Controversial investments: trade and infrastructure in Ottoman–British relations in Iraq, 1861–1918

ABSTRACT

This article examines two sites of British investment in nineteenth-century Iraq, exploring the different interests and ideologies – both British and Ottoman – underlying each one, and using the funding controversies which plagued both projects as windows on the political and economic relationships which crystallized through these ventures and informed post-war governance. Ottoman Iraq provides an important perspective on global British economic interests: although it encompassed zones of Britain's informal empire, the Ottoman state intensified its own imperial ambitions towards the end of the nineteenth century. This created tensions within Ottoman policies towards the British, which were complicated by the friction between British state and commercial interests. By 1914, the controversies which plagued both projects seemed close to a breaking point. The outbreak of the First World War, however, entrenched existing patterns of financial and infrastructural involvement as part of the occupation, and encouraged the creation of a development paradigm in the Mandate.

KEYWORDS:

• Ottoman Empire
• British Empire
• infrastructure
• trade
• steamships
• development

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Daniel MacArthur-Seal, Stephen Mitchell and the British Institute at Ankara for organizing the 2016 ‘From Enemies to Allies’ conference in Ankara. Thanks also to the other participants in the conference, and to Michael Sugarman, Henry Clements, and Alan Mikhail and for their comments and suggestions, as well as to the anonymous reviewers from Middle Eastern Studies.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. J. Onley, The Arabian Frontier of the British Raj: Merchants, Rulers, and the British in the Nineteenth-Century Gulf (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp.7–20. For a general overview, see also J.B. Kelly, Britain and the Persian Gulf, 1795–1880 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968).

2. J.P. Parry, ‘Steam Power and British Influence in Baghdad, 1820–1860’, The Historical Journal Vol.56 (2013), pp.149, 156; Z. Saleh, Britain and Mesopotamia (Iraq to 1914): A Study in British Foreign Affairs (Baghdad: Al-Ma^crif Press, 1966), pp.171–72; M.E. Yapp, The Making of the Modern Near East 1792–1923 (London: Longman, 1987), p.73; Kelly, Britain and the Persian Gulf, pp.267, 279; J.F. Standish, ‘British Maritime Policy in the Persian Gulf’, Middle Eastern Studies Vol.3 (1964), p.335.

3. Parry, ‘Steam Power and British Influence’, pp.149, 165.

4. P. Satia, Spies in Arabia: The Great War and the Cultural Foundations of Britain's Covert Empire in the Middle East (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), p.15; S.A. Cohen, British Policy in Mesopotamia 1903–1914 (London: Ithaca Press, 1976), pp.16, 32, 55–56. See also British Documents on Foreign Affairs (henceforth BDFA), Pt. I, Series B, Vol.17, pp.264–65, 334; Vol.18, pp.282–84, 299–306; V. Chirol, The Middle Eastern Question, or, Some Political Problems of Indian Defence (New York: EP Dutton and Co., 1903), pp.177, 397–98. On the Baghdad Railway, see J. McMurray, Distant Ties: Germany, the Ottoman Empire, and the Construction of the Baghdad Railway (London: Praeger, 2001).

5. F. Anscombe, The Ottoman Gulf: The Creation of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997); J.F. Munro, Maritime Enterprise and Empire: Sir William Mackinnon and His Business Network, 1823–93 (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2003).

6. For imperial attitudes, see U. Makdisi, ‘Ottoman Orientalism’, American Historical Review Vol.107 (2002), pp.768–96; S. Deringil, ‘They Live in a State of Nomadism and Savagery: The Late Ottoman Empire and the Post-Colonial Debate’, Comparative Studies in Society and History Vol.45 (2003), p.341; M. Minawi, The Ottoman Scramble for Africa: Empire and Diplomacy in the Sahara and the Hijaz (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2016). For work on imperial policy in the Gulf region, see C. Low, ‘Ottoman Infrastructures of the Saudi Hydro-state: The Technopolitics of Pilgrimage and Potable Water in the Hijaz’, Comparative Studies in Society and History Vol.57 (2015), pp.1–33; F. Anscombe, The Ottoman Gulf: The Creation of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997); B. Bulmuş, Plague, Quarantines, and Geopolitics in the Ottoman Empire (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012), p.153. On Ottoman policy on their frontiers more generally, see E. Rogan, Frontiers of the State in the Late Ottoman Empire: Transjordan, 1850–1921 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

7. There are exceptions, though these are heavily diplomatic. See J. Heller, British Policy Towards the Ottoman Empire, 1908–1914 (London: Frank Cass, 1983).

8. G. Çetinsaya, ‘The Ottoman View of British Presence in Iraq and the Gulf: The Era of Abdülhamid II’, Middle Eastern Studies Vol.39 (2003), p.194. On Indian ‘sub-imperialism’, see R.J. Blyth, The Empire of the Raj: India, Eastern Africa, and the Middle East, 1858–1947 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003); J. Onley, The Arabian Frontier of the British Raj: Merchants, Rulers, and the British in the Nineteenth-Century Gulf (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007); T.R. Metcalf, Imperial Connections: India in the Indian Ocean Arena, 1860–1920 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007).

