The hand of Glubb: the origins of the Trucial Oman Scouts, 1948–1956

ABSTRACT

This article discusses the origins and formative years of the Trucial Oman Levies (renamed Trucial Oman Scouts in March 1956), a small force that was established by the British in Trucial States in 1951. The establishment of the Levies highlights a myriad of issues including who was going to command the force, how and where to recruit soldiers, the financial cost of the levies, and the diplomatic and strategic implications of raising a small force in a region whose strategic value grew immensely due to the exploitation of oil. Recent operations in Afghanistan and Iraq highlight the contemporary importance of understanding the historical experience of trying to raise indigenous armed forces.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Amelie Jousseaume and Shelley Deane for their constructive feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Arbuthnott to the War Office, The National Archives, Kew (TNA): FO 141/1265/126/2/48/G; Trevelyan to Bevin, 6 March 1950, TNA: FO 371/82450/EQ12101/1. For details of the problems faced by the military mission to Saudi Arabia, see Calvert to Hankey, 26 April 1950, TNA: FO 371/82673/ES1201/6/G.

2. S. Cronin, Armies and State-building in the Modern Middle East: Politics, Nationalism and Military Reform (London: I.B. Tauris, 2014), p.10.

3. P.J. Vatikiotis, Politics and the Military in Jordan: A Study of the Arab Legion, 1921–1957 (London: Frank Cass, 1967), pp.17–30.

4. Y. Alon, ‘British Colonialism and Orientalism in Arabia: Glubb Pasha in Transjordan, 1930–1946’, British Scholar, iii/1 (September 2010), pp.105–26. T. Royle, Glubb Pasha: The Life and Times of Sir John Bagot Glubb, Commander of the Arab Legion (London: Little, Brown, 1992).

5. Report on the Arab Legion, 28 May 1945, no.166729, National Archives at College Park, Maryland (NACP): RG 319, Army Intelligence document file, entry 85, box 1076; Cairo to Washington, 6 April 1948, no.255072, NACP: RG 319, entry 85, box 1705.

6. PG 12: report by the Persian Gulf subcommittee of the Committee of Imperial Defence, 11 October 1928, TNA: CAB 16/94.

7. Cited in J. Onley, The Arabian Frontier of the British Raj: Merchants, Rulers, and the British in the Nineteenth Century Gulf (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), p.102.

8. R.J. Blyth, ‘Britain Versus India in the Persian Gulf: The Struggle for Political Control, c. 1928–48’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History Vol.28, no.1 (2000), pp.102–6.

9. C.U. Aitchison, A Collection of Treaties, Engagements and Sanads Relating to India and Neighbouring Countries. Vol.xi (Delhi: Manager of Publications, 1933), pp.181–267. For background, see F. Heard-Bey, From Trucial States to United Arab Emirates: A Society in Transition (London: Longman, 1996), pp.283–92. See also P. Leinhardt, Shaikhdoms of Eastern Arabia, Ahmed Al-Shahi (ed) (Houndmills, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001), pp.3–9.

10. Fowle to the Foreign Secretary of the Government of India, 16 November 1934, c. 306, India Office Records (IOR), British Library: L/P&S/12/3747.

11. For a survey of British policy in the Persian Gulf, see J. Onley, Britain and the Gulf Shaikhdoms, 1820--1971: The Politics of Protection (Qatar: Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, occasional paper no.4, 2009).

12. Onley, Arabian Frontier of the British Raj, p.47.

13. Foreign and Political Department to the Secretary of State for India, October 1928, no.20848, TNA: CO 732/35/7, f. 30.

14. Eastern Department brief for the United Kingdom delegation, New York, annex b ‘HMG's special position in the Trucial States’, TNA: FO 371/120588/EA1081/279/G. See also Allen to Dulles, 4 January 1956, NACP: RG 59 780.00/1-456; Neuman to Brewer, 9 February 1948, NACP: RG 59 Central Foreign Policy Files 1967–69, Political and Defence, box 2418, POL 33 Persian Gulf.

