Enemy on the Euphrates (64 page)

8.
   Ibid., Judicial Secretary Baghdad to Civil Commissioner Baghdad, 16 June 1920.

9.
   CAB/24/107, CP 1475: Secretary of State (India) to Civil Commissioner Baghdad, 7 June 1920.

10.
  Philby Papers, PH VI/3/102, copy of telegram 3279, Political Officer Dulaym Division to Civil Commissioner Baghdad, 18 June 1920.

11.
  The numbers of fighting men attributed to each of these tribal confederations are taken from IO/L/PS/20/235. However, even this detailed source (presumably compiled by Gertrude Bell) is not always consistent as to the numbers of tribesmen, and in the case of the Khaza’il (2,500) is certainly too small since in a list of sixteen tribal sections giving the number of tribesmen in each section, there are three sections where the number is missing.

12.
  Atiyyah, p. 250.

13.
  Cmd. 1061, p. 145.

14.
  Ibid., pp. 145–6. Bell simply notes that there were ‘20 casualties in killed and wounded’. It was generally the practice in British reports on the bombing of Arab villages to either fail to mention the number of casualties at all or, where casualty numbers were stated, as in this case, to neglect to identify the sex or age of the victims. It is highly unlikely that women and children would somehow escape this manifestly indiscriminate bombing. See also Priya Satia, ‘The Defence of Inhumanity: Air Control and the British Idea of Arabia’,
American Historical Review
, February 2006, p. 39.

15.
  Kadhim,
Al-haraka al-Islamiyya fi al-‘Iraq
, p. 266.

16.
  al-Hasani,
Al-thawra, al-‘Iraqiyya al-kubra
,
sana 1920
, p. 106.

17.
  IO/L/PS/11/175, Telegram 8542, Civil Commissioner Baghdad to H.B.M. Minister Tehran, repeated to Bushire, Simla, Qasvin, India Office, Banda Abbas, 16 July 1920.

18.
  Ibid., Telegram 7825, Civil Commissioner Baghdad to India Office, 28 June 1920.

19.
  al-Rahimi, appendix 19, pp. 310–11. ‘Nation’ – ‘
Umma
’ in the original.

20.
  Ibid., p. 219.

21.
  Ibid.

Chapter 22: The Revolution Begins

1.
   Failure to repay a loan is the reason given for the arrest in the British sources (cf. Wilson,
Mesopotamia, 1917–1920
, and Haldane,
The Insurrection in Mesopotamia
). However, Atiyyah, p. 340, states that the reason for the arrest was because ‘the tribe was showing signs of resistance to the administration and the sheikh was accused of withholding taxes.’ Luizard also appears to reject the ‘loan argument’, stating that the arrest of Sha’lan was ‘en represaille à la veritable fronde qu’il menait contre l’administration’ (p. 399).

2.
   Philby Papers, PH VI/3/107–9.

3.
   Quoted in Atiyyah, p. 348.

4.
   Philby Papers, ‘The Legend of Lijman’, p. 179.

5.
   IO/L/PS/20/235, p. 100.

6.
   Haldane,
The Insurrection in Mesopotamia
, p. 73.

7.
   Hugh Hughes,
Middle East Railways
, The Continental Railway Circle, Harrow, 1981, p. 87.

8.
   Haldane,
The Insurrection in Mesopotamia
, p. 75. See also al-Hasani,
Al-thawra al-‘Iraqiyya al-kubra, sana 1920
, p. 137, where the names of fourteen former Ottoman army officers are listed as helping the rebels with the digging of trenches, artillery etc.

9.
   IO/L/PS/20/C199, The British Library, London,
Personalities, Baghdad and Kadhimayn
, Baghdad, 1920.

Chapter 23: Discord and Disputation

1.
   Quoted in Marlowe, p. 205.

2.
   H. V. F. Winstone,
Gertrude Bell
, Jonathan Cape, London, 1978, p. 213.

3.
   Gertrude Bell Project, letter to Hugh Bell, 12 January 1920.

4.
   Quoted in Marlowe, p. 205.

5.
   IO/L/PS/11/175, Telegram 8312, Civil Commissioner Baghdad to India Office (Repeated to Viceroy), 10 July 1920.

6.
   Ibid.

Chapter 24: General Haldane’s Indian Army

1.
   T. A. Heathcote,
The Indian Army: The Garrison of British Imperial India, 1822–1922
, David & Charles, Newton Abbot, 1974, p. 55. However, Charles Townshend (
When God Made Hell: The British Invasion of Mesopotamia and the Creation of Iraq
, Faber & Faber, London, 2010, p. 24) states that there were seventeen Indian officers to thirteen British.

