Éditeur : Oxford University Press | Date & Lieu : 1931, London |
Préface : | Pages : 420 |
Traduction : | ISBN : |
Langue : Anglais | Format : 165x250 mm |
Code FIKP : Liv. Ang. Gen. 2486 | Thème : Histoire |
Présentation
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Table des Matières | Introduction | Identité | ||
Mesopotamia 1917-1920 `... 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, |
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?' IN a previous volume entitled Loyalties Mesopotaria 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. 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 feeling' 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. 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. `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 St. George's Day, 1931. ________________ |