The British occupation of Mesopotamia, 1914–1922

Abstract

During World War I the military campaign in Mesopotamia placed enormous demands on local man- and animal power to provide the logistical resources vital to its conduct. This required the British civil and military authorities to construct a wartime state apparatus that filled the administrative vacuum left by the retreating Ottomans and made possible its downward penetration and mobilisation of local resources for the war effort. This article examines the interaction of politics and logistics in Mesopotamia and views the enhanced wartime levels of resource extraction in light of the British attempts to codify their presence in the country after 1918 and the nationalist backlash that resulted.

Key words:

• First World War
• Mesopotamia
• occupation
• logistics

Notes

¹Ghassan R. Atiyyah, Iraq: 1908–1921 A Socio-Political Study (Beirut: The Arab Institute for Research and Publishing 1973), 86.

²[Kew, United Kingdom, The National Archives], CAB[inet Office Records], 19/8, Evidence of Commander A. Hamilton to the Mesopotamia Commission of Enquiry, 26 Oct. 1916.

³CAB 19/8, Evidence of Lord Crewe to the Mesopotamia Commission of Enquiry, 30 Jan. 1917.

⁴Paolo E. Coletta, Allied and American Naval Operations in the European Theater. World War I (New York: Edwin Mellen 1996), 318; D. Chapman-Huston and O. Ritter, General Sir John Cowans, G.C.B.: The Quartermaster-General of the Great War, Vol.II (London: Hutchinson 1924), 181.

⁵Indian Expeditionary Force ‘D’ was renamed the Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force (M.E.F.) when London assumed control for the campaign in 1916.

⁶Atiyyah, Iraq, 240.

⁷Toby Dodge, Inventing Iraq: The Failure of Nation Building and a History Denied (London: C. Hurst 2003), 63.

⁸Ibid., 279.

⁹[London, United Kingdom, Asia, Pacific and Africa Collection, The British Library], L/P[olitical]&S[ecret Departments], 10/686, file 2571/1917, ‘Future of Mesopotamia – Note by Political Department, India Office, on points for Discussion with Sir P. Cox, 3 Apr. 1918’.

¹⁰Aylmer Haldane, The Insurrection in Mesopotamia, 1920 (Edinburgh: Blackwood 1922), 331.

¹¹Letter, Gertrude Bell to her father, 4 July 1920, Papers of Gertrude Bell, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne Library, available online at <www.gerty.ncl.ac.uk>.

¹²CAB 19/8, Evidence of Sir Arthur Hirtzel to the Mesopotamia Commission of Inquiry, 7 Sept. 1916.

¹³Stuart A. Cohen, British Policy in Mesopotamia, 1903–1914 (London: Ithaca Press 1976), 318.

¹⁴[Kew, United Kingdom, The National Archive], F[oreign] O[ffice], 371/2147, piece 78269, Telegram, Sir Percy Cox to India Office, 28 Nov. 1914.

¹⁵[London, United Kingdom, Asia, Pacific and Africa Collection, The British Library], MSS Eur[ope], Papers of E.G. Barrow, E420, box 10, Letter from Lt.-Col. W.G. Grey (Political Agent, Kuwait) to the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf, Bushire, 9 Jun. 1915; FO 371/4148, piece 34797, ‘Review of the Civil Administration of the Occupied Territories of Al ‘Iraq 1914–1918’ , compiled in the Office of the Civil Commissioner, Baghdad, Nov. 1918.

¹⁶Charles Tripp, A History of Iraq (Cambridge: CUP 2000), 31.

¹⁷Peter Sluglett, Britain in Iraq 1914–1922 (London: Ithaca Press, 1976), 10.

¹⁸L/P&S/10/514/4097, piece 1123, Telegram, Viceroy to Secretary of State for India, 5 Dec. 1914.

¹⁹[Cambridge, United Kingdom, Cambridge University Library], Papers of Viscount Hardinge, vol. 98, Telegram, Viceroy to Secretary of State for India, 7 Dec. 1914.

