In late October 1914, any observer on the tip of Cape Musandam might have noticed a large flotilla of warships and naval transports entering the Strait of Hormuz, heading north into the Arabian Gulf. By October 23, the largest military presence ever deployed by a European power lay at anchor in the Lower Gulf. This was not the first time that the Europeans had intervened on a massive scale in the region. Less than a century before, in November 1819, a large force had arrived in the Gulf and set out to overawe all the Rulers along the coast. From that expedition, the first treaty between Britain and the Rulers of the region emerged in January 1820, which set the political pattern for a relationship that would endure for 150 years.

The motives that impelled both expeditions were the same—economic and geopolitical. Trade in the Arabian Gulf can be traced back over five millennia, possibly longer, constituting perhaps the longest continuous record of sustained commercial links in human history. Over this long period, the waterway has provided an artery for the flow of both goods and communication between East and West. As a result, the peoples who lived along its shores were always in contact with the world beyond their immediate region. This long history of economic and cultural connections antedated the start of sustained Western contact through the visits of Portuguese traders in the sixteenth century. Before that, the states in the East were already well aware of the importance of the Gulf.