Enemy on the Euphrates (23 page)

The vast majority of the British military and civilian personnel based in Iraq when hostilities against the Ottomans formally ceased believed that, after all the British blood that had been spilt, Iraq and its resources should remain a British colonial possession and any idea of an Arab state was unthinkable. This was the considered opinion of Acting Civil Commissioner Arnold Wilson, and those officers who joined the Iraq Civil Administration after military service in Europe were quickly converted to the same view. For example, writing to a military colleague on 15 December 1919, Captain J.S. Mann, the APO for the ‘Umm al-Ba’rur district of Shamiyya Division (whose strictures on the abominations of Najaf we encountered in the previous chapter), expressed this opinion:

Any idea of an Arab State is simply blood-stained fooling at present, and this country cannot be handled without some sort of an army in the background … The well-intentioned self-determinators who know no facts, no Islamic doctrine and no ethnology, have the lives of several British officers to answer for already and they will go on adding to the list I’m afraid.
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Like the majority of his fellow POs, Mann was also convinced that ‘the Arab’ was far too individualistic to respect any kind of organised government and totally unwilling to participate in any activity in which he didn’t satisfy his avaricious self-interest. The sort of public-spirited individuals whom one might find in an English village – those who gave their services to the community voluntary – simply did not exist
in his experience. As he explained in a letter to his mother, ‘One does feel almost awfully in this type of community, the lack of what we call professional gentlemen, the parson, the local doctor and banker, the retired Colonel and the boy scout master.’
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Mann did not explicitly attribute the absence of ‘boy scout masters’ or similarly public-spirited worthies to religious factors, but others had less compunction in doing so. Another member of Wilson’s administration, Thomas Lyell, a magistrate in the Baghdad criminal court, made this inference robustly in a book published in 1923, the Preface to which opined, ‘The creed of Islam is unprogressive, personally enervating and destructive of any instinct for citizenship, social integrity or national aspirations … the Muslim, and particularly the Shi‘is [are] – and for many years must remain – totally unfit for self-government.’
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Wilson would have thoroughly agreed and it had therefore been with considerable irritation that on 19 November 1918 he had received an unexpected and unwelcome telegram from the secretary of state for India, Edwin Montagu. The telegram drew to Wilson’s attention the views of an individual who, with considerable impertinence, was now poking his nose into matters of which he had absolutely no experience or knowledge. The views in question were those of Colonel T.E. Lawrence, and although he was not yet the matinée idol he was to become after the showing of Lowell Thomas’ extravaganza,
With Allenby in Palestine and Lawrence in Arabia
, Wilson had already heard quite a lot about him. He also knew that Lawrence was fast acquiring influential friends in government, including Winston Churchill.

Apparently, Lawrence had written to the secretary of state for India proposing his own scheme of government for Iraq and Syria which he claimed was consonant with the Anglo-French Declaration, and the secretary of state wished to know Wilson’s opinion as to this proposal. Lawrence advocated the division of Iraq into two zones, Lower and Upper Mesopotamia: the former more or less contiguous with the former vilayet of Basra and the latter with those of Baghdad and Mosul. The Emir ‘Abdallah would be appointed ruler of Lower Mesopotamia and his brother Zayd would get Upper Mesopotamia. Syria would go to
Emir Faysal. However, this was not exactly a plan for Arab independence since Lawrence also stated clearly, ‘It is understood that both the Iraqi states would be in the British sphere and “Lower Mesopotamia” under effective British control.’

In spite of this final caveat, Wilson was incandescent. Not only was he adamantly opposed to even a façade of Arab independence under the sons of Sharif Husayn, but he insisted that the three former vilayets should form one integral unit whose civil administration was now completely in his hands. He immediately fired back telegrams rejecting Lawrence’s proposals in their entirety, accompanied by written statements from a number of heavily subsidised British-supporting sheikhs and urban notables claiming they wished only for continuing British rule.

Building on this tactic, he now proposed to the government that there should be a ‘plebiscite’ of public opinion in Iraq, since ‘all agree that the opinion of the country must be taken before any decision can be rightly come to.’ Since this sounded perfectly reasonable to the India Office, on 30 November 1918 Wilson was authorised to carry out his plebiscite which should ‘render us an authoritative statement of the view held by the local population’ focusing on three particular questions:

1) Do they favour a single Arab state under British tutelage stretching from the northern boundary of the Mosul Vilayet to the Persian Gulf?