15. Fowle to Metcalfe, 17 March 1939, PZ 2110/39, IOR: L/P&S/12/3747.

16. Hay to Eden, 11 June 1952, TNA: FO 371/98333/EA1023/3.

17. Memo by Shuckburgh, 17 January 1955, TNA: FO 371/115480/VR1054/1/G.

18. Middleton to Lloyd, 25 February 1959, TNA: FO 371/140110/BA1053/3.

19. Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) 1947, Vol.v. The Near East and Africa (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1971), pp.535, 579; FRUS 1955–57, Vol.xiii. The Near East: Jordan-Yemen (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1988), pp.314–6.

20. For a detailed survey of British policy, see the Foreign Office memorandum known as PG 53: ‘Historical Summary of Events in the Persian Gulf Shaikhdoms and the Sultanate of Muscat, 1928–1953’, TNA: FO 371/174700.

21. J.C. Wilkinson, Arabia's Frontiers: The Story of Britain's Boundary Drawing in the Desert (London: I.B. Tauris, 1991), pp.169–85.

22. Minute by Greenhill, 11 December 1952, TNA: FO 371/98385/EA1084/446.

23. Powell to Belgrave, 18 October 1954, TNA: FO 371/114966/UES1172/21; CP (55) 152, 14 October 1955, TNA: CAB 129/78.

24. ME (O) (56) 27, 6 May 1956, TNA: CAB 134/1298; S. G. Galpern, Money, Oil and Empire in the Middle East: Sterling and Postwar Imperialism, 1944--1971 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp.204–8.

25. Pelham to Bowker, 5 July 1953, TNA: FO 371/104258/ES10345/40; J.E. Peterson, ‘Britain and the Gulf: At the Periphery of Empire’, in The Persian Gulf in History, Lawrence G. Potter (ed) (New York: Palgrave, 2009), pp.283–5.

26. See annex iii in JP (48) 61 (Final), 12 October 1948, TNA: DEFE 6/6. Defence of oil interests remained the defining aspect of British interests. See COS (57) 20, 16 January 1957, TNA: DEFE 5/73.

27. Unsigned Foreign Office memo, 1 July 1948, TNA: FO 371/68343/E8863/G and Sir Rupert Hay's response of 19 July 1948, TNA: FO 371/68344/E10151/G; see also ‘Middle East policy’, CP (49) 183, 25 August 1949, TNA: CAB 129/36; ‘Economic and social development in the Middle East: Persian Gulf states’, ME (O) 35, 19 December 1949, TNA: CAB 134/501.

28. For a detailed survey of the economic and political situation in the Arabian Peninsula, see a report by Sir Roger Makins, 20 March 1952, TNA: FO 371/98343/EA1051/53.

29. Minute by Rose, 8 February 1952, TNA: FO 371/98328/EA1017/1.

30. Hay to Eden, 11 June 1952, TNA: FO 371/98333/EA1023/3.

31. Minute by Greenhill, 6 November 1952, TNA: FO 371/98828/ES1015/17. J.R. Macris, The Politics and Security of the Gulf: Anglo-American Hegemony and the Shaping of the Region (London: Routledge, 2010), pp.85–8.

32. Military Report and Route Book. The Arabian States of the Persian Gulf. 1939. IOR: L/P&S/20/C252, ff. 36–7, 73–4, 118–9, 150.

33. Dawson to Rogers, 3 April 1950, TNA: FO 371/82075/EA1196/1.

34. JIC (47) 80 (O) Final, 6 January 1948, TNA: CAB 158/2. A US Army military intelligence (G2) estimated in December 1950 argued that the Saudi army numbered 18,000 men. NACP: RG 59 780.5/12-1.

35. Burrows to the Ministry of Defence, 16 August 1948, TNA: FO 371/68344/E10151/G; Hay to Burrows, 7 December 1948, ibid. E16004/G.

