Enemy on the Euphrates Read Free Page A

‘oil in the next war will occupy the place of coal in the present.’ Therefore, obtaining ‘possession of all the oil-bearing regions in Mesopotamia and Southern Persia’ would be ‘a first class British war aim’.
    So, by early 1918 the War Office was conducting detailed geological surveys of Iraq’s petroleum resources in those parts of Iraq already under British occupation and, as hostilities came to an end in November of that year, the British government ensured that the frontiers of their new ‘friendly native state’ would encompass all those parts of ‘Mesopotamia’ which were believed to contain oil.
    None of this is to claim that oil was the
only
motivating force behind British military and diplomatic policy towards Iraq as the First World War drew to a close: establishing a secure air route to India, countering the new ‘threat’ of Bolshevism and simply maintaining imperial prestige were also factors requiring some form of control over Iraq for the foreseeable future. Nevertheless, as our story will demonstrate, the ‘imperial quest for oil’ runs like a sinuous black thread through this particular piece of historical tapestry during the years 1914 to 1921, and beyond.

The Principal Actors
The British
GERTRUDE LOWTHIAN BELL
    Arabist, explorer, travel writer. In 1920, oriental secretary in Baghdad. Originally an ally of Wilson but later turned against him. Friend of Lawrence.
WINSTON CHURCHILL
    First Lord of the Admiralty, responsible for the part-nationalisation of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company in 1913. Resigned from the Liberal government after the failure of the Gallipoli campaign in 1915. In 1920, minister of war in the coalition government, where he was responsible for dealing with the revolution in Iraq.
SIR PERCY COX
    Chief political officer in Iraq during the Great War. High commissioner for Iraq after his return to Baghdad in October 1920.
LIEUTENANT GENERAL AYLMER HALDANE
    Commander-in-chief of British forces in occupied Iraq, 1920–21.
LIEUTENANT COLONEL MAURICE HANKEY
    Secretary to successive War Cabinets. Friend and political ally of Sir Mark Sykes. Member of the De Bunsen Committee which established Britain’s economic objectives in the war against the Ottoman Empire.
COLONEL T.E. LAWRENCE
    Self-aggrandising hero of the Arab Revolt against the Turks in the Hejaz in 1916–18. Between 1918 and July 1920 close confidant of Emir Faysal, ruling a semi-independent Arab government in Syria. By 1920 a fierce critic of Arnold Wilson’s administration in Iraq.
LIEUTENANT COLONEL GERARD LEACHMAN
    Senior political officer responsible for the Dulaym Division in occupied Iraq.
MAJOR GENERAL GEORGE A.J. LESLIE
    Second in command in Iraq at the time of the uprising. Commander of the Anglo-Indian troops in the key, mid-Euphrates region until his dismissal by Haldane in November 1920.
JOHN LYLE MACKAY, LORD INCHCAPE
    Self-made businessman with strong government contacts and ambitions to control shipping on the Tigris and Euphrates. One of the two government-appointed directors on the board of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company.
SIR MARK SYKES
    Catholic Tory landowner and amateur orientalist. Together with Hankey, a member of the De Bunsen Committee. In 1918, author of the Baghdad Declaration and the Anglo-French Declaration, both offering self-rule in Iraq.
LIEUTENANT COLONEL ARNOLD T. WILSON
    Indian Army political officer and acting civil commissioner (head of the occupation administration) in Iraq until October 1920. Later, managing director of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company.
The Arabs
EMIR ‘ABDALLAH
    Second son of Emir Husayn al-Hashimi, Sharif of Mecca. In early 1920 he was the favoured candidate of the nationalists to lead an independent Iraq.
JA‘FAR AL-‘ASKARI
    Iraqi-born Ottoman army officer and member of the secret anti-Turkish organisation al-‘Ahd who deserted to the British during the war. Returned to Iraq towards the end of the 1920 revolution to become defence minister in a puppet