Kurdish Kingdoms and Autonomous Principalities circa 1835, Dr. Michael Izady
Part 1: The British and Ottoman struggle for control of Mesopotamia
Richard Wilding
July 2023
This is the first in a series of articles originally written by Richard Wilding for the Kurdistan Chronicle magazine examining relations between the Kurds and the British during and after World War I.
The British public may be familiar with Iraq and Kurdistan through relatively recent events such as the US-led invasion of 2003 and the defeat of ISIS from 2014. But they are less aware of Britain’s role in establishing the state of Iraq after World War I, and in creating the circumstances which promised and then denied independence for the Kurds.
The Ottomans conquered Mesopotamia in the early 16th century, but never gained complete control. Several semi-autonomous Kurdish principalities existed in the 16th to 19th centuries, during the state of continuous warfare between the Ottoman Empire and Safavid Iran. In the decades following the Treaty of Erzurum in 1823, the Persian threat was reduced, and the Ottomans brought the Kurdish principalities under more direct control.
The Ottoman Empire c. 1900
At its height, the Ottoman Empire ruled the Middle East, much of north Africa and south-eastern Europe, but by the late 1800s the empire was in decline. The Ottomans owed more than two million pounds to European banks and trade had fallen behind powers such as Britain and France. They did, however, retain many strategic coastlines and ports, and these were coveted by the great European powers.
Britain seized control of Egypt in 1882, securing the British route to India via the Suez Canal. The British policy in Mesopotamia was to protect the Ottoman Empire against the Russians and other predators, mainly to safeguard the overland British route to India via the port of Basra and the Persian Gulf. However, with the increasing importance of oil to the British Navy, these priorities were to change.
First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill aboard the Royal Yacht in Cowes, United Kingdom, 1912
In 1911, Winston Churchill was made First Lord of the Admiralty. Churchill sought to modernise Britain’s Royal Navy by adopting oil as fuel for its ships instead of coal. The benefits of this were proven, but while Britain’s domestic production of coal was plentiful, it had no source for oil, either domestically or within its empire.
In June 1914, Churchill convinced the House of Commons to authorise the government purchase of a 51 percent share in the Anglo-Persian Oil Company to secure continued access to oil for the Royal Navy. Two weeks later, an assassin killed the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. Six weeks after that, Germany attacked France. The Great War had begun, and by its end, war without oil would be unimaginable.
Landing party from British ship on Persian Gulf, 1914
To secure the safety of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company’s Abadan oil refinery against possible Turkish attack, the British sent an Indian Expeditionary Force to the Gulf. After winning some minor engagements against Turkish forces, it marched into Basra on the 23rd of November. The safety of Basra and Abadan required defence in depth against the Turks, who still held the rest of Mesopotamia. A display of British military power was also deemed necessary to impress the Arabs, and Britain’s allies in the Persian Gulf.
This required the occupation of Baghdad, but defeat at Ctesiphon in November 1915, followed by the humiliating surrender at Kut-al-Amara in April 1916 meant the provincial capital was not taken until August 1917.
Map to Illustrate the Agreements of 1916, Mark Sykes
Meanwhile, secret agreements were being made for the partition of Ottoman territory in the event of an Allied victory. For the future of Iraq, the most important of these competing claims were those of Britain and France. The French from the start demanded control of Syria. Britain wanted to control the Persian Gulf and keep possible rivals away from Basra.
Negotiations were led by Sir Mark Sykes on the British side and François Georges-Picot on the French side. They held discussions during the winter of 1915–16, even visiting Petrograd in March 1916 to obtain Russian agreement. The result was the now infamous Sykes–Picot Agreement.
Emir Faisal leading The Arab Revolt in the Hejaz, Imperial War Museum
A parallel set of proposals had been developed by the British in Cairo, which were later said to be inconsistent with Sykes–Picot. In a series of letters exchanged with the Sharif of Mecca Hussein bin Ali, the British government agreed to recognise Arab independence after the war in exchange for the Sharif and his Hashemite family launching an Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire.
Led by Emir Faisal, second son of Sherif Husain, Arab forces expelled the Ottomans from the Hejaz, a campaign later romanticised by T.E. Lawrence. On 5th October 1918, with the blessing of the British General Allenby, Faisal declared the formation of an Arab government in Damascus.
General Marshall reading the proclamation of the Armistice with Turkey in the Sersi, Baghdad, 2 November 1918, Imperial War Museum