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Loyalties Mesopotamia, volume 2


Auteur :
Éditeur : Oxford University Press Date & Lieu : 1936, London
Préface : Pages : 420
Traduction : ISBN :
Langue : AnglaisFormat : 155x225 mm
Code FIKP : Liv. Ang. 3652Thème : Histoire

Présentation
Table des Matières Introduction Identité PDF
Loyalties Mesopotamia, volume 2


Loyalties Mesopotamia, volume 2

Arnold T. Wilson

Oxford University

Chapter I

Military operations in Mesopotamia from the death of General Maude until the armistice

(The English) Join the most resolute courage to the most cautious prudence; nor have they their equals in the art of ranging themselves in battle array, and fighting in order. If to so many military qualifications they knew how to join the arts of government; if they showed a concern for the circumstances of the husbandman, and of the gentleman; and exerted as much ingenuity and solicitude in relieving and easing the people of God, as they do in whatever concerns their military affairs, no nation in the world would be preferable to them, or prove worthier of command.'

Saiyid Ghulam Husain Khan, Seir Muta'akharin, II. 341, circa 1783: quoted (incorrectly) 6y Macaulay, Essay on Lord Clive.

General Marshall succeeds General Maude. Military Policy. Question of Arab cooperation. Occupation of Middle Euphrates. Operations on Euphrates. Occupation of Kirkuk. Sir Percy Cox leaves for England. Question of advance on Mosul. Operations on Tigris. The Armistice. Occupation of Mosul wilayat.

.....



PREFACE

'... You have been called hither to save a Nation,-Nations. You had the best People, indeed, of the Christian world put into your trust, when you came hither. You had the affairs of these Nations delivered over to you in peace and quiet; you were, and we all are, put into an undisturbed possession, nobody making title to us. Through the blessing of God, our enemies were hopeless and scattered... And now?-To have our peace and interest, whereof those were our hopes the other day, thus shaken and put under such a confusion; and ourselves rendered hereby almost the scorn and contempt of those strangers who are amongst us to negotiate their masters' affairs!... If by such actings... these poor Nations shall be thrown into heaps and confusion, through blood, and ruin and trouble-all because we would not settle when we could, when God put it into our hands-to have all recoil upon us; and ourselves ... loosened from all known and public interests; ... who shall answer for these things to God?' Cromwell Speech, 12th September 1654.

In a previous volume entitled Loyalties Mesopotamia 1914-1917 I have endeavoured to place before the reader a comprehensive account of the salient events, both in the military and the political arena, which culminated in the capture of Baghdad and the occupation of the Baghdad wilayat. The present work is designed to record the successive victories of the armies under General Marshall, whereby, at or shortly after the Armistice, we found ourselves in possession of the Mosul wilayat, and burdened with great military responsibilities in Persia, on the Caspian, and in Russian Turkistan. The political developments and embarrassments which followed these achievements are also dealt with in some detail.

I have found it impossible to endow the record with the structural unity which an historical narrative of this critical period in the annals of 'Iraq, and of Great Britain in the East, should possess. It has been difficult to maintain a strictly chronological sequence, or to offer to the reader a satisfactory analysis of the local reactions to events in other countries. Affairs in 'Iraq during this period were influenced less by the wishes and actions of the inhabitants themselves, or of the representatives in 'Iraq of the British Government, than by events in Europe, in Syria, in Persia, and in Turkey, which were often almost wholly beyond the control of governments.

The nationalist movement, which had its mainsprings in Syria, was many-sided. Patriotism is a plant which bears strangely diverse flowers in different soils and in successive ages, and its fruit is sometimes bitter. It was not an important element in 'Iraq during this period. The conception of Arabia as an independent entity was not unfamiliar to the educated minority, but the idea of 'Iraq as an independent nation had scarcely taken shape, for the country lacked homogeneity, whether geographical, economic, or racial. Separatist tendencies were strong in Basra; it was scarcely to be hoped that the wilayats of Basra and Baghdad could maintain their existence as an autonomous state without the revenue it was hoped might eventually be derived from the economic resources of the Mosul wilayat. Yet three-quarters of the inhabitants of the Mosul wilayat were non-Arab, five-eighths being Kurdish, and one-eighth Christians or Yazidis. The Kurdish problem proved insoluble. The tribesmen were disunited and intractable; their leaders had no common policy, and agreed only in their opposition to any form of government which would bring them under Arab domination. The Christian communities, Chaldean and Assyrian, were smaller in numbers; to do them justice and to find an agreed place for them in the scheme of things presented great difficulties. The Assyrians, in particular, deserved special consideration. They had played a noble part on the side of the Allies during the war, had shown themselves to be first-class fighting-men, and were organized by the British military authorities into battalions as a Frontier Force to maintain order amongst the Kurds. Their homelands were in possession of the Turks, who proved implacable enemies, or of Kurdish tribes, who could not be ejected except by force. They were hill-men and could not even in favourable circumstances maintain their health and strength in the plains, but attempts to repatriate them failed. The Chaldeans and other Christian communities were less virile : their natural affiliations were rather with their compatriots in Syria, to whom the prospect of a French mandate made a strong appeal. The simpler Arabs of the Basra and Baghdad wilayats were under the influence of the priesthood of Najaf and Karbala-spiritual tyrants whose principal ambition was to stem the rising tide of emancipation.

