BRITISH MISSIONS AROUND the GULF, 1575–2005 IRAN, IRAQ, KUWAIT, OMAN by Hugh Arbuthnott, Terence Clark and Richard Muir

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BRITISH MISSIONS AROUND THE GULF, 1575–2005 IRAN, IRAQ, KUWAIT, OMAN by Hugh Arbuthnott, Terence Clark and Richard Muir

First published 2008 by GLOBAL ORIENTAL LTD PO Box 219 Folkestone Kent CT20 2WP UK

www.globaloriental.co.uk

ISBN 978-1-905246-58-8

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A CIP catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library

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2 3 4 5 6 Introduction by J. E. Hoare vii Acknowledgements xi 8 Disclaimer xiii 9 Maps xv-xviii 2 List of illustrations xix 2 3 Part One: IRAN 4 5 by Hugh Arbuthnott 6

Chapter 1 The Embassy 3 8 1. Persia under the Qajars 3 9 2. Iran under the Pahlavis 27 3

Chapter 2 The Consulates 54 2 3 4 Part Two: IRAQ 5 by Terence Clark 6

Chapter 3 Iraq 81 8 1. The Beginning: first in Basra and then in Baghdad 1635–1800 81 9 2. Early Diplomatic Relations with Turkish Arabia 1800–1914 89 4 3. Major changes in Baghdad and Basra 1900–32 114 4. A new relationship and the end of an era 1932–58 137 2 5. Epilogue – 1958–2006 157 3 4 5 Part Three: KUWAIT 6 by Richard Muir 8 9 Chapter 4 Kuwait 169 5 1. 1904: The first agency 169 5 2. Curzon, Mubarak, the 1899 bond and its consequences 172 5 2406_Prelims.qxd 5/20/08 5:00 AM Page vi

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3. Aftermath of the First World War 188 4. Dickson, the Ikwhan and oil 193 5. The Second World War 205 6. The impact of Suez 209 7. Iraq invades: the embassy under siege 216 8. Conclusions 220

Part Four: OMAN by Terence Clark

Chapter 5 Oman 229 1. British representation in Muscat 1645–2005 229 2. The embassy site in Old Muscat 241 3. Moving with the times – a fresh start outside Old Muscat 248 Annex: Contents of the time capsule buried on 10 May 1994 in the entrance to the new British embassy, Muscat 251

Heads of Mission in the Gulf Posts 254 Bibliography 261 Name Index 271 Place Index 278

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Introduction 8 9 J. E. Hoare 2 3 4 5 6

mong the books cited in the following pages is Elizabeth Monroe, Britain’s 8 AMoment in the Middle East.1 In that study, the author confines herself to the 9 years 1914–71, thus implying that the ‘moment’ was a relatively short one. But 2 as the present book shows, the British – at first, the English – have been involved in the Middle East since before there was a British Empire, and indeed, before the 2 first English settlers established themselves in North America. If moment it was, 3 it was by no means a fleeting one. And even today, when Britain’s international 4 role is much reduced from the heady days of the Empire, the Middle East and its 5 many countries and traditions are seen as a vital concern. The ‘Camel Corps’, the 6 somewhat disparaging term used to describe those who have studied Arabic and who have worked in the region, still counts as do those who know Iran and its 8 very different traditions.2 9 Trade first brought the English to the region, and trade still remains at the 3 heart of present-day contacts. Readers will find, as with studies of areas further east, the East India Company3 (EIC) – ‘John Company’ or just ‘the company’ as 2 the years went by – was heavily involved in developing trade with the Middle 3 East from its founding in 1600 until the late eighteenth century, and indeed, had 4 some lingering trade concerns until its final disappearance in the wake of the 5 Indian Mutiny in 1857. The EIC and its several international counterparts were 6 the global operators of their day, and like such operators, they played a political as well as an economic role. As the years passed, the EIC in the Gulf region began 8 to assume a political role far beyond the original trading remit. By the eigh- 9 teenth century, the strategic dimension of the EIC’s role overshadowed its com- 4 mercial role, as the defence of India and the routes to India became increasingly important. In due course, this strategic interest led to the establishment of 2 a number of political outposts in the region, which are the origins of today’s 3 embassy and consular posts. Those sent to man these posts came from the 4 EIC’s Indian establishment until the Mutiny, and then were often drawn from 5 the ranks of the Indian civil service. However, even if appointed from the Indian 6 service, these officers were expected to fulfil a wider duty to imperial interests, a dual role that could sometimes cause tension and confusion about policy, and 8 at a more local and practical level, conflict over which government would 9 pay for what. Governors general and later viceroys in India and officials in 5 London often had very different ideas of what should take priority. No doubt 5 5 2406_Prelims.qxd 5/20/08 5:00 AM Page viii

viii INTRODUCTION

this tension could sometimes be creative, but it could also be awkward for those on the spot. And before the telegraph speeded everything up, orders would be slow in coming, though this could have its advantages as well. Until well into the nineteenth century, the Middle East was important mainly because of India, and the Great Game was played out in the region just as it was in the high Himalayas. EIC and later Government of India concerns about foreign threats to India led to determined efforts to combat French and Russian designs on India. There were also concerns about the Ottoman Empire, still a force in the region. Later, there would be German intrigues to combat during both the First and Second World Wars, and then renewed worries about Russian/Soviet policies in the region. The names of those such as Percy Sykes, Percy Cox, and Gertrude Bell crop up regularly in this account, all associated with those heady days, while Lord Curzon, to many the personification of the Great Game, appears and disappears from the scene like some mighty uncontrolled force. But this is not only a book about high politics. The people who feature in these pages were as fascinating and diverse as any other group of empire- builders. Many characters will be found here – some keeping troops of monkeys, others engaged in scholarship and not a few suffering from delusions of grandeur. There is much human drama. Political officers and later consuls and ambassadors had their homes burnt around them. Spouses suffered too, caught up in revolutions and riots.4 Remoteness and small communities produced tensions which could lead to bitter quarrels and sometimes murder. Then there are the buildings and their history. As always, ‘the diplomatic estate’ is a term that covers a wide variety of premises. Some officials lived in sumptuous palaces, close to the local centres of power. Fine carriages, sedan chairs, and later Rolls Royces, or in some cases, richly caparisoned boats, took them about their business. Even if sometimes, the grandeur was more illusion than reality – the boats in particular seem to have been quite dangerous – in such circumstances, it is not surprising that in a few cases, delusions set in. At least one ambassador seems to have taken his role as the monarch’s representative rather too much to heart. Others lived in far humbler surroundings, in places that offered little in the way of comforts or amenities. As elsewhere, visitors noted the tendency to reproduce houses and a style of living that appeared to belong more in the Home Counties than in the Middle East. But the gardens were usually much admired and much appreciated by weary travellers. The authors, all former senior British representatives at various posts in the Middle East, bring alive the lives and work of their predecessors, and their way of life. All know their subjects both from extensive reading and personal observation. Although the main focus is on the British, their concerns and how they lived, it is not surprising that three people who have been at the centre of developments in this region bring valuable perspectives on current developments in the Middle East. While history is not necessarily a guide to what will happen, understanding the past can help to illuminate present problems. Studying Britain’s long involvement in the affairs of Iran and Iraq provides insights that have rel- evance for contemporary policy-makers. It also helps to explain suspicions of Western policies towards the region. British missions around the Gulf is the second of a planned series of studies of selected British embassies, high commissions and consulates. The first volume, Embassies in the East5, appeared in 1999, published by the Curzon Press. Soon after, Taylor and Francis absorbed Curzon Press, I was posted abroad and the R project lost impetus. However, thanks to the enthusiasm of Paul Norbury, who 2406_Prelims.qxd 5/20/08 5:00 AM Page ix

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had been with Curzon but who had returned to independent publishing with a new company, Global Oriental, there was renewed interest in the idea. Sir 2 Terence Clark, a fellow member of the council of the Royal Society of Asian 3 Affairs, had already prepared manuscripts on the embassies in Iraq and Oman, 4 and recruited Hugh Arbuthnott, also now an RSAA councillor, and Richard Muir 5 to cover Iran and Kuwait. It is obvious that there were other missions that might 6 have been included, but all books must be limited somewhere, and as it is, the present one is quite substantial. 8 I was asked to act as co-ordinating editor, given my experience of producing the 9 first volume. I approached this role with some trepidation, since I have no background whatsoever in Middle Eastern affairs. But reading these accounts, I was struck by the number of links and parallels. The EIC, of course, played a major role 2 in East Asia just as it did in the Middle East, and to some extent, its agents played 3 a diplomatic role in China just as they did in the Gulf – although far less success- 4 fully, it must be said. Then of course, there was Lord Curzon, who, although never 5 playing quite as grand a role in East Asia as he did in the affairs of India or the 6 Middle East, nevertheless did have a walk-on part. In the twentieth century, many names can be found in both stories. Perhaps the best known are Sir Alexander 8 Cadogan and Lord Trevelyan. There are many others, including Vyvyan Holt, ori- 9 ental secretary in Baghdad in the late 1930s, and later consul general and then 2 minister in Seoul, who was captured at the outbreak of the Korean War and spent three years in North Korean captivity. It was reassuring for me to find these links, 2 which helped to make the Middle East somewhat less remote. 3 Editing has taken rather longer than anybody expected, and I am grateful to 4 the authors and to Paul Norbury for their patience. But although, like the 5 authors, I have lived with this manuscript for a long time, I have found it enjoy- 6 able and illuminating. I hope others will also find it so. 8 J. E. Hoare 9 London, November 2007 3

2 NOTES 3 4 1. Elizabeth Monroe, Britain’s Moment in the Middle East, 1914–1971, (London: Chatto and 5 Windus, 1981). 6 2. See the account in Ruth Dudley Edwards, True Brits: Inside the Foreign Office, (London: BBC Books, 1994), pp. 120–3. 3. There is a vast literature on the East India Company. See, for example, a couple of examples 8 among many, John Keay, The Honourable Company: A history of the East India Company, (London: 9 Harper Colllins, 1991), and Anthony Farrington, Trading Places: The East India Company and Asia 4 1600–1834, (London: British Library, 2002). The latter work accompanied an exhibition of the same name. 2 4. On spouses, as well as the accounts given below, see Beryl Smedley, Partners in Diplomacy, 3 (Ferring, West Sussex, England: The Harley Press, 1990), which includes several evocative photographs of wives and daughters from Middle East posts. 4 5. J. E. Hoare, Embassies in the East: The Story of the British and their Embassies in China, Japan 5 and Korea from 1859 to the present, (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 1999). (British Embassies 6 Series, No.1). 8 9 5 5 5 2406_Prelims.qxd 5/20/08 5:00 AM Page x 2406_Prelims.qxd 5/20/08 5:00 AM Page xi

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Acknowledgements 8 9

2 3 4 5 6 nyone reading the chapters on Iran can see how much I owe to the late ASir Denis Wright, ambassador in Iran from 1963 to 1971, not only because I 8 have drawn so extensively on his The English Among the Persians but also because 9 he and Iona, his wife, were so helpful and hospitable to both me and my wife 2 when we visited them in search of even more information. I owe special thanks also to Dr John Gurney, formerly of Wadham College and the Oriental Institute 2 at Oxford, and to Mark Bertram, formerly head of the overseas estate department 3 of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and now adviser to the FCO. John 4 Gurney has been a valuable source of material on the embassy in Tehran and 5 both he and Mark Bertram read drafts of my chapters and made many helpful 6 corrections and suggestions. Mark in addition took some of the photographs used as illustrations and steered me towards the various plans of the embassy in 8 the property management department of FCO Services in Croydon, where Clive 9 Lacey, the librarian was always most helpful. My thanks go also to John and 3 Molli Cloake who kindly let me have the results of their researches into the history of the mission in Tehran, including the piece they wrote with Denis Wright 2 for the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the mission building in Tehran 3 in 1970, and several photographs; to the staff of the information and technolo- 4 gy unit of the FCO; to Peter Bloor at the British Council; and to Elahe Yazdi of 5 the British Institute of Persian Studies. 6 Finally, I am deeply grateful to Professsor Ann Lambton for teaching me Persian, for doing so much to encourage and stimulate my interest in Iran and 8 for her friendship and kindness to me and my wife over many years. 9 4 HUGH ARBUTHNOTT, CMG 2 3 4 5 nlike my two colleagues, I started on my contributions on Iraq and Oman a 6 Ugood many years ago while I was still serving in those countries. From the first moment I walked into the Baghdad embassy I was deeply 8 impressed by the appearance and atmosphere of Qasr Kadhim Pasha and I was 9 spurred almost immediately into undertaking some research into its history by 5 the absence of in-house knowledge on which to draw for answering my own and 5 visitors’ questions. I set off on a long trail full of fascinating detours and not a 5 2406_Prelims.qxd 5/20/08 5:00 AM Page xii

xii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

few blind alleys that led finally to our first mission in Basra. Relations with Iraq were strained and personal contacts with Iraqis were officially discouraged but at every turn over the next five years I was constantly meeting Iraqis who revelled in relating their and their families’ British connections going back far into history. I could not begin to mention them all here but I owe them all a debt of gratitude for their invaluable help in tracing the British presence. Former colleagues mentioned in the text were also helpful on the more recent history and the staffs of the old India Office Library, the British Library, the Public Records Office and the Foreign & Commonwealth Office Library provided much of the background material. I single out Mrs Lynn Ritchie at Newcastle University for generous access to Gertrude Bell’s photographic and written archives and grate- fully acknowledge The Gertrude Bell Photographic Archive, School of Historical Studies, Newcastle University, for permission to use the photographs which appear in the plate section. The Iraq Petroleum Company archivists at Warwick University were also most helpful. Dr John Curtis, Keeper of the Middle East Department at the British Museum, opened up the rich seam of the British archaeological connection and encouraged me more than anyone to go into print. The old Muscat embassy enchanted nearly every inhabitant or visitor with its unrivalled setting but here I found that much of its early history had already been researched by Ruth Hawley as the wife of Britain’s first ambassador to Oman and I am deeply indebted to her for permission to draw on The British Embassy in Muscat – A Short History, published privately in Muscat in November 1980. But the impetus for this wider history came initially from the Omani Ministry of National Heritage and Culture towards the end of my tour when they asked in 1994 for a contribution to Oman’s Year of National Heritage. The request was given added point by the need to record for posterity the old buildings before the imminent move of the embassy to its present location. Here again I was helped enormously by the official sources already mentioned above as well as by some of the past incumbents of the post mentioned in the text.

TERENCE CLARK, KBE, CMG, CVO

y interest in the story of the embassy and agency buildings in Kuwait was Msparked by the celebration in 1999 of the centenary of what had become known as Britain’s ‘Treaty of Friendship’ with Kuwait. As Ambassador I was expected to know and to recount the story of the relationship. Not much was available in published form and I turned to the British Library and its India Office Collection where Dr Gill Geber and her colleagues gave me invaluable assistance in tracing the earliest records of the 1899 ‘bond’ and subsequent developments until the Second World War. In Kuwait I had encouragement and support from the Amiri Diwan and from Ambassador Abdulla Bishara, who has taken a strong and informed interest in the history of Britain’s relationship with Kuwait. Out of that initial work and several lectures based on it grew my contribution to this book. I am also indebted to Kuwait’s historians, in particular Saif Marzooq Al Shamlan who made his extensive picture collection available, and the custodians of the restored ‘Dickson House’ on Kuwait’s waterfront. The BP Archive at R Warwick University provided further material on the development of oil in 2406_Prelims.qxd 5/20/08 5:00 AM Page xiii

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Kuwait, and the Middle East Centre at St Anthony’s Oxford assistance in examining the Dickson Archive. John Levins, the chronicler of the Iraqi invasion of 2 Kuwait gave me valuable personal insights into that period, as did Larry Banks 3 who saw out most of it inside the Embassy. I am indebted also to other colleagues, 4 including Peter Hinchcliffe and Stuart Laing for their generosity with advice and 5 assistance. 6

RICHARD MUIR, CMG 8 9

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2 3 4 Disclaimer 5 The authors and editor are all former members of HM Diplomatic Service. However, no 6 part of the present text is, or should be construed to be, representative of Her Majesty’s Government policy. 8 9 The publishers and authors have made every effort to contact the copyright holders of 5 photographs reprinted in British Missions Around the Gulf, 1575–2005. This has not been possible in every case, however, and we would welcome correspondence from those indi- 5 viduals and companies we have been unable to trace. 5 2406_Prelims.qxd 5/20/08 5:00 AM Page xiv 2406_Prelims.qxd 5/20/08 5:00 AM Page xv

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2 3 4 3. Plan of Kuwait circa 1956 showing areas of new expansion. (Based on a sketch map by 5 Harold Dickson) 6

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2 3 4 5 IRAN 6 1. South front of Residence, Tehran 1 2. North front of Residence, Tehran 2 8 3. Sir Percy Loraine and staff of Legation, Tehran, 1925/6 2 9 4. North side of Legation building, Gulhek, 1925/6 3 2 5. Legation summer camp in Lar valley, 1925/6 3 6. Demonstration / religious procession passing Legation, Tehran, c.1910 4 2 7. Food being cooked in Tehran compound, c.1910 4 3 8. At Koran gate, Shiraz, 1925/6 5 4 9. Rasht Bazaar, early 1920s 6 5 10. Consulate at Shiraz, 1925/6 6 6 11. Consulate-General, Kerman, 1925/6 7 12. Consulate at Isfahan, c.1920 7 8 9 3 IRAQ 13. Site map of East India Company’s factory, Basra, c.1850 8 2 14. Site map of East India Company’s coaling station, Ma’gil, c.1850 8 3 15. Claudius Rich 8 4 16. Sir Henry Rawlinson 8 5 17. Courtyard of the Residency, Baghdad, c.1850 9 6 18. River frontage of Residency, Baghdad, c.1850 9 19. Lord Curzon 10 8 20. Sir Percy Cox 10 9 21. Sir Arnold Wilson 10 4 22. The Residency, Baghdad, and Residency yacht 10 23. Gertrude Bell’s house in Baghdad 10 2 24. Gertrude Bell memorial plaque, Baghdad Museum 10 3 25. Internees hearing the news at the Residence, 1941 11 4 26. Statue of General Maude outside Embassy gates, late 1940s 11 5 27. Rolls Royce of Nairn Transport Co. 11 6 28. Former Consulate, Mosul, 1953 12 29. Former Consulate, Mosul, 1988 12 8 30. Sir John Troutbeck’s staff at the Residence, 1954 13 9 31. Residence drawing-room, April 1958 13 5 32. Residence drawing-room, July 1958 13 5 5 2406_Prelims.qxd 5/20/08 5:00 AM Page xx

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33. Residence fountain, April 1958 14 34. Residence fountain, July 1958 14 35. Temporary Residence, 1958 14 36. Former Consulate-General, Basra, 1988 15 37. Former High Commission, Basra, 1988 15 38. Baghdad Embassy, 1985 15 39. New British Embassy, Baghdad, 2007 15

KUWAIT 40. Mubarak Al Sabah 16 41. HMS Lapwing 17 42. Curzon landing at Kuwait 17 43. Lt.Col. S.G. Knox 18 44. The Agency in 1909 18 45. Lt.Col. O.C. More 19 46. Col. H.R.P. Dickson 19 47. RAF deHavilland above the Bedouin 19 48. Aerial view of the Agency in 1928 20 49. Kuwait from the south in the 1930s 20 50. Site of the new Agency in the early 1920s 21 51. New Agency nearing completion, 1934 21 52. New Agency in the 1940s 22 53. The Embassy in the 1970s 22 54. The Embassy today 23 55. Dickson’s wide first floor verandah 24 56. Corridor leading to verandah 24 57. Entrance to the Chancery 24 58. ‘Dickson House Cultural Centre’ 25 59. Harold Dickson’s grave in Embassy compound 25

OMAN 60. Consulate-General, Muscat 26 61. Tiles made in Karachi 27 62. British Embassy, Muscat, 1973 27 63. Plans for reconstructed Embassy, c.1974 28 64. British Embassy, Muscat, 1992 28 65. Manumission Certificate 29 66. Sedan chair at British Embassy, Bahrain 30 67. Entrance to Consular Section, Bait Nasib, 1994 30 68. New British Embassy, Al Khuwair 31 69. New British Residence 32

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The Embassy 8 9

2 3 4 5 6 1. PERSIA UNDER THE QAJARS 8 9 Introduction 2 ersia is the original English name for the country now usually referred to as PIran. The name is derived from the name of the province of Fars that was the 2 heartland of the Achaemenian empire with its capital at Persepolis. The language 3 spoken by the Persians is called farsi in Persian and, in English, Persian or, often, 4 farsi although this is like referring to français instead of French. In 1935, Reza 5 Shah proclaimed the official name of the country to be Iran, an ancient name for 6 the area, related to the word Aryan. From then on, the British called the country Iran, and the people Iranians, in all official dealings and have used the word wide- 8 ly but not exclusively in all contexts. Nevertheless, the use of the terms Persia and 9 Persians is still much used in English. Persia is used here when the word was in 3 common use, and Iran thereafter. The first permanent British mission in Persia was set up in 1811, although 2 there had been sustained contacts in the previous decade. There has been a mis- 3 sion there ever since. Yet from then until now, Britain’s relations with Persia 4 have been a series of high points and low, of periods of apparent friendship and 5 then hostility, frequently strained, sometimes to breaking point. The most 6 recent examples have been during the period since the Iranian Revolution of 1978. In that year, the British embassy in Tehran was attacked and partially 8 burned, and revolutionaries attacked it again in 1979. There have been a num- 9 ber of other incidents involving the British embassy and its staff since then, 4 some of them violent. Today, the two countries are in full relations and, while all is not entirely smooth nor does anyone know what lies around the next cor- 2 ner, Britain seems to be in much the same position as its other European part- 3 ners. But for Britain, more than for any other European country, it has always 4 been touch-and-go whether good relations will last and for how long. 5 One reason for this, of course is the fact that Britain has been seen for many 6 years as partners of the United States in interfering in Iranian internal affairs and in its support for the Shah (even though many Persians could hold at the same 8 time the view that the USA was Britain’s rival for oil and influence). Iranian 9 resentment against Britain, however, goes back long before the 1978 revolution 5 and long before the Americans became the dominant world power. From the 5 5 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 4

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beginning of the nineteenth century until almost the middle of the twentieth, Persia’s geographical position and resources made it of the greatest importance to the defence of India against the ambitions of other great powers. Lord Curzon famously wrote in his introduction to Persia and the Persian Question that ‘Turkestan, Afghanistan, Transcaspia, Persia – to many these names breathe only a sense of utter remoteness or a memory of strange vicissitudes and of moribund remoteness. To me, I confess, they are the pieces on a chessboard upon which is being played out a game for the dominion of the world.’1 The telegraph line across Persia that linked London to India was another key interest for both the British and the Indian governments. The British hold on India and, therefore, as the British saw it, their position in the world, were constantly threatened by France and then Russia in the nineteenth century, and Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in the twentieth. There was the additional British fear that Russia also wanted access to a warm water port, and that its target was the Persian Gulf. A recent commentator has written that ‘The logic of territorial-based defence is that you always need more territory to defend that which you have acquired.’2 In fact, the British wanted to defend India without acquiring more territory, or anyway, not the territory of Persia. A constant theme in British policy was that it was in its interest that Persia should be a stable, strong and independent country that would be able to resist Russia or any other country hostile to British interests in India or the Persian Gulf. A former British ambassador, Sir Denis Wright, notes that this view was given its first expression as early as 1836 by Sir John McNeill, minister in Tehran from 1836 to 1842, in his book Progress and Present Position of Russia in the East,3 while as early as 1806, Sir John Malcolm had written that ‘the English have an obvious and great interest in maintaining and improving the strength of Persia as a barrier to India’.4 For much of the period, the Persian Government was not only incompetent but also weak and unable to control the area over which it was meant to govern. It was only too easy for outside powers to take advantage of this weakness. The British saw the real danger to Persian independence coming from Russia. This was as true in the twentieth century as it was in the early nineteenth when Russia conquered and kept Persia’s territories in the Caucasus. It was, after all, the Soviet Union which set up the ‘independent’ Republics of Azerbaijan and Mahabad during the Second World War and only withdrew in response to clever negotiating tactics by the Persian prime minister, Qavam as-Saltaneh and to pressure from Britain and the USA in the first major crisis that the newly formed United Nations (UN) had to face. Later, in 1979, there was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Persians may have had many reasons for disliking the British (including two military occupations of the country, both times with Russia) but their real enemy was always Russia. Persia was important to Britain for other reasons besides the defence of India. The discovery and exploitation of oil in the south west of Persia by a British company in the early 1900s further enhanced the value of a Persia friendly to Britain and unwelcoming, if not hostile, to the influence of other powers. Persia was a profitable market for British goods in the latter part of the nineteenth century (in competition with Russia, among other countries)5 and became increasingly so as profits from oil increased during the twentieth. The British also had a strong intellectual interest in Persia’s history and culture because of the fashion for exploration, the fascination with antiquity and the discovery of ancient languages, cities and monuments in the Middle East. There was an additional, R particular, interest among British officials and military in India arising both from 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 5

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the political need to understand Persia and Persian affairs and because Persian was the official language of much of India. 2 Of course, there had been interest by Britain in Persia before the nineteenth 3 century and the ‘Great Game’ but it was fairly sporadic. King Edward I (r. 4 1272–1307) sent what Curzon described as ‘an accredited plenipotentiary’ to the 5 Mongol ruler Arghun, who was ruling in Persia, to seek help against the Turks.6 6 There were other missions in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with various political and commercial objectives but the emphasis from the early seventeenth 8 century for the next nearly two hundred years was essentially commercial.* 9

The first permanent mission 2 The defence of India stimulated Britain’s first sustained contacts with Persia at 3 the end of the eighteenth century, leading to the establishment of the first per- 4 manent British mission there. Because of a threatened invasion of India by the 5 Afghan ruler, Zeman Shah, the Government of India (that is, the East India 6 Company – EIC)) in 1798 sent their representative in Bushire, a Persian called Mehdi Ali Khan, to encourage the Persian Government to attack Herat. 8 Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in the same year gave the British every reason to 9 fear that he would turn his attention towards India, the land route to which lay 2 across Persia. The EIC decided to reinforce Ali Khan’s efforts by sending one of their brightest and best young men, John Malcolm, then a Captain in the 2 Madras Regiment of the company’s army, to Persia with instructions to conclude 3 a treaty with Fath Ali, the second Qajar Shah. In 1800, Malcolm arrived by sea 4 at Bushire, which was the usual route for those going to Shiraz or Isfahan or on 5 to Tehran. He was accompanied by a large retinue and spent several months in 6 Bushire arguing with the Persians over points of protocol before finally making his slow way to Tehran. Besides the 500 or so in his retinue, Malcolm took with 8 him lavish gifts to help smooth the way in his negotiations. 9 Whether because of the gifts he brought or because of his natural abilities – 3 probably a mixture of both – Malcolm succeeded in concluding a treaty with Fath Ali Shah in 1801 by which the Persians undertook to attack Afghanistan if 2 the Afghans invaded India, and to prevent the French from settling or living in 3 Persia. In exchange, the British undertook to give the Persians weapons and to 4 send troops if the French attacked Persia. Malcolm also succeeded in concluding 5 a commercial treaty that renewed and reinforced the EIC’s trading privileges in 6 Persia. Almost as soon as Malcolm had departed, however, there were contacts between the French and Fath Ali Shah. Nevertheless, the latter invoked 8 Malcolm’s treaty and appealed for British military help against the Russians who 9 were attacking Persian possessions in the Caucasus. The British refused to help 4 because the Russians were not mentioned in the treaty, and Fath Ali Shah turned to the French. In 1807, he concluded the Treaty of Finkenstein whereby the 2 Persians agreed to sever all ties with the British and the French established a 3 diplomatic and military mission in Iran to train the Persian army. 4 These developments caused renewed alarm in London and Calcutta. Both 5 governments decided that efforts should be made to get the shah to break with 6 France and ally himself to Britain. The upshot was the bizarre situation in which both the Indian and the British governments decided to send representatives to 8 Fath Ali Shah. Personalities and politics were involved. The British Government 9 5 5 * More will be said about the British on the Persian side of the Gulf in Chapter 2. 5 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 6

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was persuaded that it would be badly received in Tehran if someone from the EIC represented Britain rather than from the British Government. It favoured the appointment of Harford Jones, a former EIC Resident in Baghdad who spoke Persian and who had support from a number of EIC Directors. Malcolm also had support in London and and of course in Calcutta for his argument that he should be the representative given his previous experience and success in Persia. Behind the personal ambitions of the two men was the rivalry between London and Calcutta as to which should control policy in Persia, a rivalry that lasted for many years. The upshot of all the manoeuvring was that the Indian Government sent Malcolm, promoted to brigadier general, and the British Government sent Sir Harford Jones. In the end, helped by the fact that the French had formed an alliance with the Russians (Napoleon’s meeting with the Tsar at Tilsit in 1807), it was Jones who succeeded in making a preliminary treaty in 1809. This was almost the image of the Treaty of Finkenstein, but gave to the British all the advantages that the French had received and to the Persians what they had previously received from the French.7 Jones’s private secretary, James Morier, took the text of the preliminary treaty to London.8 Before it was made definitive, the British Government recalled Jones replacing him with Sir Gore Ouseley, as ‘Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary’, (Jones had been only ‘Envoy’), thus establishing the first permanent British diplomatic presence in Persia. Ouseley was clearly under the authority of the British Government and not the EIC, although he was to pay strict attention to the latter’s interests. Ouseley arrived in Tehran in November 1811. On arrival, he signed the ‘Definitive Treaty’ that the Persian representative, Mirza Abul Hasan, and Morier had taken to London. On that occasion, Ouseley had been Abul Hasan’s escort and interpreter, having lived for some time in India where he had learned Persian. Ouseley’s next significant act was, at Russian request, to broker a peace between Russia and Persia in the Caucasus, confirmed by the Treaty of Golestan in 1813. Persia gave up its claims to Georgia and several Caucasian cities such as Baku and Shirvan. This set a pattern that was to be repeated a number of times in the relations between Britain, Russia (and later the USSR) and Persia. Sometimes it would suit Britain to support Persian independence and help Persia resist Russian influence. At other times, it would suit the British Government to side with Russia against Persian interests, usually because of events in Western Europe. In 1813, Britain and Russia had become allies against France and so Britain was anxious not to upset its new friends. Britain found itself obliged by the political situation in Europe ‘to steer a course between antagonizing Russia and violating its commitments to Persia, with its best option to broker a settlement of the conflict between the two’.9 Far from accepting the 1811 treaty as definitive, therefore, the British Government watered down its commitment to give military help to Persia, although it did undertake to help Persia if it were attacked by a European power, and subsidies to the shah were continued. A new version of the agreement was signed in 1814 as the Treaty of Tehran. The British did not improve their relations with the Persians by refusing to help the shah when, in a further dispute over the Caucasus in 1826, he invoked the Treaty of Tehran to ask for British help against the Russians. The Persians were defeated and, with the British involved as mediators, had in 1828 to accept the Treaty of Turkmanchai by which they lost their remaining Caucasian possessions. The river Aras then became the northwest frontier and has remained so ever since. The Persians also had to pay reparations to Russia with the penalty R that, if they were not paid, Russia would be entitled to keep the Persian province 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 7

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of Azerbaijan that it had occupied during the fighting. Fath Ali Shah was obliged to ask Britain for the money of which, ‘in exchange for the abrogation of the 2 entangling articles of the Treaty of Tehran of 1814’,10 the British gave a part. No 3 doubt they were also interested in seeing the Russians leave Azerbaijan. This self- 4 interested generosity, to which the Shah thought he was entitled anyway, earned 5 Britain no credit in Persian eyes, associated as it was with two treaties, Gulistan 6 in 1813 and Turkmanchai in 1828, both of which had humiliated Persia to the benefit of Russia. As Harford Jones put it, ‘Iran was delivered, bound hand and 8 foot, to the Court of St Petersburg.’11 9

The first mission buildings 2 The buildings in which British representatives worked and lived were designed to 3 be a reflection of Britain’s power and of the influence it sought to exercise on 4 Persian affairs. Before Sir Gore Ouseley left England for Tehran, he had obtained 5 the authority of the Foreign Office to spend £8000 on buying land on which to 6 build an embassy and furnish it. In fact, he must have spent most, if not all, of the money on building the house because the land was taken by Fath Ali Shah from 8 its owner, the Zamburakchi Bashi*, and presented to the British minister for ‘a place 9 of residence’.12 According to E. B. Eastwick, who came to the mission as secretary 2 in 1860, the wretched Zamburakchi Bashi bought some other land near-by on which he settled, only to have that taken from him by Fath Ali Shah, this time to 2 give to the Russians for an embassy.13 Although Ouseley’s successor was downgrad- 3 ed to minister plenipotentiary, and the mission thus became a legation rather than 4 an embassy, Britain had, from 1811 onwards, a permanent representative in 5 Tehran, although from time to time, he resided in Tabriz where the crown prince 6 (vali ‘ahd) was governor general and responsible for foreign relations. Between 1811 and 1812, Ouseley had built the first legation or ‘Mission 8 House’, as it was then known, into which he and his staff moved in 1813.14 The 9 site was near, and due south of, the main bazaar and was known as the Bagh-e- 3 Elchi (the garden of the ambassador). The house was built in a classical European style, made deliberately different from the local style in order to make an impres- 2 sion as the residence of the British representative, the first permanent mission 3 since the seventeenth century and the first residence any foreign mission had 4 been allowed to build in Persia. Dr Gurney quotes James Morier, one of the 5 building’s first occupants, as writing: ‘The house, with its white columns and its 6 clean, tall façade glitters more brightly than any other building in Tehran, except for the Great Mosque, which is covered in gilded tiles – it stands out among the 8 mud houses of rascals and fishwives which surround it.’15 9 During subsequent years, more land was bought, and gardens and quarters for 4 the secretary and attachés were added. Charles Stuart, private secretary to Sir Henry Ellis (ambassador on special mission – see below) in 1835 wrote that he 2 ‘had heard so much to the disadvantage of this our future habitation, that I was 3 agreeably surprised, after passing a neat garden full of cypresses and shrubs, to see 4 a fine European-built house with a Doric portico, and a broad flight of steps 5 between two projecting wings’.16 Mary Sheil, the wife of the then minister, Sir 6 Justin Sheil, wrote in similarly enthusiastic terms when she first saw the building in November 1849, while in 1851, a visitor wrote that the Bagh-e-Elchi was ‘a 8 handsome building, in comparison with Tehran houses in general, constructed 9 5 5 * General in charge of the Camel Artillery, which carried its mortars on camels’ backs. 5 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 8

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principally in the English fashion, but with a flat tin roof in the Persian style, above which floats the Union Jack of Old England. A façade, consisting of a porch supported on a range of pillars, occupies the entire front, and before this lies a neat small garden with paved walks. . . .’17 Edward Eastwick, arriving as secretary of the legation in 1860, was not quite so impressed, although he recognized that the building had some merit in that it was ‘. . . a good solid brick house with a great wing or tail of mud, bricks for the envoy and the mud for his tail, that is the secretary and attachés’. Without actually saying so, Eastwick obviously found the head of mission’s rooms perfectly suitable, in contrast with the mud tail, in part of which he was to live, which was crowded and untidy. He did, however sort out the pile of books he found in one of his rooms bearing the names of half a century of donors, from ‘Malcolm, Harford Jones, Ouseley and Hajji Baba (presumably he meant James Morier) – down to Doria (a “student interpreter”) and Rawlinson.’ Eastwick writes that his head of mission, Charles Alison, and Sir H. Rawlinson had donated many works to the mission library of more than 3000 volumes, which he arranged and catalogued.18 Besides his quarters, Eastwick also objected to the custom of the entire mission eating together with the minister ‘who supplied the table’. He thought it might have been all right, a century previously, for members of a mission to live together, when they were all one family as it were, and selected by the head of mission himself, ‘. . . but at present, men of the most opposite principles and feelings, and entire strangers to one another, are brought together under a chief to whom they have no tie or attachment’ – and whose table manners they might find upsetting. Eastwick’s opinion was no doubt coloured by his attitude to his chief, Charles Alison. Alison had been appointed in 1860, when his predecessor, Sir Henry Rawlinson, who deciphered the rock inscriptions at Bisitun, near Kermanshah, had resigned because, as a Government of India man, he had not liked serving under the Foreign Office when control of the mission passed to it from the India Office. Allison came from Istanbul where he had been a highly regarded oriental secretary. Some have regarded his appointment to Tehran as a curious one because of his lack of previous Persian or Indian experience, but the Foreign Office have frequently not considered lack of experience of the country to which they send representatives to be a drawback. He was a widower when he arrived in Tehran and took an Armenian mistress who was named Victoria. Eastwick clearly took against him and in 1862 wrote formally to the Foreign Office accusing Alison of a ‘variety of sins’, as Denis Wright puts it, including uttering ‘abom- inable obscenities and blasphemies’ and ‘surrounding himself with infamous characters, pimps and prostitutes’.19 However, the Foreign Office did not support Eastwick who was in due course removed from the service while Alison stayed until he died in 1872 and, as we shall see later, was responsible for the move of the mission from the Bagh-e-Elchi to new premises further north in the city.

The camp at Gulhek From the time of the signature of the Treaty of Tehran between Britain and Persia in 1814 until the mid-thirties, there were no major upsets in relations between the two countries (an incident in 1822 when the then British envoy fled for his life because the Shah threatened to cut off his head for non-payment of a subsidy did not become a serious breach between the two countries and the envoy R returned not long afterwards). But reading accounts of how the British mission 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 9

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got on with its Persian hosts, one has the impression of continuous bickering. The British Government’s refusal to help when the Russians attacked the 2 Caucasian provinces in 1826 has already been discussed. Not only did Persia lose 3 the last of its Caucasian provinces by the Treaty of Turkmanchai, but it was also 4 obliged to grant the Russians certain extraterritorial rights, known as capitula- 5 tions. The rights included the exemption of Russian citizens from trial in Persian 6 courts. The British demanded and got the same rights as a most-favoured nation and later similar rights were granted to anyone, including Persians, in the mis- 8 sion’s employ. There were also disputes about decorations, presents and protocol 9 which appear to have taken up a great deal of time – of which they probably had plenty, particularly in the days before the telegraph – which needed filling according to Parkinson’s Law. British soldiers were busier. The British military 2 mission set up under the Treaty of Tehran was active during this period and, in 3 particular, successfully supported the claims of Mohammed Shah to the throne 4 after the death of Fath Ali Shah in 1834. But even then there were disputes 5 between the Persian Government and the British officers about their role; 6 whether the British were there simply as instructors, as the Persians wanted, or as part of the Persian army as the British thought they should be. 8 During this time, the diplomatic mission found time to try to make the life of 9 its members more agreeable by obtaining a property in the hills north of Tehran, 2 which they could use to escape the heat of the summer in the centre of town.20 This was at the village of Gulhek, in the district of Shemiran, seven miles or 2 so north of the city of Tehran as it was then, at 4500 feet above sea level and 3 700 feet above the level of the city. It appears that the head of the mission at the 4 time, Sir John Campbell* received, probably in 1833, the right to use the village 5 of Gulhek as the legation’s summer quarters. There is no trace of any formal doc- 6 ument to this effect but in 1836, Mohammed Shah, Fath Ali Shah’s successor, issued a decree (firman) granting to Sir Henry Ellis† and all succeeding British 8 representatives the same rights as had been granted to Campbell.21 Besides the 9 right to use the village as summer quarters, they were given the right to collect 3 an annual tax of 30 tomans (£16 in 1935 money – perhaps £430 in 2005). The firman of 1836 was supplemented by two further documents, one being an order 2 by the governor of Tehran saying that government servants were not to interfere 3 with the villagers nor were they to be subject to taxation or conscription. The 4 other, probably by the prime minister, also says that no demands for taxes 5 should be made of the villagers. (Similar rights were given to the Russians in the 6 nearby village of Zargandeh). Both the legation and the villagers seemed to have acquired rights and duties 8 over the years. In 1900, the vice-consul concerned himself with the provision of 9 a schoolmaster for the village, the hiring of three policemen from the minister 4 of police for the summer season, (perhaps because the government would not provide them under the terms of the original grant of rights?) and the cleanli- 2 ness of the village bath-house. In 1906, the legation reported that ‘the basis and 3 extent of the jurisdiction of the British Government are vague and ill-defined 4 but in practice the British Mission exercises the powers of an autocrat’. In 1927, 5 the legation reported that the rights they enjoyed consisted of: 6

8 9 * Chargé d’affaires 1830–4; consul general and plenipotentiary 1834–5 5 † Sent on a special mission by the Foreign Office to convey William IV’s condolences on the 5 death of Fath Ali Shah to the new shah and to negotiate a commercial treaty. 5 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 10

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(a) registration of all sales and leases of property. (b) collection of the following annual taxes: a house tax of 1 toman, a sanitary tax of 1 toman, a 1% tax on water rights, a 1% tax on transfers of real property, a 5% tax on leases; in return for which the legation undertook the maintenance of roads and bridges, the repair of water courses, lighting and sanitation. (c) certain undefined proprietary rights, by which the villagers enjoyed inviolability of domicile, British consular protection and exemption from military service. The legation were also responsible for law and order and the administration of justice. It was the responsibility of the vice-consul to administer the village which he did through the katkhoda, the village headman traditionally chosen by a landlord as his agent and whose successors usually came from the same family. In Gulhek, one family held the position for nearly 100 years.22 For the first twenty years, the legation camped on their new land in the summer. Lady Sheil described the camp as it was when she stayed in it at the end of May 1850: Ours is certainly a camp on a large scale. We have sleeping-tents, nursery- tents and my private sitting-room-tent, all enclosed in a high wall of canvas, and forming the anderoon. Then detached are the dining-tent, drawing- room-tent, and tents for each of the gentlemen of the Mission. To me it looks very magnificent, yet I am told that it is paltry in comparison with the good old times that are gone. From the size of these tents, some of them being thirty feet in length, their double roofs and double walls several feet apart, I had anticipated a comfortable residence during the summer. But I am disappointed beyond measure; the dust and heat being intolerable in spite of a stream of water which I had caused to flow through my tent.23 Lady Sheil mentions that the Russians were at Zargandeh and the shah himself was at ‘his summer palace at Niavaran, close under the hills, and the whole country is covered with white tents and encampments’. One wonders if everyone felt as hot as Lady Sheil. Presumably they did and the summer heat, even at Gulhek, was no doubt one of the major reasons why the British established a further camp in the Lar valley. This camp was set up annually and continued to be (except perhaps during the two world wars) until the valley was flooded in the late 1970s to provide water for Tehran. In the 1960s and early 1970s, it was still set up each summer and dismantled in the autumn and an embassy farrash* stayed there to guard the camp when it was empty, and to cook and clean for the campers when they came. The tents, ex-Indian Army (officers, for the use of, presumably), were large and very comfortable. There were trout to fish in the stream and horses to ride, courtesy of the Iranian army by that time, whose land it had become, and who helped set up the camp each year. Until the early 1970s, the last stage of the journey there from Tehran had to be by horse and mule, but by the mid-1970s there was a metalled road all the way. Members of the embassy could book it and take their friends. As we have seen, the original firman only granted the mission rights to the land at Gulhek and its members were still living in tents as Lady Sheil described them in 1850. It was Charles Alison, the head of post from 1860 to 1872, who first rented a house and garden. Edward Eastwick wrote that, on his arrival at Gulhek, there was

* Literally ‘spreader of carpets’ but used for the messengers, office boys and other embassy R servants. 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 11

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. . . a garden rented by the Mission. . . . and a mud building which I found to be the chancellerie. Close to it a large tent was pitched, in which breakfast was 2 laid for the Mission, and beyond this was a small mud house, in which Mr 3 Alison was lodged. I found him wearing the dress of a Turkish schoolmaster, 24 4 which is pleasant for coolness but not very becoming. 5 Eastwick discovered that its tenure of the land, and especially of the garden 6 Alison had rented, was far from secure. The garden was in vaqf, land endowed for religious purposes to the Imam Jumah, chief Imam, of Tehran, who would 8 only renew the lease on exorbitant terms. Eastwick writes, however, that ‘Mr 9 Alison placed the matter entirely in my hands, and it was my good fortune, with the help of the chief Persian secretary, to obtain all the ground as a free gift to the Mission from the Shah.’25 What happened was that the Persian Government 2 bought the land from the heirs of the Imam Jumah, and Nasr-ed-Shah passed it 3 to the British mission by means of a firman in 1862. Certain water rights in the 4 qanats, underground channels, punctuated by shafts and fed by springs, bring- 5 ing water from a water table to the surface by gravity, with the outlet sometimes 6 very far distant from the source, were acquired with the property. The importance of these qanats was great because they were the only source of water for 8 the mission and garden. A report by the legation on the qanats at Gulhek in 1894 9 runs to over 3000 words and, referring to difficulties with the Russian legation 2 at Zargandeh over the Mission’s wish to build a new qanat, recommended a diplomatic approach in St Petersburg by the former minister in Tehran, Sir Frank 2 Lascelles, who had by then become ambassador in Russia.26 3 4 5 Britain and Persia 1830–60 6 While the mission was installing itself in Gulhek in the early to mid-1830s, there had been increasing concern in London about the growth of Russian influence in 8 Persia. The strengthening of the military mission in 1833 was an attempt to 9 counter this influence and indeed, had a good chance of success as a result of the 3 help given by the British military to the new shah. However, perhaps the differences over the role of the military mission were a symptom of deeper problems. 2 Not only did relations become strained and broken off for a period from 1838 to 3 1842 but in 1856 the two countries were at war. This was sparked off by Persian 4 attempts to capture Herat in Afghanistan, not far from Persia’s north eastern fron- 5 tier, which they considered to be theirs, as it had indeed been at various times. 6 The British, on the other hand, were afraid that if Persia took and kept Herat, the Russians would claim the right, under the Treaty of Turkmanchai,27 to have rep- 8 resentatives there, a situation that would present a danger to India. So when 9 Persia threatened Herat in 1833, the British tried to dissuade the shah from mak- 4 ing what proved to be an unsuccessful siege. When the Persians again laid siege to the city in 1838, the British minister, John McNeill, broke off relations with the 2 government and withdrew first to Tabriz and then in 1839 to Erzerum in Turkey. 3 In the meantime, a force from India had occupied Kharg island in the Gulf. The 4 shah backed down and withdrew. Even so, the British force stayed on Kharg until 5 1842. There was a similar incident in 1852 when Nasir al-Din Shah, who came to 6 the throne in 1848, attacked and occupied Herat but he also withdrew when faced with British threats of retaliation. 8 Finally, in 1856, the shah occupied Herat once again. This time, the EIC issued 9 a proclamation that Britain was at a state of war with Persia. In Britain, the gov- 5 ernment had been ready to go to war because of a quarrel between the British 5 minister, Charles Murray, and the Persian Government over the employment of 5 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 12

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a Persian subject by Murray. Many thought that Murray had behaved badly and the war was not popular in Britain; Palmerston had therefore not wanted to recall parliament, then in recess, which a declaration of war would have entailed. So the Indian Government’s proclamation did the job instead. British troops from India occupied Kharg Island in December 1856, took Bushire and some other places on or near the coast, and defeated a Persian force at Khoshab. Other troops sailed up the Shatt al-Arab and the Karun to Ahwaz where they heavily defeated the Persian forces and took the town. When the British commander heard in April 1857 that a peace treaty had been signed in Paris a month previously, he and most of his troops departed (some stayed on Kharg until 1858). By the terms of the treaty, the shah gave up all claims on Herat, a humiliating outcome for the Persians, made worse for them by being obliged also to accept the return of Charles Murray as minister plenipotentiary. The British also obtained the right to appoint consuls in Iran at their discretion.28

The new legation buildings The excitements of these times were followed by another period of calm when the mission was able to turn its attention to its own comfort. We have already seen that it was during this period that the minister, Charles Alison, bought land at Gulhek and put up the first buildings there. He also turned his attention to the legation at the Bagh-e Elchi that was in a very bad state of repair. It was also in an area that had gone a long way down in the world. Eastwick, as we have seen, complained that the mud extensions to the original buildings, where he was housed for a time, were barely habitable. He also complained about the continual noise from all around and thought that the Russians and French were far better housed. It was impossible to use carriages because the streets were too narrow and the area was dirty, unhealthy and liable to flooding.29 A report of November 1866 described the Bagh-e Elchi as ‘. . . damp and low, surrounded partly by poor mussulman habitations, thickly populated and frequently visited by fever. The neighbouring streets are narrow, abound in wells and holes, and have generally an open sewer in the centre.’30 Alison wrote that the houses could not be expected to last long and that ‘. . . as fast as one room or wall is patched up, another crumbles down’.31 He might have mentioned that an earthquake in 1830 had caused damage, but regardless of the reasons for the poor state of the existing buildings, there were obviously excellent arguments for a new building in a different area. In addition, Alison had powerful friends at home, including in the Foreign Office. Perhaps as a result of his Herat experiences, Nasir al-Din Shah had also turned his attention to domestic matters. The population of Tehran had increased and building was taking place outside the old walls of the town, especially to the north. In 1867, the shah took the decision to pull down the old walls and increase the area of the town from three to seven and a half square miles.32 Just before then, London had agreed to spend £32,000, from which the proceeds of the sale of the old building would be deducted, for the purchase of land and for building a new legation on it. Things had therefore come together well and, in 1868, Alison found a site within the new area made available by the shah, although he had had to move smartly to match the pace at which land prices were going up. The land was due north of the Meidan-e Tupkhane (Artillery Square) on a straight line up to the new Darvaze-ye-Shemiran (the Shemiran Gate) on what later became, and still is, Khiaban-e Ferdowsi. (Ferdowsi Avenue). R The total area was over sixteen acres. The price paid was 20,000 tomans, then 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 13

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worth about £8000. The idea was to create a self-contained complex, including a residence for the head of mission, which would include an office section, or 2 chancery, and houses for the staff, quarters for the servants and stables for the 3 horses. 4 The first task was to measure and enclose the land. Murdoch Smith, director 5 of the Indo-European Telegraph Company’s office in Tehran, took this on and 6 also agreed to supervise the construction of the new buildings. The architect was to have been Henry Pulman, the resident English architect in Constantinople 8 but he died shortly after arriving in Tehran. Murdoch Smith then became too 9 busy laying telegraph lines to continue helping Alison, but suggested that one of his team, Lieutenant William Pierson, should take it on. Pierson was seconded from the Telegraph Department to the Board of Works to do so. All agree that 2 he was an excellent choice in view of his first-rate record as an engineer in 3 India (with the Bengal Engineers), but he was also known to be a brilliant all- 4 rounder, a fine sportsman and highly cultured. Pierson went to London in 1869, 5 just before the negotiations for the purchase of the land were completed to 6 look for an architect and found one through the South Kensington Museum (later the Victoria and Albert Museum) with which the Royal Engineers had close 8 links. 9 The architect was James William Wild, who, according to Gurney, was ‘an 2 architect of striking originality whose ideas and achievements are only now beginning to be reclaimed by architectural historians over 100 year after his 2 death’. Wild’s originality lay in successfully blending in one building several dif- 3 ferent styles from different traditions, the prime example of his work being 4 Christ Church, Streatham, in London, which combined early Christian, 5 Romanesque, Ottoman and Islamic features. His circle of friends included artists 6 who were influenced by Oriental styles and he had lived for a time in Egypt when he built a church for the British community in Alexandria, which com- 8 bined European and Islamic styles. Much later on, in London in 1867, he was 9 commissioned by the Foreign Office to design a building for the British con- 3 sulate in Alexandria, which this time he did in the classical style of an Italian villa, but the project was abandoned. At the time Pierson met him, he was work- 2 ing in the South Kensington Museum as an expert on Islamic art and also in the 3 design office. 4 Wild was in principle obviously the right man for the job, even if he had had 5 no direct experience of Persia nor had he ever designed for a site like the one in 6 Tehran. But on the basis of the rough plans made by Pierson, he produced a first sketch for the residence that was essentially what was built. As Gurney says, ‘The 8 site did not front onto a square; it was not even in an urban context. It was a 9 huge area, in relation to his [Wild’s] other projects, with no other buildings near- 4 by; there was no presence on the street; it was a self-contained compound, facing inwards, behind high walls’. The Residence building consisted of a central 2 part facing north, which housed the staterooms, and wings at right angles to the 3 north on either side. The east wing culminated in a clock tower in the Byzantine 4 style, while the bedrooms and domestic offices were in the west wing. On top of 5 the central part was a viewing platform or kiosk, open on all sides, which has 6 often been compared to the howdah on an elephant. The whole building was in a mixture of styles, with Italian, Moghul and Persian elements, besides the 8 Byzantine, all combined in it. There had been no other building like it in Iran in 9 spite of its Persian features but the Shah and others subsequently imitated it. The 5 Moghul elements are entirely appropriate, given the part Persia was playing in 5 the Great Game and because the Indian Government was contributing towards 5 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 14

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the costs of maintaining the British presence in Persia. It was, and is, also a building sufficiently grand to impress anyone who visits it. Once his outline had been agreed, Wild began to produce detailed plans. Pierson returned to Tehran from London in October 1869 and building work started soon afterwards. He had to overcome a number of difficulties at the beginning, such as a shortage of trained labour and problems with contractors and government officials. Nevertheless by the spring of 1870 considerable progress had been made and the main structures of the residence and the principal staff houses had been completed. The roof for the residence was made of iron and imported from Glasgow. There were delays in its design and then in transport; it came in 1,906 pieces by sea to Bushire where some bits fell into the harbour and 400 camels took three months to bring it from Bushire to Tehran. These delays meant it was not put on until mid-August 1871. £10,000 was spent in the first year of construction, which caused Mr Gladstone to warn Lord Clarendon, then secretary of state for foreign affairs, that the House of Commons would most likely complain of such extravagance, and with good reason. The effects of a widespread drought then began to be felt in Tehran, leading to high prices as a result of shortages and to half-starved workers. Pierson therefore stopped the building work for the winter of 1871–2. This was not the only complication. Pierson wanted the interior design to be done in London by Wild in order to show the Englishness of the residence and to show off English taste. In any case, the rich Persians who would be coming to the house decorated their own houses so sumptuously that the British, constrained by the Board of Works, which was responsible for overall supervision of the building, could not hope to match them. A large number of items had also to come from Britain, partly to make the décor suitably British, and partly because the Persians at the time did not have the capacity to make everything that was needed. Thus the iron roof was sent out, as we have seen, and the clock for the tower (which was finished in 1871), but also smaller items like locks, bolts, lighting, fireplaces, water closets, mirrors, and wall paper, the design of all of which Pierson wanted Wild to supervise, were also sent from England. Wild had a great deal else on his plate and could not keep up, particularly because he sometimes had bad health. So the construction programme fell further behind and Pierson found himself having to take decisions about the design that were sometimes different from Wild’s ideas. Then Pierson himself wanted to get back to his job in the Telegraph Department, both for family reasons and because he feared he might lose out on promotion. Murdoch Smith, who had been on leave for two years, returned and by the autumn of 1873, Pierson had left. The staff had been able to move into their new houses by the end of 1872, on their return from their summer at Gulhek, apart from Alison, who had died earlier in the year, never having lived in the new residence. So although much progress had been made, the decoration of the main rooms in the residence was still incomplete and some, including various of the extra designs needed from Wild, especially for the plasterwork in the main public rooms, did not arrive until March 1874. Pierson had arranged for Murdoch Smith to keep an eye on things, which was all that was required since there was now a trained and skilled Persian workforce in place. However, other problems arose and Murdoch had to ask the Board of Works to provide assistance. They sent out Caspar Purdon Clarke who arrived in early August 1874. Wild perhaps chose Clarke for the job, who knew him well, and had worked with him in London. In the following two years, Clarke completed the interior R of the residence and furnished it with materials and objects which came partly 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 15

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from Britain and partly from Iran, including the immensely long (and wide) dining-room table still in use. 2 If the residence and the other houses were a tribute to those who conceived 3 and built them, so were the gardens, the most outstanding feature of which are 4 the plane trees, planted by Pierson in the winter of 1871–2. After visiting Tehran 5 in 1889–90, Lord Curzon wrote that 6 . . . by far the most spacious and imposing [of the foreign embassies in the area] is the Legation which shelters the representative of Her Britannic 8 Majesty. At the distance of nearly half a mile from the great square [?Meidan- 9 e Tupkhane], a fine gateway, upon which Her Majesty’s initials are carved in stone, conducts on the left hand into a large wooded enclosure, where nothing at first is visible but a dense growth of trees, interspersed with winding 2 pathways and runnels of water. This delightful grove, which was the result of 3 only twenty years’ growth, shows of what the Persian soil under irrigation 4 is capable, conceals the main building of the Legation, as well as four other 5 substantial detached houses, accommodating the various secretaries. The 6 principal structure is a low building occupying three sides of a court, and terminating at one end in a campanile, or clock-tower, of Byzantine design, in which a large clock tells the time after the English fashion and according to 8 the hours of the English day. On one side is the Chancellery; in the centre are 9 the reception rooms and Minister’s quarters; on the other side are the spare 2 rooms. The building opens by a verandah at the back to a lovely garden, where swans float on brimming tanks of water and peacocks flash amid the 2 flower beds . . . The coolness and seclusion of the entire enclosure is one of 3 33 the most agreeable and uncommon features in Teheran. 4 Gertrude Bell, better known for her letters from Iraq than from Iran, wrote a sim- 5 ilarly enthusiastic description of the Tehran compound (as it came to be known, 6 in contrast to the Gulhek compound) when she stayed in Tehran with her uncle and aunt, Sir Frank and Lady Lascelles, in the summer of 1892: 8 9 It’s like the Beast’s garden, a perfect nightmare of roses. In the middle are 3 three deep tanks with weeping willows hanging over them from which runs a network of tiny water channels which the ten Zoroastrians who are the gardeners open and shut most cunningly, sluicing the flowerbeds with water. 2 Inside a big rambling house, long, long passages with liveried people in every 3 corner who rise and bow their heads as we pass, big, big rooms opening one 4 out of the other, two dining rooms, two drawing rooms, Uncle Frank’s study 5 and bedroom, two rooms for Auntie Mary, a billiard room and countless little 6 sitting rooms and cupboards; two long stone passages opening at each end with Chanceries, kitchens, etc. in them . . . Behind the house all the garden is 8 ours and no one comes into it; a long terrace runs before the house with steps 9 leading down; in front of the house is another stretch of garden at the end of 4 which all the secretaries live.34 In 1879, it was decided to sell the Bagh-e Elchi in order to avoid the expense of 2 major repairs; in any case, the legation no longer needed it. Two possible pur- 3 chasers fell by the wayside because the legation had no title to the land, which, 4 as we have seen, was confiscated from its owners by Fath Ali Shah in 1811. 5 Everyone concerned in London then agreed with a suggestion from the mission 6 that the original property given by Fath Ali Shah should be given back to the Persian Government in return for certain water rights at Gulhek but the offer 8 was refused. The solution eventually found was to persuade the descendant of 9 the Camel Artillery general to issue a disclaimer for the land taken from his 5 ancestor, in return for which the legation handed over to him the oriental sec- 5 retary’s house which had been built on land bought by the legation and to 5 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 16

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which they therefore had the title. The original land was finally sold in 1882 to a certain Mirza Mehdi Khan, who was satisfied that the original owner’s family would not be able to claim it.35

Britain and Persia 1870–1914 During the nineteenth century, Persia was changing slowly from a medieval to a modern state. It was not a change the Persians had looked for at the start of the century, but it was forced upon them by contact with the West, most particularly Russia and Britain. The disastrous wars with Russia made it quite clear to the Persians that they needed a modern army. There had been a start made under Fath Ali Shah with the short-lived French training team in 1807 and then the British military mission. By the end of the reign of Mohammed Shah, the army had scarcely improved and was in a state of decay. Nasir al-Din’s first minister (Sadr-e A’zam), Mirza Taqi Khan (whose title was Amir Kabir) tried to do something about it during the short period he was in power before his assassination. However, the Persian defeat at Herat in 1858 was clear evidence that he had not been very successful. Nevertheless, he did make a number of changes in recruitment for the army and also, in 1851, founded a school for officers, the Dar al-Fanun, both useful steps in the right direction. Professor Lambton has argued that if the attempts at military reform had been more successful, there would have been greater stability and order in the country which would have made it less necessary for Russia and Britain to interfere and fewer excuses for their doing so. Neither country wanted a civil war in Persia. The British were afraid of a Russian march on Tehran from Azerbaijan in support of a crown prince’s claim to the throne. The Russians feared a British occupation of the south of Persia that would block Russia’s ambitions in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean. But, as Lambton also points out, all military reform, and therefore Persian independence, ‘demanded a fundamental change in the finances and administration of the country’.36 In fact, money was the real key to independence. For the government to have a secure and regular income, it needed to have a sound and effective administration. Nasir al-Din Shah was incapable of initiating the sort of reform of the administration that was needed. Delegation to ministers backed by a trusted, compe- tent and incorruptible civil service was not part of the shah’s concept of Persian kingship or, for that matter, of most of his people.* And because of Persian dependence on Britain and Russia, ‘society was divided into those who looked to Russia and those who looked to Britain’.37 His predecessors, Fath Ali Shah and Mohammed Shah, had looked to Britain and Russia for subsidies and loans to finance the government (and themselves). Like them, Nasir al-Din looked for loans but also encouraged foreign investment in the hope that this would stimulate development and therefore prosperity. The idea was obviously right in principle but the way it was carried out, through the grant of monopolies and concessions to foreigners, was highly unpopular in the country. Almost straight after he took over the legation, Alison’s successor, William Taylor Thomson, ran into the furore caused by Nasir al-Din Shah’s grant of a huge concession to a British subject, Baron Julius de Reuter in 1872. Curzon described it as the ‘most complete and extraordinary surrender of the entire

* It did not even become so in the reign of Reza Shah Pahlavi, and if his son, Mohammed Reza R Shah, realized intellectually this was a good way forward, he never put it into practice. 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 17

