British Policy in Mesopotamia, 1903-1914 E-Book

Stuart Cohen

• Herausgeber: Ithaca Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 499

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2008

Beschreibung

British imperial interests in Iraq during and after the First World War are well known and have often been studied. But what of British policy towards the Mesopotamian provinces before 1914? In this well-documented study, Stuart Cohen provides the first coherent account of growing British interest in these provinces, in which the defence of India, commercial considerations, the protection of Shia Muslim pilgrims and fear of a German-dominated Berlin to Baghdad railway all had a vital role to play. First published in 1976 and now available in paperback for the first time, this book is essential reading not only for an understanding of the making of British policy towards the Arab provinces of the Ottoman empire but also of the last days of Turkish rule in Iraq itself.

Leseprobe

British Policyin Mesopotamia,1903–1914

STUARTA. COHEN

BRITISH POLICY IN MESOPOTAMIA, 1903–1914

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Copyright © Stuart A. Cohen, 1976, 2008

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First Paperback Edition

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Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-Matpc-04665

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To the memory of my father

Contents

__________

Foreword

Preface

Guide to Abbreviations Used in Citations

Maps

Introduction

PART ONE THE FOUNDATION OF POLICY, 1903–1907

1    The Absence of Policy, 1903

2    The Context of Policy

3    The Formulation of Policy

PART TWO THE IMPLEMENTATION OF POLICY, 1907–1910

4    The Criteria of Decision-Making

5    The Implications of Decision-Making

6    The Method of Decision-Making

PART THREE THE MODIFICATION OF POLICY, 1910–1914

7    The Pressures on Strategy

8    The Modification of Strategy

9    The Significance of Strategy

10  Epilogue to Policy: The Genesis of I.E.F. ‘D’

11  Conclusion

Bibliography

Biographical Appendix

Index

Foreword

_____________

There has been increasing interest in recent years in the study of the establishment of Britain’s position in the Persian Gulf in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This is partly a question of its relevance to the contemporary political situation. But there are also important historical questions concerned with analysing the establishment of an “informal” empire in an area of great power rivalry poised midway between the spheres of interest of the Foreign Office and Colonial Office in London and the government of India in New Delhi. European merchants, financiers and entrepreneurs also had a significant role to play. And over the whole enterprise, at least in its latter stages, there hangs the smell of oil.

Stuart Cohen has made a useful contribution to an understanding of the expansion of British interests at the northern end of the Gulf, in Mesopotamia. Unlike other historians, he is concerned principally not with the genesis of the Indian expeditionary force which landed at Basra soon after the start of the First World War but with the developing British efforts to consolidate a position in the Ottoman provinces of Iraq in the face of the threat posed by foreign, mainly German, rivalry and by the plans to build the Baghdad Railway. Using material from government archives, Dr Cohen describes the search for a coherent British policy in a skilful and convincing narrative.

Although this work is not directly about the internal situation in the Iraqi provinces, students of the Middle East will also find much interesting information relating to the politics and economics of the area. Early British contacts with politicians like Seyid Talib are described in detail, and there is as well a great deal of material relating to plans to develop the area by improving the system of irrigation and river transport.

Roger Owen

Preface

_________

This book is not intended to be either a comprehensive study in international relations or a detailed account of the domestic politics of Mesopotamia between 1903 and 1914. It has two more restricted, but nevertheless important, aims. The first is to measure the extent of official British interest in the region during this period, and in so doing to redress a traditional historical bias. Commonly, Britain’s interest in Mesopotamia before 1914 has been treated merely as a prologue to the Mesopotamian campaign of the First World War and the subsequent British mandate over Iraq: the subject has been considered of little importance in its own right. The accelerating momentum of Britain’s Mesopotamian policy (which the present work attempts to describe) suggests that this is to misinterpret the evidence. The British and Indian governments had long possessed a strategic interest in the region, because it constituted a highway to India. By 1914, they had also taken active steps to secure a position of prominence in all areas of Mesopotamian commercial development and to establish a claim on the political loyalties of the Arab inhabitants of the region. Britain’s Mesopotamian policy before 1914 must therefore be treated as an important element in Britain’s general policy towards the Middle East in the early twentieth century.

The second aim of this book is to weigh the various pressures which influenced British officials in the formulation of their policy towards Mesopotamia. This aim is restricted, and accounts for the exclusive concentration on the motives of the British government. However, it is also of wider relevance, since the subject forms part of a reassessment of the purposes of British foreign policy before the First World War. Thus the study aims to investigate not only the details of Britain’s involvement in Mesopotamia but also the motives (idiosyncratic and collective) which accounted for the parabola of that involvement.

Such considerations have largely determined the structure of the argument presented in the following pages. The formulation and the nature of Britain’s policy towards Mesopotamia between 1903 and 1914 is here treated in three chronological parts. These are preceded by an examination of the government’s attitude towards the Baghdad Railway in 1903; they are followed by an analysis of the reasons for the despatch of an expeditionary force to Basra in 1914. Together, the successive chapters attempt to describe the manner in which Great Britain became increasingly, albeit hesitantly, involved in the region. Individually, each of the parts also attempts to account for the pressures which at various points in time precipitated that process. Consequently, much of the book is devoted to an analysis of the tactics and strategy of individual “policy-makers”. This is undoubtedly not the whole story. But it does seem an indispensable part of any fruitful enquiry into the factors which determined Britain’s imperial policy.

* * *

I have many debts to acknowledge. Since this book grew out of an Oxford D. Phil. thesis, the foremost are to individual members of that university: to the late Mr A. Hourani of St Antony’s College and to Mr D. K. Fieldhouse of Nuffield College for their strenuous supervision of the original enterprise and for their benevolent interest in its subsequent development; to the Master and Fellows of St Catherine’s College for their warm encouragement throughout my stay in their midst; and to Miss E. Monroe of St Antony’s College for the benefit of her advice and erudition. In addition, I would like to make special mention of the help and criticism received from the late Prof. M. Verete of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

My debt to the officials of the archives and libraries in which I have worked will be obvious, but it is nonetheless great for that. The unfailing patience and habitual courtesy of the staffs of the Public Record Office, the Commonwealth Relations Office, the British Museum, the Bodleian, the Cambridge University Library and the Middle East Centre, Oxford measurably increased the pleasures of historical research. Extracts from the material in their possession appear by their kind permission.

Thanks of a particular, and more recent, kind are due to those who have made the publication of this book possible: the directors of the Middle East Centre, who invited me to participate in their monograph series, and the Publication Committee of Bar-Ilan University, Israel, which contributed generously towards the cost involved.

My greatest debt, which is impossible to specify, is to my wife.

Guide to Abbreviations Used in Citations

———

ADMAdmiralty Records, Public Record Office (PRO), London.BDBritish Documents on the Origins of the War, 1898–1914, G. P. Gooch and H. Temperley eds. (London, 1926–1938).BSBabington Smith MSS, St. Antony’s Collection of private MSS, The Middle East Centre, Oxford.BTBoard of Trade (B of T) Records, PRO, London.CABCabinet Records, PRO, London.CIDCommittee of Imperial Defence.DDFDocuments diplomatiques francais, 1871–1914 (2nd series, Paris, 1930–1955).DNBDictionary of National Biography: 1901–1911 (Oxford, 1912), 1912–1921 (Oxford, 1927), 1922–1930 (Oxford, 1937), 1931–1940 (Oxford, 1949), 1941–1950 (Oxford, 1959), 1951–1960 (Oxford, 1971).FOForeign Office (FO) Records, PRO, London.GPDie grosse Politik der europaischen Kabinette, 1871–1914, J. Lepsius, A. Mendelssohn-Bartholdy and F. Thimme eds. (Berlin, 1922–1927).HARDHardinge MSS, Cambridge University Library.L/P & S/Political and Secret files of the India Office (IO), Commonwealth Relations Office, London.LANSLansdowne MSS, PRO, London.NICNicolson MSS, PRO, London.PDHansard, Parliamentary Debates, 1903–1914.WOWar Office (WO) Records, PRO, London.