²⁰Ibid.

²¹L/P&S/10/514, file 4097, piece 1123, Telegram, Secretary of State for India to Viceroy, 16 Dec. 1914.

²²In 1914 and 1915 the leading proponents of this idea were Sir Arthur Hirtzel, Political Secretary at the India Office, and A.T. Wilson, then the deputy to Sir Percy Cox. They received tacit support from the influential former Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon, and from the Secretary of State for War, Lord Kitchener, himself a former Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army.

²³V.H. Rothwell, ‘Mesopotamia in British War Aims, 1914–1918’, Historical Journal 12/1 (Jan. 1970), 274.

²⁴Ibid., 280.

²⁵Philip Graves, The Life of Sir Percy Cox (London: Hutchinson 1941), 185; Elizabeth Monroe, Philby of Arabia (London: Faber 1973), 47, Dodge, Inventing Iraq, 64.

²⁶Sluglett, Britain and Iraq, 14.

²⁷Dodge, Inventing Iraq, 63.

²⁸Hardinge Papers, Vol. 99, Telegram, Viceroy to Secretary of State for India, 26 Jan. 1915.

²⁹Graves, Life of Cox, 185.

³⁰Dodge, Inventing Iraq, 121–2.

³¹Ibid., 69.

³²Ibid., 80 and 85.

³³Philip Ireland, Iraq: A Study in Political Development (London: Jonathan Cape 1937), 94.

³⁴L/P&S/10/619, file 3540/1916, Memorandum, A.T. Wilson to Chief of the General Staff, GHQ, 17 Sept. 1918.

³⁵FO 371/3059, piece 162433, ‘Administrative Report of Suq al Shuyukh and District for Year 1916–17’, by Capt. H.R.P. Dickson, Assistant Political Officer, Suq al-Shuyukh, 9 May 1917 and forwarded by Gertrude Bell to the Foreign and India Offices on 10 July 1917.

³⁶L/P&S/10/619, file 3540/1916, ‘Nasariyah Division: Administrative Report for 1918’, by Maj. H.R.P. Dickson, 9 Jan. 1919.

³⁷Ireland, Iraq: Study, 82–3.

³⁸L/P&S/10/516, file 4097/1914, Telegram, Sir Percy Cox to Secretary of State for India, 7 April 1917; Ireland, Iraq: Study, 84.

³⁹Monroe, Philby of Arabia, 49.

⁴⁰Bell Papers, Letter, Gertrude Bell to her father, 8 Feb. 1918.

⁴¹L/P&S/10/617, file 3540/1916, Gertrude Bell, ‘Tribal and land questions on the Tigris and Euphrates’, no date (but 1917); Atiyyah, Iraq, 236.

⁴²L/P&S/10/617, file 3540/1916, Gertrude Bell, ‘Tribal and land questions on the Tigris and Euphrates’, no date (but 1917); Gertrude Bell, FO 371/3051, piece 58336, ‘Notes on the Albu Muhammad Muqata'ahs’, 7 Feb. 1917; Atiyyah, Iraq, 240.

⁴³Atiyyah, Iraq, 250.

⁴⁴Bell Papers, Letter, Gertrude Bell to her father, 23 Aug. 1920.

⁴⁵Dodge, Inventing Iraq, 71.

⁴⁶[London, United Kingdom, Asia, Pacific and Africa Collection, The British Library], L/MIL[itary Department], 5/757, Draft telegram, India Office to Viceroy and Sir Percy Cox, Basra, 12 Mar. 1917.

⁴⁷Bell Papers, Letter, Gertrude Bell to her father, 10 Mar. 1917.

⁴⁸L/P&S/10/617, file 3540/1916, piece 1852, Note by Arab Bureau, ‘The Pax Britannica in the Occupied Territories of Mesopotamia’, forwarded from the India Office to the Foreign Office on 5 May 1917.