In England the government of the day was distracted by financial and political problems of the utmost gravity at home and abroad; the press gave no useful guidance in any direction; publicists offered little but the broken lights of sentimentalism and pacificism. The British Empire had won the war, and in so doing seemed to have lost faith in its mission and belief in the obligation, imposed on it alike by self-interest and duty, to uphold the principles of authority and of good government for which it stood, until these principles had taken root and could safely be entrusted to an indigenous authority. I felt then, as now, deeply-even passionately-that the welfare of the people of the Middle East and India, no less than the existence of the British Empire, depended upon our facing our responsibilities. I was convinced that our economic difficulties would be surmounted in the measure that we rose to the height of our opportunities. My inner-most beliefs were in all humility those expressed by Cromwell: 'We are a people with the stamp of God upon us ... whose appearance and whose providences are not to be outmatched by any story.'

The application in Arab countries of the mandatory principle seemed to me to be inconsistent with the interests of the inhabitants of the territories to which it was applied. If the system was merely a subterfuge to enable the supervising Power to exercise dominion (as in the case of Syria) in substance without the form, and so to pander to the misconceptions of President Wilson, it was unworthy and did not deserve to endure. If, on the other hand, it was intended to be a reality, it was unworkable, for it contained within itself the seeds of decay and dissolution. There was no 'competent authority' to exercise ultimate power: it was the worst kind of diarchy. 'Iraq would need capital for roads, railways, irrigation, and other public works; under the Mandate it would be impossible to obtain it, in the absence of a Treasury guarantee or of adequate sources of revenue available as security. 'Iraq needed expert advisers: under the mandatory system it seemed unlikely that the best available men would be obtained-owing to lack of prospects or permanence-or that their advice would in the last resort be effective. The very foundations of such organized life as existed in 'Iraq had been shaken by four years of war. The first principle to be re-established in men's minds was that of authority. It was difficult to envisage this under the mandatory system.

It was clear that the acceptance of the Mandate, as framed, would be followed almost immediately by a demand for complete and unfettered freedom from any form of tutelage, for which I believed 'Iraq to be unfitted, owing not only to lack of competent administrators or to the absence of national feeling1 but also on the broadest economic grounds. Its geographical situation, its long history of decay, the low repute of its principal products in the world's markets, all pointed to the benefits to be derived from close association with a larger and more advanced unit of government.

I did my best, nevertheless, to give effect to the decisions of His Majesty's Government and to be guided by the spirit of their instructions. How far the result fell short of the standards and ideals at which we all aimed I am painfully aware.

'In India', wrote Lord Curzon in 1921, 'I was magnificently served. The whole spirit of service there was different. Every one there was out to do something.' In applying those words to the Civil Administration of 'Iraq during the period with which this work deals, I am speaking, I feel sure, for Sir Percy Cox as well as for myself, for at no time was there any substantial difference between us as to our local aims, and seldom as to means. The Civil Administration itself was, indeed, imbued with a unity of aim if not always of method, which would have done credit to a service of thirty instead of three years' standing.

More space has been devoted to a recital of departmental activities than is perhaps justified by their intrinsic historical importance, mainly because no complete account exists elsewhere in any accessible form. For the same reason I have recorded, in some detail, the correspondence that passed on the form of constitution to be set up under the Mandate, and have quoted freely from official correspondence on the subject, believing it to be in the public interest that the essential facts bearing upon the attitude and intentions of his Majesty's Government and of its local representatives should be available while the events to which they gave rise are still comparatively fresh in the minds of men. The study of interactions and interdependencies is but in its infancy and no one can foresee the end.