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industrial resources of a kingdom into foreign hands that has probably ever been dreamed of, much less accomplished, in history’.38 Reuter was given an absolute 2 monopoly of both railroads and tramways for seventy years; the working of all 3 mines, except gold, silver and precious stones, also for seventy years; the monop- 4 oly of forests, the exclusive construction of canals, and all irrigation works; the 5 first refusal of a national bank, and of all future enterprises connected with the 6 introduction of roads, telegraphs, mills, factories, workshops and public works of every description; and a farm of the customs of the country for twenty- 8 five years. For his part, Reuter was required to pay to the Persian Government 9 various percentages of the revenues from these activities. All this must have exploded round Thomson’s head like a bombshell. Although the average Persian assumed that the British Government had 2 intrigued to get the concession for Reuter, in fact they (and most possible British 3 investors) were well aware that the political complications the concession would 4 give rise to would far outweigh the advantages it might bring. It would have 5 meant continual scrapping between Britain and Russia that would have set back 6 the achievement of independence and stability for Persia, which was the aim of British policy. The Russians did indeed react furiously, adopting ‘an attitude of 8 resentment mingled with menace’39 and, in November 1873, the shah was 9 obliged to cancel the concession – but the affair had by then given the Persians 2 another grievance against the British. This grievance was reinforced when in 1890, the shah, who seemed to have learned nothing from the Reuter experi- 2 ence, granted a monopoly for the sale of tobacco and control over its production 3 for fifty years to another British subject, Major Gerald Talbot. The then British 4 minister in Tehran, Sir Henry Drummond Wolff, supported the concession on 5 the grounds that it would increase Persia’s prosperity. But, as with the Reuter 6 concession, the Russians were totally opposed and brought all the pressure they could on Nasir al-Shah to withdraw it. 8 The Russians were not alone. As Lambton puts it ‘. . . growing dissatisfaction 9 with the state of the country and hostility towards foreign intervention, which to 3 some extent was the direct result of continuing maladministration, found convenient expression in opposition’ to the Tobacco Corporation which had been 2 formed to hold the monopoly.40 There were protests first in Shiraz and then in 3 Tabriz from the tobacco merchants and from ordinary people, both supported by 4 the clergy who were close to the bazaar and played an important role in the reli- 5 gious and civil affairs of ordinary people. The Russians were also stirring up oppo- 6 sition. The shah stood firm at first, but grew increasingly alarmed by the threat of armed revolution, first from Tabriz, then from Meshed followed by Isfahan 8 where the mullas declared tobacco unclean and forbade people to smoke. By the 9 end of 1891, there was a boycott of tobacco throughout most of the country; even 4 in the shah’s own harem, the women refused to smoke. The threat of revolution forced the shah to cancel the concession in early December 1891, although his 2 problems were far from over even then. He was faced with demands from the 3 Tobacco Corporation for compensation for which, of course, he had to borrow 4 money. In the end, after the British had stood out against a Russian loan, the 5 £500,000 which it was agreed should be paid to the Tobacco Corporation was lent 6 by the Imperial Bank of Persia, owned by the British, which had been set up as part of the deal with Baron Reuter. The six percent interest on the loan was 8 secured on the customs receipts from the Persian Gulf ports.41 9 Some significant points are thrown up by the tobacco episode. First, although 5 the concession was given to a British subject, and although the British 5 Government had agreed with Wolff’s reasons for supporting it at the beginning, 5 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 18

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when it came to the choice, their policy was once again to favour a stable and independent Persia over a commercial concession. The Foreign Secretary, Salisbury, instructed the new minister, Sir Frank Lascelles, in December 1891, to ‘. . . remember that the first thing we have to care for is the maintenance of the Persian state . . .’42 The affair demonstrated the beginning of a public opinion in Persia and a growing consciousness among the Persians of a national identity. It also illustrated the power of the religious classes and their ability to rally the people to the defence of Islam against foreigners and foreign interference.43 Finally, the affair of the tobacco concession revealed the extent of the people’s discontent with their corrupt and incompetent government. The reactions to the Reuter and tobacco concessions were the prelude to further discontent and then revolution in the early years of the twentieth century. Nasir al-Din shah was assassinated in 1896 and was succeeded by Mozaffer al- Din Shah who was old and sick and wanted to raise money for a trip to Europe for medical treatment. In 1898, some Belgians were put in charge of customs’ posts in the west of the country to ensure that the duties were paid on imports and exports. In 1900, the shah raised a loan of nearly £2.5 million from the Russians, some of which the Russians insisted had to be used to pay off the Imperial Bank loan. Customs duties were used to pay the interest on the Russian loan so the Belgians became tarred with the same brush – and, in any case, took over more and more of the fiscal administration over the next few years. There followed a period of intense turbulence in which there was an upsurge of demands for better and fairer rule by the shah not only inspired by a dislike of foreigners and a newly-found nationalism, but also by movements for greater democracy and freedom in Europe and Russia. In December 1904, two thousand mullahs and merchants took sanctuary (bast) in the shrine of Shah Abdul-Azim, to the south of Tehran, in order to force the shah to introduce reforms into the making and administration of the law so that it was less arbitrary and tyranni- cal. The shah promised what had been asked for and the bast came to an end, but the promises were not kept and the reformers staged another bast in 1906, not in Shah Abd el-Azim but in the grounds of the British legation in Tehran. This was not the first time that people had taken sanctuary in the legation. Consulates and telegraph offices (because the line was thought to lead directly to the shah) were also places of refuge from the law or persecution. The British authorities had considered trying to stop the practice on British premises but had decided that it would be too unpopular to do so. After demonstrations in favour of a constitution in July 1906, soldiers shot dead a seyyed* and later fired on a crowd killing a dozen people, including several seyyeds, when trying to stop a procession through the bazaar. Accounts differ about what happened and the exact sequence of events, but what is clear is that the principal clergy left Tehran, (according to one account after getting permission from the shah to depart to Qum), gathering supporters on the way and saying that they were going to Najaf and Karbala. In fact, they went only as far as Qum where they halted. In the meantime, mullahs, students, merchants and others took refuge in a Tehran mosque, where soldiers besieged them. Following the closure of the bazaar by the military, a group of merchants asked the British chargé d’affaires if he would allow a bast in the Tehran compound of the legation. He agreed, his decision no doubt made easier for him by the fact that he and the rest of the legation staff had moved up to Gulhek for the summer. According to the account given by

R * Descendant of the prophet. 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 19

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the new minister, Cecil Spring-Rice, in his annual review for 1906, which, as was normal at the time, was mainly written by his staff, the bast started with thirty to 2 forty ‘representatives of the mercantile and clerical classes’ taking refuge in the 3 Tehran compound on 19 July.44 From 21 to 29 July, the numbers increased from 4 700 to 12,000 and on 2 August the heads of the merchant guilds said there were 5 14,000 people there. E.G. Browne quotes an anonymous eyewitness of the bast 6 (square brackets in the original), who wrote that: About a month ago [i.e. in July 1906] it was rumoured that a number of 8 people intended to take bast [sanctuary] at the British Legation in town . . . I 9 went down and found some forty and odd merchants and mullas in the Legation garden . . . On the following day their numbers increased largely . . . I stayed there three weeks, and it was certainly a unique experience. The num- 2 ber of bastis increased by leaps and bounds, until the bazaars were all closed 3 and some 12,000 refugees were encamped in the Legation . . . Imagine the 4 Legation Garden with tents in every available place, and crammed with thou- 5 sands of all classes, merchants, ulama, members of all the guilds, etc., sitting 6 there day after day with stubborn patience, determined not to leave the shelter of the British flag until their demands were satisfied. They policed themselves in a most remarkable manner, and, considering their numbers, gave 8 little trouble. Their kitchens and feeding arrangements were a model of order. 9 They extemporized a rough kitchen behind the guardroom, and every day a 2 circle of enormous caldrons was to be seen cooking the meals of this vast multitude. The meals were served by guilds, and each meal took three hours to 2 serve. 3 Browne explains that the cost of the meals was met by a fund raised by subscrip- 4 tion by the merchants and mullas. His eyewitness goes on to say that: 5 6 Perhaps the scene was most picturesque at night. Nearly every tent used to have a rawza-khwan,* and it was really an admirable tableau, these tents with 8 their circles of listeners and the rawza-khan at one end, relating the old, old 9 stories of Hasan and Husayn. At the tragic parts, the audience would weep in that extraordinary Persian fashion, and beat their heads in sign of grief.45 3 A similar although shorter account of the event was given by David Fraser, then 2 the London Times correspondent in Tehran. He gave the number of bastis as 3 14,000 but writes that not one percent of these: 4 . . . knew the meaning of the word constitution, or indeed had ever heard of 5 it. As they streamed up the Boulevard des Ambassadeurs they were asked why 6 they were going to the British Legation, and who had told them to go. They answered they did not know who had asked them to go or why. They were 8 going because everyone else was going and because a tamasha [spectacle] in 9 the summer time . . . in the leafy aisles of the finest garden in Tehran appealed 4 irresistibly to the pleasure-loving Persian mind. Nevertheless, a full-blown 46 constitution was the outcome of this curious situation. 2 Fraser should not have been surprised that no one had heard of a constitution. 3 The idea gradually emerged during the bast, not beforehand. Fraser went on to 4 write that the only hope Grant Duff, the chargé d’affaires, had of getting rid of 5 the people who were ruining his garden, even if in the most orderly way (as E. 6 G. Browne’s friend had also noted), was to help the refugees and the shah reach 8 9 * At Shi’ite funerals and during the month of Moharram, when the martyrdom of Ali and of his 5 sons, Hossein and Hassan is mourned, a rouze-khan, to use the preferred modern transliteration, 5 recites the story of their death in battle against the Arabs at Karbala in what is modern Iraq. 5 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 20

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an agreement. Spring-Rice’s report described this as ‘. . . the unwilling cooperation of Her Majesty’s Chargé d’Affaires, which was forced upon him by both parties in the dispute . . .’, a phrase presumably written by Grant Duff who might well have been anxious about the Foreign Office’s reaction to his role in the whole affair. David Fraser, The Times correspondent, wrote that ‘Mr Grant Duff acted as intermediary between the bastis and the Government; his only hope of getting rid of the people who had ruined his garden – it was done in the most orderly and considerate manner – was to help them settle their differences with the powers that were . . .’47 so one wonders quite what damage was done to the legation garden after three weeks of camping in it by so many people. The ground would have been hard in July-August and the grass burnt brown if it had not been watered. It is unlikely that it was watered so it sounds by Fraser’s account that the damage was considerable. One also wonders what the sanitary arrangements were. Browne’s correspondent refers to ‘the putrid air from the garden’. In any case, the bast came to an end when, on 9 August 1906, in the presence of Grant Duff, the British representative, an agreement was reached with the shah which provided for a constitution limiting his power through the creation of a representative assembly, the Majles.48 The crowd left the legation garden, which could then, one assumes, be restored to its normal agreeable condition. The role played, or thought to have been, by the British earned them much credit with the Persians, greatly strengthening their position in the country and weakening that of the Russians. Indeed, that the legation should have supported the Persian constitutional revolution seems a logical consequence of the British belief in constitutional monarchy and of the British Government’s wish to see a more efficient, less corrupt, and therefore more stable and predictable government in Persia. But, neither for the first time nor the last, Persian interests, and even Britain’s own interests in Persia, were subordinate to the rules of the even ‘Greater Game’ of European politics. In the first decade of the twentieth century, Britain was looking for alliances to counterbalance the growing power of Germany. It had reached an agreement with France, the Entente Cordiale, in 1904. There had been discussion of an agreement with Russia for a number of years. Curzon, who was viceroy of India from 1889 to 1905, had strongly opposed any such agreement at the expense of Persia because he feared the possible consequences for India. Curzon’s successor in India also opposed an agreement, as did the minister in Tehran, Sir Cecil Spring-Rice, who had never been formally consulted but who had been sent a draft of what was proposed. When he saw the draft in April 1907, he wrote to Sir Edward Grey, the foreign secretary, that although his opinion was neither invited nor desired, it was his duty to say that in popular opinion the treaty would simply be regarded as partitioning Persia.49 Nevertheless, the Liberal government of the day concluded the Anglo-Russian Convention that was signed on 31 August 1907. The convention divided Persia into a northern sphere of influence for the Russians; a south eastern sphere for the British; and a neutral zone comprising the south and south west which included the newly found oil fields in Khuzestan in the south west. The convention was, of course, hugely unpopular among the Persians, especially when the Cossack Brigade (founded by Nasr ud-Din Shah in 1878 with Russian officers and Persian troops) bombarded the Majles (and the Sepah Salar mosque) in June 1908 and closed it down with the acquiescence of the new Shah, Mohammed Ali, who had succeeded his father in January 1907. After the bombardment, a group of constitutionalists, including Sayyed Hassan Taqizade, one R of the leading figures in the constitutional movement, sought bast in the Tehran 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 21

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compound. The commander of the Cossack forces, the infamous Colonel Liakhoff, then surrounded the compound with his forces in order to stop others 2 taking refuge there. But in spite of sheltering Taqizade, the British Government 3 were associated in Persian minds with Russian high-handedness because of the 4 convention. This is not to say that there was no opposition to it in Britain. There 5 were many British who deplored it – Curzon, for example in speeches in parlia- 6 ment, E. G. Browne and the journalist W. E. Moore who fought with the constitutionalists in Tabriz against Mohammed Ali Shah and the Russians. It was also 8 said that the British minister of the time, Sir George Barclay, favoured the advance 9 of the Bakhtiari tribe on Tehran in support of the constitution in 1909, which caused the deposition of Mohammad Ali Shah, the accession of his twelve-year- old son, Ahmad, and therefore a period of regency; and the reopening of the 2 Majles.50 3 The British had another motive for not wanting to upset the Russians. They 4 needed to protect the oil fields of Khuzestan belonging to the Anglo-Persian Oil 5 Company (APOC) in which the British Government had bought an important 6 share. As one writer put it, the shah’s extravagance was only matched by his desperation for money.51 He had therefore given oil concessions to various 8 entrepreneurs in the south east of Persia. One of them was to the Persian Bank 9 Mining Rights Corporation, an offshoot of the Imperial Bank of Persia. This was 2 founded by Baron Reuter’s son in 1889, while he was in Tehran winding up his father’s concession, and had the right to mine for certain minerals. By 1898, 2 when their concession lapsed the corporation had failed to find oil but others 3 had become interested, especially Antoine Ketabji, a Persian of Georgian origin 4 and a Catholic married to an Armenian. Ketabji had been involved in both the 5 Reuter and tobacco concessions and was a confidant of Amin-al-Sultan, the chief 6 minister.52 At the suggestion of Drummond Wolff, Ketabji and a group consisting of 8 Edouard Cotte, former secretary to Baron Julius de Reuter, a second Frenchman, 9 Jacques de Morgan (the eminent French archaeologist who excavated Susa) and 3 Drummond Wolff himself persuaded William D’Arcy, a rich Australian living in London, to put up the money and to try to get the concession. The others were 2 all to receive a share in any profits. D’Arcy, who never went to Iran and negoti- 3 ated entirely through an agent, A. L. Marriot, helped by the British Minister, 4 Arthur Hardinge, obtained in 1901 a sixty year concession covering all of Iran 5 except the five northern provinces (in the Russian sphere of influence, although 6 not then formally agreed with Britain). It had been a close-run thing. The Russians did all they could to stop the grant of the concession and put Amin-as- 8 Sultan in difficulty because he was in the middle of negotiating a loan for the 9 Shah from them. His problem, however, was solved by a well-timed present of 4 £10,000 in cash from D’Arcy via Marriot. D’Arcy not only won the concession but also renounced exploration in the five 2 northern provinces, in return for which the Persian Government undertook not 3 to grant to anyone else the right of constructing a pipeline from the southern 4 rivers to the south coast of Persia. This had upset the Russians and was perhaps a 5 particularly clever stroke by the D’Arcy team because the five northern provinces 6 were almost completely under Russian control at the time, even to the extent, for example, that Persian officials were not allowed to collect taxes. These were levied 8 by Russian consuls and paid into the state-subsidized Russian Banque d’Escompte 9 de Perse, no accounts ever being rendered.53 It is hard to see how the British team 5 could have operated a concession in the area in these circumstances. It is also 5 worth mentioning that the British Government’s objectives in 1902 were ‘to 5 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 22

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maintain the continued national existence and territorial integrity of Persia and to develop its resources’.54 Drilling started at the end of 1902 in the Qasr-e-Shirin area but after five years and a considerable sum of money spent, D’Arcy’s company had had no success. According to Percy Sykes, his advisers had lacked local knowledge and had therefore wasted ‘good English money’.55 D’Arcy nevertheless persevered and, with financial support from the Burmah Oil Company, started prospecting further north in an area under the control of the Bakhtiari tribe. In May 1908, near an ancient ruin, known as Masjed-e-Suleiman, at a place called Maidan-e- Naftun (the Field of Oil) appropriately enough, where, according to Sykes, an oil spring had been reported at least twenty years earlier, an oil gusher was at last struck. Once it was realized that this was a large commercial discovery, things moved fast. The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (APOC) was formed in London and the concessionaires were bought out. All the necessary infrastructure and machinery was put into place (with great difficulty because of the terrain) and a pipeline laid to a terminal and refinery built on Abadan Island in the Shatt-al- Arab. Agreements were made about the use of the land with the shaikh of Mohammerah; and with the Bakhtiari tribal leaders (or khans) who received subsidies from the APOC. (The Persian Government in Tehran, in spite, or perhaps because, of the fact that their writ scarcely ran in those parts, was highly suspicious and resentful of the British dealings with the Bakhtiaris.) Oil production increased in leaps and bounds, adding to Russian resentment of the rise in British political influence at this time, since the greater the oil supply from Khuzestan, the more Russian profits from their Baku field were threatened. Eventually, the British Government decided to use oil in its warships and in 1914 bought a 51 per cent stake in the APOC to make sure of supplies. It therefore became all the more important not to give the Russians an excuse to argue that Britain was breaking the 1907 Convention and claiming this justified claiming further advantages elsewhere.

The Tehran compound 1872–1914 There do not appear to have been many important changes to the Tehran compound between 1872, when the new legation buildings were occupied, until the period from about 1907 to 1911. Among the significant changes then was the move of the consulate from the residence to a new building, on which the date 1907 can still be seen, on the south side of the main gate. This new building seems to have been added to what was called the ‘student interpreters’ house’ so there were offices one end and a house at the other in which the consul lived. A new house was built for the military attaché and other buildings were enlarged including a secretary’s house for the ‘councillor’ (modern counsellor). The billiard room at the east end of the residence was converted into a library for the legation books which liberated more space again in the minister’s private quarters; and the chancery, between the new library and the clock tower, was enlarged. The library was itself later turned into a chancery office reached by a corridor running along the front of the house from the minister’s private quarters past the state rooms and the minister’s own office. This enabled heads of mission to stand at this end of the corridor (although ‘corridor’ is perhaps the wrong word for this indoor avenue or esplanade) in their pyjamas and dressing gown, cup of coffee in hand, at eight o’clock in the morning to see if their staff arrived on time. The southwest end housed the private quarters of the minister, on two floors. R On the upper floor there was the principal guest room in which Churchill slept 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 23

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in 1944 (see below). The kitchen was in a single storey wing on the west side of the front court, opposite the clock tower wing on the east side. There were stairs 2 in the clock tower leading to a passage that went round over the roofs of the east 3 and central wings through the ‘pagoda’ or ‘howdah’ over the centre. The passage 4 was paved but open to the sky; eventually it leaked and in, 1946, part fell in and 5 the roof was closed off after the repairs.56 In the main part of the compound, in 6 front of the minister’s house, was a large circle of grass and trees around which were placed the houses of the senior staff, the doctor and the secretaries. Each 8 house was, and still is, identified by a letter; House A was the minister’s house 9 and H was for the secretaries. There was no piped water and the water supply for the garden and houses came from a qanat (see above, Gulhek) known as the qanat-e sefarat (the embassy’s qanat) in which others had a share in the form of 2 a fixed amount of water for a certain period. 3 A plan of about this time (it is undated but was probably 1914), shows the com- 4 plete lay out of the compound after the new works. Besides the houses described 5 above, a road runs west from the main gate past the minister’s house to a further 6 road running north/south, known then as the Mews and later on as the kucheh (street). Along this were the stables for the houses in the compound, including for 8 the minister and his carriages; also quarters for the Persian gholams (originally 9 slave but used later for any servant); a wood store and a washhouse; and quarters 2 for the Indian sowars (from the Persian saver, meaning horseman) with stables for their horses. Sir Arthur Hardinge, the minister at the time, had in 1901 persuaded 2 the Indian Government to let him have an escort of Indian sowars ‘. . . who, with 3 their turbans and pennoned lances, “could be expected to impress the Persians 4 with the might and majesty of the British Empire.” ’57 Sir Percy Loraine, minister 5 from 1921 to 1926, was still riding out on official occasions with eight horseman 6 in front of his carriage and eight behind. The sowars were resented by the Persians both because it looked as if the minister considered himself almost as royalty (or 8 as a governor general) and because they were foreign troops on Persian soil. Also 9 in the Mews were the dispenser’s house for the English doctor, and the house of 3 the superintendent of works (no doubt furnished better than anyone else’s apart from the minister’s; it always seemed like that to me fifty years later). 2 Apart from a certain lack of ‘modern’ aids to living, the Tehran compound in 3 1914 was undoubtedly very much part of that Edwardian England that the war 4 was to sweep away. An American visitor, Benjamin Burges Moore, visited Iran in 5 the early part of that year and wrote in his journal for 17–25 March: 6 The most admirable thing in Tihran [sic] is, however, in my judgement, the British Legation. With that sense of what is fitting which always characterizes 8 it, the British Government owns and keeps in perfect order a large and beau- 9 tiful park with a suitable dwelling for the Minister, and smaller houses for the 4 Secretaries and Attachés, and even for the English doctor appointed by Government. There is no unnecessary show; but grounds, carriages, servants, 2 guards, and everything else, are maintained in a dignified manner, which 3 worthily upholds the prestige of a great empire. The Legation staff is, without 4 exception, composed of cultivated and finished diplomats. Judging by the 5 way I – without any letters of introduction – have been received by every 6 member of the Legation, their courtesy and hospitality know no limit.58 8 9 The Gulhek compound 1890–1920 5 Apart from the sale of some small strips of land for road widening, the Tehran 5 compound has remained much the same size as when the land was first bought. 5 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 24

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The Gulhek compound has developed quite differently. Thanks to Nasr-ed-Din Shah and the efforts of Eastwick, as we have seen, the legation secured title in 1862 to the original garden they had been using at Gulhek in the summer. More land was bought in 1890, mainly because important water rights came with it. The Persian Government gave another piece of land to the legation in perpetu- ity in 1893. The last transaction in this period concerned a piece of land to the south that bordered the compound. Charles Alison had left it to his wife and former mistress, Mme Vartini, and they had had a daughter, Victoria. Mrs Alison, who after Alison’s death, had married a Russian named Kalustoff, had in due course made over the property to Victoria who also married a Russian, Ossipoff. Victoria died, however, before her mother, leaving children who were minors. In 1905, Arthur Hardinge, the then minister, wanted to buy the property not only because he needed it for housing for staff but also because the Russian legation had a tendency to interfere on the grounds of the Kalustoff and Ossipoff connection. ‘Making use, therefore, of the customary right of His Majesty’s Legation to restrict residence to British and Persian subjects’ Hardinge and his successor, Spring-Rice, managed ‘to secure the surrender of the property, at a valuation, by the Trustees for Mme Ossipoff’s children’.59 The purchase was completed in the autumn 1906, the price being 10,000 tomans (about £1800). In 1911, there was much concern about the possibility that there would be houses built by private individuals along a strip of land bordering the Gulhek compound on the west. The legation doctor, Dr Neligan, eloquently produced a large number of reasons why the legation should buy the land to prevent any building by the locals, for example that ‘native houses give rise to noise and smells’ and ‘The evening breeze . . . would be obstructed . . . and would further become laden with that extraordinary variety of smells which accompany the preparation of a native dinner.’60 As the Office of Works said they had no money, the plot was not bought and some local houses were built on it – no one seems to have complained afterwards of any cooking smells. In 1913, another plot came up for sale and was bought so that by 1914 the area of the compound was something over 44 acres. At this time, the whole legation used to move up to Gulhek during the summer. This meant that the houses for staff and servants, as well as the chancery, had to be duplicated at Gulhek. With increases in the size of the staff, there was a need for extra buildings and in any case the original buildings of the 1860s were in a bad condition. In 1907, therefore, the legation initiated a building programme at Gulhek as they had done in Tehran. Houses were built on the Alison/Vartini land for the oriental secretary, the doctor (who perhaps would have been most affected by the smells) and for a hospital and dispensary. A new house was built for the counsellor in 1908 and some smaller administrative buildings were put up in 1909. During the same period, improvements were made to the minister’s and the student interpreters’ houses and the chancery was enlarged. The Gulhek buildings were described in 1920 by a visitor from the Office of Works as ‘. . . of the ordinary native type in plan and construction, with small rooms, primitive in arrangement and poor of finish, The walls generally are of sun-baked brick or rough stone bases, burnt brick pilasters, floors of plaster or burnt brick, roofs of mud with beams exposed internally . . .’ The author of a 1939 report on Gulhek wrote that they were what they were meant to be, summer cottages, which could easily be remodelled.61 Denis Wright describes the staff as spending ‘. . . the summer in cool offices and verandahed houses with thick walls and high ceilings, more reminiscent of India than of England or R Persia’.62 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 25

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This time of building was characterized by bickering between the Foreign Office and the India Office about which department should pay what. Although 2 the Foreign Office had in 1858 finally taken over responsibility for the legation 3 after a period in which responsibility had changed hands more than once, the 4 two departments still shared capital and running costs. The result was constant 5 battles, conducted in the flowery and formal language of the official letter, about 6 what should be spent and the amounts to be paid by each department. The files suggest that the India Office was thoroughly suspicious of the Foreign Office, 8 appearing to think on more than one occasion that the FO was trying to pull a 9 fast one over them, especially if they thought that the legation in Tehran was going ahead with works before receiving proper authorization.63* 2 3 The First World War 4 Whatever the attitude of a section of British opinion or even the British minis- 5 ter in Tehran towards the Anglo-Russian Convention, Britain, which had been 6 the declared defender of Persian independence, could only acquiesce in Russian bullying of Persia in the years before the First World War. The expulsion of the 8 American financial adviser, Morgan Shuster, due to Russian pressure, was one 9 example. Worse ones were the Russian bombardments of the Majles in Tehran 2 and of the shrine of Imam Reza in Meshed. It was not surprising that the Persians looked elsewhere for support and especially to Germany and to the 2 German emperor as ‘the only European monarch animated by friendly feelings 3 towards Islam’.64 Germany, moreover, was looking for a way to counterbalance 4 the Anglo-Russian Convention and the meeting between King Edward VII and 5 Tsar Nicholas in Estonia in 1908. The Russians and Germans were rivals in Persia. 6 The growth of German influence there and the prospect that Germany would link the Baghdad railway with Tehran before the Russian Baku-Tehran line was 8 finished, threatened Russian interests. For its part, Germany feared the possibil- 9 ity of a line from the north that would compete with the Baghdad line. It 3 appeared to suit them both to do a deal on the lines of that which Russia and Britain had concluded. Tsar Nicholas and Kaiser William met in Potsdam in late 2 1910 and reached an understanding known as the Potsdam Accord of 1910, 3 which was turned into a Convention, signed in St Petersburg in 1911. Germany 4 recognized the Russian sphere of influence in Persia and undertook to seek no 5 concessions in the North. The Russians recognized that Germany’s aims were 6 only commercial and undertook to connect the spur from the Baghdad railway with the railway system of North Persia. 8 The agreement undercut the Anglo-Russian Convention and was a further 9 setback for Persia, but it did not last long. Germany declared war on Russia in 4 August 1914 because of Russian support of the Serbs against the Austro- Hungarian Empire. In the light of this, one could argue that Britain’s policy was 2 vindicated in what it regarded as the larger scheme of things, in spite of the dam- 3 age to its position and prestige in Persia. When war broke out, Persia declared 4 itself neutral. Germany made every effort to win Persia to its side. It might have 5 been successful but the presence of Russian troops in the northwest threatened 6 Tehran and the Persian Government did not dare to support Germany openly, much as they might have liked to escape from Anglo-Russian domination. On 8 the other hand, German influence was strong everywhere, even in the north, 9 5 5 * An account of these complicated arrangements appears below in Chapter 2. 5 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 26

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and in the south, German agents gave the British particular difficulty. The British sent back to Persia Sir Percy Sykes, an old Persian hand (former consul in Kerman, former consul general in Meshed and member of the commission which delimited the Persian-Afghan frontier in 1896) with instructions to raise a force in the south on the lines of the Russian-led Cossacks in the north. He arrived at Bandar Abbas in March 1916 and immediately started recruiting for what he called the South Persia Rifles (SPR).65 By November 1916, he had marched from Bandar Abbas to Shiraz, via Kerman, Yazd and Isfahan and had pretty well re-established the British position in the area although the Qashqai around Shiraz, which became the SPR’s Headquarters, continued to give trouble for some time. In his History of Persia, Sykes glossed over the attitude of the Persian Government to the creation of the SPR. He wrote that ‘. . . the question of law and order was earnestly discussed with the Persian Government and, early in 1916, it was decided to despatch a mission to South Persia . . .’ Later on in the same volume, he wrote that in early January 1917, he received a telegram from the Persian prime minister thanking him for his efforts to restore law and order.66 In fact, the Persian Government was caught between pressure from Britain on the one hand and the Persian nationalists on the other who were out- raged that their own government was incapable of keeping law and order in their own country and that foreigners had to do it for them, to make matters worse, using Indian troops as well as Persians. No doubt many Persians feared also that the SPR was the prelude to a full-scale occupation of the south by the British as the Russians had occupied the north. The Persian Governments of the day were too weak to resist either the British or the nationalists and tried to please both. So it was not until March 1917 that the force was officially recognized by the government, to be un-recognized in June the same year by a newly installed government in Tehran, and then re-recognized a few months later.67 The Russian revolution in 1917 did nothing to help the British position. The new Soviet Government presented itself as friend to Persia (and indeed a little later abrogated the Treaty of Turkomanchai), which meant that, immediately after the war, Persian resentment against foreign interference in their country was concentrated on Britain, even if there was cynicism about the real intentions of Soviet Russia. Curzon became foreign secretary in 1919 and proposed an Anglo-Persian Treaty. This was certainly badly timed but, although he may have had the defence of India principally in mind, he was convinced it would help Persia become a stable and prosperous country, fully independent and capable of resisting foreign interference. Most Persians did not see it this way and it looked to the nationalists like a protectorate by another name. Nevertheless, Prime Minister Vosuq ed-Douleh, one of the three relations of the shah with whom the British had negotiated,* signed the treaty in August 1919, all three having been paid a large sweetener to help them get the treaty accepted by the public opinion which counted and through the Majles. Under its terms, Britain, while undertaking to respect Iran’s independence and territorial integrity, was to be responsible for the organization of the Persian army and treasury and for the supply of experts to advise various departments of the Persian Government. Britain also undertook to provide a loan of £2 million, to assist in the construction of railways and to help Persia with its claims for war damages against coun-

R * The other two were Mirza Firuz Nosrat al-Dauleh and Sarem al-Dauleh. 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 27

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tries other than Britain. It was not only the nationalists who criticized it. The Russians, of course, saw it as Britain claiming for itself the right to be the only 2 foreign country with a voice in Persian affairs and it was criticized too by the 3 Americans and French. If Vosuq ed-Douleh or any of the others believed the 4 treaty was in Persia’s interest rather than their own, they completely underrated 5 the strength of feeling against it in the Majles. In the end, they realized the 6 treaty would never get through the Majles and it was not presented for approval. In 1921, following Reza Khan’s coup d’état, the Persian Government denounced 8 it and within a few months the SPR had been disbanded and the advisers pro- 9 vided for in the treaty, who had already come to take up their posts, had left the country. Curzon felt that Britain had been humiliated. David Gilmour is no doubt correct in writing that Curzon ‘felt the humiliation more for himself than 2 for his country’,68 but it was nevertheless a humiliation. Denis Wright, British 3 ambassador in Tehran from 1963 to 1974, was well placed to write in 1977, just 4 before the Revolution, that ‘British influence and prestige had reached their 5 nadir. Since that time Persian writers and journalists have never let their public 6 forget for long the unhappy circumstances surrounding the signature of this ill- starred agreement. In many Persian minds it ranks, with the Anglo-Russian 8 Convention of 1907, as a warning signal: Beware of the British!’69 9 At the end of the First World War, Persia seemed, not for the first time, to be 2 on the point of disintegration – which is another reason why Curzon attached so much importance to the treaty which he thought would enable the central 2 government to regain control of the country. There was a revolution in Gilan led 3 by the Persian nationalist, Kuchik Khan who, with his guerrilla army of Jangalis 4 and in alliance with the Bolsheviks, created the short-lived ‘Soviet Republic of 5 Gilan’, but even after Kuchik Khan had withdrawn from his Russian alliance, 6 Russian troops remained in the province of Gilan (and Persia received no help from Britain in the League of Nations to get them out). There was a strong sep- 8 aratist movement in Azerbaijan, also encouraged by the Russians. During the 9 war there had already been an attempt by the Germans to set up a separate gov- 3 ernment in Kermanshah in the west and in the southwest, it was the Shaikh Khaz’al of Mohammareh who ruled Khuzestan and with whom the British dealt, 2 not the Persian Government. The Bakhtiari, the Qashqai, the Baluchis, the 3 Kurds, to name only the most important of the tribes, ruled their own territo- 4 ries. Ahmad Shah, who was only in his early twenties, was quite incapable of sav- 5 ing the situation. If Iran did not find a strong leader, it was in danger of falling 6 apart and coming under the permanent control of foreign powers. 8 9 4

2. IRAN UNDER THE PAHLAVIS 2 3 4 Britain and Iran 1921–41 5 hat Persia did not fall apart was due to Reza Khan who, at the head of Cossack 6 Ttroops, carried out the coup d’état of February 1921 with the journalist Seyyid Zia ud-Din Tabatabai. General Ironside, the officer in charge of the British 8 military advisory team, already in place under the terms of Curzon’s still unrat- 9 ified treaty, and other British officers in the team attached to the Cossacks, cer- 5 tainly made it clear to Reza Khan that he had their support. It has been argued 5 that the British minister, Herman Norman, was directly involved in the choice 5 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 28

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of Sayyed Zia as Reza Khan’s civilian partner in the coup and that British officers in Iran together with, if not Norman, another member of the legation, were the moving force behind it; and that if the British Foreign Office had no advance notice of it, the War Office did.70 What seems to be generally agreed by historians is that General Ironside, together with a British military adviser, Lt. Col. Smyth, played a decisive role, and whoever else may have known about the coup in advance, or even have played a part in organizing it, no evidence of direct British Government involvement in the planning or financing of the coup has so far come to light. This has not stopped it being widely believed, and not only in Iran, that the British Government was behind the whole affair. Ahmad Shah at first remained on the throne as shah and in formal terms appointed Reza Khan as Sardar Sepah (Commander of the Army) with responsibility for administering martial law. Seyyed Zia was made prime minister. Within five days of coming to power, Seyyed Zia repudiated the Anglo-Persian Agreement and concluded a Treaty with the new Russian Government which, among other things, annulled the Treaty of Turkomanchai of 1828, confirmed the Russian renunciation in 1918 of all the privileges and concessions Tsarist Russia had obtained from Persia, cancelled debts owed to the Russian Government, declared as Iranian property railroads, harbour equipment, etc. owned by Tsarist Russia, declared the capitulations null and void and ceded its ‘manorial’ rights over the village of Zargandeh, near Gulhek, where the Russian legation’s summer quarters were situated. Later in the same year, the Russians also removed their troops from Gilan where they had been supporting the rebel Kuchik Khan. They had been kept there on the grounds that British troops were still in the area – the remains of the troops commanded by Major-General Dunsterville which had been sent in 1918 to counter Turkish forces and in particular to deny them the Baku oil fields – but which were withdrawn in the spring of 1921. These British forces, together with Indian troops in the east of Persia defending the Afghan frontier following the withdrawal of Russian troops after the 1917 revolution, had aroused much Iranian suspicion and fear, particularly after the Soviet Government published a secret Anglo-Russian agreement of 1915 by which Britain was to take the Persian Neutral Zone into its sphere of influence. There were many other causes of resentment against the British for their high-handedness during and immediately after the war, including their continuous pressure on the shah to appoint ministers who would carry out policies the British favoured. Reza Shah was suspicious and even afraid of the British. Like many Persians, he had an exaggerated view of British influence and thought the British were behind everything that happened in the country. So whether or not he received help from the British to obtain power, he was certainly not a British puppet and used his power to assert Persian independence. He refused to have British officers in the Cossack Brigade as Seyyed Zia had wanted, one of the reasons why Reza Khan dismissed Seyyed Zia from the government. Using the professional army which he was gradually building up, Reza Khan personally led a military occupation of Khuzestan, made Ahwaz a military centre and broke the power of Shaikh Khaz’al of Mohammereh whom the British had treated as an independent ruler of an area of great importance to them, that part of southern Iran that controlled the route to India, and which was also the area where the APOC oil fields and installations were situated. Reza Khan gradually took control of the southern tribes, particularly of the Bakhtiari whom the British had subsidized to protect the oil fields that lay in Bakhtiari territory. An American adviser, Millspaugh, was brought in to reorganize the country’s finances. In logic, the R British at the time could hardly complain if, finally, a strong man had emerged 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 29

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who was trying to unite Persia and make it into the prosperous and independent country it had been British policy to encourage, even if for the sake of India 2 rather than Persia. Unlike some of the British consuls in the south, the British 3 minister of the time (1921–26), Sir Percy Loraine, after initial hesitation, came to 4 understand this and was a powerful advocate for Reza Shah and a more realistic 5 British policy towards Persia. He never overcame Curzon’s scepticism, but the 6 new Labour government in Britain of 1923 and its Conservative successor both proved to be more realistic.71 8 Reza Khan became successively minister of war, then prime minister. Ahmad 9 Shah went abroad in 1923 and never returned. There was debate about the creation of a republic but popular opinion was against it; Loraine wrote to Chamberlain on 31 December 1925 quoting Reza Shah as having said some time 2 before that the people ‘were still fundamentally monarchist’.72 The British 3 Government was asked for its view but declared that constitutional issues were 4 a matter for the Persians themselves to decide. On 31 October 1925, the Majles 5 passed a resolution that abolished the Qajar dynasty and entrusted the provi- 6 sional government to Reza Khan, with the title of His Imperial Highness. On 15 December 1925, Reza Khan, after swearing to uphold the Constitution, was pro- 8 claimed Reza Shah with the family name of Pahlavi, the name of the language 9 spoken in the Sassanian period that had immediately preceded the Arab con- 2 quest and the arrival of Islam in Persia. The new shah continued the work of modernization and centralization that he had started, including the reform of 2 the judicial system. This was an objective necessary in itself. But in 1927, by clos- 3 ing down the existing ministry of justice for four months and revamping the 4 entire justice system, the new minister of justice introduced reforms, including 5 the creation of a civil code, which gave Reza Shah the grounds he needed for fur- 6 ther asserting Iran’s independence by abolishing the system of capitulations which had privileged foreigners in Iran for the previous hundred years and 8 more. 9 Capitulations gave the representatives of foreign powers in Iran the right to 3 try and, if necessary, imprison their subjects under their countries’ own laws because, it was argued, they could not be tried under a foreign legal system based 2 on another religion. Until 1927, all the judges in Persia were mullahs, few if any 3 had legal training, there were no proper rules for the taking or giving of evi- 4 dence, and the system, such as it was, was arbitrary, inefficient and often cor- 5 rupt. The Treaty of Turkomanchai had given the Russians extra-territorial rights 6 over their subjects and other countries that had acquired ‘most favoured nation’ status were entitled to the same rights. The Russian renunciation of their extra- 8 territorial rights in 1919 was confirmed in the 1921 treaty with Iran. The new 9 regime was determined to remove these rights, considered to be demeaning to 4 Iran, from other countries, and in May 1926 denounced all treaties by which capitulations had been granted. 2 The British claimed that in their case, there was no treaty to denounce 3 because British rights long pre-dated their 1857 Treaty with Iran, which gave 4 Britain most-favoured nation status. In a memorandum of August 1927, the con- 5 sul general and resident in Bushire, Lt. Col. Howarth, quoted a firman issued by 6 Shah Abbas in 1600 to Sir Anthony Sherley (but referring to all Christian traders) which said that ‘Neyther shall any of our justices have power over their persons 8 or goodes, for any cause or act whatsoever.’73 He also pointed out the ‘grant of 9 privilege’ by the shah in 1617 to Edward Connock who had been sent to Persia 5 by the EIC. This grant provided for the perpetual residence of an English ambas- 5 sador at the Persian court and for the sending of a Persian ambassador to 5 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 30

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England. It also laid down that in criminal cases, the English ambassador would punish Englishmen. Indeed, there had been a case as recently as 1918 when Vice-Consul Maclaren, shot the military attaché, Bartellot, who had been having an affair with his wife. Maclaren was tried for murder by a consular court presided over by the minister, Sir Percy Cox, and was given a two-year gaol sentence. (It appears that the court accepted that, although Maclaren took a gun when he went to see Bartellot one night, the gun went off by accident). While arguing, therefore, that their rights pre-dated Turkomanchai and were based on ‘the custom and usage of centuries’, the British were realistic enough to accept Iran’s rights to abolish the capitulations. Even so, they were concerned that the reform of the Iranian judicial system would need time to become fully effective. Together with a number of other European countries, the British therefore negotiated certain guarantees, for example, that no foreigners should be tried in a religious court and that a prison suitable for foreign prisoners should be built. But Reza Shah had won a great symbolic victory and the historic end of the capitulations on 10 May 1928 was celebrated by a public holiday. There were further trials of strength with the British, including over the right to run the quarantine regime (see next chapter) in the ports on the Persian Gulf. Other changes were introduced by Reza Shah that affected the legation property in Tehran, but which did not give rise to any major difficulties. As the Russians gave up their manorial rights over the village of Zargandeh, so the British were obliged to give up their rights over Gulhek (see above), although in practice the administration of justice and law and order had some time previously been delegated to the police chief of Shemiran. All property in Iran had to be registered, which the British (and Indian) governments’ property duly was. After his success in abolishing the capitulations, Reza Shah’s next major battle with the British was with the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC, which it became in 1936 to reflect the change from Persia to Iran) over oil revenues. The British Government’s purchase of a majority shareholding in the APOC in 1916 may have helped ensure oil supplies for the fleet, but it also ‘radically altered the nature of the company and appeared to identify it with the activities of the British Government. Thereafter Iranian governments judged its operations on political rather than on commercial grounds.’74 So Reza Shah, in taking on the AIOC, believed he was also taking on the British Government to obtain an increase in Iran’s take from the oil revenues to finance his programme of modernization – railways, roads, a navy, factories and all the rest of the infrastructure the country needed. The Iranians had been complaining about the D’Arcy concession for some time. A revised agreement had been discussed in 1920 but the Iranians had turned down the company’s proposals. The chairman of the APOC, Cadman, had come to Tehran and had offered 20% of company shares in 1929 but Reza Shah needed cash straight away, not at some later date, so this was also turned down. Then, as a result of the slump, oil royalties fell in 1932 to the low- est they had been since 1917 and Reza Shah, furious, cancelled the concession. The British Government quickly became involved and, after an unsuccessful display of naval force in the Gulf, referred the matter to the League of Nations. In the end, a compromise was reached and a new concession, to last until 1993, was granted which considerably increased Iran’s revenues from the oil, but the affair was a warning of what was to come in 1953. The biggest battle between Reza Shah and the British, which ended with the defeat and abdication of Reza Shah, was over the role of Germany. We have already seen that before and during the First World War, Germany was viewed R with considerable sympathy in Iran as a counterweight to Russia and Britain and 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 31

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had had many successes against the British through its agents, especially in the south. During the Weimar Republic and even more so after Hitler came to power 2 in 1933, the Germans enormously increased their economic and political influ- 3 ence. They were mainly responsible for the foundation of Iranian industry, 4 including armaments, which enabled them to increase the German percentage 5 of Iran’s foreign trade from 8 per cent in 1932–3 to at least 45 per cent in 6 1940–41, although the latter is probably too low a figure because Iranian customs counted goods arriving through Turkey or via India or England as coming 8 from those countries.75 The Germans built a northern section of the railway 9 from the Gulf to the Caspian and obtained an exclusive concession to developing air transport in Iran. Politically, Germany presented itself as the disinterested friend anxious to 2 reduce foreign penetration by providing German experts (as George Lenczowski 3 says, this was of dubious logic but it appeared to work), a move which helped in 4 the establishment of a thriving fifth column and for which ‘tourists’ and ‘busi- 5 nessmen’ were also used. The total of Germans in Iran reached 2000 by August 6 1941. Germany founded cultural institutes, educated Iranian students in Germany and provided German teachers for schools. Its propaganda played on 8 the connection between Aryan and Iran, and even on the similarity between the 9 words ‘German’ and Kerman, the name of a town in south eastern Iran. In 1936, 2 a special Nazi decree exempted Iranians, as ‘pure Aryans’, from the Nazi racial laws.76 The propaganda was effective, not only because it was skilful, but also 2 because Iranians wanted to escape from the grip of Russia and Britain. 3 The Germans were therefore in a strong position in Iran at the start of the 4 Second World War although Reza Shah declared Iran to be neutral in the con- 5 flict. If he had joined the Axis, it would have suited neither Germany nor Iran 6 because of the likely British reaction. As it was, German goods and people could continue to enter the country without giving the British strong enough reasons 8 to attack Iran. This changed after Germany had invaded the Soviet Union in 9 June 1941 when it became vital for the Allies that Russia should be supplied with 3 food and armaments so that it could continue to resist the Germans. The security of Abadan’s oil was also an important consideration, especially because of 2 the refinery’s production of aviation spirit.77 Supplying Russia through Iran was 3 the only effective way it could be done. But the existence of a German fifth col- 4 umn would endanger this plan, so Britain and the Soviet Union demanded, 5 through their ministers in Tehran, that the Germans should be thrown out. Reza 6 Shah prevaricated, arguing that it would be a breach of Iranian neutrality. Britain and Russia launched a propaganda campaign by radio,* against the Iranian 8 Government, accusing them of sheltering a German fifth column and urging 9 them to expel all Germans. The government continued to refuse to do so, insist- 4 ing that if they did, it would be a breach of their neutrality.78 At four in the morning on 25 August 1941, the British and Soviet ministers 2 delivered a note to the Iranian prime minister at his home which regretted that 3 Iran had not complied with their requests, and said that Britain and Russia were 4 therefore compelled to take unilateral action while declaring that they had no 5 designs on Iranian territory or independence and hoping that Iran would not 6 resist their advance. At dawn on the same day, British troops invaded Iran from 8 9 * In Britain’s case, this was through the newly created Persian Service of the British Broadcasting 5 Corporation (BBC) and no doubt this was the beginning of Iranian Governments’ permanent 5 suspicions of the BBC. 5 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 32

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the south and Soviet troops from the north. There was little Iranian opposition and the operation was soon complete. This did not result in an immediate Iranian compliance with all the allied demands. For one thing, the Iranians failed to close the German legation and expel the staff. Because Tehran was not occupied immediately, Germans from the provinces were able to shelter in the legation in Tehran, and the Germans had time to deploy their agents and extend their contacts in the new conditions prevailing in the country. The British were convinced that Reza Shah would remain the major obstacle to supplying Russia and that his continuation in power was against their interests. The British legation, therefore renewed their propaganda campaign against him through those local newspapers they could influence. The legation also provided material for the newly created Persian Service of the BBC. The shah was accused of being a dictator and was attacked for his corruption and greed. This had its effect. Reza Shah had become notorious during the 1930s for seizing people’s land for himself and for his high-handedness. He had offended the religious by abolishing the chador and by his secular policies in general. He had built up the standing army Iran had needed but it had become a symbol of oppression. He had shown over his attitude to the allies that he was out of touch with reality and he refused to take advice. In spite of all the good he had done for the country and all that he had achieved, Reza Shah had become highly unpopular – as usually happens to dictators. Politically minded Persians thought that if he had lost British support, he was in any case doomed. He probably thought it too; in any case, he knew if the people thought it, he could no longer stay and on 16 September 1941, he abdicated in favour of his son, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.

The mission compounds 1921–1945 While Reza Shah was bringing Iran into the twentieth century with all the accompanying turmoil, inside the British legation compounds at Tehran and Gulhek there was some modernization but both remained the oases of peace and tranquillity praised by residents and visitors. Not all visitors, however, found everything beautiful, even if peaceful. Robert Byron wrote of Tehran in April 1934 that the legation compound resembled a Victorian asylum with ‘ugly little houses’. (Byron was clearly in tune with his times in despising Victorian architecture). He spoke also of the kindness of the occupants of those houses and felt guilty that he was going to ‘repay it with injury, in the form of indiscretion’ because somebody had ‘to trespass on the taboos of modern nationalism, in the interests of human reason. Business can’t. Diplomacy won’t. It has to be people like us.’ Byron was referring to the criticisms, and fun, he made of Reza Shah in The Road to Oxiana. Other English writers of the period did the same, for example, Christopher Sykes in Four Studies in Loyalty. This ‘indiscretion’ offended some Persians but Byron, Sykes and others who feared the nationalist dictatorships of Hitler and Mussolini, thought Reza Shah had gone down the same path – and was over friendly with Germany. Byron was told by Sykes, with whom he made his journey, that he would get into trouble if he criticized Reza Shah, so Byron refers to him always as Marjoribanks because he had already used Jones for Hitler, Smith for Mussolini and Brown for Stalin and was running out of names.79 The minister’s old stables in the Mews (by then perhaps the kuche) in the Tehran compound were finally converted into a garage during the early 1930s. R Electricity was first available in 1929. The widening of Naderi Avenue in 1932 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 33

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and of Ferdowsi Avenue in 1935 caused the south and east fronts of the legation to be set back by some thirty or forty feet and the walls running along both of 2 these streets had to be rebuilt. Similarly, the original gateway on the east side 3 had to go and a new monumental arched gateway made of brick was erected in 4 its place bearing the monogram of Edward VIII.80 At some point, perhaps also in 5 the 1930s, the water tank (fed by a qanat) which is shown by the north wall of 6 the compound in the 1914 plan was filled in and a new one, also used as a swimming pool, was created on the east side of the great circle of grass and trees 8 in the centre of the compound. Otherwise the Tehran compound changed very 9 little during this period. There were no major changes at Gulhek either. In 1928 some land on the west boundary was sold to the municipality for road widening which brought the 2 area to forty-four acres. By 1939, there were also two clay tennis courts, a large 3 blue-tiled swimming pool and a ride, with jumps, for schooling horses. For the 4 first two summers he was in Tehran, Reader Bullard continued the practice 5 whereby the whole mission moved up to Gulhek. After that, he found it impos- 6 sible to continue. The volume of business to be conducted with the Iranian Government increased hugely during the war and the Foreign Ministry and 8 other government offices were seven miles from Gulhek whereas they were only 9 a short distance from the Tehran compound. The annual migration of all the 2 staff and the chancery never took place again and Bullard lived and worked in the Tehran compound for the rest of his time in Tehran. 2 Bullard was one of many residents and visitors to the compound who wrote 3 about the wisteria which was, and still is, a remarkable feature of the residence: 4 ‘There is a long veranda at the back and here in April bloom thousands of sprays 5 of wisteria roofing in the veranda for about 70 yards. One year I counted, out- 6 side the study alone, over two thousand sprays.’ One of the great features of the legation year was the annual wisteria party given by the minister (it is still given 8 by the ambassador). As Bullard said, calculating the date for the party was never 9 easy but he found that it was best to allow twelve days from the first spray burst- 3 ing into flower.81 2 3 The Second World War 4 There was no wisteria blooming when Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin met in 5 Tehran in November 1943 to decide on war strategy and the shape of Europe after 6 the war. Churchill stayed in the residence. There he celebrated his sixty-ninth birthday, on 30 November, with a dinner for Stalin and Roosevelt and the most 8 senior members of their several entourages. He wrote of it in his war memoirs: 9 This was a memorable occasion in my life. On my right sat the President of 4 the United States, on my left the master of Russia. Together we controlled practically all the naval and three quarters of all the air forces in the world, 2 and directed armies of nearly twenty millions of men, engaged in the most 3 terrible of wars that had yet occurred in human history . . . 4 It must have been after two in the morning when we finally separated . . . 5 I went to bed tired but content, feeling sure that nothing but good had been 6 done. It certainly was a happy birthday for me.82 Reader Bullard recalled that the original plan was for Roosevelt to stay in the 8 British embassy and ramps were put everywhere to take his wheel chair. Then 9 the Americans decided he should stay at their embassy and ramps were accord- 5 ingly put in there. However, it was found that one of them blocked the cellar 5 5 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 34

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door, which meant there was no whisky in the house. In the end he went to stay at the Soviet embassy, giving as the reason for this that they did not want it to look as if the Americans and the British were ganging up on Stalin. Then why, asks Bullard, give the impression that the US was ganging up with the Soviet Union against Britain? Apparently, Roosevelt felt that, with the right treatment, Stalin would be ‘tractable and cooperative’, in Bullard’s words. Bullard went on to say that Roosevelt ‘proceeded from that to the conviction that the world had more to fear from British imperialism than from Soviet Russia’.83 Churchill’s account of the accommodation arrangements is rather more prosaic. He does not mention the inaccessible whisky as the reason for the move from the US embassy (perhaps he was not told about it), only security considerations. There were rumours of an assassination plot against one or more of the ‘Big Three’ and, because the US embassy was a mile or more from the Soviet embassy where the conference was to be held, Roosevelt would have had to drive to and from it daily, exposing himself to greater risk. The Soviet embassy was well guarded by Soviet troops and police and is only a short distance from the British embassy so that Churchill could walk there easily. This account, however, gives no better reason than Bullard’s as to why the Soviet embassy was preferred to the British.84 Two plaques in the wide corridor of the residence commemorate Churchill’s birthday dinner and list those who were present. Reader Bullard was not involved in the conference because it was not about his parish – as had been made only too clear to the Iranian Government, who were not only not consulted but first heard about it by chance beforehand. Even when the problems of Iran were discussed, the Iranian Government was not asked to join in. Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt nevertheless issued a Declaration which recognized the help Iran had given to the Allies, promised economic aid, and assured Iran they were at one with its government ‘in their desire for the maintenance of the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity’ of the country.85 Churchill recommended Bullard for the KCB and, following the American example, the minister became ambassador and the legation an embassy.86

Britain and Iran 1945–53 Britain and the Soviet Union had also formally undertaken to respect Iran’s independence in Article One of the Treaty of Alliance between the three countries signed in January 1942. In Article Five, they promised to withdraw their troops not later than six months after all hostilities had ceased between the Allies and Germany ‘and her associates’.87 By November 1944, the supply route to the Soviet Union was through the Black Sea, and the Allies no longer used Iran. In May 1945, the Iranian Government asked the Soviet Union and Britain to withdraw their troops. Under the terms of the treaty, neither were obliged to do so before the agreed date, which in the event turned out to be 2 March 1946, six months after Germany’s ‘associate’, Japan, had surrendered. The British were anxious to remove their troops quickly but not unilaterally and, as a first step, both sides withdrew their troops from the Tehran area in August 1945. The Russians, however, still kept the NKVD – state security – headquarters in Tehran and it was rumoured that there were almost as many Russian ‘civilians’ as there had been troops. In other areas, too, the British were running down their wartime organizations while the Russians kept theirs going. It is likely that the Soviet Union had from early on in the war planned to R keep their troops in the north west of Iran and to organize the creation of an 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 35

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independent Azerbaijan as a satellite of the USSR. The Soviet plan for Azerbaijan, which bordered the Russian Caucasus, has been seen as the model on which the 2 Russians later based their absorption of the countries of Eastern Europe. Tudeh 3 (Communist) Party propaganda played on the separateness of Azerbaijan. (The 4 first language spoken there was Azeri, a Turkic language, although Persian was 5 the official and written language.) During the Persian revolution, it had been 6 a powerful supporter of the constitution that contained provisions for a degree of provincial autonomy. At the same time, Tudeh Party influence, naturally 8 with Soviet support, increased in Tehran. In August 1945, Tudeh Party members 9 occupied government buildings in Tabriz, the capital of Azerbaijan. Iranian Government units were prevented from leaving their barracks to restore order by the Soviet garrison and a force of gendarmes sent from Tehran found its 2 way blocked by Soviet troops. In November, the Tudeh won a rigged election to 3 a newly created assembly, and in December it proclaimed the autonomous 4 Republic of Azerbaijan. In the same month, the Kurdish Democratic Party pro- 5 claimed a Kurdish People’s Republic with its capital at Mahabad so the whole 6 Iranian province of Azerbaijan had fallen under communist, that is, Soviet control. 8 The British and American governments had in November suggested to the 9 Russians that American, British and Soviet troops should be withdrawn by 2 1 January 1946. The Russians refused. There were talks in Moscow in December when Britain suggested that a tripartite commission of Britain, the USA and the 2 USSR should visit Iran. The Russians refused but so did the Iranians when it was 3 put to them; they believed it would just be a way for the three powers to take a 4 decision over their heads. The Iranian representative raised the issue at the new 5 United Nations (UN) but Soviet troops were still in Azerbaijan on 2 March 1946, 6 after Britain had withdrawn its troops the previous day. Iranian Prime Minister Ahmad Qavam (Qavam-as-Saltaneh), using a combination of pressure in the UN 8 Security Council and the bait of an oil agreement with the USSR, got the 9 Russians to undertake to withdraw their troops within six weeks from the end of 3 March. The oil agreement had to be ratified within seven months by the Majles, which had reached the end of its term. The Majles had, however, passed a law 2 forbidding national elections so long as there were foreign troops in the coun- 3 try. Qavam had also made the holding of those elections conditional on a satis- 4 factory outcome to negotiations with the Azerbaijan Government. Qavam told 5 the Russians that this would mean that, once there was an election, the Majles 6 could be packed with deputies favourable to the oil agreement. At the same time, and it is assumed, in order to hoodwink the Russians, Qavam allowed the Tudeh 8 Party to increase its influence, even taking some of its members and supporters 9 into the cabinet. The party was also active in the south of the country, and 4 threatened the operation of oil fields. Britain moved troops and warships to Basra and there was a tribal backlash against the Tudeh, supported by the cler- 2 ics, for which Britain was held responsible. Qavam took advantage of the situa- 3 tion and placated the tribes by dismissing Tudeh provincial governors and 4 Tudeh members from his cabinet and arresting a hundred Tudeh leaders in 5 Tehran. The Russians solved their dilemma by accepting that the only way they 6 could get the oil agreement was by allowing Qavam to reach an agreement with the Azerbaijani puppet government and that this meant withdrawing their sup- 8 port for it. Qavam duly reached an agreement with the Azerbaijan Government 9 about the holding of elections, fixed for December, to be supervised by the 5 Iranian army. When the army entered Azerbaijan with the shah at its head, it 5 met with no resistance and the Republics of Azerbaijan and Mahabad collapsed. 5 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 36

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The Soviet back-down was due to a large extent to the skilful way in which Qavam had played his hand. The realization that the US had the atomic bomb, while they had not, may have influenced the Soviet attitude, while the tribal revolt in the south also contributed to the outcome. But of major importance was the support given to Iran by the US throughout the Azerbaijan affair and this marked the start of a new phase in US-Iranian relations. This is not to say the USA had not been influential in Iran before. American advisers, like Morgan Shuster before the First World War and Millspaugh in the 1920s and again during the Second World War, had worked in the Iranian administration. American troops had been responsible during the war for much of the engineering work needed to enable supplies to reach the Soviet Union from the Gulf and had operated the railway. But the US did not withdraw into its traditional policy of isola- tionism after the war and instead announced a new policy of containment of communism, which was set out in the ‘Truman doctrine’ of April 1947. It publicly supported Iran against Soviet threats of military action when the Majles refused to ratify Qavam’s oil agreement with the USSR later the same year. The British Government, on the other hand, encouraged ratification out of fear of the conclusions that might be drawn in relation to its own oil concession if they opposed it. The US began supplying arms to Iran and sent a military mission to train the Iranian army, starting the process by which it gradually became the dominant foreign influence in Iran and the defender of Iranian independence against the Soviet Union – and came to occupy a position very similar to that which the British would have occupied if Curzon’s treaty had come into effect. In a forward to Lenzcowski’s book on Russia and the West in Iran, David Allen, the US ambassador to Iran in 1946–47, wrote that ‘The United States has no territorial or imperialistic interests in Iran. Its only desire is to assist Iran to become strong enough to maintain its independence and integrity against anyone who might have imperialistic aims there. We desire to see Iran develop industrially and stand on its own two feet.’88 Curzon might have said exactly the same. In the resolution passed by the Majles rejecting the oil agreement with the Soviet Union, there was a clause which said that, in cases where Iran’s rights had been ignored, particularly in relation to the oil in the south, the government should take the necessary steps to reassert those rights and report back to the Majles.89 There was increasing pressure in Iran for the 1933 so-called supplemen- tal agreement with the AIOC to be renegotiated and the AIOC was itself ready for negotiations. But with the war and Azerbaijan crisis over, the struggle over filling the power vacuum created by the departure of Reza Shah intensified. There were many factions involved. The shah himself was trying to establish his position as his father’s heir both in the country and abroad and the attempt on his life in 1949 brought him to greater prominence. Opposed to him in principle were the Majles and the great landowners who were suspicious of his intentions towards their lands. The extremist clergy led by Ayatollah Sayyed Abu’l Qassem Kashani and the communists of the Tudeh Party hoped to benefit from the unstable and uncertain situation of the country. The negotiations therefore took place in increasingly difficult political and economic conditions. Other politicians could seize on any compromise offered to the AIOC by the Iranian negotiating team, the Majles Oil Commission led by Dr Mohammed Musaddiq, as a sell-out to the British. But there were no compromises offered and on 7 March 1951, the Majles approved the proposal of its commission that the oil industry should be nationalized. The following day, the moderate Prime Minister General Ali Razmara, was R assassinated and after a short interval was succeeded by Dr Musaddiq whose 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 37

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National Front Party, playing on anti-British feeling, won new elections with a large majority and with the support of a mob which terrorized those members 2 of the Majles opposed to it. The British oil workers departed from Abadan and 3 from the AIOC oil installations. There was a general feeling of triumph in the 4 country over what was seen as the defeat of the British. As Musaddiq put it in 5 his memoirs ‘the struggle of the Iranian people was not for money, but for the 6 acquisition of total freedom and independence’.90 Negotiations got under way between the British and Iranian governments, 8 encouraged by the USA and with the help of the good offices of Averill 9 Harriman, but had led nowhere after several months during which the British Government considered the option of invading Iran, a course which the US Democratic administration of President Truman did all they could to discour- 2 age.91 Nevertheless, the Iranians’ position was not as strong as they would have 3 liked. They needed money but could not sell the oil that they had because of a 4 boycott by all the major oil companies. Britain appealed to the United Nations, 5 which referred the case to the International Court at The Hague, and started to 6 apply direct economic pressure through an export embargo and by freezing Iran’s sterling balances in Britain. Meanwhile, the political chaos in Iran contin- 8 ued throughout the period 1951–2, contributing to the failure of negotiations. 9 At times, the Majles seemed to be on the verge of abandoning Musaddiq but the 2 crowds would come out and the deputies would change their minds. At other times, Musaddiq seemed to be close to abolishing the Majles and assuming 2 supreme power. In January 1952, the Iranian Government threw out the British 3 consulates (see Chapter 2). In June, the British Bank of Iran and the Middle East 4 was closed down; this was the former Imperial Bank of Iran, which had been 5 obliged to change its name in 1948 when its sixty-year concession had run out. 6

8 Break in relations 1952 9 In October 1952, Iran broke off diplomatic relations with Britain and gave 3 the embassy staff ten days to leave. At that time, George Middleton was chargé d’affaires, because after Francis Shepherd left in January 1952, the Iranian 2 Government had refused to accept anyone proposed as ambassador who had 3 served previously in Iran or in any colonial country. Middleton and his staff had, 4 in the four weeks preceding the break, made plans for closing the embassy, for 5 packing up of the property of about fifty households, and making travel arrange- 6 ments for about a hundred people. Women, including some of the female staff, and children, departed by air. The rest left on 1 November by road in a convoy of 8 twenty-nine embassy and private cars, and seven fourteen-ton trucks hired to take 9 the personal property of all the staff. Travelling in the convoy were some thirty- 4 four members of the embassy, including Mrs Middleton, six female members of staff, a Roman Catholic priest of British nationality who had long been threatened 2 with expulsion, and ten local drivers. The minister of the Swiss legation 3 (Switzerland was the protecting power during the break), and a member of the pro- 4 tocol department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who ‘was unremittingly help- 5 ful and courteous’, accompanied the convey to the Iraqi frontier. Less welcome 6 additions were a Persian colonel and two lorry loads of troops. The party camped for two nights in Iran on their way to the frontier. They then made their way slow- 8 ly to Beirut. There, those of the party who had not already left were reunited with 9 their families, and took boat to Marseilles and then train to England.92 5 During the period after the break with the British, there was a change in the 5 US political scene, with the Republicans and President Eisenhower replacing the 5 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 38

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Democrats in 1953. This was just over a year after the Conservatives had come to power in Britain with Churchill again as prime minister. Even before the change of US administration, there was beginning to be a shift in the American position. The US negotiators had been frustrated and baffled by Musaddiq whose technique seemed to be to take one step forward and two back.93 There was a growing fear in the US of communism throughout the world – this was during the McCarthy era – and in Iran in particular, of a Tudeh Party take-over supported by the Soviet Union which Musaddiq, even if he too wanted to keep out the Tudeh, seemed unable to resist. In addition, US oil companies had had their eye on Iranian oil for some time and were becoming increasingly worried about the effect that any deal with the Iranians might have on their oil interests elsewhere in the Middle East. The new US administration, therefore, was more ready to listen to proposals by the British to intervene directly in Iran. The Majles, whose members were frequently threatened by the mobs who supported Mussaddiq, had agreed in June 1952 to give him complete powers for six months over large areas of the administration. He was also involved in a struggle with the shah, in particular over the taxation of royal property that the shah at first resisted although later on, in May 1953, he transferred further estates inherited from his father to the government in exchange for a payment to the Pahlavi Charitable Organization. During the early months of 1953, Musaddiq intensified his efforts to obtain greater power, then to have himself voted permanent prime minister and assume control of the army, the ultimate key to power in the country and important to him in particular for resisting the Tudeh Party. Presumably as a result of clerical influence, the government found time amongst all its other problems to think of the small Anglican community in Iran, and in June 1953 expelled the Bishop of Isfahan. The pastor in Shiraz, Norman Sharp, was accused of spying among the tribes and he too was ordered to leave in July.94 What is said to have been the first stage in the Anglo-US operation, an attempt on 16 August 1953 to evict Musaddiq involving General Zahedi and the Army, ended in failure and, as a result, the shah fled abroad on 17 August. He was not away for long. There followed a further attempt, again said to have been organized by US and British secret agents although the governments of the two countries have never confirmed this. The mob turned against Musaddiq, the army declared for the shah and on 22 August 1953, he was back again in Iran to what seemed to be popular rejoicing and general acclaim. Musaddiq was arrested, tried by a military court and sentenced to three years solitary confinement, which was followed by house arrest until his death in 1967.95 The British Government made a resumption of diplomatic relations with Iran under the restored shah conditional on a resumption of the oil negotiations. After much heart-searching by the Iranians, this was accepted, relations were resumed and Denis Wright arrived in Tehran on 23 December 1953 as chargé d’affaires. Although one exception was allowed, the Iranians still generally insisted that no one should be appointed to the embassy that had been in Iran before,. The negotiations over oil resulted in the creation of the Consortium, in which US oil companies had a 40% share, and in the hand-over by the AIOC of the oil fields and installations to the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC).