MAP ONE

_______

The Various Proposed Railway Routes in Asiatic Turkey, 1903–1914

MAP TWO

_______

The Proposed Tigris Valley Railway Route

Introduction

_____________

The intensity of Britain’s interest in Mesopotamia was indicated during the military and diplomatic Middle Eastern campaigns of the First World War. It was confirmed by the British government’s acquisition of a mandate over Iraq1 at the 1920 San Remo Conference. These events have long stimulated historical interest. Moreover, their study has been facilitated by the recent application of the “thirty years rule” to the relevant official British archives. However, one result has been a slight distortion in the balance of historical perspective. Britain’s involvement in Mesopotamia after the watershed of 1914 has become a major subject of historical concern;2 but British policy towards the area before the First World War has suffered proportional neglect. The imbalance is not rectified by the various studies of British interests in eastern Arabia during the early twentieth century. These studies have concentrated on either the Persian Gulf3 or the Baghdad Railway.4 The geographical limitations of the former and the conceptual scope of the latter are equally restricting. They have diverted attention from the extent and variety of British interests in the Mesopotamian interior. In the German context, it has already been acknowledged that “irrigation and other public works, foreign trade, cotton, oil and settlement came into the picture as well as railways”.5 The influence of similarly diverse factors on Britain’s pre-war policy towards the Mesopotamian provinces of the Ottoman Empire has not been investigated.

The chronology of the present study corresponds to that of the Anglo-German Baghdad Railway negotiations. This convenient arrangement of dates conceals, however, the central subject of interest. The report of the 1915 British de Bunsen Committee,6 rather than the railway clauses of the 1903 Turco-German convention,7 stimulated my interest in Britain’s policy towards Mesopotamia before the First World War. The reason lies in the retrospective character of the 1915 report. In 1915, the Russian and French governments suddenly announced the spoils which they each expected to gain after the successful conclusion of the war against Turkey. In order to frame a British response, the de Bunsen Committee was asked to assess Britain’s own desiderata in Asiatic Turkey. The committee completed its formal investigations, but did not fulfil its intended function. The de Bunsen report did not serve as a blueprint for future British policy in the Middle East. The committee concluded that British interests would best be served by a series of modest changes in Asiatic Turkey. These proposals were never officially approved by the British government; they were soon superseded by others whose more ambitious nature reflected the hasty march of war. Ultimately, therefore, the de Bunsen Committee summarised, rather than anticipated, Britain’s Middle Eastern policy. Therein lies the historical interest of its report. This document provides a convenient digest of Britain’s pre-war interests in the Middle East in general and in Mesopotamia in particular. The present study will attempt to discover the process whereby the policy enunciated in 1915 had gradually been formulated between 1903 and 1914.

The de Bunsen Committee concluded that Britain possessed three main interests in Mesopotamia. The first was strategic, the need to maintain Britain’s supremacy in the Gulf and, in doing so, to protect India’s western flank. Basra was therefore to be “incorporated into Great Britain’s possessions”, and all non-Turkish powers were to be excluded from Baghdad and Mosul.8 Secondly, the committee acknowledged Britain’s commercial interests in Mesopotamia. It proposed to preserve the trade of the region for British merchants, to retain the petroleum resources for British enterprise and to ensure that Mesopotamia provided India with a granary in time of famine.9 Finally, the committee indicated Britain’s interest in the future complexion of Mesopotamian politics. The Arab inhabitants of the region were not to be permitted self-government. Neither, however, were they to be alienated by the replacement of Ottoman suzerainty with direct Indian rule. Britain’s need for stability and friendship was to be served by a “devolutionary scheme” which provided for Turkish rule with indirect British supervision.10 These three interests – strategic, commercial and political – were all apparent, although in varying degrees, in 1903. The purpose of this introduction is not to compress Britain’s Mesopotamian policy before 1903 into a few pages, but to indicate the incidents and trends which ensured the continuity of interest finally enunciated in 1915.

Britain’s strategic interest in Mesopotamia was a consequence of its control of India. In the early twentieth century, the German naval threat and the Anglo-French and Anglo-Russian agreements increasingly concentrated Britain’s attention on Europe.11 The defence of the Indian empire remained, however, an established principle of British foreign policy12 to which the “whole British military and naval machine was heavily geared”.13 In 1904, India was both the largest consumer of British goods14 and the greatest concern of the recently formed Committee of Imperial Defence.15 Curzon16 asserted that “as long as we rule India we are the greatest Power in the world”.17 But Britain’s control over India imposed upon it responsibilities concomitant with the attendant benefits. Palmerston once asked whether, because he might possess one house in York and another in London, he need also own all the inns in-between. The expansion of the British Empire had provided a positive answer. Successive British governments had determined to secure India from all possible attack. They had therefore found it necessary both “to safeguard all the routes leading to India”18 and to establish control over all the bases from which those routes might be threatened. Initially, these motives had dictated the acquisition of a string of places d’armes from Gibraltar to Singapore. In the late Victorian age, they also dominated the workings of British policy in eastern and central Africa.19 The route to India had also stimulated British interest in Mesopotamia. The area constitutes a natural depression between the mountains of Iran and of Armenia, the deserts of Syria and of north Arabia and the waters of the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf. The valley formed by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers thus bestrides a natural land highway between India and Europe.

Traditionally, British strategy relied on control of the maritime lanes to India. The Royal Navy dominated the route via the Cape and, after 1875, British finance controlled the destiny of the Suez Canal. The British government had also, however, responded to successive foreign threats to make active use of the Euphrates route. The initial reaction had been modest. The despatch of a permanent agent to Baghdad in 1798 was Britain’s only local counter to Napoleon’s supposed intention to march across Mesopotamia to India.20 But in subsequent decades a combination of technological inventions and diplomatic circumstances stimulated more serious British interest in the overland route. In the 1830s, Palmerston feared that France might benefit, and that Britain’s communications with India might suffer, if Mehemet Ali continued to control both Egypt and Syria. At the same time, Chesney called the country’s attention to the possible utility of steam boats on the Euphrates. In 1836, therefore, the British government financed an expedition to investigate the possibility of navigating the great river from its source in Syria to its outlet on the Persian Gulf.21 By the 1850s, railways had captured the popular imagination. During this period, Russian advances in Persia appeared to threaten Britain’s Middle Eastern communications. Andrew’s scheme for a Euphrates valley railway from the Mediterranean to the Gulf therefore evoked public sympathy and aroused official interest.22 Support for the scheme increased after the 1857 Indian mutiny had revealed the deficiencies in Anglo-Indian communications. It intensified after 1869 when, despite British opposition, de Lesseps opened the Suez Canal and thus threatened to place France in control of a maritime route to India. As a result, in 1871, a select Parliamentary committee was asked to investigate the possible value to Britain of a Euphrates valley railway.23 Finally, the 1875 Eastern Crisis appeared to emphasise Britain’s need for this alternative. In order to prevent a possible Russian sweep upon Mesopotamia and the Gulf, Parliament was again asked to consider, and the public were again asked to support, various railways designed to traverse the overland route between the Mediterranean and the Gulf.24

None of the overland schemes materialised in the nineteenth century. Chesney’s expedition foundered in a storm and was finally abandoned in 1842. Neither Andrew nor his various successors obtained sufficient public funds or sustained official support for a Euphrates valley railway. In any case, Britain had no need of the overland route. In 1840, Palmerston, by a masterly settlement, simultaneously confined Mehemet Ali to Egypt and deprived Russia of some advantage at the Dardanelles. In 1878, Disraeli claimed to have been equally successful: the acquisition of Cyprus safeguarded Britain’s position in the eastern Mediterranean and secured a new staging post on the route to India. Furthermore Gladstone, by reluctantly occupying Egypt in 1882, had reinforced Britain’s control over the Suez Canal. Nevertheless, the various British reactions to the successive threats to the Mesopotamian route proved significant. They indicated that even if Britain itself did not need to use the Mesopotamian route, it would not allow any other European power to control it.

