Iraq

E

Turkish Supremacy

The history of modern Iraq properly begins with the last phase of Turkish rule, during the 19th century. In 1831 Sultan Ali Reza Pasha deposed the last Mameluke ruler, Daud Pasha, and the province of Iraq came directly under Turkish administration. The Arabs then began to feel the weight of the new and more efficient methods of Turkish administration, particularly with regard to tax collection. Local resentment of the centralized authority of the empire began to develop, giving rise to a strong spirit of Arab nationalism. Meanwhile, the modernizing pasha, Midhat (reigned 1869-1872), transformed Baghdad, introducing a tramway system and regular steamship services; his new tax registration system altered the relationship between tribal sheikhs and their subjects and curbed nomadism.

F

British and German Intervention

In the latter part of the 19th century Britain and Germany became rivals in the commercial development of the Mesopotamian area. The British first became interested in Iraq as a direct overland route to India and in 1861 established a steamship company for the navigation of the Tigris to the port of Basra. Meanwhile, Germany was planning the construction of a railway in the Middle East, to run “from Berlin to Baghdad”, and overcoming British opposition obtained a concession to build a railway to the Persian Gulf. Despite this defeat, the British government managed to consolidate its position in the Persian Gulf area by concluding treaties of protection with local Arab chieftains. British financiers were also successful in obtaining, in 1901, a concession to exploit the oilfields of Iran; in 1909 the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (later the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company) was formed to work it.

After Turkey entered World War I as an ally of the German Empire, British forces invaded southern Mesopotamia in November 1914 and gradually pushed northwards against heavy Turkish opposition. In March 1917 the British occupied Baghdad. Mesopotamia was fully under British military control by October 1918.

G

British Mandate

Early in the war, in order to ensure the interest of the Arabs in a military uprising against the Turks, the British government had promised a group of Arab leaders that their people would receive independence if a revolt proved successful. In June 1916 an uprising occurred in the Hejaz, led by Faisal al-Husein, later Faisal I, first King of Iraq. Under the leadership of the British general Edmund Allenby and the tactical direction of the British colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia), the Arab and British forces achieved dramatic successes against the Turkish army and succeeded in liberating the Arabian territory. In 1918 an armistice was signed with Turkey, and the British and French governments issued a joint declaration stating their intention to assist in establishing independent Arab nations in the Arab areas formerly controlled by Turkey.

In July 1920 the Mesopotamian Arabs, after they learned of the decision of the Supreme Allied Council, began an armed uprising against the British government, then still occupying Iraq. The British government was forced to spend £40 million in quelling the revolt, and it concluded that it would be expedient to terminate its mandate in Mesopotamia. The British civil commissioner thereupon drew up a plan for a provisional government of the new state of Iraq: it was to be a kingdom with a government directed by a council of Arab ministers, and under the supervision of a British high commissioner. Faisal was invited to become the ruler of the new nation. In August 1921 a plebiscite elected Faisal King of Iraq; he won 96 per cent of the votes cast in the election.

H

Monarchy Established

The integrity of the newly established state was menaced from without by Arabia on the south and Turkey on the north, and from within by various groups with separatist aspirations, such as the Shiites of the River Euphrates area and the Kurds of the north. These groups acted in conjunction with Turkish armed forces endeavouring to reclaim the lands in the Mosul area for Turkey. The British were thus forced to maintain an army in Iraq, and agitation against the British mandate continued. King Faisal formally requested that the mandate under which Britain held Iraq be transformed into a treaty of alliance between the two nations. The British government concurred, and in June 1922 a 20-year treaty of alliance and protection between Britain and Iraq was signed.

In the spring of 1924 a constituent assembly was convened. It passed an organic law establishing the permanent form of the government of Iraq. Elections for the first Iraqi parliament were held in March 1925. In the same year a concession was granted to an internationally owned oil company to develop the oil reserves of the Baghdad and Mosul regions. In 1927 King Faisal requested that the British support Iraq’s application for admission to the League of Nations. The British refused to take such action at that time, but in June 1930 a treaty between Britain and Iraq provided for a recommendation by the former that Iraq be admitted to the League of Nations as a free and independent state in 1932; the recommendation was made in that year and the British mandate was formally terminated. In October 1932 Iraq joined the League of Nations as an independent sovereign state. King Faisal I died in 1933 and was succeeded by his less diplomatically skilled son, King Ghazi I.

Following independence the political parties gradually disintegrated and it became increasingly difficult to form a stable Cabinet. Frequent tribal revolts led to an enhanced role for the army, which the public increasingly saw as the only uncorrupt force in the country. There was public support for the coup d’état in October 1936. The army continued to determine the rise and fall of almost all Cabinets from 1936 to 1941. There were six more coups d’état before the outbreak of World War II.

I

Oil Agreements

In 1931 the exploitation of the oil reserves in Iraq was further advanced by an agreement signed by the Iraqi government and the Iraq Petroleum Company, an internationally owned organization composed of Royal-Dutch Shell, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, French oil companies, and the Standard Oil companies of New York and New Jersey. The agreement granted the Iraq Petroleum Company the sole right to develop the oilfields of the Mosul region, in return for which the company guaranteed to pay the Iraq government annual royalties of £400,000. In 1934 the company opened an oil pipeline from Mosul to Tripoli, Lebanon; a second one to Haifa was completed in 1936.

In 1936 the Iraq movement, under King Ghazi, began to move in the direction of a general alliance with the other nations of the Arab world in forming the so-called Pan-Arab movement. A treaty of non-aggression, reaffirming a fundamental Arab kinship, was signed with the king of Saudi Arabia in the same year. In April 1939 King Ghazi was killed in a car accident, leaving his 3-year-old son, the titular king as Faisal II, under the regency of Abd al-Illah, who was dominated by the pro-British politician Nuri as-Said. As-Said was the de facto ruler of Iraq until 1958.