9. Parry, ‘Steam Power and British Influence’, p.145. For literature on the overall direction of British–Ottoman policy, see Heller, British Policy. On the Ottoman relationship more broadly between the Ottoman Empire and Europe, see R. Kasaba, The Ottoman Empire and the World Economy: The Nineteenth Century (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988); Ş. Pamuk, The Ottoman Empire and European Capitalism, 1820–1913: Trade, Investment, and Production (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). On the relationship of overall imperial diplomacy to Iraq, see H. Fattah, The Politics of Regional Trade in Iraq, Arabia, and the Gulf, 1745–1900 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997), p.92. On informal imperialism more generally, see J. Darwin, The Empire Project: The Rise and Fall of the British World System, 1830–1970 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp.58, 122; B. Porter, The Lion's Share: A History of British Imperialism 1850 to the Present (London: Pearson, 2012), pp.17–19, 83–85, 91. See also, especially, J. Gallagher and R. Robinson, ‘The Imperialism of Free Trade’, The Economic History Review, New Series Vol.6 (1953), pp.1–15. P.J. Cain and A.G. Hopkins, British Imperialism, 1688–2000, (2nd ed, London: Longman, 2002).

10. Anscombe, The Ottoman Gulf, p.16.

11. H. Fattah, The Politics of Regional Trade in Iraq, Arabia, and the Gulf, 1745–1900 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997), pp.29, 90; H. Muhammad al-Qahawati, Dawr al-Basra al-Tijari fi al-Khalij al-‘Arabi, 1869–1914 [The Commercial Role of Basra in the Arab Gulf, 1869–1914] (Baghdad: ’Irshad Press, 1980), pp.35–36; S.K. Kiliç, ‘19. Yüzyılda Osmanlı İdaresi Altında Basra Vilayeti ve Körfezine İlişkin Bazı Tespitler’, Ankara Üniversitesi Dil ve Tarih-Çoğrafya Fakültesi Dergisi [The vilayet of Basra under Ottoman Administration in the 19th Century, and Some Findings About its Relationship with the Gulf] Vol.54 (2014), pp.321–22; University of Washington, Ottoman Text Archive Project, Joseph Mathia Svoboda Diaries, Diary 47, pp.64, 227, 355; Diary 48, p.73; Diary 49, p.71; Diary 50, pp.123, 243; Diary 51, pp.248, 355; ‘. al-Wardi, Lamahat Ijtima‘iyya min Tarikh al-‘Iraq al-Hadith [Societal Views from Modern Iraqi History] (London, 1992), Vol.2, p.254; Vol.3, p.235; Bulmus, Plague, Quarantines, Geopolitics, p.153; Low, ‘Ottoman Infrastructures’; E. Ceylan, The Ottoman Origins of Modern Iraq: Political Reform, Modernization, and Development in the Nineteenth-Century Middle East (London: I.B. Tauris, 2011), p.176.

12. For problems taxing local shipping, see ‘Tarikh waqa'i‘ al-shahr fi al-‘Iraq wa ma jawarahu’ [History of the Events of the Month in Iraq and its Surroundings] Lughat al-‘Arab Vol.1 (1911), p.198.

13. For a recent look at controversies surrounding the capitulations in the nineteenth century, see M.C. Low, ‘Unfurling the Flag of Extraterritoriality: Autonomy, Foreign Muslims, and the Capitulations in the Ottoman Hijaz’, Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association Vol.3 (2016), pp.299–323. More generally, on inter-imperial politics and sovereignty, see L. Benton, A Search for Sovereignty: Law and Geography in European Empires, 1400–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p.37.

14. T.K. Lynch, The Navigation of the Euphrates and Tigris and the Political Rights of England Thereon (London: Strangeways and Sons, 1884), p.1.

15. The National Archives, Foreign Office (henceforth FO) 881/4438, 28 March 1881, Plowden to Goschen, p.5.

16. F.R. Chesney, Narrative of the Euphrates Expedition (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1868), p.275.

17. Lynch, Navigation of the Euphrates and Tigris, p.166; W. Ainsworth, Personal Narrative of the Euphrates Expedition (London: Kegan Paul Trench and Co., 1888), Vol.1, p.7; Lorimer, Gazetteer, Pt. I, Vol.1B, p.1344.

18. M. Makiya, ‘The Svoboda Diaries’, Baghdad College of Art Journal (1969), p.40.

19. London Metropolitan Archives, (henceforth LMA), CLC/B/123-31 (Gray, Mackenzie records), MS27734 – Internal Company History of Steam Navigation on the Tigris (1960); Margaret Makiya papers (courtesy of Kanan Makiya), ‘The Story of the Euphrates Company’, The Near East and India (1932), p.2.

20. FO 881/4438, 28 March 1881, Plowden to Goschen, p.2; FO 602/35, 24 February 1861, Hector and Co. to Selby, p.67; 24 March 1861, Selby to Hector and Co., p.68; FO 195/521, 9 March 1856, note on Hector and Co. claims, p.15; 17 April 1856, Gaylord Basra to Kemball Baghdad, pp.58–63.