I have, moreover, written with the specific object of removing certain misunderstandings as to the aims and methods of the Civil Administration during and after the war. These misunderstandings gave rise to much criticism, in Parliament, in the Press, and elsewhere, on the part of many persons, some of whom were entitled by their experience in other fields to a respectful hearing.

In the course of the events here recorded, the attitude of some of those with whom I collaborated sometimes ran counter to my ideas and occasionally caused spectators to place an erroneous interpretation on my intentions; if only for this reason, the task of writing this volume has been neither easy nor agreeable. So far as my presentation of the facts is controversial, it is permissible to add that I have endeavoured to do justice to both sides of the case, and have made no statement the accuracy of which I have not been at pains to verify. Has meus ad metas sudet oportet equus.

With the inauguration in November 192o by Sir Percy Cox of an Arab Government which, in other circumstances, I might have assisted him to instal (though from the first I insisted that Sir Percy Cox himself should, if possible, preside over its destinies), the Civil Administration of 'Iraq came to an end by absorption into the indigenous Government. Yet King Faisal, and his responsible ministers, are not wholly unaware of the debt which they owe to those British officers to whom it fell to wean the tribesmen and cultivators from old ways. The patient labours of political officers in deserts and marshes, their courage in face of difficulties and dangers, and their single-handed devotion to the welfare of 'Iraq did more than anything else to make possible the foundation of a new State. Many who sought in 1920 only to kill and destroy cherish their memory to-day, and the tradition of the efforts of those gallant Englishmen will survive when their names have faded from human memory. In the words of Pericles:

'They resigned to hope their unknown chance of happiness; but in the face of death they resolved to rely upon themselves alone. And when the moment came they were minded to resist and suffer, rather than to fly and save their lives; they ran away from the word of dishonour, but on the battlefield their feet stood fast, and in an instant, at the height of their fortune, they passed away from the scene, not of their fear, but of their glory... The living need not desire to have a more heroic spirit, although they may pray for a less fatal issue. The value of such a spirit is not to be expressed in words... Not only are they commemorated by columns and inscriptions in their own country, but in foreign lands there dwells also an unwritten memorial of them; graven not on stone but in the hearts of men. Make them your examples, and esteeming courage to be freedom and freedom to be happiness, do not weigh too nicely the perils of war.'

I have sought to tell in this volume in what manner Great Britain played her part in 'Iraq during and immediately after the Great War. Those on the spot laboured blindly, not knowing the event, but always aware that the people of 'Iraq, be they Arabs, Kurds, or Assyrians, could not for an indefinite period look to Great Britain to keep internal peace. To attempt to do so, for even a brief period, whilst entrusting to others responsibility for the administration of law, the execution of justice, and the collection of taxes, is a policy that can only bring discredit on both sides and must eventually fail. In 'Iraq as elsewhere a kingdom to be stable must in the ultimate resort be based on the character of rulers, the strength of social bonds, and the assent of the subjects. The path on which we have set the feet of the peoples of `Iraq is steep and stony; the journey has been made more difficult by the pace at which their leaders have tried to traverse the first stages.

As Sir Henry Maine remarked with reference to India: 'the British Nation cannot evade the duty of rebuilding upon its own principles that which it unwittingly destroys.' The idea that an Arab government can be reconstituted to-day on an improved native model is a delusion not less dangerous because it is widely believed. A country which has for any length of time been exposed to Western ideas and has come into touch with Western thought can never be the same as before. The new foundations must be of the Western, not the Eastern, type, unless indeed, so much blood be spilt and such anarchy reign that the tradition of the West be obliterated.

But we must, with George Meredith, 'look at the good future of man with some faith in it, and capacity to regard current phases of history without letting our sensations blind and bewilder us,' knowing that though for us all, the wise and the foolish, the slave and the free, for empires and anarchies, there is one end, yet do our works live after us, and by their fruits we shall be judged at the bar of history. If we have worked faithfully, then it is well. It is God who gives and takes away kingdoms. Potestas Dei est, et tibi, Domine, misericordia.

St. George's Day, 1931.

1. A very competent observer, with fourteen years responsible administrative experience in 'Iraq, wrote as follows in October 193o:

'There are difficulties common to all branches of the administration in 'Iraq. These arise from more or less permanent factors, and are not at all appreciated by those who do not know the country, nor sufficiently by those who do.

