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V. Mesopotamia in British War Aims, 1914–1918

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

V. H. Rothwell
V. H. Rothwell
Affiliation:
University of Exeter
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Extract

An expeditionary force of the Indian Army landed in Turkish territory at the head of the Persian Gulf almost immediately upon the declaration of war by Britain against Turkey on 5 November 1914. After winning some minor engagements against Turkish forces, it marched into Basra, the chief town of southern Mesopotamia, on the 23rd. The subsequent course of the campaign in Mesopotamia included a number of setbacks for the British. The principal city, Baghdad, was not captured until after nearly two and a half years of fighting, and the chief northern city, Mosul, not indeed until after an armistice had been signed with Turkey. Even so, by the time hostilities ceased, large areas in the south had been under continuous British occupation for four years and the possibility of further advance was throughout the war present in the minds of British leaders, whether in London, Simla or Mesopotamia itself. Against this background of military conquest and a pre-war diplomacy among the European powers, excluding Russia, in which Mesopotamia had been marked out as the British sphere if Turkey was partitioned, it is unsurprising that the political future of the country should have been much discussed within British official circles. War aims went through several phases whose study contributes to understanding of British aims in the war as a whole.

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Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , June 1970 , pp. 273 - 294
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1970

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References

1 On terminology: Mesopotamia is used here to describe the territories comprised in the present state of Iraq. Under Turkish rule this was divided into the vilayets or provinces of Basra, Baghdad and Mosul. These were officially referred to by the British as Turkish Arabia until 1916 when the name was changed to Mesopotamia. The Arab name, Iraq, was often used by the British administrators there, but Mesopotamia has been used here throughout.

2 Howard, H.N., The Partition of Turkey (Norman, 1931), pp. 51–9;Google ScholarIreland, P.W., Iraq, a Study in Political Development (London, 1937), pp. 56–9;Google ScholarKedourie, Elie, England and the Middle East: the Destruction of the Ottoman Empire 1914–1921 (London, 1956), pp. 10–11.Google Scholar For Britain's extensive interests in Iraq before 1914 see Longrigg, S.R., Iraq 1900–1950 (Oxford, 1953), pp. 3–4.Google Scholar

3 Cf. the recent contribution by Louis, Wm. Roger, Great Britain and Germany's Lost Colonies 1914–1919 (Oxford, 1967).Google Scholar

4 Hardinge MSS (University Library, Cambridge), XCII, pt. n, no. 260, Hardinge to G. B. Allen, 30 Nov. 1914.

5 Moberly, F.J., History of the Great War based on Official Documents: the Campaign in Mesopotamia 1914–1918 (London, 1923–1927), 1, 130–40.Google Scholar This work is henceforward referred to as Official History.

6 Hardinge MSS, XCIII, pt. 1, no. 374, Crewe to Hardinge, 31 March 1915.

7 There is a view, repeated most recently by Guinn, Paul, British Strategy and Politics 1914–1918 (Oxford, 1965), p. 44Google Scholar, that an annexationist proclamation was issued after the capture of Basra town. This appears to refer to a proclamation drawn up by Cox and issued to the notables of Basra on 23 November 1914 whose text, at least in its official English translation (Official History, 1, 131) cannot be read in this light. It is largely descriptive, stating that the Turks have been expelled from the area. It contains no statement of aims except to say that the British government was determined to guarantee the religious freedom of the people of Basra and to administer justice in a manner which they would surely find fair and equitable.

8 Hardinge MSS, cxxi, pt. 11, no. 1, Hardinge to Crewe, 6 Jan. 1915; ci, pt. 1, pp. 496–7, telegram no. 1189, Cox to Hardinge, 6 Jan. 1915; ci, pt. 11, pp. 469–70, telegram no. 994, Hardinge to Cox, 8 Jan. 1915.

9 cab(inet) 21/61, memorandum by Curzon, ‘British Policy in Mesopotamia’, 21 Sept. 1917. See also Hardinge MSS, xciv, pt. n, no. 27, Hardinge to Wingate, 10 June 1915; Cab. 27/1, appendix XVII, India Office memorandum on British interests in Mesopotamia, 21 April 1915; Ibid., appendix xx, memorandum by Sir Arthur Hirtzel, 15 April 1915.