2) In this event, do they consider that a titular Arab should be placed over this State?

3) In that case, whom would they prefer as Head?

But the telegram containing these instructions was highly ambiguous. On the one hand it insisted that ‘in our opinion it is of great importance to get a genuine expression of local opinion on these points and one of such a kind that could be announced to the world as the unbiased pronouncement of the population of Mesopotamia.’ On the other hand various remarks in the telegram seemed to indicate a considerable retreat from the principles previously enunciated in the Anglo-French Declaration of 8 November. The intention of the latter, Wilson was
informed, was not so much a guarantee of Arab self-determination but rather ‘to clear up the existing situation in Syria which Arab suspicion of French intentions had created’. Moreover, ‘It should be understood by all that the Peace Conference will settle the ultimate status of all Arab provinces.’ Although the British government did not, ‘as far as can be seen at the moment’, intend ‘annexation’ or ‘to make a formal declaration of Protectorate’, Wilson was given to understand that the kind of outcome favoured in Iraq was one similar to ‘the position of Egypt before the war’, from which Wilson not unreasonably inferred, ‘Everything indicated … that the Anglo-French Declaration was not to be taken literally.’
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Indeed, it seemed clear to Wilson that the first question upon which the India Office required an ‘authoritative statement’ could easily be used as a means of eliciting not just a view as to the desirability of a ‘single Arab state’ (as opposed to two or more) but also a more ‘satisfactory’ response calling for continued British rule.

So on the very same day that he received these instructions, Wilson put into action a plan to ensure that the sounding-out of ‘local opinion’ came up with such a ‘satisfactory’ result. In doing so he first discounted altogether the opinions of the rank and file of the ‘local population’ whose views he was directed to ascertain. The Arab masses – the garden cultivators and date growers of the Tigris and Euphrates, the orange growers of Ba’quba, the shepherds of the Dulaym, the rice cultivators of the Diwaniyya and Shamiyya, the marsh dwellers of ‘Amara and Qurna and the craftsmen, traders and former government employees of the towns – all these were considered too ignorant, illiterate or subject to manipulation by ‘extremists’ to merit any consideration. Instead, the plebiscite would focus almost exclusively on those elements of the population – the more powerful sheikhs, merchants and landowning dignitaries – who by economic status or character were already believed to be favourable to continued British rule, or whose opinions might be influenced by offers of subsidies,

Accordingly, Wilson wrote to the POs controlling the nine administrative areas into which Iraq had now been divided by the occupying authorities, instructing that they should first (and secretly) ‘Ascertain … what the trend of public opinion is likely to be.’ If – and
only if – the response appeared likely to be ‘satisfactory’, then it was to be communicated to Wilson for submission to the government. On the other hand, ‘When public opinion appears likely to be sharply divided or in the unlikely event of it being unfavourable, you should defer holding a meeting and report to me for instructions.’
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In spite of this deliberate attempt to influence and, where necessary, distort the outcome of the plebiscite, the response of those ‘consulted’ was surprisingly mixed.

The ‘satisfactory line’ of response – that the new Iraqi state should include Mosul and that continued British administration was the best form of government – was duly forthcoming from the sheikhs of the ‘Amara Division and those of Qurna, Nasiriyya, Hilla, Kut al-‘Amara, Musayib and Khanaqin, many of whom were already on the occupiers’ payroll. Similarly in Mosul, where ten declarations were taken from representatives of religious communities, seven of them from non-Muslim groups, there was also a request for British rule directly or British protection. In Najaf, still shocked and demoralised by the tragic events earlier in the year and where an assembly of divines and tribal sheikhs was addressed by Wilson in person, the initial response followed the ‘satisfactory’ line. The Grand Mujtahid Muhammad Kadhim Yazdi, who had opposed the Najaf rebellion and was now in receipt of a large British subsidy,
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pronounced that accommodation to British rule was both legitimate and desirable, as did a number of other pro-British notables.