The Tehran and Gulhek compounds since 1945 In April 1951, Lennox Cook visited the embassy on a round the world trip on a motorcycle. In his book, The World Before Us, he wrote about the Tehran com- R pound: 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 39

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Once again Englishmen had carried their England about with them. The compound was like a passage from ‘Maud’. In the great walled garden was a feast 2 of flowering shrubs and trees, azaleas, lilacs and along the walls and over the 3 roof of the Ambassador’s terrace a magnificent lacework of purple wisteria . . . 4 In the early evening we would sit on the lawns or by the swimming pool, 5 aware of a sense of peace and grandeur, and listen to the rooks calling from the elm trees.96 6 In fact, he must have been referring to the plane trees; the Englishness of the 8 garden did not extend so far as to include immemorial elms. But Cook was one 9 more traveller to admire the compound, its garden and its tall trees. The break in relations made no difference to its calm and beauty. The Swiss, as protecting power, occupied three of the houses and, helped by Mr Daneshyar, a local 2 employee of the Ministry of Works, who occupied the house which had been 3 that of the British supervisor of works, ensured that the compound was looked 4 after. UN officials occupied another two of the houses. Daneshyar also kept an 5 eye on some of the consulates and reported from the ‘Swiss Legation, Section of 6 Foreign Interests, Tehran’ that when he and the Swiss counsellor were on the way to Shiraz and Bushire, their car caught fire ‘and we very luckily saved our lives’.97 8 The Iranians respected the diplomatic inviolability of the British property in 9 Tehran so, when Denis Wright and his staff arrived, they found it much the same 2 as Lennox Cook described it in 1951 and as George Middleton and his staff had left it just over a year before. Not everyone admired the architecture, as we have 2 seen already. Sacheverell Sitwell, in Arabesque and Honeycomb, written after he 3 had visited the Tehran compound in Spring 1956, shared the Byron view. He did 4 not like the houses ‘built . . . less than a decade after the Mutiny, and it has been 5 said that they are a little like the detached houses in a mid-Victorian lunatic asy- 6 lum’ – presumably he had read Robert Byron. But, proving that little or nothing had changed since the break in relations, he went on to write that: 8 These brick villas are all as charming as possible inside. They are English 9 homes, more English than ever because they are so far away. The compound 3 itself is full of character. And what are strangely and perfectly beautiful are the trees. They are immensely tall, taller than any limes or elms, perhaps eighty 2 or ninety feet high, and the same age as the houses . . . Persian plane trees 3 with silver stems, now leafless because it is the last week in March, and mak- 4 98 ing a silvery pallor of tracery in the cold, cloudless sky. 5 Nevertheless, it was clear that changes had to be made, both in Tehran and 6 Gulhek. For one thing, the numbers of staff had increased considerably. For another, at a meeting held in London in 1955 between the Foreign Office and 8 the Ministry of Works, it was reported that some of the houses in Gulhek were 9 falling down and that the staff were scattered about in five separate office build- 4 ings in the Tehran compound. On the other hand, there was also a feeling that, in the post-war years of austerity, two large compounds were an extravagance 2 and that, while modernization was certainly needed, there was a problem about 3 how to pay for it. The Ministry of Works argued, therefore, that parts of one or 4 both compounds should be sold. In addition, there was a new policy opposed to 5 grouping senior embassy staff in compounds that kept them in an English ghet- 6 to and thus prevented them from being well-informed about the country they were in.99 Sitwell reflected this point of view when he wrote, again about his 8 1956 visit: 9 5 There were children, who could be nothing but English, playing on carefully- 5 tended lawns around a swimming pool, and one could guess they seldom 5 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 40

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went outside the compound except for picnics in the mountains. The high wall gives one a feeling of security and at the same time, a sensation of being half-besieged, both of them rather pleasant in retrospect and more still at the time. The compound seems to be self-contained and provisioned as though it could hold out until rescue came.100 The FO side of the case was that at a difficult time for Britain in the Middle East, it needed to maintain and even increase its influence, not diminish it by moving out of its prestigious properties in Tehran. FO officials thought Iran was unstable and staff were more easily protected in compounds. In any case, the government could not sell the parts of Gulhek that had been given to the then legation, and to sell the parts that had subsequently been bought, apart from one area on the southern periphery, would mean breaking up the property. The idea of selling part or all of the Tehran compound seems not to have arisen. The upshot of this first round in an argument that was to continue for many years was that the compounds remained more or less intact but a rebuilding programme was undertaken, with an agreement that about 75 per cent of the staff should live in the compounds with the rest in outside hirings.101 Staff were already living all the year round at Gulhek after the abandonment of the full-scale summer migration, although Bullard’s replacement, John Le Rougetel, had in 1946 resumed the practice for himself and his family, occupying what had been the counsellor’s house which he preferred to the old minister’s house, and his successors continued to move between the two compounds until the revolution. Sitwell described Gulhek as ‘the replica of its parent’ the Tehran compound, ‘with more streams of water and more of the silver plane trees, and summer versions of the villas, with verandas, some dilapidated, others lived in, and the summer residence of the Ambassador, where we looked down at grape-hyacinths and cyclamen and picked white lilac’.102 The ‘Summer Residence’, as the counsellor’s former house came to be called, was charming but not large. For entertaining, therefore, the ambassador pitched in his garden a large dining tent, which tradition says was given to the minister by a grateful Bakhtiari Khan after the 1909 constitutional crisis in which the Bakhtiaris played such a decisive role. The tent was not used in the years immediately after the 1979 revolution and apparently rotted away in its store. Elsewhere in the Gulhek compound, the new building programme included a rather ugly block of staff flats immediately to the north of the main entrance (1957); a new house for the political counsellor (1962), who refused to move into it on the grounds that he had to be near the office (neither did he think it was quite prestigious enough), so the air attaché was put into it instead; and various other houses for embassy staff and for gardeners and servants.103 Also in the Gulhek compound, in the southeast corner, is the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery. The Commission was given a ninety-nine- year lease from 1961 by the Ministry of Works for a nominal rent. The cemetery contains the identified graves of members of the Commonwealth forces and their allies, including men from the former USSR, Poland, France, the Netherlands and Norway, who had been buried in Iran during the two World Wars.104 There is also a memorial that commemorates by name over 3500 soldiers of the Commonwealth who died in operations in Iran during the First World War.105 The privately-run British School was allowed to rent a piece of land at the northern end of the Gulhek compound where it built a new school, which opened in 1960 with ninety-five children. The biggest changes, however, took place in the Tehran compound. They R started with the construction of a conference hall, primarily intended to be 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 41

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a social club for the staff, which was completed in 1956. Between 1962 and 1965, there was a major rebuilding programme under the general supervision of 2 C. R. E. Kidby, a senior architect of the Ministry of Works. House C, situated on 3 the north side of the Ferdowsi gate and built for the military attaché in the 4 1907–11 building programme, was knocked down. In its place was put a mod- 5 ern office block in which there was room for the whole staff. The chancery 6 offices between the residence and the Clock Tower, including the library, were also demolished and the books moved to a purpose-built library in the new 8 office block. The Clock Tower was linked again to the residence by a wavy-roofed 9 arcade that led into another entrance into the house. During the building of the chancery, there was much Iranian pressure on the British authorities to open up the compound by taking down the perimeter wall so that everyone could see 2 what was going on inside and enjoy the gardens. The response was to take down 3 that part of the wall between the office and the street and put up railings instead. 4 This turned out not to have been a wise decision.106 The Russian embassy, which 5 lies close to the British, also partially opened up their compound a few years 6 later. The residence itself was completely remodelled. The 1872 building had not 8 provided any private sitting room, dining room, or study for the ambassador or 9 his family. There were four bedrooms upstairs and six on the ground floor (and 2 one room shown on a plan of 1942 as a boudoir), plus a smoking room which was really part of the public rooms. There was also a room designed as a small 2 drawing room, part of the public rooms, which at some stage had come to be 3 used as a private dining room. Heads of missions were expected, and presumably 4 themselves expected, to use the public or state rooms for all purposes, public or 5 private, in the same way that rich men would have used their grand rooms in 6 their private houses in Britain. But things had changed by 1962, and it was recognized that the salaried civil servants who were now diplomats needed their 8 own private space in their palatial residences. So the old bedroom and servants’ 9 wing was torn down to be replaced on the ground floor by a large drawing room 3 and study and seven bedrooms on the upper floor, together with a kitchen, laun- dry room, servants’ rooms and all the other usual offices on the ground floor 2 below. The original plan for the rebuilding by the Ministry of Works had shown 3 bedrooms for European servants, but Denis Wright, then an under secretary in 4 London, had argued that this was no longer realistic and they were removed 5 from the plan; another sign of the times.107 6 There was a trade-off between the FO and the Ministry of Works over air- conditioning. The latter argued that if the ambassador wanted to continue the 8 practice of moving up each summer to the residence at Gulhek, they would not 9 put air-conditioning into the new residence wing at Tehran. Conversely, if he 4 agreed to abandon the annual migration and stay in Tehran all summer, they would install it. Denis Wright chose to keep the house at Gulhek going and he 2 was right to do so if only for the sake of using the great Bakhtiari tent.108 3 Sir Denis and Lady Wright moved in to the new wing on 30 January 1965 hav- 4 ing lived in the counsellor’s house since their arrival in 1964. It was the day of 5 Winston Churchill’s funeral and a memorial service for him was held in the 6 same reception rooms where he had celebrated his sixty-ninth birthday. It was attended by about 400 people, mainly British but with a few Iranians and for- 8 eign diplomats including the German ambassador. During the same year of 9 1965, Bridget Kellas (daughter of Sir John Le Rougetel and wife of a former mem- 5 ber of the embassy, Arthur Kellas) painted a mural on the staircase of the new 5 residence depicting Persian scenes, some real, some imaginary; and Osbert 5 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 42

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Lancaster painted a small mural of Lord Curzon with a dancing girl on the wall of the ground floor cloakroom lobby.109 The staterooms were not altered during the rebuilding of the private wing and their decoration was and is still much as Wild and Pierson designed it (although thoroughly refurbished in the 1990s). One of the most notable features of the rooms (which owes nothing to either of them as far as we know), is the portrait of Fath Ali Shah hanging in one of the smaller rooms. Where it came from is not known. Perhaps it is the same ‘portrait of Fath Ali Shah with gems of price, and priceless beard’ mentioned by Eastwick as hanging in ‘the mission house’.110 It is signed by one Ahmad, possibly a pupil of Mehr Ali, one of the foremost court artists of that time, and dated 1813. Another fine piece is the Harford Jones silver bowl, given to him by a group of friends including James Morier. The inscription reads: ‘In Commemoration of his successful Negotiation at the Court of Persia In admiration of his Ability and Gratitude for his Attention’. The bowl was acquired by Sir Stephen Gaselee* and presented to the embassy in 1936 according to an inscription round the lid. Other objects worth mentioning are a water-colour painting of Venice by Nasir al-Din Shah; and two silver maces which were formerly kept by the gate keepers or guards until taken into the residence in 1930 and hung at the top of the entrance stairs. Their date is unknown and it is not clear what they were used for. At some missions, for example, Muscat, they were carried by the farrashes or their equivalents before the British representative but this was not the custom in Tehran. They are no longer on display. There used also to be on display in the area of the state rooms ten antique lances, made of bamboo with red and white and red and black pennons, which were presumably used by the last sowars who escorted the minister when he was riding in his carriage. Two small silver shields recorded the regiment from which the sowars came; they hung up their lances after their last ride some time around 1929. Nevertheless, the embassy guards continued to be recruited from India until partition and then from Pakistan. When Denis Wright arrived in 1953, the guards still wore turbans but the Iranians did not appreciate the Indian connection, so he made them wear military-style caps. Now the guards are Iranian and wear no hats at all. The debate about what was the best use to make of the two compounds was still going strong in the early 1970s. This was one of many debates about the role of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and embassies in the modern world and the feeling of many politicians, the Treasury and others that embassies were too grand and ambassadors and many of their staff over-housed. How could keeping two large compounds to house a relatively small staff be justified when both compounds were worth a lot of money as real estate in a city which was booming, and when cuts in government expenditure were being made all round? For economic reasons, British troops were withdrawn from the Gulf and the Trucial States became independent as the United Arab Emirates. It was in 1967 that, as it withdrew from Aden, Britain told all the states bordering the Gulf that it would keep its troops there for as long as it was necessary to preserve peace and stability in the area, yet only a year later that it announced that it would be no longer necessary to do so after 1971. The prospect of British withdrawal had caused the shah to resurrect Iran’s long-standing claim to the islands of Abu Musa, the Tunbs and Siri over which the British finally brokered a deal

R * Sir Stephen Gaselee (1882–1943), Foreign Office Librarian 1920–43. 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 43

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which left the islands in Iranian hands. The withdrawal of troops and the birth of the UAE was all part of Britain’s withdrawal from empire as were, in their dif- 2 ferent ways, the economies sought in the British Government’s estate in Tehran. 3 In the end, the arguments for keeping the compounds won the day, both on eco- 4 nomic and practical grounds. However, a part of the Gulhek compound was 5 leased to the British Institute for Persian Studies which in 1976 put up its own 6 building. Although the Institute’s archaeological work in Iran has been much restricted since the revolution they still operate from the compound.111 8 9 Britain and Iran 1953–79 In the early 1960s, many people thought that the shah would not last for long. 2 He had already had a close shave in 1953. Other Middle Eastern monarchs had 3 been overthrown in military coups. The Russians were afraid of Western influ- 4 ence on their borders in Iran although the Tudeh Party was left without clear 5 Soviet direction after the death of Stalin. It was then very effectively suppressed 6 by the shah, but remained a danger. Mussadiq’s old party, the National Front, still existed although also banned and the new US President’s brother, Robert 8 Kennedy, was said to be in favour of compelling the shah to take it into govern- 9 ment. The shah’s liberalizing policies, like land reform and the rest of what was 2 known as the White Revolution, were in part at least, aimed at reducing the power of the clerics – the anti-government riots of 1963 were inspired and led 2 by the clergy, especially Ruhollah Khomeini. The bazaar merchants, always close 3 to the clergy, were afraid that modernization would undermine their hold over 4 the commerce of the country which would be taken over by the new Western- 5 educated middle classes. Reflecting that deep-seated distrust of the British, the 6 shah publicly not only accused the religious of being ‘Black reactionaries’ but also ‘sodomites and agents of the British’.112 Land reform was, not surprisingly, 8 unwelcome to the big landowners who included the religious establishment 9 through the vaqf (endowment) system but in its early years, also failed to do 3 much for the peasants whom it was meant to benefit. Government was on the whole still inefficient and there was a great deal of corruption particularly with- 2 in the royal family. 3 So why did the shah not go the way of Faisal and Farouk? For one thing, in 4 1963 he appeared to show great decisiveness, in contrast to his behaviour in 5 1953, by ordering the army to put down the riots with a strong hand, although 6 Sir Anthony Parsons, British ambassador in Iran from 1974–1979, claimed that it was the minister of court who gave the order to shoot.113 The army and the secret 8 police (SAVAK) were completely loyal to the shah. The West had learned the les- 9 sons of the other Middle Eastern coups and knew they had to forestall the same 4 happening in Iran. They encouraged the shah to stand firm and to raise his people’s living standards to make them less susceptible to anti-regime propaganda 2 and less willing to support or join a revolution. The shah bypassed Robert 3 Kennedy and came to an agreement with his brother the president. Thereafter, 4 he received the full-hearted support of the USA and Britain and the rest of the 5 West as a bulwark against communism and Soviet expansionism. The Americans 6 and other Western countries fell over themselves to help the shah build up his army. There was close cooperation between Western security services and SAVAK 8 against Soviet-inspired communist activity. The chief instigator of the riots, 9 Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, was first imprisoned and then sent into exile to 5 Turkey from where he was allowed to settle in Najaf in Iraq. For a time, at least, 5 he was less dangerous to the Iranian Government. Iran’s oil income rose steadily 5 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 44

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under the arrangements made with the Consortium that had replaced the AIOC’s monopoly.114 There remained one insoluble dilemma. If the shah were really to liberalize and introduce a true democracy, he would have had, at the very least, to have governed the country according to the 1906 constitution, which would have meant a reduction in his power and the reality, not the pretence, of a parliament. This is what the opposition in the early 1950s had wanted. But, temperamentally, he turned out to be an autocrat in the tradition of all Iranian kings and was incapable of allowing others even to take part in making decisions, let alone making decisions themselves. Following the suppression of the 1963 riots, the increasing growth in his confidence was, for a time, no bad thing as he gave the country the benefit of firm and stable government for the first time since the war. But as the shah’s confidence grew, so did his ambitions. He developed increasingly grandiose schemes on the way to his target of the ‘Great Civilization’, which in the end were beyond the capacity of his people and his finances. The enormous rise in the world oil price in 1974, which he helped to engineer in order to finance his grandiose plans for the country, were also one of the causes of his downfall by resulting in a world recession in which demand for oil fell dra- matically and Iran’s income accordingly. Nor could Iran’s administrative or physical infrastructure stand the frenetic activity in every area so there were bot- tlenecks and shortages as bust followed the boom years. In the boom years, the shah had become like all dictators by becoming convinced that he knew it all and thought that, while Iran was on its way up thanks to him, he could at last look down on countries like Britain on their way down. So he would not take advice from his ministers, who were in the late 1960s and early 1970s a talent- ed team, if thinly spread across the administration, nor delegate to them. He first allowed, and then created, carefully controlled political parties, but only allowed them to support him and his policies. He also came to believe his government’s propaganda about how much he was loved by the people. And at every turn, he gratuitously took the opportunity to offend the religious with his Pahlavi calen- dar and his glorification of pre-Islamic Iran. The celebrations at Persepolis of the 2,500th anniversary of the Persian monarchy, to which he invited the heads of state of sixty-nine countries and on which he squandered millions of dollars, offended not only religious opinion but all those who thought the money could have been better spent on improving the lives of ordinary Iranians. Perhaps the final straw for the religious was when Jamshid Amouzegar, Hoveyda’s successor as prime minister, cut the government subsidy to the mullahs on which many of them were dependent, in order to save money.115 When the shah did start to liberalize in 1976, partly as a result of increasing pressure from abroad over human rights and in anticipation of the election of Jimmy Carter as president of the US, and partly perhaps to secure his son’s succession, as Anthony Parsons has argued, it was too late – or too soon, depending on how you look at it. Parsons wrote afterwards that he could not understand the shah’s timing, when he had not fulfilled his promises to the people of a new Iran, when the population was demoralized and when ‘the bright horizons of which the Shah had boasted as being near at hand were receding far beyond reach’.116 When responsible politicians tried to take advantage of this political loosen- ing, they were even beaten up by agents of the government. During 1977, the recordings of Khomeini’s sermons from Najaf attacking the shah and his regime R started to spread in Iran. In early 1978, the government arranged for the publi- 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 45

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cation of a long article attacking Khomeini’s character and morals. This caused riots in the holy city of Qum, troops fired on the crowd and, although there was 2 relative calm for a few months afterwards and peaceful marches, gradually there 3 was more frequent and serious rioting, in which the Tudeh Party, other left-wing 4 groups and all the other elements of pent-up opposition each played a role with 5 the religious in the name of Islam. They were joined by anti-shah exiles, some 6 of whom may have been guerrillas trained by Al Fatah in Lebanon.117 The shah had to decide whether to crack down with force or continue with his liberaliza- 8 tion. He stuck to liberalization until it had clearly failed but by the time martial 9 law had been declared, it was too late and rioting turned into a full-scale revolution directed by Khomeini from Paris where he flew after being expelled, at the shah’s request, from Iraq. 2 From Paris, Khomeini continued his anti-shah campaign. The Persian service 3 of the BBC reported his pronouncements and what was going on in Iran, and 4 tried to analyse what was happening – as did, one supposes, just about every 5 other broadcasting service in the world. But most Persians, including the shah, 6 believed that the British Government was trying to do what it did in 1941; show the Iranian people that the shah had lost their support. Parsons tried to convince 8 him that this was not the case, but it was obvious the shah did not believe him. 9 The clerics may also have believed that Britain was supporting the demands of 2 the religious establishment as it had done in 1906 by giving refuge to the constitutionalists. But if the shah and others believed Britain wanted him to go, it 2 was equally clear to his opponents that Britain and the US had brought him back 3 to power in 1953 and had kept him there ever since. American and British 4 ambassadors had, since then, had closer relations with the shah and ministers of 5 court, especially Asad’ollah Alam, than the representatives in Tehran of any 6 other nation. In 1978, the two ambassadors saw the shah frequently, sometimes together, and gave what advice they could on the situation. Parsons advised the 8 shah against declaring martial law, which is what the Iranian military leaders 9 wanted, on the grounds that this would make matters worse by causing a nation- 3 al strike against which the military would be powerless. He also believed that the military were incapable of running the country in the chaotic conditions of late 2 1978. 3 In the afternoon of 5 November 1978, these elements came together when 4 the British embassy was occupied by a group of forty to fifty young men who 5 broke into the compound, setting the gatehouse and the office building on fire. 6 For several days, there had been throughout the country what had become the usual anti-shah demonstrations. Several were taking place in Tehran that day, as 8 was a major demonstration to celebrate the release from prison of a leading 9 Ayatollah. But also on that day there was a new development, a wave of burn- 4 ing and smashing of cars, banks, offices and anything else that seemed to be connected with the shah’s anti-Islamic modernization programme. In the morn- 2 ing, Parsons had left the British embassy to talk to the US ambassador but 3 demonstrators were blocking the roads and there were explosions and fires 4 around the city. It looked as if he would be unable to get back, so he stayed for 5 lunch at the US embassy. When, later in the afternoon, he succeeded in getting 6 back to the British compound through the crowds and wrecks of blazing cars, he found the front gates on Avenue Ferdowsi locked against the expected attack 8 and he could not see anybody in the compound, which seemed totally deserted. 9 He then tried the back gates but with no greater success – this was, of course, in 5 the days before mobile phones and neither did his car have a radio, so he had 5 no means of contacting the embassy. He went to the French embassy, close to 5 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 46

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the British compound. From there he rang, to find that intruders had occupied his embassy.118 At the British embassy, the staff had noticed in the early afternoon that small groups of youths were hanging about in the street outside. They watched the youths wreck a bank on the other side of the street and then, joined by reinforcements, throw stones at the embassy office windows before smashing through both the front and rear gates of the compound and swarming in. The wives and children of embassy staff had congregated in two or three of the houses, but the intruders were only interested in the official buildings and, after throwing more stones at the office building, broke into it and started several fires inside while setting fire also to the gatehouse and the conference hall. The ringleaders did not appear to want to harm the staff, who included women, and allowed them to leave the building and assemble outside the counsellor’s and head of chancery’s houses. The leaders of the mob insisted, however, that they could not guarantee the safety of the staff, unless they and all the other occupants of the compound left in a convoy of cars with all lights blazing and each car carrying a placard saying ‘Death to the Shah’. It looked as if the compound occupants were saved when a lorry-load of troops arrived outside in the street and the rioters melted away. But, having done nothing at all, the troops also melted away and the rioters returned. They tried to get the convoy to depart but the delaying tactics of the staff worked because before they could be moved, two more lorry-loads of troops arrived in the street outside. Although they, like their colleagues earlier, did nothing except stand about and watch, the rioters again disappeared, this time defin- itively. Shortly afterwards the fire brigade arrived, the fires were successfully put out and the ambassador was at last able to get back into his embassy.119 He found parts of the office building had been gutted, there was smoke damage and broken windows throughout, and the telephone switchboard, the lift and the alarms had been put out of action. The gatehouse was completely destroyed and the conference hall extensively damaged, while various installations (e.g. the central heating fuel tanks) had also been destroyed. Other houses had not been touched nor had any of the intruders even shown an interest in the residence. In his published account, Parsons recounted how he and his staff surveyed the damaged office in the dark before he was summoned to see the shah at the Niavaran Palace. When Parsons described what had happened to the embassy, the shah agreed at once that Iran would pay compensation. But it was clear that the reason why he had summoned Parsons was to tell him that he had no alternative but to appoint a military prime minister. At that stage, Parsons had to agree.120 Why was the embassy attacked? In broad terms, one might have expected that the answer lay in the nearly two hundred years of Britain’s relations with Iran described above. What more obvious target than the country that, many Iranians believed, had humiliated them so often and now continued to do so with their allies, the Americans? What more natural target, when law and order were breaking down, than the British embassy? Many Iranians thought that Britain was still responsible for anything of significance that happened in Iran and manipulated the shah or the mullahs or both. But the question which Parsons and his staff asked themselves the following day was more precise; who had actually carried out the attack and what were they hoping would come of it? The answer Parsons finally subscribed to, when looking back at the events some years later, was that it was agents of SAVAK, the security organization, and soldiers from the army in plain clothes in order to ‘teach us a lesson because of R our opposition to military government, and, by the same token, to teach the 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 47

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British that it was futile to continue to press the Shah’ to look for political solu- tions.121 If this is correct, the embassy was not attacked for Britain’s past crimes, 2 so to speak, but it was picked out because its long association with the country 3 had given it a special position, and a special position with the shah that the 4 army and security Forces did not like. And if Parsons is correct, it is interesting 5 to note that although Bill Sullivan, the US ambassador, was giving the same 6 advice as Parsons, the US embassy was not at that time invaded. Was this only because the US embassy was heavily guarded and therefore the harder target 8 or was it because SAVAK and/or the army still believed the British to be more 9 influential than the Americans? Or was there some other reason? The revolution pursued its course during the rest of 1978, and especially during the mourning month of Moharram, which started on 1 December, 2 strikes, including particularly disruptive power strikes, rioting and demonstra- 3 tions continued. The shah left the country on 16 January 1979. Khomeini 4 arrived from Paris on 31 January. Following mutinies among the lower ranks, the 5 army leadership surrendered on 11 February and Khomeini had won. On 14 6 February, the American embassy was attacked by a mob, a foretaste of what was to come. During the following months, Iran continued to be a battleground as 8 clerics fought against the secular ministers and gradually increased their power. 9 Mehdi Bazargan, whom Khomeini, before leaving Paris, had named prime min- 2 ister, called Iran a ‘city with a thousand sheriffs’ as the army, gendarmerie and police collapsed and revolutionary committees, courts and guards began to 2 emerge.122 The revolutionary committees (komitehs) acted as a self-appointed 3 police force making arbitrary arrests and confiscations. The revolutionary courts 4 passed sentence, usually execution, according to no rules, on whoever they con- 5 sidered to be supporters of the shah. The revolutionary guards (pasdaran) were 6 set up by Khomeini to try to curb the power of the komitehs but also as a response to the clerics’ demand to have their own armed forces as a counter- 8 weight to the regular army and to various parties on the left who also had armed 9 groups. At the same time, political parties sprang up and flourished ‘from 3 Islamic-fundamentalist to Islamic – radical, from liberal to conservative, from Marxist-Leninist and Maoist’.123 By the beginning of November 1979, Khomeini 2 and his clerical supporters were close to achieving the aim of a constitution 3 establishing a theocracy with Khomeini at its head. 4 It was against this background that the next attack on the British embassy 5 took place, curiously enough exactly a year from the previous one, on 5 6 November 1979. Since the raid the previous year, the embassy had repaired the damage to the office and gatehouse, and strengthened its defences. After the 8 storming of the US embassy on 4 November, staff at the British embassy heard 9 rumours that the same would happen to them also, so contingency plans had 4 been made. Sensitive documents were destroyed, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was asked for extra protection and additional police guards arrived from the 2 local police station, reinforced by pasdaran, or revolutionary guards. After the 3 office closed at five o’clock and the majority of the staff had left, groups of 4 armed intruders swarmed over the walls and soon broke into the office. This 5 time, however, they did not set fire to anywhere but wanted to see documents 6 and communications equipment, find out whether arms were kept and look for evidence of espionage and conspiracy in the embassy. The staff inside the office 8 eventually had to let the intruders inspect the secure zones; at one point, some 9 of the intruders threatened to shoot their way through various locked doors and 5 the embassy staff learned later that some of the intruders had been advocating 5 handcuffing and blindfolding them. Once inside, however, the intruders did not 5 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 48

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seem to be interested in looking at the equipment or the documents they saw or in taking them away. This was surprising in the light of the use made of the documents which had been found in the American embassy and which were said to prove that it was a ‘nest of spies’. The staff and the intruders then moved to the house of the chargé d’affaires in the compound. Unlike the occupation of the previous year, when the intruders had ignored the houses in the compound, this time they came over the walls in all directions and fanned out among the houses as well as breaking into the office. It was not clear what their aims were although some groups claimed to be looking for arms or ammunition. It was obvious to Imelda Miers, the wife of the chargé d’affaires, David Miers, that they had mistaken her house for the office; one of the group who entered it asked her ‘Where are the men, the papers, the radio?’ Presumably they did not know that families lived in the compound. In the end, they found nothing incriminating in any of the houses except an emergency radio, which they smashed. Although they found alcohol, they did not smash or confiscate bottles or object when the embassy people had a drink. (After they had left, however, it was found that they had taken a few souvenirs.) But all in all they seemed concerned to maintain a high standard of behaviour and to show they had nothing against the staff as individuals. Nevertheless, the incursion was very frightening for those in the compound. Imelda Miers and her seven-year old son, Thomas, who had just come back from school at Gulhek, were sitting in the their house with a neighbour when they heard ‘the noise of shouting angry people mixed with rattling noises coming from the front gates’. Imelda’s neighbour ran back to her house. Imelda grabbed Thomas and ran upstairs: ‘As we emerged on the upstairs landing there they were; the angry youths with the guns, very young, all dark, bearded, with burning eyes, full of zeal, some of them not older than fifteen. In my anger, I asked one of them if his mother knew what he was doing. He looked surprised.’124 The account given by a member of the staff in the office, did not describe his own feelings or those of the staff with him when the intruders arrived, but although they too behaved with dignity and courage, they must have been at the very least alarmed as the intruders pointed their guns and tried to break into the secure zone. The same is true of the staff inside the office the previous year as they tried to put out the fires started by the mob. All the occupants of the compound were eventually herded into the chargé d’affaires’ house, where they were joined by the staff who had been brought from the office. They were told that a guard would be placed outside to stop anyone leaving. The staff had just requested that some should be allowed into another house or houses so that all would have somewhere to sleep, when someone the guards called their chief arrived and said that the embassy would be handed back and everyone could go home. That was not quite the end of the affair, which had lasted about six hours; a ‘hand-over’ document had to be drawn up and signed by the chargé who refused to say that the intruders had only entered the embassy to dislodge other elements but did say this was what they said they had come to do. The Gulhak compound was not attacked on either occasion. Some armed men arrived at the gatehouse and demanded access to the British embassy at 2 a.m. on the night of the second attack on the Tehran compound on 5 November 1979. The men went away after the guard told them that there was no one in and that the embassy was in Avenue Ferdowsi. Who were the intruders in this second attack on the Tehran compound and R what were they after? There appeared to be four separate groups, one of which 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 49

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called itself ‘Moslem students following the path of the Imam’, which was the name of the group which had occupied the American embassy on the previous 2 day (and of which no one had heard beforehand). The others were pasdaran, rev- 3 olutionary guards, attached to the central komiteh; members of the komiteh 4 attached to the local police station; and members of the Sepah-e-Pasdaran or 5 Revolutionary Guard Corps. In other words, they were from competing organi- 6 zations which had either set themselves up after the return of Khomeini or who had been set up by others to try to control the first lot. The rivalry between the 8 different groups was evident and the operation may have been mounted with 9 only limited cooperation between them. One possible explanation is that one or more of the groups had wanted to share in the glory of the assault on the US embassy by doing the same to the British embassy. The members of the Sepah-e- 2 Pasdaran, who by the end were in charge, had been sent to calm down the wilder 3 spirits but had had to prove their revolutionary credentials by taking part in the 4 search of the office. 5 It is not clear whether Khomeini had known about the assault on the 6 American embassy beforehand, but some believe he did and had encouraged it.125 He certainly took every advantage from it he could. One might have 8 expected, therefore, that he would have supported the attack on the British 9 embassy also. Yet, during the course of the affair, the Ayatollah’s son, Ahmad 2 Khomenei, who had himself hurried to the American embassy to congratulate the students, had said that no more embassies were to be attacked and especial- 2 ly not the British embassy since the Imam’s criticism of the British were not to 3 be interpreted this way. This message finally got though to the group from the 4 Sepah-e-Pasdaran who then ordered the intruders to leave. So the British got away 5 with it pretty lightly compared with the Americans. Did this prove that those 6 who thought the name of Britain was tattooed under Khomeini’s beard were right? My guess is that Khomeini was an Iranian who had finally concluded that 8 the British were no longer responsible for all that happened in Iran, and that the 9 US had taken over that traditional British role in Iran. 3

2 Relations since 1979 3 Since then, there have been many ups and downs in relations between Britain 4 and Iran. On many occasions, relations have been broken off altogether. Sweden 5 has been the protecting power during these gaps, The head of mission has been 6 known as the ‘Head of the British Interests Section of the Swedish Embassy’ and neither he nor his staff have had the right of direct access to the Iranian 8 Government; all their official contacts have had to be through the Swedish 9 embassy. Sometimes when diplomatic relations have been restored, it has been 4 at the level of chargé d’affaires rather than that of ambassador. In 1987, during a particularly bad patch in relations, all the staff were withdrawn from the 2 embassy. There have been subsequent occasions when either the head of mission 3 has been recalled on his own or the whole UK-based staff with him but now 4 (November 2005), happily, Britain and Iran have full diplomatic relations at 5 ambassadorial level. But at whatever level the representation has been, the head 6 of mission and his staff have continued to live and work in the same Tehran and Gulhek compounds as their predecessors. 8 Within the compounds, however, there have of course been changes. The 9 ambassador and his family no longer move to Gulhek in the summer and the 5 residence there is badly in need of repair. While other members of the embassy 5 staff occupy many of the same houses in Tehran and Gulhek, there has been 5 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 50

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building since 1979. A new swimming pool, squash court and clubhouse have been built in the northeast corner of the Tehran compound. The house previously occupied by the Ministry of Works representative in the southwest corner of the compound has been rebuilt as a visa office. The gatehouse has also been rebuilt. A Scud missile landed in the Gulhek compound during the war with Iraq and damaged the two 1960s houses which had to be demolished. Four new houses were built in their place. The whole of the wall on the west side of the compound was rebuilt in the 1990s. Nevertheless, perhaps it will soon be a time for changes as radical as those initiated by Alison when the embassy moved from the Bagh-e-Elchi. The fash- ionable residential and business centres of the town have steadily continued to move northwards. The population of the city in 2002 was about 12 million compared to 2.7 million in 1966; perhaps it was nearer 15m in 2005.126 The traffic is dense and there are continual traffic jams so moving between the Tehran compound and the north of the city is enormously time-consuming. Yet the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is to the south of the Tehran compound, as are most government offices and the parliament. Perhaps the government will move north as Nasr-ud-Din Shah did. Would the embassy then move to Gulhek? And if it did, what would happen to the Tehran compound with its large garden and historic buildings in still one of the most densely populated areas of the city? The earthquake which destroyed Bam in December 2003 reminded people that Tehran itself is not immune from earthquakes so the planners are having to take this into account when looking ahead. With the added uncertainties of the political situation, there are plenty of headaches ahead for anyone considering the future of British representation in Iran.

NOTES

1. George Nathanial Curzon, Persia and the Persian Question, (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 2 vols., 1892), I, 3. 2. Robert Cooper, The Breaking of Nations, (New York: Atlantic Books 2003), p. 54. 3. Denis Wright, The English Among the Persians, (London : Heinemann, 1997), p. 22 n. 4. J.W. Kaye, Life and correspondence of Major General Sir John Malcolm, (London: Smith Elder & Co. 2 vols., 1856), I, 90. 5. Wright, The English Among the Persians, p. 94. 6. Curzon, Persia I, 7 & 131n. 7. For a fuller account of the rival missions of Jones and Malcolm, see Wright, English among the Persians, pp. 5–9. 8. Famous for his amusing account of Persia in Hajji Baba of Isfahan, (London: John Murray, 1824, 3 vols.). 9. Elton L. Daniel in Encyclopaedia Iranica, (New York: Center for Iran Studies, Columbia University, 1967–), IX, 86–90. 10. Cambridge History of Iran, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, 9 vols.), VII, 390. 11. Cambridge History of Iran, VII, 390 quoting from John William Kaye, History of the War in Afghanistan, (London: W. H. Allen, 4th edition 1878, 3 vols.), I, 151. 12. National Archives (NA – formerly Public Record Office – PRO) Office of Works Archives, cited as WORK 10/34/10 Minute by R. H. Boyce, Office of Works, 4 Feb 1879 about the sale of the Bagh-e-Elchi. 13. E. B. Eastwick, Journal of a Diplomat’s Three Years’ Residence in Persia, (London: Smith, Elder and Co, 2 vols., 1864; reprinted Tehran: Imperial Social Services, 1976), I, 221. 14. John Gurney, ‘Legations and Gardens, Sahibs and their Subalterns’, Iran, 40 (2002), 203–232. 15. Gurney, ‘Legations and Gardens’, 204. 16. Charles Stuart, Journal of a Residence in Northern Persia and the adjacent Provinces of Turkey, R (London: Richard Bentley, 1854), p. 169, quoted in Gurney, ‘Legations and Gardens’, 204. 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 51

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17. Mary Sheil, Glimpses of Life and Manners in Persia: with Notes on Russia, Koords, Tookromans, Nestorians, Khiva and Persia, (London: John Murray, 1856; reprinted New York: Arno Press, 2 1973), p. 120; Robert Binning, A Journey of Two Years’ Travel in Persia, Ceylon etc., (London: W. 3 H. Allen, 2 vols. 1857) II, 212, quoted in Gurney, ‘Legations and Gardens’, 204. 18. Eastwick, Journal I, p. 257. 4 19. NA Foreign Office Archives FO 60/280 Eastwick to Russell, 5 Aug 1862, quoted by Wright, 5 The English Among the Persians, p. 26. 6 20. See WORK 10/629, Lacy Baggallay, ‘History of Legation Summer Residence from earliest times’, Provisional edition, 31 May 1939. There never seems to have been a definitive edition. 8 There is an earlier draft of the same paper, dated 31 October 1935, in FO 251/91. 9 21. See the translation of the firman in FO/251/91. 22. WORK 10/629, Baggallay ‘Legation Summer Residence’, quoting a 1921 Ministry of Works official, in turn quoting from a legation report of 1906. 23. Shiel, Glimpses of Life and Manners in Persia, p. 162. 2 24. Eastwick Journal I, 240. 3 25. Eastwick Journal I, 243. 4 26. FO/251/90 Further Report respecting the Water Supply of Her Majesty’s Legation at 5 Gulahek (sic), printed 7 July 1894. 27. Peter Avery, Modern Iran, (London: Ernest Benn, 1965) p. 45. 6 28. Cambridge History of Iran, VII, 395. 29. Gurney, ‘Legations and Gardens’, 205. 8 30. FO 60/395, Precis of report by Bovagnet, enclosed in Alison to Lord Stanley, 26 July 1866, 9 quoted in Gurney, ‘Legations and Gardens’, 223. 2 31. PRO FO 60/395, Alison to Clarendon, 8 May 1866, quoted in Gurney ‘Legations and Gardens’, 223 32. The following account of the building of the Embassy is taken from Gurney, ‘Legations 2 and Gardens’. I am greatly indebted to Dr Gurney for allowing me to draw on it. 3 33. Curzon, Persia and the Persian Question, I, 310. 4 34. Gertrude Bell, ed. Elsa Richmond, The Earlier Letters of Gertrude Bell, (London: Ernest Benn, 5 1937), p. 266. 6 35. WORK 10/34/10 Minute by R. H. Boyce, 4 July 1879. 36. Ann K. S. Lambton, Qajar Persia – eleven studies (London: I. B. Tauris, 1987), p. 22. 37. Lambton, QajarPersia, p. 24. 8 38. Curzon, Persia and the Persian Question I, 480. 9 39. Curzon, Persia and the Persian Question, I, 481. 3 40. Lambton, Qajar Persia, p. 230. 41. Avery, Modern Iran p. 120. 2 42. Telegram from Lord Salisbury to Sir Frank Lascelles 15 December 1891, quoted in 3 Lambton, Qajar Persia, p. 248. 43. Lambton Qajar Persia, p. 275. 4 44. FO 251/93, Annual Review from His Majesty’s Minister at Tehran, 1906, 28 February 1907. 5 45. E.G. Browne, The Persian Revolution of 1905–1909, (Cambridge: Cambridge University 6 Press, 1910) p. 119. 46. David Fraser, Persia and Turkey in Revolt, (London and Edinburgh: W. Blackwood, 1910), 8 p. 22, quoted in Antony Wynn, Persia in the Great Game: Sir Percy Sykes, explorer, consul, soldier, 9 spy, (London: John Murray, 2003) p. 153. 47. Fraser, Persia and Turkey in Revolt, p. 23. 4 48. Fraser, Persia and Turkey in Revolt, p. 23. 49. Quoted by R.L Greaves in ‘Some Aspects of the Anglo-Russian Convention’, SOAS Bulletin, 2 XXXI (1968) Part I, 69–91, Part II, 290–238. 3 50. Avery, Modern Iran, p. 138. 4 51. Ronald W. Ferrier, The History of the British Petroleum Company, (Cambridge: Cambridge 5 University Press, 1982), p. 28. 52. Henry Drummond Wolff, Rambling Recollections, (London: Macmillan & Co., 2 vols., 6 1908), II, 329. 53. Wynn, Persia in the Great Game, p. 124. 8 54. FO 881/8526, ‘Memo on British Policy in Persia’ 31 October 1905, quoting Lord 9 Lansdowne to Sir Arthur Hardinge, 6 January 1902. See also Ferrier, History, I, p. 41. 5 55. Percy Sykes, History of Persia, (London: Macmillan & Co, 3rd edition 1930, reprinted 1958, 5 2 vols.) II, 535. 5 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 52

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56. Undated note (? late 1940s) by John Cloake, former counsellor in the Embassy in Tehran, in the possession of Hugh Arbuthnott. 57. Wright, English among the Persians, p. 40, quoting the British Minister, Arthur Hardinge. 58. Benjamin Burges Moore, From Moscow to the Persian Gulf – being the journal of a disenchanted traveller in Turkestan and Persia, (New York and London: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1915), p. 229. 59. WORK 10/629, Baggallay, ‘Legation Summer Residence’. 60. India Office Records L/PS/10/229, Dr A. R. Neligan to Sir G. Barclay 18 April 1911. 61. Quoted in WORK 10/629, Baggallay ‘Legation Summer Residence’. 62. Wright, English among the Persians, p. 28. 63. India Office Records L/PS/10/229. 64. E. G. Browne, A brief narrative of recent events in Persia, followed by a translation of ‘The Four Pillars of the Persian Constitution’ etc., (London: Luzac and Co., 1909). 65. Sykes, History of Persia, II, 453. 66. Sykes, History of Persia, II, 452, 476. 67. Wynn, Persia in the Great Game, p. 281. 68. David Gilmour, Curzon: Imperial Statesman 1859–1925, (London: John Murray, 1994), 518. 69. Wright, English among the Persians, p. 179. 70. See, for example, Cyrus Ghani, Iran and the Rise of Reza Shah, (London: I. B. Tauris, 1998). For a different interpretation of the British role in Reza Khan’s coup d’etat, see Wright, English among the Persians, pp. 183–4. 71. Ghani, Iran and the Rise of Reza Shah, pp. 302–47. 72. FO 371/11483, Loraine to Chamberlain, 31 December 1925, quoted in Ghani, Iran and the Rise of Reza Shah p. 390. 73. IOR L/PS/10/1147, Memorandum by Lt. Col. Howarth, August 1927. Howarth perhaps took his quote from Sir John Malcolm, History of Persia, (London, John Murray 1819, 2 vols.) I, 352n. The firman says too ‘Also all merchandise that they [Christian traders] shall bring, shall be so priviledged, that none, of any dignity or authority, shall haue power to look unto it’. Malcolm reproduced the firman from Sir Antony Sherley, His relation of his trauels into Persia etc., (London 1613). 74. Ronald Ferrier, ‘The Iranian Oil Industry’, in P. Avery, G. R. G. Hambly and C. Melville, eds., Cambridge History of Iran, VII, 639–88. See also Avery, Modern Iran, p. 320. 75. George Lenczowski, Russia and the West in Iran 1914–194: a study in big-power rivalry, (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1949), p. 156. 76. Lenczowski, Russia and the West, p. 161. 77. Ronald Ferrier, Cambridge History of Iran VII, 639–86. 78. Lenczowski, Russia and the West p. 168. 79. Robert Byron, The Road to Oxiana, (London: Macmillan, 1937, reprinted Penguin Books, 1992); Christopher Sykes, Four Studies in Loyalty, (London: Collins, 1946, reprinted Century Hutchinson, 1986). 80. FO 248/1710, Denis Wright, ‘Some Notes on the British Embassy Compound in Tehran’, Dec. 1966. 81. Reader Bullard, The Camels Must Go, (London: Faber and Faber, 1961), p. 216. 82. Winston Spencer Churchill, The Second World War V: Closing the Ring, (London: Cassell, 1952), 339–43. 83. Bullard The Camels Must Go, p. 255. 84. Churchill, Closing the Ring, p. 303. 85. Lenczowski, Russia and the West, pp. 176, 322–3. 86. Bullard The Camels Must Go, p. 260. 87. Lenczowski, Russia and the West, p. 320. 88. David Allen, ‘Forward’, in Lenczowski, Russia and the West, p. viii. 89. Avery, Modern Iran, p. 400. 90. Mohammad Musaddiq, ed. Homa Katouzian, trans. by S. H. Amin and H. Katouzian, Memoirs, (London: Jebhe Melli National Movement of Iran, 1988), p. 481, quoted in James Cable, Intervention at Abadan: Plan Buccaneer, (Basingstoke, Hants: Macmillan, 1991), p. 19. 91. James Cable Intervention at Abadan, passim. 92. FO366/2995 Middleton to Sir Anthony Eden, 27 November 1952. 93. James A. Bill and Wm. Roger Louis, eds., Mussadiq, Iranian Nationalism and Oil, (London: I. B. Tauris, 1988), p. 279. Bill comments that the US ‘ultimately found Britain to be a more con- genial and predictable party to deal with’ than Mussadiq. No doubt the British involved would R 2406_CH01.qxd 5/19/08 4:39 PM Page 53

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have been flattered to know that that their war time friend and partner in the special relationship had come to this conclusion. 2 94. Avery, Modern Iran, p. 445. 3 95. Cambridge History of Iran, VII, p. 266. See also Bill and Louis, Mussadiq, Iranian Nationalism and Oil, passim. 4 96. John Lennox Cook, The World Before Us, (London: Collins, 1955), p. 115. 5 97. WORK 10/291 Daneshyar to Morris, Ministry of Works, 9 March 1953. 6 98. Sacheverell Sitwell, Arabesque and Honeycomb, (London: R. Hale, 1957), p. 18 99. FO 366/3134, Record of meeting November 1955. 8 100. Sitwell, Arabesque and Honeycomb, p. 19. 9 101. FO 366/3134 J. McAdam Clark, minute of 5 November 1955. 102. Sitwell, Arabesque and Honeycomb, p. 19. 103. Private information. 104. Denis Wright, ‘Burials and Memorials of the British in Iran’, in Britain and Iran 1790–1980: 2 Collected Essays of Sir Denis Wright, edited by Sarah Searight, (London: Iran Society, 2003), p. 97. 3 105. Denis Wright, ‘Some notes on Post-1939 Developments in Gulhek’, December 1966. Copy 4 in possession of Hugh Arbuthnott. 5 106. WORK 10/631. 107. WORK 10/631, Minute by Denis Wright, 28 November 1962. 6 108. Private information. 109. Denis Wright ‘Some Notes on the British Embassy Compound in Tehran’, December 1966. 8 Copy in possession of Hugh Arbuthnott. 9 110. Eastwick, Journal I, 225. 2 111. See the British Institute of Persian Studies website for more details www.britac.ac.uk/ institutes/bips/ 112. Amir Taheri, The Spirit of Allah: Khomenei and the Islamic Revolution, (London: Hutchinson, 2 1985), p. 135. 3 113. Anthony Parsons, The Pride and the Fall: Iran 1974–1979, (London: Cape, 1984), p .27. 4 114. Ronald Ferrier, in Cambridge History of Iran, VII, 639. 5 115. Parsons Pride and the Fall, p. 62, quoting the former Iranian Prime Minister Amir Abbas 6 Hoveida in 1978. 116. Parsons, Pride and the Fall, p. 48. 117. See, for example, Taheri, Spirit of Allah, 210, 224. 8 118. The account above of Anthony Parsons’ views and activities on and before 5 November 9 1978 are based mainly on his Pride and the Fall, Chapter 6. 3 119. Where published sources are not used in this account of the 1978 and 1979 attacks, the information comes from information released to the author under the Freedom of Information 2 Act. 3 120. Parsons, Pride and the Fall, p. 97. 121. Parsons, Pride and the Fall, p. 98. 4 122. Shaul Bakhash, The Reign of the Ayatollahs: Iran and the Islamic Revolution, (London: I.B. 5 Tauris 1985), p. 55. 6 123. Bakhash, Reign of the Ayatollahs, 66. 124. Imelda Miers, ‘Life in the Embassy in Tehran 1979’, BDSA Magazine (1980), 50. 8 125. Gary Sick, All fall down: America’s fateful encounter with Iran, (London: I. B. Tauris, 1985), 9 p. 197. 126. Population figures taken from www.payvand.com/news/02/nov/1067.html and 4 www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iran/urban.html 2 3 4 5 6

8 9 5 5 5 2406_CH02.qxd 5/19/08 4:41 PM Page 54

CHAPTER 2 The Iran Consulates

he rise and fall of the British consulates (the word covers also consulates Tgeneral and vice-consulates) in Iran provide another illustration of the intertwined relations between Iran and Britain, India and Russia. Consulates developed during the nineteenth century into branches, as it were, of missions (embassies or legations) and, under the supervision of the head of mission, carried out some or all of the same tasks as the mission to which they were normally subordinate.1 In practice, Britain’s initial contacts with Persia were both political and commercial and continue to be so. Thus the consulates in Persia, like the legation and later, the embassy, always served both commercial and political purposes as well as having the task of protecting British (and Indian) subjects and registering their births and deaths. Not all the consulates, however, had the same workload. Some were more involved in politico/military affairs and some in commercial matters; indeed, in some consular areas, there were scarcely any British subjects at all. In 1921, one list shows that outside Tehran there were eighteen establishments: four consulates general, seven consulates and eight vice-consulates.2 In addition to the consuls of varying ranks, Britain was often represented by consular agents (four in 1921), who could be Persian, Indian or, on the southern coast, Arab. The account which follows does not try to cover every one of these posts, most of which have disappeared without trace; in 1939, there were only seven and although the number increased again during the Second World War, to-day there is not a single consular post outside Tehran. The first Englishmen to set up permanent establishments, the forerunners of official governmental missions, were the agents of the East India Company (EIC) who came into the Persian Gulf from India but they had been preceded by other Englishmen looking for trade or other opportunities. A merchant adventurer, Antony Jenkinson, came to Persia through Russia in 1561 with instructions from both the English Muscovy Company and the Tsar to open up trade with Persia.3 Six further trips were made to Persia on behalf of the Muscovy Company through Russia across the Caspian Sea to the adjoining Persian provinces and to Azerbaijan, none distinguished by any great success; the last ended in total failure in 1581. Curiously, in the light of the later rivalry between Russia and Britain in Persia these expeditions were made with the full support of the Tsar – but this was at a time when Russia was not capable of mounting such expeditions itself. British trade with Persia from the north, including through Khorasan (the north eastern province of Persia) was resumed at various times in the seventeenth and 2406_CH02.qxd 5/19/08 4:41 PM Page 55

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eighteenth centuries but never successfully and in 1749 the last expedition to Persia by the Caspian route came to an ignominious end.4 The best known of the English adventurers of the sixteenth century to arrive were Sir Antony and Sir Robert Sherley, who travelled by sea to Antioch and then by land through modern Syria and Iraq and arrived in Persia in 1599, although they had been preceded by four merchants who came by the same route.5 The Sherley brothers made their voyage, which took place before the creation of the EIC, on their own account and on the basis of the reputation of Shah Abbas. They brought fine presents which certainly helped to make themselves welcome at the court but Shah Abbas appears to have taken a genuine liking to them and in due course they entered his service. At his own suggestion, Antony was sent by Shah Abbas to Europe to drum up support for Persia against the Turks. He was not successful and whether for this reason or another, he never went back to Persia. Robert stayed behind, helped train the Persian army and fought with it in Shah Abbas’s finally successful campaign against the Turks, before also being sent on a mission to obtain European support against Turkey and open up direct trade between Persia and England. He too was unsuccessful in both causes, returned to Persia but in 1623 went on a second mission to England from which he returned in 1627. His accounts there of the wealth of Persia were not fully believed but his account of the possibilities for trade were sufficiently persuasive for the EIC (founded in 1600) to decide to send him back to Persia with Sir Dodmore Cotton. Their mission was to agree with Shah Abbas terms for exchanging Persian silk for English cloth; Shah Abbas was anxious to export silk directly in order to avoid being forced to send it via his enemies, the Turks. The mission was not successful and both Sherley and Cotton fell sick and died in Qazvin in the north west of the country where they had been pursuing the itinerant shah.

First factories In the meantime, other Englishmen arrived in Iran by sea through the Gulf, sent from the EIC ‘factory’ (trading post) in Surat to look for a market for English cloth, and to buy silk. A first, overland, expedition from Surat, consisting of Connock and Steele, obtained in 1615 a firman from Shah Abbas encouraging trade and ordering local governors to protect the English traders. Duly encouraged, a second expedition, led by Connock and with four other factors, went by ship and landed in 1616 at Jask, on the Persian side of the Gulf of Oman, where they set up a factory and another in each Shiraz and Isfahan.6 These factories marked the start of a British connection with, and often domination of, the southern part of Iran to the extent that for long periods the people living there looked more to Britain than to the government in Tehran as the power in the land, certainly until the time of Reza Shah.7 For Persia, it was also the beginning of its history as a piece in the ‘Great Game’. This started as a struggle for commercial advantage among the Europeans but, because trading rights and privileges were in the gift of the Persian Government, became at the same time a struggle for political advantage. From the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Portuguese controlled the trade with India via the Gulf, with a strongly fortified base on the island of Hormuz. Hormuz guarded the entrance to the Persian Gulf, opposite to the coastal port of Gombroon, renamed Bandar Abbas in honour of Shah Abbas after he captured it from the Portuguese in 1615. The Portuguese wanted to keep the British out of their chasse guardée and there had been a number of skirmishes between the English and Portuguese after the 2406_CH02.qxd 5/19/08 4:41 PM Page 56

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former’s arrival from Surat, including in 1620 an English sea victory at the battle of Jask. The Persians, on the other hand, saw the English as allies against the Portuguese, which explains the success of a second mission from Surat in obtaining Shah Abbas’s support. In 1622, the English and Persians expelled the Portuguese from Hormuz and, as part of the deal with the Persians, the English were allocated half the revenues of Bandar Abbas (which they never actually received). There they set up a new factory. In spite of early successes, the English position on the Persian coast of the Gulf was far from secure during the rest of the seventeenth century. There was opposition from Persian traders to foreigners taking over their traditional trade and obstruction from Persian officials. The Civil War in England was a major distraction. There was strong competition from the Dutch who, having set up their own East India Company in 1602 and taken over the principle Portuguese trading possessions in the East Asia, first arrived in the Gulf in 1623 and set up a factory in Bandar Abbas. The French were not far behind and made a number of efforts during the century, especially on Colbert’s initiative, to establish themselves in the Gulf and Iran, succeeding in founding trading posts at Isfahan and Bandar Abbas. Even the Russians sent a small mission to Isfahan in the middle of the century but that was forced to leave by Shah Abbas II because its members, who were merchants, had pretended their mission was an embassy in order to avoid payment of duty on the goods they had brought. Not for the first or last time, the fate of Persia was settled by the results of battles between Europeans, in this case by English victories over the Dutch and French. By the end of the seventeenth century, the English had established themselves as the major European power in Persia and the Gulf, with their head factory first at Isfahan and then at Bandar Abbas, and with yet another factory at Kerman.8 These British factories came to represent the oldest permanent British presence in Persia, rather than any diplomatic mission. But they were the forerunners of permanent diplomatic establishments and at various times, indeed, factors were regarded, or sometimes regarded themselves, as official representatives of the English crown, rather as the EIC came to represent the crown in India. Thus, the chief agent in Isfahan seems to have been recognized as an accredited representative of the crown and the shah even paid what we would call an official visit to the factory in 1699.9 There was also the case of Samuel Manesty. In 1804, he more or less appointed himself ambassador to Fath Ali Shah to whom he travelled with a huge retinue in order to hand him a letter from the governor general in India apologizing for the accidental death of the shah’s Ambassador to India.10 Some of the problems that arose in the nineteenth century between the British and the Persian governments did so because the British used ‘native agents’ instead of British consuls.11 But the chaotic state of Persia in the eighteenth century caused by the weakness and disappearance of the Safavid dynasty and the consequent Afghan and Turkish invasions caused the EIC’s trade to suffer. The Isfahan factory closed and the French sacked the factory at Bandar Abbas in 1759. Bushire in Persia became the new Gulf headquarters of the company in 1763 and although the headquarters moved in 1770 from Bushire to Basra, they were moved back again to Bushire in 1773 which from then on ‘became the principal British centre, both commercial and political, in the Persian Gulf’.12 Thus the foundations were laid of what was later to become the official command post for the British Government in the Gulf, the political residency as it came to be known, and later still, the British consulate. For a time, the political resident was also consul general, but in 1946 Bushire became a simple consulate when the residency in the Gulf moved to Bahrain on the Arab side. 2406_CH02.qxd 5/19/08 4:41 PM Page 57

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Consulates, as opposed to EIC residencies and agencies, were not generally set up until the end of the nineteenth century or the beginning of the twentieth century. While they were responsible for the range of tasks that fell to consulates elsewhere, some were set up for primarily political and military reasons and others for commercial reasons. In both cases, throughout most of the nineteenth century and part of the twentieth, the consulates were part of the British effort to defend India from a Russian invasion, obtain as large a share of the Persian market as possible for British goods in the north of Persia, where the Russians predominated, while keeping the Russians away from the south where the British had a quasi-monopoly of trade. For Lord Curzon, writing in the last decade of the nineteenth century, the Persian trade was as important for Britain as the defence of India. Indeed, it was part of the defence of India because India’s exports to Persia helped strengthen the Indian economy. The Russians were the first to obtain the right, by the Treaty of Turkomanchai in 1828, to appoint consuls and commercial agents wherever they wanted. This became an important issue for the British because, if the Persians succeeded in re-incorporating Herat into their territory, as they tried to do more than once,* the Russians would have had the right to appoint consular officials there with all that would mean for India, in particular the ability to influence, and intrigue with, the Afghans. It was one of the considerations that aroused British opposition to the first attempt to occupy Herat, made in 1837 by Mohammed Shah, which they thwarted.