36. Burrows to the Ministry of Defence, 16 August 1948, ibid. E1015/G.

37. Hay to Burrows, 20 May 1949, FO 371/75019/E6758/G; FO to the British Middle East Office (BMEO), 20 September 1949, TNA: FO 371/75020/E11470/G.

38. COS (49) 70, 23 February 1949, TNA: DEFE 5/13.

39. Memo by Burrows, 8 June 1949, TNA: FO 371/74960/E7129.

40. J. Lunt, Imperial Sunset: Frontier Soldiering in the 20th Century (London: Macdonald, 1981). pp.129–49; J.E. Peterson, Oman's Insurgencies: The Sultanate's Struggle for Supremacy (London: Saqi Books, 2007), pp.48–51.

41. Hay to Burrows, 25 March 1949, TNA: FO 371/75018/E5621/G.

42. FO minute of 6 May 1949, TNA: FO 371/75018/E5875/G. Details of Glubb's proposals can be found in Pirie-Gordon to FO, 26 July 1949, TNA: FO 371/75019/E9490/G.

43. ‘A chain of Gibraltar's: being a note on British policy in the Middle East’, 23 May 1951, TNA: WO 216/318; ‘a note on the possibility of raising an Arab army’, 14 June 1951, TNA: FO 816/175.

44. ‘The Possibility of Raising an Arab Force for Service in the Persian Gulf’, Autumn 1951, Toronto: Baird Papers.

45. COS (52) 190, 1 April 1952, TNA: DEFE 5/38, discussed at COS (52) 49th meeting, 7 April 1952, TNA: DEFE 4/53.

46. Minute by Cranston, 20 November 1951, TNA: FO 371/91308/EA1195/8/G.

47. ‘Middle East Policy’, CP (49) 183, 25 August 1949, TNA: CAB 129/36. British Diplomatic Oral History Program, interview with Sir Clive Rose, 20 August 2003, pp.7–9. www.chu.cam.ac.uk/archives/collections/BDOHP/#R.

48. Minute by Rose, 26 July 1950, TNA: FO 371/82174/EA2181/41.

49. For a description of this process, see minute by Rose, 5 February 1972, TNA: FCO 8/1940.

50. Burrows to Butler-Bowden, 6 September 1949, TNA: FO 371/75018/E2829/G.

51. Clough to Burrows, 24 January 1950, TNA: FO 371/82172/EA2181/1.

52. Burrows to FO, 19 November 1953, no.965, TNA: FO 1016/307.

53. COS (56) 38, 27 January 1956, TNA: DEFE 5/64.

54. Memorandum of a conversation at the State Department, 16 April 1951, NACP: RG 59 780.022/4-1651.

55. Memo by Ryan, 13 February 1932, TNA: FO 371/16013/E1000; Trott to Bevin, 4 December 1947, TNA: FO 371/62112/E11752.

56. Wadsworth to the Department of State, 5 July 1947, NACP: RG 59, 890F.00/7-547; Childs to DOS, 26 February 1948, NACP: RG 59, 790F.90I/2-2648. FRUS 1949, Vol.vi. The Near East, South Asia and Africa (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1977), pp.88–9, 1624. FRUS 1951, Vol.v. The Near East and Africa (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1982), p.1039.

57. Scott-Fox to FO, 22 June 1949, TNA: FO 371/75019/E7718/G; Pirie-Gordon to FO, 30 June 1949, ibid. E9490/G.

58. Hay to Burrows, 28 June 1949, ibid. E8331/G.

59. Minute by Greenhill, 11 December 1952, TNA: FO 371/98385/EA1084/446; Hay to Churchill, 25 June 1953, TNA: FO 371/104270/EA1053/7.