⁴⁹L/MIL/5/757, Telegram, War Office to Commander-in-Chief Mesopotamia, 11 March 1917.

⁵⁰[Kew, UK], W[ar] O[ffice] 106/912, ‘Sketch of military operations in Mesopotamia 1917’.

⁵¹L/MIL/5/757, Telegram, General Officer Commanding (GOC) Force ‘D’ to Commander-in-Chief India, 19 March 1917.

⁵²FO 371/3060, piece 177518, Gertrude Bell, ‘Report on the Najaf-Karbala district’, forwarded to Foreign and India Offices on 19 July 1917.

⁵³WO 106/912, ‘Sketch of military operations in Mesopotamia 1917’.

⁵⁴L/MIL/5/757, Telegram, Viceroy to India Office, 26 March 1917.

⁵⁵L/P&S/10/515, file 4097/1914 holds details of the transfer of officers from military units to the civil administration.

⁵⁶Stephen Longrigg, Iraq, 1900 to 1950: A Political, Social and Economic History (London: Oxford UP 1953), 82; after the war Longrigg served as Revenue Secretary to the Ministry of Finance during the Mandate era.

⁵⁷L/MIL/5/757, Telegram, GOC Force ‘D’ to Chief of the General Staff, India and Chief of the Imperial General Staff, London, 7 May 1917.

⁵⁸FO 371/4148, piece 34797, ‘Review of the Civil Administration of the Occupied Territories of Al ‘Iraq, 1914-1918’, compiled in the Office of the Civil Commissioner, Baghdad, Nov. 1918.

⁵⁹WO 106/915, ‘Dispatch of operations by Lt-Gen. Sir W.R. Marshall, 1917 1 Oct. – 1918 31 March’.

⁶⁰WO 32/5216, ‘Report of Department of Local Resources, Mesopotamia’.

⁶¹Ibid.

⁶²Arnold Wilson, Mesopotamia 1917–1920: A Clash of Loyalties (London: Oxford UP 1931), 56.

⁶³FO 371/4151, piece 152922, ‘Summary of Sir John Hewett's Report on Mesopotamia’, forwarded by Army Council to Under-Secretary of State, Foreign Office, 17 Nov. 1919.

⁶⁴Edmund Candler, The Long Road to Baghdad, Vol.II (London, Cassell 1919), 223.

⁶⁵WO 32/5216, ‘Report of Department of Local Resources, Mesopotamia’.

⁶⁶Wilson, Clash of Loyalties, 57.

⁶⁷FO 371/3397, piece 121486, ‘Mesopotamia Fortnightly Report No.11 for Apr. 1–15, 1918’.

⁶⁸Atiyyah, Iraq, 117 and 129.

⁶⁹Haldane, Insurrection, 29.

⁷⁰WO 95/4991, ‘Report of the Labour Directorate Mesopotamia Expeditionary Force from Oct., 1916 to Oct., 1918’, states that the number of local labourers employed in the various labour units in Mesopotamia peaked at 61,718 in April 1918.

⁷¹WO 32/5224, Hewett, ‘Some Impressions about Mesopotamia by Sir John Hewett, 7 May 1919’; Atiyyah, Iraq, 253.

⁷²Atiyyah, Iraq, 279.

⁷³FO 371/3049, piece 44105, P.Z. Cox, ‘Progress Report Suq-es-Shuyukh for September, October, November 1916’; WO 32/5216, ‘Report of Directorate of Local Resources, Mesopotamia’.

⁷⁴Candler, Long Road to Baghdad, II, 223; FO 371/3394, piece 8519, P.Z. Cox, Note on ‘Irrigation and Supply’, forwarded to India Office on 15 Oct. 1917.

⁷⁵Atiyyah, Iraq, 220; FO 371/3397, piece 54722, ‘Fortnightly Report No.2 – for period November 15th–December 1st 1917’, enclosed in letter from P.Z. Cox to India Office, 25 March 1919.