Importance of Tabriz By 1841, after a number of setbacks resulting from Persian fear of partition of their country between Russia and Britain, the British had obtained the right to appoint consuls or commercial agents in Tehran and in Tabriz in the north west of the country. The Persians also agreed to allow the resident to continue to stay in Bushire.13 In Tabriz, there was a building owned or rented by the British mission in Tehran from quite early in the nineteenth century. It was the custom of the Qajar shahs from 1805 onwards to send the vali’ ahd (the crown prince and heir apparent) as governor of Azerbaijan, the Persian province of which Tabriz was the capital. There were several occasions when the head of the British mission in Tehran visited Tabriz and stayed there for relatively long periods in order to be close to the vali’ ahd. This was not the only reason that Tabriz was important for the British, since the city was close to the Russian and Turkish frontiers. The Russians were a continual threat to the province. It was the Russian occupation of Tabriz in 1827 that led to the Treaty of Turkomanchai and for the following 150 years the Russians brought pressure on the Persian Government whenever they needed to, and could, by putting troops into Azerbaijan and threatening Tehran. As we have seen, the last occasion this happened was during the Second World War when the Soviet army was occupying Azerbaijan which declared itself an ‘independent republic’. Albert Wratislaw, who was appointed consul general in Tabriz in 1903, wrote that ‘Much of the work of the Consulate arose from the rivalry between Great Britain and Russia in Persia. Whatever move the one Power made, the other did its best to counter. The British and Russian Legations in Tehran watched one another’s doings with extreme jealousy, and the Consuls throughout the country imitated their leaders . . .’14

* See Chapter One. 2406_CH02.qxd 5/19/08 4:41 PM Page 58

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Another reason for the importance of Tabriz, according to Wratislaw, was because it was the summer resort of the legation in Tehran ‘which, in days of greater independence and leisure, had been wont to migrate there bodily in order to escape the heat of the capital.’† The first consulate in Tabriz was opened in 184115 in what had been the minister’s residence, described by Wratislaw as ‘. . . a large and rambling place round three separate courtyards, with stabling for a dozen horses and accommodation for nearly twice that number of humans and though over a hundred years old – a considerable age for a house in Persia – was still perfectly habitable’.16 Denis Wright gave a similar description but added that it had ‘an attractive garden laid out in the front courtyard’.17 When Curzon visited what had become the British consulate general in about 1890, he found it ‘. . . a charming and spacious house . . .’ in the Armenian quarter of Tabriz. He says that the Turks and Russians also had consulate-generals and the French a consulate in the same area.18 The Treaty of Paris of 1857, ending the Anglo-Persian war over Herat,* among other things provided for the establishment of consulates by both countries on the basis of most favoured nation treatment, i.e. each side had the same rights that any third country had been given. This put Britain on equal terms with Russia and the first new consulate following the treaty opened in 1857 at Resht. Resht was a port and the capital of Gilan Province, almost on the south western corner of the Caspian sea and close to what later became the more important port of Enzeli, very near the Russian frontier. The river and sea route down the Volga and across the Caspian had been used by the early English travellers, while across the Caspian was one of the routes by which the Russians traded with Persia and sent in troops. From 1879 to 1883, there was also a consulate at Asterabad on the southeast coast of the Caspian, perhaps the shortest life of any of the consular posts in Persia.19 Resht, because of its position, was always a sensitive post but would have been even more sensitive if the Russians had drawn up a plan in the mid-1890s to invade India and incorporate into Russia two of the northern Persian provinces, Gilan and Mazenderan, as Curzon thought they had.20 (There is evidence, in fact, that suggests that the Russians had no such intention.)21 Yet Resht was thought to be important for British interests and continued to be considered so for a considerable time. In a memorandum of 1922, an Office of Works official noted that ‘in normal times, all travellers to the north of Persia passed through Resht’. Before 1914, it took seven to ten days to travel from London to Resht via Batum amd Baku, then a further three days by carriage to Tehran. In 1895, the first consul in Resht, H. L. Churchill, described the consulate, which he rented from the Persian Government, as small, badly built, draughty, in need of constant repair and generally unfit for a European to live in.22 Nevertheless, in 1896, he was authorized to spend £1000 on buying the house; he succeeded in getting it for less. It did not serve as the consulate for long because Kuchek Khan’s Jangalis, during their revolt at the end of the war, burnt it down in 1919 with all its contents. It was rebuilt, but by 1932, the post of vice-consul (presumably it had been down-graded) was vacant, and although the commercial and general reporting done by a ‘munshi’, a locally engaged secretary or ‘native agent’, was considered valuable by the head of mission in Tehran, in

† I have not seen any other references to Tabriz as a summer residence for the legation but perhaps it was so used before Gulhek. * See Chapter One. 2406_CH02.qxd 5/19/08 4:41 PM Page 59

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1935 the consulate was closed down completely and the building sold in 1936.23 Probably no one in danger of being appointed consul there at the time shed any tears for its disappearance, although the then minister, Arthur Hardinge, writing in 1903 noted that the acting consul, Alfred Churchill, said that he liked ‘Resht, a most fortunate thing, for it is one of the vilest holes I know, and I am acquainted with many’.24 The Caspian area is very beautiful but the climate is hot and damp and the area was at that time full of malaria. It was nevertheless reopened at some stage, presumably during the Second World War to help with getting supplies to Russia. It was still open in 1952 in a rented building.25 Khorasan, Persia’s north eastern province, borders Russia and Afghanistan and was much more important to the interests of the British and, more particularly, the Indian governments. Its capital is at Meshed which is a place of pilgrimage to the tomb of Imam Reza who was for the Shi’as the eighth descendent of the prophet Mohammed. The Russians persuaded the Persians to allow them to set up a consulate general here in 1889, the first consul general going there from Resht where he had been consul. Having given in to the Russians, the Persians could not refuse the British permission to appoint a consul general, who rather cleverly managed to get there first and so became doyen of the local diplomatic corps (of two diplomats). The principal duty of the Russian and British representatives was to spy on one another. In addition, the British used Meshed as a base from which to spy on Russian activities in Central Asia where Russian troops were advancing fast in the direction of India; and the Russians looked for opportunities to further their ambitions along the frontier with Afghanistan and beyond. In short, Meshed was a key piece in the Great Game. It was also an important commercial centre for the Russians through which their exports reached Persia; and the British had the additional task of dealing with the problems raised by Shi’a pilgrims from India.

Curzon’s intervention When Curzon visited Meshed, he found the consul general living in what he considered to be quite unsuitable premises, presumably because the first consul general had had to make do with what he could find quickly in his effort to get there first. On his return to London, Curzon successfully argued for a better consulate. The Indian Government bought land in 1892 and the buildings were completed in 1893. It was a self-contained compound entirely surrounded by a mud-brick wall within which were not only the consulate office but also houses for the consul general, the vice-consul and other staff, the lines and stables of the sowars and a spacious garden. Accounts of its size vary between eight and a half and twelve acres, although an estimate in 1956 put it at just over ten acres, which is probably accurate and suggests that, at its largest, it was twelve acres and that some ground had been lost over the years to road-widening and other municipal schemes.26 It was, therefore, almost as large as the legation compound in Tehran and was a consulate altogether more appropriate to British might and prestige than the old one. The British staff at the turn of the century consisted of a consul general, a vice-consul, a surgeon, and a military attaché. It was into this set-up that Sir Percy Sykes, one of Meshed’s best known consuls general, moved with his family in 1905 having come across the desert from Kerman where he had also been consul general. Apart from one or two periods of leave, he stayed in Meshed until 1913, and was there in 1912 when the Russians, on the pretext that the lives of their subjects were in danger, bombarded the shrine of the Imam Reza. 2406_CH02.qxd 5/19/08 4:41 PM Page 60

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Sykes afterwards had photographs taken of the dome of the shrine with the shell marks in it clearly visible but the damage was superficial and the shrine was quickly repaired.27 This did nothing to help the reputation of the Russians, but as we saw above, the fact that Britain was allied with Russia through the Anglo-Russian Convention did not help Britain either, even if Sykes himself was popular in Meshed. Meshed’s importance declined between the wars, as did that of almost all the consulates although it had a brief revival in the Second World War when Clarmont Skrine was made consul in 1942. His job was to ensure that supplies went through to Russia from India but the difficulties of this route were soon recognized and it was abandoned. During his short stay in Meshed, Skrine was particularly struck by the fertility of the consulate garden where ‘. . . almost any flower, fruit, berry or vegetable that will grow in France or southern England flourishes if skilfully tended and irrigated’.28 But, he wrote, the gardens, although large, were not all. Beyond the tennis courts (note the plural), were the escort lines, where the consular Indian cavalry escort lived until Reza Shah had ensured its disappearance. The political rivalry between Britain and Russia was matched by the commercial rivalry between the two countries throughout Khorassan where the Russians had the built-in advantage of being almost next door. In fact, it was a factor in the employ of the English Muscovy Company in the eighteenth century, John Elton, who had first seen the possibilities of trading British cloth through Russia for goods from Bokhara via Meshed. He was followed by two other factors, Mungo Graham and Von Mierop, but all their expeditions came to grief in one way or another.29 The trade was later built up by the Russians on their own account as they advanced into Central Asia, particularly after they had built the Transcaspian railway. When Curzon visited Meshed around 1890, the bazaars of Khorasan seemed to be loaded with Russian goods. While there was a British trade – cottons, cutlery – and a British Indian trade – tea, minerals, indigo – worth defending and, according to Curzon, worth expanding, Britain’s primary interest lay in ensuring the Russians did not conquer Khorasan, assumed to be their target both for its own sake and as a stepping stone towards India and the Gulf.

Political and military imperatives This political and military imperative had consequences for the British position all along the frontier between Persia and Afghanistan and, further south, between Persia and India. Subordinate to the consulate general at Meshed was for a time a consulate at Torbat-e Heidari, opened in 1903 but which no longer existed in 1921. There was another at Birjand, (the chief town of Qayen province) south of Torbat-e-Heidari which opened in 1909 and was still going in 1921. In 1909, the vice-consul was an official from the European Indian Telegraph department who combined his two jobs and became later also the manager of the Birjand branch of the Imperial Bank of Persia. Land was bought for a consulate in 1914. Further south still, Percy Sykes, at that time consul in Kerman, was ordered in 1898 to open a consulate in Nosratabad (now Zabol) in Sistan, a strategic point on the way to India where the Russians also opened a consulate in the same year.30 Land was bought for a consulate in 1903 according to a Ministry of Works memo of 1949.31 When Frederick O’Connor arrived as consul in 1909, he found that he had a staff of 137 but these included ‘eighty Indian Cavalry, a score or so of local levies . . . . and various minor retainers’.32 2406_CH02.qxd 5/19/08 4:41 PM Page 61

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The Indian cavalry were presumably part of the contingent of sowars brought in from India in 1904 as a riposte to a large increase in the number of Russian Cossacks referred to by Denis Wright.33 This state of affairs did not last long because O’Connor was ordered to cut down the expenses of the consulate by 50% shortly after his arrival. A photograph from 1910 shows a staff of only twenty-five, including eight sowars with their lances. By 1929, the consulate at Duzdab (now Zahedan), was a temporary establishment sanctioned from year to year,34 and it does not appear in Denis Wright’s 1921 list of consulates. The building was put up during the First World War but a Ministry of Works memo of 1949 records that it was not ‘taken over’ until 1922–25, which may explain why it is not on the Wright list. The Kerman consulate, founded in 1894 by Sykes, was another of the establishments maintained in south and east Persia jointly by the Foreign Office and the Government of India. It was housed in the Bagh-e Zirisf in Kerman in a Persian bagh or garden which Skrine, vice-consul there in 1916, thought was unusual for a Persian bagh because there was more than one house in it. Sykes described the area as ‘the pleasaunce of Kerman’, situated about a mile outside the city walls and consisting of several gardens, covering perhaps half a square mile, although he does not say how much of the area the consulate occupied.35 It seems to have followed the usual pattern of British consulates in Persia and, besides houses for the staff, included stabling for horses and quarters for the sowars. Skrine found the consul’s residence charming, with its colonnaded logia, arched portico and French windows giving on to an almost English lawn. For him, it was ‘a pleasant mixture of Persia and the West; lawns and flower-beds alternated with rose-plots and vine-pergolas, willows wept over grass-lined water channels, trees of apricot and peach and nectarine shaded rectangular plots of lucerne and vegetables’. He does not say whether the building was rented or owned nor who had built it (Sykes is also silent on this point in his Ten Thousand Miles in Persia, as is his sister, Ella, in her Through Persia on a Side-Saddle).36 Skrine referred to it, when describing a visit he made there in 1944, as ‘Percy Sykes’s charming consular residence’.37 It appears from the same Ministry of Works memo of 1949 that the building was bought in 1928 (by the Government of India) so presumably it had been rented up to then. A vice-consulate was opened at Bandar Abbas in 1900 as a centre from which to obtain intelligence about gunrunning in the Gulf. A consulate constructed in 1903. It cannot have been a much sought-after post. Claremont Skrine described it as being in 1916 a not very attractive town ‘. . . scantily supplied with brackish water, riddled with malaria, dysentery, typhoid and other sub-tropical diseases, without shade trees, gardens or any other amenity, Bandar Abbas contested with Muscat and Ahvaz the honour of being the hottest, unhealthiest and least-sought-after post on the cadre of the Foreign and Political Department of the Government of India’.38 He was not the first to have found it unpleasant. Curzon quotes a sixteenth century merchant, Master Ralph Fitch, who wrote that:

Nature seemed not to have designed that it [Bandar Abbas] should be inhabited. It is situated at the foot of a ridge of mountains of excessive height; the air you breath seems to be on fire; mortal vapours continually exhale from the bowels of the earth; the fields are black and dry as if they had been scorched with fire. The crew of a mid-seventeenth century ship, also quoted by Curzon, thought ‘there was but an inch-deal between Gomberoon and Hell’.39 Describing the Gulf 2406_CH02.qxd 5/19/08 4:41 PM Page 62

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generally, Chardin wrote of ‘Places where the Heat stifles People’, as a result of which ‘they are forc’d to quit their Houses, during the four sultry Months of the Year, and retire towards the Mountains’.40 The most important post in southern Persia was Bushire, the headquarters originally of the EIC in the Gulf and the home of the Resident who oversaw all the company’s other posts in the rest of the Gulf. As Britain imposed its peace on the area, ridding the Gulf of pirates and making treaties with the Arab shaikhs on the southern coast (the Trucial States), and as the political and military role of the EIC was taken over by the British Government, so the Resident’s role changed from being mainly commercial to mainly political, representing the government rather than the company. This was not the British (or, as it was later known, the Imperial) Government but the Indian Government and the resident, who was appointed by the Indian Government, took his orders from Calcutta rather than from Whitehall. A British official of the Indian Telegraph Company, visiting in 1875, wrote that:

Bushire, although Persian, is under the entire control of the British Resident – the native governor would not think of acting contrary to the wishes of the English Sahib. The internal, as well as foreign affairs come under the notice of Colonel Ross [resident from 1872–91] . . . In fact, Southern Persia might be said to be indirectly under British rule . . . the inspired fear which is instilled into them [the local population] arises perhaps from Colonel Ross’s bodyguard, consisting of about a dozen Bombay Lancers . . . the close proximity of the English guns may add in no small degree to their fears.41

Later on, the resident had a double role. The Persian Gulf Gazetteer of 1908 records that the then resident was also consul general for the Persian province of Fars (and who therefore came under the minister in Tehran and ultimately London), and that he had two assistants from the Indian Political Service and a vice-consul from the Levant Consular Service. The resident and consul general was then Percy Cox who held the post from 1904 to 1913 (and also from 1915 to 1918). The property, the bulk of which was owned by the Indian Government, although some parts belonged to the British Government, was extensive and included two residences, one in town for winter and the other in Sabzabad for the summer – when the resident, that is, was not on holiday in Shiraz (see below). Sabzabad was Bushire’s equivalent of Gulhak in Tehran. A predecessor of Percy Cox, Captain Felix Jones, had been given the site as a summer camp by the Persian Government in the 1850s. But a building had been put up there which was added to over the years. According to his biographer, Philip Graves, Cox thought it the most comfortable and convenient official house he had ever occupied although the road to it ‘was atrocious, a mudstream in the winter rains, a squalor of dust and deep ruts in the hot season’.42 As we have seen, the relationship between the EIC and the London government had from the beginning of the nineteenth century been a difficult one in Persia and responsibility for the Mission in Tehran fluctuated between the Foreign Office and the Government of India (that is, the EIC).43 In 1858, following the Indian Mutiny, the powers formerly vested in the EIC were transferred to the British crown. From November 1858, responsibility for the legation in Tehran was transferred to the India Office in London but it was moved back again to the Foreign Office in December 1859.44 The dividing lines of responsibilities still often overlapped which made for very cumbersome arrangements when the bulk of the eastern consulates were set up in the late 1800s and early 1900s. For example, the consul general at Meshed was a member of the Indian Political 2406_CH02.qxd 5/19/08 4:41 PM Page 63

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Service and nominated by the Government of India, but this was subject to the agreement of the minister in Tehran. The consul general was known as ‘His Majesty’s Consul-General, Meshed’, and his letter of appointment and King’s Commission were issued by the Foreign Office. He received communications on Indian subjects direct from the Indian Government and his reports were sent to the Indian Government who sent copies to the British Government. However, he was subordinate to the British legation in Tehran and took his instructions from the Foreign Office via Tehran. Clarmont Skrine, then vice-consul in Kerman, wrote that in 1916 the: . . . work at Kerman was complicated by being under dual, if not triple, control. As a Consulate in a foreign country we were under the Tehran Legation; but as representatives of the Government of India we were also controlled by Delhi and Simla, either direct or through their Chief Political Officer in the Gulf region, Sir Percy Cox, whose headquarters, until the fall of Baghdad, were at Basra. We also corresponded direct in S.P.R. [South Persia Rifles] matters with Shiraz. There was, particularly in the period leading up to the First World War, considerable tension between the policies of the British and Indian governments. In 1907, Arnold Wilson, then an officer in the Indian Army, visited Tehran and stayed with a friend at the British legation, Walter Smart, a vice-consul. Wilson wrote of Smart that: His attitude and that of the Minister, Sir Cecil Spring-Rice, towards the Government of India and its officers in Persia was critical, almost hostile. The Minister was accredited to the Central Government and had little symphony with those who felt to strengthen it was to increase the influence of Russia, which, then as almost always, predominant in Tehran . . . We in India wanted a strong and independent nation on our western border, and on the shore of the Persian Gulf but preferred a highly decentralized regime independent of Russia to a centralized regime under the thumb of Petersburg.45 British Government policy also emphasized the importance of its relations with Russia after the 1907 Convention and the need to have a strong and united Persia as a defence against Russian (or any other foreign) domination of the whole country. The policy of the Indian Government, on the other hand, and that of its agent, the political resident in Bushire, was to tie Shaikh Kha’zal of Mohammareh, the ruler of the Persian province of Arabistan in the south west corner of Persia and bordering on the Shat-al-Arab and Karun river, as closely as possible to Britain by assuring him of their support for him against encroachment on his rights as ruler by the central government or anyone else. The embassy in Tehran and the Foreign Office in London, while recognizing the importance to Britain and India of Arabistan strategically, commercially and for the oil fields and refinery at Abadan, wished to do nothing which would undermine Persian sovereignty over a part of its territory. Much effort was put into squaring this circle.46

Persia and the defence of India In crude terms, one might say that the Foreign Office recognized the importance of Persia for the defence of India but believed that Britain also had other important interests in the country, especially after the discovery of oil; the India Office in London and the Government Indian, on the other hand, saw Persia almost exclusively as important to the interests of India because of the Russian threat to 2406_CH02.qxd 5/19/08 4:41 PM Page 64

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India and to the Persian Gulf. This was a difference of emphasis, perhaps, rather than difference of view, but the conflicts led to some very unwieldy administrative arrangements, quite apart from the political problems. One of the most awkward was the system of sharing costs between the two governments. The Welby Royal Commission report of 1900 recommended that in the case of Persia, each government was liable for the expenditure which it had occurred up to 30 September 1900. After that, all expenditure was to be shared ‘in moiety’. This did not mean that expenditure in each post was shared; the Government of India paid wholly for certain posts in Persia, while other posts were paid for by the Foreign Office, total expenditure being balanced out annually. The division was largely geographical. Posts in the north and west of Persia (apart from Meshed) were maintained by the Foreign Office and staffed by officers of the Levant Consular Service, while those in the south and east (including Meshed) were maintained by the Government of India and staffed by officers of the Indian Political Service or Military. In 1920, the Indian Government tried unsuccessfully to persuade the British Government to pay a larger proportion, but it was agreed that the capital cost of new buildings should be borne by the government responsible for direct payments at the post concerned. Apart from this, the Welby system was still in operation until 1947.47 Lord Curzon’s policy of protecting India by extending British influence in bordering countries meant consulates on a much larger scale than those of the Foreign Office in the western provinces and elsewhere in the Near East. It cannot have helped relations between the two when there were huge differences of costs. According to Denis Wright, Meshed, which was financed and staffed by the Indian Government, cost £8,600 in 1899 while Tabriz, a Foreign Office post, cost only £920.48 The system also doubled (at least) the complication of obtaining authorization for expenditure because each government had to agree on it in advance. One example of the problems was when vice-consul Macann in Zahedan (as Reza Shah had renamed Duzdab) wanted authority to build housing for the staff (sixteen people besides himself). He first had to write to Clarmont Skrine, then consul in Zabol (previously Sistan) and Macann’s immediate chief, which he did on 8 May 1927. Skrine forwarded the request to the Foreign and Political Department at the Indian Government’s summer residence at Simla on 30 April 1927. But it was not until 31 August 1927 that Simla forwarded it to the India Office. There is no trace on the file about what happened after that but since by the end of August the request had not even reached the Foreign Office or the Office of Works, it was unlikely that Macann had his buildings that year, if he got them at all.49 Even more convoluted were the attempts to build a consulate in Ahwaz in Khuzestan between 1920 and 1930, although the problems were not only bureaucratic. Ahwaz was set up as a vice-consulate in 1904. Its importance lay first in its position as a commercial centre and later because it was close to the oil operations of the AIOC. It came under the supervision of the consul general/political resident in Bushire, whose deputy wrote to the India Office in London in 1920, enclosing and supporting a despatch from the vice-consul. This argued for a new building because of the Ahwaz’s importance to Britain, and because the vice-consulate staff were the worst housed Europeans in the whole of Ahwaz. The vice-consul also reported that, as it happened, the Shaikh of Mohammareh, Kha’zal Khan, had some land that he had been keeping since 1909 when the question of a new consulate had first come up. The India Office turned the request down, saying it had no money. Later on, however, Ahwaz reported that the shaikh had agreed to build a house at his expense and rent it 2406_CH02.qxd 5/19/08 4:41 PM Page 65

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to the Government of India, with half the cost being borne in the usual way by the British Government. Reza Shah, however, as part of his effort to assert the central government’s authority over the semi-autonomous areas of the country like Khuzestan, arrested Shaikh Kha’zal Khan in 1925 and claimed that the land on which the consulate was to be built belonged to the government. Matching the confused political situation on the ground was the confusion between all those involved on the British side: the wretched consul at Ahwaz, whose house collapsed altogether in 1930, ten years after the first request for a new building was made, the political resident and consul general at Bushire, the embassy in Tehran, the Indian Government, and, in London, the Foreign Office, the India Office and the Ministry of Works. When the file ended in 1932, there were still no new buildings, and the consular offices and residences were still being rented.50 The correspondence about a new office building and residence at Ahwaz also covered the provision of quarters for the sowars and stables for their horses. As we have seen, the British minister in Tehran in 1921 was still riding out on official occasions escorted by his Indian sowars, but their purpose was to enhance the minister’s prestige rather than to protect him. Prestige was also important in the provinces, particularly to keep up with the Russian Cossacks. Wratislaw wrote that when he was in Tabriz (1903), he was given an escort of six Indian cavalrymen as a ‘counterpoise’ to the Cossacks at the Russian consulate.51 Clarmont Skrine thought that the non-commissioned officer and eleven lancers at Kerman were too many, as they were only there for prestige, and the Persians resented the their presence.52

Problems of security In fact, prestige was not always the only issue. Outside Tehran, there were real problems of security in many areas where, before Reza Shah had established the central government’s authority over most of the country, travelling was highly insecure because of bandits and general lawlessness, especially among the tribes. In 1911, Persia experienced what Frederick O’Connor described as ‘an exceptional degree of anarchy’. In the province of Fars, trade routes were interrupted and there was a ‘formidable list of outrages and robberies committed on British subjects’. As a result, an Indian cavalry regiment was sent to south Persia as a garrison to the consulates at Shiraz and Isfahan. A new consul, on his way to take up his post at Shiraz, accompanied one of the detachments of the regiment, also on their way from Bushire, and was wounded in an attack by tribesmen.53 Tribes in the Makran and Baluchistan had killed officials of the Indo-European Telegraph Department in their lonely outposts.54 Claremont Skrine records that in 1916, when he was consul in Kerman, he had no mail for six weeks because marauding tribes had closed the road from Bandar Abbas.55 During Sykes’s time at Kerman, there were constant battles between the local authorities and bandit tribes. In Meshed, twenty-five sowars were attached to the consulate (the Russian consulate had twenty-five Russian and some Persian Cossacks). During the First World War, British consuls faced the added dangers of attacks from tribesmen, who were incited by Wassmuss, the famous German spy, especially in Shiraz and Isfahan, or by Iranian nationalists, or both. They were helped by the Swedish gendarmerie who supported the German cause, although they owed their existence to British support and subsidies (as did the Belgian official in the Provincial Treasury). The British consul in Isfahan was wounded when an attempt was made on his life in 1915 and in Shiraz, Gholam Ali Khan Nawab, the British vice-consul 2406_CH02.qxd 5/19/08 4:41 PM Page 66

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under the British consul general, then Frederick O’Connor, was shot in the back and died. Later that year, O’Connor himself was taken prisoner together with the British staff of the Imperial Bank of Persia and Indo-European Telegraph department and their families. The families were released but the men spent nine months in Ahram, a fort belonging to one of the Tangastani Khans, thirty miles from Bushire.56 British consular and bank officials were forced to leave Isfahan, and Yazd during the same year.57 Sykes was given the task of countering this, largely but not entirely, German-inspired anti-British violence, which he did by forming the South Persian Rifles. Even after the war, in 1921, the consular escort in Shiraz was not disbanded altogether, only reduced to its pre-war levels. Neither was it only in these areas that the consuls needed protection. In 1916, the consul at Kermanshah asked for an increase in his escort from ten NCOs and men to one Indian officer and twenty-five soldiers.58 It is obvious that not all the consulates could be as magnificent as Meshed nor could they all have the benefit of a visit from a Lord Curzon to ginger up London. The consulate at Kermanshah was one of the more humble posts which would have greatly benefited from a powerful patron. Consul McDouall, whose first consular post was at Mohammareh in 1891, and who had been transferred to Kermanshah in 1908, wrote in January 1910 that his consulate was in a bad way.59 It was impossible to find putty in the town so the glass in his windows was blown out by the wind. The roof of the building was made of earth and always leaked when it was wet. The ceiling did not stop water coming in because it was made only of the boards from sugar cases nailed to poles of poplar. The grounds were large, eight acres or so. There was a length of wall designed with two gaps to take gates but since there were no gates and no walls surrounding the rest of the property, it was obviously very vulnerable, although there were sowars and their horses in separate buildings about 200 yards from the house. Poor McDouall followed this up in March 1910 to report that the back verandah of the house had now collapsed and that the mud roof was saturated with snow and rain so that all but one of the upstairs rooms was leaking. The next paper on the file, dated 1912, authorized expenditure on maintenance and according to an unsigned and undated report, probably written in 1922, extensive repairs were carried out and proper boundary walls built in the years 1912 to 1914. The recommendation made in 1913 by a visitor from the Office of Works in the legation in Tehran that there should be a new building seems to have got nowhere; the war started the following year and since the consulate was destroyed in 1917 by the Turks, who seem to have occupied it for a time before they burned it down, perhaps this was just as well. Meanwhile, the consul was elsewhere in the town in a rented building, but in August 1922 the then consul wrote that he needed a decision soon about a new consulate since his lease would run out in eighteen months and that his present house was ‘decidedly unhealthy and very damp, and my family have been ill practically all the time we have been here’. Finally, by October 1926, a new building at Kermanshah had been completed, sixteen years after Consul McDouall’s first complaints. The files illustrating some of the administrative complications caused by the relationship between the British and Indian governments also allow us glimpses of the rivalries between the Foreign Office/legation in Tehran and the India Office/Government of India. In April 1916, the minister in Tehran, Charles Marling, writing about the appointment of a new consul, Lt. Col Haig, in Isfahan, hoped that ‘if he is appropriate, he will be reminded that the questions he will be asked to deal with are far better understood here than even in India or Basrah’. (Interesting also is the fact that, at the suggestion of the legation, the Russian 2406_CH02.qxd 5/19/08 4:41 PM Page 67

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Government was asked whether Haig’s appointment would be agreeable to them because Isfahan was in the Russian sphere of influence. No reply was received and the appointment went ahead, but it showed how anxious the British were not to upset the Russians.)60 It was also Marling, then a counsellor in the legation, who had written in 1908, in reply to a suggestion that the resident in Bushire and the minister in Tehran should meet, that the resident should come to Tehran rather than that he should go to Bushire because the resident had more to learn about Persia than the minister had to learn about the Gulf. His remarks were made in a despatch forwarding to the Foreign Office from Percy Cox, the resident in Bushire, to the Government of India in which Marling also wrote that there was ‘scarcely a sentence on purely Persian questions, and but few on Gulf matters outside the jurisdiction of the Legation, which might not well have been written from Tehran instead of Bushire’.61 In the second half of the twentieth century, when the British Government was faced with a conflict between British interests in Iran and British responsibilities and interests in the Trucial States, there were also tensions between the embassy in Tehran and the political residency in Bahrain, where the residency moved from Bushire in 1946, over Persian claims to Bahrain and to the islands of Abu Musa, Siri and the Tunbs.62 In the same despatch already referred to, Marling wrote, in relation to the appointment of a British consular officer at Bandar Lingeh, on the Gulf coast, in place of a residency agent, that he had ‘more than once been at a loss to explain to the Persian Minister of Foreign Affairs what the precise status of the latter official is’.63 One can understand Marling’s difficulty. Subordinate to the residency at Bushire, the agent at Bandar Lingeh had much more to do with the Gulf and its affairs than with Persia and was thus to the Persians another example of Britain as a state within a state. The legation was arguing for the appointment of a consul at this time because the Germans were active there. The British Treasury objected that it was only a German commercial company, but the Foreign Office convinced them that it was far more than a mere commercial concern so a consul was appointed in 1910. The consulate at Bandar Lingeh only lasted until 1920 when its duties were transferred to Bandar Abbas and a munshi was left at Lingeh. The British establishments on Persia’s southern coast were for many years responsible for administering quarantine regulations applying to travellers to Iran through the southern ports. In 1922, Percy Loraine, the Minister in Tehran, reported that the Persian Government had asked him what written evidence existed in the legation for the creation and continuation of quarantine adminis- tered by British officials at the expense of the Persian Government.64 Clearly the Persians were looking for ways of reducing the number of foreigners, and especially the British, in Persian employ and to fill the jobs with their own nationals; this was at about the time the proposed Curzon treaty had collapsed. The Foreign Office told Loraine that a search had been made in their papers and the Indian Government had been consulted, but no evidence of a formal arrangement had been found. They therefore suggested that he should say in reply to the Persians that British medical officers had been running the quarantine arrangements in Bushire since 1864 and that the arrangements were subsequently extended to Bandar Abbas, Lingeh and Mohammareh (Khorramshahr) as agreed with the Persian Government. The Government of India lent the doctors, and the cost was borne equally by the British and Indian governments (it was later discovered that the Persian Government made the major contribution). There is no evidence that Loraine ever sent a reply to the Persians who had presumably not followed up their first enquiry, but the Persian Government raised the question at a meeting of the 2406_CH02.qxd 5/19/08 4:41 PM Page 68

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International Sanitary Conference in 1927, and the two sides agreed to negotiate. The upshot was that in 1928, the Persians took over responsibility for quarantine themselves. Like the ending of capitulations, this was another successful assertion by Reza Shah’s government of Persia’s national rights.65

Most important consulates outside Tehran The four most important consulates for British/Indian interests were Meshed, Tabriz, Shiraz and Isfahan because these were the most important cities outside Tehran. Something has already been said about the consulates at Tabriz and Meshed. Isfahan was made the capital by Shah Abbas and remained so until the early eighteenth century when Karim Khan Zand established the capital at Shiraz. It remained there for a short period when in the late 1780s, the Qajars established the capital at Tehran. Both Shiraz and Isfahan had been important trade centres from the sixteenth century and, as we have seen, the British and other Europeans established factories in each at various times. Both cities are the centres of tribal areas. Around Isfahan are the Bakhtiaris whose area stretches down to near Ahwaz; and around Shiraz are the Qashqais. The tribes were important to British interests for both political and commercial reasons. They were almost totally outside the control of the Persian Government until the time of Reza Shah (and occasionally afterwards) and an important reason, therefore, for its ineffectiveness and instability. Commercially, if the tribes were not friendly towards the British, then at least the harm they might do to the trade routes or other commercial interests, like the oil, had to be minimized. Much of the oil, too, was found on Bakhtiari tribal lands so the AIOC had to reach agreements with them. The consulate at Shiraz was built between 1900 and 1903 by the Indian Government and one of their officers occupied the post in 1903; the cost of construction was shared with the British Government.66 When he was appointed consul in 1912, O’Connor described it a small one-storied four to five-roomed building standing in a walled garden, about half a mile from what was then the centre of the city. In order to try to bring some order into the province of Fars, Britain provided funds for the administration of the province. There was a ‘Persian Governor-General, a Belgian Head of the Finances, Swedish officers for the gendarmerie and an American and a Frenchman running the Army – the whole financed by the British Government through the medium of the British Consul’ who was expected to see that the funds were properly spent.67 The consuls were therefore powerful figures who negotiated with tribal leaders, had over- sight of the administration and had an important say, through the Legation in Tehran, in the appointment of governors general. For this reason, the Germans made every effort to neutralize them during the First World War. They also had the less important but still essential job until 1936 of accommodating the political residents from Bushire when they came in summer for their annual recess in order to escape from the heat of the Gulf. Isfahan, capital of the country for much longer than Shiraz, had no consul until 1891. Because of its position, as what was expected to be the main centre for trade along the Karun river, the main motive for opening it was commercial rather than political.68 The first building was rented but there was a proposal, presumably from John Preece the consul, that it should be bought by the British Government. The Treasury at one level was strongly opposed. R. B. Brett wrote that ‘. . . . [e]ven though the original outlay is not large, yet in alterations and in maintenance a high standard is at once claimed by the Consuls who 2406_CH02.qxd 5/19/08 4:41 PM Page 69

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inhabit them, altogether different from that which they recognize in buildings which they themselves have to maintain and rent’.69 But Brett was overruled. The Foreign Office was told that ‘. . . [n]otwithstanding their [the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury] objection on economical grounds to the purchase of Diplomatic and Consular residences . . . . if the Marquess of Salisbury is satisfied on the expediency of purchasing at Ispahan, on political grounds, they approve . . .’70 The purchase was made in 1896 for £1522.16s.10d, half what had been asked for by the owner, and the consul had his pay docked since he would no longer be responsible for paying the rent and for maintenance. Mr Brett of the Treasury might well have considered his views were well borne out when, in 1906, the drawing room of the residence was extended. He would have felt further justified if he had been around later. An unsigned and undated report,71 presumably by Consul Crow about 1920, describes the site as being about two and a half acres. On it were the usual mix of residence and offices, a dispensary, stables and the sowars’ quarters, and Crow, a married man with a family, argued either for improving the existing buildings or for buying or building a new consulate. The result, as Mr Brett would have said, was inevitable, and in 1924 Crow got authority to make the alterations that he wanted for a cost of £724. In 1934, a decision was taken to close the consulate and sell the building. It was eventually sold in 1938.72 It was reopened again during the Second World War, when Charles Gault, the consul, helped Fitzroy Maclean with his famous kidnapping in Isfahan of General Zahedi, the Persian army commander in southern Persia, who was putting at risk the Allies supply route to Russia because of his grain hoarding, German sympathies and intrigues with the tribes.73 So the ‘age of the consulates’ did not last for long. As the central government under Reza Shah gradually exerted its authority, the apparently limitless responsibilities of many consuls for everything that went on in their areas gradually diminished. In 1936, the Indian Government suggested to the India Office that, as the buildings in Shiraz were needed for the sole use of the British consul and could therefore no longer be used by the political resident’s annual recess, they might be sold to the British Government. There followed much discussion with the Foreign Office about on what terms the sale should be made but in the end it was subsumed in the whole question of financial arrangements for the consular posts in Iran, which was not settled before Indian independence in 1947.74 In 1932, the ambassador in Tehran, Reginald Hoare, thought that there was not enough work in Isfahan for a consul general or even a consul. His proposal to close down the consulate, while keeping the buildings on a care and maintenance basis and transferring the province of Isfahan to the Shiraz consular district, was agreed in 1933.75 Perhaps the best outline of the reasons for the declining importance of the consulates was given in a letter about the consulate in Hamadan from David Scott in the Foreign Office to the Secretary to the Office of Works of 5 March 1932.76 Scott wrote that from 1922 to 1925, the post had been held by successive managers of the Imperial Bank of Persia. A career vice-consul was appointed in 1925 and the Imperial Bank offered a permanent site for the consulate on very favourable terms. (Although Scott did not refer to it, a new building on the site was finished in 1929.)77 Scott said, however, that the Foreign Office had changed its mind about the desirability of a permanent career establishment at Hamadan. This was because of the unforeseen changes which had taken place in Iran since the site was acquired in 1925, many of which were due to the arrival of Reza Shah on the throne in 1926. He summarized the change as greatly increased centralization, 2406_CH02.qxd 5/19/08 4:41 PM Page 70

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resulting from the consolidation of the central government for almost the first time in Persian history; the disappointment of hopes that Russian trade could be prevented from gaining a serious footing outside Azerbaijan; the reduced fear of Bolshevik political influence thanks to the stability of the Persian Government; the abolition of the capitulations, which had greatly increased the work of consuls; the increase in the importance of Kermanshah, owing to successful military campaigns against the Lurs and other frontier tribes, at the expense of Hamadan; the improved state of the roads which meant that Tehran could be reached in a day from Kermanshah without a stop at Hamadan; the development of air transport which often missed out Hamadan; and the increasing ‘chauvinism’ of the Persian Government which had led to a decrease in the number of foreigners, and especially British, living in Iran. (Scott cited the example of the withdrawal of the Indo- European Telegraph Department and of new trade regulations that had caused British and Iraqi firms to withdraw from Iran.) Many of these factors applied only to Hamadan, but Scott’s letter pointed out some of the new realities in Persia which were relevant everywhere. Hamadan was closed in 1932. It reopened in 1941 because of the British occupation of Iran, but was closed again in 1947. Hamadan is in a mountainous area and is much cooler in summer than the Gulf area. There were therefore various ideas for using it as a centre for rest and recreation for Royal Air Force troops in Habbaniya in Iraq or for consular staff in Ahwaz and Khorramshahr but these came to nothing, and the building was sold in 1952 to the Iranian Ministry of Education.78 In 1921, as we have seen, there had been eighteen consulates in Persia, excluding consular agents outside Tehran. By 1947, however, there were only nine consulates* remaining in Iran, some of which had been closed before the Second World War but had reopened because of it. The question of the future of the remaining nine was brought into prominence by the claims of India and Pakistan to some of the properties following Indian independence and partition. At a meeting in December 1947, the British authorities agreed with their Indian and Pakistani counterparts the general principles that should guide the disposal of any of the properties. In August 1948, the Foreign Office, the (newly created) Commonwealth Relations Office, the Treasury and the Ministry of Works, reviewed the rival claims at a meeting in London.79 Britain, India and Pakistan wanted Meshed. Britain wanted to keep Shiraz, Kermanshah and part of Bushire (the consulate and one or two other buildings; no one wanted the rest†). India and Pakistan wanted Zahedan. No one wanted Birjand, Zabol, Kerman or Bandar Abbas.‡ India claimed the residency at Bahrain (as well as the former official British buildings at Kuwait, Gwadur and Muscat). That same year, India had asked for space in the Meshed consulate for a consul general and in 1949 proposed sending one there.80 Pakistan then put in a similar bid. Britain replied that the new consuls general could not occupy the building until an agreement had been reached between all three governments about its ownership.

* Ahwaz, Meshed, Tabriz, Khorramshahr, Isfahan, Kermanshah, Resht, Shiraz and Bushire. Those closed in the intervening years were Bandar Abbas, Birjand, Hamadan, Kerman, Sultanabad (Arak), Nosratabad (Zabol), Qazvin, Qasr-e Shirin and Yazd. † Described as the Town Residency, PWD workshop, ‘Sub-Zabad’ (presumably Sabzabad) Residency, power installations and military buildings. ‡ All these consulates had been closed before 1948 but the British Government still owned the buildings. 2406_CH02.qxd 5/19/08 4:41 PM Page 71

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Charge of interference No further progress had been made on the future of the consulates when, on Saturday 12 January 1952, the head of chancery in the embassy in Tehran was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at 8.30 p.m.81 He was handed a Note signed by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Baqer Kazemi, which observed that the embassy had simply returned a previous Note charging British officials with interference in Iranian internal affairs. It cited the grievances the Iranian Government had against the British. Interference by consular officials threatened the independence of the country. Before the independence of India and Pakistan, a number of consulates were responsible for Indian and Pakistani subjects and for commercial relations with India. The two countries could now establish their own consulates and the number of British subjects in Iran did not justify British maintenance of any. In any case, there was a lack of reciprocity because there was no Iranian consular representation in Britain. All British consulates in Iran had, therefore, to be closed by 21 January and this would be announced publicly at 8 a.m. the following day, Sunday 13 January. Francis Shepherd, the ambassador, tried to see Kazemi but he was out of touch. Prime Minister Mohammed Mussadiq refused either to see Shepherd or to delay publication of the Note. Shepherd nevertheless managed to see Mussadiq at 9 a.m. on the Sunday morning. He protested at the short notice given, at the public announcement before the British Government had seen the Note and at the unproved allegations of interference. Mussadiq refused to budge and said he would produce evidence of British interference. In reporting this interview to the Foreign Office by telegram, Shepherd commented that, while the timing was prompted by internal political factors, closure of the consulates had been a long-standing Iranian ambition. Shepherd also gave a fuller account of his interview in a despatch dated 14 January 1952, which went by diplomatic bag and had therefore been slower to arrive in London. In it, he reported that Mussadiq, ‘who was in bed, received him in a very friendly manner’, but put the closure of the consulates into the context of the oil dispute and added to the other Iranian grievances, interference by the AIOC in Iranian affairs and misreporting by the BBC. When Shepherd took his leave, Mussadiq ‘jumped upright in a most agile fashion on his bed and then onto the floor, displaying a very large pair of black bed socks’. Shepherd also reported on 14 January that he had obtained an interview with the shah for the following day and asked if the Foreign Office had any special message they wished conveyed. The Foreign Office replied that ‘Experience has shown that little is to be expected from the Shah’ but that Shepherd should impress on him the irresponsible behaviour of Mussadiq in bringing unsubstantiated charges against British officials. There is no record on the file of an interview with the shah, but if one did take place, it clearly cannot have advanced matters. In its reply to Shepherd’s telegram, the Foreign Office approved of what Shepherd had said to Mussadiq but regarded closure of the consulates as inevitable. Shepherd was instructed to deliver a Note to the Iranian Government rebutting the charges of interference and regretting the publication of the Iranian Note before the British Government had seen it. The telegram also quoted Article IX of the Anglo-Persian Treaty of 1857 which provided for the establishment of consulates by both parties. They pointed out that Iran had not taken advantage of the treaty in order to establish consulates in Britain where other countries had them and said that the British Government protested ‘formally and emphatically’ against ‘a breach of the treaty and a violation of international practice and of all canons of conduct between State and State’. Shepherd delivered the Note on 2406_CH02.qxd 5/19/08 4:41 PM Page 72

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16 January, saying that the British Government would examine any specific complaints provided the closure of the consulates was suspended while the examination took place. Kazemi said he would refer this request to the Council of Ministers. Whether he did or not is not clear, but the next Iranian move was to send a Note from the foreign minister dated 20 January 1952 with which he enclosed copies of documents which he claimed showed evidence of British interference in 1914, 1918, 1944 and 1951. The Note argued too that the 1857 Treaty of Paris was concluded when Persia was under duress and was ‘imposed on the Persian Government and people’ and referred to ‘intrigues and plots against the Government in the provinces and particularly among the tribes in Persia’. The documents sent by Kazami related to four separate incidents. The first was a letter from the resident and consul general in the Persian Gulf, S. G. Knox, to the shaikh of Mohammareh dated around September-October 1914 inviting the shaikh to attack Basra and take it from the Turks ‘in cooperation with our valued friends’ the emir of Kuwait and the emir of Najd. In return, the British authorities would help the shaikh over any difficulties he might have with the Persian Government (‘in consequence of her aggression against Your Government or her molestation of your accepted rights or her high-handedness against your properties and lands situated in the Persian territories’) or with any foreign power. The second two documents related to letters dated July 1918 written by the consul general in Isfahan to the head of the Justice Department in Isfahan about a dispute over an estate in which Colonel T. W. Haig said that a certain lawyer should not be allowed into the Justice Department for six months and that, if he did enter, ‘this Consulate-General will hold you responsible’. Four further documents dated June 1944 were copies of letters from the consul general in Ahwaz to various Iranian officials in Ahwaz asking that a certain Kazeruni should be arrested and thanking the governor general when he had been. The last document was a request in August 1951 from the Iranian Government for the recall of an acting consul in Ahwaz for having made some remarks to a newspaper that the Persian Government did not like and for writing to the governor general ‘an uncalled for and cavilling letter which exceeds the limits of his competence’. The embassy’s Note in reply to this, dated 19 March 1952, was a long time coming and in the meantime the consulates had closed on the due date. The Note said that the British Government rebutted the Iranian accusations of interference, argued that the episodes of 1914, 1918 and 1944 related to matters of a long time before, and completely rejected the charges of interference in 1951. They therefore held to the view that the closure of the consulates was a breach of Article IX of the 1857 Treaty ‘by which Her Majesty’s Government have the right to maintain consular representatives wherever other foreign governments do so’. The Note also argued that, in the period of the First World War, the British Government’s actions were, inter alia, ‘directed towards securing the independence and well-being of Iran’. In short, the British argument was that, far from encroaching on Iran’s independence, Britain was securing it against Russia. This may well have appeared disingenuous to the Iranians, given that the British occupied the whole of the south of Iran during the war, but it had been, as we have seen, a consistent British claim. There was a shorter gap before the Iranian riposte in a Note of 7 April 1952 with which they enclosed a copy of a letter from Herman Norman* to the

* Herman Norman was British minister in Tehran at the time Curzon was trying to push through the Anglo-Persian Treaty in 1919. Norman advised Curzon consistently that the treaty was highly unpopular and would not get through the Majles. Curzon was furious and Norman’s career was finished as a result. 2406_CH02.qxd 5/19/08 4:41 PM Page 73

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Persian prime minister of 2 November 1920 suggesting someone for the post of acting foreign minister; another from Norman of 12 November 1920 to the prime minister wondering why Sardar-e Moazzen was being passed over for a government job; and one dated 29 November to the prime minister referring to the 400,000 tomans paid to some influential Persian personalities to help persuade them to present the Anglo-Persian treaty to the Majles in 1919. There was a copy of a letter from Colonel Haig of 29 November 1920 to the Prime Minister proposing Amin ol-Molk as government commissioner for the Imperial Bank in the place of the actual incumbent. There were also copies of other letters from British officials in the legation in Tehran in late 1920 and early 1921 and of one letter from the consul general in Kerman, Major David Lorrimer, of April 1917, all of which the Iranian Note claimed showed evidence of British interference in Iranian internal affairs. There might well have been other examples the Iranian Government might have quoted. In one of his regular reports in 1942 from Isfahan (the consulate must have been reopened in 1940 or 1941), the consul, Charles Gault wrote that: On May 23rd the two men whose arrest I had demanded were finally taken into custody . . . On May 27th a further seven persons were warned by the police for indulging in undesirable activities. The police made it clear they were acting at the instigation of the British Consulate . . . at my request, the Governor General arranged for the transfer of the Head of the Municipality, an incompetent official suspected of German sympathies. These moves made a considerable impression locally . . . No doubt they did. And it would be interesting also to compare this with reports from the Russian consuls in the areas they occupied. The Foreign Office considered how to reply to this Note but there is no trace of a reply on the file. It seems likely that there was none in the light of a letter dated 19 April from Archibald Ross in the Foreign Office to Middleton, then chargé d’affaires, warning him that Woodward and Butler were about to publish the next volume of the official Documents on British Foreign Policy covering the years 1919 to 1939. In it, wrote Ross, there were two telegrams from Sir Percy Cox to Lord Curzon about the 400,000 tomans ‘. . . which, together with an illuminating foot- note by the Editors stating that these were for “propaganda and secret purposes”, will make Mr Norman’s indiscretion of 29 November 1920 look like 10 cents’. Ross told Middleton that officials would be recommending to ministers that the public position of the Foreign Office should be that the policy represented by the abortive treaty of 1919 was the best for Persia in the circumstances ‘. . . although Sir P. Cox’s despatches reveal him as over-enthusiastic and autocratic’.

Closure of consulates The closure of the consulates seems to provide the clearest possible illustration of resentment against British interference in Iran over many years and was, of course, a preliminary to the breach of diplomatic relations between Iran and Britain and the closure of the embassy. And yet one wonders how widespread this resentment really was. At the end of the First World War and before Reza Shah’s coup, Iran, as we have seen, seemed to be disintegrating. The government had no control over what was happening anywhere and particularly in the south. Britain was the only source of power and stability in the country. British activity in Shiraz (see p.68 above), where the consul general both financed and ran the local government, although it took place in a slightly earlier period, is a good example of the benefits to Iran from the British presence. Mussadiq, who 2406_CH02.qxd 5/19/08 4:41 PM Page 74

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was a nationalist who had been a strong opponent of the Anglo-Persian Treaty of 1919,82 had also been governor general of Fars and claimed to have witnessed British interference. But it goes too far to claim that he was representative of all Iranian opinion at the time. The Cold War was well under way in 1952 and the Soviet Union, through the Tudeh Party, of course took all opportunities to embarrass the British and weaken their position in Iran. Iranians may not all have felt the same way about the consulates at the time when British interference was at its height nor even in retrospect after the Second World War. Nevertheless, Mussadiq had support enough in the country for closing the consulates and making the British the scapegoats for all Iran’s ills. Shortly after the consulates had closed, Middleton was already writing to the Foreign Office with suggestions about which consular posts should reopen after Mussadiq fell, as he assumed he would. His ideas, reflected in his despatch to the Foreign Office of 10 March 1952,83 were a mixture of traditional and new thinking. He recommended that Bushire should be closed and also Kermanshah because the Kermanshah Petroleum Company had been taken over by the new National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) and the branch of the British Bank of Iran and the Middle East (the successor to the Imperial Bank) had closed. On the other hand, he thought that the consulates in the major cities should be reopened. He referred to Isfahan as the third largest city and a big industrial centre but also as the place to contact the Bakhtiari tribe; Shiraz was close to Qashqai country and a consulate could get ‘news of’ and ‘influence over’ a large part of southern Persia; Tabriz was the second city of Iran and capital of Azerbaijan, subject to Russian influence and useful as a listening post; Meshed was not so important now as it had been to the Indian Government before independence but it would be the only consulate east of a line drawn through Tehran, Isfahan and Shiraz; Resht had no British residents or commercial interest but a consulate would be a useful source of information about Iran-Soviet trade and Soviet influence in the province of Gilan. A decision on Ahwaz and Khorramshar should wait on developments in the oil industry. Foreign Office officials deliberated shortly about the question and then decided to wait and see. The final outcome was that none of the consulates except Khorramshar was reopened. But not all of the buildings were sold and neither was the British official connection with all the cities severed. The British Council had had, before 1952, what were called Anglo-Persian Institutes, in Tehran and in Isfahan, Resht (closed in 1950), Meshed and Tabriz. The Foreign Office decided that the council should withdraw from these provincial cities in early 1952, fearing that the Institutes would be a target for Mussadiq as the consulates had been. After the restoration of relations and after much pressure from the British Council representative and the ambassador in Tehran, it was agreed that the British Council (which reopened in Tehran in 1955) should open centres in Tabriz, Meshed, Isfahan and Shiraz. The centre in Tabriz was opened first, in 1957, although not in the former consulate, which had been rented. The centres in Meshed and Isfahan were opened the following year. Parts of the Meshed building were sold but the council took over the rest for the centre there although there had to be extensive renovation and repairs. They rented a building for the centre in Isfahan. The Shiraz centre opened in October 1959 in the old consulate.84 So Britain continued to try to influence Iran, not only through diplomacy at the government level, but by hoping to win the hearts and minds of Iranians through the teaching of English and exposure to British culture in its broadest sense, an attempt that unfortunately lasted for only twenty years. The revolution of 1979 caused the closure of the provincial centres, which have never reopened.85 2406_CH02.qxd 5/19/08 4:41 PM Page 75

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With hindsight, the closure of the consulates, although it may have damaged Britain’s prestige, was a blessing in disguise. Almost all of them were relics of Britain’s interest in Iran because of India. Although Middleton believed that some of them would be useful as ‘listening posts’ where information about Soviet intentions and meddling might be picked up, technical advances made electronic eavesdropping a more useful means of listening. Commercial activity was being increasingly centred in Tehran as a consequence of increasing political centralization that in turn meant that the political power and importance of the provinces, of provincial towns and cities, and of the tribes, continued to diminish. Britain’s financial position continued to deteriorate and the Foreign Office had started a long process of retrenchment. The closure of the consulates by force majeure, made the problem easier because the decisions to be taken were on which should be reopened rather than on which should be closed. As it was, final decisions about the future of the posts after the return of the shah and the resumption of full relations with Iran were not taken until 1957 (although the consulate at Khorramshahr was open again by 1955), not only because the wheels of bureaucracy move slowly but also because the whole question was still complicated by the claims of the governments of India and Pakistan.86 The Khorramshahr consulate closed at the revolution and has not reopened since. With no official British establishments anywhere outside Tehran. Britain’s influence is probably no different from that of the other major countries in the EU; it may even be less. Through the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), the norm is for all the members of the European Union (EU) to act together when ever possible, for example, over the Salman Rushdie affair or over the murder of four Iranian Kurds in Germany when all EU Heads of Mission were withdrawn as a protest against the Iranian Government’s conduct. They are also acting together now over Iran’s nuclear ambitions. There are, no doubt, fewer Iranians than twenty or even ten years ago who believe that Britain still exercises a hidden and malign influence on the course of events in Iran. During the periods when Britain was highly influential in Iran (although never perhaps as influential as Iranians believed) the consulates were the symbol of that influence outside the capital. But once the central government had asserted its control over the whole country and power was centred in Tehran, the consulates outside Tehran gradually lost their importance. The buildings that survive are now the only signs of their existence, about which one imagines few Iranians now know or care.

NOTES

1. For an account of the origin and development of consulates, see D.C.M. Platt, The Cinderella Service: British Consuls since 1825, (London: Longman, 1971). 2. Wright, English among the Persians, Appendix IV. 3. Sykes, History of Persia, II, 167; G. N. Curzon, Persia, II, 533. 4. Curzon, Persia, II, 543. 5. Curzon, Persia, II, 416. 6. This account is largely based on Curzon Persia II, chapter xxix. His sources are quoted in footnotes to the chapter. 7. Avery, in Modern Iran, p. 323, claims that Reza Shah referred to the British as the ‘Jonubis’, or southerners, and disliked visiting that part of the country. 8. See Curzon Persia II, chapter xxix; Introduction to East India Company correspondence on G/29 in the Old India Office, British Library. 9. Curzon, Persia, II, 552. 10. Wright, Britain and Iran 1790–1980, pp. 20–9. 2406_CH02.qxd 5/19/08 4:41 PM Page 76

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11. Wright, English among the Persians, p. 77. 12. Curzon, Persia II, 552. Introduction to G/29 differs slightly on the detail. 13. Wright, English among the Persians, pp. 76–7. 14. Albert Charles Wratislaw, A Consul in the East, (London and Edinburgh: W. Blackwood and Sons 1924), p. 222. 15. Wright, English among the Persians, p. 77. However, it seems that the British may have jumped the gun. There is correspondence on FO/60 which suggests that the first consul, Bonham, was already in Tabriz in 1839 or even 1838 – see for example, the draft of letter from Bidwell FO to Bonham in Tabriz, 9 January 1839. 16. Wratislaw, Consul in the East, p. 191. 17. Wright, English among the Persians, p. 79. 18. Curzon, Persia, I, 522. 19. WORK 10/51/2; Wright English among the Persians, p. 81. 20. Curzon, Persia, I, 386. 21. Firuz Kazemzadeh, Russia and Britain in Persia 1864–1914, (Hartford, Conn: Yale University Press 1968), p.292. 22. WORK 10/51/2, Memorandum by A. Scott, 22 January 1922. 23. WORK 10/51/2. 24. FO 60/717, Hardinge to Villiers, 19 January 1903. 25. FO 371 98724, Middleton, chargé d’affaires, Tehran to Eden, 10 March 1952. 26. WORK 10/551. 27. Sykes, History of Persia, II, 426. 28. Clarmont Skrine, World War in Iran, (London: Constable, 1962), p. 126. 29. Curzon, Persia, I, 206, based on Jonas Hanway, Historical Account of British Trade over the Caspian, with a journal of travel etc, (London: Dodsley, 1753, 4 vols.), I, pp. 37–9. 30. Percy Sykes, Ten Thousand Miles in Persia or Eight Years in Iran, (London: John Murray 1902), p. 369. 31. WORK 10/219, Emery to Moss, FO, 3 August 1949. 32. Frederick O’Connor, On the Frontier and Beyond, (London: John Murray, 1931), p. 149. 33. Wright, English Among the Persians, p. 40. 34. India Office Records, L/PS/10/1075. 35. Sykes, Ten Thousand Miles in Persia, p. 193. 36. Ella Sykes, Through Persia on a Side-Saddle, (London: John Macqueen, 1901). 37. Skrine, World War in Iran, pp. 22, 193. 38. Skrine, World War in Iran, p. 4. 39. Curzon, Persia II, 421, quoting Ralph Fitch, The Voyage of Ralph Fitch by way of Tripolis in Syria (London, 1598), p. 106; John Fryer, A new account of East India and Persia, in eight letters: being nine years’ travel begun 1672, and finished 1681.etc, (London: R. R. for R. Chiswell, 1698), p. 228. 40. John Chardin, Travels in Persia, 1673–1677, (London: 1686; new edition London: Argonaut Press 1927), p. 131. 41. T. S. Anderson, My Wanderings in Persia, (London: James Blackwood, 1880), pp. 35–6. 42. Philip Graves, The Life of Sir Percy Cox, (London: Hutchinson, 1941). 43. Wright, English among the Persian, p. 18. 44. Cambridge History of Iran, VII, 395. 45. Arnold T. Wilson, S. W. Persia: A Political Officer’s Diary, 1907–1914, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1941), p. 10. 46. For a detailed description of the problems surrounding Arabistan and the Sheikh of Mohammareh, see William Strunk ‘The Reign of Sheikh Kha’zal Ibn Jabir and the suppression of the Principality of “Arabistan”: A Study in British Imperialism in Southwestern Iran 1897–1925’, unpublished doctoral thesis University of Indiana, 1977, reproduced by University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA 1980. See also Wilson S.W. Persia. 47. WORK 10/219 Emery Commonwealth Relations Office (CRO) to Moss, FO, 30 August 1949. 48. Wright, English among the Persians, p.83. 49. IOR L/PS/10/1075. 50. IOR L/PS/10/1010. 51. Wratislaw, Consul in the East, p. 182. 52. Skrine, World War in Iran, p. 22. 53. O’Connor, On the Frontier and Beyond, pp. 187–9. 54. Avery, Modern Iran, p. 159. 2406_CH02.qxd 5/19/08 4:41 PM Page 77

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55. Skrine, World War in Iran, p. 29. 56. Skrine, World War in Iran, pp. 211–47. 57. Avery, Modern Iran, p. 191. 58. IOR L/PS/10/634; WORK 10/338. 59. WORK 10/338, McDouall to Secretary of Works, 29 January 1910. 60. IOR L/PS/10/589, Charles Marling to Sir Edward Grey, 29 April 1916. 61. IOR L/PS/10/406, Marling to Grey, 14 July 1908. 62. Author’s personal experience. 63. IOR L/PS/10/406, Marling to Grey, 14 July 1908. 64. IOR L/PS/10/1006, Sir Percy Lorraine to Lord Curzon, 25 February 1922. 65. The whole affair is well summed up in an India Office printed minute P4195 of 9 August 1928 on IOR L/PS/10/1006. 66. WORK 10/390, FO to Works, 13 November 1936. 67. O’Connor, On the Frontier and Beyond, p. 207. 68. Wright, English among the Persians, p. 84. 69. WORK 10/46/2, R. B. Brett, minute, 22 August 1895. 70. WORK 10/46/2, Treasury to FO, 29 August 1895. 71. WORK 10/46/2. 72. FCO Services, Croydon: Property Management Department Register of Overseas Properties Vol. 1, 69. 73. Fitzroy Maclean, Eastern Approaches, (London: Jonathan Cape, 1949), pp. 215–20 74. WORK 10/390. 75. WORK 10/46/2, Hoare letter, 18 November 1932. 76. WORK 10/148. 77. WORK 10/148, Francis Shepherd to Ernest Bevin, 30 December 1950. 78. WORK 10/148. 79. WORK 10/390 covering the Shiraz consulate. Record of meeting of 5 August 1948. 80. WORK 10/551 dealing with the consulate at Meshed. 81. This account of the closure of the consulates in 1952 is taken from papers on FO 371/98724. 82. Farhad Diba, Mohammed Mossadeg: a Political Biography, (London: Croom Helm 1986), p20. 83. FO 371/98724. 84. NA Records of the British Council (BW) 49/17 Representative’s Annual Reports for March 1958 – April 1959 and April 1959 – March 1960. 85. BW 49/13 Highwood, British Council to Grant, FO 7 April 1954. 86. WORK 10/291. This file is about Bushire, but has papers about all the consulates. 2406_CH02.qxd 5/19/08 4:41 PM Page 78 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 79

PART TWO: IRAQ

Terence Clark 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 80 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 81

CHAPTER 3 Iraq

1. THE BEGINNING: FIRST IN BASRA AND THEN IN BAGHDAD 1635–1800

t the time of Britain’s first tentative entry into Turkish Arabia in 1635, as Iraq Awas then known, remarkably little was known about the country or its people. This was largely because European travellers had little reason to go there. Travellers bound for India could have passed that way but few took the overland route to the Gulf and those who did reported on the lawlessness and uncertain control of the Ottomans over their more distant domains. Moreover travel in the Gulf itself was made even more hazardous by the rivalry between the European maritime powers as well as the piratical activities of some of the riparian sea-faring tribes.