10 Address to the British community of Basra, 4 Feb. 1915, in Speeches of Lord Hardinge of Penshurst: Viceroy and Governor-General of India (Calcutta, 1916), III, 34.Google Scholar

11 Cruttwell, C.R.M.F., A History of the Great War, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1936), pp. 349–50.Google Scholar

12 See references in note 9 above.

13 F(oreign) O(ffice) 371/2774 no. 137276, minute by Grey, c. 23 June 1916.

14 F.O. 371/3044 no. 98498, Cecil to Sir Rennell Rodd, 14 May 1917. It should be said that Grey held a quite accurate view of the meaning of Hardinge's speech in February 1915: that it meant that Britain had promised that the Turks would not be allowed to return to Basra town but that she had given no promise that she would remain. F.O. 371/2767 no. 209, Grey to Sir George Buchanan, 30 Dec. 1915.

15 Wilson, A.T., Loyalties: Mesopotamia 1914–1917 (Oxford, 1930), pp. 312–13.Google Scholar Cf. Cox's own comments in The Letters of Gertrude Bell, ed. Bell, Lady (London, 1927), II, 507–8.Google Scholar

16 Hardinge MSS, xxm, G. Bell to Hardinge, 15 July 1916.

17 India Office Library: P(olitical) and S(ecret) subject files, 1917, v, file 2571, no. 1604, memorandum by Cox, 22 April 1918. On the absence of British commitments to the population of Mesopotamia see also: Wilson, A.T., op. cit. pp. 16–17 and 41–2, and Loyalties Divided: Mesopotamia 1920–1920 (Oxford, 1931), pp. 4 and 92;Google ScholarBurgoyne, Elizabeth, Gertrude Bell (London, 1958–1961), II, 43;Google Scholar Official History, 1, 88; Ireland, op. cit. pp. 70–3; Cd. 8610: Report of the Commission Appointed to Enquire into the Operations of War in Mesopotamia (London, 1917), p. 15.Google Scholar

18 Hardinge MSS, ci, pt. n, p. 450, telegram no. 958, Hardinge to Cox, 26 Dec. 1914.

19 P. and S. files as cited in note 17, no. 617, India Office memorandum on ‘ Mesopotamia: British Engagements as to Future Status’, 30 Jan. 1918; Cab. 24/70, G.T. 6314, memorandum by the Political Intelligence Department of the Foreign Office on ‘ British Commitments to Ibn Saud’, 16 Nov. 1918; Cab. 24/72, G.T. 6506, memorandum by Ibid., on ‘Settlement of the Arabian Peninsula’, Nov. 1918.

20 Cab. 27/1, Committee of Imperial Defence: Asiatic Turkey: Report of a Committee, 30 June 1915.

21 Memorandum by Curzon cited in note 9.

22 Ireland, op. cit. pp. 42–3, 49.

23 Relevant letters in the Hardinge MSS are xciii, pt. II, nos. 259, 263, 297, 311; xciv, pt. 11, no. 69; cxx, pt. 11, no. 62.

24 Hardinge MSS, xciv, pt. 11, no. 130, Hardinge to MacMahon, 9 Nov. 1015.

25 Ibid. cxxi, pt. 11, no. 368, Hardinge to Chamberlain, 17 Nov. 1915.

26 Ibid. xciv, pt. 1, no. 180, MacMahon to Hardinge, 4 Dec. 1915.

27 For the correspondence between MacMahon and the Sherif see Cmd. 5957 (1939).

28 Hardinge MSS, xciv, pt. 11, no. 152, Hardinge to MacMahon, 20 Dec. 1915.

29 For instance, Mark Sykes, who was rapidly establishing himself as the home government's chief adviser on Middle East policy, argued to the De Bunsen committee that an eastern settlement which merely guaranteed the British position in the Persian Gulf would be insufficient. Cab. 27/1, appendix xxv, memorandum by Sykes, 3 May 1915.

30 A. T. Wilson, Loyalties, p. 65.

31 Graves, Philip, The Life of Sir Percy Cox (London, 1941), pp. 213–15.Google Scholar

32 Cab. 24/143, Eastern Report 5, 28 Feb. 1917. Austen Chamberlain replied that it would be ‘ not worthwhile’ to pursue Co's proposal.

33 Cecil of Chelwood MSS, B.M. Add. MS 51094, Cecil to E. S. Montagu, 13 Sept. 1918.

34 India Office: P. and S. subject files, xxix, 1918, file 47222, pt. 1, minute by Shuckburgh, 20 Nov. 1918, on telegram 9926 from Arnold Wilson, Baghdad.