21. FO 881/4438, 28 March 1881, Plowden to Goschen, p.3; FO 78/3992, 4 January 1884, copies of 1834 and 1841 documents, trans. Redhouse, pp.92–7; Lynch, Navigation of the Euphrates and Tigris, p.168.

22. FO 881/4438, 28 March 1881, Plowden to Goschen, pp.6–7. For a reference to imtiyazat, see ‘Abbas al-‘Azzawi, Mawsu‘a Tarikh al-‘Iraq bayna ihtilalayn [Encyclopedia of the History of Iraq Between Two Occupations] (Baghdad, 1935), Vol.7, p.160.

23. FO 881/4438, 28 March 1881, Plowden to Goschen, p.7.

24. Svoboda Diaries, Diary 4, 24 August 1865, p.21; 14 September 1865, p.25; 30 March 1865, p.94; 31 March 1865, p.94; 25 May 1865, p.114; FO 881/9324X – 1908 Lloyd Report on the Conditions and Prospects of British Trade in Mesopotamia; Munro, Maritime Enterprise, p.158. See also C. Cole, ‘Precarious Empires: A Social and Environmental History of Steam Navigation on the Tigris’, Journal of Social History Vol.50 (2016), pp.74–101. For shareholder records, see Board of Trade (BT) 31/37919/2241, especially Vol.1.

25. University of Cambridge, Churchill College, George Lloyd papers (henceforth GLLD) 16/51, 1909 Report on the Trade of Baghdad; Indian National Archives (henceforth INA), Baghdad Residency Records, Series C Trade and Commerce – File No. 76, Administrative Interference with British Trade, pp.1910–14.

26. Munro, Maritime Enterprise, pp.63–64, 94–96, 176–79.

27. S. Jones, Two Centuries of Overseas Trading: The Origins and Growth of the Inchcape Group (London, 1986), p.22.

28. Jones, Two Centuries, p.22; Munro, Maritime Enterprise, p.178. See also BT 31/37919/2241.

29. FO 78/3990, 2 July 1883, Grey Dawes to Granville, pp.189–90; 4 July 1883, Mackinnon to Granville, p.223; Munro, Maritime Enterprise, p.403.

30. Jones, Two Centuries, p.291.

31. FO 78/3991, 28 July 1883, Hertslet memo; FO 602/33, 21 March 1839, Kimmel (?) Bushire to Johannes Basra, p.8; 18 April 1839, Kimmel to Johannes, p.11; 18 May 1839, Kimmel to Johannes, p.14; 15 August 1839, Kimmel to Johannes, p.22, etc.

32. FO 78/3990, 2 February 1883, Kennedy draft memo on Lynch barges, p.60; 28 June 1883, Lynch to Granville, p.153.

33. FO 78/3990, 15 June 1883, Tweedie Baghdad to Granville, pp.78–81; n.d., (trans) vali Baghdad to consul, Baghdad, pp.82–3.

34. FO 78/3990, 6 July 1883, Baghdad to Constantinople, p.257.

35. FO 195/2138, 25 May 1903, Postmaster-General Bombay to Newmarch Baghdad, p.389; 30 April 1903, Superintendant of Post Offices Persian Gulf to Postmaster-General Bombay, p.389; 23 June 1903, Lynch to Newmarch, pp.390–93; n.d., timetables of arrivals and departures of upstream and downstream mails, pp.394–96; India Office Records (henceforth IOR) L/PS/10/212, Turkish Arabia Summaries 1912–1914, December 1912, p.100; FO 602/22, 5 April 1908.

36. FO 195/2138, 27 June 1903, Newmarch to Postmaster-General Bombay, pp.397–400.

37. FO 195/2188, 9 September 1905, Baghdad to Constantinople, pp.564–67.

38. IOR/L/PS/10/333, 24 June 14, India Political to India Finance, p.69.

39. IOR/L/PS/10/333, 11 April 14, Viceroy to India Political, p.92.

40. IOR/L/PS/10/109, 8 July 1908, Lloyd to Grey, p.102.

41. On the global emergence of the model of territorial sovereignty, see L. Benton, Law and Colonial Cultures: Legal Regimes in World History, 1400–1900 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003). On informal empire, see esp. p.210. On sovereignty and international law in the Ottoman empire in particular, see the Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association November 2016, special issue, pp.221–376. On other private foreign mail services in the Ottoman empire, see T. Demir, ‘Osmanlı İmparatorluğunda Deniz Posta Taşımacılığı ve Vapur Kumpanyaları’ [Sea Transportation of Mails under the Ottoman Empire and Steamship Companies], Osmanlı Tarihi Araştırma ve Uygulama Merkezi Dergisi Vol.17 (2005).

42. al-Wardi, Lamahat Ijtima‘iyya, Vol.3, p.241.

