative separation began in 1920–21 and was formalized by the League in 1922, Britain retained overarching mandatory authority over Transjordan until it progressively transferred powers and recognized Arab governance—transfer of most administrative functions was gradual, culminating in recognized independence as the Hashemite Kingdom of Trans-Jordan in 1946 [9] [3].
7. Bottom line for your question
Was Transjordan administratively separate from Mandatory Palestine in 1920–1921? Yes—in practice Britain began administering Transjordan as a distinct political entity from late 1920 and made that separation official in policy by adding Article 25 (March 1921), with formal League approval of the separate administration following in September 1922 [3] [1] [2]. Available sources do not mention a single instant when legal and administrative status perfectly coincided; instead, separation unfolded across decisions, declarations, and a formal memorandum [5] [1].