⁷⁶Atiyyah, Iraq, 229.

⁷⁷Ibid.

⁷⁸FO 371/3387, piece 142404, ‘Note by Sir Percy Cox – The Future of Mesopotamia’, 22 April 1918; John Fisher, Curzon and British Imperialism in the Middle East 1916–19 (London/Portland, OR: Frank Cass 1999), 124.

⁷⁹Fisher, Curzon and British Imperialism, 120.

⁸⁰FO 371/3387, piece 142404, ‘Note by Sir Percy Cox – The Future of Mesopotamia’, 22 April 1918.

⁸¹Wilson, Clash of Loyalties, 11.

⁸²Helmut Mejcher, ‘Oil and British Policy Towards Mesopotamia, 1914–1918’, Middle Eastern Studies 8/3 (Oct. 1972), 377.

⁸³Atiyyah, Iraq, 256.

⁸⁴Monroe, Philby of Arabia, 95.

⁸⁵Sluglett, Britain in Iraq, 19; the text had hitherto been suppressed by the civil authorities in Baghdad.

⁸⁶Bell Papers, Letter, Gertrude Bell to her father, 28 Nov. 1918.

⁸⁷Wilson, Clash of Loyalties, 103.

⁸⁸L/MIL/5/761, Telegram, Secretary of State for India to Civil Commissioner, Baghdad, 28 Nov. 1918; FO 371/3386, piece 211728, Telegram, Sir P. Cox (Tehran) to India Office, 24 Dec. 1918.

⁸⁹Bell Papers, Letter, Gertrude Bell to her father, 27 Dec. 1918.

⁹⁰L/P&S/11/142, file 5241, Note by Political Dept., India Office, ‘Indian Desiderata for Peace Settlement’, 4 Dec. 1918.

⁹¹L/P&S/10/686, file 2571, Minute by ‘J.E.S’., 26 Nov. 1918.

⁹²L/MIL/5/761, Telegram, Secretary of State for India to Civil Commissioner, Baghdad, 28 Nov. 1918.

⁹³Atiyyyah, Iraq, 180.

⁹⁴FO 371/3386, piece 206923, Telegram, Political Baghdad to India Office, 14 Dec. 1918.

⁹⁵Tripp, History of Iraq, 37.

⁹⁶Atiyyah, Iraq, 180.

⁹⁷Longrigg, Iraq, 1900–1950, 108; FO 371/4148, piece 52161, Note by Political Department, India. Office, ‘Mesopotamia: Civil Administration’, by ‘J.E.S[huckburgh]’, 2 April 1919.

⁹⁸Bell Papers, Letter, Gertrude Bell to her father, 24 Oct. 1920, Atiyyah, Iraq, 256.

⁹⁹Ireland, Iraq: Study, 146, states that on 1 Aug. 1920 only 3.74 per cent of administrative employees drawing over Rs.600 per month were Arab (20 out of 534). A.T. Wilson, in Clash of Loyalties, 171, claimed that ‘it was decided, as a matter of financial expediency, to use Indian clerks for the time being until Arabic-speaking clerks could be secured at reasonable rates of pay’.

¹⁰⁰Ireland, Iraq: Study, 174.

¹⁰¹FO 371/3386, piece 10973, Telegram, Political Baghdad to Secretary of State for India, 11 Dec. 1918.

¹⁰²Dodge, Inventing Iraq, 45; Longrigg, Iraq, 1900–1950, 112.

¹⁰³Tripp, History of Iraq, 40.

¹⁰⁴Atiyyah, Iraq, 277.

¹⁰⁵Ibid., 277–8.

¹⁰⁶Longrigg, Iraq, 1900–1950, 116.

¹⁰⁷Atiyyah, Iraq, 307.

¹⁰⁸L/P&S/10/686, file 2571, Note by Political Dept., India Office, to Eastern Committee –‘Mesopotamia: Civil Administration’, 12 April 1918.