2.
   Calculation based on Haldane,
The Insurrection in Mesopotamia
, pp. 315–17, 325.

3.
   Major G. F. MacMunn DSO and Major A. C. Lovett (illus.),
The Armies of India
, A. & C. Black, London, 1911.

4.
   Sir G. F. MacMunn,
The Martial Races of India
, Sampson Low, London, c.1930, p. 2.

5.
   Ibid., p. 130. On the ‘rural’ bias aspect of British Orientalism, see also Toby Dodge,
Inventing Iraq: The Failure of Nation Building and a History Denied
, Hurst & Co., London, 2003, ch. 4.

6.
   MacMunn,
The Martial Races of India
, p. 2.

7.
   Heathcote, p. 102.

8.
   Biographical data taken largely from now-deleted pages at
www.king-emperor.com
.

9.
   Ibid.

10.
  Heathcote, p. 141.

11.
  Ian F. W. Beckett,
Ypres, the First Battle, 1914
, Pearson, Harlow, 2004, pp. 44–5.

12.
  Wylly, vol. 2, p. 213.

13.
  Wylly states that the 2nd Manchesters ‘formed part of the 55th Brigade of the 18th Division’, However, Wylly must be mistaken since Haldane (
The Insurrection in Mesopotamia
, p. 316) makes it clear that they belonged to the 53rd.

14.
  Darwent Collection (Manchester Regiment Archive), Ashton-under-Lyne Central Library, MR4/25/48/3, 2nd Battalion Digest of Services 1st April – 30 June 1920, p. 23.

15.
  Haldane,
The Insurrection in Mesopotamia
, p. 152.

16.
  Squadron Leader G. C. Pirie, ‘Some Experiences of No. 6 Squadron in the
Iraq Insurrection 1920’,
Air Publication
, no. 1152, June 1925, RAF Museum Archive, Hendon, p. 65. The number of aircraft in a flight at full strength would usually have been six, with two or three flights per squadron. However, in this particular environment the number of serviceable aircraft was much smaller.

17.
  Ibid., p. 70.

18.
  IO/L/PS/11/175, Telegram 8312, Civil Commissioner Baghdad to India Office (Repeated to Viceroy), 10 July 1920.

19.
  CAB/24/109, The National Archive, London, CP 1623: Strength of British Forces in the Middle East. War Office to GOC Mesopotamia, 14 July 1920.

Chapter 25: ‘The situation has come to a head’

1.
   IO/MSS/EUR/F462, Major General Leslie to his wife, Baghdad, 13 June 1920.

2.
   Ibid., 15 June 1920.

3.
   Ibid., 3 July 1920.

4.
   Haldane,
The Insurrection in Mesopotamia
, p. 78.

5.
   Pirie, p. 74.

6.
   IO/MSS/EUR/F462, Major General Leslie to his wife, Baghdad, 10 July 1920.

7.
   Ibid., 15 July 1920.

8.
   Ibid., 11 July 1920.

9.
   Ibid., 15 July 1920.

10.
  Ibid.

11.
  CAB/24/109, CP 1646: Civil Commissioner Baghdad to Foreign Office, 8 July 1920.

12.
  Ibid., General Officer Commanding, Mesopotamia to War Office, 9 July 1920.

13.
  Ibid., 12 July 1920.

14.
  Ibid., 1515 hours.

15.
  IO/MSS/EUR/F462, Major General Leslie to his wife, Baghdad, 23 July 1920.

16.
  Haldane,
The Insurrection in Mesopotamia
, p. 81.

17.
  Colonel B. R. Mullaly,
Bugle and Kukri: The Story of the 10th Princess Mary’s Own Gurkha Rifles
, William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh, 1957, p. 113.

18.
  IO/MSS/EUR/F462, Major General Leslie to his wife, Baghdad, 17 July 1920. However, Haldane states,
contra
Leslie, that in this matter APO Hyatt ‘acted throughout with courage and good sense’, Haldane,
The Insurrection in Mesopotamia
, p. 84.

19.
  IO/MSS/EUR/F462, Major General Leslie to his wife, Baghdad, 23 July 1920.

20.
  CAB/24/109, CP 1646: Situation in Mesopotamia. Memorandum by the Secretary of State for War, 17 July 1920.

21.
  Ibid.

22.
  Mullaly, p. 137.

23.
  Haldane,
The Insurrection in Mesopotamia
, pp. 87–8.

24.
  Lieutenant Colonel Sir Geoffrey Betham and Major H. V. R. Geary,
The
Golden Galley: The Story of the Second Punjab Regiment, 1761–1947
, Oxford University Press, 1956, pp. 86–7.