60. Trott to FO, 19 December 1950, TNA: FO 371/82175/EA2181/79/G.

61. Pelham to Eden, 19 November 1952, TNA: FO 371/98822/ES1013/2.

62. Hoover to Dulles, 20 December 1955, NACP: RG 59 786A.00/12-2055; Bailey to Shuckburgh, 5 January 1956, TNA: FO 371/121270/V1075/1/G.

63. Minute by Furlonge, 22 February 1951, TNA: FO 371/91310/EA1201/10/G.

64. Pelham to Eden, 17 December 1952, TNA: FO 371/98828/ES1015/18.

65. Hay to FO, 14 April 1951, TNA: FO 371/91311/EA1201/30.

66. Le Quesne to Rose, 6 November 1951, TNA: FO 371/91313/EA1201/95; Burrows to FO, 19 November 1953, no.965, TNA: FO 1016/307.

67. Lunt, Imperial Sunset, pp.92–3.

68. Hay to Eden, 17 May 1951, TNA: FO 371/98323/EA1011/1.

69. Bahrain to FO, TNA: FO 371/104364/EA1203/69.

70. COS (52) 501, 9 September 1952, TNA: DEFE 5/41.

71. Burrows to Bowker, 8 September 1953, TNA: FO 371/104270/EA1053/10.

72. Memo by Makins, 20 March 1953, TNA: FO 371/98343/EA1051/53. Lienhardt, Shaikhdoms of Eastern Arabia, pp.12–3.

73. Burrows to Macmillan, 31 May 1955, TNA: FO 371/114589/EA1018/9; Lienhardt, Shaikhdoms of Eastern Arabia, p.13.

74. Memo by Makins, 20 March 1952, TNA: FO 371/98343/EA1051/33.

75. Robertson to Brownjohn, 18 March 1952, TNA: WO 216/516.

76. There is a significant literature on the Buraimi crisis and the demarcation of frontiers in Eastern Arabia. Foreign Office Research Department memo ‘The claims of Ibn Saud against His Majesty's Government’, 21 November 1950, TNA: FO 371/82656/ES1082/1; Liebsney and Starr to Hart, ‘The Problem of Boundaries in Eastern Arabia’, 2 January 1953, NACP: RG 59 780.022/1-253; B. Burrows, Footnotes in the Sand: The Gulf in transition, 1953–1958 (Salisbury: Michael Russell, 1990), pp.92–111; N.J. Citino, From Arab nationalism to OPEC: Eisenhower, King Saud, and the Making of U.S.--Saudi Relations (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2nd edition, 2010), pp.19–37; J.B. Kelly, Arabia, the Gulf and the West: A Critical View of the Arabs and their Oil Policy (New York: Basic Books, 1980), pp.61–73; T. Petersen, ‘Anglo-American Rivalry in the Middle East: The Struggle for the Buraimi Oasis, 1952–1957’, International History Review Vol.14, no.1 (February 1992), pp.71–91.

77. ‘The Southern Frontiers of Saudi Arabia’, 30 June 1940, TNA: FO 371/40266/E6545.

78. A detailed account of respective claims can be found in C.M. Le Quesne, ‘The Boundary between Saudi Arabia and the Shaikhdoms of Qatar and Abu Dhabi and the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman’, 11 July 1954, TNA: FO 371/109837/EA1081/398.

79. For a discussion of Ibn Saud's motives for occupying Buraimi, see Hay to Eden, 31 October 1952, TNA: FO 371/98378/EA1084/292. Citano, From Arab Nationalism to OPEC, pp.25–6.

80. The Saudi claim is detailed in: Arbitration for the settlement of the territorial dispute between Muscat and Abu Dhabi on the one side and Saudi Arabia on the other: Memorial of the Government of Saudi Arabia, 31 July 1955.

81. For a summary, see J.A Saldanha, Persian Gulf Gazetteer. Part 1. Historical and Political Materials. Précis of Najd Affairs, 1804–1904 (Simla: 1904), pp.1–16. IOR: L/P&S/20/C240. J.B. Kelly, Eastern Arabian Frontiers (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1964), pp.51–90.

