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Colonel Sir Mark Sykes, 6th Baronet (born Tatton Benvenuto Mark Sykes; 16 March 1879 – 16 February 1919) was an English traveller, Conservative Party politician and diplomatic adviser, 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 apportionment of postwar spheres of interest in the Ottoman Empire to Britain, France and Russia. ==Early life== Mark Sykes was the only child of Sir Tatton Sykes, 5th Baronet, who, when 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 Tatton Sykes into marrying Christina. They were reportedly an unhappy couple. After spending large amounts of money paying off his wife's debts, Tatton Sykes 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.〔Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, "Sir Mark Sykes bart." (Oxford 2002)〕 Sledmere Hall "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 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. In 1897 he was commissioned into the 3rd (Militia) Battalion, the Green Howards. Sykes was educated at the Jesuit Beaumont College and Jesus College, Cambridge. He did not finish a degree, which contrasted sharply with grammarian T E Lawrence. 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. Not so many years later an old friend, Aubrey Herbert, diplomat and scholar, would remember 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〕 Despite his charming exterior, many like Lawrence of Arabia did not like him. But Sykes studied policy and the middle east becoming a self-educated expert most valuable to the Foreign Office in the Edwardian era, and then during the Great War. Sykes came from a Tory family tradition immersed in the history of the Disraelian flirtation with Osmanli power, as he had wrestled with the Earl of Derby to modernise conservatism. Although shaped by his culture and time, Sykes knew more than most about the Turk and Arab, and was fluent in the languages. Historian Jonathan Schneer calculates him as an anti-semite, estimating that his racialism stipulated a Turkish prejudice akin to Armenian genocide. Having said that, Sykes was an effective ally of both the French and the Israelis. Attempts therefore to label him as a traditional English bigot are simplistic. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Mark Sykes」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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