35 Robertson, William, Soldiers and Statesmen (London, 1926), II, 67–73.Google Scholar

36 Cf. Taylor, A.J.P., ‘The War Aims of the Allies in the First World War’ in Essays Presented to Sir Lewis Namier, eds. Pares, R. and Taylor, A.J.P. (London, 1956), pp. 475–505.Google Scholar

37 F.O. 800/214, copy of memorandum by Curzon, 15 Dec. 1917.

38 F.O. 371/2767 no. 3552, Grey to Buchanan, 23 Feb. 1916.

39 India Office: P. and S. subject files, 1917, file 978, xxv, pt. 1, no. 2146, telegram from Cox to Secretary of State for India, 25 May 1917.

40 Text in Documents on British Foreign Policy, 1st series, eds. Woodward, E.L. and Bury, J.P.T., IV (London, 1952), 245–7.Google Scholar

41 Cab. 17/174, memorandum dated 31 July 1916, forwarded by Colonel Hankey to the Prime Minister because of its seriousness.

42 Cab. 23/2, War Cabinet meetings, 12 and 14 March 1917. For the declaration see Shane Leslie, The Life of Mark Sykes (London, 1923), pp. 260–1.Google Scholar

43 Graves, op. cit. pp. 219–21;Petrie, Sir Charles, The Life and Letters of Sir Austen Chamberlain (London, 1939–1940), II, 80;Google Scholar Cab. 24/8, G.T. 230, Mesopotamia Administration Committee: Provisional Recommendations, 19 March 1917; Cab. 24/9, G.T. 373, draft instructions to Cox, 29 March 1917.

44 Hardinge MSS, xxx, Hardinge to G. Bell, 29 March 1917.

45 The report and minutes of this committee, which sat from 12 to 28 April 1917 under the chairmanship of Curzon, are in Cab. 29/1. The committee appears to have spent far less time on war aims in the Middle East than on discussion of the fate of the German colonies and even of possible territorial exchanges among the allies such as the acquisition of part of Alaska by Canada in return for the cession of some British territory in the West Indies to the United States. The work of the Mesopotamia committee a few weeks before left the Curzon committee with very little that it could usefully say or do on Mesopotamia policy. It was also important that the fate of the Turkish Empire was of less interest to the Dominion statesmen at whose insistence the committee had been set up than was that of the German colonies.

46 Cab. 24/13, G.T. 703, memorandum by Curzon on ‘Policy in View of Russian Developments’, 12 May 1917.

47 Cab. 24/32, G.T. 2648, memorandum on’ Peace Negotiations with Turkey’, 16 Nov. 1917.

48 Lloyd George MSS (Beaverbrook Library), F 160/1/11, reported remarks by Fuad Selim Bey (Turkish minister to Switzerland), 12 May 1917.

49 F.O. 800/206, section on Turkey, minutes by Eric Drummond (Balfour's private secretary) and George Clerk (a senior clerk in the Foreign Office), 7 July and 31 July 1917.

50 Cab. 25/127, report of military conference, 26 July 1917; Cab. 28/2, I.C. 24, covering note by Robertson to report on inter-allied conference at Paris, 25–6 July 1917.

51 W(ar) O(ffice) 106/1514, Macdonagh (director of military intelligence) to Robertson, 1 Aug. 1917.

52 Neave, Dorina L., Remembering Kut (London, 1937), pp. 249–50, 272–4, 318.Google Scholar

3 Stein, Leonard, The Balfour Declaration (London, 1961), pp. 354–7;Google ScholarYale, William, ‘Ambassador Henry Morgenthau's Special Mission of 1917’ in World Politics, 1 (1949), 308–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

54 F.O. 371/3057 no. 220306, Balfour to Granville (minister to Greece), 20 Nov. 1917.

55 F.O. 371/3054 nos. 227658 and 245810, minutes by Hardinge, c. 1 Dec. 1917 and 4 Jan. 1918; Paul Cambon, Correspondance, ed. Henri Cambon (Paris, 1940–6), in, 212–13; record of conversation between Lloyd George, Lord Buckmaster and C. P. Scott, 28 Dec. 1917 in C. P. Scott's journals, B.M. Add. MS 50904. Buckmaster asked Lloyd George who was to control Mesopotamia in the future. He replied that it would have to be the British.

56 F.O. 371/3388 no. 48753, Rumbold (minister to Switzerland) to Balfour, n March 1918 and Balfour to Rumbold, 19 March 1918; F.O. 800/206, Balfour to Lord Beaverbrook, 9 Aug. 1918.