43. FO 195/949, 4 May 1869, Herbert Baghdad to ? Constantinople, pp.51–2.

44. FO 78/3990, 4 July 1883, vali Baghdad to consul Baghdad, p.253.

45. FO 78/3990, 12 July 1883, Baghdad to Constantinople, p.353.

46. FO 195/2163, 13 May 1904, Newmarch Baghdad to O'Conor Constantinople, pp.311–12; 23 Jul. 1903, (trans) vali Baghdad to consul Baghdad, p.315; 4 August 1904, Lynch to consul Baghdad, p.316.

47. S.H. Longrigg, ‘Iraq 1900–1950 (London: Oxford University Press, 1953), p.24; al-Wardi, Lamahat Ijtima‘iyya, Vol.3, p.3.

48. FO 881/4438, 28 March 1881, Plowden to Goschen, p.5; FO 78/3990, 20 December 1882, Lynch to FO, p.46.

49. FO 78/3991, 17 August 1883, Lynch to Granville; FO 195/1978, 12 February 1897, Lynch report; FO 78/4016, 5 January 1887, Bowman Baghdad to FO; 5 January 1887, Baghdad to Constantinople; 30 November 1886, Bowman to vali Baghdad; FO 195/2138, 19 June 1903, Newmarch Baghdad to O'Conor Constantinople, p.373; 17 June 1903, Parry for Lynch to Newmarch, pp.375–76; 30 July 1903, Constantinople memo, pp.378–81.

50. FO 881/4438, 28 March 1881, Plowden to Goschen, p.4. See also Cole, ‘Precarious Empires’.

51. FO 881/4838, 8 August 1883, Kennedy memo, p.4.

52. FO 78/4604, 12 July 1894, Currie FO to IO and PO; 27 July 1894, Currie to Earl of Kimberly; 9 August 1894, ? to FO; 27 June 1894, Godley IO to FO. See also FO 602/6, 10 October 1890, Lynch to Tweedie Baghdad; 7 October 1891, Tweedie to vali Baghdad.

53. FO 78/3990, 15 June 1883, (trans) vali Baghdad to consul Baghdad, p.82.

54. FO 78/3990, 29 January 1883, excerpt from The Times, ‘Enterprise in Turkey’, p.55; 15 June 1883, Tweedie to Granville, p.78; 27 June 1883, Wyndham to Granville, p. 123; 12 May 1883, extract from Consul General Baghdad Diary of General and Political Intelligence, p.135; FO 195/2096, 10 January 1901, Melville Baghdad to Bunsen Constantinople, pp.10–11; 26 December 1900, Bottomley for Lynch to Melville Baghdad, pp.12–13; I. Ekinci, ‘Hamidiye Vapur İdaresi – Fırat ve Dicle'de Osmanlı-İngiliz Rekabeti’ [The Hamidiye Steamship Administration – The Ottoman-English Competition on the Tigris and Euphrates] in M. Hülagü, G. Alan, and Ş. Batmaz, eds, Devr-i Hamid: Abdülhamid II (Kayseri: Erciyes Üniversitesi Yayınları, 2011), Vol. 2, p.458.

55. FO 78/3990, 6 July 1883, Lynch to consul Baghdad, p.260.

56. FO 78/3990, 13 July 1883, Wyndham to Granville, p.337.

57. FO 78/3990, 11 July 1883, Wyndham to Granville, p.302; FO 78/3988, 12 May 1874, Locock to Derby FO.

58. FO 881/4438, 28 March 1881, Plowden to Goschen, p.6.

59. FO 195/1978, 12 June 1897, Loch Baghdad to Currie Constantinople; FO 78/3989, 12 March 1880, Euphrates and Tigris Steam Navigation Company to FO, p.120; 1 April 1880, Layard cipher telegram, p.133; 26 May 1880, Euphrates and Tigris Steam Navigation Company to FO, p.166; 12 June 1880, Euphrates and Tigris Steam Navigation Company to FO, p.176; 22 February 1881, Goschen to ?, p.210; 22 February 1881, Euphrates and Tigris Steam Navigation Company to FO, p.215; 7 March 1881, Constantinople to Granville, p.225; 27 March 1881, Hertslet memo ‘On the Claim of the Euphrates and Tigris Steamship Co. to use Barges on those rivers as a matter of “right”’, pp.227–53; FO 78/3992, 27 January 1885, Granville to Lynch, p.214; 30 January 1885, Lynch to Granville, p.215; 30 December 1884, Lynch to Plowden, pp.217–18; 3 March 1885, Lynch to Granville, pp.229–30; 6 March 1885, FO to Lynch, p.233; FO 424/137, 17 August 1883, Lynch to Granville, pp.139–41; FO 424/138, pp.1–5; FO 78/3988, 27 December 1873, Elliott to Granville; 9 May 1874, Locock to Derby FO; FO 78/3991, 17 August 1883, FO to Euphrates and Tigris Steam Navigation Co.; 17 August 1883, Lynch to Granville.

60. FO 78/3988, 7 April 1870, Herbert Baghdad to India Foreign; 3 November 1870, India to FO; FO 195/1978, 26 August 1897, Loch to Constantinople.