East India Company As in many other parts of the world in the period of Britain’s overseas expansion in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the flag followed well behind trade in establishing a connection with Iraq. The East India Company (EIC) led the way. The EIC was first established in 1600 under an exclusive charter from Queen Elizabeth I and until its break-up following the Indian Mutiny in 1858 was the largest single trading company known to history. It controlled enormous revenues, vast properties, armed forces, fleets of ships and countless trading posts or ‘factories’. It grew from a small group of London merchants, some of whom had experience of trading with the Levant. They sought to compete with Holland for the coveted Javanese pepper, which served at that time as a medium of exchange like gold. Forced out of Java, Sumatra and the Spice Islands by the hostility of the Dutch traders, the EIC then concentrated its activities along the west and later southeast coast of India, trading English cloth for local produce. But the scope was limited by the climate and it began to look to other areas for trade to avoid exporting bullion to pay for goods bought in the East. In so doing it came into conflict in the Gulf, first with the already established Portuguese, who had captured Basra as early as 1546 but whose influence declined with the loss of Hormuz to the Persians in 1622 and Muscat to the Omanis in 1650, and then with the growing might of the Dutch. The company opened its first factory in Persia in 1616 and in 1622 made an agreement with the shah ‘to keep two 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 82

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men-at-war constantly to defend the Gulf’.1 The company proceeded over the next several decades to consolidate its position at the expense first of the Portuguese and later the Dutch. The wars of 1652 and 1665 between Britain and the Netherlands were essentially about trade, motivated by their rivalry in the East. Britain’s first connection with Iraq was therefore commercially inspired and was formed with Basra (called Bussorah), then as in modern times the main entrepôt, rather than with distant Baghdad. In 1635 the EIC, apparently believing that its trade, which was hampered by numerous obstacles in Persia, might run more freely under the Turkish flag, sent a pinnace to Basra with a small ‘investment’,2 probably of woollen cloth since that was the main article of British trade at that time. It did not encounter much competition. From this simple beginning developed a trading and political relationship that has continued with only minor interruptions for well over 350 years. This part of the Ottoman Empire was legally outside the EIC’s domains, since Turkey had been licensed – also by Queen Elizabeth I – to the Levant Company. The EIC’s appreciation of Turkish authority in the area was probably based on an incomplete understanding of a confused situation. In 1635, Baghdad was still in Persian hands, though besieged by the Turks, who finally took it in 1638. Ali Pasha, who regarded himself as an independent prince, ruled Basra and as such he fought off the Persians from Basra and at the same time gave no help to the Turks in Baghdad. His son, Husain, continued his independent status though not without periodic clashes with the Turks. Basra was brought firmly under Turkish rule only in 1668, though its governors continued to enjoy a degree of independence by virtue of their distance from Constantinople and the Porte’s lack of interest in what was regarded as a wild and backward area. So the EIC could be forgiven for not observing the niceties of the concession to the Levant Company and in 1635 Basra must have seemed a reasonably promising prospect for business. So much so that in 1640 two of its employees, Thurston and Price, arrived there with an experimental cargo. This time they had less success as the Portuguese had beaten them with a fleet that had filled the market with goods. Not to be discouraged the Company secured the following year from Ali Pasha ground near the custom house for a factory, ‘free lycense for our disembarqueing’3 and the promise of trade in pearls, Arabian horses and dates, but they were forbidden to build any dwelling or warehouses. As the returns were good it was decided to make the factory permanent. Basra had become one of the EIC’s most famous centres of exchange. This fortunate situation did not last for long. In 1645, the EIC property at Bandar Abbas in Persia was temporarily transferred to Basra during a crisis between the Persians and the Dutch, and the factory was run by Thomas Cogan and William Weale, but later the same year Dutch competition became too strong and their goods flooded the market, undercutting British prices. This was all the more remarkable as the log-book of the Delfshaven, which with its sister ship the Schelvis were the first Dutch ships to go on a trading mission to Basra from Bandar Abbas, recorded that between 20 and 23 July 1645 they were trying to find the entrance to the Shatt al-Arab, the waterway that leads up to Basra, with little success and extreme dissatisfaction with their British-made charts!4 They clearly did find the way in the end. The British factory struggled on and was nearly closed in 1657 when Husain Pasha seized the premises and goods on the strength of a rumour that the EIC was about to be dissolved. This rumour was spread by a rival group of London merchants who in the period between 1654 and 1657 had successfully petitioned Cromwell to trade in competition with the EIC but who were themselves forced in the end to yield to or merge with the company, which many 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 83

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of them did. However the earlier promises of Ali Pasha were not maintained and the British found that the Turkish merchants were difficult to do business with, as they were inclined to go back on their agreements. For these reasons, the EIC’s Court of Directors decided in 1660 to close the factory, ordering the factor ‘to bring away your estates and your servants thence’.5 Between 1660 and 1676 the EIC continued to send occasional cargoes to Basra for sale from the ship rather than from a shore base, and it seems the trade was largely supplied from Bandar Abbas. During much of the latter part of the century, the Persians occupied Basra until they were driven out by the plague in 1691. There followed a decade of strife as local Arab tribesmen and the Turkish authorities in Baghdad sought to control Basra. The rebels finally submitted to Ottoman power at the turn of the century. Trade continued on an occasional basis over the following years until about 1723 when a factory was again established at Basra. The EIC’s representative, Houssay, seems however to have been more engaged in trading on his own account than in selling the company’s goods and he was recalled to Bandar Abbas. His activities were hardly surprising in view of the low salaries in those days – only £30 per annum plus a small allowance for food and rent. He was replaced temporarily by other company representatives from Persia until in 1728 Martin French appeared with quasi-consular status, for he was able to collect ‘consulage’, i.e. duty on imported goods carried on British ships.6 The British ambassador in Constantinople had the power to appoint consuls anywhere in the Ottoman Empire but, as we shall see later, the first ‘Consulary Birat’ by the Porte recognizing the British consul in Basra was issued only in 1764. French had several clashes with the local pasha over his rights under the capitulations,* of which neither appeared to have a copy but the interpretation of which both disputed! French eventually withdrew from Basra in the EIC ship Britannia, a tactic often repeated later as a means of putting pressure on the pasha. In this instance the latter weakened and recognized the responsibility of the resident for certain foreign nationals. This appears to have been the first time the EIC’s representative enjoyed the title of resident. Saldanha ascribes this event to the year 1724,7 but as Lorimer, whose Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, Oman and Central Arabia is the source of much of this history, notes French did not arrive in Basra until 1728, it clearly must have been later.8 On his own responsibility, French paid a visit to the pasha in Baghdad in 1736 to seek redress for the capricious actions of the pasha in Basra but, like so many of his successors, he died the next year at his post. His successor Nathaniel Whitwell sent his assistant Thomas Dorrill to call on Ahmad Pasha in Baghdad to seek aid in recovering debts due to French’s estate, a task in which he was only partly successful. Dorrill became in turn ‘provisional resident’ in Basra and was involved in a delicate situation when in August 1743 the Persians laid siege to the town, using then as in the more recent Iraq/Iran war ‘boat-bridges’ at Huwaiza to cross the Shatt al-Arab. He tried to avoid taking sides in a Turkish/Persian dispute but both sought to implicate the British by calling on them for ships and, in Basra, for loans. Dorrrill was forced once again in 1745 to have recourse to the pasha in Baghdad, who removed the local pasha and appointed a more satisfactory successor. Dorrill was succeeded in 1747 by Thomas Grendon as resident, who apparently could not stand Basra and suddenly deserted his post in June of the following year, leaving Nathaniel Pomphret, writer, in charge. In 1749, the resident had further trouble with the

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pasha and once again threatened to strike his flag and leave Basra. As usual this had the desired effect for a while. William Shaw was appointed resident in 1753 with strict instructions about not lending money to the Turkish authorities, evidently as a result of previous bad experience. It was during his incumbency that the first official connection seems to have been made with Baghdad. At the beginning of 1756, he became involved in a riot following a trivial dispute with a boatman and travelled to Baghdad where he managed to obtain the pasha’s orders for the punishment of the offenders. Shaw’s assistant, Robert Garden, visited Baghdad in 1758, temporarily superseding Khojah Raphael, an Armenian merchant from Persia, who was the residency’s ordinary agent or attorney there. Shaw paid a further visit to Baghdad the following year and stayed as the pasha’s guest from the end of June to mid-August, when he obtained a firman (a written order) commanding the pasha in Basra to observe every article of the capitulations. Shaw also seems to have obtained a firman in which the pasha confirmed his status as the first among all foreign representatives. In the spring of 1759 the French resident had also been in Baghdad and had obtained a firman from Sulaiman Pasha directing that ‘he should be first among the European Residents’.9 As a result the Frenchman returned to Basra and treated Shaw with some indigni- ty. He also issued an order that on public days the leading townspeople should call on him first. The people who, according to Shaw’s report to his authorities in Bombay ‘felt a preference for the English’ apparently resisted this order. Shaw then obtained in a remarkable play of one-upmanship an order from the pasha directing the local governor and all his officers ‘to regard the English as first in his esteem’.10 The pasha also rebuked the French resident for his impudence.11 However, in May 1761, Shaw and Garden, now joint residents, appear to have shown a little too much enterprise for they were investigated for embezzlement and suspended from duty. James Stuart, one of the investigators, was put in charge of the agency as resident but, yet again, died there in July 1769. Lyster was appointed from Bandar Abbas as temporary resident. Garden was subsequently cleared and reinstated in the company in India. Shaw left the company.

The first British consul During this period, political instability in Persia led to the decline of Bandar Abbas and in 1763 the Government of Bombay prepared to transfer the Company’s principal station in the Gulf from there to Basra. William Price was temporarily appointed from Bombay to establish the new agency there. (In the eighteenth century, an agency was superior to a residency; later, the roles becoming rather confusingly reversed.) He arrived on 13 May but had to wait for five days before he was suitably received on shore by the new pasha, whom he described as having ‘the character of a haughty imperious man and a mortal enemy to Christians’!12 Although this might not seem to have been a good augury, August 1764 marked a significant advance for Britain when the British ambassador at Constantinople obtained from the Porte a ‘Consulary Birat’ for the EIC. This recognized the company’s agent, Robert Garden, now back from India, as the first British consul. He enjoyed considerable powers and privileges: the right to protect British merchants and travellers and to regulate the departure of British vessels; his staff and his ‘slaves’ were exempt from various Turkish taxes, and he himself paid no customs dues. In addition, he enjoyed immunity from arrest and freedom of travel within the country when ‘he should be allowed to wear a white turban, sabre, bow or other warlike instruments’, and to command assistance and protection of Turkish officials 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 85

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everywhere according to the capitulations; and any complaint against him had to be referred to the sultan himself.13 Since the early seventeenth century when ‘mercantile consuls’, i.e. local traders, were first appointed under the English crown, they were not concerned with promoting the political or commercial interests of England overseas. Their first responsibility was to their parent company and secondly to the protection of British shipping and seamen. Although as a matter of personal choice, they might occasionally have acted as sources of local intelligence, they were under no obli- gation to do so. But such fine distinctions between company, personal and national interests were often disregarded in remote places where consuls could be called upon to react to local situations long before instructions could be received from headquarters. However, by the end of the eighteenth century, consuls were being appointed to Baghdad with a specific political and intelligence remit. Consul Garden did not in fact take up his appointment in Basra, as by March 1765 when his Birat came through he was already acting on the EIC’s behalf in Baghdad. So Peter Wrench was appointed in his place as the first British agent and consul, thus combining in his title his dual function as the representative of the EIC and the British Government, in that order. He succeeded almost immediately in involving the British in a disastrous clash with the Bani Ka’ab, a piratical tribe that preyed upon shipping in the Gulf from bases in the Shatt al-Arab. This led the Danish traveller Carsten Niebuhr to remark laconically that Wrench may have been a better merchant than he was a politician, underlining the difficulty of combining the dual role. The EIC’s employees, when they were on good terms with one another, lived in a sort of communal mess. In 1765, the Basra agency or factory was situated near the southern bank of the Ashar creek at a short distance from the Shatt al-Arab and a little to the east of the pasha’s residence, which was roughly in the middle of the native town. Vessels of 60 tons could load and unload at its very gate. There was also a country house or branch of the factory at Belvoir on the right bank of the Shatt al-Arab about four miles from Basra at that time. Lorimer suggests that Belvoir was possibly identical with the modern Kut al-Faranji but it is more likely to have been Ma’gil, where the EIC’s resident later bought a property and resided.

The first British resident in Baghdad As already mentioned the Turkish pasha or governor for the whole province resided in Baghdad, which in those days lay at a long and hazardous journey from Basra, and this presented the British agent with obvious difficulties of com- municating with him. Attempts were made over the years to transact business either through the company’s native agent in Baghdad or through occasional visits by the British agent or his assistant. This is what led to Garden’s stay in Baghdad where he was succeeded for a while by Dymock Lyster from Bombay: no doubt because of his experience of the area as acting resident in Basra a few years before. In 1766 however the Government of Bombay decided to establish a more permanent presence in Baghdad and appointed James Morley as the first British resident. Morley stayed only a few months until in November he was recalled to Bombay because of the EIC’s ill-fated participation with the Turks against the Bani Ka’ab. The post then lapsed for many years. Morley came back again before long as Agent in Basra to try and recover from the Turks the expenses of the British naval and military forces involved in the Bani Ka’ab expedition. He was only partly successful. In the spring of 1773, plague broke out and he and some of his staff withdrew to the EIC’s property on 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 86

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the other side of the Shatt al-Arab at Belvoir, while the remainder stayed put, shutting themselves in the factory. The plague became so bad that they were eventually obliged to close the factory, appointing two Armenian merchants to look after the company’s interests, and all set sail for Bombay. One of the ships was however seized by pirates, but the agent and his staff were on the other vessel and reached Bombay safely. In October they set off again and in January 1774 returned to Basra, where they found the factory in good order.

Persian invasion But these were troubled times and a Persian invasion which had threatened for some eighteen months finally materialized in March 1775. A Persian army of about 30,000 horse and foot soldiers appeared about 35 miles north of Basra and began to lay siege to the town, while demanding a huge ransom. At first the agent, Henry Moore, played a part in defending the town by deploying the EIC’s ships in the harbour but later he and his staff thought it prudent to leave, abandoning all the company’s goods except money. They set off in April on board the EIC ship Eagle accompanied by Success and after some skirmishing with the Persians, made their way safely to Bushire. After sitting out developments, Moore finally sailed for Bombay, leaving William Latouche and Abraham so that they might return to Basra and resume charge of the factory as soon as possible. They had a long wait, for the siege lasted a year with the Persians finally entering Basra in April 1776. Before the capitulation of Basra a company representative called Galley was already there to watch over EIC interests. Afterwards he was well received by the Persians and repossessed the factory, where he found everything in good order. He notified Bushire of the position and the agency’s staff returned. Latouche became agent and was initially on good terms with the occupiers but conflict was inevitable when the company’s privileges and position were infringed. Meanwhile the EIC court of directors had become concerned about the staff and resolved to close down the agency. They proposed to transfer the staff to Bombay, leaving a resident in Bushire to cover the Gulf. This decision was however acted upon slowly by the Bombay Government, partly because the prospect of war with France had increased when a communications link with Basra would become important, and even more slowly by Latouche. By this time it was already March 1779 and the Persian occupation was over. Latouche stayed as resident for the next five years, enjoying good relations with Sulaiman Pasha in Baghdad, to where he had been promoted from Basra before the Persian invasion with a little help from British influence at the Porte. His assistant, Abraham, was less fortunate, lasting only a year before falling victim to an epidemic of fever in June 1780. In November 1783, the Bombay Government agreed to a proposal by Latouche that a permanent ‘native agent’ should be appointed at Baghdad to transact EIC business with the Pasha, to forward communications to Basra, and to obtain information. Khojah Marcar, who had been performing these duties since July 1781, was then appointed on a salary.

Samuel Manesty Latouche’s successor was Samuel Manesty, who for many years was to play a conspicuous and somewhat eccentric role in local affairs. He was born in Liverpool in 1758 and appointed an EIC writer in Bombay in 1778. He went to Basra about three years later as assistant to the resident before being promoted to resident in 1784, and remained there for most of the next twenty-five years. Saldanha men- 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 87

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tioned him as restless and fussy, while Harford Jones, who for ten years was then his joint factor and later became the first permanent resident in Baghdad, regarded him as meddlesome, pompous and an intriguer. His dislike of Manesty did not however prevent him from engaging with him in various business enterprises, including joint ownership of a brig, the Laurel. Manesty also owned or co-owned another six ships with which he built up a considerable personal fortune from trading, not least from carrying EIC mail between the Gulf ports and India, the propriety of which the company eventually questioned. He also traded in horses. In 1791, Manesty intervened on somewhat dubious grounds with the pasha over the murder of a local Jew by a Christian. He succeeded in preventing the execution of the Christian, which incensed the Jewish community and led them to threaten violence. Manesty made exaggerated demands first on the local pasha and later on the pasha in Baghdad for an apology and the punishment of the ten Jews involved. The matter dragged on for two years with Manesty rejecting all attempts at a compromise. Finally he resorted to striking his flag and, accompanied by Jones, he withdrew to Kuwait. The factory remained there from April 1793 to August 1795, protected by a small cruiser and a sepoy guard but suffering extreme discomfort from the dust storms and the bad water supply as well as the attentions of the marauding Wahhabis, members of an Islamic fundamentalist community founded by Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab who were then sweeping eastwards from Riyadh. Manesty and Jones were censured by the EIC for their lack of judgement and relieved of their posts. Their successors, Crow and Le Mesurier, were ordered to inform the pasha that the EIC abandoned Manesty’s demand for the punishment of the Jews and would return the factory to Basra if an honourable reception were guaranteed. The pasha was unaware of this climb-down and had meanwhile sent an emissary to Manesty promising to hand over the ten Jews for personal punishment or imprisonment on return of the residency to Basra. Jones having already departed for England for health reasons, Manesty returned alone to Basra in September 1795 and an interesting situation ensued. News of the reconciliation between the pasha and Manesty did not reach Bombay until after Crow and Le Mesurier had sailed. They arrived in Basra on 1 January 1796 and Crow took over the residency. Meanwhile the EIC had heard of the reconciliation and on the very day of the takeover sent Crow a letter revoking their previous instructions. The letter arrived only on 3 April. Manesty was still in Basra settling his private affairs but Crow and Le Mesurier took no action apart from protesting vigorously to the EIC. The latter were not moved and, on the contrary, reprimanded Crow for not having handed the residency back to Manesty. Crow finally complied and in September he and Le Mesurier left for Bombay.

Upgrading representation in Baghdad Following Bonaparte’s invasion of Egypt in 1798, the British Government was very much exercised by the threat to its interests in Asia from the appearance of the French navy in the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf. The adequacy of British representation at Baghdad in the form of a native agency since 1781 was brought under review in 1798. Harford Jones, who had been at home since leaving Kuwait, was summoned to East India House in London and, after much discussion of moves to frustrate Bonaparte’s plans, was appointed ‘Resident at the Court of Baghdad’.14 The objective was for him to acquire ascendancy over the pasha so as to check the extension of Bonaparte’s influence eastwards. Britain and Turkey were now formally united against the French and in 1799 a regular defensive 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 88

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alliance was concluded between them. At their own initiative the Turkish authorities arrested the French consul and French subjects at Basra and sent them as prisoners to Constantinople. Jones’ appointment signalled a qualitative change in the style of British representation from its earlier essentially commercial character to one of political diplomacy. His letter of appointment from Secretary Ramsay at East India House, dated 5 July 1798,15 spelt out unambiguously British interests, and his instructions took him far beyond the previous consular limits of the post. He was instructed to proceed to Vienna to collect information on the destination and progress of the French force in the Mediterranean. He was next to report to the British ambassador in Constantinople, gather what further information he could and on his arrival in Baghdad send all his information in cypher to Aden or Mocha, where a naval force was to be assembled for the purpose of watching the Bab al-Mandab and the Persian Gulf and obstructing the progress of the French should they attempt ‘to penetrate India’ by either of these routes. Emphasizing his dual loyalty to king and company, he was told to copy this and all later reports to the Bombay Government as well as to the fleet. He was further instructed to point out to the pasha that, should the situation warrant it, ‘the fatal Consequences which must ensue to his Dominions and the Turkish Empire in general, should the French be permitted to enter or pass through any part of the Turks’ Dominions or be suffered to obtain a footing there, or in Egypt’. The pasha was to be encouraged to oppose any such activity ‘by all the Means of which he is possessed, either by his own Resources or his Influence with the Beys of Egypt and the wandering Tribes of the Desert’. Jones was also charged with gathering intelligence on the internal situation in Turkish Arabia as well as in Egypt, Persia and Arabia: ‘In short you will endeavour to collect information of every particular that you can imagine can in any Way be useful, either to the East India Company or to Great Britain in General.’ Harford Jones was also furnished with two letters to the pasha. The first was from Henry Dundas, principal secretary of state for India of 4 July 1798.16 In rather colourful prose, Dundas commended Jones’ appointment to the pasha as having ‘His Majesty’s full and cordial approbation’, and sought at the same time to scare him about the intentions of the French:

This restless and detestable Power, after exciting the People in all the States immediately surrounding them to revolt against their lawful Princes and Governors, and having in too many Instances succeeded in driving these last into Exile, sometimes even in putting them to death, and in all robbing them of their Wealth, Treasures and Possessions, is now said to have its favourite General, and an army most notorious for these horrid proceedings, to execute the same system of devastation and Plunder in the rich and happy Provinces of the East.

As if that was not enough, Dundas went on to warn that unless the pasha aligned himself with the British he would risk losing all to the French: ‘They would certainly avail themselves at the first opportunity to dispossess you . . . to excite your People to Rebellion, and to deprive your Highness of Liberty, and perhaps Life ....’ Jones’ second letter was from Jacob Bosanquet, Chairman of the EIC, of 6 July 1798,17 which also denounced the French for ‘exciting in the lower order of people a Spirit of discontent and Rebellion’, but went further in promising the pasha ‘any assistance in our Power towards Suppressing them and we shall give the necessary directions to our Government in India for that Purpose . . .’ Jones 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 89

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arrived in Baghdad in August 1798, and took over from Reinaud, whom Manesty had deputed to Baghdad a short time before as a temporary arrangement.

2. EARLY DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS WITH TURKISH ARABIA 1800–1914

he appointment of Harford Jones as resident in Baghdad led to some friction Twith Manesty in Basra, but with so much backing Jones had nothing to fear from that quarter. Manesty continued however to obstruct his colleague wherever he could and when in 1800 Jones fell ill he declined to let the Basra surgeon go to his assistance, so Jones was obliged to make the long journey to Basra for treatment. This worked however to Jones’ long-term advantage since he was able to exploit the risk and inconvenience to which he had been exposed to obtain the appointment of a surgeon to the Baghdad residency.18 Jones further enhanced the standing of his office by obtaining a military guard from India consisting of a subadar, a havildar, a naik, twenty-six sepoys and two drummers.19 Relations between the resident and Sulaiman Pasha did not always run smoothly. During the summer of 1801 they deteriorated sharply as a result of an allegation by the pasha that a Turkish woman had been seen leaving Jones’ house. The pasha offered to help Jones to escape from the city where there was a dangerous feeling against him. Jones chose to deny the allegations, refused to leave and demanded a formal apology. The pasha thereupon withdrew recognition of Jones, who immediately decamped to somewhere on the Euphrates to await the orders of his superiors. But the pasha capitulated first, declaring in writing that the imputations against Jones were unfounded and promising him every consideration and respect. On 20 November, Jones returned to Baghdad where the pasha received him with honour. Ali Pasha succeeded Sulaiman Pasha in 1802 after a local struggle for power.

The first British consul in Baghdad The British ambassador in Constantinople took advantage of the change to regularize the status of Jones under the capitulations by obtaining for him a ‘Birat’ or patent recognizing him as ‘British Consul of Baghdad and the environs’. Jones could thus enjoy the status and privileges already conferred on the British consul in Basra in 1764.20 Meanwhile Manesty in Basra, who was a temperamental and tenacious man as his earlier actions have shown, became involved in a further incident with the local pasha: once again a woman was at the root of it. In April 1803, a mob broke into and plundered the house of Captain White, the commander of Manesty’s private trading vessel Recovery, carrying off a woman who was living there under his protection. She was apparently a Christian Cairene but was regarded locally as either a Muslim or had admitted to wanting to become one. Manesty at once appealed to the governor, whom he suspected of being the instigator of the riot; but in vain. So the next day he struck his flag, closed up the factory and prohibited trading with British ships in the river. He also wrote to the pasha of Baghdad demanding the return of the woman to Captain White, indemnification of his other losses and punishment of the offenders. He threatened to depart for 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 90

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Calcutta unless he obtained full satisfaction. The pasha informed Jones that he would look carefully into the matter and after some time not only removed the governor of Basra but also instructed that the offenders be brought to trial and Captain White compensated. He declined however to discuss returning the woman on the grounds that it was against the principles of Islam. Manesty refused to deal with the pasha on any other basis, so the correspondence between them was broken off. Manesty’s firm stand paid off, for in July the pasha ordered the woman’s return and she was sent on to Captain White in Calcutta. As all his demands had been met, Manesty hoisted his flag again and reopened the factory. In the following year, there was a further seemingly trivial dispute between the British resident in Baghdad and the pasha. This time the latter refused to yield. The pasha was apparently uncivil to the residency linguist. Jones demanded an apology, the pasha refused and official relations between them ceased. In November 1805, the pasha wrote to the British ambassador in Constantinople and to the sultan asking for Jones’ removal. The Porte did not wish to offend a far-off and semi-independent governor, so supported the request, declining at the same time responsibility for Jones’s personal safety if he should remain. The ambassador realized that ministers in London would not wish to press the case because of the alliance with Turkey, and advised Jones to leave. Jones set off for Britain via Constantinople in January 1806, leaving Dr Hine, the surgeon, in charge. Jones was honoured first by the sultan, thus showing no personal animosity, and later received a baronetcy. Dr Hine remained in charge for the next two years. Manesty had already become once again involved in a dispute but this time with his own authorities over his emoluments. He had run up local debts incurred in an extraordinary unauthorized visit in 1804 to the Persian court as a ‘Special Ambassador’. Without official approval, he had swapped places with the resident in Bushire, who was in ill health, and delivered to the shah with great pomp a letter from the governor-general in Calcutta explaining the circumstances of the accidental death by shooting in Bombay of the shah’s emissary. Although Manesty and his colleague had written to inform their authorities of their action, and Manesty’s visit was highly successful, the governor-general strongly disapproved. Fearing violence from his creditors, Manesty negotiated bills on the Government of Bombay for 93,000 rupees ‘which he earnestly hoped the Government would honour on presentation’.21 He then left for Calcutta via Bombay to represent his case, leaving the residency in charge of Lieutenant Bellasis. Arriving unannounced in Calcutta, he pleaded unsuccessfully for an increase in salary but managed to persuade the government to pay his bills on depositing collateral. Law, who was about to go to Basra as assistant resident, was authorized to take charge from Bellasis but, like so many young men in those times, died there soon afterwards. Lieutenant Eatwell acted until June 1806 when Manesty returned. Although Britain was at war with Turkey in 1807–9, the pasha of Baghdad exercised his independence and retained friendly relations with the British Indian Government, probably motivated by commercial considerations. This did not prevent him however from interfering with the mail between Dr Hine and Manesty, which led the latter to protest and to extract a promise that the mail should not be tampered with.

Claudius James Rich It was at this point in 1808 that the first of a series of outstanding residents was appointed to Baghdad: Claudius James Rich.22 He was born at Dijon, France on 28 March 1786, the illegitimate son of Colonel James Cockburn of a well-known 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 91

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Scottish family, but took the surname of his grandmother. While at school he had shown an unusual gift for languages and in addition to Greek and Latin and several modern languages he had already absorbed before the age of seventeen the elements of Turkish, Arabic and Persian, while taking lessons from a local schoolteacher in Hebrew, Syriac and Chinese! He then applied for and was granted a military cadetship in the EIC, but when one of the directors discovered his extraordinary talent he was given instead a Bombay writership. As there was no vacancy at the time in Bombay he was appointed temporarily secretary to the British consul general for the Mediterranean in Cairo and set sail from England in 1804. His career took however an unexpected turn which was to have important consequences later on. His ship caught fire off Barcelona and he lost everything but the clothes on his back. He was helped by a Bristol merchant living there to proceed to Naples where he was to meet the consul general. He waited for three months during which he learned to speak fluent Italian and to play the guitar and flute. But the consul general died of a fever before they could set off for Cairo and Rich was instructed to proceed to Constantinople to perfect his Turkish until a replacement was appointed. For the next fifteen months, he travelled through Asia Minor acquiring the language and mannerisms of a young Turkish gentleman before setting out for Cairo. In Cairo he acquired a complete mastery of Arabic and wearing Mamluk dress was easily mistaken for an Arab, a disguise that he often adopted on his travels. He stayed in Cairo for two years and was ordered at the end of 1806 to take up his original appointment in Bombay. He chose the least direct route via Syria, Mesopotamia and the Gulf. Dressed as a Mamluk he travelled easily to Aleppo, Diyarbekir and Mardin. He probably first saw Baghdad from the Tigris as it was customary in those days to travel from Mosul on a kelek or raft. He went on to Basra where he met Manesty and took an instant dislike to him. Rich did not stay long but continued to Bombay by sea, arriving there in September 1807. His stay there was short but long enough for him to woo and wed Mary, the eighteen-year-old daughter of Sir James Macintosh, recorder of Bombay, before his sudden appointment at the early age of twenty-one as resident in Baghdad. On arrival in Basra in 1808 he renewed his acquaintance with Manesty and his earlier dislike for the man was now compounded by the fact that he was officially his superior, although much younger and lacking Manesty’s twenty years’ experience of the country. Moreover Manesty had married locally and Mrs Rich, according to the custom of the time, was offended at being invited to call on a woman, whom Rich regarded as ‘a dirty Armenian drab’ (she was in fact the daughter of a European father and an Armenian mother). This uneasy relationship, like that between Jones and Manesty, was to endure and to give rise to friction over the next two years until Manesty was dismissed from the EIC for his frequent acts of insubordination. He retired to England and died disgraced and impoverished shortly afterwards. Much later the authorities reviewed his mission to the shah, and in an act of long overdue recognition, concluded that their condemnation of it had been misplaced. The Riches continued their journey to Baghdad in the comparative comfort of the residency yacht. But Claudius Rich had style and liked putting on a show, so he made his entry into Baghdad ostentatiously on horseback accompanied by his sepoy guard, while his wife rode behind in a mule-borne palanquin with a bodyguard of Armenian servants. Dr Hine, who had been acting resident for the past two years, received them at the residency. It was May and already very hot. 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 92

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The residency in Baghdad The residency at that time was almost certainly just off Mustansir Street on the site of a building on the east bank of the Tigris that is still known to this day as ‘Bait Lynch’ (the house of Lynch). The Lynch offices had been in a large khan surrounded by other buildings that a local merchant had purchased in 1849 from ‘the British Consul’. The Lynch Company had subsequently bought and rebuilt it shortly before the First World War. James Silk Buckingham, a professional traveller, stayed with the Riches in July 1816 and described the residency: The house occupied by the establishment is formed of a number of dwellings thrown into one, and, as a residence, is certainly one of the largest, best and most commodious in the city. It consists of two large courts, one of them used as a riding ground, having numerous rooms and galleries around it, with walled terraces for sleeping at night in the open air: and a set of vaulted sub- terranean cellars, called serdaub, for avoiding the intense heat of the summer during the day; besides spacious and good stables, kitchens and offices of every description.23 As mentioned, Rich had style, and Buckingham noted: Attached to Mr Rich’s establishment were an English surgeon, an Italian secretary, several dragomen or interpreters, and a number of janissaries, grooms and servants, all filling their proper offices and performing separate duties, as in India, and composed of Turks, Arabs, Georgians, Persians and Hindoos. A company of sepoys furnished a bodyguard and their drums and horns sound- ed the regular ‘reveille’ and ‘call’ of a camp or garrison. A troop of European Hussars were formerly maintained here also; but their numbers are diminished. A large and commodious yacht was always kept ready for excursions on the river, under the care of an Indian serang and crew. The stud of horses was large and choice; and everything belonging to the Residency was calculated to impress ideas of great respect on the minds of the inhabitants, who were witnesses of the manner in which it was supported and conducted.24 Claudius Rich used this large establishment to good effect on the local pasha. Rich understood Ottoman ways and recognized the importance of ceremonial. He also recognized and recorded for his superiors the importance of speaking the language of the local authorities so as to avoid the misinterpretation of which dragomen were capable. He was certainly not going to allow, as he put it, ‘a mongrel native of Constantinople’ to conduct his business with the pasha.25 But despite his undoubted proficiency in Turkish and knowledge of Ottoman practice, it took him the first year or two to be on terms with the pasha. The latter was used to dealing peremptorily with any official and had bullied Rich’s predecessor and Manesty. Rich would have none of this and reacted firmly against any degradation. In the end the pasha recognized a stronger man than himself and became friendlier. After the conclusion of peace with Turkey in 1809, Rich decided to pay a visit to the pasha with as much pomp and ceremony as he could muster. In a letter to her sister, Mary Rich quoted an extract from the Court Gazette to describe the occasion, which nearly did not happen at all because of a last-minute objection by the pasha to a member of the resident’s entourage, resulting in an embarrass- ing stand-off until the pasha yielded: Ceremonial of the Public Audience of the Resident The time appointed for the reception of the resident was the hour of afternoon prayer, that is three o’clock. About noon the crowd began collecting in the streets before the Residency and the avenues leading to the Palace, and in 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 93

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the Palace yard itself; and long before the time every street was so full at to be nearly impassable . . . . The procession set out in the following manner: Three Chaoushes or Turkish officers of the Residency with silver-gilt maces in their hands, mounted on managed horses with housings of silver-gilt, to clear the way. Five led horses caparisoned in velvet housings that reached to their tails, covered with a mosaic of silver gilt, their stirrups, head-pieces, breast-plates, forehead-pieces, etc. also of silver-gilt. Each horse led by a man in a scarlet dress mounted on another horse. Native Officer of Infantry with his sword drawn The Bodyguard of Sepoys with their drum and fife playing. Four Yasakjees or Chubdars in scarlet and silver, silver-mounted knives in their girdles and silver sticks in their hands. The Resident, on horseback, in full dress uniform, with his Master of the Horse on foot, and the servants of the Residency in scarlet cloaks on each side of him. The Assistant to the Resident on horseback in uniform. The Residency Dragoman on horseback. Native Officer of Cavalry. The Resident’s Bodyguard of Horse. The procession moved through the outer court of the Palace – in which the Pasha’s Guard of regular Musqueteers was paraded – to the outer gate of the Inner Court, where the Resident’s Guard formed and saluted as he rode through them. The Resident here alighted, and was preceded by the Master of the Ceremonies and an officer of the Janissaries, and followed by the Assistant and Dragoman through two lines of Georgians in full dress, up to the Hall of Audience, at the upper end of which sat the Pasha, and at the lower the Members of the Council, who rose at his entrance. The Resident and Assistant bowed to the Pasha and sat down with their hats on, on chairs prepared for them, the Dragoman standing behind them. After the usual compliments, sweetmeats and coffee were handed round, and soon after the proper officers brought a pelisse of cloth of gold lined with sable for the Resident, and other inferior pelisses for the Assistant and Dragoman. Which being put on, and bowing again to the Pasha they retired in the same order, the Members of Council rising as at their entrance. At the gate the Resident, instead of his own horse, found one caparisoned in the Turkish manner, and held by the Pasha’s Master of Horse as a present from His Excellency. This he mounted and proceeded to the Kiahya’s or Prime Minister, who rose to receive him. Nearly the same ceremonies took place here, excepting that no pelisses were brought, and that after the coffee hookas were given to the Resident and his Assistant. From the Kiahya’s the procession returned in the same order, accompanied by the Kiahya’s officers. Amongst the acclamations of the crowd and after arriving at the Residency, the Resident sat down in the verandah to receive the compliments of all those who came to kiss his hand and pay respects to him on this occasion, the Guard being drawn up and the drums and fifes playing. After which largesses were distributed amongst all who attended, and the ceremony ended!26 This display of cordiality did not prevent friction with the pasha, who in the summer of 1809 became abusive, insolent and threatening. In October, matters came to a head while the Riches were camped at a place outside Baghdad called Ghararah. The pasha ordered that all Rich’s servants should receive 1,000 basti- nadoes unless they left him. All but two or three stayed firmly put. He also refused permission for the Riches to return to the city. However, by the turn of the year, Rich had succeeded in humbling the pasha, who acknowledged Rich publicly as resident in the fullest sense (while the Porte recognized him only as consul). After this triumph, the Riches returned to Baghdad escorted by the 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 94

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pasha’s own bodyguard of 200 Georgians and Claudius was received in ceremonial public audience.

Life at the Residency The Riches’ personal life in Baghdad was also difficult and to a large extent dictat- ed by the climate and restrictive local customs. The latter meant, for example, that Mary Rich was largely confined to the house and could only venture out if dressed in the Ottoman fashion. For exercise, she rode a donkey for which she wore a bizarre outfit consisting of a black gauze veil, a voluminous blue-checked sheet and yellow half-boots. The only entertainment was the equivalent of today’s coffee mornings, when the local ladies (there was only one other European woman there then) called to gossip the time away in Turkish or Armenian, while drinking coffee and eating sweetmeats in an atmosphere laden with incense and attar of roses. The daily routine varied only according to the season. According to Mary Rich:

In the hot summer months the thermometer often stood at 120 F in the shade at 3 p.m. [Claudius was very careful on all meteorological and climatic effects. It is probable that he was the first to record the temperature of Baghdad by thermometer regularly and several times a day.] In summer they went out early, about 5 a.m., and were in by 7 o’clock. They then breakfasted, and by 8.30 or 9 they retired to the serdaubs or cellar apartments, built underground for coolness. About 6 o’clock they emerged, dressed for dinner, which they had on the terrace. Here they remained often all night, sleeping out of doors, the heat being tremendous, 100 F at 10 p.m., which was quite a usual temperature. As one may imagine the hot weather was most exhausting, the question of keeping cool being paramount. Luxuries of ice or even punkahs seem to have been unknown. Water was kept coolish in ‘guglets’ or porous earthenware jars, these placed even in a draught of hot air, kept the water from becoming warm and tepid. During the winter months – from October to April – they took exercise during the morning. The air was cold and bracing, and they were often out riding or walking from seven in the morning until noon. In the afternoons Rich held audiences, and they dined at four, for which meal they very cere- moniously dressed, and the evenings were passed in reading, music or Mary reading aloud, while Claudius drew or painted.27 As already indicated, Rich liked to live in style and on a scale that by modern standards can only be regarded as extravagant. Compare then the Riches’ celebration of the King’s Birthday, as described by Mary Rich to her sister, with the modest reception with which the Queen’s Birthday is celebrated at diplomatic missions today: My loyal husband is amusing all Bagdad in honor of His Majesty. I verily believe George’s Birthday (June) is nowhere wished for or enjoyed than here. I now hear a tremendous noise occasioned by jugglers, dancers, wrestlers and singers of amusing subjects. If ever we wish to make them our own subjects, I will answer for it that the Resident has prepared them to love their new Padishah! As long as we secure them feasting and stuffing every King’s Birthday, they will be some of the best subjects under the Crown. We are to have great illumina- tions and fireworks in the evening, and a party at dinner for Christians, at which I must preside, though I believe there will be upwards of three dinners for Turks, Persians and Arabs, who are of course not admitted to the honor of seeing me. After dinner, if they are asked to sing, the company being chiefly composed of priests, we shall have from one a Te Deum and from another a Magnificat. There will be some getting up in the midst of dinner, leaning half 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 95

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over the table to help themselves to a favourite dish, which will probably receive a greater part of their long slovenly sleeves. There will be others, more polite, instead of helping their neighbours with their fingers, will lick the spoon which they are eating with, and dip it into the dish they are about to serve their unfortunate neighbour to! Again some will be getting tired of sitting so long with their legs dangling from the chair, will curl them up under them and be quite at their ease again! The Armenian ladies do not dine out, so I have no female company to support me.28 A major British interest in Turkish Arabia was in maintaining open the communications route to India. All of Britain’s representatives had this as one of their objectives. None set about it with greater determination than Claudius Rich, who in his time in Baghdad (1808–21) was noted as a man of great energy and enterprise and who was not to be put off by the harsh conditions of his environment or the whims of a despotic pasha. He devised a courier service of Tartar horsemen between Constantinople, Baghdad and Basra to carry the news that he assiduously collected from a network of agents and informers in the principal towns of Asia Minor, the Caucuses, Syria and Persia. They also carried the newspapers from England that arrived usually two or three months old. Despite its slowness, this route to India was quicker by several weeks than the even longer route round the Cape of Good Hope. However Rich may be remembered more for his contribution to the archaeology of Mesopotamia and in particular for stimulating later interest in Babylon. He first visited the site at the end of 1811, when he made a thorough examination of the ruins, sketching and even approximately surveying the entire group of mounds on the left of the Euphrates, which we now know represent the temples and palaces of the Inner City. He watched gangs of people from Hillah excavating Babylonian baked bricks for building purposes and had no difficulty in obtaining good specimens of brick inscriptions – no wonder so little of the ruins remains to day! Rich published an account of his findings, which the archaeologist Seton Lloyd thought gave the initial impulse to Mesopotamian archaeology.29

The first political agent in Baghdad Rich’s post came under scrutiny in 1810 when the British authorities considered abolishing it, but in 1812 they reconfirmed Rich with the new designation of political agent in Turkish Arabia. He fell ill the next year and was given permission to go on three months’ leave. He and his wife with a large party of travellers set off overland at a rattling pace through Turkey to Constantinople. The Riches then proceeded more leisurely across Europe to Paris where Claudius found a letter from Bombay rebuking him for overstaying his leave. His wife successfully interceded on his behalf through her family connections and, although the EIC had meanwhile dismissed Rich, managed to have him reinstated. Claudius took a long while to recover his health and the Riches were away from Baghdad for over two and a half years, during which time Dr Hine was in charge. They returned in April–May 1816 and three of their remaining four years in Baghdad passed uneventfully. Claudius busied himself increasingly with archaeology and assembled a large collection of ancient manuscripts, antiquities and coins. He paid a return visit to Babylon in 1817 and wrote a further study. For a year from March 1820 he travelled about Kurdistan and Persia, where his exploits were written up by his wife and published as Narrative of a Residence in Koordistan.30 He also stayed for some months in Mosul and in his search for early manuscripts visited the monasteries in the area. He further visited and surveyed the ruins of Nineveh, 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 96

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thus paving the way for the sensational discoveries made there twenty years later. Hilprecht summarized the value of Rich’s archaeological work: After the fundamental work of Rich little was left for the average European traveller to report on the ruins of Babylon and Nineveh, unless he possessed an extraordinary observation and discrimination combined with experience and technical training, archaeological taste, and a fair acquaintance with the works of the classical writers and the native historians and geographers.31

The new residency It was about this time at the end of 1818 that the Riches moved to another large residency nearby on the banks of the Tigris, the foundations of which were old and evidently dated back to the time of the Caliphs. Tradition said that it had been the palace of the Barmecides,* but of that there is no proof.32 The building was leased from a rich landowner of Indian origin, the Nawab Sir Iqbal ud- Dawlah, after whom the Nawab quarter of Baghdad is known to this day. He had been King of Oudh but had been exiled after a dispute with the British and, as a devout Shia, had taken up residence near the Kadhimain mosque, where his tomb can still be seen. In a letter to her stepmother Mary Rich described the new residency: This is a large and handsome perfectly in the Turkish style. It consists of three different courts, one of which belongs to me – the harem, my place of confinement, and it is the most comfortable and refined part of the house. I have one large, handsome sitting-room which we have made the library and breakfast-par- lour, and where I always receive my great visits. There are no less than six other small, comfortable rooms with a fine, large open gallery all round and an open courtyard. These apartments are perfectly separate from the other part of the house, which I never visit till the evening, when the business is over.33 In addition to a grand residency Rich also enjoyed a grand local title of Balios. During his visit to Baghdad, Buckingham noted the reaction of an old woman on meeting the sister of Mary Rich: ‘What! is this plain and unadorned creature the wife of the Balios (the title given in Baghdad to ambassadors from foreign powers) whom I had expected to have seen in the most costly robes, with dia- monds, pearls, and gold?’ On being told that she was only the sister, she said ‘Ah! Indeed, I was sure that I could not have been so grossly deceived! That the lady of the Balios Beg, so poorly dressed! – Impossible!’34 Sir Austen Layard, writing in 1853,35 noted that the consuls in Southern Turkey and Persia were called Balios, as were any European strangers who were assumed to be consuls. The title must have lingered on until the middle of the twentieth century, for Sir Charles Belgrave, then adviser to the ruler of Bahrain, was called locally Balios, and the beach in front of the former embassy in Muscat was also known as the Balios’ beach. The origin is obscure. According to Seton Lloyd, Sir Wallis Budge thought it a corruption of the Greek word Basileus (‘of the king’). Seton Lloyd also records another equally far-fetched theory that it was derived from ‘by-laws’.36 But probably the most likely explanation is that of Bertram Thomas who wrote that the term is said ‘to derive, by metathesis, from the low Latin bailus, Latin baju- lus, from Bailo, the title of the representative of the Venetian Republic at the Sublime Porte’.37

* The Barmecides were a noble and ancient family of Persian origin who advised the Caliph Haroun al-Rashid at the end of the eighth century. 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 97

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Daoud Pasha had assumed rule over the Pashaliq in 1817. For the first year or two relations between him and Rich were good. Indeed when the French consul intimated to the pasha that he should rank above the British representative, the pasha replied that as Rich was a resident minister and the Frenchman only a consul, he would give precedence to the British.38 But by the middle of 1819 their relations began to deteriorate. Rich’s long absences on tour did not help: the pasha complained that he had been intriguing with the Kurds and Persians. At any rate by Rich’s return to Baghdad in February 1821, Daoud Pasha had increased duties on British goods and had repudiated European rights in Baghdad. He became abusive to Rich who resolved to leave for India, but the pasha refused him permission to leave the city. On 25 March, Rich learned that the pasha was about to send troops to arrest him, so he prepared the agency for siege. In addition to his own sepoy guard, Rich had some Indian Army officers staying as his guests and a number of local residents joined him too, so that he could muster in all about a hundred rifles. The pasha’s troops picketed the agency, the riverbank below and various parts of the town to overawe the local people. The pasha tried through emissaries to extort a promise that Rich would not leave Baghdad until his differences with the local government were resolved but Rich refused to negotiate while besieged. The pasha eventually relented, possibly believing that Rich was required for another post in India, and allowed him to depart on the agency yacht for Basra, where he arrived on 19 May 1821. About a month later, he and his wife and some native members of the agency who had incurred the pasha’s displeasure left for Bushire. While waiting there for instructions to proceed to Bombay, Rich decided to send his wife ahead to escape the heat of the Gulf. To pass the time he set off for Shiraz with a view to visiting Persepolis and other ancient sites. While he was in Shiraz cholera broke out. Rich typically refused to leave and stayed to help the sick and dying. He himself then succumbed to the disease and died on 5 October 1821. He was buried in the Armenian Cathedral where an inscribed tombstone lay until it was broken during reconstruction work in the 1990s. Meanwhile the Bombay Government had sent a strongly worded letter to Daoud Pasha calling on him to apologize to Rich and demanding more considerate treatment of British representatives and subjects; otherwise trade between British ports and Turkish Iraq would be prohibited. Rich was also ordered to close the Basra factory temporarily and to move to somewhere else in the Gulf. Rich was already dead when these orders arrived and it fell to Captain Taylor, his assistant in Basra, to carry them out by moving on 15 December 1821 to the ‘island’ of Kuwait, presumably Failakah. The pasha responded immediately by agreeing to all the British demands except for the apology to Rich. Captain Taylor thought it unwise to insist and returned to Basra on 1 May 1822, where he was received with all honour and a rich present from the pasha. After a good deal of negotiation, Captain Taylor succeeded in extracting from the pasha a detailed agreement on the rights and privileges of British subjects. The agreement also mentioned specifically that ‘A spot shall be assigned as a lease to the Resident for a home and garden wherever he may point out.’39 Rich had only recently moved to the residency on the Tigris mentioned earlier, but it would seem a further move was contemplated. However it was not until the early part of the next century that the move was made.

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moved his headquarters between Baghdad and Basra from time to time. Moreover, the appointment lapsed for some months after Rich’s death. Captain Bruce, then resident at Bushire, was later appointed in May 1822 as ‘Political Agent in the Gulf of Persia’,40 with jurisdiction extending to Turkish Iraq and headquarters either at Qishm or Basra and Captain Taylor remained assistant at Basra. Captain Bruce was however removed from office in November for an unauthorized engagement with the government of Shiraz and Captain Taylor was appointed political agent in Turkish Iraq, where he remained for over twenty years. The Basra post was reduced to a native agency, though Captain Taylor continued to reside there and not in Baghdad for some years. In 1824, he was made temporarily subordinate for some matters to the resident at Bushire. In March of the same year an Indian Army officer, Major the Hon. George Keppel, passed through Baghdad with a party of friends en route overland from India to England. His subsequent book41 confirmed that at that time the residency in Baghdad was in the charge of an Armenian, Aga Saikais, owing to the temporary absence of the resident in Basra. Aga Saikais seems to have been something of a rogue as the Major’s party found out when they were leaving Baghdad. They bought some horses from him and . . . out of our stud, one horse wanted an eye: a second, a pair of hind legs; a third, recommended as likely to suit a timid gentlemen, ran away with him every day, to the amusement of the rest of the party; and of the two horses I bought, one died at Tehran, and the other was very well sold at Tabriz for a sum equivalent to two pounds sterling. It might be said that the Major was not a very good judge of horseflesh to allow himself to be cheated in this way. Major Taylor, as he became in 1827, spent about a year in Baghdad at the beginning of the 1830s, at a time when Daoud Pasha was replaced by Hajji Ali Reza Pasha and he was instructed ‘to fix his residence chiefly at Baghdad’42 in order to maintain contact with him. However in the spring of 1831, a terrible epidemic of plague broke out and simultaneously the Tigris burst its banks as a result of prolonged rain. The situation in Baghdad was desperate. Taylor entreated the pasha to establish a quarantine, plans for which had been drawn up by the residency surgeon but the pasha merely replied that such ideas were against the spirit as well as the letter of true religion. Finding it impossible to maintain the personal quarantine he had established around the residency, Taylor decided to leave with his staff for Basra on the residency yacht. The plague pursued him even there as the Arab sailors had secreted a corpse on board for several days and from them the plague spread to Taylor’s servants and afflicted Mrs Taylor’s brother-in-law. It was clear that they escaped just in time as Anthony Groves, a British missionary who kept a diary of his stay in Baghdad from April to October 1831, recorded that part of the residency fell into the swollen river and of the eighteen servants and sepoys left to guard the building all but two died of the plague. Groves says that the inhabitants died in their thousands, possibly as many as two-thirds of the population of about 60,000, including his own wife and daughter, and the floods washed away about 7,000 homes. The destruction was so widespread because, as Groves recorded, . . . the mortar they use in building is very like plaster of Paris, which sets very hard and does well when all is dry! But as soon as ever water is applied, it all crumbles to powder; and in building walls four and five feet thick, they have only an outer casing of brick work thus cemented, and within it is filled up with dust and rubbish, as that what seems strong enough in appearance to bear anything, soon moulders away, and by its own weight accelerates its own ruin.43 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 99

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Taylor came back to Baghdad in 1832, when plague broke out in Basra and from then on the political agent resided mainly in Baghdad. When the plague returned there in 1832, the traveller Wellsted44 observed that the population had dwindled to 20,000 and 500 were dying every day. The residency had established a strict quarantine so that he was unable to gain admittance and had to stay for the night in a nearby stable. In 1833, another traveller, Major Skinner of the 31st Regiment of the Indian Army, arrived in Baghdad by camel from Damascus and was much impressed by Taylor. He wrote that: . . . he is so eminently distinguished for his Oriental learning, his deep knowledge of the customs of the East, and his skills in its diplomacy, that he commands the esteem, and I may say the obedience, of every class in the city, or tribe of Arabs within the jurisdiction of the Pashalik. His name has been sufficient to ensure a safe passage to travellers during the wildest times.45 Major Skinner also met Ross, the residency surgeon, who became involved in a most unusual operation. Skinner had been invited by a Kurdish chieftain to visit Kurdistan but had to decline. Skinner described the chieftain as ‘a man who put his uncle’s eyes out, and pretending to repent, sent an escort to the British resident, to induce the surgeon to return with it and, I believe, to put the old man’s eyes in again’.46 Ross went off with the escort but sadly the outcome was not recorded. Skinner further encountered at the residency the Nawab Sir Iqbal ud-Dawlah, who had been travelling to the holy shrines of Islam. Skinner noted that the Nawab had drunk the waters of Zemzem at Mecca ‘without losing, by the by, a most heterodox predilection for stronger waters!’ The Nawab was recuperating from having been captured by Turkomans and made to grind corn between two stones until he was ransomed.47

Maintaining the route to India A major British interest in Turkish Arabia was in maintaining open the communications route to India. All of Britain’s representatives had this as one of their main objectives and an important breakthrough was made in Major Taylor’s time. Thought was constantly being given to means of accelerating the passage of the mails and in the mid-1830s the exploitation of the great waterways of Iraq, the Tigris and Euphrates, was considered. In July 1834, the House of Commons approved a plan for an expedition to be mounted under Captain Francis Chesney to explore the basins of the two rivers, to test the navigability of the Euphrates and to examine the possibilities for trade. For this purpose two iron paddle steamers, named Tigris and Euphrates, were ordered from Liverpool and in 1835 were carried in pieces by sea to the Syrian coast near the mouth of the Orontes and then with great difficulty across the desert from Aleppo to the Euphrates at Birejik. They were reassembled there and launched downstream in April 1836. Chesney received instructions at this point to disband the expedition by July. He kept them to himself for fear of damaging morale and continued the journey. The expedition did some remarkable surveying work but on 21 May a terrible disaster overtook the Tigris. A violent storm sprung up and caught the expedition by surprise at Jaria Island some 85 miles further up river at a point below the confluence of the Euphrates and the Khabur. One expedition member described what happened in graphic terms: As the cloud neared us, the sky assumed an appearance such as we had never before witnessed, and which was awful and terrific in the extreme. A dense 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 100

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black arch enveloped the whole horizon, and the space beneath the arch was filled with a body of dust of a brownish orange colour, whirling round, and at the same time advancing towards us with fearful rapidity. At this moment the hurricane came on us – a warm dry wind laden with fragrance of the aro- matic plants of the wilderness, followed in a few moments by a tremendous blast of wind with some rain in large drops. The crash broke upon us like heaven’s own artillery, and the hurricane seemed as if bent upon hurling both the steamers at once to the bottom of the foaming river.48 The Tigris was swamped and sank in the darkness. Twenty of the thirty-seven members of the ship’s company drowned, including one of the Lynch family. The family later established a river steamer service between Basra and Baghdad on the Tigris. Chesney himself was on board, but he and a number of others managed to survive. Such storms often occur in this part of the Jazira and sweep across the great plains of northern Iraq with frightening rapidity. The Euphrates continued the survey downstream reaching Basra on 19 June 1836. After a refit in Bushire, it later went up the Tigris to Baghdad. Chesney’s report was partly negative: the Euphrates would not be suitable for regular steam navigation; but the navigation of the Tigris below Baghdad was practicable. Meanwhile the mails continued to come by boat to Beirut, by camel and horse to Basra and on from there by boat again to India. The camel post between Damascus and Baghdad existed from 1838 to 1881. It was run by the residency and was subsidized to some extent by the Government of India. Letters could still be sent by it as late as 1880, according to Tristram Ellis, a traveller, ‘for a sum equal to 6d [two and a half pence in today’s decimal currency] per letter.49 It started each way every two weeks. The mails were carried by Ajail Arabs, who covered the distance of some 500 miles in ten-fourteen days, following the same route used in the great days of the Abbasid Caliphate, when it was guarded by small companies of soldiers at Qasr Khubbaz and other stations, the ruins of which can still be seen. There was scarcely an instance of letters failing to arrive, even though the Beduin robbed the carriers of everything else. They had quickly learned that valuables were not carried in the post and it was not worth their while to rob it. By the middle of the century however work was begun on constructing a telegraph line, which was finally opened between Baghdad and Basra in 1865. In the early summer of 1840 the distinguished traveller and archaeologist and later diplomat and politician, Austen Layard, paid a visit to Lieutenant-Colonel Taylor (as he now was) and described him as a small, slight and wizened man considerably past middle age. He had previously served in India and had a pro- found knowledge of eastern languages, including a rare acquaintance with Arabic literature and, curiously, that of the Sabaeans or Christians of St John, who are noted for their Amarah silverware and are still to be found in the bazaars of Baghdad as silversmiths. Colonel Taylor was married to an Armenian and one of his two daughters was married to Captain (later Admiral) Lynch, whose brothers founded the already-mentioned steamship company. Taylor was a keen gardener, and he is credited with the introduction of the potato to Iraq. Layard arrived by kelek or raft from Mosul with another Englishman called Mitford. At the bridge of boats across the river they changed to a goufa, a circu- lar boat made of reeds coated with bitumen something like an Irish coracle, which could pass through the intervals of the boats forming the bridge. They landed on the left bank of the river beneath a large building over which floated the Union Jack. This was the residency of Colonel Taylor. They went through a vaulted entrance guarded by one of the sepoys. The entrance opened into a spacious courtyard round which were balconies or terraces and the doors of 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 101

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numerous rooms. This was the Diwan Khaneh where the resident received visitors and transacted his official business. It was divided by a high wall from a second courtyard surrounded by the apartments of the resident and his family and, as in Muslim homes, called the anderun or harem. Colonel Taylor received them in his underground serdaub or cellar. Layard was most impressed by the Colonel’s establishment: His table was spread for every meal with the most profuse hospitality and there were places for all the English in Baghdad who were welcome to it whenever they thought fit to dine or breakfast with him. The service was performed by a crowd of Arabian and Indian servants in their native costumes, moving noiselessly about with naked feet, and attending promptly and well to the wants of the guests. At breakfast, the Indian non-commissioned officer in command of the guard of Sepoys always appeared, and after drawing himself up in military fashion and giving the prescribed salute, announced in Hindustani ‘all was well’. When the meal was ended, an army of attendants brought in kalleons, the Persian hookah, or waterpipe, of silver and exquisite enamel, one for each person at the table, except, of course, the ladies. The evening was spent in the harem, either on the flat roof of the house if the heat was great, or in a beautiful domed chamber, decorated with the most exquisite designs in colour, and inlaid in ivory and precious woods, and with mirrors and innumerable pieces of glass let into the walls and ceilings, which reflected the lights on every side and produced the most charming effect. The house had belonged, I believe, to one of the families of Mamelukes, who, as in Egypt, had in former times ruled Baghdad. It had been fitted up in the most luxurious and elegant fashion, with baths and fountains, nearly every room being painted with exquisite Eastern designs in rich but harmonious colours. The windows of the receptions rooms overlooked the Tigris, whose rapid stream, sweeping beneath, cooled and refreshed the air. They were surrounded by two comfortable divans covered with silks of Baghdad and Damascus, and with much embroidery in gold. Narguiles, after the Aleppo fashion, smoked through long flexible tubes, coiled on the floor, were brought to each person, the ladies then included, and the somewhat monotonous bubbling of the air passing through the water, as the smoke of the tobacco, or tumbaki, was inhaled, accompanied the conversation.50 If Layard was enchanted by these Oriental delights, he was less than enamoured with Baghdad itself. Apart from the bazaars, which had retained some animation and colour, Layard found Baghdad a run-down and disillusioning city – which makes it all the more amazing that Taylor and his family should have stayed there for over twenty years until 1843. Layard wrote: Much as I had been struck by the appearance of Baghdad as we had floated to it through groves of palms and orange and citron trees, with the gilded domes of Kausimain, and the many cupolas covered with bright enamelled tiles of the city itself arising above them and glittering in the sun, so much more was I disappointed when I found myself in its narrow and dirty streets. More than one quarter was nothing but a heap of ruins without inhabitants. Even in the part occupied by the better class of the population, the houses, some of considerable size, were for the most part falling into decay. The exteriors like those of the houses of Damascus were of sun-dried mud bricks without orna- ment or window. It was only after passing through a long, tortuous, vaulted entrance that the extent of the interior and the beauty of its painted and sculpted decorations, fast falling into decay and perishing, were perceived. The streets had consequently a mean and poverty-stricken appearance, which was not altogether warranted by the condition of the inhabitants. The mosques, with their beautiful domes and their elegant minarets, were falling to ruins. No attempts were made to repair and maintain them. The 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 102

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ample revenue which had once been applied to these purposes, and came from the bequests of pious persons, and from other sources, had now passed into the hands of the Turkish Government, and no part of them was supplied to the object for which they were intended. Of the great edifices, the palaces, the colleges, the caravanserais, the baths, and other public edifices which had adorned Baghdad in the time of the Caliphs, scarcely anything remained. In fact, with the exception of the tomb of Zobeide, the favourite wife of Haroun al Rashid, with its conical dome in the shape of a pineapple, there appeared to be no legend or tradition attaching to the remaining edifices which recalled the memory of those illustrious princes who had raised Baghdad to the height of glory and renown, and had rendered it the most cultivated city in the Eastern world. The ‘City of the Caliphs’ had become a desolation and a waste.51 Taylor had been given fresh instructions on the conduct of business with the pasha though, as Lorimer noted, it was not clear whether this was due to the political agent overstepping his role or whether it was part of a wider review of Anglo- Turkish relations. In any event, he was warned against regarding the pasha or himself as independent of the relevant authorities in Constantinople. He could correspond with the British ambassador there on matters concerning general relations between Britain and Turkey, provided he copied everything to Bombay. Otherwise he was to keep strictly to such matters as consular protection and the collection of political information and to avoid entanglement in the internal or external affairs of the Pashalik. He was to be guided on Persian affairs by the British envoy at Tehran. So Taylor had to serve several masters. In 1835, a further complication was added when the order of 1806 making the post entirely subordinate to the Government of Bombay was rescinded and he was instructed to correspond through Bombay with the Government of India and be under their direct orders.52

Henry Rawlinson Taylor survived several reviews of his post on grounds of making economies in 1827, 1830 and 1834. In August 1841, his position was enhanced by his appointment as British consul, though he almost certainly performed consular functions before without the formality of an exequatur. It was pointed out to him53 that this was not intended to interfere with his position as the EIC’s resident, though it would bring under his supervision the British vice-consul in Mosul, which had opened there in 1839 under Christian Rassam, who was to hold the post with considerable distinction, particularly for his support for British archaeological work in the area, until he died in 1872. It is therefore all the more surprising that within two years the Government of Bombay were suggesting to the Government of India that Taylor’s post should be abolished or relegated to Basra at a lower level. Lorimer suggests54 that Bombay’s views may have been coloured by evident dissatisfaction with Taylor’s political judgement as a result of endorsing two requests from the pasha for help with setting up a Turkish steamship service on the rivers and for the purchase of some ammunition. But this seems insignificant justification for con- demning a man who had served the EIC and the Government of India for so long in such arduous conditions. Saldanha seems nearer the mark, recording that the Government of India was concerned to preserve peace between Persia and Turkey and decided on a change to someone who had their confidence.55 In September 1843 they appointed another outstanding Indian Army officer, Major (later Major- General Sir) Henry Rawlinson to be their political agent in Turkish Arabia.56 Before arriving in Baghdad at the age of thirty-three years, Rawlinson had already established a formidable reputation both as a soldier and scholar. He had 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 103

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joined the Indian Army as a cadet aged seventeen. Six years later he was sent as an instructor to the shah’s troops. He was appointed political agent at Kandahar during the Afghan War and served with distinction there. He was offered high office in Central India but chose the inferior position in Baghdad to be able to pursue his interest in deciphering the trilingual (Babylonian, Assyrian and Persian) inscriptions on the rock-hewn sepulchre of Darius at Naksh-i-Rustam in neighbouring Persia. He arrived in Baghdad on 15 December 1843. The Government of India directed Rawlinson to make the preservation of peace between Turkey and Persia his principal care. To this end he was instructed to keep in constant touch with the ambassador in Constantinople and the British minister in Tehran. However, he took his orders from, and reported to, the Government of India and no longer the Government of Bombay.57 In March 1844, he was appointed consul. In making the appointment the secretary of state for foreign affairs underlined his dual role as Her Majesty’s consul and the EIC resident, explaining, as with Colonel Taylor, that the consular designation was not intended to impinge on his company function but merely to enable him to act as consul when necessary and to supervise the vice-consul at Mosul.58 (The latter could not have been a very arduous task since there was no British community there and no British material interests either.) Rawlinson’s cousin, Canon George Rawlinson, visited Baghdad and commented on the grandeur of the Residency, which was:

a house built on a grand scale with large and numerous apartments, necessi- tating an enormous staff of servants, cooks, grooms, stable-boys, attendants of all kinds, coffee-grinders, pipe-fillers, etc. etc. . . . Considerable state had to be kept up, numerous entertainments given, a multitude of visits paid, and a guard of honour turned out to accompany the Resident whenever he went outside the walls.59 Rawlinson was determined not to be beaten by the heat of summer and set up an ingenious summer house at the end of the residency garden and overhanging the river. He installed a water-wheel to which were attached pots carrying water from the Tigris and pouring it in a continuous stream over the roof of his ‘chardag’. Here he passed his days in writing his despatches and the accounts of his travels, surrounded by an unusual menagerie of a mongoose, a leopard named Fahad (later given to the Zoological Gardens at Clifton, near Bristol) and a lion that followed him about like a dog.60 The French consul general, Baron de Weimars, wrote rue- fully that his British colleague disposed of as much money as the French ambassador to the Porte and made him look like a poor relation.61 His plea for more money went unheard and the post was downgraded to a vice-consulate in 1848. It seemed however that the French profited in other ways. Rawlinson told a Select Committee on the Consular Service and Appointments in 1858 of the great advantage which France enjoyed over England in appointing consuls from France. Rawlinson said he had always appreciated the higher standing enjoyed by the French consular agency at Mosul in contrast to the agency under his own supervision. The French officer at Mosul was sent directly from the Quai d’Orsay; whereas his own was a native of Mosul, educated at Malta, but would be considered whatever his title as a local man (poor Christian Rassam, the then incumbent!). Rawlinson added that in Turkey the more one could keep oneself to European habits and positions the better, and he deplored the tendency for Englishmen isolated in the East to become orientalized, adopting the dress and habits of the Orientals: ‘As they do adopt these habits, by so much do they really lose in the respect of the people for their European character.’ 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 104

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Rawlinson appears to have been particularly energetic in two fields: navigation on the rivers and archaeology. In the early 1840s the EIC maintained a whole flotilla of steamships on the Tigris and Euphrates, which were engaged in survey work and carrying the mails and merchandise between Baghdad and Basra. However by the time of Rawlinson’s appointment in late 1843 only the Nitocris was left and even that was under threat of removal because the Euphrates proved impractical for mail steamers. Rawlinson had to argue most persuasively for its retention on the grounds of national prestige and the need to have a secure means of communications with Basra for trade and other purposes. The Government of India replaced the Nitocris with the Comet, which was to remain in the service of the residency for many years. Rawlinson also argued that a naval depot was required in Basra and after much haggling it was finally agreed to rent – and later purchase – the property at Ma’gil, originally bought by Manesty at the beginning of the century and later purchased from him by Colonel Taylor. Rawlinson was helped considerably in all of this by Commander Felix Jones, who spent years surveying the rivers and who acted as political agent in Baghdad from March to October 1855. Rawlinson’s passion for archaeology had to take second place initially to his official duties, but he succeeded in the early summer of 1844 in returning to the trilingual inscription at Behistun in Persia and in re-examining the entire Persian script. He made a further trip there in the summer of 1847 when he made a copy of all three inscriptions. Meanwhile he had met Layard and begun a fruitful col- laboration with him, helping to ship to England Layard’s magnificent finds at Nimrud. He also immersed himself in the study of Arabic and Hebrew to further his work on Babylonian cuneiform. In the autumn of 1849, Rawlinson went on leave for the first time in twenty- two years, leaving the vice-consul, Captain Arnold Kemball, in charge. Rawlinson stayed away until December 1851, spending much of the time on preparation and publication of various archaeological works. On his return, he worked at length on excavating the main Assyrian and Babylonian sites and ensuring the safe transport to England of priceless antiquities. He sought to take home leave again in 1854 but was prevailed upon to stay because of the uncertainty surrounding the Crimean War. But in February 1855 he fell and broke his collarbone in a riding accident while boar hunting and decided to go on leave to recover. On arrival in England he resigned from the EIC to devote himself to his archaeological studies. He was knighted the next year.