57 Cf. Mayer, Arno J., Political Origins of the New Diplomacy (New Haven, 1959), especially pp. 7, 31–6, 78–81, 252, 282–5, 311–28, 369–70.Google Scholar

58 F.O. 800/199, Curzon to Balfour, 29 June 1917.

59 Cab. 23/5, War Cabinet meeting, 11.30 a.m., 3 Jan. 1918.

60 George, D. Lloyd, War Memoirs, 2-vol. ed. (London, no date), II, 1515.Google Scholar

61 Kedourie, op. cit. pp. 107 ff., and ‘Cairo and Khartoum on the Arab Question 1915– 1018’ in Historical Journal, VII (1964), 294–5.Google Scholar

62 Longrigg, op. cit. pp. 43–7.

63 Cf. above pp. 274–6.

64 The Fourteen Points were not published in Mesopotamia until October 1918. Ireland, op. cit. p. 136.

65 F.O. 371/3056 no. 126945, copy of letter from Maude to William Robertson, 24 May 1917.

66 A. T. Wilson, Loyalties Divided, p. 103; Kedourie, England and the Middle East, pp. 176–7, 183–6; Graves, op. cit. pp. 261–2; Ireland, op. cit. p. 106. It is curious but not significant that an Iraqi politician in Zurich, one Mehemet Khan, wrote to the British Labour leader, Arthur Henderson. See his intercepted letter of 15 Aug. 1917U1W.0.106/1417.

67 Cab. 27/25, M.E.C. 68, India Office memorandum on ‘The Future of Mesopotamia’, 31 Jan. 1918.

68 Memorandum by Cox cited in note 17.

69 Wilson, A.T. MSS, B.M. Add. MS 52456, telegram from Cox to Wilson, 16 05 1918.Google Scholar

70 P. and S. subject files as cited in note 17, no. 1469 (1918), ‘Future of Mesopotamia: Note by the Political and Secret Department on Points for Discussion with Sir Percy Cox’, 3 April 1918. This is an extended version of the memorandum cited in note 67.

71 Hamilton Grant MSS (India Office Library), EUR. MS 660, no. 15, Hardinge to Sir Hamilton Grant, 24 April 1917. For Hardinge's earlier views see Hardinge MSS, xciii, pt. II, no. 321, Hardinge to G. B. Allen, 14 April 1915.

72 Cf. F.O. 371/3051 no. 68626, extract from a private letter by Chelmsford dated 18 Oct. 1916.

73 Hardinge MSS, XXVII, Hamilton Grant to Hardinge, 7 Nov. 1916.

74 P. and S. subject files cited in note 17, viceroy's despatch no. 44, 25 May 1917.

75 Wilson, A.T. MSS, B.M. Add. MS 52455, Wilson to Hirtzel, 22 05 1918.Google Scholar ‘But for Dunsterville and his force we would be in Altun Keupri and Sulaimaniyah.’ (Dunsterville was the commander of the force in north-west Persia.)

76 Samra, Chattar Singh, India and Anglo-Soviet Relations (Bombay, 1959), pp. 23–5.Google Scholar

77 Cab. 24/50, G.T. 4401, memorandum by the Chief of the General Staff on ‘ The Defence of India’, 30 April 1918; Cab. 27/24, Eastern Committee minutes 7, 6 May 1918; Official History, iv, 159–62, 166–71.

78 Cab. 25/5, minute c. 10 Jan. 1918.

79 Ibid. ‘Notes on situation in Mesopotamia obtained during a visit to the War Office’ by General H. W. Studd, 9–11 Jan. 1918.

80 India Office Library, EUR. MS D.523.2, E. S. Montagu to Chelmsford, 22 Aug. 1918; W.O. 106/64 no. 69744, Sir Charles Monro (commander-in-chief of the Indian army) to the War Office, 2 Sept. 1918. These fears were not entirely without foundation. In May 1918 Ludendorff gave orders for the setting up of a base on the Caspian Sea ‘urn von dort im Zusammenwirken mit Afghanistan die Englische Herrschaft in Indien zu treffen’. However, no progress was made in carrying out any plans that may have been drawn up because of German-Turkish quarrels in the Caucasus, and Turkey's pursuit of an annexationist policy in north-west Persia which alienated many of the tribes that might otherwise have cooperated in a German-Turkish thrust to India. Gehrke, Ulrich, Persien in der Deutschen Orientpolitik wóhrend des Ersten Weltkrieges (Stuttgart, 1960), 1, 314–15.Google Scholar

81 Cab. 25/85, memorandum by the Chief of the General Staff, ‘British Military Policy 1918–19’, 25 July 1918; partially cited in D. Lloyd George, op. cit. 11, 1857–65. For Sir Charles Monro's opposition to an advance on Mosul see Barrow, George, The Life of General Sir Charles Carmichael Monro (London, 1931), pp. 167Google Scholar, 170. General Larcher's assertion (La Guerre Turque dans la Grande Guerre, Paris, 1926, p. 417) that the British government starved their forces in north-west Persia so that the Mesopotamia Expeditionary Force would be able to occupy the Mosul oil deposits is false.