61. Cole, ‘Precarious Empires’.

62. W. Willcocks, Sixty Years in the East (London: W. Blackwood, 1935), p.8; Times of India, 25 June 1908, ‘The Indian Willcocks: A Famous Family’. For more on Willcocks's role in the British empire, see C. Ozden, ‘The Pontife xMinimus: William Willcocks and Engineering British Colonialism’, Annals of Science Vol.71 (2014), pp.183–205.

63. D. Gilmartin, Imperial Rivers: Irrigation and British Visions of Empire in D. Ghosh and D. Kennedy, eds, Decentring Empire: Britain, India, and the Transcolonial World (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 2006); D. Gilmartin, ‘Scientific Empire and Imperial Science: Colonialism and Irrigation Technology in the Indus Basin’, The Journal of Asian Studies Vol.53 (1994), pp.127–49; D. Haines, Rivers Divided: Indus Basin Waters in the Making of India and Pakistan (London: Oxford University Press, 2017); D. Haines, Building the Empire, Building the Nation: Development, Legitimacy, and Hydro-Politics in Sind, 1919–1949 (London: Oxford University Press, 2014).

64. W. Willcocks, ‘Mesopotamia: Past, Present, and Future’, The Geographical Journal Vol.35 (1910), pp.1–15; W. Willcocks, ‘The Garden of Eden and its Restoration,’ The Geographical Journal Vol.40 (1912), pp.129–45; W. Willcocks, From the Garden of Eden to the Crossing of the Jordan (Cairo: French Institute of Oriental Archaeology, 1918); W. Willcocks, The Irrigation of Mesopotamia (London: E. and F.N. Spon, 1911); W. Willcocks, The Restoration of the Ancient Irrigation Works on the Tigris or the Re-creation of Chaldaea: A Lecture Delivered at a Meeting of the Khedivial Geographical Society, Cairo, 25^th March 1903 (Cairo, 1903).

65. IOR/L/PS/10/87, 12 June 1905, O'Conor to Landsdowne; INA, Foreign, Ext. B, Nos. 333–351, 18 June 1910, Lorimer to Lowther, p.25; Times of India, 6 December 1909, ‘Chaldaea Recreated’; Times of India, 19 September 1908, ‘Chaldaea Recreated’.

66. Faisal Husain, ‘In the Bellies of the Marshes: Water and Power in the Countryside of Ottoman Baghdad’. Environmental History Vol.19 (2014), p.642.

67. INA, Foreign, Sec. E, Nos. 229–240, 29 December 1905, Newmarch to India Foreign, p.8; H.W. Cadoux, ‘Recent Changes in the Course of the Lower Euphrates’, The Geographical Journal Vol.28 (1906), pp.266–77; R. McAdams and H.J. Nissen, The Uruk Countryside: The Natural Setting of Urban Societies (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1972), p.78; R.I. Money, ‘The Hindiyah Barrage, Mesopotamia’, The Geographical Journal Vol.50 (1917), p.218.

68. IOR/L/PS/10/88, 16 April 1909, Ramsay to Lowther, p.233; ‘The Hindie (Euphrates) Barrage’, The Geographical Journal Vol.43 (1914), p.415; Cadoux, ‘Recent Changes’; Khalid ‘Abd al-Aziz al-Qasab, Mudhakirat ‘Abd al-Aziz al-Qasab [The Memoirs of ‘Abd al-Aziz al-Qasab] (Bayrut: Al-Mu‘asasa al-‘Arabiyya li-l-Dirasat wa al-Nashr, 2007), pp.87–8.

69. Willcocks, Sixty Years in the East, p.235. Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi (BOA), Bab-ı Ali Evrak Odası (BEO) 208/15563, 17 May 1893, shura-i devlet memo.

70. G. Bell, Diary, 4 January 1914; INA, Foreign, Sec. E, Nos. 229–240, 20 November 1905, Col. New march notes, p.4; Nos. 791–826, Week ending 25 March 1907, pp.49–50; Nos. 65–97, Week ending 1 April 1907, p.3. See also Secret War, Nos. 408–434, November/December 1916, notes on Suq al-Shuyukh qadha; Nos. 235–266, 9 September 1916, Cox to Eastern Bureau Cairo, p.40.

71. Longrigg, ‘Iraq, 1900–1950, p.32; Gertrude Bell, Diary, 4 January 1914; al-Wardi, Lamahat Ijtima‘iyya, Vol.3, p.48.

72. INA, Foreign, Sec. E, Nos. 602–613, 8 November 1907, ? to Grey, p.2; 10 December 1907, unsigned; 17 January 1908, Ramsay memo; Ext. B, Nos. 190–220, Week ending 6 August 1906, p.50; Week ending 1 October 1906, p.94; Nos. 791–826, Week ending 25 February 1907, p.33; Nos. 222–247, Week ending 10 August 1908, p.27; Nos. 791–826, Week ending 25 March 1907, pp.49–50; Nos. 65–97, Week ending 1 April 1907, p.3; Ext. A, Nos. 131–135, 24 April 1907, Holland notes; GLLD/7/7, 17 September 1907; GLLD/7/2, 12 October 1907, Ramsay to Lloyd; 21 December 1907, Pat to Lloyd; IOR/L/PS/10/87, 25 March 1907, Political Diary and 1 April 1907; 30 March 1907, Ramsay to O'Conor; 14 November 1905, O'Conor to Marquess of Landsdowne; 3 December 1907, Ramsay to O'Conor; 25 March 1907, Political Diary; 13 May 1907, Political Diary; Leachman Papers, 23 December 1907, p.3972.