This attitude also dominated Britain’s reaction to the later German scheme to construct a railway from the Bosphorous to the Gulf. In 1887, Sir William White, Britain’s ambassador at Constantinople, reiterated that the government should adopt “a friendly but reserved” attitude towards the scheme.25 His advice did not, however, allay official fears that the line might threaten Britain’s communications with India. Indeed, the German project continued to progress. In 1888, the Deutsche Bank appeared to have won the confidence of the Porte, and in 1901 the Anatolian Railway Company obtained a provisional concession for the Baghdad Railway (as the line was popularly known). The subsequent Anglo-German pourparlers concerning this project in 1901 and 1902 were desultory and indecisive.26 Curzon, however, had already indicated the tone of future British policy. In 1899, he concluded a “bond” with Mubarak, the sheikh of Kuwait. Mubarak received Rs 15,000; in return he agreed not to cede any Kuwaiti territory (particularly for a railway terminus) and also not to receive the representatives of any foreign state without the consent of the British Resident at his court. Curzon himself feared a Russian, as much as a German, line to the Gulf.27 His action demonstrated Britain’s continued fear of foreign control over the overland Mesopotamian route to India. The subject soon assumed greater importance. In 1903, the German financiers obtained a final Baghdad Railway concession from the Porte. Meanwhile, the Foreign Office had encouraged the formation of a British financial syndicate interested in the railway. The Germans, represented by Gwinner28 and the Deutsche Bank, sought the City’s financial support for the scheme. The British, represented by Cassel,29 Dawkins30 and Revelstoke,31 aspired in their turn to secure a measure of British control over the railway. Both sides were supported (and at times hindered) by their respective governments. Another diplomatic struggle for the overland route was about to commence.

The apparent unity of purpose in Britain’s Mesopotamian policy during the nineteenth century is deceptive. The demands of commercial expansion were no less insistent than those of Indian security. The relative importance of “political” and “commercial” motives in British policy during the era of the “New Imperialism” is debatable;32 but the existence of both factors is undeniable. The defence of the route to India was, in the last analysis, an economic as well as a strategic requirement. Moreover, once the British government had acknowledged its strategic interest on the littoral of Asia and Africa, it could not subsequently ignore Britain’s commercial position in the interior of those continents. The achievements of British merchants and the growth of foreign competition demanded an official response. Specifically, the de Bunsen Committee stressed Britain’s commercial stake, as well as strategic interest, in Mesopotamia. Vasco da Gama’s rounding of the Cape in 1497 had heralded the decline of the Persian Gulf as a major trade artery between East and West.33 Centuries later, the construction of the Suez Canal confirmed the ascendancy of the Egyptian route. But in the early twentieth century, Mesopotamia was thought to possess limitless commercial potential: the region therefore promised to become an important trading area in its own right. Hitherto, neglect had prevented the utilisation of Mesopotamia’s vast agricultural resources, and ignorance had precluded the exploitation of the enormous petroleum reserves. Both failures, it was believed, would soon be rectified. Sensible conservation of the spring floods of the Tigris and Euphrates would improve the grain, rice, cotton and date crops. The remains of ancient irrigation canals indicated, and the wonders of modern engineering promised, that the quality and quantity of those crops could be vastly increased. Similarly, the sustained investment of European capital would speedily expand the amount of Mesopotamia’s petroleum production. By 1903, plans for the development of irrigation and mining works in Mesopotamia were being publicised in England and Germany.34 Britain’s subsequent Mesopotamian policy owed much to the belief that “the present poverty-stricken condition of the land is due not to the niggardliness of nature, but to the destructive folly of man.”35

The value of the existing trade, no less than the hope of future exploitation, intensified Britain’s interest in Mesopotamia. By 1903, Britain had ceased to dominate the overall Turkish market, just as its influence had also waned at the Ottoman court. German merchants had increased their share of Turkish trade.36 French financiers controlled the majority of Turkish investment.37 The situation in Mesopotamia, however, was markedly different. Firstly, Britain controlled the carrying trade to the area. Between 1900 and 1902, ships totalling 478,000 tons called at Basra; and of these, 453,000 tons flew the British flag.38 Secondly, the British Empire was the region’s largest trading partner. India was second only to Persia as an importer of Mesopotamian dates, hides and wool. The United Kingdom supplied sixty-five percent of the Mesopotamian market, with goods valued in 1903 at £2 ½ millions per year.39 The vast majority of this trade consisted of cloth, which was exported from Manchester.40 Finally, British merchants also controlled a significant portion of the carrying trade within Mesopotamia itself. The Euphrates and Tigris Steam Navigation Company had been established in 1859 by one of Chesney’s lieutenants, H. B. Lynch.41 Under the control of his nephew, H. F. B. Lynch,42 it remained a family and a British concern. In 1903, the Porte permitted the company to run only two steamers in Mesopotamia, each of which was capable of carrying 400 tons of cargo in winter and 280 tons in summer. The Lynch service was not a monopoly: the company faced competition from both native sailing craft and, more particularly, from the Oman Steamship Company, sponsored by the Turkish government. Nevertheless, and despite its high tariffs,43 the Lynch company had captured the major part of cargo traffic on the Euphrates.

Britain’s commercial predominance was complemented and paralleled by its unique political privileges in Mesopotamia. Lynch’s position itself testified to this combination of commercial achievement and political pressure. The vizierial letter of 1861 which permitted the company to run two steamers on the Euphrates was based on earlier firmans of 1834 and 1841, which had conferred these privileges on British government vessels.44 Lynch’s rights were subsequently contested. Thus in 1883 the Porte attempted to rescind his warrant to fly the British flag in Turkish waters.45 Moreover, the Lynch company had itself tampered with these rights by unilaterally transferring to the river Tigris the privileges originally applied to the Euphrates.46 Nevertheless, the British government reiterated its determination to retain this outward sign of British prestige. Moreover, Britain’s local representatives themselves built upon the foundations which British merchants had secured. The East India Company had established its first representative at Basra in 1764, and had opened a native agency in Baghdad in 1783.47 By 1903, both the prestige and the duties of the latter post had increased. The consul general at Baghdad styled himself the British “resident” in Turkish Arabia, and lived in the most imposing building in the town.48 He also maintained his own steamer (the Comet) on the Tigris, and was protected by his personal sepoy detachment. This unit had, in 1800, been established merely as an “honorary guard”. By 1904, it had grown to a mobile force of over forty cavalry and infantry.49