82 Cf. Hardinge MSS, xxxv, Hardinge to Lord Granville, 19 Nov. 1917: ‘ It is useless to hope that we will ever bring Turkey to a state of unconditional surrender.’

83 Davenport, E.H. and Cooke, S.R., The Oil Trusts and Anglo-American Relations (London, 1925). Pp. 20–37.Google Scholar

84 Long, Walter, Memories (London, 1923), pp. 257–62;Google Scholar on the founding of the Harcourt committee see Cab. 24/51, G.T. 4564, memorandum by Long, 15 May 1918.

85 The Royal Navy used an estimated 9–1 out of 10 million tons of oil imported into the United Kingdom during the war. Mohr, Anton, The Oil War (London, 1926), p. 125.Google Scholar

86 Davenport and Cooke, op. cit. pp. 18–20, 25–8; Mohr, op. cit. pp. 103–5, 112–18; Churchill, W.S., The World Crisis, 2-vol. ed. (London, no date), 1, 104–5, 136–7;Google ScholarMonroe, Elizabeth, Britain's Moment in the Middle East (London, 1963), pp. 98–101;Google ScholarJack, Marian, The Purchase of the British Government's Shares in the British Petroleum Company 1912–1914’ in Past and Present, no. 39 (1968), pp. 139 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

87 The Letters of Gertrude Bell, 1, 368.

88 Cab. 27/1, First Sea Lord's evidence to the De Bunsen committee, 13 April 1915.

89 Cab. 16/36, memorandum by Slade on ‘The Political Position in the Persian Gulf at the End of the War’, 4 Nov. 1916.

90 Longrigg, S.R., Oil in the Middle East (Oxford, 1954), p. 44.Google Scholar

91 Kedourie, op. cit. p. 34; Nevikivi, J., ‘Lord Kitchener and the Partition of the Ottoman Empire’ in Studies in International History: Essays Presented to Medlicott, W. Norton, eds. Bourne, K. and Watt, D.C. (London, 1967), pp. 316–29. Kitchener's views were not conventional in official circles. Crewe, for instance, thought that the Russians invariably made better neighbours than the French in Asia. F.O. 371/2767 no. 47088, minute by Crewe, c. 10 March 1916.Google Scholar

92 Gelfand, L.E., The Inquiry: American Preparations for Peace 1917–1919 (New Haven, 1963), PP. 233–5.Google Scholar During 1918 the India Office, with Lionel Curtis and Lord Reading acting as intermediaries, supplied Beer with information designed to show that British intentions in Mesopotamia were ‘Wilsonic’ so that he could set American opinion ‘running on the right lines’. Their choice of documents which included the decisions of the Mesopotamia committee in March 1917 was a little odd for the purpose. P. and S. subject files as cited in note 17, no. 3618, Shuckburgh to Hirtzel, 5 Aug. 1918 and memorandum by Hirtzel, 8 Aug. 1918.

93 F.O. 800/204, memorandum by Launcelot Oliphant, 31 July 1918.

94 Cab. 24/60, G.T. 5313, Admiralty memorandum on the ‘Reported Oil Fields of Mesopotamia and Part of Persia’, 2 Aug. 1918.

95 Hardinge MSS, XCIII, pt. II, nos. 230 and 230a, Hardinge to A. Nicolson and V. Chirol, 8 Oct. 1914; Graves, op. cit. pp. 177–8; A. T. Wilson, Loyalties, pp. 5 and 9; Official History, 1, 78, 80, 85, 91–5.

96 Official History, 1, 167–8.

97 Hardinge MSS, cxxi, pt. 11, no. 23, Hardinge to Crewe, 21 April 1915; Ibid. no. 63, Hardinge to A. Chamberlain, 5 Nov. 1915; Ibid. no. 77, Hardinge to Sir Thomas Holderness, 29 Dec. 1915.

98 F.O. 371/2767 no. 8117, memorandum by Hirtzel enclosed in letter from Sir T. Holderness to Sir A. Nicolson, 13 Jan. 1916.