73. Royal Geographical Society, Special Small Collections (henceforth SSC) 127/3, 15 July 1912, RI Money interview with Jamal Bey, vali of Baghdad, pp.19–20; IOR/L/PS/10/212, September 1912, pp.113–14; August 1912, pp.121–22; March/April 1912, p.161; Times of India, 22 June 1910, ‘Diary of a Traveller: The Affairs of Baghdad’; GLLD/16/51, 1909 Report on the Trade of Baghdad; GLLD/7/2, 25 August 1907, Ramsay to Lloyd.

74. GLLD/26/6, George Lloyd Diary, insert back cover; INA, Foreign, Ext. B, Nos. 108–149, 4 July 1913, Mallet minute, p.2; 5 November 1913, Mallet to Grey, p.44; Sec. E, Nos. 65–97, 15 April 1907, Ramsay to India Foreign, 14; Ext. B, No. 159, 31 March 1914, Crow to Constantinople, p.6; Trinity College, Cambridge, Henry Babington-Smith papers (henceforth HBS), Box 31, Folder XII, 3 July 1911, Babington-Smith to Nicholson, pp.183–85; Box 28, Folder III, 20 Jul. 1910, Babington-Smith to Cassel, p.93; IOR/L/PS/10/212, February/March 1914, p.20; L/PS/10/87, 24 May 1909, Ramsay to Board of Trade; L/PS/11/63, Parker minute, 27 August 1913; NA CAB/42/3/12 De Bunsen Report of the Committee on Asiatic Turkey, p.2825; Times of India, 14 November 1913, ‘The Near East: Need for British Effort’; Ş. Pamuk, The Ottoman Empire and European Capitalism, 1820–1913: Trade, Investment, and Production (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), p.76.

75. INA, Foreign, Sec. E, Nos. 222–247, Week Ending 28 September 1908, p.55; Willcocks, Sixty Years in the East, p.232; W. Willcocks, ‘Two and a Half Years in Mesopotamia’, Blackwoods Magazine (1916), p.305; Times of India, 6 July 1910, ‘Diary of a Traveler: Willcocks in Mesopotamia’.

76. INA, Foreign, Ext. B, Nos. 333–351, 18 June 1910, Lorimer to Lowther, p.27; Nos. 485–492, 25 January 1911, unsigned; Summary of events in Turkish Arabia, January 1911, p.2; Summary of Events in Turkish Arabia February/March 1911, p.14; Willcocks, ‘Two and a Half Years’, p.305.

77. GLLD/7/4, 30 January 1909, Lloyd to Cox.

78. IOR/L/PS/10/212, April 1913, p.78. See also June 1913, p.68.

79. On original temporary contract with Jackson, see SSC/127/3, RI Money notebook pp.1, 26; HBS, Box 30, Folder V, 8 December 1910, Babington-Smith to Cassel, p.344.

80. HBS, Box 30, folder I, Ottoman Loan Negotiations, Adam Block memo, 29 November 1910.

81. HBS, Box 28, Folder IX, paper prepared for Grey, 26 May 1910; INA – Baghdad Residency Records, 60.R, Lorimer to India Foreign, 23 Jan 1911; 23 January 1912, Lorimer to Foreign Calcutta.

82. IOR/L/PS/10/399, 14 June 1913, A. Parker minute, pp.229–32; 23 May 1913, Parker to Nicholson, p.250; 7 June 1913, A. Parker minute, p.237; 11 June 1913, Babington-Smith to Grey, p.233.

83. HBS, Box 30, Folder 1, 7 October 1910, Babington-Smith to Nicholson, p.292.

84. On the National Bank in general, see J. Conlin, ‘Debt, Diplomacy, and Dreadnoughts: The National Bank of Turkey, 1909–1919’, Middle Eastern Studies Vol.52 (2016), pp.525–45.

85. Times of India, 2 February 1911, ‘Irrigation in Mesopotamia’.

86. P. Spencer-Silver, Tower Bridge to Babylon: The Life and Work of Sir John Jackson, Engineer (Sudbury: Six Martlets Publishing for the Newcomen Society, 2005); ‘Sir John Jackson’, Grace's Guide to British Industrial History (online resource) <http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Sir_John_Jackson>.

87. St. Antony's College, Oxford, Henderson-Faringdon Papers (henceforth HFP), 1910 Plans by Mr. Money, April 1913, contract with Jackson; 20 December 1911, Babington-Smith to Kingham, pp.330–31; n.d. Jackson report, p.421; Report on Samsun scheme, pp.433–40; 3 May 23, Jackson to ?, p.451; HP Kingham, November 1912–February 1913, 10 April 1912, Kingham to Babington-Smith; IOR/L/PS/10/399, 7 July 1913, Grey to Cambon, p.162.