The extent of the consul’s responsibilities complemented the prestige which accrued from the size of his establishment. He was, firstly, the recognised protector of the thousands of Indian Shia pilgrims who flocked every winter to the shrines in Karbala and Najaf.50 Secondly, he was the acknowledged representative of the Indian government in all matters which affected the large Indian communities which had settled in Mesopotamia.51 Finally, he was the official administrator of the Oudh Bequest. In 1825, Ghazi-ud-Din, King of Oudh, had willed an annual sum of Rs 1½ millions to be divided between the mujtahids (religious leaders) of Karbala and Najaf, who would in turn distribute it to deserving persons “for the benefit of the King’s soul”.52 The management of this bequest involved successive consuls general in numerous local disputes. It also conferred upon them extensive local influence. In 1903, the government of India empowered the Baghdad resident to check the credentials of the claimant mujtahids.53 In 1912, he was also permitted to nominate the members of the local charitable committees at Karbala and Najaf which supervised the ultimate distribution of the funds.54 The Oudh Bequest was not considered to be of direct interest to the Foreign Office.55 The British government appreciated all the same the power of proscription, as well as the advantages of ostentation. In September 1914, the mujtahids were to be warned that the flow of funds would stop unless the recipients ceased their political activities against the British government.56

Throughout the nineteenth century, the British government had recognised that the protection of its strategic, commercial and political interests in Mesopotamia necessitated administrative stability in the area. The de Bunsen Committee’s interest in the future complexion of Mesopotamian politics reflected, therefore, a consistent British concern with the past failures of Ottoman misgovernment. Indeed, the repeated British complaints about such failures had aroused the Porte’s abiding suspicion that the British government harboured political designs on the Mesopotamian provinces.57 For its own part, the British government denied the charge. It had, in fact, rejected this opportunity. Throughout the nineteenth century, British statesmen had persistently refused to initiate a partition of Turkey’s Asiatic provinces. Turkey, according to Palmerston’s axiom, was “as good a guardian of the route to India as any Arab would be”. In 1898, Salisbury did discuss partition in theoretical terms with the Russians.58 In practice, however, he and his predecessors attempted to retain the integrity of the Ottoman Empire east of the Bosphorous.59 There nevertheless remained an inherent dichotomy in Britain’s eastern policy. The British government’s insistent demand for Ottoman reforms required European intervention in the Empire. It could not, therefore, be reconciled with the desire for Ottoman integrity, which necessitated European exclusion.60 This dichotomy was never resolved. Nor, on the other hand, was the Ottoman Empire ever properly reformed before the First World War. The efforts of Mustafa Resid Pasha in the first half of the nineteenth century, and those of Midhat Pasha in the second half, were ultimately ineffective. The Young Turks of the twentieth century proved equally disappointing as a reforming force.61

The administrative failings of Ottoman rule were particularly evident in the Mesopotamian provinces. They were governed by an apparently orderly system. The area was divided into the three vilayets of Basra, Baghdad and Mosul, which were subdivided into sanjaqs and kazas. Each district was thus of easily manageable size. Moreover, the chain of authority and links of responsibility between the provincial chief (vali) and the mukhtar of each village appeared clear and well defined.62 In practice, however, a combination of communal disunity and individual inefficiency ruined the system. The inhabitants of Mesopotamia, who were estimated to number about 1½ million in 1905,63 were divided by race, religion, occupation and tribal loyalty. The Turkish, Kurd, Arab and Jewish communities each preserved their distinctive traditions and cultural habits.64 The Sunni and Shia Muslims retained their mutual antipathy and traditional hatred.65 Moreover, the basic distinction between urban and rural communities was compounded by the complicated tribal system which prevailed among the latter. The local Turkish garrison neither matched in number nor compared in ferocity with such vast tribal conglomerations as the Muntafik and the Bani Lam.66

The remoteness of Mesopotamia from Constantinople caused additional difficulties. “Iraq … was neither a land of Turks nor attractive to them.”67 In the early centuries of Ottoman rule it had attracted few Turkish settlers; later it was served by obviously inferior officers. The independent hold of the great Mamluk lords of Baghdad was not broken until the second decade of the nineteenth century.68 The factional tendencies of the sheikhs of the lower Tigris were not quelled until after the First World War. Between 1869 and 1872, Midhat Pasha did improve Mesopotamian communications,69 and attempted to harness the resources of the region for the benefit of the Ottoman administration. He failed, however, to reform the local system of land tenure which was the source of Mesopotamian particularism. The indigenous peasants refused to buy directly from the government tenures which they already possessed from their local sheikhs. Ultimately, Midhat Pasha’s land sales thus inadvertently increased, rather than decreased, the power and influence of the tribal chieftains and the city merchants.70 Midhat’s successors repeated his failings and lacked his virtues. In the period of this study only Nazim Pasha, the vali of Baghdad in 1910–1911,71 inspired the respect of local British officials. The latter recognised the sincerity of Nazim’s intentions and therefore excused even the evident Anglophobia of his methods.72 The other valis of Baghdad were distinguishable only by the varying degrees of their incompetence or the differing extent of their corruption.73 These faults were matched by the valis of Basra and Mosul.74 They were compounded by the deficiencies of the several commissions established by the old Ottoman regime75 and by the absence of significant improvement under the Young Turks. The former ignored the enmity caused by the sultan’s acquisition of large holdings in the region.76 The latter failed to solve the problem of tribal separatism. Turkish inefficiency was not solely responsible for Arab backwardness.77 But it was a matter of concern to British statesmen. Disturbances along the Tigris, factionalism in Baghdad and militancy in Basra formed as much of the background to Britain’s Mesopotamian policy between 1903 and 1914 as did tension in Europe. Cromer78 articulated a common fear when prophesying that “If the Turkish hold over Asiatic Turkey is ever abolished, it will be through Turkish misgovernment and not as a result of foreign intrigue.”79

The manner in which the British government responded to the dual challenge of German ambitions and Turkish indolence in Mesopotamia forms the subject of this study. It remains to be noted that the tone of the response was primarily determined by the varying attitudes of British policy-makers. The diffusion of administrative responsibility prevents most governments from having a clear idea about a particular policy in a specific area. This difficulty was especially evident during the formulation of British policy towards Mesopotamia. This was not a reflection of domestic political change. The continuity of British policy towards Mesopotamia was not noticeably affected by the fall of Balfour’s80 Conservative government in 1905 nor by Campbell-Bannerman’s81 death and Asquith’s82 succession to the premiership in 1908. In a general sense it is probably true to say that “The change in the party tenure of power did indeed coincide more or less with a shift in generation in the leadership of the country and the Empire.”83 The emergence of new men and new ideas, at the Foreign Office in particular, was to affect the extent of Britain’s European commitments.84 But at the level of the formulation of Mesopotamian policy, 1906 does not represent a break in the official mind. Even the Foreign Office reforms of that year were initiated by the previous administration.85 They hardly influenced either the social unity or the common psychology of the group of men charged with the management of Britain’s foreign affairs.86 At the Foreign Office, Lansdowne87 and Grey88 successively shared the services, although in different capacities, of Hardinge89 and Bertie.90 At the India Office similarly, Brodrick91 and Morley92 were both assisted by Godley93 and Ritchie.94 In India, Curzon and Minto95 were in turn advised by Kitchener.96 As will be seen, the important changes in Mesopotamian policy coincided with later changes in personnel: when Lowther97 and then Mallet98 replaced O’Conor99 as ambassador at Constantinople, when Nicolson100 replaced Hardinge as Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, when Crewe101 replaced Morley at the India Office, when Churchill102 arrived at the Admiralty and when the preoccupation of the senior members of the civil service with European affairs allowed Parker103 and Hirtzel104 to assume a seemingly important role.