Arnold Kemball Rawlinson was succeeded by his vice-consul, Captain (later General Sir) Arnold Kemball, who remained as political agent from March 1855 to August 1868, apart from a period of leave from October 1859 to April 1861, when he was replaced by the surgeon, Dr Hyslop. For much of this period, Kemball was drawn reluctantly into serious difficulties with the Turkish administration and the tribes south of Baghdad, particularly the Muntafiq. Turkish control over these tribes was loose, and they could not be prevented from interfering with the construction of a telegraph line from Baghdad to Basra, which the Turks, under British advice and with British official aid, were undertaking. The political agent was therefore obliged to intervene to a much greater extent than before in the internal affairs of the country and Kemball was frequently asked for his advice on the handling of difficult situations. He recognized however that it would take a much larger force than that at the disposal of the pasha not only to win 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 105

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battles but also to hold the territory thus gained. The warring went on for about ten years until the tribes were subdued by exhaustion. But there were always other tribes to the southwest to harry the Turks. In October 1865, Kemball was able to report that the telegraph line was working. Kemball was also called upon to defend the continued retention of the residency steamer, the Comet. Messrs Lynch & Co. were trying to expand their steamship business by adding another steamer the Dejleh to their existing City of London but the Turks insisted that past agreements allowed only two British craft to ply on the rivers and if the Dejleh were to be added the Comet would have to go. Kemball pointed out successfully the difference between the craft of the Indian Navy and commercial craft. In the early 1860s, a group of travellers arrived in Baghdad. Lieutenant Bowsher, commander of the Comet, escorted them down river in his gig to call on Kemball. Such was Kemball’s hospitality that the whole party was invited daily to take breakfast, tiffin or lunch and dinner at the residency. One of them, F. C. Webb, subsequently wrote a detailed description of the residency:

[It] consists of a quadrangular set of buildings of irregular height and construction, enclosing a court-yard with a verandah, the level of which is broken by steps in several places, but being generally on the level of the first floor used in winter; this verandah is continued all round the interior of the quadrangular court-yard. No two rooms appear to match in height, length, or breadth, or decoration. The ceiling of the dining-room is ornamented with coloured glass, in that curious arabesque device which has the appearance of being built up of successive and innumerable corners escaloped or “nicked” out, and of which the Alhambra Court at the Crystal Palace offers such a splendid example. Another room, set aside as a boudoir for the lady of our party, was entirely lined with looking-glasses let into the walls and ceiling in every possible shape and position, so that anyone in the room sees himself from every possible and impossible point of view. I would recommend this kind of apartment to any gentlemen of uncertain age who may require a quiet reminder of his advancing years. For I recollect that directly I entered the room I have described, I saw two hundred and twenty-five and several half reflections of the bald part of my head, looking, of course, far balder than I had previously imagined it to be; this had such an effect upon me that I hastily departed in low spirits, and during the remainder of my stay at Baghdad, carefully avoided this chamber of horrors. The Residency, as well as the house occupied by Mr Lynch, and one or two other Europeans, are close to the river, and have each a garden laid out on a raised wharf or terrace overhanging the stream; these gardens are well stocked with flowers, shrubs, and orange-trees, and are furnished with numerous garden seats; viewed from one of these, the rapid waters of the Tigris, with the boats and gufas swimming along, and the opposite shore with its picturesque masses of houses, minarets, and palm-trees, present a scene which may become monotonous in time, but to the new comer is most charming in its novelty.62 A later visitor, Tristram Ellis, gave an even more graphic description of Baghdad houses in general and the residency in particular, where he was struck by the harem: It is always on the harem that the greatest efforts of ornamentation are expended. The walls from the floor to the ceiling, as well as the ceiling itself, are covered with every colour of the rainbow in elaborate arabesque patterns. It is universal to make the sides of the rooms appear like two storeys of a house, there being a string-course about halfway up, and windows appearing above this for the purpose of introducing air and light. In positions where 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 106

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windows cannot be made the wall is niched to imitate them, and where two rooms are contiguous the upper part of the wall is perforated, and closed by glass sashes swinging on a central pivot. When all the windows are open this system allows the free circulation of air during the hot weather, but enables secrets whispered in one room to be heard in all the rest. The windows overlooking the street are overhanging, supported on brackets, and carrying a settee all round. The upper part of the windows is ornamented with coloured glass, introduced in small pieces in a pierced wood pattern, which is painted black or a dark colour. The inhabitants of Baghdad are extremely proud of this form of ornamentation, which they consider belongs entirely to themselves, though its origin is no doubt Persian. In the harem the windows are always completely covered, either with this coloured glass work or with a close trel- lis of wood, through which it is impossible to see from outside. In the Residency the harem was remarkably large, and had a set of servants’ apartments, etc. In fact it was a complete separate house, with but one entrance, forming a door of communications between it and the main building. There were staircases onto the flat roof, which was also separated from that of the other part of the house by a high wall. It is the roof of the house that is the most pleasant resort during the evenings, and in summer the inhabitants all sleep there, living during the day in the serdaubs.63 Ellis goes on to make clear that ‘pleasant’ was a relative term and that living in the open also had its hazards: About the time that I was leaving the weather became so warm, that the serdaubs were being cleaned up ready for use, and we began dining on the roof of the house. Unfortunately the heat had not yet been great enough to kill all the flies harboured by the trees in the surrounding gardens. There was no wind to carry them away and the dinner was very much impeded by the multitude attracted by the lights. The tablecloth was nearly black with them, from the smallest midges to the mosquitoes, ants, earwigs and flying beetles of all shapes and sizes, making an intolerable buzzing. They got down one’s neck, up one’s sleeve, and, stinging one at every point rendered sitting still a difficult operation. They entered largely into all the dishes, and each mouthful had to be hurriedly cleared of them before being swallowed. . . It became a matter of the gravest difficulty to pour out the wine and drink it, before the glass became too crowded with insects.64 Webb became quickly acquainted with the European society of Baghdad, for it consisted only of the resident and his surgeon, Lynch, the merchant, and his family, and one or two English clerks, the French consul and a French doctor and his wife, a Swiss merchant and his wife, the officers on the Comet and the Hyderabad, a steamer belonging to Lynch, Greener, a telegraph engineer, and his wife and two or three English clerks in the service of the Turkish Telegraph Administration, specially employed on the Indo-European line. Two missionaries and their wives and two military officers were also visiting at that time. This limited society did not however prevent a cricket match being played while Webb was there. He describes the scene graphically in terms that aroused envy in those whose more modest game was played on the Embassy’s pitch in the late 1980s: We rode out to a place selected in the desert for a cricket match. Several tents had been pitched at the spot and Colonel Kemball had kindly invited all the Europeans of Baghdad, including the men of the Comet and the City of Baghdad steamers, either to take part in the game, or as lookers on. Thus we mustered about twelve or fourteen ladies and about forty men, nearly all of whom, as well as numerous attendants, had ridden out, the number of horses being, therefore, considerable; and, as these stood tethered in groups, with scores of servants in every variety of Eastern costume, the gay tents and flags, 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 107

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etc. formed, with the view of Baghdad in the distance, a charmingly picturesque scene, which assumed an especially lively appearance when two of the finest horses commenced fighting, thereby inciting all the others to plunge, rear, and kick in the wildest manner. I forbear to give any details of the cricket match, beyond stating that the ground was not very ‘lively’, and that the two elevens played with as much vigour as though representing their respective counties, and that a fine ‘drive’, or a good catch, was hailed with as much enthusiasm from the spectators’ pavilion as they would have been at the Oval or at Lord’s. The game over, we sat down to a well-appointed dejeuner, including even hot entrees and vegetables, to say nothing of lobster salads and cold fowls, etc., spread on the floor of one of the tents, and around which we all sat a la Turc, and, laughing and chatting, enjoyed such a repast and such wines as are not often partaken in the desert. Webb also managed to play several games of croquet during his stay.65 Webb was taken to call on the Governor of Baghdad, Namik Pasha. His description of his reception underlines how fortunate later visitors were in their calls on Baghdad’s dignitaries, particularly if they were non-smokers: On our taking our seats on divans which extended all round a very simply decorated room, His Excellency, plainly attired in a black closely-buttoned up coat with brass military buttons, soon joined us, and after shaking hands, took a seat on the divan near us, conversing in French in the most unostentatious manner. Our Party consisted of three, and accordingly three tall men in long black coats, walked briskly up the room, and kneeling on one knee, with almost military precision, presented a lighted pipe to each of us, at the same time placing a small brass dish for the pipe bowl to rest in; this was followed by sherbet, brought to us in an equally sudden and military style, and the whole ceremony, including on each occasion fresh pipes, was repeated three times in our interview. There is, I understand, according to Turkish etiquette, a regular allowance of pipes, varying with the rank of the visitor, although what position the number three bears in the scale I am unable to say; but the problem would keep suggesting itself to my mind in the following form: if a midshipman be expected to smoke one pipe, and a civil engineer three, what amount of fumigation would the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs have to undergo in order to satisfy the courteous intentions of the Pasha of Baghdad?66

Colonel C. Herbert Colonel C. Herbert replaced Kemball in September 1868 at first in an acting capacity. His appointment coincided more or less with the departure of Namik Pasha and the arrival of Midhat Pasha who is credited with a forceful character and with the introduction of a more modern system of civil administration. But Lady Anne Blunt wrote scathingly of his ill-considered development schemes for Baghdad,67 and Midhat Pasha is still remembered mainly as the man who demolished Baghdad’s perimeter walls, an act which even in those days made little sense on grounds of security or customs control not to mention aesthetic appeal. In 1874, Colonel Herbert was, like his predecessor, called upon to defend the Comet when once again Messrs Lynch & Co wanted to change their river craft and the Turkish authorities as before challenged the number of British ships on the rivers. Herbert’s argument about the different status of the craft once again prevailed. Between 1872 and 1874, Colonel Herbert and Robertson, the British agent in Basra, were heavily engaged in pursuing British claims following a surprise attack by pirates on the Cashmere, a British ship anchored at Basra. With the vigorous 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 108

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support of the pasha in Baghdad, most of the pirates were rounded up and severely punished, and most of the stolen property and money was recovered. For their role in successfully handling matters Herbert was thanked by the Government of India, while Robertson was rewarded by a change of title from British agent to assistant political agent. The significance of this was to improve his standing with visitors who tended to associate the former title with non-Europeans. Robertson’s new title also had the effect of making him a member of the Indian Political Service. Robertson died in 1888 and lies buried with members of his family in the British cemetery in Basra. In 1869, Colonel Herbert was asked to make some economies and he proposed the removal to Basra of the Comet’s coal store and depot at Ma’gil, where its isolated position required eight Baluchi guards. Messrs Lynch did not like the move, as they were afraid their co-location at Ma’gil might become more exposed to Turkish pressure also to move. They said it would be regrettable if the estate, which had been regarded as British ground for a hundred years and was closely associated with the British and British prestige, should be given up. Sir Henry Rawlinson, who had earlier recommended Ma’gil as the Comet’s coaling station, supported this view; as to some extent did the secretary of state for India. But it was too late. Colonel Herbert had already reached an agreement on a suitable site and building in Basra. The Ma’gil or Belvoir site had been in British possession since about 1775. Manesty had built his residence there, which he had subsequently sold to Colonel Taylor, who considerably altered it. The property also included store- rooms, a coal depot, a wharf and a dock. Messrs Lynch took the property over on loan. The Bombay Government were offered the chance to buy or rent it and British consuls continued to reside there until Robertson moved into Basra in 1870. The new residence was described in 1872 as being 2 miles outside Basra town and the site was to remain in British possession for nearly a century. It was owned by Hajji Ibrahim bin Othman and rented from him. The Comet’s coal depot was moved there from Ma’gil by an agreement commencing in July 1873. But there was constant difficulty over the rent so at various times attempts were made to buy the property or to find another one. Both alternatives ran into protracted difficulties and it was not until the 1890s that the Government of India finally agreed to purchase the existing consulate buildings, together with neighbouring premises occupied by Messrs Lynch and a strip of land at the rear. After a last-minute hitch with the Turkish authorities over registration, the enlarged site was finally purchased in 1895.68 The Comet gave Herbert further problems when he urged its long-overdue replacement in 1868. After the Turkish authorities had been finally persuaded to agree to a replacement, the Government of India took fright at the cost or purchase and maintenance of a new steamer and suggested first the provision of a steam launch and later, despite Herbert’s vigorous protests, the abolition of the vessel altogether. The ambassador in Constantinople supported Herbert but to no avail. However the government later relented in deference to the secretary of state’s views and decided not only to replace the Comet but also to provide a vessel of similar size, though no practical steps to this end were taken until some years later. In 1873, the Government of India decided to bestow once again upon the political agent in Baghdad the title of resident, which had been removed in 1812, but rather confusingly Colonel Herbert was still referred to officially as political agent. The bestowal of the title at this juncture is curious; in the following year Herbert was dismissed from his post for showing lack of tact, incompe- tence and an irritating attitude towards the Turkish authorities. Another Indian 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 109

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Army officer, Colonel J. P. Nixon, who held the post from December 1874 to July 1879, succeeded him. Lorimer lists him as political agent; whereas his successor, Colonel S. M. Miles (July 1879- September 1880) is listed as resident.69 It was a difficult time. The whole province was still wild and largely uncivi- lized. The captain of one of the Lynch steamers recalls that in 1874 a lion and two lionesses had been shot from the steamer on the Tigris and Lady Anne Blunt also referred to a lion and lioness being killed at the end of 1877 at Dair az-Zor on the Euphrates.70 The general situation in Baghdad itself in the spring of 1878 was backward and depressing. Trade appeared to be stagnant; normal life and security were at a low level, and violence prevailed all around. There was no passable hotel in the country. It was difficult to obtain banking facilities. Tribal fighting and robbery were rife. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that when Lady Anne Blunt and her husband were travelling through Iraq in 1878 in search of Arabian horses to take back to England, they were glad to arrive at the residency, which she described: By far the pleasantest place in Baghdad is the British Residency, a beautiful old house built around two courtyards and having a long frontage to the river. There is a delightful terrace overlooking the water, with an alley of old orange trees and a Kiosque or summer-house and steps leading down to a little quay where the consular boats are moored. Inside, the house is decorated in the Persian style of the last century, one of the most elaborate and charming styles ever invented, with deep fretted ceilings, walls panelled in minute cabinet work, sometimes inlaid with looking glass, sometimes richly gilt. Only the dining room is studiously English, in deference to Anglo-Indian prejudice, its decorations, apparently fresh from Maple’s, forming a theme for admiration for the Baghdadis who come to pay their respects to Her Majesty’s Consul-General.71 Against the background of lawlessness and violence in the countryside, the question of secure communications loomed ever larger in the work of Colonel Nixon and Colonel Miles and their successors: Mr (later Sir) Trevor Plowden (1880–85) and Colonel (later General) Tweedie (1885–91). The river steamers remained the safest means of transporting people, goods and mail between Baghdad and Basra and the resident had frequently to intervene with the Turkish authorities to protect British navigation rights. During this period, the Comet performed invaluable service but was also a constant source of provocation to the Turks, who watched vigilantly that the British did not exceed their privileges. One privilege was however curtailed in 1888. Up to that year travellers to Baghdad who were guests of the resident were dropped with the mail at the residency by British steamers without going through customs. The Turks objected that this practice could give rise to customs evasion and the ambassador in Constantinople directed that it should be stopped.

Colonel Tweedie One of the first to fall foul of the change was Dr (later Sir) Wallis Budge, an eminent archaeologist, historian and explorer, who arrived in Baghdad by steamer from Basra, which tied up on the opposite side of the river from the residency. An official from the residency came on board to tell him that Colonel Tweedie had hired a house for him in the town. The steamer’s captain advised Budge however not to go there as it was far from the river and he accepted instead an invitation to stay on the Comet. His luggage was loaded into a goufah and floated to the nearby Comet. This did not please the customs’ officials who gave 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 110

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pursuit. A struggle then developed at the Comet as Budge’s luggage was being transferred on board. One box contained priceless cuneiform tablets which Budge had purchased from Tall al-Amarnah on his way through Egypt, but the Turkish customs thought that by its weight and obvious importance it contained contraband whisky! The Comet’s captain placated the customs and Budge settled in with his treasures. By the end of his stay, he had collected a lot more cuneiform tablets, which with the connivance of the Comet’s captain he succeeded in smuggling out of Iraq under the noses of the Ottoman authorities. He observed: ‘It seemed to me that most Turkish rules and regulations were specially made to be broken – on payment by the breaker!’72 It is curious that so distinguished a visitor as Budge was not invited to stay at the residency, which had traditionally offered hospitality to such passing wayfarers. But Tweedie, though extremely erudite, was a rather dry old bachelor with none of the panache of his eminent predecessors. He clearly regarded his appointment to Baghdad as rather beneath him and endured it only as a means of qualifying for his pension. Although he did not stir himself, he constantly bemoaned the decline of British influence. When Budge called on him he said that he would have been glad to have had him as his guest but he had no accommodation for guests and Budge would be freer elsewhere from social and official obligations.73 The lack of accommodation might sound odd as Tweedie was still living in the same residency as Rich and Rawlinson, who were famous for their hospitality, although it is clear that it had become rather run down. Budge lunched with Tweedie, and was afterwards shown round the building. He described the scene in some detail: After lunch we went into the state room of the Residency, and he showed me the portraits of Queen Victoria, Stratford Canning, Rawlinson and many other great and distinguished persons. Among them was an oil painting of Ikbal ad- Dawlah, Nawab of Oudh, a great friend of Rawlinson, who had visited England and stayed there for some time. He was very proud of his travels, and in his picture, which was painted by some distinguished artist, he was seen wearing a large fur cap with lappets, which formed a heavy frame to his face, and a magnificent fur coat which reached to his feet. Before him, on the level of his chest, he was holding up by the handle with both hands a huge portmanteau, which he bought in England, and with which he travelled. This picture was hung, by his special request, in the Residency, so that everyone who visited the state room on ceremonial occasions might know that he was a great traveller, and had been to England on a visit to Rawlinson.* Colonel Tweedie then took me into parts of the Residency which had not been occupied for some years, and as most of the furniture, curtains, carpets, etc. dated from the time of Rawlinson (from about 1840 to 1852), and the rest from the time of C. J. Rich, the first British Consul-General of Baghdad (1808 to 1821), I was very glad to see such old and fine examples of native work. I greatly admired the effect of the stained- glass windows, of which, until then, I had seen no examples. The very deep framework for the glass was made of plaster, and not lead, and as the little bits of coloured glass were of all sorts and sizes, and arranged in all sorts of intricate patterns, the effect was most pleasing. In the room in which Rawlinson used to entertain the Wali and his notables I saw the diwans on which they sat, and standing before each was a splendid pipe, with a stem many feet in length. The stems of the official state pipes were beautifully decorated with Persian enamel, agates, turquoises and silver bosses, and the mouthpieces were of old amber, bound with silver. The two most splendid pipes were used by the Resident and the Wali Pasha, or someone of higher rank, and the less splendid pipes were

* For many years into the 1990s this portrait painted by John Smart hung in the office of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 111

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used by the less important notables, who were always carefully graded by the master of ceremonies. From this part of the Residency an arch led over ‘Residency Street’ to another building, which was specially reserved for the ‘harimat’, or ladies who belonged to visitors, servants, etc.74 Budge, accompanied by the son of the ambassador in Constantinople, returned to Baghdad in 1889 and had quite a different reception from Colonel (later Sir) Adelbert Talbot, acting consul general in Tweedie’s absence on leave. Budge had travelled down from Mosul by raft with a collection of cuneiform tablets, relief slabs and an altar of Sargon II, the Assyrian king. Once again he had some difficulty passing the customs at the bridge of boats, even though he had the Turkish Inspector of Antiquities from Mosul with him, and it required a little bakhshish to a policeman to allow the raft through before it tied up safely at the residency steps. Budge and his companion received a warm welcome from the Talbots, who had rooms ready for their stay. As Budge wrote: ‘Many hospitable and experienced “Mem Sahibs” have graced the Residency in Baghdad, but none could ever have taken more thought for the comfort of weary guests than Mrs Talbot did for ours.’75 So, clearly there was accommodation but Tweedie did not care to use it! Tweedie was extremely assiduous however where matters of his personal status were concerned. In 1887, he complained to the ambassador that the Wali of Basra during a visit to Baghdad had failed to call on him. The ambassador commented that Tweedie, as consul general in Baghdad, was not accredited in Basra and should not expect the Wali to call. Tweedie did not let the matter rest there but raised again the duality of the British representative’s appointment, last considered in 1874. He believed that he was there primarily as political resident in Turkish Arabia for the Government of India and secondarily as consul general in Baghdad; that since the Ottoman Government had recognized his consular status they had been inclined to ignore his status as resident; and that since the separation of Baghdad and Basra his duties had become restricted and his influence in the country had declined. He considered that the circumstances required ‘a vigorous unfettered Political Agent in the Government of India sense, pervading with his person, his influence and his money every portion of the Ottoman Empire lying within reach of the Persian Gulf’.76 The ambassador forwarded this correspondence to the Foreign Office with some interesting reflections on the resident’s position. He described it as most anomalous in an independent country. The embassy in Constantinople regarded Tweedie as a consul general only, like any other British consul general in the Ottoman Empire, and he had never been recognized by the Sublime Porte in any other capacity. The ambassador thought that either the position and duties of the British political resident in Turkish Iraq should be redefined, with a view to an attempt being made to obtain recognition by the Porte, or the advisability of abolishing the title should be considered.77 In March 1888, the then foreign secretary ruled on the matter. He was against any move to reinforce the position of the resident as distinct from the consul- general. He thought this would only lead to Turkish objections since it would appear to confer on the Wali a degree of semi-independence, which he might once have enjoyed but did no longer. He accepted that the situation might have been different when the agent was the representative, not of the British Government but of the EIC, and that the title correctly reflected Tweedie’s position in the Indian Service, but not that it was in accordance with general international usage. He also cast doubt on whether the British representative in Baghdad had ever held the acknowledged position which Tweedie imagined and seemed more inclined to attribute greater British influence in the past to the 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 112

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relations which previous incumbents had built up with the Turkish authorities. He concluded that Tweedie did in fact enjoy a higher status than many consuls general in Europe and that it would be more prudent not to assert or extend privileges gained in the past too ostentatiously in the present age, as it would only excite suspicion and envy and cause increased hostility and obstructiveness in the conduct of business. The Government of India thought that their interests were sufficiently protected as things were and that they were best left alone. Even before this ruling, it seems that Tweedie had already discontinued the practice of his predecessor, Plowden, of referring to himself by his dual title in correspondence with foreign consulates. But Colonel Newmarch (March 1902–March 1906) decided to revive the practice and referred the matter to the British Government who ruled in 1904 that the British representative in Baghdad should not use the title ‘Political Resident’ in communications with the Turkish authorities or the consular corps.78 A further sign of the changing times in the closing decade of the century was the resident’s requests for more British staff. Plowden had already asked in 1891 for a British assistant. His request was refused. He tried again later in the year but was unsuccessful. He was however authorized to fill the post of native agent, which he had apparently left vacant in the hope that a European assistant would be sanctioned. While on leave in England in 1883, Plowden sent a memorandum to the secretary of state for India making a powerful case for an assistant. His arguments set out in some detail the role of the resident:

There is no officer in the Indian Political Service who has to deal single handed with so large a charge as that entrusted to the Resident in Turkish Arabia and Consul-General in Baghdad. The country under my political supervision measures 140,000 square miles, and it is part of my duty to keep the Imperial and Indian Governments informed of all political events of importance which may happen throughout this extensive country, of the movements of the Kurds in the North and North-East, of the condition of affairs on the Turco-Persian Frontier, and of the relations of the Arab tribes towards each other and towards the Ottoman officials, with the Foreign Consuls, French, Russian and Persian (with the two former the correspondence is in French which I have to translate myself), with my two Assistants in Basrah and Mosul, with the Resident in the Persian Gulf, with the Governments of India and Bombay, with the English Foreign Office and the Ambassador at Constantinople, and occasionally with the Minister in Tehran. I also have charge of an Indian Post Office, which is largely used as a channel for the import of valuable merchandise, and of a Treasury. And whereas in India the duty of personally certifying the balance of cash in the Treasury on the last day of the month and submitting the Treasury and stamp accounts on certain fixed dates, is ordinarily assigned to a young Assistant Magistrate, at Baghdad the duty devolves upon me. It hampers me very much, for it obliges me to be present in Baghdad on certain specified days. Petty litigation and petty disputes among the British Indian take up a further large share of my time. Then I get a number of telegrams, necessarily in cipher, for every open telegram is seen by the Turkish authorities, and which have to be answered in cipher. The English and Indian Governments do not use the same code so that I have sometimes to communicate the same message in two different ciphers, and as I am obliged by stringent orders to do the cipher work entirely myself, all other business has in the interval to be put aside . . . Naturally I have frequent business with the Vali and other Ottoman officials . . . And yet I have no person on whom I can rely to send in my place . . . Contrast my position with that of the Resident in the Persian Gulf. I have at least as much work to do and yet while I am single-handed, the Resident at Bushire has an Assistant Resident (until lately he had two), and a treasury officer of the 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 113

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status of an Extra Assistant Commissioner. There is no comparison between my work and that of the French Consul at Baghdad, the proportion is as ten to one, and yet the latter is allowed by his Government a European Assistant carefully trained in the Oriental College at Paris.79 Plowden also pointed up the advantages of the post for training young political officers in the local languages and customs. But his plea fell on stony ground. The Government of India thought it would undoubtedly be useful and advantageous to the government to add an assistant, but they were unconvinced that the work-load was sufficient to justify the expense. As a sop, they offered the occasional services of any young officer who might be spare. Tweedie, who as noted earlier was not slow in seeking to enhance his status, reiterated Plowden’s appeal while acting for him in his absence on leave in 1883. He made the additional point that there was no one but the residency surgeon to help out with the range of political, consular, judicial and treasury duties, for which he may not be qualified, and that both the French and Russian consuls were better assisted. But the question was dropped until revived by Colonel Newmarch. He tried the commercial tack, which was then as now harder for officialdom to resist, and succeeded eventually in obtaining the appointment of an assistant for trade and commerce, though not until 1905. J. C. Gaskin was the first incumbent and therefore the first full-time commercial officer to be appointed to the residency.80 As already noted, a decision had been taken as far back as 1868 to replace the Comet but it was only in 1880 that a start was made on building a new ship. Before it was ready, the Comet had become unserviceable and the steamer London was hired temporarily for the resident’s use, but she foundered in the Shatt al- Arab without even reaching Baghdad and a further replacement could not be found. This sorry saga of the Comet was further compounded when the new ship, which had been built in Bombay, was found to have been made too large for the navigation of the Tigris! This meant further delay but in the end the old Comet was broken up and, only sixteen years late, the new ship entered the river in October 1884. Her arrival did not end the residency’s transport problems. In 1887, the new Comet grounded and Tweedie suggested a vessel more suitable for the rivers of Mesopotamia should replace her. As can be imagined, this suggestion did not meet with favour. Tweedie tried again in 1889, urging her replacement by a steam launch, which would be more economical and more useful; but to no avail. Newmarch had more success when in 1904 he asked for a launch for short journeys on the river at Baghdad, as a consequence of the impending move of the residency from its site on the river in the centre of town near the bridge of boats to a new site on the outskirts of the city. The distance was not great but in those days it would have been quicker to go from the residency into town by boat than through the congested narrow roads of the town. His request was granted but not until 1905, when a Thorneycroft motor launch was supplied.81 In addition to its yacht, the residency jealously preserved another distinctive privilege, namely the right to have its own armed guard.82 In Rich’s time, this had been a considerable force but had been later run down and in 1861 numbered only ten Indian sepoys. In 1878, it was considered too small to guard the residency, including its treasury, as well its own separate quarters and the stables of the mounted escort which were at some distance from the residency, and it was increased to sixteen. In May 1882, it was increased again to twenty-five, under a native officer. The increase did not go unnoticed by the Turkish authorities but their doubts were overcome. The guard was not there merely for ceremonial 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 114

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decoration but for the protection of the mission. A French visitor, Count de Cholet, recorded an incident in 1892 when a band of Arabs attacked the Lynch establishment near the residency. The Lynch staff were unable to repulse the bandits and the residency sepoys came to the rescue.83 In the closing decade of the century, the future of the residency came under discussion again.84 British residents had occupied the same building since Rich moved there in 1818, but Colonel Mockler (November 1891 to April 1897) campaigned to be rid of it. He claimed that it had various disadvantages. Although it was situated centrally in the town the guards’ quarters were elsewhere. It was showing its age and falling into disrepair. It allowed the resident no privacy and the arrangement of rooms, which may have suited a Muslim nobleman possessing a large harem and the slower pace of life in earlier years, was no longer appropriate to a British officer at the turn of the century. Moreover, the new owner of the property, Agha Muhammad, was an official of the British Government as British agent at Kadhimain, and this could give rise to awkwardness. In these circumstances, Mockler had already drawn attention in 1892 to another property belonging to the late Nawab, which had also passed into the hands of Agha Muhammad. This was a riverbank estate of about three acres on which he suggested a new residency might be built. Among its advantages were that it had a good anchorage for the residency steamer; it was bordered by a wall and the high road and was thus safe from encroachment; there were already some buildings capable of conversion; and the foundation of the old nawab’s house could be used for the residency. Matters moved very slowly and it was necessary to renew the lease on the existing property, where Mockler’s successors: Colonel Loch (April 1897 to June and April to June 1899) and Major Melvill (August 1898 to March 1899 and June 1899 to March 1902) soldiered on. It fell to their successor Colonel Newmarch to effect the move

3. MAJOR CHANGES IN BAGHDAD AND BASRA 1900–32

The new British residency, Baghdad n 1900, it was finally agreed to purchase the riverbank estate at a cost of 36,000 Irupees. The property was registered in the Turkish Tapu (Land Registry) in the name of the British embassy at Constantinople. The construction of the buildings, including public offices, quarters for the resident, a separate house for the surgeon, military barracks and guardhouse, a hospital, a post office, servants’ houses, stables, godowns and a high enclosure wall, was contracted at a cost of 324,303 rupees to Messrs B R Herman & Co of Karachi, who began work in 1902. The residency was to be ready for occupation by 1 May 1904 but Colonel Newmarch finally moved in the following year. The other buildings were completed by 30 September 1904. The new residency was satisfactory in all respects, except that the public offices and the resident’s quarters were again included under the same roof and that a house projecting further into the direction of the river was subsequently constructed by Sayyid Abdulrahman al-Gailani, the Naqib of Baghdad, immediately upstream of it. When finished the residency was the most impressive edifice in Baghdad. Difficulties were at the same time created by the local Turkish authorities in connection with rebuilding the retaining wall of the terrace on the river, which they asserted would interfere with the course 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 115

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of the stream: but their objections were overcome by the intervention of the ambassador in Constantinople.85

The new consulate, Basra Similar changes were taking place in Basra. The consulate buildings, owned since 1895 but occupied since about 1870, became uninhabitable at the turn of the century, when the foundations subsided, and in 1901–02 the consul had to move temporarily into a rented building. Shortly before, in 1897, one of the partners in the firm Gray, Mackenzie & Co in Basra had complained to the Foreign Office about the frequent changes of personnel at the Basra consulate. He produced a table showing that charge of the consulate had changed hands nineteen times in sixteen years! He contended that under such a system the officers had no time to acquire the requisite influence over local officials and the native community to the disadvantage of British trade – a familiar argument even today. The Government of India conceded that such frequent changes were inevitable so long as the appointment was filled by officers on the graded list of their Political Department, as that department was then organized (although in truth some of the changes resulted from death or accident in a town where medical facilities were poor), and they suggested the transfer of the post to the British consular service. They also offered a financial inducement of a contribution to the cost of maintaining the consulate. This proposal was accepted and the first British consul, albeit with the Polish name of Wratislaw, assumed charge in December 1898 under the direct supervision of the Baghdad consul general.86 At the same time, a medical officer was appointed to Basra to serve the British community, partly paid for by the consulate. Despite the change of responsibility, it was the Government of India that undertook the expense of the reconstruction of the consulate. A fine new building was built on the same site in 1903 at a cost of about £4,000. An agreement was made on the division of the cost of future repairs between the British and Indian governments with the post office rooms in the building being regarded as the property of the latter. Consul Hurst described the building in a memorandum of 12 March 1936: The house is a sturdy building on two storeys. The offices are on the ground floor the residential portion above, consisting of two receptions, a dining room, five bedrooms and dressing rooms, kitchen, bathroom and lavatories, a long hall, a large enclosed veranda. There is an extensive garden with a lawn down to the river.87 The building remained in British occupation until 1967. It suffered some damage from Iranian shelling in February/March 1986, when it was the Basra Natural History Museum. It suffered further depredation and looting in the aftermath of the liberation of Basra by British forces and the collapse of the Ba’athist regime in April 2003.

The vice-consulate Karbala The year 1903 also saw the establishment of a vice-consulate in Karbala under Mirza Muhammed Hasan Khan Muhsin, a British subject of an Afghan but Persianized family born in Turkish Iraq. Various residents in the late nineteenth century advised that the post of honorary British agent, which had existed there since 1870, should be given consular status to protect the interests of the large Indian Muslim community and to administer the distribution of the Oudh 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 116

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Bequest.* A similar status was sought for the honorary British agent at Kadhimain, which had also existed for years and which in the last decade of the century was held by Agha Muhammad, the residency’s landlord. Newmarch made a persuasive plea for the Karbala post, while abolishing the Kadhimain agency, since the work could be done from the residency.88 The old residency was not abandoned. Its owner, Agha Muhammad, had been keen to repossess it, as he wanted to sell it to pay off some debts. He sold it to Abdul Qadir Dallah. The latter’s daughter married Sayyid Yusuf al-Gailani, then custodian of the Qadiriya mosque in Baghdad, and she and her daughter still live in a house built in 1930 by the side of the former surgeon’s house. The latter was replaced by a more modern house for Sayyid Yusuf’s son but is still referred to locally as ‘Bait al-Hakim’ (The Doctor’s House). The old residency had meanwhile been converted into an hotel. Seton Lloyd wrote that it was called the ‘Eastern Palace’89 in the 1940s but local sources maintained that it was first called ‘Hotel Abdul Ahad’, after its owner. On her third visit to Baghdad in March 1911, Gertrude Bell stayed at an hotel where the proprietor was called Abdul Ahad, so it was probably the same place. In the 1920s and 1930s, it was known as the ‘Zia’. The building was destroyed in the 1950s and the Baghdad Chamber of Commerce was constructed on the site. The opening of the new residency led to a considerable development of the city southwards from the mosque of Sayyid Sultan Ali to the Bab al-Sharqi. Many handsome and substantial residencies were built on both banks of the river. The British residency was the grandest of all with the Comet moored before it. Gertrude Bell visited there after her first expedition to the desert fortress at Ukhaidhir in March 1909 and again in March 1911, when she returned to complete her work there as part of a five-month tour to Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Turkey. On that occasion she described her experiences after entering Baghdad on the road from Babylon and found that the bridge of boats had been spared by the floods: At the end of the bridge we found ourselves in the bazaars and made our way to the British Residency. It is a pleasant thing to be English and to see the Sikh guard leap to the salute at the gateway of that palace on the Tigris which is our much-envied Consulate-General. My thanksgiving must certainly have broken into a hymn of praise when I found the hospitable Resident and his wife were expecting my arrival and had prepared a room almost as spacious as the hall of Chosroes (at Ctesiphon).90 She later described returning from a day exploring Baghdad sights to ‘the roses and green lawns of the residency garden’.91 Her host on her first visit was Colonel Ramsay who was succeeded shortly afterwards by John Gordon Lorimer, author of the already much quoted Gazetteer. Lorimer had been appointed to Baghdad in 1909 and served there until his career came to an untimely end in Bushire in February 1914, when he accidentally (or perhaps on purpose) shot himself. During his incumbency, Lorimer included, tongue in cheek, in his official report for July 1910, a curious event that apparently caused a good deal of mirth in the foreign community. The Wali of Baghdad decided to make an effort to reduce the number of stray dogs. There was however a public outcry against their destruction and he was obliged to confine the dogs in a disused powder mill outside the city. When Lorimer visited this ‘novel Dogs’ Home’ he found over 500 dogs there and the number grew to over 1,000. Dogs’ dung, the ammonia

* Money, originally from the king of Oudh in India, channelled to the Shi’i shrine cities of Najaf and Karbala in Iraq. In 1903, Britain took over the administration of the bequest. 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 117

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from which was used in the preparation of the finest kinds of leather, was at that time one of Baghdad’s exports to America and Europe. The Spanish consul no less was engaged in the trade. An enterprising local merchant immediately bid for the monopoly of the new source. Whether it was he or another merchant, Lorimer does not say, but it seems a Jewish exporter of dogs’ dung, on being required to pay one per cent export duty, asked the customs to accept it in kind – a request which under Turkish law they could not refuse! After Lorimer’s death, Colonel Erskine who had only recently arrived in Baghdad was put temporarily in charge. Gertrude Bell clearly formed a poor opinion of him, writing in her journal on 28 March 1914: We certainly are an odd nation; they have never once invited me to the house, I have been there twice at my own initiative and as far as I am concerned I think honour is satisfied and I need go no more unless asked. He does not get up till twelve and he is found playing patience in his room after lunch. He knows no languages, not even French and his mind is a complete blank as regards Turkey in general and Turkish Arabia in particular. And this is the man who (sic) we send here at a moment when the Baghdad Railway on the one hand, our irrigation schemes on the other are passing from schemes to realities.92

First World War The post of resident remained vacant until the residency buildings were evacuated on the outbreak of the First World War. On 30 October 1914, Sir Louis Mallet, then ambassador at Constantinople, reluctantly requested his passports from the Ottoman Government and ordered the withdrawal of British consuls from Ottoman territory. In the absence of a resident, Major N. E. H. Scott of the Indian Medical Service appears to have succeeded Colonel Erskine as officiating consul general in Baghdad, while Reader Bullard was acting consul general in Basra. War with Turkey was formally declared on 5 November 1914. The war left its mark on the residency. Coke related93 that the exigencies of the war were now to prove responsible for carrying out a scheme that practically revolutionized the life of East Baghdad. As early as 1910, Nadhim Pasha had devised a scheme for a new twenty-two-metre-wide road through town on the left bank. The decision to go ahead was finally made by Khalil Pasha on the advice of his German staff officers and mayor Reouf Bey Chaderchi, a well- known citizen of German education and progressive views. The project was not so difficult as might be thought. From the Muadham Gate at the north end of the city to the Maidan there was a fairly wide roadway already in existence. A large block of private houses alone separated this from the Haiderkhaneh bazaar, adjoining the mosque of the same name, whence there was a direct connection by means of lanes and another bazaar to the Marjan mosque in the centre of town. Here a short length of open road, which became known as Bank Street, led to the river at the so-called Shariya al-Tamr or ‘Date Landing’. Southwards lay a solid mass of khans and houses for a quarter of a mile to another short street leading to a landing, known as the Shariya Pachachi, after a well-known Baghdad family. From this Shariya an open road already existed past the Sayyid Sultan Ali mosque to the new British residency, by cutting through the gardens of which the Bab al-Sharqi in the south could be reached through almost open grounds. Nadhim Pasha had already tried earlier in 1910 to take a great slice of the gardens and of the property of Lynch & Co., partly, according to Sir Arnold Wilson, ‘in order to twist the Lion’s tail and partly in the hope that once foreigners had been brought into line he would have less trouble with other 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 118

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home-owners’.94 Indeed the frontage of the Lynch property was demolished on 7 August 1910. This led to a vigorous protest by Lorimer to the wali of Baghdad. He later complained sadly in a despatch of 17 July 1911 to the British ambassador in Constantinople: ‘The fact that I have been unable in the course of a year to obtain redress for a series of flagrant aggressions upon British subjects has so undermined my position that my representations to the Wilayat are no longer received by them with the same attention as formerly.’ Lorimer attributed these ‘aggressions’, i.e. agitation against the Lynch family, demands for the abolition of the British Post Office, the residency guard and the Comet and Nadhim Pasha’s scheme for ‘a useless street through the British Residency’, to the wali having become ‘a tool of bitter and influential enemies of the British Government’. Lorimer was successful in discouraging the clear threat to the residency property and he was able to report to the ambassador that the wali had asserted that no interference to the residency buildings and grounds was contemplated. In point of fact the demolition work was stopped short of the residency grounds, although paradoxically the German consulate, which had opened only in 1894, had already lost its club and tennis court. The respite was however short-lived as the Turks eventually carried out their threat in 1914 when the military drove the road through the residency grounds. The new road was at first named after Khalil Pasha but the name was changed after the British occupation in 1917 to al-Sharia al-Jadid (New Street). It later became Rashid Street, by which it is known today. The Turks’ action had the effect of dividing the residency property in two with the main residency buildings on the west side of the street and the major portion of the grounds on the other. As throughout this period of British representation in the Gulf, Britain’s strat egy in the early part of the twentieth century was to safeguard the western approaches to India. When Turkey threw in its lot with Germany, this strategy was immediately under threat. Britain had also developed more specific concerns in the Gulf itself with its expanding trade, obligations to local rulers and increasingly its interests in the oilfields of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, whose oil was important to the Royal Navy as fuel and of which the British Government had become a major shareholder. With all these considerations in mind, the Government of India under direction from the British Government raised and despatched to the Gulf an expeditionary force soon after the outbreak of war with Germany in anticipation of hostilities with Turkey. War was declared on Turkey on 6 November 1914 and an advanced guard was landed at Fao to move up the Shatt al-Arab to protect the refinery at Abadan on neutral Persian territory. The main expeditionary force followed and occupied Basra, where the military governor’s first concern was public order and military police were deployed on the streets within a few hours. Within a week the nucleus of a police force, which had already been earmarked for the job, had arrived from India to begin the organization of a local force to maintain order.95 (No account was taken of this valuable precedent during the invasion of Iraq by the international coalition of forces led by the United States and Britain in April 2003 with the result that public order deteriorated rapidly.) The Indian expeditionary force fought a bloody and costly campaign to drive the Turks out of the Basra region almost to Baghdad, but in the subsequent retreat, suffered one of the most humiliating defeats of the war at Kut at the end of April 1916.96 Ten months later, however, the reconstituted force under the new command of General Maude retook Kut and extended its operations over an ever- increasing range further and further north until it reached Baghdad. General Maude entered the city inconspicuously on board the P53 at 5.30 p.m. on 11 March 1917, landing at the steps of the British residency. He was accompanied 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 119

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by an outstanding administrator, Sir Percy Cox, who had been appointed in October 1914 chief political officer to the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief and was charged with establishing a civil administration in the province. Cox had already served with distinction in British Somaliland, India, for fourteen years in the Gulf, where he was political resident until 1913, and had been acting secretary of state for foreign affairs in India. Cox’s influence on British Government decisions culminating in the occupation of Baghdad was, according to his deputy, more important than that of any man.97 During the war, the residency had been used as a hospital. Coke recorded98 that, in the summer of 1916, Marshall von der Goltz died suddenly of typhus in the house which, strangely enough, was on 18 November 1917 to witness the death from cholera of his triumphant British enemy, General Maude, whose memorial plaque graces one of the inner courtyard walls of the present abandoned embassy. Certainly when General Maude entered Baghdad, the residency was full of abandoned Turkish sick and wounded. Brigadier Moberly noted99 that the Turks removed most of their sick and wounded, leaving only about 600 of the worst case in the larger buildings of the town. This was confirmed by Sir Percy Cox in the ‘historical summary’, which he contributed to the collection of Gertrude Bell’s letters: We found the pre-War British Residency in use as a Hospital in which the Turks had left us an unwelcome legacy in the shape of their worst cases of wounds and disease. Its sanitary condition was indescribable, but other hospital accommodation was gradually found for the inmates and the Residency after a thorough cleansing and overhaul was fitted out as Army Headquarters, a function it still fills for the Royal Air Force today: but whereas the military Staff was already in being, my civil Staff for the Baghdad Vilayet was non- existent and had to be created. I was allotted a house on the river bank below the Residency which had before our entry been the Austrian Consulate and there I began to form a Secretariat.100 In his memoirs, Sir Ronald Storrs, who had been secretary to Sir Henry McMahon in Cairo and who was appointed at the end of 1916 a political officer in Mesopotamia to represent the Egyptian expeditionary force, described Cox’s home differently. On arriving by boat in Baghdad from Basra, Storrs said that he was greeted by Cox and Gertrude Bell and ‘was taken off in a launch to his house, ex-Deutsche Orient Bank, whose middle balcony, with an ultra-Venetian sensation, projects far over the flood’.101 Storrs added later: ‘I remark that Cox uses up old Deutsche Orientbank paper in official dossiers.’102 From this it is not clear whether Cox had been initially in the former Austrian consulate and then moved to the former Deutsche Orientbank or, more likely, whether the two buildings were the same. The first few months after the occupation of Baghdad were full of uncertainty as rumours flew about the war and British intentions in Iraq. This was hardly surprising as British policy evolved as it went along and it only emerged first in the McMahon correspondence with the sharif of Mecca (July-October 1915) and later in the Sykes-Picot Agreement in May 1916 that Britain intended to hold on to the Baghdad and Basra Wilayets ‘. . . in order to secure these territories from foreign aggression, to promote the welfare of the local people and to safeguard our mutual economic interests’.103 The addition of the Mosul Wilayet was decided only after Russia had defected from war operations against Turkey and it became necessary to open up a line of communications through Persia. The Mosul Wilayet had been allotted to France under the Sykes-Picot Agreement, but it was believed in Baghdad that the area’s oil reserves would be needed for the economic and military viability of Mesopotamia and the British Government were persuaded to include 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 120

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Mosul before the armistice was concluded with Turkey on 31 October 1918. In fact British troops forced the last Turks out of Mosul after the armistice and set up a civil administration there under Lt. Col. Gerard Leachman, whose distinguished career was later brought to a dramatic end when he was assassinated at Khan Nuqta, halfway between Baghdad and Fallujah on 12 August 1920, precipitating a widespread tribal uprising in the West and South.104 Any sort of policy-making on the Middle East was complicated by the web of different authorities. On the military side, operational responsibility was divided between the General Headquarters of the Egyptian expeditionary force in Cairo and the GHQ of the Indian expeditionary force in Mesopotamia. However on the political side, the high commissioner in Cairo, who was independent of GHQ EEF and reported direct to the Foreign Office, was responsible for the operational area of the EEF, including the Hijaz and the undefined area of Syria. Meanwhile, the Government of India, acting through the political resident Persian Gulf for the non-operational areas and through GHQ IEF, whose chief political officer was also the political resident for Mesopotamia, the boundaries of which like those of Syria were undefined, was responsible to the Colonial Office. In February 1918, an attempt was made at streamlining the chain of command but it remained convoluted: operational responsibility for Mesopotamia was transferred from the Indian Government to the War Office, while political responsibility was assumed by the India Office except in the non-operational areas of the Persian Gulf where the Government of India ruled direct.

Cox becomes Civil Commissioner The British military authorities were confronted with many difficult problems of a non-military nature and the government came to the conclusion that a change of Cox’s status was necessary. Accordingly, from the beginning of July 1917, Cox was designated civil commissioner with direct access to the secretary of state for India, in whose name the instructions of the British Government in other than military matters were thereafter issued (until 1921 when the direction of affairs in Iraq was transferred to the Foreign Office). Cox, who had arrived with only one junior staff officer to assist him, was faced with the formidable task of setting up an administration virtually from scratch in a town still under military control and indeed the base for military operations in the surrounding area. He had to cope with such problems as the requisitions by the army and its political staff of ninety-five per cent of the best houses on the riverfront. The owners received a reasonable rent but the requisitions caused ill- feeling. At the same time, he had to start a dialogue with the notables of the town. His task was compounded by constant friction with General Maude and he came very close to resigning. Fortunately he did not do so, and within six months the difficulty was resolved by the sudden death of General Maude. General Maude died on 18 November 1917 in circumstances that gave rise to much speculation that he had been poisoned. He suddenly became ill on 16 November and developed an acute attack of cholera, according to Colonel Willcox, the consulting physician.105 After his death an enquiry was held into the cause. Sir Arnold Wilson noted that ‘. . . it seems probable that the cholera infection was contracted on the evening of the 14th November, when we attended a theatrical performance under the auspices of the Alliance Israelite of Baghdad. Afterwards, with other guests, including myself, he took hot coffee with milk. The suggestion was made that the milk had been infected of set purpose with the germs of cholera.’106 Colonel Willcox emphatically denied the possibility, stating 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 121

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that it was ‘an accidental infection from the water’,107 and after three months’ enquiry by the criminal investigation department of the civil police, no evidence whatsoever was found. However the contractor and his assistant, who had provided the refreshments on this and another occasion when another British General had also contracted cholera, were deported as prisoners-of-war, despite the protests of Sir Percy Cox. General Maude was buried at the British Military Cemetery (now the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery) near the Bab al-Sharqi. With funds subscribed for the most part in Mesopotamia, an equestrian statue of him, executed by Sir N. Goscombe John RA on a pedestal designed by Edward Warren, was erected a few years later outside the entrance to the then British high commission, which eventually became the British embassy. It was pulled down by the mob and destroyed in the revolution of 1958, except for Maude’s coat of arms and a memorial plaque in bronze that were rescued and brought into the embassy, where they remain. Although a prodigious worker, Cox was soon overwhelmed with visitors: first came the notables of Baghdad and then the tribal shaikhs. He realized he needed someone to filter them and in March 1917 decided to bring Gertrude Bell and one or two others from his Basra office to form the nucleus of his secretariat. ‘Miss Bell’ or ‘Khatun’, as she was generally known to the Arabs, acted, as Cox put it, as his ‘strainer’108 through which his callers were passed. She had by then already established a remarkable reputation for her exploits in the Middle East. Born into a wealthy family in County Durham in 1868, she read history at Oxford and travelled the world. Her first acquaintance with the Middle East was with Persia in 1898. She went on to Jerusalem in the same year, learnt Arabic and toured Syria. In 1908, she travelled along the Euphrates to study the eighth century fortress at Ukhaidhir, which began her long association with Iraq. She returned there the following year and travelled extensively throughout Mesopotamia. In 1913, she undertook an incredibly difficult journey, more especially for a woman at that time, from Damascus to Ha’il in central Arabia returning via Baghdad. She was invited to join the Arab Bureau in Cairo in 1914, after a spell with the Red Cross in France, and was directed from there to Basra in March 1916. She stayed in Baghdad, playing an important part in all the major decisions of the Wilson and Cox administrations, particularly in the establishment of the monarchy, until her untimely death in 1926. She described the high commission as follows: We occupy two big houses built round courtyards on the river. Capt W. (Wilson) and I have rooms next to each other on the first floor. Mine is all shielded with mats and blinds against the sun and is beautifully cool. . . . On the verandah, which runs round the inside of the court, sit our kavasses – office servants in khaki uniforms – to fetch and carry files or papers for us, run messages and so on. They are mostly Arabs, some Persians, with immensely high bulbous felt hats. Opposite is the room of the Financial Adviser, Major May, the peacock sits mainly with him: and in between the map room, the cipher room, the room of the P.O. Baghdad, Captain Gillan, with a crowd of people always waiting to see him. In the next house all the clerks, British N.C.O.s, capital men, Eurasians doing the confidential work (and they are first rate too), two vernacular departments, Arab and Persian.109 From this description and the testimony of the occupants in the 1980s of the yellow brick buildings by the Rashid bridge, a dependency of the then Ministry of Culture and Information, who were pleased to point out the rooms in which ‘Khatun’ and ‘Kokkus’ (Cox) worked, it would seem that the civil commissioner’s secretariat had moved into the residency buildings. 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 122

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Gertrude Bell herself had found a little house for herself in a rose garden belonging to an old friend of hers, Musa Chalabi. (A charming oil painting entitled ‘Gertrude Bell’s house in Baghdad’, painted by Florence Edith Cheesman in 1921 and bequeathed by her brother Colonel Robert Cheesman, who served in the civil administration of Iraq, hung in the ambassador’s office until the Embassy’s closure in 1991.) The house and garden have long since been replaced by modern flats and shops but the site just off Jumhuriya Street is still easily identified as it lies opposite a Sabilkhaneh (a religious institution where passers-by could obtain a drink of water) built by Sayyid Salman al-Naqib. For the next few months after General Maude’s death, General Marshall continued with driving the Turks out and with the pacification of the outlying areas of Mesopotamia. The administration of the liberated territory merely added to Cox’s burden. In February 1918, he was ordered first to Cairo to discuss future policy in Mesopotamia and while en route there was further instructed to continue to London, where at a meeting in April he played a leading role in the for- mulation of British policy towards the region in the post-war period. He left England in June to return to Baghdad via India. While at Simla he was informed by the viceroy that he was wanted to relieve Sir Charles Marling, who had been having an extremely harassing time attempting to combat Turko-German activities in Persia and had been ordered home on sick leave, as minister in Tehran. Rather against his will, as he would have rather seen the campaign in Mesopotamia to the end, Cox accepted the appointment. In so doing he made a decision that probably changed the course of events over the twenty months of his absence, as it allowed into his place his deputy, Colonel (later Sir) Arnold Wilson, a man of quite a different temperament and character.

Arnold Wilson Wilson was a small man of unbounded energy who regularly worked fourteen hours a day, keeping eight typists busy, and often slept on a camp bed in his office. Virtually his only relaxations were an evening stroll along the banks of the Tigris and an occasional evening or morning ride. He took up smoking about this time on his assistant’s advice to improve his temper and he became a chain- smoker thereafter. He seemed temperamentally unsuited to deal with the Arabs, since he was a plain, straightforward, no nonsense sort of fellow who had no time for the convoluted, leisurely and ceremonious way of Arab politics. Cox was by contrast a master of the Arab diplomatic art and it could all have turned out quite differently in Iraq if Cox had stayed with Wilson as his administrative support. Wilson picked up an enormous burden which, as he described it in his autobiography, illustrated the extent of British involvement in the region: As Consul-General for Fars, I was responsible for keeping Whitehall and the Government of India informed as to political happenings in South Persia. As Political Resident in the Persian Gulf it was my duty to supervise and on occasions to direct policy in Oman and the principalities of Eastern Arabia, including relations with Ibn Saud. As Civil Commissioner for Mesopotamia I was responsible for the administration of the Occupied Territories. As Chief Political Officer for the Force I was responsible to His Majesty’s Minister in Tehran and to the Commander-in-Chief for political matters from Kermanshah to Enzeli. To these responsibilities has been added, in June, the duty of dealing with all Kurdish affairs, whether within or beyond the Occupied Territories, from the region of Aleppo to the neighbourhood of Diarbekir, Urfa, Bitlis and Urmia.110 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 123

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Opinions differ about his role in trying to shape the successor of the collapsed Ottoman administration in Mesopotamia. He himself described in his autobiography his innermost beliefs: ‘With all humility those expressed by Cromwell: We are a people with the stamp of God upon us. . . . whose appearance and whose provi- dences are not to be outmatched by any story.’111 He appeared, therefore, to believe he had some kind of divine mission. He set out to rule Iraq, in the absence of local administrators, and did so competently, honestly and honourably according to the dictates of his conscience with a small but dedicated band of British officials. Among these were St John Philby and Gertrude Bell. He seemed to strike sparks off both of them, no doubt because they were people with minds of their own. Philby did not altogether appreciate Wilson’s masterful ways but recognized Wilson’s not dissimilar qualities from his own. According to his biographer Marlowe, Gertrude Bell regarded Wilson as overbearing, reactionary and personally rude; while he regarded her as irresponsible, indiscreet, disloyal to himself and a born intriguer.112 Their mutual dislike extended into fundamental disagreement over policy towards the involvement of the Arabs in the administration. The historian Longrigg took a similar view113 accusing Wilson of not even attempting to use the considerable experience and goodwill possessed by the available Iraqis and choosing to ignore the emerging spirit of nationalism in the Arab world as well as the new political concepts in Europe. Sir Percy Cox himself held a more charitable view, recognizing that the old Turkish administration was an exotic one and that most of the trained personnel disappeared with the retreating Turkish troops. He saw no alternative to creating an administration from the only available British and Indian resources. He believed that nationalization of the administration might have been feasible if a peace settlement had followed quickly after Turkey’s defeat, but as his biographer Graves noted, it was six months before the terms to be imposed on Turkey were even discussed, over eighteen months before even the allocation of the Mandate to Britain was made known and the announcement remained inoperative until August 1920, when the abortive Treaty of Sevres was signed, never to be ratified.114 Another remarkable Englishman whom General Maude invited to serve on his staff because of his exceptional knowledge of Arabic and the Arabs was the rarely mentioned Hajji Abdullah Williamson. Although born in Bristol in 1872, he ran away to sea as a teenager and while in Aden discovered Islam. He later established himself in Basra first as a camel and horse trader, living among the Bedouin tribes as one of them, and then as a dhow master and pearl merchant. On the outbreak of war in Basra he assisted with the surrender of the town to the British forces. His talents were recognized and he joined British military intelligence as an adviser in Baghdad, where he knew Cox and Wilson well. Indeed, after the war, Wilson recruited him to the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company where his knowledge of the Gulf and negotiating skills were invaluable. A modest man he retired back to Basra in 1937 and lived out his remaining years among his wives and children in the obscurity of his chosen society.115 By November 1919, the British Government had become concerned about developments in the administration of Iraq. It was essentially British, advised to a very small extent by local Arabs, instead of the other way round. Lord Curzon, as viceroy, believed the situation required Cox’s return as high commissioner under the mandate which he expected Britain would be given early in the following year. Cox himself was uncertain whether he should return until peace had been signed and Britain had the mandate under which to operate. By May 1920, rebellion in Iraq was inevitable. Cox was warned to prepare to come back to London. In June, he was informed that he was to be appointed high commissioner in Iraq and was instructed to return to London as soon as possible, where the government wished to 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 124

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consult him about the provisional administration of the country pending its final constitution under the mandate. Cox accepted on condition that he would not be called upon to serve two masters – he had previously been under the dual control of the India Office and the War Office and preferred the Foreign Office. He received an assurance that he would be responsible to a single department of state. He left for Baghdad on 11 June and spent two days with Wilson on his way to London. While he was in Baghdad an announcement was issued that Iraq was to become an independent state under guarantee of the League of Nations and under a British mandate and that Cox was to return in the autumn to establish a provisional Arab Government, pending arrangements for an organic law, to be framed with due regard to the rights, wishes and interests of all communities of the country. The announcement came too late. When Cox took up his new appointment on 11 October 1920, Iraq had already experienced a summer of discontent after Col. Leachman’s assassination. Longrigg summed up the causes thus:

The disorders which broke out among the Iraq tribes in the mid-summer of 1920 were immediately caused by elements partly long familiar in Iraq – tribal recalcitrance, love of freedom and loot, self-interested Mujtahid prompt- ings, local shaykhly ambitions or rancours, dislike of taxation, grievances against the Government as such – and partly by vigorous and well-financed nationalist propaganda and devotion to that cause. They were facilitated by the dispersal, paucity and static preoccupations of the British forces, and by a military command sometimes clumsily or tardily exercised, sometimes, rightly or wrongly, unsympathetic to the needs or pleas of the Administration. The resulting insurgency reduced the territory for three months to conditions reminiscent of the Turkish regime in one of its more anarchic periods. These conditions affected in all about one-third of the Iraq countryside outside the major towns. They were marked by interruptions of communications, blood- thirsty local assaults, lootings of buildings and property. No serious urban dis- order occurred.116 So by the time Cox arrived the insurgency was virtually over and Wilson was able to hand over a comparatively peaceful country, although minor punitive expeditions were continued into remote areas of the marshes throughout the winter of 1920–21. According to Graves, Sir Percy and Lady Cox received a speech of welcome from Jamil Zahawi, the leading poet of Iraq, to which Cox replied in Arabic that he had come ‘to take counsel with the people of Iraq in order to set up an Arab Government under British supervision, and he called upon the people to cooperate with him in establishing peaceful and orderly conditions so that he could carry out his task without delay’.117 Then the Coxes, accompanied by members of their staff including St. John Philby, Capt. Cheesman and Gertrude Bell, went to their temporary quarters, as their new house was not ready.

