Forgotten History - Friday, Sept. 22, 2006
"Little known facts and overlooked history"
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Iraq, World War I and the British Mandate
By Denis Mueller
In the early 20th Century, the Ottoman territories became
the focus of an intense struggle between Germany and Great
Britain. The Ottomans had granted concessions to Germany
to construct a railroad line from Konya, located in south-
west Turkey, to Baghdad. The British saw this as threat
and when the WWI broke out they swiftly moved into Basra.
After a counter attack, that stopped the British for
awhile, the British regained the offensive and rode into
Baghdad on March of 1917.
The British proclaimed that they would return to Iraq some
control but did not specify how much that would be. In the
meantime they signed an agreement with France that divided
up the former territories between the two powers. At the
Paris Peace Conference of 1919, Iraq was formally made a
mandate entrusted to the British. The country was confront-
ed with immediate problems. Iraq was in a state of anarchy
with especially violent fighting in the western desert.
The British tried to rule as they had done in India but
the country was soon in open rebellion. It was never really
a country but a configuration of three former provinces so
this added to the difficulty.
The revolt of 1920 brought many of the fighting groups
together, if only to fight the British, as the war proved
to be a drain on the British economy. To alleviate the
tension the British replaced their military government
with a provisional government, much like we have today,
in an effort to stop the violence. At the Cairo Conference
of 1921, it was announced King Faisal would become the king
of Ira, as a reward for his help against the Turks, as the
ruler of Iraq. The goal of the British, and they were quite
good at this, was to prop up the monarchy but not allow it
to get too strong. They wanted to play the sides off with
each other leaving the final decisions to the British. They
also created the Iraqi army, which came to be a powerful
institution itself.
The rebellion included assassinations and general unrest
that threatened the coming elections. The province of Mosul
was under revolt and after a costly fight they were finally
subdued for the time being. The treaty put an awful
financial weight on the new government by making them pay
for British occupation. The Kurds, wanting their own
country, were in open revolt as well. The British sought
to include the Kurds as part of Iraq because they felt the
Mosul area contained great deposits of oil.
The government was shifting array of interests, which was
far more tribal than political. The Nationalists continued
to oppose the treaty but were largely ineffective. The
initiation of statehood and the complex web of tribal,
religious and ethnic differences made Iraq extremely hard
to govern. It was a difficult period and the death of King
Faisal meant the loss of someone who had fought for Arab
independence. It also left the army with a huge amount of
power. This would continue throughout the years and add
to the instability.
Sources: Library of Congress