The joint interest in the Mesopotamian region of the British and Indian governments exerted a more serious strain on the unity of British policy between 1903 and 1910. Neither interdepartmental coordination as practised in the Committee of Imperial Defence105 nor the common interests of both governments could obscure the differing perspectives of England and India. The need for consultation between the two authorities was often a source of delay.106 The lack of such consultation could also lead to confusion. The appointment of the British resident in Turkish Arabia was usually an affair of the Indian Political Service. However, the posts at Baghdad and Basra were also subordinate to London through the ambassador at Constantinople. The result, as one official noted, was that India was “often very much in the dark about information which the Basra Consul … sends through the Ambassador to London”.107 Finally, and more important, the divergent ambitions of the two authorities also resulted in dispute. Lansdowne’s unwilling accession to Curzon’s determined forward policy in Kuwait, although outside the present field of study, formed a portentous overture to it. It began a series of debates between the India Office and the Foreign Office which hindered the unified formulation of a British Mesopotamian policy. In 1906, Balfour both depicted and exacerbated the atmosphere when asserting that “India ought not to treat us as if we were an allied, but foreign, Power. We are engaged in a common work; and we are the predominant partner.”108

The British and Indian governments did at least share their sources of local information. Britain’s representatives in Mesopotamia, however, despatched reports of varying standards, and thereby further diversified the shape of Britain’s Mesopotamian policy. Most consuls tended to magnify the importance of local events.109 Newmarch110 in particular was inordinately concerned with the physical appearance of the Baghdad residency.111 Others were annually affected by the summer heat. Thus Crow112 at Basra asked for extended leave,113 and Grieg at Mosul requested a transfer.114 All were acutely conscious of their isolation. Ramsay115 complained that “most people in England think that Baghdad is at the end of the earth and on the road to no-where.”116 Even his successor at Baghdad, Lorimer117 (who was probably Britain’s finest Mesopotamian consul of the period), felt that neither Simla nor London appreciated that “Baghdad lies much more remote from European aid than Tien-tsin or even Peking.”118 Geographical factors thus often influenced the nature of the local despatches. The quality of reports was further affected by the abilities of their authors. The deficiencies in the academic training of the Levant Diplomatic Service,119 and the military bias in that of the Indian Political Service,120 were equally at variance with the British government’s increasing desire for commercial intelligence after 1903.121 Thus Newmarch in 1904122 and Young in 1909123 were both criticised for the quality of their trade reports. On the other hand, Maunsell, the military attaché at Constantinople,124 complained that not one of Britain’s Mesopotamian officers had provided him with any sketch or map worthy of inclusion in a military handbook.125 The Foreign Office considered that Crow’s work was impaired by his inefficiency,126 that Ramsay’s local influence was limited by his ignorance of Arabic127 and that Lorimer’s outlook was restricted by his strict Presbyterian upbringing.128 These idiosyncrasies did not inspire respect; they were sometimes presented as an excuse for the neglect of consular reports.129They certainly fostered the predilection to judge local events by standards established at the executive centre. The formulation of Britain’s Mesopotamian policy was influenced by the prejudices of the recipients, as well as the authors, of consular despatches.

This study follows the lines of enquiry suggested by the de Bunsen Committee report. It will also attempt to trace the influence of three factors on the formulation of British policy towards Mesopotamia between 1903 and 1914 – British strategic and commercial interests, Eurocentric diplomatic considerations and individual official attitudes. The exclusive concentration on British policy is deliberate. It is the consequence of a desire to discern the internal evolution of official attitudes rather than to analyse the mechanics of international diplomacy. This study therefore relies mainly upon the available despatches, minutes and correspondence of the officials most closely concerned. The records of interested financiers, journalists and travellers have been reproduced only when they appear to illuminate the activities and thoughts of those whose responsibility it was to formulate British policy. The Baghdad Railway must form one of the central themes of this analysis: the project dominated both public and official discussion of Mesopotamia before the First World War. However, both the diplomatic history of the line and a detailed record of its construction lie outside the scope of examination. British policy towards the railway will only be considered in so far as it reflected, or related to, British attitudes towards Mesopotamia.

The evolution of Mesopotamian policy was marked in four different documents – a memorandum by Lansdowne in 1903, a Cabinet statement in 1907, a despatch by Grey in 1910 and (taken together) the Anglo-Turkish and Anglo-German agreements of 1913 and 1914. Within the limits allowed by continuity, the three intervening periods will be treated as self-contained units. Each document appears to represent a definitive stage in the formulation of Britain’s Mesopotamian policy; and the aim of this study is to explain under what pressure and by what process of assessment each stage was reached.

NOTES

____

1     The terms “Mesopotamia” and “Iraq” are used as political, rather than geographical, descriptions; the former will be used to describe the three Ottoman provinces of Basra, Baghdad and Mosul. Strictly speaking, Iraq (Arabic, the plain) refers solely to the alluvial plain south of a line from Beled (north of Baghdad) to Fellujah on the Euphrates. The northerly region of Mesopotamia is known as Jezirah (Arabic, the island). See Admiralty War Staff Intelligence Division, A Handbook of Mesopotamia, vol. 1 (August 1916), p. 1. The British and Indian documents consulted adopt no consistent method of spelling of places: the “Bagdad” Railway and the “Baghdad” Railway are sometimes found in one document. I have used the spelling adopted in The Oxford Atlas (rev. ed., Oxford, 1961).

2     E.g., E. Kedourie, England and the Middle East: The Destruction of the Ottoman Empire, 1914–1921 (London, 1956); E. Monroe, Britain’s Moment in the Middle East, 1914–1956 (London, 1963); J. Nevakivi, Britain, France and the Arab Middle East, 1914–1920 (London, 1969); G. Atiyyah, Iraq, A Study in Political Consciousness (Edinburgh University Ph.D. thesis, 1968); R.D. Adelson, Mark Sykes and the Formation of British Policy towards the Middle East, 1915–1919 (Oxford University B. Litt. thesis, 1970), H. J. F. Mejcher, The Birth of the Mandate Idea and its Fulfilment in Iraq up to 1926 (Oxford University D.Phil. thesis, 1970).

3     E.g., R. Kumar, India and the Persian Gulf Region: 1858–1907: A Study in British Imperial Policy (New York, 1965); J.B. Plass, England zwichen Russland and Deutschland. Der Persische Golf in der britischen Vorkriegspolitik, 1899–1907 (Hamburg, 1966); and B.C. Busch, Britain and the Persian Gulf, 1894–1914 (Berkeley, 1967).

4     E.g., E.M. Earle, Turkey, the Great Powers and the Bagdad Railway: A Study in Imperialism (New York, 1923); J. B. Wolf, The Diplomatic History of the Bagdad Railroad (Missouri, 1933); L. Ragey, La Question du chemin de fer de Bagdad 1893–1914 (Paris, 1936); M. K. Chapman, Great Britain and the Bagdad Railway, 1888–1914 (Massachusetts, 1948); and H.S.W. Corrigan, British, French and German Interests in Asiatic Turkey, 1881–1914 (London University Ph.D. thesis, 1954).

5     W.O. Henderson, “German Economic Penetration in the Middle East, 1870–1914”, Studies in German Colonial History (London, 1962), p. 74.

6     30 June 1915, Report, Proceedings and Appendices of a Committee Appointed by the Prime Minister. British Desiderata in Asia. Cabinet Papers (hereafter CAB), Public Record Office (PRO), London, series 27, vol. 1. A full discussion of the Report is in A. S. Klieman, “Britain’s War Aims in the Middle East in 1915”, Journal of Contemporary History 3 (iii) (November 1968), pp. 225–236.