88. INA, Foreign, Sec. E, Nos. 489–502, 23 January 1913, Lorimer to India Foreign p.1; 2 February 1912, Lowther to Grey, p.5.

89. For another Ottoman example, see E. Frangakis-Syrett, ‘The Making of an Ottoman Port: The Quay of Izmir in the Nineteenth Century’, The Journal of Transport History Vol.22 (2001), pp.23–46.

90. INA, Foreign, Ext. B, Nos. 353–472, 10 March 1909, Ramsay to Lowther, p.3; Times of India, 2 February 1911, ‘Irrigation in Mesopotamia’.

91. Times of India, 29 April 1901, ‘Turkey and the Gulf’.

92. INA, Foreign, Sec. E, Nos. 184–185, 31 August 1909, Memo by a British Merchant regarding the futility of attempting to develop Mesopotamia without the aid of foreign capital, pp.1–2.

93. IOR/L/PS/10/212, October 1913, pp.36–7.

94. INA, Foreign, Sec. E, Nos. 807–825, 6 November 1912, Lorimer to Grant (India Foreign), p.1. See also Ext. B, No. 424, 28 June 1913, Lorimer to Reynolds; 26 July 1913, Viceroy to Sec. of State, p.5.

95. INA, Foreign, Sec. E, Nos. 807–825, 27 April 1913, Lorimer to Reynolds (India Foreign), p.7.

96. INA, Foreign, Ext. B, Nos. 562–600, 30 November 1912, AH Frost minute, p.8.

97. IOR/L/PS/10/88, “ARB” memo, 1910, p.140.

98. For a similar reaction, see interview with Ottoman engineer Santo Semo Bey, Times of India, 28 September 1909, ‘Mesopotamia: The Irrigation Scheme: Financing’.

99. IOR/L/PS/10/212, March/April 1912, Lorimer to Jackson, p.155.

100. INA, Foreign, Ext. B, Nos. 425–432, 12 July 1913, Marling to Grey.

101. IOR/L/PS/10/212, January 1912, p.176.

102. HFP, HP Kingham, November 1912–February 1913, 14 December 1912, Kingham to Babington-Smith, pp.604–5.

103. HFP, HP Kingham, November 1912–February 1913, 24 December 1912, Kingham to Babington-Smith, p.596. For another account, see IOR/L/PS/10/212, January 1913, pp.97, 100, 105.

104. HFP, HP Kingham, November 1912–February 1913, 9 January 1913, Kingham to Babington-Smith, p.588; 16 January 1913, Kingham to Babington-Smith, p.575.

105. HFP, HP Kingham, November 1912–February 1913, 30 December 1912, Babington-Smith to Kingham, p.594. On June 1913 funding crisis, see INA, Foreign, Ext. B, Nos. 425–432, 13 June 1913, Jackson to Foreign Office; No. 424, 28 June 1913, Lorimer to Reynolds.

106. Willcocks, Sixty Years in the East, pp.249–50.

107. INA, Foreign, Sec. E, No. 807-825, 8 January 1913, Lorimer to Grant, p.5.

108. On the British invasion and occupation, see K.C. Ulrichsen, ‘The British Occupation of Mesopotamia, 1914–1922’, Journal of Strategic Studies Vol.30 (2007), pp.349–77; K.C. Ulrichsen, The Logistics and Politics of the British Campaigns in the Middle East, 1914–22 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).

109. Ulrichsen, ‘British Occupation’, pp.353–54.

110. CAB/42/3/12 – De Bunsen Report / Report of the Committee on Asiatic Turkey, p.2812.

111. INA, Foreign, Sec. E, Nos. 55–59, 26 December 1910, translated extract from Tanin, p.3; 4 January 1911, Marling to Grey, p.4.

112. İ.H. Babanzade, Irak Mektupları: Beyrut'tan Kuveyt'e [Iraq Letters: From Beirut to Kuwait] (İstanbul: Büke Yayıncılık, 2002), p.165.

113. IOR/L/PS/10/212, 13 March 1914, p.22.

114. IOR/L/PS/10/87, 16 November 1911, unsigned.

115. IOR/L/PS/10/87, 7 November 1911, Lowther to Grey; 14 September 1911, Grey to Lowther; 17 September 1911, Lowther to Grey.

116. IOR/L/PS/10/87, n.d., Grey to Hardinge.

117. On Lynch's personal conduct, see IOR/L/PS/10/414, 19 November 1913, cover sheet; IOR/L/PS/10/382, 3 June 1913, Lowther to Grey, p.247; INA, Foreign, Ext. B, Nos. 562–600, 28 November 1912, Lorimer minute, p.6. On the priority of irrigation, see IOR/L/PS/10/212, July 1913, p.59; May 1913, p.78; INA, Foreign, Ext. B, No. 424, 28 June 1913, Lorimer to Reynolds; IOR/L/PS/10/88, cover page, n.d., p.122; HBS, Box 28, Folder II, 1 November 1909, Babington-Smith to Cassel, p.19.