82. Hennell to Malet, no.93 of 1847, 19 February 1847, IOR: R/15/1/111, f. 129.

83. Minute by Sarell, 20 September 1952, TNA: FO 371/98373/EA1084/147. Minute by Blackham, 15 October 1952, TNA: FO 371/98381/EA1084/346/G.

84. Minute by Rose, 29 September 1952, TNA: FO 371/98373/EA1084/139. The Foreign Office perspective was outlined in Eden's Cabinet memorandum C. (52) 450, 19 December 1952, TNA: CAB 129/57.

85. Burrows to Ross, 26 April 1952, TNA: FO 371/98828/ES1051/2; Pelham to Eden, 17 December 1952, ibid. ES1051/18.

86. Memo on specific problems with the United Kingdom, White House memoranda series, general foreign policy, box 8, folder 4, Seeley Mudd Library, Princeton University: Dulles Papers; minute by Riches, 9 April 1957, TNA: FO 371/127756/V1075/18.

87. Citano, From Arab Nationalism to OPEC, pp.21–2.

88. Burrows to FO, 16 September 1953, no.745, TNA: FO 1016/234.

89. GHQ MELF to MOD, 18 December 1952, TNA: FO 371/98388/EA1084/502.

90. Burrows to FO, 19 November 1953, no.965, TNA: FO 1016/307. COS (52) 501, 9 September 1952, TNA: DEFE 5/41.

91. Galt to FO, 11 July 1955, TNA: FO 371/114860/EA1204/3.

92. Minute by Greenhill, 7 October 1952, TNA: FO 371/98375/EA1084/208.

93. Minute by Ross, 16 October 1952, TNA: FO 371/98377/EA1084/259; minutes by Blackham and Bowker, TNA: FO 371/98384/EA1084/409.

94. G. Balfour-Paul, The End of Empire in the Middle East: Britain's Relinquishment of Power in her Last Three Arab Dependencies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p.115.

95. Minute by Brownjohn, 7 April 1953, TNA: DEFE 13/413.

96. CC. (52) 107th meeting, 22 December 1952, TNA: CAB 128/25; COS (52) 175th meeting, 23 December 1953, TNA: DEFE 4/58.

97. GHQ MELF to MOD, 18 December 1952, TNA: FO 371/98388/EA1084/502.

98. GHQ MELF to SAOPG and SRAFOPG, 14 January 1953, TNA: PREM 11/698. P. Clayton, Two Alpha Lima: The First Ten Years of the Trucial Oman Levies and Trucial Oman Scouts (1950--1960) (London: Janus Publishing, 1994), pp.29–31.

99. Weir to Le Quesne, 18 February 1953, TNA: FO 1016/226. Note by Brownjohn, 21 July 1953, TNA: DEFE 13/413.

100. Minute by Brownjohn, 7 April 1953, ibid.

101. Martin to Pirie-Gordon, 7 November 1953, TNA: FO 1016/307.

102. Pirie-Gordon to Le Quesne, 11 November 1953, ibid; COS (52) 665, 8 December 1952, TNA: DEFE 5/43.

103. The lengthy and complex correspondence on this subject can be found in TNA: T 220/1281.

104. D (54) 13, 12 February 1954, TNA: CAB 131/14; COS (54) 261, 13 August 1954, TNA: DEFE 5/54.

105. P.S. Allfree, Warlords of Oman (New York: Barnes & Co., 1967), pp.22–4.

106. Galt to FO, 11 July 1955, TNA: FO 371/114860/EA1204/3.

107. Note for Churchill, 15 February 1954, TNA: PREM 11/944.

108. Burrows to FO, 16 September 1953, no.745, TNA: FO 1016/234.

109. ‘The Possibility of Increasing the Strength of Arab Forces in the Persian Gulf’, 12 December 1954, Toronto: Baird Papers.