99 F.O. 800/204, Hankey to Balfour, 1 Aug. 1918.

100 Cab. 21/119, Hankey to Geddes, 30 July 1918, and to Lloyd George, 1 Aug. 1918.

101 Cecil of Chelwood MSS, B.M. Add. MS 51094, copy of letter from Hankey to Balfour, 12 Aug. 1918.

102 Cf. Cab. 28/2, I.C. 13 for Balfour's remarks at Anglo-French conference, 26 Dec. 1916; and Cab. 27/24 for his remarks at Eastern Committee 5, 24 April 1918.

103 Cab. 23/43, Imperial War Cabinet minutes, 13 Aug. 1918.

104 Ibid. remarks by Lloyd George.

105 Cab. 23/42, further remarks by Lloyd George to the Imperial War Cabinet, 13 Aug. 1918.

106 D. Lloyd George, op. cit. 1, 483.

107 Lloyd George gave this opinion during the original War Council debates on war aims in Turkey. Cab. 42/4/5, War Council minutes, 10 March 1915. He repeated it during 1917. Stein, op. cit. pp. 145, 328, 334–5.

108 Cab. 24/59, G.T. 5267; Cab. 24/60, G.T. 5376.

109 Cab. 23/44, appendix to Imperial War Cabinet minutes, 16 Aug. 1918.

110 Official History, iv, 259.

111 Cab. 23/14, War Cabinet minutes, 24 Oct. 1918.

112 Adm(iralty) 116/1823, minutes of the armistice talks at Mudros, p. 36, statement by Raouf Bey. These minutes are very incomplete. The Royal Navy stenographer could not understand French, the language in which most of the discussion was conducted.

113 Cab. 23/14, War Cabinet minutes, 31 Oct. 1918. The population of Mosul vilayet consisted predominantly of non-Arabs. Probably the members of the War Cabinet except Curzon were unaware of this but it is hardly likely that it would have made any difference to their attitude if they had known.

114 F.O. 371/3384, no. 182014, Wilson's telegram 9304, 31 Oct. 1918; Ibid. no. 18349, Wilson's. telegram 9267, 30 Oct. 1918.

115 Official History, iv, 320–1, 324–8; W.O. 106/64, General Staff, ‘Execution of the Armistice with Turkey, 30 Oct.–30 Nov. 1918’.

116 A. T. Wilson, Loyalties Divided, pp. 21–2.

117 India Office Library, EUR. MS D.523.2, E. S. Montagu to Chelmsford, 22 Oct. 1918.

118 India Office, P. and S. subject files (1919), 11, file 36, pt. 11, no. 4890, Ronald Graham Foreign Office) to India Office, 2 Nov. 1918. In October Sykes himself observed that for some time he had been trying to impress on Picot the ‘impossibility’ of allowing Mosul vilayet to become a French sphere of influence. Cab. 27/24, Eastern Committee 34, 3 Oct. 1918.

119 Kedourie, op. cit. p. 133; Howard, op. cit. pp. 211–12; Documents on British Foreign Policy, 1st series, iv, 251.

120 Marlowe, John, Late Victorian: the Life of Sir Arnold Wilson (London, 1967), p. 227.Google Scholar

In Lloyd George's case this was avowedly because of oil.

121 Edmonds, C.J., Kurds, Turks and Arabs (Oxford, 1957), pp. 431–2.Google Scholar

122 Marshall, William, Memories of Four Fronts (London, 1929), pp. 327–30.Google Scholar

123 Marlowe, op. cit. p. 248.

124 P. and S. subject files as cited in note 118, no. 4738, telegram from Wilson to India Office, 29 Oct. 1918.

125 P. and S. subject files, 1913, LXXXV, file 3615, pt. 1, no. 4070 (1915), minute by Hirtzel, 8 Nov. 1915.

126 P. and S. subject files as cited in note 17, no. 1469 (1918). Shuckburgh to the Undersecretary, India Office, 30 March 1918.

127 A., T. Wilson, Loyalties, pp. 212, 215–16.

128 P. and S. subject files (1917), LII, file 3000, no. 3938, copy of note from French Embassy to Foreign Office, 25 Sept. 1917. See file 3000 generally for the question of French consular representation at Baghdad. Eventually the consul was allowed to go there but only so that Arnold Wilson could keep him under personal supervision.

129 F.O. 800/200, Foreign Office memorandum on ‘Balkan States’, 28 Sept. 1917.