7     Text in J.C. Hurewitz, Diplomacy in the Near and Middle East: A Documentary Record, vol. 1, 1535–1914 (Princeton, 1956), pp. 252–263.

8     Minutes of 2nd meeting, 13 April 1915, Evidence to the Committee, pp. 44–46 and Report of the Committee, p. 9, para. 28, CAB 27/1.

9     Minutes of 1st meeting, 12 April 1915, Evidence, p. 41 and minutes of 4th meeting, 17 April 1915, Evidence, p. 51 and Appendix 21, pp. 123–125, ibid.

10    Report, p. 14, para. 47 and p. 26, para. 88 and Appendix 8, p. 99, ibid.

11    The 1904 Anglo-French entente and the 1907 Anglo-Russian Convention settled issues of solely colonial importance.

12    “India … held British foreign policy a captive.” A. P. Thornton, The Imperial Idea and its Enemies: A Study in British Power (London, 1959), p. 42.

13    M. and T. Zinkin, Britain and India: Requiem for Empire (London, 1964), p. 48.

14    D. Dicks, Curzon in India, vol. 1, “Achievement” (London, 1969), p. 113.

15    G. Monger, The End of Isolation: British Foreign Policy, 1900–1907 (London, 1963), p. 95.

16    G.N. Curzon, later 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston (1859–1925), Viceroy of India, 1899–1905. Dictionary of National Biography (hereafter DNB) (Oxford, 1937), pp. 221–234. The biographical notes will refer to the activities of the individual only within the period 1903–1914; they follow the appearance of his name in the text.

17    31 March 1903, Curzon-Balfour, quoted in D. Judd, Balfour and the British Empire: A Study in Imperial Evolution, 1874–1932 (London, 1968), p. 231.

18    H. L. Hoskins, British Routes to India (2nd impression, London, 1966), p. 130.

19    R. Robinson and J. Gallagher with A. Deny, Africa and the Victorians: The Official Mind of Imperialism (London, 1961), p. 289.

20    Hoskins, Routes, p. 64.

21    On Palmerston and the Levant crisis see Sir C. Webster, The Foreign Policy of Palmerston, vol. 1 (2nd ed., London, 1969), ch. 4; M. Verete, “Palmerston and the Levant Crisis, 1832”, Journal of Modern History, vol. 24, ii (1952), pp. 143–151; and J. Marlowe, Perfidious Albion: The Origins of Anglo-French Rivalry in the Levant (London, 1971). On the Chesney expedition see Hoskins, Routes, ch. 7 and E. Elath, Britaniya u-Netiveha le-Hodu [British Routes to India] (Jerusalem, 1971), ch. 3.

22    Hoskins, Routes, ch. 13; Elath, Britaniya, ch. 5; and W. Bamforth, British Interests in the Tigris-Euphrates Valley, 1856–1888 (London University M.A. thesis, 1948), pp. 33–56.

23    Hoskins, Routes, ch. 17 and Elath, Britaniya, ch. 6.

24    D. E. Lee, Great Britain and the Cyprus Convention Policy of 1878 (Harvard, 1934), chs. 1–3.

25    25 July 1887 “Remarks applying to different British schemes for the construction of Turkish railways in Asia”. Quoted in C. L. Smith, The Embassy of Sir William White at Constantinople, 1886–1891 (London, 1957), pp. 112 118 and Appendix 4, pp. 164–167.

26    Chapman, Britain and the Bagdad Railway, pp. 38–50.

27    Busch, Britain and the Gulf, pp. 108–113; J.B. Kelly, “Salisbury, Curzon and the Kuwait Agreement of 1899”, Studies in International History. Essays presented to Professor W. N. Medlicott, eds. K. Bourne and D.C. Watt (London, 1967), pp. 249–290.

28    A. von Gwinner (1856–1931), director of the Deutsche Bank, president of the Anatolian Railway Company. Neue Deutsche Biographie, vol. 7 (Berlin, 1965), p. 361.

29    Sir E. Cassel (1852–1921), financier, after 1909 director of the National Bank of Turkey. DNB (Oxford, 1927), pp. 97–100.

30    Sir C. E. Dawkins (1859–1905), partner in banking firm of J. S. Morgan and Co.

31    John Baring, 2nd Baron Revelstoke (1863–1929), partner in banking firm of Baring Bros.

32    Compare D. K. Fieldhouse, “Imperialism’: An Historiographical Review”, Ec. Hist. Rev. (2nd Series), 14 (1961–1962), pp. 187–209 with D.C.M. Platt, “Economic Factors in British Policy during the ‘New Imperialism’”, Past & Present, 39 (April 1968), pp. 120–138. See also H. Gollwitzer, Europe in the Age of Imperialism, 1880–1914 (London, 1969), ch. 5.

33    “For the city-states of the Persian Gulf the deviation of the sixteenth century was a major tragedy, for it had always been the Levant trade, the lure of the Mediterranean markets, that had invested the Gulf with prosperity.” J. B. Kelly, Britain and the Persian Gulf, 1795–1880 (Oxford, 1968), p. 1.

34    For a description of the agricultural potential and mineral resources of Mesopotamia see Admiralty, Handbook of Mesopotamia, chs. 3, 4, and 11 and S. H. Longrigg, Oil in the Middle East: Its Discovery and Development (London, 1954), ch. 1. The subject was discussed at the beginning of the century in D. G. Hogarth, The Nearer East (London, 1905), ch. 12; P. Rohrbach, Der Deutsche Gedanke in der Welt: Die Bagdadbahn (Berlin, 1903) and Sir W. Willcocks, The Restoration of the Ancient Irrigation Works on the Tigris, or The Re-Creation of Chaldea (Cairo, 1903).

35    G. Bell, From Amurath to Amurath (London, 1911), p. 186.

36    “In 1888 British goods constituted 42.8% of Turkey’s total import trade, in 1900–1901 they amounted to only 35%, and by 1908–1909 they had dropped to 30% of the total.” Chapman, Britain and the Bagdad Railway, p. 19.

37    Corrigan, British, French and German Interests, Appendix I.

38    Report for the year 1902 on the trade of Basra (1903), Annual Series 3025, Command paper (hereafter Cd), 13806.

39    23 June 1905 Board of Trade (hereafter B of T) memorandum, Foreign Office Records (hereafter FO), PRO, London, series 78, vol. 5449.

40    G. Lloyd, Report on the Trading Possibilities of Mesopotamia (1908), enclosed in 11 Jan. 1909 B of T-India Office (hereafter 10), India Office Records, London. Political and Secret files (hereafter L/P & S/), series 3, vol. 259, no. 2832, p. 35.

41    The firm of Lynch Bros. acted as local agents for the Euphrates and Tigris Steam Navigation Company (ETSNC). The two concerns were jointly referred to as “the Lynch company” or “Lynch’s company”. On the origins of the firm see Hoskins, Routes, pp. 424–427 and J. G. Lorimer, Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, ‘Oman, and Central Arabia (Calcutta, 1908–1915, reprint Hants. 1971. 2 vols. in 4), vol. 1 “Historical”, p. 1391. The Gazetteer provides the most authoratitive account of local conditions and British interests in the area until 1907.

42    H. F. B. Lynch (1862–1913), senior partner in Lynch Bros., Liberal for West Riding Yorks, 1906–1910.

43    Freight charges for 1905, listed in 16 May 1905 Crow-O’Conor 23, Constantinople Embassy archives, PRO, London (hereafter FO 195), FO 195/2188; those for 1910 are in 2 May 1910 Tod-Babington Smith, Babington Smith MSS, St. Antony’s College, Oxford (hereafter BS MSS), BS MSS, 10.