25.
  Ibid., p. 87.

Chapter 26: The Destruction of the Manchester Column

1.
   Haldane,
The Insurrection in Mesopotamia
, p. 328.

2.
   Ibid., p. 187.

3.
   Wilson,
Mesopotamia, 1917–1920
, p. 297.

4.
   IO/MSS/EUR/F462, Major General Leslie to his wife, Baghdad, 23 July 1920; see also Darwent Collection, MR4/25/48/9: Letter marked ‘strictly confidential’ from Major General F. E. Coningham to Major General Sanders.

5.
   Ibid., Major General Leslie to his wife, Hilla, 27 July 1920. Leslie does not actually name this location. Of the four different accounts of the MANCOL advance, only one – that of Colonel H. C. Wylly – actually provides a name for the spot six miles south of Hilla where the column was supposed to remain and make camp. See Wylly, vol. 2, p. 218.

6.
   Unfortunately for our understanding of this episode, Leslie gives two slightly different accounts. In his letter of 23 July he describes Lukin’s telegraph as
asking permission to march
to the position six miles south of Hilla. But in his next letter (27 July) he describes the march as
having already commenced
, with Lukin only asking him to authorise it. I have assumed that the first version is the more likely one. It is also the one which is consistent with the other sources.

7.
   Anon, ‘Operations of the 2nd Battalion [Manchester Regiment] near Hillah, Mesopotamia, 1920’,
Manchester Regiment Gazette
, vol. 2, no. 4, October 1921, p. 191.

8.
   See, e.g., Lieutenant Colonel Walter Hingston,
Never Give Up: Vol. V. of the History of the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, 1919–1942
, Lund, Humphries & Co., London, 1950, p. 5.

9.
   These and other biographical data are taken from the 1881 and 1891 Census, the
London Gazette
(
www.london-gazette.co.uk
) and
www.angloboerwar.com

10.
  Wilson,
Mesopotamia, 1917–1920
, p. 279.

11.
  Haldane,
The Insurrection in Mesopotamia
, p. 94. However, Maunsell (Colonel E. B. Maunsell, ‘The Arab Rebellion: A Disaster and a Cavalry Rear-Guard Action’,
Cavalry Journal
, vol. 14, 1924) p. 284, states that the water at Imam Bakr was in a railway tank, and while there was enough for the men there was insufficient water for the animals.

12.
  Wylly, probably following Haldane, simply states that ‘the Commandant at Hilla … ordered the force to advance … to the Rustumiyya canal’ (Wylly, vol. 2, p. 219), although Haldane adds that afterwards Colonel Lukin ‘telegraphed at 12.15 a.m. on the 24th to the divisional general [i.e. Leslie] for approval of the action proposed’ (Haldane,
The Insurrection in Mesopotamia
, p. 95).

13.
  IO/MSS/EUR/F462, Major General Leslie to his wife, Hilla, 27 July 1920.

14.
  Maunsell, ‘The Arab Rebellion’, p. 286.

15.
  Ibid., p. 288.

16.
  Wylly, vol. 2, p. 220.

17.
  Ibid.

18.
  Darwent Collection, MR4/25/48/9, letter from A. Smith dated 2/11/28; ‘court of inquiry’, ibid., MR4/25/48/1: typed manuscript, ‘Iraq 1920, the Missing Chapter’.

19.
  IO/MSS/EUR/F462, Major General Leslie to his wife, Hilla, 27 July 1920.

20.
  Ibid.

21.
  Ibid.

22.
  Haldane,
The Insurrection in Mesopotamia
, p. 102.

23.
  Ibid., p. 10.

24.
  Gertrude Bell Project, Bell to her father, Baghdad 26 July 1920.

25.
  CAB/24/110, The National Archive, London, CP 1710: Reinforcements for Mesopotamia, War Office, 30 July 1920.

26.
  Ibid.

27.
  Haldane,
The Insurrection in Mesopotamia
, p. 324.

28.
  CAB/24/111, CP 1715: Note on the Mesopotamia–Persia Situation by Sir Percy Cox, 30 July 1920.

Chapter 27: ‘Further unfavourable developments’

1.
   Haldane,
The Insurrection in Mesopotamia
, p. 139.

2.
   Haldane,
A Soldier’s Saga
, p. 378.

3.
   Wilfred Nunn,
Tigris Gunboats: The Forgotten War in Iraq, 1914–1917
, new edn, Chatham Publishing, London, 2007, p. 242.

4.
   Townshend, pp. 198, 286.

5.
   Nunn, p. 200.

6.
   The Royal Navy’s Fly-class riverine vessels were transferred to the War Office in 1918 and reclassified with
F
numbers.
F10
was the renamed HMS
Blackfly
while
F11
in the next paragraph was once HMS
Gadfly
. See
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~pbtyc/Janes_1919/Gun_Boats/Small_China_GunBoats.html
. However, with a few exceptions, as late as 1920 most of the Fly-class gunboats were still being referred to by British forces in Iraq by their old names (see numerous references in the accounts of both Haldane and Wilson).