¹⁰⁹FO 371/4149, piece 20769, ‘Review of the Civil Administration of the Occupied Territories of Al ‘Iraq, 1914-1918’, compiled in the Office of the Civil Commissioner, Baghdad, Nov. 1918; Haldane, Insurrection, 29.

¹¹⁰Atiyyah, Iraq, 256.

¹¹¹Bell Papers, Letter, Gertrude Bell to her father, 4 July 1920; Atiyyah, Iraq, 353.

¹¹²L/P&S/10/622, file 3540, piece 7052, ‘Administrative Report of the Diwaniyah Political Division for the year 1919’, by Major C.K. Daly, Political Officer.

¹¹³Dodge, Inventing Iraq, x; Bell Papers, Letter, Gertrude Bell to her father, 11 July 1920.

¹¹⁴Phoebe Marr, The Modern History of Iraq (Boulder, CO: Westview 1985), 27.

¹¹⁵Dodge, Inventing Iraq, 68.

¹¹⁶Bell Papers, Letter, Gertrude Bell to her father, 3 Oct. 1920.

¹¹⁷Atiyyah, Iraq, 275.

¹¹⁸Ibid., 328.

¹¹⁹Ibid., 279.

¹²⁰L/P&S/10/749, file 3156, part 3, Lord Islington, Parliamentary Debates, House of Lords, 25 June 1920, Vol.40 – Number 50.

¹²¹Bell Papers, Letter, Gertrude Bell to her father, 10 Jan. 1919.

¹²²Bell Papers, Letter, Gertrude Bell to her father, 10 Oct. 1920.

¹²³Sluglett, Britain in Iraq, 35.

¹²⁴Atiyyah, Iraq, 283.

¹²⁵Margaret MacMillan, Peacemakers: The Paris Conference of 1919 and Its Attempts to End War (London: John Murray 2001), 418.

¹²⁶Atiyyah, Iraq, 296.

¹²⁷Ibid., 311.

¹²⁸Ireland, Iraq: Study, 205; Longrigg, Iraq, 1900–1950, 120.

¹²⁹Dodge, Inventing Iraq, 22; Tripp, History of Iraq, 39.

¹³⁰Atiyyah, Iraq, 313. This loose coalition of discontented elements anticipated the similarly diverse coalition of anti-occupation groups that formed the core of the insurgency that began following the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003.

¹³¹Tripp, History of Iraq, 41.

¹³²Bell Papers, Letter, Gertrude Bell to her father, 20 June 1920.

¹³³Atiyyah, Iraq, 338–42.

¹³⁴Tripp, History of Iraq, 44.

¹³⁵Ibid.

¹³⁶Bell Papers, Letter, Gertrude Bell to her father, 14 June 1920.

¹³⁷Bell Papers, Letter, Gertrude Bell to her father, 11 July 1920.

¹³⁸Keith Jeffery, ‘An English Barrack in the Oriental Seas? India in the Aftermath of the First World War’, Modern Asian Studies 15/3 (May 1981), 377; W. Orsmby-Gore, ‘Great Britain, Mesopotamia and the Arabs’, Nineteenth Century and After 88/2 (July 1920), 227.

¹³⁹Haldane, Insurrection, 331; Atiyyah, Iraq, 344.

¹⁴⁰Keith Jeffery, ‘Sir Henry Wilson and the Defence of the British Empire, 1918–22’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 5/3 (May 1977), 289; Dodge, Inventing Iraq, 8.

¹⁴¹Graves, Life of Cox, 266–70.

¹⁴²Hubert Young, The Independent Arab (London: John Murray 1933), 325; Dodge, Inventing Iraq, 22.

¹⁴³Jeffery, ‘Henry Wilson’, 286.

¹⁴⁴Ibid.

¹⁴⁵A.J. Stockwell, ‘The War and the British Empire’, in John Turner (ed.), Britain and the First World War (London: Unwin 1998), 48.