The new British high commission It might have been expected that the Coxes would move into the residency that had after all been built only fifteen years before. But, as Cox explained in a despatch to the colonial secretary in August 1921, such a move was not possible: When early in 1920 it was decided in principle that I should return to Mesopotamia as High Commissioner, it became necessary for the then Civil Commissioner to arrange for the provision of a suitable house. There was at that time no prospect whatsoever that General Headquarters would be able to vacate the former British residency, which General Maude had taken over as his official Headquarters in 1917, in time for it to be considered as a possible 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 125

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future residence and office premises for the High Commissioner. Sir Arnold Wilson accordingly bought another property on the opposite (right) side of the river, the cost of which, namely rupees 630,000 (£45,000) was met from Iraq revenues, the payment being made in the financial year 1919–20. At the same time a scheme for necessary alterations and additions to the building to fit it to become the combined residence and office of the High Commissioner was put in hand . . . Cox went on to make clear that the residence was built only at that time: ‘Building is far from complete and we are in fact still compelled to occupy temporary quarters on a part of the property, while the new building has been growing up around us. . . . the residential part is now nearing completion and we hope to move in possibly in November.’ To justify the expense, for which neither Wilson nor Cox had sought prior agreement from London, Cox wrote:

It was not possible to put this matter before you in detail at an earlier date owing to the transitional state of the Administration and the gradual development of the functions of High Commissioner, as his office tends to separate itself more and more from the local administration. Meanwhile, the work in progress is at a stage where it cannot be suspended, as the necessity for further accommodation for clerical staff is most pressing, and on personal grounds I cannot contemplate with equanimity the prospect of remaining another winter in an unfinished residence, where it is wholly impossible for me to carry out the social obligations which devolve on the High Commissioner. He added in further justification: There is no possibility whatever of that building [the old residency] being made available in time for my occupation. It is still occupied by General Headquarters and, in fact, it is not possible for them to vacate it, until either a new headquarters has been constructed or the reduction of the Force in Mesopotamia makes it possible to insist on their occupation of more modest quarters. The possibility of the building being used as the headquarters of the Air Force, when they assumed their fuller responsibility in this country, should also be borne in mind. . . . The old Residency is not at all fitted to be the residence of the High Commissioner. The size of the rooms is inadequate, and the general design of the building is quite unsuitable for a combined office and residence. Moreover, during the war, the amenities of the property qua British Residency were greatly prejudiced by the Turks cutting a dusty main thoroughfare through the grounds.118 Cox’s case for purchasing the new property and request for additional funds were ill-received in the Colonial Office. It is curious and noteworthy that Cox did not put forward the obvious political case for making a change in order to emphasize the break with the past and the new status of the British representative in Iraq. As it was, the presentation of his case gave rise to some acerbic minuting to Winston Churchill the colonial secretary: ‘Sir A. Wilson and Sir P. Cox have between them got us into a pretty mess over this business. . . . we should bring home to the High Commissioner the fact that he cannot let us in for large financial commitments off his own bat and expect us to clear matters up for him with the Treasury.’ Official displeasure was formally recorded in Churchill’s reply to Cox in October 1921:

I think it is a matter for regret that the project was not submitted for sanction in the first instance. I realize that there are strong arguments in favour of the provision of a new Residency, and that the building will be a valuable asset when it is completed, but the failure to secure sanction for this work has 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 126

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created financial difficulty of which no satisfactory solution readily presents itself to us . . . I invite suggestions for ways of meeting this charge (5 lakhs of rupees or £33,000).119 Needless to say the money was found in Baghdad and the building work was completed. The old building on the site that became the high commission’s secretariat was previously known as the Qasr [Palace] of Kadhim Pasha and stood in a large garden of about six and a half acres. The property is recorded in the Turkish Land Register No. 168 Permanent of January 1920 as having been sold by Monsieur Moris Charl Alber120 through the agency of the Frenchman Zoltin Antowan known as Father Noel of the Carmelite Order to the British exchequer for 630,000 rupees. It was clearly a substantial property, for the entry in the register says it comprised in addition to the garden: ‘20 large rooms, 3 small rooms, 1 balcony, 1 verandah, 1 hall in the upper story, 24 rooms, 2 verandahs, 2 serdabs, 1 hall, 1 room standing on an arch, 3 large bungalows, 3 smaller bungalows, 1 kitchen, 1 house with a kerd well, 1 bathroom in the floor story’. The earlier history of the property is not well documented. According to Bill Connal, the architect who supervised the restoration work on the embassy in the 1980s and who is an authority on the old houses of Baghdad, his firm having being employed by the Town Council to conserve many of them, the structure of the serdabs (cellars) suggests the building goes back to at least 1875. It became the home of Kadhim Pasha, a brother-in-law of the last Turkish sultan, who, according to Lorimer, resided in Baghdad as a political detainee. This was somewhere around 1900. The next occupant was Sir William Willcocks, a veteran irrigation engineer from Egypt. He had studied the problems of water control in Iraq from 1902 onwards and had submitted proposals to Istanbul through the British ambassador. Late in 1908, he was appointed consultant for Iraq’s irrigation and reached Baghdad in December, when he might have first occupied Kadhim Pasha’s house. According to Longrigg, Willcocks ‘studied with boundless energy, resolution and intolerance, while the Mesopotamian Irrigation Survey pursued its work. By 1910 he had solved his problems.’121 The plans for the great irrigation works of Iraq were laid, beginning with the Hindiyah Dam. Gertrude Bell met Willcocks at Lorimer’s house and recorded in her journal on 12 March 1911 that ‘Sir William has had lots of difficulty with Nazim who stops him everywhere and prevaricates everywhere. He lives in the house of Kazim Pasha, with a fine big garden behind.’ Willcocks found Turkish obstruction so frustrating that in the end he broke his contract after only thirty months. Then came Meissner Pasha, whom Longrigg described as ‘brilliant and dynamic, polished Orientalist and courtier. He appeared in Baghdad in July 1911 and opened his offices (of the Berlin-Baghdad Railway) in the house of Kadhim Pasha, destined but ten years later to accommodate the British High Commission and later Embassy.’122 Meissner spent three years in Baghdad, during which his hair turned from black to white from the struggle. Gertrude Bell dined with him at his house in March 1914, not realizing she would be working there some six and a half years later. Then the First World War began and, according to a German town plan of the period, the house is shown as a hospital. It was presumably one of those large buildings to which Brigadier Moberley referred as being occupied by abandoned Turkish wounded and sick when British troops occupied the town in 1917 and as such it may well have been requisitioned by the British forces during the war. 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 127

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It is, therefore, not altogether surprising that on Cox’s assumption of the high commissioner’s post in 1920 the building was in need of some refurbishment. Gertrude Bell recorded in her journal on 25 December 1920 that she had to pack up her office in the old residency on Christmas Day ready for the move across the river to the new secretariat, and that she made the transfer on 3 January 1921. The Coxes moved about the same time, Gertrude Bell recording in her journal on 10 January: ‘Shortly after I got to the office this morning, Sir Percy sent me a note asking me to come and speak to him in his house, which is next door. I found him sitting in the dining room, the only room except the Coxes’ bedroom which is as yet furnished and habitable, for they moved in just four days ago.’123 According to Graves, it took about another year before the new residence was finally ready for the Coxes. He wrote that ‘it was not a satisfactory building since its sunniest side lacked shutters and was unbearably hot, but there was more room than in his former quarters’.124 Cox kept pets in Baghdad as he had at his other posts. There was a bear, which went wild one night and had to be killed, and an eagle with an injured wing, which lived on a perch on the shady side of the house. It was fed on bats caught with big butterfly nets when they flew over the garden wall at dusk. They were kept in the ice-chest until one day Lady Cox was horror-stricken to discover them and forbade the continuance of the practice. Cox and Cheesman (his secretary) also kept falcons and rode out hawking from time. Both followed their ornithological studies when their work allowed.

The Daily Mail probes the Residency In the summer of 1922, Sir Percival Phillips, a distinguished journalist, was commissioned by the Daily Mail to visit Mesopotamia as its special correspondent and to investigate the facts of the British occupation. He produced a series of lengthy articles, later published in book form, using as a rubric a quotation by Prime Minister Bonar Law: ‘I wish we had never gone there.’125 The latter was concerned about the mounting cost to the British taxpayer. Phillips’s recommendation was withdrawal from all Mesopotamia except for the small area around Basra, which he said could be cheaply held, and which would safeguard the single important, developed British oil-field acquired before the war in southwestern Persia. In the process Phillips lambasted the British authorities for the expense of ‘The Home of Cokkos’, as he said the Arabs called it, though he added that Sir Percy Cox referred to it somewhat bitterly as ‘my palace’.126 Lady Drower no doubt had Phillips in mind when she referred to press reports about ‘the magnificent Residency upon which so much has been squandered’.127 She went on to say however, that ‘the Residency is not the Aladdin’s palace pictured by imaginative pressmen but a building of modest dimensions and no more than moderate comfort, though it was far costlier than it should have been’. Phillips set out the financial history as follows:128

£ COST OF ORIGINAL BUIDINGS AND SITE 45,000 Cost in 1920–21 Labour 22,500 Material 18,000 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 128

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Transportation and hire of stores 4,600 Overhead charges 8,100 Departmental and overseas charges 6,500 Total 59,700

Cost in 1921–22 Labour 20,000 Material 15,800 Direct control and workshop charges 2,700 Transportation and hire of stores 1,800 Overhead charges 7.300 Overseas charges 4,600 Total 52,200

Summary of cost Paid by Army, 1920–21 59,700 Paid by Iraq Government (1920–21) 8,400 Paid by Army 1921–22 52,200 Cost of buildings and site 45,000

TOTAL COST OF RESIDENCY TO DATE £165,300

Phillips too admitted that there was nothing palatial about the residency: ‘It is a solid, substantial looking, flat-roofed affair, a patchwork of new and old buildings which has about the same accommodation as a small country house.’129 He went on to describe it in some detail:

The property comprised a two-storey brick residence standing back about 30 ft from the high brick embankment which skirts the river, a separate two- storey building on the north which was the women’s quarters, and a third building – also detached – on the south. A narrow terrace lay in front of the buildings, giving an unobstructed view of the river and of the main city on the other side. Behind the residence was a garden of fair size, laid out by the late owner. The scheme of reconstruction involved extensive repairs and additions to the existing buildings. A new brick wing, harmonizing architecturally with the old residence, was erected on the south side, linking it with the building at that end. The latter was reserved for the offices of Sir Percy Cox, his Cabinet of advisers, and their staff of clerks. The new wing contained a large drawing-room on the ground floor and a bedroom above. On the west side, facing the garden, a suite of small rooms was added comprising a room for aides-de-camp, adjoining the main entrance; a boudoir for Lady Cox, and a small study for the High Commissioner. The ground floor of the old main building was converted into a large dining-room. Adjoining it on the garden side is a smaller ante-room which contains a much-talked-of fountain. This is no more than a length of 2 in. iron pipe projecting from a basin lined with green tiles, perhaps 4 ft. across, and from the pipe three thin jets of water are thrown into the air. The old harem building, in which Sir Percy and Lady Cox lived for a year while the main structure was being finished, is to be used as a guest house for distinguished personages passing through Baghdad. The guest house is an old two-storey house containing seven rooms. The room on the ground floor, formerly used by the High Commissioner as his dining-room, is dark and gloomy, with small iron-barred windows, and suggests a detention cell. 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 129

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Between the guest house and the main building, two new one-storey detached brick buildings have been added: one a ballroom, the other a billiards-room. They are unadorned structures that look like twin garages. They are panelled in wood, and the ballroom, which can accommodate about fifty couples, has a hardwood floor and a small alcove for an orchestra. Sir Percy Cox has left the choice of a billiards-table to his successor, and the room is empty at present. There are no servants’ quarters attached to the guest house, and these are included in the estimate for additional expenditure this year. The house is comfortably but not elaborately furnished. The most obvious result of two years’ labour and the expenditure of £120,00 is a group of reception-rooms which are less gorgeous than those in many of the lesser British legations abroad. A visitor who was not called upon to decide whether the Residency itself is a necessity, and who knew nothing of the cost, would readily admit that the British high Commissioner was housed in a very unostentatious way. The High commissioner’s work-room is a dingy, badly lighted room on the first floor of the secretariat, flanked by two small anterooms where his secretaries are hemmed in by piles of documents. There is nothing ornate or imposing about this rickety Arab house, which is crowded with clerks and officials.130 This description and an accompanying photograph indicates the presence of a building – the old harem or the guesthouse – which must have been removed long ago, as according to local people, it was not there after the Second World War. Phillips questioned whether the residency was really necessary, when the old residency was still there, albeit occupied by the armed forces. He also doubted whether it represented good value for money and whether it would not have been better to start from scratch rather than to renovate. Cox had made the case for the purchase of the property and the necessary works to improve it. Officials disputed some of Phillips’s account of the cost. One wrote: ‘The British taxpayer actually put his hand in his pocket for about six lakhs [£39,996] of rupees in hard cash which would not have been spent otherwise.’ He put the total cost of works at 13 lakhs (£86,658).131 Phillips also jibbed at the cost of manning and running the residency and mocked at the fact that each member of Cox’s staff seemed to mirror a figure in the Iraqi Government: Civil Secretary (who may be likened to Minister of the Interior). Deputy Civil Secretary. Assistant Secretary. Internal Oriental Secretary (who deal with the various tribes). External Oriental Secretary (who deals with affairs outside Iraq). Under-Secretary to the High Commissioner (who is the head of the passport bureau and performs consular duties). Private Secretary. Financial Secretary. Assistant Financial Secretary. Judicial Secretary. These secretaries have their own assistants and clerks. They are lodged on two floors of an old Turkish building now called the Secretariat, which has been connected to the Residency. The High Commissioner and his secretaries cost £80,000 this year, half the burden falling on the Iraq Exchequer.132 Clearly it was easy to mock but there is plenty of evidence, including Gertrude Bell’s, to show what a hard-working and dedicated staff Cox had brought together to help with the task the British Government had reluctantly taken on. Cox and Wilson were doubtless in error in incurring unauthorized expenditure but 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 130

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their motives seem to have been of the best and their successors had reason to be grateful to them today for their foresight in purchasing Qasr Kadhim Pasha. Cox was not destined to live in the house for long as he was approaching retirement. But in the two and a half years of his work he had accomplished a great deal. After Arnold Wilson had gone, Cox embarked on a new line of policy, the complete and rapid transformation of the facade of the existing administration from British to Arab and, in the process, a wholesale reduction in the numbers of British and British-Indian personnel employed. He elaborated with his staff (Bonham-Carter, Howell, Philby, Slater, Bullard and Gertrude Bell, who was oriental secretary to Cox) a scheme for a ‘Provisional Arab Council of State’ with British advisers and on 23 October 1920 he invited the naqib, Sayyid Abdulrahman al-Gailani to be its president. Much to Gertrude Bell’s surprise the naqib accepted and quickly formed his council, which met for the first time on 2 November. Cox published a proclamation instituting the council of state under his supervision and direction as a provisional national government pending the convocation of a general elective assembly. While Cox was working patiently with the council and its British advisers at the beginning of 1921 to set up a new administration and an Iraqi army, the over- sight of Iraqi affairs passed from the India Office to the newly formed Middle East Department of the Colonial Office under Churchill. The latter convoked a conference of the leading British Middle East experts on 12 March 1921 to discuss inter alia, ‘. . . the selection of a ruler for Iraq, the treatment of the Iraqi Kurds, the early reduction of British expenditure, and the composition of the forces designed to secure the defence of Iraq after the withdrawal of the British garrisons’.133 Cox attended, leaving Bonham-Carter in charge. The conference lasted ten days and Cox was back in Baghdad by mid-April. The Amir Faisal, son of King Hussain of the Hijaz, emerged as the strongest contender for ruler. On 11 July, the council of ministers passed a resolution declaring the amir to be king of Iraq. Cox felt this needed to be endorsed by a public referendum, which was duly held later that month and gave Faisal a comfortable majority. He was formally enthroned on 23 August, ‘inheriting from Sir Percy Cox the official headship of the State’.134 Philby, a confirmed republican, resigned from Cox’s staff.

British Treaty with Iraq Cox then embarked on his last major task – the conclusion of a treaty with Iraq embodying British obligations which King Faisal would carry out with British support and assistance. It was a constitutionally curious situation. As Longrigg wrote: ‘Its elements were a Turkish sovereignty still existing, though dormant; an unratified Mandate, accepted by Britain but unwelcome to Iraq itself; a constitutional monarchy with no Constitution; and an intended treaty relationship with Great Britain, but as yet no treaty!’135 Britain and some sections of the Iraqi population viewed the notion of the treaty differently. For Britain, wrote Graves, ‘. . . the Treaty was a method for reaching a working arrangement with the Iraqis under the Mandate without the trouble and expense which direct administration must entail’.136 Whereas the Shia ulema were against all foreign influences on principle and the extreme nationalists expected the treaty to be a substitute for the mandate, providing Iraq with insurance against outside threats and financial underpinning. Cox and his advisers drew on the wording of the mandate when drafting the treaty but also took pains to cover the future relationship between the British representative and the king and his ministers. The first article said on the latter point: 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 131

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‘His Britannic Majesty shall be represented in Iraq by a High Commissioner and a Consul-General, assisted by the necessary staff’.’137 Britain’s other interests in Iraq’s finances, defence, the judicial and administrative systems and the conditions of service of British officials employed by Iraq were covered in four subsidiary agreements. It is hardly surprising that the negotiation of the text took up the rest of 1921 and much of 1922, during which time anti-mandate opposition continued to grow. But on 25 June, the council of ministers resolved to ratify the treaty, provided it was ratified by the constituent assembly. As summer wore on, there was further, mainly Shia-led political agitation and activities against the treaty and the election of the constituent assembly, while a crisis was developing between Cox and King Faisal, who, as Phebe Marr wrote: ‘. . . was encouraging – perhaps even directing – these activities’.138 Matters came to a head on 23 August, the first anniversary of King Faisal’s coronation, when Cox was insulted by a hostile outburst from an opposition speaker at a public audience at the palace. Cox protested next day and received a full apology. Then nature took a hand: the king developed an acute appendicitis and was seriously ill. The council had resigned; there was no government; so Cox assumed charge and took swift and vigorous action against the agitators to maintain order. As Graves wrote: ‘Relief followed, not rebellion.’139 On his recovery, the king thanked Cox publicly for the measures he had taken. ‘They had in fact saved the State from anarchy’, wrote Longrigg.140 The Naqib was asked to form a new cabinet, which, reassured by the argument that entry to the League of Nations – Iraq’s next goal – would of itself end the unpopular mandate, reaffirmed acceptance of the treaty. The Naqib and Cox signed it on 10 October. But Cox was not quite done. Northern Iraq was in a state of unrest as a result of Turkish claims to the Mosul Wilayet, disturbances among the Kurds and clashes between Assyrians and Arabs. Order was restored by vigorous military action supported by air attacks. Meanwhile Cox was also busy in the south, where he negotiated Iraq’s boundary with Ibn Saud. The latter started by insisting that the Euphrates was his frontier but Cox would not discuss this; and Ibn Saud then claimed that the southernmost wells used by the Iraqi and Kuwaiti tribes should mark the border, wells in common use being neutral. The Iraqi side claimed a line 200 miles south of the Euphrates. Cox suggested a compromise but Ibn Saud would not move. In the end it seems Cox used all his considerable powers of per- suasion on Ibn Saud and the present, still disputed boundary, resulted. Cox was summoned to London in January 1923 to assist with the preparations of the Lausanne Conference. Sir Henry Dobbs had meanwhile arrived as counsellor with the prospect of succeeding Cox. He was no stranger to Iraq, having served with Cox in Basra for two years during the war, Cox returned on 31 March bringing with him a draft Protocol to the Treaty of Alliance which reduced the terms of the treaty from twenty years to four, starting from the ratification of the Treaty of Peace by Turkey, but which left the way open for further negotiations before the end of this period. Prime Minister Abdul Muhsin Bey and Cox signed the protocol on 20 April 1923. This was effectively Cox’s last official act as high commissioner, as he was content to leave the direction of current affairs to his successor in the remaining short time before his departure on retirement. His last weeks were full of farewell celebrations marked, as Graves recorded, ‘by wide and genuine manifestations of the honour, affection and respect in which British, Indians and Iraqis of all classes and creeds held him’.141 At a garden party on 14 April given by the Baghdad municipality, King Faisal presented Cox with a gold and silver miniature of the tomb in Baghdad attributed to Zubaida, wife of 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 132

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the Caliph Haroun al-Rashid.* Similar celebrations were also held at Basra before the Cox family finally sailed away on 4 May 1923 on board the British Premier. Cox was still not quite done with Iraq, for he was called back from retirement in May 1924 to go to Constantinople as plenipotentiary to conduct the Anglo- Turkish negotiations for the settlement of the boundary between Turkey and Iraq. He was unable to reach agreement on this occasion. He retained a lively interest in Middle East affairs until his death on 20 February 1937 after a day’s hunting when he was seventy-three years old. His wife erected a tablet in St George’s Church, Baghdad, that was still there in 1990 under his crest and motto ‘Vigilant’.

The British community of the 1920s The British community that the Coxes left behind in Baghdad was apparently divided on recognizable lines. According to Sinderson Pasha, a Scottish doctor who attended King Faisal’s appendectomy as anaesthetist and whom the king appointed as his personal physician during the farewell garden party for the Coxes, apart from the residency staff and the Army and Royal Air Force contin- gents in the adjoining district of Hinaidi, Baghdad in the 1920s was, like ancient Gaul, divided into three parts: On the left bank of the river were two coteries: officials of the Iraqi Government, and executives of banks and commercial firms; and on the right bank, subject to a Caledonian chieftain, the railway ‘clan’ – the term here employed to denote an aloof circle and not to indicate a predominance of Scots within it. Actually, Sassenachs were far more numerous. The social life of the three groups centred around their respective clubs: the Alwiya Club for government officials, the British Club, exclusively male and mainly the resort of ‘city gents’, but with membership open to fellow nationals regardless of calling; and the Railway Club. The Alwiya and Railway Clubs had mixed membership and possessing tennis courts and swimming pools, were popular rendezvous for wives and families throughout the day, and frequented by breadwinners in leisure hours. Most married members of the British Club belonged to the Alwiya Club, but for some reason or other mutual relationship between the two sides of the river was meagre, more especially between the denizens of the Alwiya and their compatriots in Railways. No doubt distance, and the intervention of a river, and different occupations played a part in this, but I am inclined to think that residents of Alwiya regarded their social status as superior to that of railway officials. The latter seemed resent- fully suspicious of this, and inclined to treat the left bank with clay-cold dis- dain, mindful of the fact that their chief-engineer was an old Etonian!142 He omitted to say into which coterie he fitted, but he sounds like an Alwiya man! The weekend was the busy time at the clubs, but there was no unanimity on when it was. According to Sinderson,143 Sundays were observed by both residency and railways as days of rest. British banks and commercial firms also observed Sunday as dies non and like the residency and railway, staff enjoyed an addi-tional half-day on Saturdays. It was then that the ‘Casuals Club’ played football and cricket against a regimental side. The rest of the country observed Friday.

* In fact this is not her tomb. Ibn Athir, the Arab historian and chronicler, says she was buried at Kadhimain; and Niebuhr, who saw the Arabic inscription still above the tomb in the nineteenth century recorded that it said that Aisha Khanum, wife of Husain Pasha, Governor of Baghdad, was buried there – see G. Le Strange, Baghdad during the Abbasid Caliphate from contemporary Arabic and Persian Sources, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960), p. 351. 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 133

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Henry Dobbs This then was the British community that Sir Henry Dobbs duly took over as high commissioner. He was something of an eccentric. Sinderson wrote that: Although of kindly disposition, Sir Henry Dobbs did not always suffer fools gladly and many were the stories about his occasional bouts of irritability. He was reputed to have thrown inkpots at members of his staff as an indication of his displeasure, and I recall one occasion when he hurled flower- pots and their contents to the ground in disgust at the way the head-gardener had planted them, and was congratulated on his accomplishment by Lady Dobbs, one of the gentlest and sweetest of women, thus ‘Well done, Henry! What’s the use of being High Commissioner if you can’t smash a few flower- pots now and then!’144 Sinderson summed up his record: ‘Sir Henry Dobbs left Iraq on 3 February 1929 after six years of momentous achievements as High Commissioner. During this time a Constituent Assembly had been formed, three treaties had been concluded with Great Britain and one with Najd, and one with Turkey which, after much grave concern and threats of war, solved the problems of Iraq’s northern frontier.’145 Dobbs was faced almost immediately on assuming office in June with a crisis with the Shia divines in Najaf and Karbala, who in a gesture of defiance left Iraq for Kermanshah in Persia, expecting a commotion to follow. Nothing happened. It took various mediating visits before they were allowed back in November, a much chastened and less influential group in Iraq’s future political development. The constituent assembly was opened by King Faisal on 27 March 1924 under the presidency of Abdul Muhsin Bey and proceeded to its first task – ratification of the treaty and protocol. Opposition to the treaty and particularly to the financial burdens it imposed on Iraq grew rapidly and turned to violence. Dobbs made unavailing efforts to explain the basic nature of the treaty and the facts of Iraq’s situation. He gave assurances of later modification in Iraq’s favour but stressed Britain’s obligations under the mandate. Dobbs tried to negotiate a solution but failed. In the end he announced an ultimatum that Iraq’s rejection of the treaty would have to be reported to the League of Nations, unless it was ratified in June. He was deaf to all further entreaties and in a cliff-hanging finish, the assembly ratified it with a bare majority shortly before midnight on the 10 April, albeit with various conditions – that the British should honour its reas- surances on amending the financial agreement in Iraq’s favour; that the king should set about this immediately; and that the treaty should be nullified ‘if the British Government fail to safeguard the rights of Iraq in the Mosul Wilaya in its entirety’.146 After this bruising experience, the assembly gave a peaceful passage to the organic and electoral laws. Dobbs was also heavily involved in the settlement of the ‘Mosul Question’ about the conflicting Iraqi and Turkish claims to the Mosul Wilaya (Province). An international commission appointed by the League of Nations studied the situation there in the early part of 1925 and produced a report in July, which inter alia dismissed the possibility of partition, found the area was economically bound to Iraq, and admitted that the bulk of the population appeared in favour of inclu- sion in Iraq. They recommended the area should continue as part of Iraq, subject to Iraq remaining under the mandate for twenty-five years, and Kurdish identity being officially recognized. After further hiccups the Iraq Government accepted the settlement and concluded a new treaty with Britain, albeit with some resentment over the longer period of tutelage, and Britain succeeded in persuading the Turkish Government to accept it in the Anglo-Turkish Treaty of 18 July 1926. This established a policy of good-neighbourly relations under the supervision of a 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 134

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permanent frontier commission and on an undertaking from Iraq to pay Turkey for twenty-five years ten per cent of any oil royalties, should oil be found. Dobbs and his able staff were also involved in advising on the rundown of the British forces in Iraq, the progressive build-up of the Iraqi army and police and the expansion of the health and education services and, not least, archaeology. Here Gertrude Bell as honorary Director of Antiquities devoted herself unstintingly to establishing the Baghdad Museum, first in a single room in the serai of the royal palace in 1924 and two years later in a building near the Jumhuriya bridge that was beautifully restored in the 1980s. As she became less and less involved with the British administration and the royal court, she spent more time on supervising the activities of the new generation of British and American archaeologists. She still worked hard ‘. . . in the Victorian Colonial-style High Commission on the right bank of the Tigris with its six rooms up and down facing the river and shuttered windows, its wrought iron gates and balconies and handsome laid-out gardens, and at her cottage home’, wrote Winstone.147 On 11 July 1926, Sir Henry Dobbs gave a dinner party for Sir Percy Lorraine, the visiting ambassador from Tehran, and Gertrude Bell was present, but during the night she died. According to Winstone: ‘Her death was certified by Dr W. Dunlop, director of the Royal Hospital Baghdad, as having occurred from Dial (a proprietary brand of barbiturates) in the early morning of July 12th, 1926, two days before her fifty-eighth birthday.’148 She was buried in the English cemetery at Baghdad in the late afternoon of the same day. Her tomb is still there in the little cemetery near the Bab al-Sharqi, on land originally granted to the British by the Turkish Pasha in 1861–62. After floods in 1906 and 1907 destroyed part of the surrounding wall, it was decided to enlarge the cemetery to make room for Arab Protestant Christians to be buried there. Sultan Mehmet V. Reshad confirmed the extension on 19 September 1909 in an elaborately written firman, in Arabic and Turkish Diwani calligraphy, the original of which is still held in the British embassy. On one side of her tomb is written in English: Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell Oriental Secretary to the High Commissioner for Iraq The other side reads: Born at Washington County Durham 8th July 1868 Died at Baghdad 12th July 1926 On the head face of the tomb was an inscription in Arabic but the stone has weathered so badly that it almost illegible. It is possible to make out only the Arabic equivalent of: ‘This is the tomb of the late . . . Miss Bell.’ Below this is another line ending in the word ‘Iraq’, which might have been a translation of her title. A final line reveals the word ‘England’. Efforts were made to obtain the original text in order to restore the face, but in 1988 it was decided to go ahead on the basis of the legible part of the Arabic inscription with the addition of a second line with her title. This work had not begun before Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990 and has been in abeyance since. The other memorial to Gertrude Bell was erected in the Iraq Museum, where King Faisal suggested in 1927 one of the principal rooms should be dedicated to her memory. A brass plaque, which is no longer there, read in English and in Arabic: GERTRUDE BELL Her memory The Arabs will always hold in reverence and affection. 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 135

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She created this Museum in 1923 being then Honorary Director of Antiquities for the Iraq. With wonderful knowledge and devotion she assembled the most precious objects in it and through the heat of summer worked on them until the day of her death on 12th July 1926. King Faisal And the Government of Iraq in gratitude for her deeds in this country have ordered that the principal wing shall bear her name and with their permission her friends have erected this tablet. Meanwhile cross-border raiding from Syria and Najd was rife and Dobbs was obliged to call in the Royal Air Force, though it fell to Dobbs’ eventual successor, Sir Gilbert Clayton, to negotiate a settlement with the Saudis in November 1925. In the midst of intense political activity and government reshuffles in 1927, Dobbs became caught up in a domestic issue on which Iraqi opinion was sharply divided – conscription. The Iraq Government recognized the need to strengthen Iraq militarily but the Kurds and the Shia were opposed to conscription. As this was a defence issue, Dobbs was asked for his views and he agreed, if that was what Iraq wanted, but declined any British role in enforcing it. According to Longrigg, the Iraqi press considered this amounted to less than whole-hearted support and was indicative of Britain’s desire to keep Iraq weak.149 Dobbs was also busy on the question of Iraq’s membership of the League of Nations. The British Government were not prepared to accede to the Iraqis’ wish to advance Iraq’s candidature to 1928, but in discussion in London towards the end of 1927, in which Dobbs took part, agreement was reached on a new treaty, which among other things committed Britain to support Iraq for membership in 1932. On his return Dobbs was engaged in further lengthy discussions on amendments to the subsidiary agreements to the treaty. The Iraqis sought to reduce Britain’s privileged position in defence matters but no agreement could be reached. Dobbs had now come to the end of his mission and he was succeeded in March 1928 by Sir Gilbert Clayton, who was already known in the area for his role in negotiating the frontier agreement with the Saudis. Unfortunately he did not remain long in the post, dying of a heart attack in September after a game of polo, without seeing the results of his efforts on revising the Treaty. A memorial was later erected to him in St George’s church in Baghdad.

Francis Humphrys Clayton’s successor was Sir Francis Humphrys, who came from the Indian political service. He arrived after an interval of three months during which the treaty negotiations faltered but picked up again under the 1929 British Labour government and 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 136

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agreement was finally reached in June 1930. The treaty and its annexes formed the basis of a new and more equal relationship between Britain and Iraq. The treaty specified that the British high commissioner in Baghdad would be replaced by an ambassador who would enjoy precedence over other ambassadors.150 Humphrys had also been engaged in separate negotiations on replacing the 1924 ‘Judicial Agreement’, which had perpetuated some of the former Turkish capitulations, and initialled with the Prime Minister Nuri Said a new agreement on the same day as the new treaty. The agreement was ratified in March 1931. It provided for a uniform system of justice for Iraqis and foreigners alike. It was accompanied by an understanding with Humphrys that the number of British officials in the administration would be reduced. Meanwhile the League of Nations’ Permanent Mandates Commission had been examining closely whether the conditions in Iraq were right for terminating the mandate. Humphrys was called upon to answer in particular questions about the situation of the minorities. He outlined the progress that had been made and what further protection could be offered. The commission reported in June 1931 that the conditions for emancipation appeared to have been met subject to certain guarantees that Iraq would continue to honour human rights, financial obligations, internationally organized conventions, etc. The Iraq Government made a declaration accordingly and Iraq was finally admitted to the League of Nations as a fully independent member state on 3 October 1932. During this period of intense political activity, Humphrys was also involved in a further review of the future of the old British residency, which had become the headquarters of the Royal Air Force. Dobbs had already been asked in June 1928 whether he could agree to the buildings being given up. He agreed, if the air headquarters were to move completely to the base at Hinaidi, then about 7 miles outside Baghdad. It fell to Humphrys to negotiate their disposal. In December 1930, agreement was reached to lease the property to the Iraq Government for a period of three years with an option to renew for a further two years. The departments of customs and posts and telegraphs moved in. At the end of five years, the lease was renewed for a further year to give the Iraq Government more time to consider purchasing the property. After considerable haggling over the price, Humphrys’s successor, Sir Archibald Clark Kerr, was authorized in September 1936 to sell it for Iraqi Dinars (ID) 60,000 payable in four annual instalments. Formalities for completing the transfer were made in January 1937 ending British ownership. But the British connection was not severed. The following month British engineers were called in to examine dangerous cracks in the main building on the waterfront which housed the collector of customs. They formed the opinion that the wings on either side should be taken down to the first floor to reduce the load on the foundations: this explains the discrepancy in the silhouette of the building today and earlier photographs of it. Humphrys was equally active over the new high commission buildings. Writing to the Ministry of Public Buildings and Works in May 1931 he observed that ‘. . . during the past winter the furnishing of the Residency was completed. The result is that the Residency is now, for the first time in its existence, appropriately furnished, and I feel the Foreign Office can take it over as an Embassy when the time comes without qualms.’ He further improved the site by seeking the municipal agreement to the acquisition of an adjacent piece of land and the demolition of some tenement buildings on it. He recorded: ‘The demolition of the Arab slum has made all the difference to our health and comfort, and the extra area taken in gives the Residency grounds an excellent appearance. When I arrived last year, I was ashamed that so meanly furnished and badly equipped 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 137

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a residence could ever have been passed as a suitable place for H M Representative to live in!’151 The acquisition of the additional land was duly recorded in the land registry in 1932. He was also scathing about the offices. In a despatch to London, he described them as having been built ‘in the Turkish days and in danger of collapse’. He recommended demolition and the construction of a new office block.152 Fortunately, the old buildings were retained and merely redecorated in 1935. On the termination of the mandate, Humphrys also had to decide what to do about a further piece of property that was bought for ID 18,172 by the British Government in 1920 as part of its holdings in the Iraqi railways. The site, which became known as Baghdad West, covered about 24 acres in the area that was later occupied by the Ministry of Information, Radio Baghdad and St George’s Church opposite the Melia Mansour Hotel. In 1932, the British Government asked that the site should be withdrawn from railway assets. After prolonged negotiations, Humphrys arranged the transfer of the site that was registered in the Land Registry in the name of the secretary of state. It was considered that the site would serve the purpose of erecting a new church, and possibly housing accommodation and other buildings to meet the demands of a future British embassy. Elaborate plans were drawn up. None of these came to anything, except the proposal to build a new church. Under an agreement of 24 June 1935, Clark Kerr for the Foreign Office and Bruce Hay, chaplain’s warden, agreed that a plot 250 feet square should be leased to the Baghdad chaplaincy for ninety- nine years for a peppercorn rent of ID 1 per annum. St George’s was constructed on this site somewhere before 1937 and the vicarage next door around 1939. Further proposals were made right up to 1939 to build a new house there for the counsellor at the embassy. It was argued that:

1 . . . the Counsellor’s house is 3 /2 miles from the Embassy and on the other side of the Tigris, at quite the wrong end of Baghdad and every time he goes to and fro he has to pass through 2 miles of one of the most crowded, hot and disagreeable streets in the world. The journey takes half an hour by car and if the one-way traffic across the bridge over the Tigris happens to be going in the opposite direction when he reaches it, the journey takes longer still.153 But the Treasury balked at the cost and the counsellor had to continue to sweat it out on the wrong side of the river. Air conditioning was still a luxury then. It was proposed for the first time for some of the offices and the residence only in 1939 and even this modest start was held in abeyance by the outbreak of war.

4. A NEW RELATIONSHIP AND THE END OF AN ERA 1932–58

he entry of Iraq into the League of Nations as an independent country in TOctober 1932 formally concluded Britain’s mandate but, as Sluglett noted in his history of the period, the relationship between the British and the Iraqi court and cabinet changed only superficially. This is hardly surprising in view of the close understanding that had been built upon by successive high commissioners, for whom the Iraqis had coined the sarcastic epithet ‘Mukhtar dhak as-Saub’, which might be loosely translated as ‘the boss on the other side’ – of the Tigris from the prime minister’s residence.154 Sluglett described it just before the end of the mandate: 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 138

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As far as the High Commissioner’s position was concerned, Young (Counsellor at the High Commission) reported in September 1932 that Humphrys paid at least one weekly visit to the King and the Prime Minister usually paid a weekly visit to the High Commissioner. The Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs had always worked closely with the Residency and Young urged that this should continue.155 The embassy could no longer call for information from British officials as a right, as the high commission had done in the past. But the high commission asked for authority to arrange privately with King Faisal and the prime minister to receive informally from the senior British adviser, Cornwallis (adviser at the Ministry of the Interior and later ambassador), ‘news of importance affecting the internal security of the country so as to be in a position to advise, in the event of the services of the Royal Air Force being requested to deal with internal trouble’. Humphrys felt confident that such procedure would be regarded as entirely natural and that neither the king nor the prime minister would raise objection.156 The close relationship between King Faisal and Britain was further strengthened by a most successful State Visit on 20–22 June 1933. Humphrys had brought the invitation from King George V the previous November on his return from leave. King Faisal travelled to London by air to Amman and Cairo, by sea from Alexandria to Naples and by train via Brussels and Ostend, where he dined with King Albert of the Belgians before crossing the channel. He was accompanied by Vyvyan Holt, the newly appointed Oriental Secretary at the British Embassy (1932–44), among others. Holt drafted speeches for the king but, according to Sinderson Pasha, who was also present as the royal physician, the king preferred to use those prepared by Sinderson himself.157 The visit included a state banquet at Buckingham Palace, a reception at the Guildhall and a dinner at the Foreign Office. Afterwards the King Faisal attended a number of other more relaxing, less official functions, including the Wimbledon tennis finals in the company of the king and queen and Princess Ingrid of Sweden, and spent ten days much needed holiday in Scotland. He had planned to spend some time afterwards in Switzerland for his health’s sake but he was forced to cut short his visit to Berne after only a couple of days because of a growing crisis at home. The crisis arose out of the displaced, unhappy Assyrian community that had been settled in the decade after the 1914–18 war in various parts of the Mosul area. Their assimilation proved difficult and their spiritual leader, Mar Shamun, persistently refused to deal with the Iraqi authorities, accusing them and the British of persecution. An attempt at migration into Syria brought disaster. The French authorities refused to allow the Assyrians in with their arms and the Iraqi authorities requested that no armed Assyrians should recross into Iraq, except with proper notice. Failure to regard this request led to armed clashes between Iraqi troops and armed Assyrians, concerned about the unprotected families they had left behind. Recriminations between the Christian Assyrians and the Muslim Arabs and Kurds resulted in massacres of the Assyrians over a wide area of Iraq and a wave of unprecedented bitterness against Britain for allegedly being behind their protégés’ actions. The Royal Air Force carried the Mar Shamun into exile in Cyprus and the situation had gradually calmed down when Humphrys returned from leave on 23 August. The king, exhausted and in poor health, returned on 2 September to Berne, where he died six days later of heart failure. A British cruiser brought his body back from Brindisi to Haifa and from there the Royal Air Force flew it to Baghdad. He was buried on 15 September at Adhamiya and was succeeded by his son, Ghazi. 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 139

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Archibald Clark Kerr Over the next several years, governments came and went in Baghdad as different parties or groups vied for power. The British ambassador kept in close touch with them all. Sir Archibald Clark Kerr had succeeded Humphrys in March 1935 and had close and cordial relations with Prime Minister Yasin Pasha. Yet, after Yasin Pasha was ousted from office at the end of October 1936 in a coup by Bakr Sidqi and Hikmat Sulaiman, Clark Kerr, who was consulted by the king on what to do, then became good friends with Hikmat. Indeed Sinderson Pasha commented that their relationship was ‘not without criticism from a small section of the community, who regarded it as infra-dig for the Ambassador to be seen at a local cabaret, no matter who his companions might be’.158 Clark Kerr was born in Australia and was dubbed by members of Baghdad’s Caledonian Society ‘a synthetic Scot’.159 Gavin Maxwell (author of Ring of Bright Water, and other wild- life accounts) was offered the job of private secretary to Sir Archibald but was dissuaded by an uncle who disapproved of Clark Kerr’s unconventional approach to life in general and to the establishment in particular. He was nonetheless a highly professional diplomat who went on to become ambassador to China, the Soviet Union and the United States. Clark Kerr was successful in negotiating with the Yasin government the conclusion of the controversial issue of the transfer of the British-owned railways, as was intended in the treaty. The property was acquired by the Iraqi Government as a profitable concern for £1.5 m. Management was for twenty years to be the responsibility of a joint Board with an Iraqi majority and with British executives remaining in a few key posts. But despite his relations with Hikmat, Clark Kerr was less successful in the military field, where the British military mission went through an unfriendly period. Iraq required arms and equipment at a time when Britain was rearming and had little to spare. Dr Fritz Grobba, the German minister in Baghdad, exploited this situation with adroit propaganda and diverted large orders for arms to German and Czech manufacturers. The Hikmat government proved as unstable as the previous ones: Bakr Sidqi was assassinated in Mosul only nineteen months after the coup and Hikmat’s government collapsed a few days later, when many of the new arms deals were abandoned.

Maurice Peterson The succeeding government of Jamil Midfa’i was equally troubled, particularly by the ill-feeling between Nuri Said and Hikmat. At this point, there was a change of ambassadors, Sir Maurice Peterson arriving in the middle of March 1938. This is how he described the embassy in his memoirs: The Embassy at Baghdad lies on the west bank of the river Tigris, a rambling, dark, inconvenient and yet attractive building, the former residence of a Turkish pasha. Some nine acres of surrounding gardens make it a welcome oasis in the dust, flies and disease which characterize the modern City of the Caliphs. We had our own grove of oranges and grape-fruit – the latter a valuable product since the import of the fruit from Palestine was prohibited. Oranges were plentiful and of the bitter, Seville, variety: the import of the sweet Jaffa oranges was allowed. Our trees in the Embassy gardens were mainly date-palms, the crops from which were leased to a date merchant for an annual rental of 30 pounds. This went towards the upkeep of the gardens. Inside the house the central hall is adorned by a small fountain, tiled in turquoise-blue and raised above floor-level by a low encircling ramp, six or 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 140

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eight inches high and of the same dazzling hue. At one of our dances this fountain later acquired an unenviable notoriety. The gleam of the lights on trickling water and turquoise tiles, combined perhaps with the conviviality of the occasion, made it a veritable death-trap – despite the warning chairs which had been set around it – for the unwary guest crossing the hall without due regard to his surroundings. No fewer than three in the one evening tripped over the ramp and stumbled, or plunged, into the shallow water of the fountain. One – an American diplomat – became a sufficiently serious casualty; of the three, he who got off lightest was the local Nazi leader, whose expulsion I was later to secure but who, on this occasion, was saved from a fall by my own intervening hand. The damage he incurred was covered by the loan of a pair of dry socks.160

Growing German influence It was a period of growing German influence in Iraq and the ‘local Nazi leader’, referred to by Peterson, was almost certainly the infamous Dr Grobba, who had a good command of Arabic and Turkish and a deep knowledge of the area. Sinderson was a near neighbour of his on Al-Askari Street and was in a position to observe the activities of this diplomat. He wrote: ‘His Legation afforded open house to senior government officials, ministers past and present, senators and shaikhs, all were assured a very warm welcome when they called.’161 In short he performed his diplomatic duties assiduously, but there was another, more sinister side to his activities. As Sinderson noted: Baghdad had at this time a dozen daily newspapers, slim productions with few, if any, advertisements, and the majority of them with only a small number of subscribers. Some of them were kept in circulation by support from Grobba. The German Minister strongly disapproved of my close connection with the Royal family and made every effort to end it. For example, it was Grobba who, when Ghazi died from a ghastly crash-fracture of the skull, started the wicked canard that I had prevented his recovery, a rumour which no doubt was an exciting cause of the murder of G.E.A.C. Monck-Mason, the British Consul in Mosul, a day later.162 It seems Dr Grobba was a late convert to Nazism. Lord Birdwood wrote in his biography of Nuri Said that: Grobba on several occasions had criticized Hitler, ‘The Corporal will bring ruin to Germany’ had been his unofficial assessment of his Fuehrer. Suddenly Grobba was recalled to Berlin. Nuri’s conviction was that the Nazi archaeologist, Dr Jordan, who exercised a powerful and sinister influence quite out of keeping with cultural pursuits as Archaeological Attaché at the German Legation, had reported the Minister to Headquarters for his lukewarm support of Nazi Imperialism. Grobba returned to Baghdad after an absence of nine months, Nuri Pasha being quick to notice the change in his political outlook. Reminders about the Corporal now only produced a sullen resentment. Grobba, it seemed, had been successfully brainwashed.163 Sir Maurice Peterson was also alarmed at Grobba’s influence, recording: In the case of the Grobbas I was powerless to do more than warn both the Iraqis and my own colony to be on their guard – a warning which I repeated on every possible occasion. Both Dr Grobba and his wife made it their business to be more British than the British in all the activities of the foreign community. The short squat figure of the Herr Doktor, suitably accoutred presents itself regularly at the meetings of the Exodus Hunt which pursued the jackal, in place of the fox across the desert sands around Baghdad or Habbaniya. In the British church, 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 141

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dedicated as a memorial of the Great War, they sat in the pew next to my own and the fine organ which the church possessed was the gift of the German community. More sinister in my view because less obvious than the German Minister were the activities of his wife, Frau Grobba, who limped her way with regularity into almost every British house and to every British sick-bed in Baghdad, had as her speciality the collection of rumour affecting the British community, to be passed on, after due embellishment, to suitable Iraqi circles in which it might be possible to discredit the British connexion.164 As already mentioned, Sinderson believed Grobba was partly to blame for the mob attack on the British consul in Mosul after King Ghazi’s death on 4 April 1939. Longrigg implicated him cautiously: The King’s funeral at the Royal Mausoleum was attended by many Arab visitors from abroad and by tens of thousands of his own subjects. It evoked extraordinary emotion. The fantastic story that his death had been ‘arranged’ by the British Secret Service was propagated by the German wireless, and perhaps by Dr Grobba. It was believed by the more feeble-minded part of the hysterical city mob, and was responsible for the shameful and brutal attack immediately following a memorial service to King Ghazi on the British Consul in Mosul, Mr G.E.A.C. Monck-Mason, a mild-mannered bachelor who spent much of his free time transcribing modern English poetry into Braille for the blind. Surrounded by a rabble of excited demonstrators, he was stoned and then struck fatally on the head, on the verandah of his own Consulate. The Prime Minister deeply affected by this outrage, offered apologies and ordered compensation to be paid to the Consul’s widow. His funeral at Mosul, where he was buried in the British cemetery on the Telafar road, was public and impressive; Iraqi officialdom and the Army were well represented. Severe sentences were passed on a small number of the participants in the attack, in which as usual students had been prominent; the murderer himself was not discovered.165 There are other versions of the murder. Lady Masha Williams, quoting Fred Wells, British vice-Consul in Baghdad after the Second World War wrote: ‘. . . demonstrators stormed the house. He and the servants rushed up to the roof but then he remembered a valuable recorder he’d bought and the silly fool ran down to retrieve it. Met a mob on the stairs, they tore him to pieces.’166 Lord Birdwood said that the consul was stoned to death on the veranda as he attempted to tell the crowd the truth about the king’s death and that ‘. . . the atmosphere of irresponsi- bility had been, as might have been expected, assiduously fostered by the radio station under the direction of Dr Grobba’.167 Phebe Marr wrote: ‘. . . under the circumstances, the King’s sudden death inspired accusations by the nationalists of British complicity. Suspicion spread like wildfire and finally resulted in a second tragedy: the murder of the British Consul on 5 April 1939. The Consul was attacked from behind by a man with a pickaxe as he appeared on his balcony to placate an angry crowd.’168 She also made it clear that the nationalists had been strongly influenced by German ideas of nationalism and were encouraged by Dr Grobba. But the most authentic version of all is that of Sir Laurence Grafftey- Smith, who had been consul in Mosul and was consul in Baghdad before the murder. He described169 how Monck-Mason had sent on the fateful day his two cavasses on errands so that the consulate was unguarded. The mob had collected on its way a gang of men working on the then projected railway station who brought their tools with them. The ground floor of the consulate was set on fire and Monck-Mason wasted precious moments on the upper floor choosing a hiding place for the radio which Grafftey-Smith has sent him only the week before. When the demonstrators began to crowd into the building, he went down and 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 142

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addressed them in Arabic. He was cut short by a pickaxe through his brain. Sir Richard Beaumont, a former consul in Mosul and later ambassador in Rabat, Baghdad and Cairo, also confirmed this version.170 He said that on arriving in Mosul in 1946, he was shown a hole in the steps in front of the entrance to the consulate made, he was told, by the pickaxe that felled one of his predecessors – a gruesome welcome to Mosul! Sir Alec Stirling, ambassador to Iraq in 1977–80, also recalled seeing the hole when he had stayed at the consulate in 1952.171 Ten Iraqis were arrested and tried for the murder of whom two were given the death sentence, which was then commuted to fifteen years’ imprisonment, and the others received prison sentences of between two and fifteen years.172

The British consul, Mosul The old consulate building in Mosul is still there but the setting is rather different from Grafftey-Smith’s day. When he arrived there in September 1935, he described it as an unusual house standing in the stony desert half a mile from the city. It stood four square with battlements and a machicolated roof and had a high wall surrounding it. He believed this Beau Geste-type fortress quality was deliberately planned for defensive purposes, but as shown above, it failed to protect Monck-Mason. It was owned by a Mosul deputy and had been built by an eccentric cleric called Panfil, by birth a Polish Jew and by ordination a Roman Catholic priest, who later became an American Presbyterian missionary working to convert Assyrians. He used his mission’s funds to build this fortress in the hope that the Assyrian patriarch would purchase it as a residence. In the intervening years Mosul has expanded and the old consulate no longer stands in an isolated position but in a developed suburb a few hundred metres along the road from the railway station. It has undergone a few superficial changes since it was given up in 1959 but is immediately recognizable by its crenellated walls. The owner in the 1980s was Majid al-Sawwaf, a textile merchant, who bought the building as a family home in 1961. He confirmed173 that the chip in the steps had been there originally but that they had since been replaced. He still referred to the main sitting-room as the consul’s room and the adjacent one as the accountant’s room. Little else has changed: there are still the beautifully tiled floors of a design rarely seen today (similar to those in the British ambassador’s residence in Muscat and originally imported from Karachi) and the huge, cool cellars where the occupants escaped the summer heat; but the down- stairs lavatory, which Grafftey-Smith described174 as one of the more impressive rooms with the furnishings and almost the proportions of a throne-room and seven lavatories, has been altered. Gone too is the built-in cage for stone martens complete with tree trunk and branches for the animals to play on which had once stood on the landing on the stairs to the first floor living quarters. It is hard to imagine today that the consul in Mosul once supervised a British vice-consulate for Kurdistan which was located in a small village called Diana at the far end of the Rowanduz gorge. It was a relic from the days of the mandate when it was hoped to attract some trade traffic from Persia by way of Rayat through the gorge into Iraq. But in Grafftey-Smith’s day Vice-consul Finch had no such duties but filled in his time writing learned reports on the blood feuds and politics of the warring Kurds.175 On a visit to Diana in 1989, the author was taken to where the old vice-consulate once stood but it had been destroyed to make way for a helipad. The year preceding King Ghazi’s death had been relatively quiet for Iraq, but anti- British attitudes were growing because of British policy towards Palestine. 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 143

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There were some incidents of bomb throwing in the extensive Jewish quarters of Baghdad and anti-government agitation. The government banished some of its more violent opponents, including officers known for their loyalty to Bakr Sidqi, and some politicians and lawyers. Some of these were in touch with the group later known as the ‘Golden Square’, consisting of Salah al-Din Sabbagh, commander of the 3rd Division, Kamil Shabib, commander of the 1st Division, Mahmoud Salman, commander of the air force, and Fahmi Said, commander of the mechanized forces. Gathered at the old Royal Air Force station at Hinaidi, now renamed al-Rashid Camp, they demanded a change of government. Midfa’i resigned and General Nuri Said took over again: and Rashid Ali al-Gailani, soon to play a prominent role in Anglo-Iraqi affairs, headed the Royal Diwan. Shortly before the king’s accident in late February 1939, a plot was uncovered involving Hikmat Sulaiman and a large number of politicians and officers. Hikmat and four others were sentenced to death. Hikmat was saved by the personal intervention of Sir Maurice Peterson and other British and Iraqi friends. Peterson left Iraq shortly afterwards and was succeeded by Sir Basil Newton, who was a newcomer to the Middle East and its problems. It was a year of rapid development, some of the projects being financed with credits from Britain or a loan from the Iraq Petroleum Company.

Second World War On the outbreak of war in September 1939, the Iraqi prime minister announced: ‘Iraq would honour the terms of the British alliance, and thereunder would furnish all facilities and assistance as provided in the Treaty.’176 Diplomatic relations with Germany were broken off and Dr Grobba left Iraq, but pro-German sympathies remained strong in certain quarters, incited by propaganda from Berlin. The British ambassador was given every assurance of Iraq’s goodwill and acceptance of its obligations. As if to demonstrate its commitment to Iraq, Britain chose this moment to open the British Institute in Baghdad on 5 February 1940, in the presence of the regent and the ambassador.177 Shortly afterwards the new government formed under Rashid Ali al-Gailani on 31 March 1940 confirmed an attitude of perfect correctness towards the British alliance. Sinderson Pasha wrote that Gailani summoned him to his office a day or two before Sir Basil Newton was due to call. He explained that as he and the ambassador did not understand each other, he wanted Sinderson to pass on what he intended to discuss. The ambassador apparently welcomed this unusual channel as it gave him time to consider the points the prime minister wished to raise.178 All this was to change in the summer under influence of increased Axis propaganda, developments in Palestine and British difficulties over supplying Iraq the arms it wanted. Anti-British sentiment grew, distancing the government from the people. A governmental crisis developed with the four generals of the ‘Golden Square’ insisting on the maintenance of the Gailani government, while the regent suspecting it of pro-Axis leanings sought a change. Gailani eventually resigned at the end of January 1941 and a new government backed by the ‘Golden Square’ was formed under Taha al-Hashimi. This was short-lived as the generals shifted their loyalty back to Gailani. The regent was under great pressure from them to re-appoint Gailani so much so that he told Sinderson he was going to abdicate: he had had enough. Sinderson suggested he talked it over with Sir Basil Newton and the regent agreed. But he did not want Gailani to know, so Sinderson proposed to bring him to the palace in his car. The ambassador agreed 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 144

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first somewhat reluctantly and then entered into the conspiratorial spirit of the ruse. He wore a soft hat with its broad brim turned down, a high overcoat with the collar hiding much of his face and a lighted cigarette between his lips. So disguised he came to the regent.179 The latter was encouraged by the ambassador’s assurances of British support and asked for financial assistance to expand and strengthen his security precau- tions. Sir Basil so recommended to London and a temporary monthly allowance was paid through Sinderson. In communications about the payments, Sinderson devised some code words with Vyvyan Holt, oriental secretary at the embassy, which included the word ‘Sapper’ for Prince Abdulillah, an atrocious play upon ‘R.E.gent’!180

Kinahan Cornwallis In the tense atmosphere then prevailing it was decided to replace Newton with Sir Kinahan Cornwallis, former adviser to the Ministry of the Interior and probably the leading expert on Iraq. Sir Kinahan had retired but agreed to serve again. By strange coincidence he reached Baghdad and Newton left on 1 April, the very day the ‘Golden Square’ staged their momentous coup d’état aimed at the overthrow of the regent and the appointment of Gailani as dictator. Sinderson gave a dramatic description of events that day. At three in the morning, he was summoned to the house of Princess Salha on the other side of the river, half way between Alwiya and the South Gate. On arriving there he found an agitated prince regent and other members of the royal family. The regent insisted on taking refuge in the British embassy. He was dissuaded on the grounds that it meant crossing the river again and the area around the embassy might be heavily patrolled. Sinderson’s advice was to dress up in Arab women’s clothes and seek sanctuary at the American legation, while a means of escape was found. Sinderson suggested to the outgoing Sir Basil that the American Minister Paul Knabenshue, who was an old friend of Cornwallis, should drive out to greet the latter on his arrival at Habbaniya with the regent hidden under a rug and his ADC in an RAF uniform. Knabenshue, accompanied by his wife, the hidden regent and the disguised ADC, set off for Habbaniya with an RAF escort and arrived there without mishap. The regent was flown first to Basra and from there via Amman to Jerusalem, where he stayed until his return in May.181 April 1941 was a difficult month. The war in Europe was going badly for the Allies, the Axis powers were making open blandishments to Iraq and there was uncertainty in the country generally. Sir Kinahan Cornwallis made his entry into Baghdad on 4 April but received no official welcome from the mayor. He remained, said Longrigg, ‘invisible in his Embassy, careful in no way to countenance the new regime’.182 The British Government, alarmed at these developments, decided to secure Basra and as much as possible of Iraq’s other centres and means of communication. Troops were despatched from India and Cornwallis warned the government accordingly. Gailani at first agreed and on 17 and 18 April the troops landed. But three days later he countermanded that they should proceed immediately to Rutba and out of the country and that no more troops should enter. Cornwallis held his first meeting with Gailani on 26 April and pointed out that this was against the spirit of the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty. Gailani repeated the next day the demand for the troops’ departure. Cornwallis replied on 28 April that more troops were coming. The two met again on 29 April without reaching an understanding. 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 145

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Evacuation and isolation The atmosphere in Baghdad had now become so strained that it was decided to evacuate 139 British women and 99 children to the RAF base at Habbaniya. All other British and United States citizens, with a few exceptions who fared badly in the following weeks, were concentrated on 30 April in the British embassy, the US legation in Alwiya and the British consulate in Mosul. The intention was to fly the women and children to India and Rashid Ali promised safe conduct personally to the ambassador. But within twenty-four hours or so Habbaniya was shelled. For the next month, 366 British and a few local Jews and Indians lived within the embassy compound and another 160 took refuge at the US legation. This all went according to a pre-arranged plan called ‘Operation Concentrate’. Cecil Hope-Gill, formerly vice-consul in Jiddah, was posted to Baghdad in 1941 and recorded: ‘We “guests” of the Ambassador and his wife were faced with household plumbing for ten! Our first concern was to dig latrines and waste-water sumps in the grounds for the men and to make indoor arrangements for the women and children left behind.’183 Meanwhile in the chancery itself the embassy staff set about burning official documents. This was the scene witnessed (and photographed) by Freya Stark, who arrived by train from Tehran on 3 May. She wrote: The street leading to the Embassy was deserted, the iron gates of the drive were fastened. We knocked at the Chancery entrance, and a small postern was opened to let me in. Our people looked as if they had been having sleepless nights; sandbags were about, and barbed wire. In the court a mountain of archives smouldered, higher than a man, with flames darting about them, the same colour as the sunlight. Any person of goodwill gave the heap a poke or two with a rake in passing by; and rising from it in flocks like crows, black wraiths of cindered files and memorandums floated into the blue sky, no doubt to some official Elysium.184 Hope-Gill apparently fell foul of her when on one particularly hot day he observed that he was now beginning to realize the full import of the phrase ‘stark naked’!185 A police guard surrounded the embassy but the oriental counsellor kept in touch with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and after a few days got them to send daily on a cash basis simple food and milk for the internees. Life was well organized. A ‘Morale and Entertainments Committee’ was formed and met twice daily to devise programmes for every afternoon and evening. At 6 p.m., a bar was opened under the palm trees where the community enjoyed a daily ration while listening to the ‘garrison news’ read by Sinderson in rhyme for every day of the month’s internment. The RAF occasionally dropped bundles of mail on the lawn, where the ambassador used to play clock golf or discuss affairs with such political officers as had come in. Early on he had attempted to issue a proclamation in a leaflet to be distributed from a launch along the Tigris banks but the young internees involved were caught, imprisoned and cruelly treated. The embassy’s radio transmitter was ordered to be handed over, thus cutting the community off from the outside world, except for the personal radios that many had either with them or in their cars. There was a similar scene at the US legation, according to the Miscellaneous Record Book kept there at the time: On the morning of May 2, the American Legation, whose gates had been barri- caded by order of Minister Knabenshue, was surrounded by Iraqi Police. All communications were severed with the outside world, except by telephone with the Iraqi Foreign Office. On May 5, the Iraqi Foreign Office requested 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 146

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Minister Knabenshue to hand over to the Iraqi authorities all Iraqi staff taking refuge at the Legation, because it added, if the British were to carry out their threat of bombing Baghdad, the Iraqi military would have no alternative but to bomb the British Embassy and the American Legation (where British subjects were also being sheltered) as a retaliatory measure. The British did not bomb civilian establishments and the Iraqis did not bomb the British Embassy and the American Legation, but Mr Knabenshue ordered the clearing of the basement of the Legation building in order that it might be used as an air raid shelter if necessary. The Legation was required to transmit all messages to Washington in clear text, many of which never reached their destination.186 Among the internees was Betty Sulman, later Morrison, the English governess of King Faisal II, who had been arrested but released. She made her way to the US legation, where she organized the distribution of food. She was shocked at how people cheated to get more than their fair share. She lost nearly two stone in weight during the siege.187 Less than a year later Paul Knabenshue was dead after an operation on his foot following which tetanus developed. He was buried in the British cemetery at the Bab al-Sharqi, where his tombstone can still be seen. The regent gave his wife a house and assistance to live in Baghdad until after the war, so that she would not have to face the long journey through dangerous seas to her homeland. Meanwhile the collapse of the Gailani regime was guaranteed by the stout resistance by the RAF at Habbaniya, where Iraqi forces had surrounded the camp but were driven back by frequent and accurate bombing. A relief force called ‘Kingcol’ arrived on 18 May and made its way towards Baghdad while units of the Arab Legion under Sir John Glubb cut the Mosul railway near Samarra before turning south to Baghdad. Gailani sought support from the Axis and some assistance was sent but it was too little and too late. A German Messerschmitt circling Baghdad airport was in fact brought down in error by Iraqi rifle-fire and on landing was found to contain, shot through the head, the body of the son of Marshal von Blomberg.188 As the British forces approached Baghdad the Gailani government disintegrated, some ministers fled to Turkey or Paris and on 28 May Gailani followed shortly after by the generals left the city for Persia and eventually Berlin. Mayor Arshad al-Umari formed on 30 May a ‘Committee of Internal Security’ and that evening, sponsored by Knabenshue, he appeared at the British embassy. The siege, which Hope-Gill noted had already been broken undramatically by the arrival at the embassy gate at 5 a.m. of two British officers in a jeep,189 was now formally over. Later on 30 May, Cornwallis arranged with the security committee the terms of an armistice, including a cease-fire, the continued independence of Iraq and retention of its army intact, release of prisoners, arrest of Axis forces and reopening communications. British troops entered Baghdad the next day and British residents in the capital as well as in Mosul and Kirkuk were able to return to their homes, many of which had been looted in their absence. The regent returned home on 1 June to be greeted by Cornwallis and by crowds of well- wishers, but the conflict was not entirely over as there were serious disturbances and violent hooliganism that night and the next day. Troops had to be used to restore order. In Longrigg’s view, the British intervention saved Iraq ‘first from military dictatorship, then from certain German occupation, and finally from identification with the losing side in the War’.190

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roads, railways and bridges and extending the water transport system and the telegraph and radio networks. Cornwallis remained at the embassy until 1945 ‘to link amicably the British military and the Iraqi civil worlds, and to offer objective and benevolent advice to the Government’.191 He was helped by a small staff of political advisers, as observers only, in northern, central and southern Iraq. At the embassy, he had a first-class team, headed by Geoffrey (’Tommy’) Thompson as minister. The head of chancery was Harold Freese-Pennefather and Thompson asked him on his first day in the office in April about working procedures. ‘Well, Tommy’, he replied, ‘your predecessor carried on in the usual way as Counsellor. That is to say, he left it to me to decide what papers should go up to the Ambassador, who passed them back to me in due course. Then it was my responsibility to see action taken where necessary.’ He then spoke about going to the Alwiyah Club in the afternoon ‘to check on what the British community are thinking’.192 This procedure, standard at most embassies at that time and surviv- ing until much later, seemed to Thompson out of date, for it relegated the counsellor with all his experience merely to an advisory role in which he stood elegantly aside from the main stream of current work. Thompson changed this system and decided for himself what papers should go up to the Ambassador with his comments. Cornwallis’s staff were kept busy with reporting on the situation surrounding the execution of one of the generals of the ‘Golden Square’ and immediately afterwards organizing the visit of the Duke of Gloucester for three days, including a garden party at the embassy for 300 people. It was probably during this visit that the now infamous fountain at the residence once again threatened to cause a diplomatic incident. Sir Richard Beaumont recalled that Arshad al-Umari, the mayor of Baghdad, fell into the fountain in full evening dress (white tie and decorations) when retreating backwards in deference to the royal visitor.193 Cornwallis sensed that morale among some of the readers of the Iraq Times from the British community, the troops and many leading Iraqis needed a boost during these dark days of the war and he appointed Thompson to write some up- lifting editorials. Thompson took on this unusual task for a diplomat and for the rest of his time in Baghdad until November 1945 he wrote two or three articles a week as ‘The Watchman’. More problems were caused by the sudden establishment in Baghdad in September 1943 of the headquarters of the British forces in Persia and Iraq as an operational command (Paiforce) under General ‘Jumbo’ Wilson and some 250 other officers. The operational life of Paiforce was only three months but this coincided with the sudden illness of Cornwallis. He was a keen tennis player, even at the age of fifty-nine, and regularly played a few sets twice a week, even throughout the burning summer. One day he reached for a drive and split his lung, which collapsed. It mended only after three months but he then went on convalescence; so it fell to Thompson to run the embassy. Among many unusual duties he was heavily engaged in operating with Minister of Finance Salih Jabr the complicated Anglo-Iraqi dollar agreement. Thompson believed he might have managed to alienate Salih Jabr, apparently forgetting Cornwallis’ dictum: one could say anything to the Iraqis provided one said it with a smile and in private. As a result Thompson concluded that when Saleh Jabr became prime minister a few years later he blocked Thompson’s proposed return as ambassador in 1947 on the grounds that a candidate would be preferable ‘with greater sympathy for Iraq’s national aspirations’.194 Cornwallis felt that with the end of the war in sight in the spring of 1945 he could retire and he was succeeded after a short interval by Sir Hugh Stonehewer- 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 148

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Bird, previously minister in Jiddah. But Cornwallis was not forgotten. Whilst Stonehewer-Bird was absent for a few days in Kut, Thompson received a message addressed to Cornwallis by the paramount shaikh of the tribes between Baghdad and the Syrian border. He said he had been ordered by the Government to assemble all the tribal shaikhs of the area at Ramadi to consider the situation in Syria, where the French had lost control and British troops had taken over, and to decide what action, if any, the tribes should take. He sought Cornwallis’s advice. Thompson judged it pointless to try and explain that Cornwallis was no longer there and sent off a reply, as from Cornwallis, that the shaikhs should talk as much as they liked and pass as many resolutions as they wished but that no tribesman should cross into Syria, which was in process of being occupied by British troops, who would enforce security for all. This advice was followed to the letter!195

Hugh Stonehewer-Bird The new ambassador (or more likely his wife – see below) clearly did not think much of his residence and his tour in Baghdad was marked by a struggle with the Ministry of Works (MoW) to have it rebuilt. A MoW memorandum of July 1946 recorded that succeeding heads of post had since January 1934 tried to develop the Baghdad West site for staff accommodation. It went on: The present Residence faces the river and when it was built access was by boat. Now access is by car and as there is insufficient space between the river and the front of the house, the front door is where the back door used to be and the frontage consists of kitchen quarters and cloakrooms. The house has serious defects. It is expensive to maintain, as it has no damp-proof course which would have prevented salts from being drawn up from the ground which destroys plaster and decorations. In August 1945, the Ambassador raised a re-building scheme but was told there was a long list of priorities.196 Masha Williams, who arrived at the Embassy with her consul husband in 1947, remembered being received by Lady Stonehewer-Bird on the dusty lawn in the shade of a line of cypresses, when the latter pointed at the rambling white building of the Residence and remarked: ‘It’s neither a house nor a beautiful mansion. It’s a barracks and I hate it, and the Office won’t send us the furniture it needs.’197 In October 1946, Stonehewer-Bird discussed with the MoW a new residence in the middle of the chancery site, permitting a garden on the riverside, and staff accommodation on the 24-acre Baghdad West site, while the existing offices remained in use. The Foreign Office thought a good case could be made and asked the MoW for proposals. In 1948 the MoW proposed a new L-shaped residence at the north end of the riverfront with frontages facing up and down the river. To secure a commanding view the ground floor, containing the main reception rooms, should be raised well above ground level. The lower ground floor should have kitchen, stores, etc. The ground should be stepped down in garden terraces to the ground level of the riverside garden. Chancery was also to be rebuilt in a curve radial with the cir- cus round General Maude’s equestrian statue, which then stood outside the embassy gates.198 Stonehewer-Bird had however a great deal of other things on his mind than his home in the stirring post-war years. In 1945, there was a new ‘hard currency’ agreement to conclude and a trade mission led by Lord Davison to handle. At the end of 1945, the regent made a key speech in which he called for a change 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 149

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in the way Iraqi politics operated and for social and economic reforms. This change was partly reflected when Sir Hugh concluded on 2 August 1946 an Exchange of Notes with Dr Fadhil al-Jamali, the foreign minister, to normalize further relations between the two countries, which stated that: HMG will not in future claim any special procedure for the successors of H M Ambassadors at Baghdad in relation to the representatives of other Powers. I therefore have to propose that this Note should be considered as terminating the understanding embodied in the Notes exchanged on the 30th of June 1930 between Sir F. Humphrys and His Excellency Nuri Said regarding the status of the Missions in the respective capitals.199 Iraq raised its London legation to the level of embassy under the Amir Zayd.