However, two days after the initial declaration of support for continued British rule, a Shi‘i emissary from Baghdad arrived in Najaf and persuaded the dignitaries of the city not to send in their declaration. Wilson and his men then pressured Yazdi, to re-run the ‘plebiscite’, but the final outcome was far from ‘satisfactory’. Fourteen declarations from individuals and groups were secured, but while some asked for a British protectorate, others coupled this with the demand for an Arab emir when the country should be ready for him, while others asked outright for an Arab government without an emir, no mention being made of Great Britain.

Then, on 24 December 1918, in Karbela’, another senior mujtahid, Mirza Muhammad Taqi al-Shirazi, issued a fatwa of great importance.
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Approached for guidance on the plebiscite by a group of leading citizens including clergy and tribal sheikhs, he made the following declaration: ‘No Muslim may choose and elect any other than a Muslim to an emirate or sultanate over Muslims.’ From that point on, effective religious leadership over the majority Shi‘i community began to shift decisively away from Yazdi and towards Shirazi, and with Yazdi’s death in April, the ascendancy of Shirazi and the nationalist tendency within the Shi‘i clergy was assured.
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Meanwhile, in Baghdad, an attempt by Wilson to convene an assembly of local dignitaries favourably inclined towards British rule also collapsed. The Christian and Jewish notables wanted British rule, but among the Muslims of both sects there was fierce opposition to Wilson’s preferred form of ‘consultation’ and instead large public meetings were called at which ‘inflammatory language’ was used and the delegates chosen were mandated to ask for an Arab government without British ‘protection’. In the delegates’ resolution, passed on 22 January 1919, they declared,

We being of the Muslim Arab nation and representing the Muslims of the Shi‘i and Sunni Communities inhabiting Baghdad and its suburbs resolve that the country extending from northern Mosul to the Persian Gulf be one Arab State, headed by a Muhammadan King, one of the sons of our Sharif Husayn, bound by a local Legislative Council sitting in Baghdad, the capital of Iraq.
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The most ominous feature of the resolution was the unprecedented unity of both Muslim sects. But as yet, the significance of this was barely noted by Wilson and his men. Later, however, the implications of this rapprochement would become brutally clear.

Nevertheless, Wilson’s final judgement on the outcome of the plebiscite was that ‘the majority desired no change of regime, a large minority favoured an Arab Emir under British guidance and control and that no name that we could suggest commanded the acceptance
of even a small minority.’ Gertrude Bell, agreed. According to her, ‘In Mesopotamia they want us and no one else … They realise that an Arab Emir is impossible, because although they like the idea in theory, in practice they could never agree as to the individual.’
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So, content that she was in full support of his own position, Wilson dispatched her to London to acquaint the government with more details of ‘Iraqi public opinion’. A few days later he himself was called to Paris to report in person to the British Peace Conference delegation and from there to London, where he was requested by Edwin Montagu, the secretary of state for India, to present his own proposals for the future administration of Iraq. On 6 April 1919, these were forwarded by letter to the Interdepartmental Committee on Eastern Affairs chaired by the foreign secretary Lord Nathaniel Curzon.

Wilson was now riding the crest of the wave. The government clearly had no idea what to do with Iraq; so he, with his ‘vast experience’ of Arab affairs, his detailed knowledge of the region and its resources, his penetrating understanding of the Arab mind, his complete confidence in his own ability to manage and control the situation, would therefore set forth his solution.

There would be no Arab emir, but instead a British high commissioner.
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Not only would Mosul vilayet be included in Iraq but so too would Dayr az-Zawr, a town on the Euphrates whose control was already being claimed by the embryo independent Arab government in Damascus. The Civil Administration would take over from the army the running of previously military assets such as railways, bridges, docks, electric plant, and irrigation works. Iraq would be divided into four provinces: Basra, Baghdad, Euphrates (including Najaf and Karbela’) and Mosul (or five if Kurdistan were to be separated from Mosul). Each of the provinces would have an Arab governor appointed by the British, who would be ‘assisted’ by a British advisor. In turn, each province would be divided into a number of divisions of which there would be sixteen in total. Each would have a divisional council but it would only be an advisory, not legislative, body and, as to its make-up, ‘experience suggests that elective bodies are unsuited to present conditions.’ From these divisional councils would be
‘selected’ representatives to sit on the four provincial councils, but here again, these would ‘not at present be made responsible for legislation’.