110. JP (54) 67 (Final), 5 August 1954, TNA: DEFE 6/26.

111. COS (56) 3, 3 January 1956, TNA: DEFE 5/64.

112. JP (55), 127 (Final), 28 February 1955, TNA: DEFE 6/32.

113. WO to FO, 2 May 1955, TNA: FO 371/114670/EA1194/9.

114. Operation BONAPARTE operational diary, TNA: FO 1016/451. Clayton, Two Alpha Lima, pp.71–8.

115. The competing British and Saudi claims can be found in The Buraimi memorials. See also Wilkinson, Arabia's Frontiers, pp. 323–4.

116. Minute by Samuel, 22 September 1955, TNA: FO 371/114625/EA1081/392. E. Shuckburgh, Descent to Suez: Diaries 1951--56 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1986), p.278.

117. For a discussion of different Anglo-American policies and priorities in the Arabian Peninsula, see W.T. Fain, American Ascendance and British Retreat in the Persian Gulf region (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), pp.62, 68, 73.

118. These differences were manifested in numerous documents, including TNA: FO 371/120581/EA1081/107, and Shuckburgh to Lloyd, 28 January 1956, TNA: FO 371/120582/EA1081/146; Allen to Dulles, 17 January 1956, NACP: RG 59 780.022/1-1756. Dulles to Dulles, Autumn 1955, White House Memoranda Series: General Foreign Policy, box 8, folder 4, Seeley Mudd Library, Princeton University: Dulles Papers.

119. Residency Bahrain to Riches, 21 November 1955, TNA: FO 371/114630/EA1081/542/G; COS (55) 95th meeting, 21 November 1955, Confidential Annex, TNA: DEFE 4/80.

120. Bailey to Samuel, 30 May 1955, TNA: FO 371/114892/ES1192/2. Minute by Fry, 4 June 1955, ibid. ES1192/3.

121. COS (55) 253, 5 October 1955, TNA: DEFE 5/61; Central Intelligence Agency, Special National Intelligence Estimate 30-3-55, 12 October 1955, ‘Probable Consequences of the Egyptian Arms Deal with the Soviet Bloc’, Washington, DC, CIA FOIA. Citino, From Arab Nationalism to OPEC, pp.80–1.

122. Minute by Blackham, 14 January 1954, TNA: FO 371/110112/ES1193/1/G. Allen to Dulles, 26 April 1956, NACP: RG 59 786.56/4-2656.

123. Stephens to Millard, 27 February 1956, TNA: WO 32/16264.

124. JP (55) 129 (Final), 19 January 1956, TNA: DEFE 6/32.

125. Minute by Russell-Edmunds, 6 February 1956, TNA: T 220/1281.

126. COS (56) 3, 3 January 1956, TNA: DEFE 5/64.

127. JP (55) 129 (Final), 19 January 1956, TNA: DEFE 6/32.

128. Richards to Samuel, 18 August 1955, TNA: FO 371/114680/EA1204/4.

129. Burrows to FO, 21 March 1956, TNA: FO 371/120626/EA1204/18. Clayton, Two Alpha Lima, p.90.

130. Minute by Riches of a meeting with Brigadier Baird, 20 July 1956, TNA: FO 371/120628/EA1205/3.

131. Operations in Muscat and Oman, 1952–1959. Prepared by the Historical Section Army Department Library, July 1964, TNA: WO 337/9.

132. Bahrain Residency to the Ministry of Defence, LIC 8757, 13 August 1957, TNA: DEFE 11/178.

133. Butts to Crawford, 25 January 1967, TNA: FCO 8/883. See also Allen (US Consul, Dhahran) to the Department of State, 23 June 1965, NACP: RG 59 Subject Numeric File 1964–66, POL 2 Trucial St, box 2745.

134. The Persian Gulf, including the Trucial Oman Scouts, brief no.24, c. 1970, TNA: DEFE 13/1380.