44    L. & E. Hertslet (compilers), A Complete Collection of the Treaties and Conventions and Reciprocal Regulations … Between Great Britain and Foreign Powers … so far as they relate to Commerce and Navigation … (19 vols., London, 1820–1885), vol. 13, pp. 838–840 and 845–846. The original firmans had been issued in order to assist Chesney’s expedition. Hoskins, Routes, p. 162.

45    Corrigan, British, French, and German Interests, pp. 10–11, 40.

46    The reason was the greater navigability of the Tigris, 6 Sep. 1908 Lowther-Grey 545, FO 371/547, file 27410, doc. no. 30975. D. Fraser, The Short Cut to India (Edinburgh, 1907), suggested that in 1834, the Porte itself had not appreciated the difference between the Tigris and the Euphrates and believed that Baghdad was situated on the latter, pp. 254–256.

47    A. Malet, Precis containing information with regard to the first connection of the Honourable East India Company with Turkish Arabia (Calcutta, 1874). The Company had first established a factory at Basra in 1639, ibid., p. 4. See also Gazetteer, vol. 1, pp. 1223, 1279, 1291.

48    See descriptions of the Residency in E. Burgoyne, Gertrude Bell: From her Personal Papers, Vol. 1, 1889–1914 (London, 1958), p. 265 and Gazetteer, p. 1583.

49    On the strength and origins of the Residency guard see 6 July 1905 Newmarch-O’Conor 500/49, enclosing a memo. dated 5 Jan. 1884 by T.C. Plowden, FO 195/2108 folios 395–405 and Gazetteer, p. 1296.

50    On the numbers of the pilgrims see Admiralty, Handbook of Mesopotamia, pp. 84–85. On the responsibilities they imposed upon the Residency see 20 Aug. 1910 Lorimer-Lowther, enclosed in FO 371/1015/34750/34750.

51    See e.g. 7 July 1903 Newmarch-O’Conor, F0195/2139.

52    On the origins of the Oudh Bequest see the 1911 correspondence between the Government of India (G of I) and the British government, FO 371/1244, file 3201 and L/P & S/10 vol. 77, file 1905/1290 and also Gazetteer, pp. 1409–1414.

53    13 July 1903 Dane-Newmarch 1577, FO 195/2139, folio 80.

54    Lormer’s January 1912 summary, enclosed in 20 March 1912 IO-FO40, FO 371/1490/3025/26070.

55    E.g., Norman minute on 20 March 1912 IO-FO, FO 371/1492/12148/12148.

56    25 Sep. 1914 Mallet-Grey tel. 857, FO 371/2140/46261/53073.

57    For examples of the extent of Turkish suspicions in this period, see e.g. 25 Apr. 1905 O’Conor-Sanderson private (hereafter pte.), FO 78/5394; Grey minute on 23 June 1910 Maimon-FO, FO 371/995/184./23095; and 25 Jan. 1911 Lowther-Nicolson pte., Nicolson MSS, PRO, London (hereafter NIC MSS), 1911 vol. I, FO 800/347, p. 167.

58    25 Jan. 1898 Salisbury-O’Conor tel. 22 secret, G. P. Gooch and H. Temperley eds., British Documents on the Origins of the War, 1898–1914 (11 vols. in 13, London, 1926–1938) (hereafter BD), BD vol. 1, no. 9, p. 8.

59    The occupation of Egypt in July 1882 was, of course, a striking exception to this rule.

60    A Hourani, “Ottoman Reform and the Politics of Notables”, Beginnings of Modernisation in the Middle East: the 19th Century, W. R. Polk and R. L. Chambers eds. (Chicago, 1968), p. 65 and Kedourie, England and the Middle East, pp. 16–20.

61    The subject of Ottoman reform in the period before the First World War is comprehensively discussed in B. Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey (London, 1961), chs. 4, 6, and 7 and R. H. Davison, Reform in the Ottoman Empire, 1856–1876 (Princeton, 1963).

62    The Ottoman administration of Mesopotamia is described in Admiralty, Handbook on Mesopotamia, ch. 9; G. Bell, “The Basis of Government in Turkish Arabia”, The Arabs of Mesopotamia (Government Press, Basra, 1918); and S. H. Longrigg, Iraq, 1900–1950: A Political, Social and Economic History (London, 1953), pp. 35–40.

63Gazetteer, vol. 2, “Geographical and Statistical”, p. 768.

64    The different communities are described in Admiralty, Handbook on Mesopotamia, ch. 7; Gazetteer, pp. 768–772; and 27 Feb. 1910 Lorimer-Lowther 191/10, reprinted in “The Jews of Baghdad in 1910”, Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 7 (3) (Oct. 1971), pp. 355–362. For later descriptions see C. J. Edmonds, Kurds, Turks and Arabs (London, 1957) and W. Thesiger, The Marsh Arabs (London, 1964).

65    The Shi’a community predominated in southern Mesopotamia, and the Sunni in the north. S. H. Longrigg and F. Stoakes, Iraq (London, 1958), p. 24. One important anomaly must be noted. The large and powerful Muntafik tribes were predominantly Shi’as, but their leaders (the Saduns) were Sunnis. Gazetteer, p. 1273. On the split between the two communities see R. Coke, The Heart of the Middle East (London, 1925), ch. 4.

66    The strength of the Turkish garrison is discussed in Gazetteer, p. 868 and in Lorimer’s August 1910 Summary, enclosed in 26 Sep. 1910 IO-FO, FO 371/1008/12174/35086. On the strength and variety of the tribes see Gazetteer, pp. 1273, 1081 and H. K. Chiha, La Province de Bagdad: son passé, son present, son avenir (Cairo, 1908), pt. 3. See also the comprehensive list in Arab Tribes of the Baghdad Vilayet (July 1918), War Office Records (hereafter WO), PRO, London, WO 106/919.

67    S. H. Longrigg, Four Centuries of Modern Iraq (Oxford, 1925), p. 323.

68    P. M. Holt, Egypt and the Fertile Crescent, 1516–1922 (London, 1966), p. 248.

69    He initiated, for instance, the Oman (Ottoman) Steamship Company.

70    A Jwaidah, “Midhat Pasha and the Land System of Lower Iraq”, St. Antony’s Papers, no. 16 (Middle Eastern Affairs No. 3) (1963), pp. 106–134.

71    Huseyn Nazim Pasha (1848–1913), commander of the Istanbul garrison April 1909, vali of Baghdad Apr. 1910–Feb. 1911, Minister of War, 1912–1913.

72    22 Aug. 1910 Lorimer-Lowther, enclosed in FO 371/1000/930/34748.

73    Thus Mejid Pasha (vali 1905–6) was “ignorant” (27 June 1906 O’Conor-Grey 441, FO 371/151/17927/22165), Hazim Bey (1906–7) was “corrupt” (4 Dec. 1906 Barclay-Ramsay, FO 195/2216) and Shevkat Pasha (1909–1910) was “weak” (1 Nov. 1909 Ramsay-Lowther, FO 195/2310); and there were three valis in as many months in 1913 (Lorimer’s Jan. 1914 Summary, L/P&S/10, vol. 12, no. 1914/1416, p. 1).

74    By the end of the period, the valis of Basra were dominated by rival tribal factions, and those in Mosul were baffled by the religious divisions in the town.