'One of the chief of these factors seems to me the smallness of the governing class. I do not suppose there is in the whole of history another example of a state with a representative government of a modern type, in which the only people who count are two or three hundred at the most. It is in fact a close oligarchy, but without the administrative experience, the education and the tradition of public service, without which as far as I can remember no oligarchies have governed successfully.

'Another factor is the complete absence of any true patriotism. This is not surprising considering the past history of the country. But it means that the foundation of all representative government-the recognition by the individual that the good of the community as a whole is identical with his own private good-does not exist here even in the most rudimentary form.'



Prefatory note to chapter I

Extract from History of the Peace Conference at Paris, edited by H. W. V. Temperley, vol. vi, p. 178.

THE entry of Turkey into the war forced us to attack the Turkish Empire through its Arab subjects. The plan was adopted of an advance from the various extremities of the Turkish Empire. In each of these campaigns, and in the Mesopotamian Campaign most of all, military success was bound to lead first to the destruction of the existing government, and next to some attempt to construct a substitute. Assuming the actual soundness, from the political point of view of the war, of a campaign in Mesopotamia, there was no reason to stop, in fact there was every reason not to stop, between the landing at Fao and the setting up of an administration for the whole of the occupied territory. If oil protection was the object, it would doubtless have cost us less to protect Abadan and the pipe-line than it actually did Cost us to extend our arms and at the same time our civil obligations over the three vilayets of Baghdad, Basra, and Mosul, though in the two latter there was also valuable oil. But the advance to these was apparently due to a political desire to avenge the surrender of Kut and to uphold our prestige. If the Campaigns in any one theatre cost relatively more than elsewhere, it does not follow that their contribution to the general result is to be dismissed as not worthwhile.

The conquered territory was administered on the only possible lines, the higher officials and political officers in nearly every case being lent by the army, the subordinate clerical staff drawn from India. In posts between these two grades 'Iraqis were employed, whenever suitable or willing. But these two necessary provisos limited the field of choice. We were at war with the Turkish Empire, and most of its officials, the only people in the country with administrative experience, retired with the Turkish armies.

The Armistice brought under our Control an area equal to about half the United Kingdom. The communications of this area Consisted, in addition to the rivers, of about 65o miles of railway and z o miles of macadamized roads. The administration of an area so large and so badly served by communications put a great strain on the army and on the civil government. It was a remarkable achievement, out of the resources at hand, to provide a coherent and efficient form of government for the whole.



Chapter I

Military operations in Mesopotamia from the death of General Maude until the armistice

(The English) Join the most resolute courage to the most cautious prudence; nor have they their equals in the art of ranging themselves in battle array, and fighting in order. If to so many military qualifications they knew how to join the arts of government; if they showed a concern for the circumstances of the husbandman, and of the gentleman; and exerted as much ingenuity and solicitude in relieving and easing the people of God, as they do in whatever concerns their military affairs, no nation in the world would be preferable to them, or prove worthier of command.'

Saiyid Ghulam Husain Khan, Seir Muta'akharin, II. 341, circa 1783: quoted (incorrectly) 6y Macaulay, Essay on Lord Clive.

General Marshall succeeds General Maude. Military Policy. Question of Arab cooperation. Occupation of Middle Euphrates. Operations on Euphrates. Occupation of Kirkuk. Sir Percy Cox leaves for England. Question of advance on Mosul. Operations on Tigris. The Armistice. Occupation of Mosul wilayat.

General Marshall now took over temporary command of the Army, and was shortly afterwards confirmed in the appointment, to which he had other and better claims than those of rank or age.1 Maj.-Gen. Gillman, who had lately arrived in command of the 17th Indian Division, became his Chief of Staff, and no happier combination could have been devised. The new Commander-in-Chief himself had, as he stated in his book, comparatively little administrative experience, but General Gillman's record compensated for this, and with General Ready and General Stuart-Wortley in full executive charge respectively of the Adjutant-General's and Quartermaster-General's branches at General Head-quarters there was a rapid change for the better in relations between the civil and military branches of the administration, which was reflected in the daily work of every civil department.

The military machine which the new Commander-in-Chief had inherited from his friend and predecessor, General Maude, was very efficient. Its 'morale' was high, its training satisfactory and progressively improving; the departmental situation left nothing to be desired; nor, as will have been gathered from the foregoing pages, was…

1. When General Maude was offered the chief command in Palestine vice Sir A. Murray in March 1917, just after the capture of Baghdad, he declined it, but added that if His Majesty's Government insisted on his going to Palestine, General Marshall was admirably suited to succeed him.




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