118. HBS, Box 28, Folder XIII, 29 July 1911, Memo by Eastern Dept. to Ottoman ambassador, p.238.

119. Sir George Buchanan, The Tragedy of Mesopotamia (London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1938), pp.9, 54.

120. IOR/L/MIL/5/760, 21 July 1918, note on operations.

121. Iraq Administration Reports, pp.13, 102, 284; CLC/B/123-31, MS27706 – Profits 1913-1918; A.T. Wilson, Loyalties Mesopotamia 1917–1920 (London: Oxford University Press, 1931), pp.50, 220–21; S. Jones, The Management of British India Steamers in the Gulf 1862–1945: Gray Mackenzie and the Mesopotamia Persia Corporation in R. Lawless, ed., The Gulf in the Early 20^th Century: Foreign Institutions and Local Responses (Durham: University of Durham Occasional Papers Series, 1986), p.53.

122. IOR/L/PS/10/458, 8 April 1915, Viceroy to ?, p.100; 8 March 1915, Secretary of State to Viceroy Foreign, p.111.

123. IOR/L/PS/10/458, 1 March 1915, Slade to Hirtzel, p.113.

124. FO 371/2476, 18 October 1915, Bellairs to FO.

125. Iraq Administration Reports, 1914–1932 (Oxford: Archive Editions, 1992), Vol.1, p.27. See also C. Cole, ‘Hydraulics and the New Imperialism of Technology in Late Ottoman Iraq’ (MPhil dissertation, University of Cambridge, 2013), pp.86–97.

126. HFP, 3 May 1923, Jackson memo, p.451; 1921 Plan for Meander irrigation, p.471; 5 January 1912, Money to Babington-Smith, p.481.

127. FO 371/2476, 16 July 1915, Euphrates and Tigris Steam Navigation Company to FO; 27 July 1915, FO to Euphrates and Tigris Steam Navigation Company.

128. NA BT 31/37919/2241, 31 December 1914, Euphrates and Tigris Steam Navigation Company Profit/Loss Account.

129. IOR/L/PS/10/333, 23 August 1917, India Foreign to Cox, p.33.

130. NA AIR 20/758, 7, 21

131. NA BT 31/37919/2241, balance sheets 1917–1926.

132. Longrigg, ‘Iraq 1900–1950, p.111.

133. NA BT 31/37919/2241,

134. For another example, see FO 371/2476, 16 June 1915, Chisnell and Sons to FO.

135. IOR/L/PS/11/132 P 615/1918, 11 February 1918, FO to IO; 30 January 1918, Babington-Smith to FO; 11 November 1917, Civil Commissioner Baghdad to Babington-Smith.

136. FO 371/2476, 2 October 1915, Viceroy secret telegram.

137. Cole, ‘Hydraulics and the New Imperialism of Technology’, pp.83–119.

138. B. Thomas, Alarms and Excursions in Arabia (New York: Bobbs-Merril, 1931), p.89; Iraq Administration Reports, Vol. 2, p.129; Longrigg, ‘Iraq, 1900–1950, p.88.

139. Wilson, Mesopotamia, p.164; Longrigg, ‘Iraq 1900–1950, p.165; For analysis of the development ideology in Iraq, see P. Satia, ‘Developing Iraq: Britain, India, and the Redemption of Empire and Technology in the First World War’, Past and Present Vol.197 (2007), pp.211–55; S. Pursley, ‘Gender as a Category of Analysis in Development and Environmental History’, International Journal of Middle East Studies Vol.48 (2016), pp.555–60.

140. On the 1920 revolt, see G. Fontana, ‘Creating Nations, Establishing States: Ethno-religious Heterogeneity and the British Creation of Iraq in 1919–23’, Middle Eastern Studies Vol.46 (2010), pp.1–16; A. Vinogradov, ‘The 1920 Revolt in Iraq Reconsidered: The Role of Tribes in National Politics’, International Journal of Middle East Studies Vol.3 (1972), pp.123–39.

141. IOR/L/PS/11/175 P5999/1920, 3 August 1920, Gray Dawes to FO; 19 August 1920, Sassoon to FO.

142. GLLD/9/9, Arabian Policy January–July 1917, February 1917 Memo on Future of Mesopotamia, George Lloyd; IOR/L/PS/10/366, 30 May 1916, Barker to Foreign Office, pp.4–8.

143. BOA, Dahiliye (DH) MKT 1586/94, 5 December 1888.

144. BOA, Yıldız (Y) PRK.KOM 14/94, 17 February 1905.

145. IOR/L/PS/10/272, 31 May 1914, Grey to Mallet, p.55; 18 May 1914, p.60; 29 May 1914, Anglo-German exchange of notes, pp.62–3, 68; Ö. Kocatürk, ‘İngiliz Vapurların Osmanlı Devleti Egemenliğindeki Kurna'ya Girme Meselesi’ [The Issue of English Steamships Entering Qurnah Under Ottoman State Hegemony], Yakın Dönem Türkiye Araştırmaları Vol.13–14 (2008), p.63.