75    E.g., 25 Sep. 1907 O’Conor-Grey 617, FO 371/355/ 32535/32535.

76    The Sultan owned, through the Da’arat es-Saniyeh (the Civil List), 30 percent of the cultivable area of the provinces of Baghdad and Basra. In 1904 he also acquired the Ottoman steamer service, which was renamed the Hamadieh Company (8 March 1910 Lowther-Grey 139, FO 371/1003/5151/8739). In 1909 these properties were transferred to the Ministry of Finance.

77    According to Z. N. Zeine, Arab-Turk Relations and the Emergence of Arab Nationalism (Beirut, 1966), p. 17.

78    E. Baring, 1st Earl of Cromer (1841–1917), Agent and Consul General in Egypt 1883–1907, DNB (1927), pp. 20–28.

79    22 May 1906 Cromer-Grey 79 conf., FO 371/151/18929/18929.

80    A. J., later 1st Earl, Balfour (1848–1930), Prime Minister, 1902–1905, DNB (1937), pp. 41–56.

81    Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman (1836–1908), Prime Minister, 1905–1908, DNB (1912 (1)), pp. 302–312.

82    H. H. Asquith, later 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith (1852–1928), Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1905–1908 and Prime Minister, 1908–1916, DNB (1937), pp. 29–40.

83    M. Beloff, Imperial Sunset, vol. 1, “Britain’s Liberal Empire, 1897–1921” (London, 1969), p. 111.

84    Z. Steiner, The Foreign Office and Foreign Policy 1898–1914 (Cambridge, 1969), ch. 3.

85    Ibid., p. 213.

86    Ibid., Appendix 3.

87    H. Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne (1845–1927), Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 1900–1905, DNB (1937), pp. 667–675.

88    Sir E. Grey, later 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon (1862–1933), Sec. of State for For. Affairs, 1905–1916, DNB (1949), pp. 366–375.

89    C. Hardinge, after 1910 1st Baron Hardinge of Penshurst (1858–1944), Perm. Under-Sec. FO, 1906–1910, Viceroy of India, 1910–1916, DNB (1959), pp. 356–358.

90    Sir F. Bertie, later 1st Viscount Bertie of Thame (1844–1919), Asst. Under-Sec. FO, 1894–1903, Ambassador in Rome, 1903–5, Ambassador in Paris, 1905–1918, DNB (1927), pp. 43–44.

91    W. St John Brodrick, later 1st Earl of Midleton (1856–1942), Sec. of State for War, 1900–1903, Sec. of State for India, 1903–1905, DNB (1959), pp. 108–110.

92    J. Morley, after 1908 Viscount Morley of Blackburn (1828–1923), Sec. of State for India 1905–1910, DNB (1937), pp. 616–624.

93    A. Godley, after 1909 1st Baron Kilbracken (1847–1932), Perm. Under-Sec. IO, 1883–1909, DNB (1949), pp. 344–345.

94    Sir R.T. Ritchie (1854–1912), Sec. Pol. Dept. IO, 1902–1910, Perm. Under-Sec. IO, 1910–1912, DNB (1927), pp. 462–463.

95    G. J. M. K. Elliot, 4th Earl of Minto (1845–1914), Viceroy of India, 1905–1910, DNB (1927), pp. 172–174.

96    H. H. Kitchener, after 1914 1st Earl Kitchener of Khartoum and of Broome (1850–1916), C in C India, 1902–1909, Agent and Consul General Egypt, 1911–1914, Sec. of State for War, 1914–1916. DNB (1927), pp. 306–314.

97    Sir G. Lowther (1858–1916), Ambassador at Constantinople, 1908–1913.

98    Sir L. Mallet (1864–1936), precis writer for Lansdowne, 1903–1905, pte. sec. to Grey, 1905–1907, Asst. Under-Sec. FO, 1907–1913, Ambassador at Constantinople, 1913–1914.

99    Sir N. R. O’Conor (1843–1908), Ambassador at Constantinople, 1898–1908, DNB (1912 (3)), pp. 37–40.

100  Sir A. Nicolson, later 1st Baron Carnock (1849–1928), Ambassador at St. Petersburg, 1906–1910, Perm. Under-Sec. FO, 1910–1916, DNB (1937), pp. 637–639.

101  R.O.A. Crewe-Milnes, after 1911 1st Marquess of Crewe (1858–1945), Sec. of State for India, 1910–1915, DNB (1959), pp. 183–186.

102  W. S. (later Sir Winston) Churchill (1874–1965), President B of T, 1908–1910, Home Secretary, 1910–1911, 1st Lord of the Admiralty, 1911–1915.

103  A. Parker (1877–1951), Junior Clerk FO, 1906–1912, Asst. Clerk FO, 1912–1917.

104  Sir A. Hirtzel (1870–1937), pte. sec. to Sec. of State IO, 1903–1909, Sec. Pol. Dept. IO, 1909–1917.

105  On the origins of the Committee of Imperial Defence (CID) see N. H. Gibbs, The Origins of Imperial Defence (Oxford, 1955); F. A. Johnson. Defence by Committee (New York, 1960); and S. Roskill, Hankey, Man of Secrets, vol. 1, 1877–1918 (London, 1970), ch. 4.

106  “What an intolerable method of doing business. Indian government, India Office, Minister at Teheran, Foreign Office, Cabinet Committee, Treasury, Cabinet”, 24 Apr. 1903 Selborne-Curzon, quoted in Dilks, Curzon, vol. 1, p. 111.

107  Barnes minute 6 March 1902, quoted in Busch, Britain and the Gulf, p. 7.

108  6 Oct. 1906 Balfour-Esher, Balfour MSS, British Museum, London, Add. MSS 49719, folio 55.

109  See D. C. M. Platt, The Cinderella Service: British Consuls since 1825 (London, 1971), p. viii.

110  L. S. Newmarch (1879–1930), Resident, Turkish Arabia, 1902–1906.

111  11 July 1905 Lansdowne-O’Conor 224, FO 78/5391.

112  F. E. Crow (1863–1939), Consul, Basra 1903–1914.

113  18 Nov. 1908 Crow-Grey 1 consular, FO 195/2275.

114  5 Mar. 1911 Grieg-Lowther 9, FO 195/2367.

115  J. Ramsay (1862–1942), Resident, Turkish Arabia, 1907–1910.

116  29 Oct. 1907 Ramsay-O’Conor, FO 195/2243.

117  J. G. Lorimer (1870–1914), Resident, Turkish Arabia, 1910–1914.

118  11 Apr. 1912 Lorimer-Lowther, enclosed in FO 371/1491/6666/22445.

119  See Sir. R. Bullard, The Camels Must Go (London, 1961), ch. l. But note that Bullard himself, who was acting Consul at Basra in 1914, was described as a first-class student (17 Nov. 1911 Marling-Grey 58 consular, FO 369/332/42574/42574).

120  See Lorimer’s description of his training in 20 Aug. 1910 Lorimer-Lowther, enclosed in FO 371/1015/34750/34750.

121  D. C. M. Platt, “The Role of the Consular Service in Overseas Trade, 1829–1914”, Ec. Hist. Rev. (2nd Series), 15 (1962–1963), p. 509.

122  28 Jan. 1904 O’Conor-Newmarch, FO 195/2161, folio 10.

123  Weakley minute on 21 Nov. 1909 Young-Lowther, FO 195/2310. W. Young, Consul at Mosul, 1908–9.

124  F. R. Maunsell (1861–1936), Military Attache at Constantinople, 1901–1905, employed at WO, 1907–1910.

125  Enclosure in 14 March 1904 WO-FO, FO 78/5354.

126  Parker minute on 2 Sep. 1908 Lowther-Grey 539, FO 371/549. 30975/30975.

127