Revision of Portsmouth Treaty Probably the most difficult task of Sir Hugh’s tour in Baghdad was the revision of the Portsmouth Treaty in the second half of 1947. The treaty had in fact ten years to run but the regent hoped to modify it in Iraq’s favour in the belief that this would go far towards placating the nationalist opposition elements and recoup some of his own lost prestige. This turned out to be an error. The opposition wanted the treaty abrogated not modified and by opening this divisive issue at a time when Britain’s role in Palestine was under attack the regent encountered serious trouble. Sir Hugh did in fact miss the main part of the negotiations as a result of illness which kept him away from Baghdad for some ten months. Counsellor Douglas Busk handled the burden and went to London for the final talks and signature by Ernest Bevin and by the Iraqi delegation led by Prime Minister Salih Jabr and Foreign Minister Dr Fadhil al-Jamali of the revised Treaty in Portsmouth on 15 January 1948. The treaty included inter alia the handing over of the RAF bases at Habbaniya and Shuaiba and the winding up of the British military mission. But Britain retained the right to re-occupy the base in the event of war and a mixed Anglo-Iraqi Council was established to develop military planning. Liaison was to be maintained on training and standardization of arms and equipment. At the same time, in Baghdad a crisis was developing, known as the Wathbah (Uprising), and articulate elements all over the country denounced the treaty not so much for its individual parts but for its continuation at all, perpetuating a tie which was felt inappropriate. Gerald de Gaury in his account of the period of the monarchy in Iraq believed: ‘. . . lack of continuity and good information may be held responsible for the failure of the Treaty. They in turn can be laid to the account of the machine of governing, and not against individuals. The wheels of administration turn come what may and in this case their rhythm was off beat with events.’200 As mentioned, the chargé d’affaires was responsible for the negotiations with the Iraqi Government and interpreting them to the Foreign Office, but Busk had little or no experience of the Arab world and did not have an intimate acquaintanceship with the leading personalities in Baghdad. De Gaury observed: The Oriental Counsellor had been sent as Colonial Secretary to Barbados. He was replaced by a man who was an archaeologist of distinction and a genuine Arab scholar with knowledge of tribes. Unfortunately this officer had no friends or even acquaintances among either Government or opposition leaders in Baghdad. The Assistant Oriental Secretary was sent to the Foreign Office and was twice replaced in six months. The Head of Chancery was recalled to London. The Third Secretary, holding only a temporary appointment, also left the country. In London the Foreign Office department conducting the negotiations went 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 150

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through almost similar changes. A senior official who had visited Baghdad to make the acquaintance of the leading personalities was sent as Ambassador to Rio de Janeiro. The head of the Eastern Department was sent as Minister to Iceland. The distinguished official who was in charge of the negotiations and who even came out to Baghdad to assist in conducting them in November was posted to the Berlin Control Commission in December. Even the junior official in charge of the Iraq Section was sent as Head of Chancery in Rangoon. The Political Intelligence Service in Baghdad also underwent changes and a senior police officer from Lahore was put in charge. All these changes occurred during the ten months of the negotiations. Moreover the Englishmen left in the country who really did know Iraq and the Iraqis and who knew well and of old the leaders of both the Government and the opposition were not taken into the confidence of the Embassy, probably owing to well-meant orders to preserve secrecy. It may well be that it was during these days of rioting that the more malev- olent opposition and mob leaders first felt the nature of their power and realized the weakness of the Iraqi throne and of British authority. They had forced ajar a door that might another time be opened farther; or so it may have seemed to them.201

Henry Mack Clearly these changes of personnel did not help in understanding the mood of the opposition in Iraq but the indications are that events would have taken their course anyway. A further change was imminent. In February 1948 a new ambassador, a tall, bright and lively Irishman, Sir Henry Mack, arrived to take charge, though he too had no previous experience of the Arab world, having come from Vienna. Like his predecessors he, and more particularly his wife, took an immediate dislike to the residence. Lady Mack described it as dreadful and dilapidated and was upset that the walls were so damp that it would take two months before they could be redecorated. Martin Le Quesne, the ambassador’s secretary, who had been living alone in the mausoleum, had shown Masha Williams the main bedroom which she described as ‘a vast empty hall about sixty feet by forty feet with a ceiling twenty feet high with two small Waring & Gillow single wooden beds’.202 Mack suggested to the MoW in November 1948 a different location for the new residence in the east of the compound with the inside of the L-shape facing over the river towards NE and NW to benefit from the cooler air from the north. In February 1949, the Foreign Office informed Sir Henry that the plans were agreed.203 But, in the post-war period, funds were lacking and the project ran into other difficulties over ownership of the Baghdad West site that continued through to 1950, when the land was re-registered in the land registry No. 704 Entry No. 49 of June 1950. But Sir Henry did at least succeed in one thing: he established the mini golf course in the garden, which was opened by King Faisal, as a thirteen-year-old boy, who did the first hole in one! Sir Henry used to tour the garden every morning with the Khan Sahib, an Indian who had performed the role of major domo for longer than anyone could remember. As his Private Secretary used to say: ‘Mack’s in his garden, all’s right with the world.’204 This image of tranquillity was in strict contrast with what was happening all around. The rioting and demonstrations over the treaty had had their effect, a new government was formed and after an early cabinet meeting it was announced that the treaty would not be ratified but that another treaty might be considered. But relations with Britain deteriorated further with the outbreak of hostilities in Palestine and the entry of Iraqi troops there on 15 May 1948. Martial law restored relative 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 151

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tranquillity but the press was allowed free rein to attack Britain. At the embassy it was all hands to the pumps as the telegrams in cypher poured in and even the wives were called in to help. The closure of the Iraq Petroleum Company’s pipeline to Haifa was a particular problem. Oil exports fell and Iraq’s oil royalties were halved, leading to pressure from the British (and the French and American) Government to re-open it, but the Iraqis had no choice but to resist. Relations began to improve again in 1949 with the resumption of the supply of British arms, loans and experts. Humphrey Trevelyan had arrived as counsellor (apparently people thought his name was Armenian!) and was heavily engaged in this activity. He was to put his experience to good use when he returned ten years later as ambassador. It was in early 1950 during Trevelyan’s first posting that Donald Maitland, who was to go on to pursue a highly successful career both in the Diplomatic Service and at the Department of Energy, arrived in Baghdad. Personnel had sought to persuade him to go with the enhanced local rank of consul to Amara, an important listening post in a sensitive tribal region. Maitland observed that it might be useful to know what he might hear in this listening post and was told that he would be fully briefed in Baghdad. Amara, then a small town of some 20,000 inhabitants none of whom was British, had once been a post of some such importance after it had been originally set up after the First World War; but at the beginning of 1950 neither Trevelyan nor Geoffrey Arthur, the oriental secretary, nor anyone else at the embassy could give Maitland a clear definition of his duties there. He continued nevertheless to Basra to see the consul general who supervised Amara but who equally had no clear idea about what he was supposed to do. Maitland left Basra by road at the end of January and described the approach to Amara: ‘. . . we saw a line of villas separated by dark green trees on the waterfront. Hadi pointed out the consulate – the “father of the tower”, he called it.’ Maitland found the consulate in a very run-down condition, which was hardly surprising as his predecessor, Colonel Berkeley, had left it ten months earlier. Maitland was no more encouraged by his call on the local governor who wondered aloud why he had been sent to this place. It only emerged a couple of months later in an indiscreet remark by the ambassador’s wife that Maitland had actually been sent to Amara to polish his Arabic before taking over from Arthur in Baghdad as oriental secretary. Maitland set to with a will to practise his Arabic but also submitted a strong recommendation that the Amara post should be abolished. By the summer of 1950, when his recommendation had been filtered through the system and accepted, Maitland was already ensconced in Baghdad and had been succeeded in Amara for only a few months by Dugald Stewart, who later made his name in former Yugoslavia.205

John Troutbeck Sir John Troutbeck arrived early in 1951 to take charge of the embassy over the next four years. Sir Anthony Parsons, who served on his staff as an assistant military attaché, described him as a wise and experienced ambassador who saw the need to change Britain’s relationship with Iraq.206 Events outside, for example in Egypt, where the clamour for British withdrawal was mounting, presaged the wave of Arab nationalism that was soon to sweep the area. Troutbeck’s approach was to lower Britain’s profile by reducing the outward appearances of a special relationship that caused resentment among the new generation. Parsons quoted the example of keeping British servicemen from the bases at Habbaniya and Shuaiba away from Baghdad and Basra, which they were in any event allowed to visit only in civilian clothes.207 The ambassador also broke with the habit of Iraqi ministers and local dignitaries calling at the embassy to discuss their affairs and insisted that he 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 152

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call on them. It apparently took some while for the local shaikhs to accept, as they wanted to be seen visiting the embassy as a sign of their standing with the British authorities.208 Group Captain John Hart, ADC to the ambassador in 1952–54, recalled however that he once escorted Prime Minister Nuri Said into the embassy by the back entrance to talk to the ambassador at midnight. He arrived by taxi dressed as a woman in a black abaya, a disguise he was to adopt less successfully in the revolution of 1958.209 In November 1952, as Lord Birdwood remarked, revolution was in the air. The streets of Baghdad were filled with shouting crowds and as usual the British embassy with the equestrian statue of General Maude outside proved a magnet for them. They did not breach the gates but the nearby US information office was burnt down. The new Iraqi Government headed by General Nuruddin Mahmoud (a graduate of Camberley Staff College) declared martial law and imposed a curfew. Calm was once more restored. Anglo-Iraqi relations again swung to the other extreme when the crown prince and Prime Minister Nuri Said visited London in 1953 for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. King Faisal II was also crowned later the same year after his return from school in England. The following year he went back on an official visit, described by Lord Birdwood as ‘a successful synthesis of the official round and friendly informality’.210 It was about this time that the ambassador was photographed outside his residence with Lady Troutbeck and his huge staff. Only the tree and the Turkish cannon remain today; as described later all the rest went as a result of the con- flagration in 1958. It was a time of realignments in the Middle East and the Iraqi Government too felt the need to revise the substance of its relations with Britain as embodied in the 1930 Portsmouth Treaty, which was due to expire anyway in 1957. Nuri Said favoured a defensive alliance with the northern-tier states of Turkey, Iran and Pakistan. Turkey had already signed in April 1954 an agreement with Pakistan. In February 1955, it concluded a pact of mutual cooperation with Iraq. On 4 April, Britain, seizing this opportunity to regularize its own relations with Iraq, signed first a special agreement placing the bases at Habbaniya and Shuaiba under Iraqi control in return for over-flying and fuelling rights and declaring Britain’s readiness to come to Iraq’s aid in case of attack and to continue to equip, supply and help train the Iraqi armed forces. The next day – 5 April – Britain adhered to the Turkish-Iraqi Pact. Handing over the British base at a ceremony at Habbaniya, the new British ambassador, Sir Michael Wright, took note of the changed relationship between the two countries by pointing out that Iraq was now an equal partner with Britain and Turkey in an agreement under the United Nations Charter for the promotion of peace and security in the Middle East. A similar ceremony took place at Shuaiba with the acting consul general, Joe Booth Wright, and the mutassarif of Basra, Muzahim Mahir, officiating. In September and October respectively Iran and Pakistan also signed the agreement and the Baghdad Pact came into being. The United States joined the Economic Committee in 1956 and the Military Committee in 1957. Things seemed to be set fair for the new relationship between Britain and Iraq.

Michael Wright Sir Richard Beaumont, who was at the embassy at the time, and later returned as ambassador, recalled211 that when he was at Sir Michael Wright’s presentation of credentials, an occasion when it was customary for the ambassador to present 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 153

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his senior staff in diplomatic or military uniform to the head of state, one of them, Norman Hainsworth, appeared wearing the uniform of an ambassador first class, having been sent it in error. Fortunately Sir Michael had obtained from his predecessor the old style ambassadorial uniform which was covered in gold braid; whereas the new style uniform (which lasted into the 1990s) was comparatively plain, so there was no risk of any confusion. Sir Michael Wright would probably have not found any such confusion amusing. He clearly upset many people during the remaining years of the monarchy in Iraq by an attitude at variance with the policy of the new relationship pursued by his predecessors. Members of his staff have described his style as ‘pro- Consular’. They recalled that he and his wife would appear last at their own dinner parties, went into dinner first and were served first. His car would always be parked on special occasions behind that of the king or the regent, while those of ministers or other ambassadors were parked elsewhere. The Iraqi historian, Najdat Fathi Safwat, described him thus: He was a senior career diplomat but it seems he had an old imperialist mental- ity. His superior manners and conduct gave rise to resentment among the Iraqis and his ambassadorial colleagues. He tried to appear different from other Ambassadors. He had been Viceroy of India during the Raj and had not served as Ambassador in an independent country.* His interference in internal affairs exceeded that of the High Commissioners during the Mandate.212 Safwat cited the US ambassador at the time, Waldemar Gallman, who did indeed remark on Iraqi complaints about Sir Michael’s influence on the king, the crown prince and Nuri Said and about over-zealous use some British officials made of their still privileged position in commercial affairs.213 There may have been some element of sour grapes in all this, because every country tries through its diplomatic representatives abroad to secure an advantageous position with their host countries. However from examples quoted by Gallman it would seem that Sir Michael and some British officials went to such lengths to preserve British interests that they attracted accusations of heavy-handedness. Wright’s tenure was certainly stormy. Egyptian reaction to the Baghdad Pact was violent. Their radio station ‘The Voice of the Arabs’ launched from Cairo daily attacks on Iraq and its allies, reaching out to all sections of the Iraqi population spreading a message of hostility to the regime. The greatest impact was on the officer corps, which was capable of mobilizing the force necessary to overthrow the established institutions.214 Britain’s action with France in occupying the Suez Canal in November 1956 precipitated a crisis in Iraq. The government issued a statement protesting at the Anglo-French invasion, demanding immediate withdrawal of all forces, boy- cotted Britain in Baghdad Pact meetings, and broke off relations with France but not Britain. These actions failed to still the inflamed feeling of the Iraqis and martial law was declared on 1 November. It did not prevent frequent disturbances across the country throughout the remainder of 1956, particularly among the students and schoolchildren in Baghdad, whose colleges and secondary schools were closed in an attempt to stop demonstrations. In November the IPC pipeline through Syria was blown up. The situation began to ease in the New Year and the schools were reopened in January. Britain began to participate again in Baghdad Pact meetings and was restored to full membership in June.

* Sic – In fact, Wright’s career was wholly in the Diplomatic Service, and he had been ambassador in Oslo before being appointed to Bagdhad. – see entry in Foreign Office List, 1965. 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 154

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Monarchy is overthrown The next upheaval was the short-lived Arab Union between Iraq and Jordan, which was negotiated in Amman on 11–14 February 1958 and ratified on 12 May. It came as a counter to the United Arab Republic formed earlier between Egypt and Syria on 1 February. Nuri Said was made the first and only prime minister. He worked hard to put the union on a sound economic basis and received promises of support from Britain and the United States. He invited Kuwait, still linked by treaty with Britain, to join the union and discussed the matter with British Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd on a visit to Baghdad on 7 March en route to Manila. But before the negotiations with Kuwait advanced very far Brigadier Abdul Karim Qasim overthrew the monarchy in the coup of 14 July. The coup d’état was the end of an era for Britain in Iraq. All the painstaking efforts since 1920 to establish order out of the chaos of the end of the Ottoman empire under a monarchy and an elected government were suddenly swept aside by a military dictator almost as an irrelevance. In a matter of hours, Britain’s role as Iraq’s principal supporter and adviser was brought to an end as if by accident. The king and Nuri Said were due to fly to Ankara at 8 a.m. on 14 July for a Baghdad Pact meeting. On 12 July the crown prince had returned to Baghdad from a visit to London and Turkey in order to take over. In the interval the 19th Brigade of the Iraqi Armoured Division under Brigadier Abdul Karim Qasim and the 20th Brigade under Colonel Abdul Salam Arif, which were stationed to the north and east of Baghdad, had orders to proceed to the Jordanian frontier, apparently in anticipation of an appeal from Amman to move troops into Jordan because of the anti-Chamoun rebellion in Lebanon. According to Lord Birdwood, who claimed to have consulted every source available,215 they had to pass through Baghdad, crossing to the west bank of the Tigris by the Faisal Bridge. At about 3 a.m., Arif moved his tanks through the city, crossed the bridge and made immediately for the key points which lay along the road running west from the Faisal statue: namely the railway and the broadcasting station. With the radio in their hands the leaders of the revolution could regard their complete control as assured. Simultaneously Arif sent units south to Nuri Said’s house and west to the royal palace – Qasr al-Rihab – near the racecourse, where the royal family were living temporarily while their new palace was under construction. The units arrived in position by 5 a.m. bringing in their train ‘a hard core of thugs who had been released from the gaol out at Baaqubah and brought into Baghdad in trucks. In turn they had collected a crowd off the streets. . . .’ The palace was surrounded: but for a moment the Palace Guard resisted. Hearing the firing, the king and his uncle, the crown prince, with other members of the royal family and a group of servants came down into the courtyard. Birdwood recorded that it was not known whether the fire of the Palace Guard or of the crown prince with his revolver provoked retaliation or whether the troops deliberately shot them down. A machine-gun rattled and the king, crown prince and his mother, two servants and two of the guards fell to the ground. Two terrified children who had missed the bullets ran back into the palace to tell Princess Abdia, who had stayed behind. These three met their death a few minutes later. Only Abdulillah’s third wife, Hayun, survived the fusillade by feigning death, though only slightly wounded, and being carried away as if for burial, by a palace guard. The Sharif Husain and Princess Badiya, who lived near the Palace, escaped with their three boys and their English nanny by disguising themselves and making their way to the Saudi embassy, where they sought successfully the protection of King Saud. They later settled in Switzerland. Nuri Said heard the shooting near the radio station and left 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 155

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his house on the river in Karadet Miriam, Baghdad West. He slipped down to the river and taking a bellum to the east bank went first to a friend’s house. He then attempted to travel disguised as a woman to another house but was recognized and shot. His wife and daughter-in-law remained safe in London. But the old order was finished. Qasim arrived in Baghdad with his forces only about noon and set up his headquarters in the Ministry of Defence. Meanwhile urged by the radio the mob pulled down the statues of King Faisal and General Maude, the liberator of Iraq from Turkish rule, and burnt down the British consulate and information office near the radio station. The Maude statue stood on an island in the road in front of the British embassy. (Sir Richard Beaumont tells the story216 that he and the then head of chancery, Robin Hooper, had earlier opened a file entitled ‘Come into the garden, Maude!’, with the recommendation to the ambassador to remove the statue from its provocative position to the more discreet chancery garden, but Wright chose to disregard their advice.) At that moment an embassy car arrived at the Embassy gates with the diplomatic bag from the airport. The moment the gates were opened to allow it in a large crowd burst through into the grounds. When Sir Michael Wright opened the door of the chancery a bullet whistled past his head. According to Gerald de Gaury,217 the situation of the ambassador, his family and staff was perilous and nerve-wracking and the comptroller of his household, Colonel Ludovic Graham (related to Sir John Graham, a later ambassador in Baghdad) was killed by a stray bullet as he was standing on the verandah above the inner courtyard. The others took refuge in the registry, then situated in the sirdab off the courtyard, where they started to burn the secret papers. Besieged by the crowd, they were told to come out or be burnt out. They had no choice. As they came out the crowd snatched their watches and trinkets but they were otherwise unharmed. A detachment of Iraqi soldiers belatedly appeared and marshalled the staff on the lawn, pointing their weapons at them and making no effort to stop the crowd, who were looting and setting fire to the ambassador’s residence. Boats were brought up the river to take away the heavier pieces of furniture and everything that could be moved or torn away was taken, until the flames drove off the looters. The temperature was around 114 °F in the shade. The ambassador’s party were kept in the open throughout the day and were released in the evening. They were escorted without any of their belongings to the new Baghdad Hotel on the east bank. Their safety was still by no means certain, while the position of several thousand other British was unknown. A senior RAF officer making his way to Habbaniya after a visit to Baghdad on Baghdad Pact duty was stopped by the mob and stabbed several times. According to de Gaury,218 he was a big man and struggled free to reach the Iraqi YMCA. When near it the door was opened by Miss Pilsbury who gallantly went out to his help and drove off the attackers by her display of courage and determination, looking after him until she could get him to a doctor. She was later awarded the MBE for her courage and devotion to duty. Two other Englishmen staying at the same hotel where the ambassador was taken later, were rounded up by rebels along with a group of Jordanians, an Egyptian, some Europeans and three Americans. The Englishmen finding themselves unguarded for a moment slipped away to safety. The others were set upon by the mob and few survived. The British pilot of Iraqi Airways, ready to take the King to Ankara, was detained at the airport for some hours until he successfully pleaded to be allowed to go to his wife in their house near the palace. He too was stopped by the mob and beaten up until rescued by some army personnel who sent him back to the airport. There were no doubt many other such stories that day. 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 156

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Sir Michael Wright’s report of the damage to the embassy told a sorry tale as Lord Trevelyan described later.219 By strange coincidence the residence had been photographed in April 1958 and the photographs show how it looked inside with its traditional English furniture. They make a sad comparison with those taken after the coup. Almost all the contents had been burnt, looted or damaged. Sir Michael pressed the authorities for an effort to be made to recover missing items but nothing was ever found, except a book on Chinese jade that was found by a Dutch engineer three years later on a rubbish heap a hundred miles south of Baghdad. The billiards room, separate from the residence, was not burnt. The outer walls of the residence still stood but some rooms had collapsed inside while others were intact and were used for storage afterwards. The beautifully sprung floor was preserved in the ballroom and was still in use in the 1980s. The infamous fountain had survived and was later, minus its elegant tiled facing, re- erected inside the chancery courtyard. The chancery itself fared better structural- ly but the furniture and fittings had been damaged and looted. The separate military attaché’s office and stationery store had been gutted by fire. Another block containing the office of the market officer and the assistant military attaché had also been gutted. Other outhouses, garages and their contents (including the ambassador’s Rolls Royce), servants’ quarters, etc. had been burnt, damaged and looted. The launch, the Mary Rich, named after Claudius James Rich’s wife, which was tied up before the residence, suffered some damage from burning and looting but could be used later for official trips and excursions. For the remainder of his time in Baghdad, Wright had to cope with many problems of readjustment. In the early stages after the coup, Britain was the main target of propaganda attacks and British (and other) women and children were evacuated. The RAF’s staging rights at Habbaniya were suspended. Britain (with the United States, Turkey and Iran) had to close its consulates in Mosul and Kirkuk. After a period in the Baghdad Hotel, the Wrights occupied the IPC guesthouse for the remaining months of their stay.

Humphrey Trevelyan Sir Humphrey Trevelyan made his return to Baghdad as ambassador in early December 1958. As he recalled,220 Wright had met the challenge of the revolution with fortitude and commonsense. He rightly felt that his own close personal association with the old regime made it undesirable for him to stay in Iraq. Sir Humphrey had just the right background in Iraq and the temperament to deal with the early, difficult days of Britain’s relations with the Qasim regime, which Britain had recognized on 31 July. First he had to find somewhere to live. Proposals had been accepted by the MoW to rebuild the residence on the old site, though some argued a clean break should be made by developing the Baghdad West site near St George’s Church. But continuing uncertainty delayed a start and Trevelyan meanwhile took over from his predecessor the IPC guesthouse, a typical brick house of the pre-war period near the Military Museum, which still existed as government offices in the 1980s. At least it was agreed that the old ballroom should be rehabilitated as a social club for Embassy staff. ‘The Oasis’, as it was called, proved a valuable amenity for many years to come. But Sir Humphrey led a very restricted life. As he described in his memoirs: . . . the Security Police were moderately active against the British. No one could come to the Embassy without being questioned, and our visitors were some- 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 157

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times arrested before they got inside or when they left.... The Military Attaché and the Arabic-speaking Counsellor were followed by the CID.... Telephone- tapping became more efficient . . . The spoons and forks sent by the Ministry of Works to replace those looted on the day of the revolution were sent from the office to my house. The A.O. telephoned my servant to let him know when the silver arrived. The CID appeared at my house within half an hour and, without permission, questioned the servants, believing that we were importing silver bars to give our secret agents.... We had to get a pass to leave the municipal limits of Baghdad, requiring in the early days 10 days’ notice, though on an afternoon ride one could avoid the checkpoints. Inside Baghdad diplomatic cars were held up and on one occasion shot at by members of the Popular Resistance Force searching for weapons. . . . It was prudent to avoid demonstrations, though they were not directed against foreigners. Throughout my stay in Baghdad there was never a demonstration against the British Embassy.221 In January 1959, Trevelyan recommended that the evacuated families should return as it was good for morale and despite fears in London and wild press stories life for foreigners was relatively peaceful. It took Trevelyan a year and a half to extract compensation for Colonel Graham’s death and the damage and looting at the embassy. As he wrote: We started by claiming £250,00, which we brought down to a little over £200,000, still something of a bargaining figure . . . After a year of frustrating negotiation, I sat down one afternoon with Qasim for a two-hours’ bargaining battle. I started at £200,000, Qasim with £55,000. Each tried to make the other propose a compromise figure. Qasim blandly argued that the embassy staff had set the embassy on fire by burning their papers and that the whole trouble had been started by their opening fire on a peaceful crowd. Besides, he added, it was justifiable that the ‘people’ should burn the embassy after the wrongs they had suffered from the British. We settled for £120,000 and the money was paid without delay.222

5. EPILOGUE – 1958–2003

n 1985, when the author arrived in Baghdad, the embassy presented a sorry Isight. Despite the efforts of Alec Stirling as acting head of chancery, who argued223 unavailingly that the residence was basically sound, that the repair estimate was reasonable, and that the money saved from not having to rent an ambassadorial residence would more than cover future upkeep, the decision was taken in 1961 that it would be too expensive to restore and that it was in any case poorly constructed with rubble-filled walls. However when demolition started the next year it was found that the walls were filled with concrete and it cost several times the estimate of restoration to demolish it. A replacement was not built and an obvious space remained like a gaping tooth between the old secretariat and the former ballroom and billiards room, decorated only by the ‘Baghdad cannon’ made by Krupps in 1843 and probably presented to the reigning Sultan Abdul Majid (it is inscribed in Turkish with ‘The gate of Constantinople’). The chancery itself had suffered from years of neglect as a result of the threat of expropriation which had hung over the site since the early 1980s when the adjacent Haifa Street complex was being planned and the Baghdad municipality sought to include the embassy grounds as a recreation area. The embassy surrendered in 1981 a strip of land from the compound frontage but managed to 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 158

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resist further demands. All diplomatic missions were encouraged to take up offers of land in a specially reserved area near the airport road and to build their chanceries and residences there. A few did so but most were reluctant to make the investment while Iraq was at war with Iran and were also wary about being confined to a diplomatic ghetto for the administrative convenience of the Iraqi authorities. FCO inspectors visited the embassy in 1983 and were appalled at the conditions in which the staff were working. Partly as a result of their report, a decision was taken and funds voted to restore the buildings to their former state and to make improvements. By 1985, this work was well under way but it took a further two years to complete the renovations, which included grinding off layers of paint applied over decades to reveal the original honey-coloured bricks, relaying the courtyard with traditional tiles, mounting the ‘Tigris plaque’ and the crest and a plaque from General Maude’s statue on the walls, refurbishing the fountain from the old residence and turning the semi-basement, vaulted serdab into a conference room. The result in the end was a handsome and imposing embassy worthy of Britain’s historic relationship with Iraq. The restoration of the offices was not matched by such a satisfactory solution for the residence. As mentioned, after the destruction of the residence in 1958 Sir Michael Wright moved temporarily into the Baghdad Hotel and then spent the remaining few months of his time in Baghdad in a house provided by the Iraq Petroleum Company. This still stood in the 1980s near the Iraq Military Museum, the former White Palace of the Iraqi monarchs. His successor, Sir Humphry Trevelyan, was offered the residence of the former IPC chief representative. It was known as ‘Todd Hall’, after Sir Herbert Todd, who had lived there since it was completed in 1952 until he left in 1958. He had had the good fortune to go on leave on the day of the revolution on 14 July 1958 and was actually flying out of Iraqi into Syrian airspace when the pilot was ordered to return to Baghdad but wisely kept going. So the IPC were quite glad to let the ambassador have the house at a time when they were keen to keep a low profile. Ian Macpherson, former Chairman of IPC (1982–88) related224 that in any case although it had been built as a prestige residence it was a bit of a millstone since it was badly designed and very expensive to run. The boiler in the basement was large enough to pro- pel a steamship and required constant attention from IPC engineers sent down from Kirkuk. The house was later included in the former presidential palace complex on the west bank of the Tigris. Sir Richard Beaumont, ambassador in 1965–67, resided there and recalled in particular the magnificent front garden with three-feet high Virginia night-scented stocks.225 The lawn was large enough to play two games of croquet simultaneously. The house had a double flight of steps leading to the entrance hall where there was a fountain and large reception rooms on both sides. Beaumont installed the house with furniture he found unopened in store that had been ordered by his predecessor, Sir Roger Allen.

‘The Big Lie’ Sir Richard’s tour came to an abrupt end on 7 June 1967 when he was awoken at a quarter to two in the morning and told he and his diplomatic staff would have to leave Iraq because the United States and Britain had effectively cooperated against the Arab states and supported the Israeli enemy by affording protective air cover over their territories from US and British aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean and bases in the vicinity. This charge became known later as ‘the Big Lie’ as it was entirely without foundation but it had a devastating short-term effect. Beaumont recalled that on the evening of 8 June his commercial counsellor gave him and his wife a 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 159

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farewell party. He was astonished to hear on the BBC during the party, while noisy demonstrations were taking place, that the British ambassador to Iraq and various members of his staff had arrived safely in Turkey! It was in fact a case of mistaken identity: it was the British ambassador to Syria, Trefor Evans, who coincidentally succeeded as ambassador to Iraq when relations were resumed in May the following year. Evans stayed for only a short while and did not resume immediately occupation of ‘Todd Hall’. It was left to the Balfour Pauls, who followed, to reinstall the house with furniture ordered by the Beaumonts. Glen Balfour Paul’s incumbency was also cut short in 1971 when Iraq once again broke off diplomatic relations with Britain over Iran’s occupation on 30 November of the Gulf islands of Abu Musa, belonging to Sharjah, and the Tunbs, belonging to Ras al-Khaimah, on Britain’s withdrawal of its forces from east of Suez and the ending of its responsibility for the defence and foreign relations of some of the Gulf states. In the interregnum ‘Todd Hall’ was lost to the embassy forever and when John Graham arrived to resume relations in 1974 he had to find a new residence, renting a house in Mansour, which later served his successors, Alec Stirling, Stephen Edgerton, John Moberly, the author and Harold Walker, until the latter after less than a year in post was instructed to leave Baghdad in January 1991 before the coalition led by US and British forces prepared to evict Iraq from its six-month occupation of Kuwait. At various times thought was given to rebuilding the residence on the large plot of land, referred to previously as the Baghdad West site, which comprised an area of some 97,000 sq. m. near the Baghdad radio station. Some British businessmen urged after the revolution in 1958 that it would be better to dispose of the whole chancery site and to build a completely new chancery and residence on the Baghdad West site where the consulate and the information services had been housed before they were sacked. They believed a move would emphasize our recognition that times had changed. Moreover, although the Baghdad West site lacked the amenity of the river, it was closer to parliament and other public institutions and was not surrounded by rather dilapidated housing, as the chancery then was. But there were never enough funds to undertake such a radical project and the political situation was in any case too uncertain. The uncertainty was clearly demonstrated in February 1963 when the embassy found itself caught up in the military action to depose Qasim. Charles Wallace, who was acting for the commercial counsellor away on leave, described the scene:226 John Robey, the deputy head of mission was holding the weekly staff meeting when there was a tremendous explosion, which they thought at first was a sonic boom but discovered later was the start of an aerial attack on Qasim’s Ministry of Defence, on the opposite of the river. Possibly as a result of the air attaché’s zeal on the embassy roof with a camera with a huge telephoto lens resembling a bazooka while snapping the attacking aircraft as they flew low down the Tigris to loose their missiles on the ministry, one of the attackers turned and flew at the embassy and opened fire. It seems to have been more of a warning than an attack, which is just as well as the mud roof on the ambassador’s office below would not have given much protection. None of the group of observers was hit but an Iraqi driver standing by the Bedford school van below was wounded in the arm by a splinter. Later on, the administration officer, Ron Braithwaite, was shot in the leg from nearby houses when trying to deter from the exposed upper verandah someone trying to interfere with the embassy launch down below. A visiting journalist was lightly wounded when going to his rescue. The structure of the embassy was also severely shaken when tanks, which guarded the embassy entrance, began firing at minimum elevation straight over the top at the Ministry of Defence. 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 160

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Later, in early 1978, the Ba’th regime under Hasan al-Bakr, which had assumed control in 1968, became interested in the Baghdad West site, initially for the purpose of building a grand centre to accommodate a non-aligned conference to be held in 1982. They were already intending to purchase compulsorily part of the site to build the approach road to the new Rashid Bridge. By the end of 1978, they had decided to expropriate the whole site, less the plots on which then stood the Institute for the Development of English Teaching in Iraq (IDELTI) and St George’s Church, and after protracted negotiations, terms were agreed in 1982. So that option for a move was then effectively closed. When the war with Iran, initiated by al-Bakr’s successor Saddam Husain in September 1980, came to an end in July 1988 and the future appeared for a while clearer, a fresh look was taken at building a new residence within the embassy compound. However, the subsequent invasion of Kuwait by Iraq on 2 August 1990, and the withdrawal of the ambassador in January 1991, put paid to further discussion of the embassy’s future for the next twelve years. After the overthrow of Saddam Husain and his Ba’thist regime by an international coalition of forces led by the United States and Britain in April 2003, Christopher Segar returned to open a British office in the former embassy on 5 May, operating initially out of temporary office and accommodation units brought in by flatbed lorries from Kuwait, until prefabricated buildings could be erected. After persist- ent threats to the security of the compound the office was relocated to the secure area around the former presidential palace in the so-called ‘Green Zone’, while further thought was given to the future of Kadhim Pasha’s palace. Meanwhile, in 2004, the British office was transformed into the British embassy under Edward Chaplin and consulates general were re-opened in Basra for the first time since 1971 and in Kirkuk for the first time since 1958. There was one echo from a long gone past. British forces arriving in Basra were puzzled to be greeted as ‘Abu Naji’, a relic from the 1920s. No one knows its precise origin but various explanations have been given: that Yusuf al- Suwaidi, the first President of the Iraqi Senate, who was staunchly pro-British, had a son called Naji;227 that Gertrude Bell’s friend and mentor on local affairs was Naji; that the high commission used to employ many Iraqi Jews, among whom the name Naji was common; and, perhaps most likely in view of the present context, that Naji (Saviour) was used sarcastically for the British who had come to save Iraq but who remained as occupiers.228 Those forces must have often had occasion to rue that other, more serious lessons appear not to have been drawn from their history of two previous occupations of Iraq.

NOTES

1. Brig.-Gen. F. J. Moberly, The Campaign in Mesopotamia 1914–18, (London: HMSO, 1923–27, 4 vols.), I, 45. 2 John Gordon Lorimer, Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, Oman and Central Arabia, (Calcutta: Government of India, 1908,1915, 2 vols.), I.1, 1188. 3. Lorimer, Gazetteer, I: 1, 1189. 4. B. J. Slot, The Origins of Kuwait, (Leiden: Brill, 1991; second edition, Kuwait: Centre for Research and Studies on Kuwait, 1998), p. 25. 5. Lorimer, Gazetteer, I:1, 1189. 6. Lorimer, Gazetteer, I:1, 1202. 7. J. A. Saldanha, Précis of Turkish Arabian Affairs, 1801–1905. (Simla: Government of India, 1906), pt. 2, 94. 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 161

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8. Lorimer, Gazetteer, I: 1,1202. 9. Lorimer, Gazetteer, I: 1, 1221 10. Lorimer, Gazetteer, I: 1, 1222 11. Saldanha, Précis of Turkish Arabian Affairs, pt. 2, 94. 12. Lorimer, Gazetteer, I: 1, 1222. 13. C. U. Aitchison (ed.), A collection of Treaties, Engagements and Sanads relating to India and Neighbouring Countries, (Calcutta: Government of India, 5th ed., 1929–1933, 13 vols.), XIII, 7–9. 14. Saldanha, Précis of Turkish Arabian Affairs, pt. 2, 95. 15. Lorimer, Gazetteer, I: 1,1620–1. 16. Lorimer, Gazetteer, I: 1,1622–3. 17. Lorimer, Gazetteer, I: 1,1623–4. 18. Saldanha, Précis of Turkish Arabian Affairs, pt 2, 96. 19. Lorimer, Gazetteer, I: 1,1297. 20. Lorimer, Gazetteer, I: 1,1301. 21. Lorimer, Gazetteer, I: 1,1305. 22. The British Library and the British Museum organized a bicentennial exhibition on 9 October 1986–29 March 1987 ‘Claudius James Rich: Diplomat, Archaeologist and Collector’, whose details were given in the British Library exhibition notes. 23. J. S. Buckingham, Travels in Mesopotamia, (London: Henry Colbourn, 1827), p. 390. 24. Buckingham, Travels, p. 391. 25. C. Alexander, Baghdad in Bygone Days, (London: John Murray, 1926), p. 43, letter from Rich to Sir James Mackintosh, his father-in-law. 26. Alexander, Baghdad in Bygone Days, pp. 45–8. 27. Alexander, Baghdad in Bygone Days, pp. 33–5. 28. Alexander, Baghdad in Bygone Days, p. 63. 29. Seton Howard Frederick Lloyd, Foundations in the Dust: a story of Mespotamian Exploration, (London: Oxford University Press, 1947), p. 40–1. 30. Claudius James Rich, Narrative of a Residence in Koordistan and on the site of Nineveh; with a journal of a voyage down the Tigris to Baghdad, and an account of a visit to Shiraz and Persepolis, edited by his widow, (London: 1838, 2 vols.). 31. H. V. Hilprecht,, Explorations in Bible Lands during the 19th century, (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1903), p. 36. 32. Alexander, Baghdad in Bygone Days, p. 258. 33. Alexander, Baghdad in Bygone Days, p. 33. 34. Buckingham, Travels, p. 392. 35. Sir A. Henry Layard, Discoveries in the ruins of Nineveh and Babylon; with travels in Armenia, Kurdistan and the Desert: being the result of a second expedition undertaken for the Trustees of the British Museum, (London: John Murray, 1853), p. 431. 36. Lloyd, Foundations in the Dust, p. 145n. 37. Bertram Thomas, Arabia Felix: Across the empty quarter of Arabia, (London: Jonathan Cape, 1932, reprinted Oxford: Alden Press Readers’ Union edition, 1938), p. 69. 38. Saldanha, Précis of Turkish Arabian Affairs., pt.2, 97. 39. Lorimer, Gazetteer, I:1,1328. 40. Saldanha, Précis of Turkish Arabian Affairs, pt. 2, 97. 41. Hon. George Keppel, The Personal narrative of a journey from India to England, by Bussorah, Bagdad, the ruins of Babylon, Curdistan, the Court of Persia, the western shore of the Caspian Sea, Astrakhan, Nizhney Novogorod, Moscow and St. Petersburgh, in the year 1824, (London: Henry Colbourn, 1827; 2 vol. second edition.1834), I, 140. 42. Lorimer, Gazetteer, I: 1,1337. 43. A. N. Groves, Journal of a Residence at Baghdad, (London: James Nisbet, 1832). 44. James Raymond Wellsted, Travels to the city of the Caliphs along the shores of the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean; including a voyage to the coast of Arabia and a tour on the island of Socotra, (London: Henry Colbourn, 1840, 2 vols.) II, 295. 45. Major Thomas Skinner, Adventures during a journey overland to India, by way of Egypt, Syria and the Holy Land, (London: Richard Bentley, 1836), p. 128. 46. Skinner, Adventures, p. 240. 47. Skinner, Adventures, p. 242. 48. W. F. Ainsworth, A Personal Narrative of the Euphrates Expedition, (London: Kegan Paul, 1888, 2 vols.), I, 390. 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 162

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49. Tristam James Ellis, On a Raft and Through the Desert: The narrative of an artist’s journey through Northern Syria, (London: Field & Tuer, 1881. 2 vols.), II, 33–34. 50. Sir A. Henry Layard, Autobiography and letters from his childhood until his appointment as H.M. Ambassador at Madrid, (London: John Murray, 1903, 2 vols.), I, 340–41. 51. Layard, Autobiography, I, 340–41 52. Lorimer, Gazetteer, I:1,1838–9. 53. Saldanha, Précis of Turkish Arabian Affairs, pt.2, 98. 54. Lorimer, Gazetteer, I: 1,1393. 55. Saldanha, Précis of Turkish Arabian Affairs, pt.2,.98. 56. Saldanha, Précis of Turkish Arabian Affairs, pt.2, 98. 57. Saldanha, Précis of Turkish Arabian Affairs, pt.2, 99. 58. Saldanha, Précis of Turkish Arabian Affairs, pt.2, 99. 59. Canon George Rawlinson, A Memoir of Major-General Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1898), p. 142. 60. Rawlinson, A memoir, p.148. 61. Pierre de Vaucelles, La vie en Irak il y a un siècle vue par nos consuls, (Paris : Pedone, 1963). (Petit histoire des consulats, no. 1), p. 11. 62. F. C. Webb, Up the Tigris to Baghdad, (London: Spon, 1870), pp. 31–3. 63. Ellis, On a Raft and Through the Desert, II, 11–12 64. Ellis, On a Raft and Through the Desert, II, p.20. 65. Webb, Up the Tigris to Baghdad, pp. 36–7. 66. Webb, Up the Tigris to Baghdad, pp. 38–9. 67. Lady Anne Blunt, Bedouins of the Euphrates, (London: John Murray, 1879, 2 vols.), I, 195. 68. Saldanha, Précis of Turkish Arabian Affairs, pt. 2, 114–119. 69. Lorimer, Gazetteer, I: 1, 2684. 70. Blunt, Bedouins of the Euphrates, I, 89–90 71. Blunt, Bedouins of the Euphrates, I, 188. 72. E. A. Wallis Budge, By Nile and Tigris: a narrative of journeys in Egypt and Mesopotamia on behalf of the British Museum between the years 1886 and 1913, (London: John Murray, 1920, 2 vols.), II, 129. 73. Budge, By Nile and Tigris, I, 227. 74. Budge, By Nile and Tigris, I, 230. 75. Budge, By Nile and Tigris, II, 121. 76. Lorimer, Gazetteer, I: 1, 1568. 77. Lorimer, Gazetteer, I: 1,1568. 78. Lorimer, Gazetteer, I: 1,1567 et seq. 79. Saldanha, Précis of Turkish Arabian Affairs, pt.2, 110–111. 80. Saldanha, Précis of Turkish Arabian Affairs, pt.2, 111. 81. Lorimer, Gazetteer, I: 1,1579. 82. Saldanha, Précis of Turkish Arabian Affairs, pt.2, 123–126. 83. Armand Pierre Cholet, Voyage en Turquie d’Asie: Arménie, Kurdistan et Mésopotamie, (Paris : Librairie Plon, 1892), p. 325. 84. Saldanha, Précis of Turkish Arabian Affairs, pt.2, 119–122. 85. Saldanha, Précis of Turkish Arabian Affairs, pt.2, 121–122. 86. Saldanha, Précis of Turkish Arabian Affairs, pt.2, 113. 87. National Archives, FO371/277 of 1936. 88. Saldanha, Précis of Turkish Arabian Affairs, pt.2, 111–13. 89. Lloyd,, Foundations in the Dust, p. 189. 90. Gertrude Bell, Amurath to Amurath, (London: Heinemann, 1911), p. 184. 91. Bell, Amurath to Amurath, p.197 92. Gertrude Bell, Journal, held at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. 93. Richard Coke, Baghdad, the City of Peace, (London: Thornton Butterworth, 1927), pp. 288–9. 94. Sir Arnold Talbot Wilson, Loyalties – Mesopotamia 1914–1917: a personal and historical record, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1930, 2 vols.), I, 235. 95. Wilson, Loyalties, I, 12–13. 96. Ronald Millar, Kut – The Death of an Army, (London, Secker & Warburg, 1969), gives a detailed account of the siege and surrender of Kut. 97. Wilson, Loyalties, I, 64–65. 98. Coke, Baghdad, the City of Peace, p. 290. 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 163

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99. Moberley, Campaign in Mesopotamia, I, 45. 100. Gertrude Bell, Letters of Gertrude Bell, selected and edited by Lady Florence Bell (London: Ernest Benn, London, 1927, 2 vols.), II, 512–3 101. Sir Ronald Storrs, Orientations, (London: Nicholson & Watson, 1937), p. 254. 102. Storrs, Orientation, p. 256. 103. Major General Sir George Fletcher Macmunn, Military Operations Egypt & Palestine (London: HMSO, 1928–30, 5 parts) (History of the Great War based on Official Documents), pp. 215–17. 104. H Victor F Winstone, Leachman: ‘O.C.Desert’, (London, Quartet Books, 1982), pp. 218–21. 105. Wilson, Loyalties, 1, 275 106. Wilson, Loyalties, I, 275 107. Wilson, Loyalties, I, 276. 108. Graves, op.cit., p.225. 109. Bell, Letters, II, 458–459. 110. Wilson, Loyalties II, 139–140. 111. Wilson, Loyalties. II, x–xi. 112. John Marlowe, Late Victorian: the Life of Sir Arnold Talbot Wilson, (London: Cresset Press, 1967), p. 129. 113. Stephen Hemsley Longrigg, Iraq 1900–1950: a political, social and economic history, (London: Oxford University Press, 1953), p. 114. 114. Philip Graves, The Life of Sir Percy Cox, (London; Hutchinson, 1941), p. 262. 115. Hope, S, Arabian Adventurer, Robert Hale, London, 1951, gives an account of his life. 116. Longrigg, Iraq 1900–1950, p. 122. 117. Graves, Sir Percy Cox, p. 265. 118. National Archives, CO 730/153/10-part I, 1930. 119. National Archives, CO 730/10/4 120. This is a transliteration of the name in the Land Registry entry. 121. Longrigg, Iraq 1900–1950, p. 63. 122. Longrigg, Iraq 1900–1950, p. 61 123. Bell, Journal. 124. Graves, Sir Percy Cox, p. 323 125. Sir Percival Phillips, Mesopotamia: The ‘Daily Mail’ Inquiry, (London : Daily Mail, 1923), p. 7. 126. Phillips, Mesopotamia, p. 26. 127. Lady Drower (Ethel Stefana Stevens), By Tigris and Euphrates, (London: Hurst & Blackett, 1923), p. 315. 128. Phillips, Mesopotamia, p. 27. 129. Phillips, Mesopotamia, p. 26. 130. Phillips, Mesopotamia, pp. 30–1. 131. Phillips, Mesopotamia, p. 32. 132. Phillips, Mesopotamia, p. 40. 133. Longrigg, Iraq 1900–1950, p. 130. 134. Longrigg, Iraq 1900–1950, p. 132. 135. Longrigg, Iraq 1900–1950, p. 134. 136. Graves, Sir Percy Cox, p. 305. 137. Graves, Sir Percy Cox, p. 307. 138. Phebe Marr, The Modern History of Iraq, (London: Longman, 1985, p. 44. 139. Graves, Sir Percy Cox, p. 318. 140. Longrigg, Iraq 1900–1950, p. 142. 141. Graves, Sir Percy Cox, p. 326. 142. Sir Harry Sinderson, Ten Thousand and One Nights: memories of Iraq’s Sherifian dynasty, (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1973), pp. 72–3. 143. Sinderson, Ten Thousand and One Nights, p. 75. 144. Sinderson, Ten Thousand and One Nights, p. 77. 145. Sinderson, Ten Thousand and One Nights, p. 77. 146. Longrigg, Iraq 1900–1950, p. 151. 147. H. V. F. Winstone, Gertrude Bell, (London: Jonathan Cape, 1978, reprinted London: Quartet Books, 1980), p. 253. 148. Winstone, Gertrude Bell, p. 250. 149. Longrigg, Iraq 1900–1950, p. 179 150. Longrigg, Iraq 1900–1950, p. 183. 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 164

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151. National Archives, CO 730/153/10. 152. National Archives, CO 730/153/10. 153. National Archives, Work 10/271. 154. Sir Terence Clark, ‘Iraq: People and Places’, Asian Affairs, vol. XXXII, part I, (February 2001), 3–19. 155. Peter Sluglett, Britain in Iraq 1914–1932, (London: Ithaca Press for the Middle East Centre, St Antony’s College, 1976), p. 220. 156. Sluglett, Britain in Iraq 1914–1932, p. 221. 157. Sinderson, Ten Thousand and One Nights, p. 150. 158. Sinderson, Ten Thousand and One Nights, p. 158. 159. Sinderson, Ten Thousand and One Nights, p. 158. 160. Sir Maurice Drummond Peterson, Both Sides of the Curtain: An Autobiography, (London: Constable, 1950, pp. 136–7. 161. Sinderson, Ten Thousand and One Nights, p. 167. 162. Sinderson, Ten Thousand and One Nights, p. 167. 163. Lord Birdwood, Nuri as-Said: A Study in Arab Leadership, (London: Cassel, 1959), pp. 164–5. 164. Peterson, Both Sides of the Curtain, pp. 144–5. 165. Longrigg, Iraq 1900–1950, p. 276–7. 166. Lady M. Williams, The Consul’s Memsahib, (Brighton, England: Book Guild, 1985), p. 2. 167. Birdwood, Nuri as-Said., p. 169. 168. Marr, Modern History of Iraq, p. 78. 169. Sir Laurence Grafftey-Smith, Bright Levant, (London: Murray, 1970), p. 197–8. 170. Sir Richard Beaumont, personal correspondence. 171. Sir Alec Stirling, personal correspondence. 172. National Archives, FO 371/31377. 173. Majid al-Sawwaf, personal interview in 1987. 174. Grafftey-Smith, Bright Levant, pp. 178–9. 175. Grafftey-Smith, Bright Levant, p. 182. 176. Longrigg, Iraq 1900–1950, p. 279. 177. National Archives, BW 82/9, British Council Quarterly Report of April 1940. 178. Sinderson, Ten Thousand and One Nights, p. 177. 179. Sinderson, Ten Thousand and One Nights, p. 182. 180. Sinderson, Ten Thousand and One Nights, p. 182 181. Sinderson, Ten Thousand and One Nights, pp. 185–6. 182. Longrigg, Iraq 1900–1950, p. 289. 183. Derek Hopwood, Tales of Empire: The British in the Middle East 1880–1952, (London: I B Tauris, 1989), p. 194. 184. Freya Stark, The Arab Island: The Middle East 1939–43, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945), p. 164. 185. Hopwood, Tales of Empire, p. 194. 186. Entry in the Miscellaneous Record Book of the U S Legation, Baghdad, for 1941, held at the US Embassy, Baghdad. 187. Betty Morrison (nee Sulman), obituary, The Times, 23 May 2003. 188. Longrigg, Iraq 1900–1950, p. 294. 189. Hopwood, Tales of Empire, p. 194. 190. Longrigg, Iraq 1900–1950, p. 297. 191. Longrigg, Iraq 1900–1950, p. 301. 192. Sir Geoffrey Harrington Thompson, Front Line Diplomat, (London: Hutchinson, 1959), pp. 173–4. 193. Beaumont correspondence. 194. Thompson, Front Line Diplomat, pp. 184–5. 195. Thompson, Front Line Diplomat, p. 186. 196. National Archives, Work 10/271. 197. Williams, Consul’s Memsahib, p. 12. 198. National Archives, Work 10/271. 199. Treaty Series No.15 (1931), Cmd. 3797, p. 9. 200. Gerald de Gaury, Three Kings in Baghdad, 1921–58, (London: Hutchinson, 1961), p. 155. 201. de Gaury, Three Kings in Baghdad., p. 155. 202. Williams, Consul’s Memsahib, p. 99. 203. National Archives, Work 10/271. 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 165

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204. Sir Donald Maitland, Diverse Times Sundry Places, (Brighton, England, Alpha Press, 1996), p. 57. 205. Maitland, Diverse Times Sundry Places, pp. 47–9. 206. Sir Anthony Parsons, They say the Lion, (London: Jonathan Cape, 1986), p. 8. 207. Parsons, They say the Lion, p. 9. 208. Parsons, They say the Lion, p. 9. 209. Group Captain J. Hart, personal correspondence. 210. Birdwood, Nuri as-Said, p. 228. 211. Beaumont correspondence. 212. N. F. Safwat, in Al-Tadhamun, vol. 3, no.139, (7–13 December 1985), 60. 213. Waldemar John Gallman, Iraq under General Nuri: my recollections of Nuri al-Said, (Baltimore MD: John Hopkins Press, 1964, pp. 173–4. 214. Marr, Modern History of Iraq, pp. 118–19. 215. Birdwood, Nuri as-Said, pp. 264–8. 216. Beaumont correspondence. 217. de Gaury, Three Kings in Baghdad, p. 199. 218. de Gaury, Three Kings in Baghdad, p. 199. 219. Lord Trevelyan, The Middle East in Revolution, (London: Macmillan, 1970), p. 137. 220. Trevelyan, Middle East in Revolution, p. 139. 221. Trevelyan, Middle East in Revolution, pp. 156–7. 222. Trevelyan, Middle East in Revolution, p. 158. 223. Stirling, correspondence. 224. Ian Macpherson in conversation with the author on 21 July 2005. 225. Beaumont, correspondence. 226. For this and other information about the embassy at this time, see his memoirs Charles Wallace, The Valedictory, (Lewes, England: Book Guild, 1992). 227. National Archives, FO 371/140953, letter of 9/10 June 1959 from Humphrey Trevelyan to George Hiller, explaining terms used by the infamous Colonel Mahdawi in the trials he conducted in the People’s Court. 228. Clark, ‘Iraq: People and Places’, 3–19. 2406_CH03.qxd 5/19/08 4:46 PM Page 166 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 167

PART THREE: KUWAIT

Richard Muir 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 168 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 169

CHAPTER 4 Kuwait

1. 1904: THE FIRST AGENCY

ritain first stationed a political officer in Oman in 1800 and in Persia in 1811 Bbut had no permanent representation in Kuwait until 1904. In August that year, Colonel S. G. Knox, an officer in the Indian political service landed from the mail steamer RIMS Lawrence to take up the new post of political agent, Kuwait. The Lawrence anchored two miles offshore. Kuwait’s bay, although twenty miles wide from north to south was shallow, the deep water channel winding unmarked between sandbanks. The approach to the town, which stretched for a mile and a half along a low sandy ridge, was by launch. Single-storey mud buildings clustered together, roof terraces turned to the sea to catch the slight breeze in the summer heat. On the foreshore, stone breakwaters formed a series of docks; lines of large wooden dhows lay moored and drawn up on the mud for repair. Kuwait was the only substantial port between Basra and Bahrain. The town had outgrown its walls and stood open to the desert. Although hot and humid in August, for much of the year Kuwait enjoyed a cool, dry climate and as a result was healthier than most other ports in the Gulf. Its bay was large enough to provide ‘good and ample anchorage for all the fleets in the world’, and although it had only a few wells with brackish water, no vegetation and had to import its drinking water the town was clean and prosperous, ‘a pleasant contrast to the tumble-down squalor of the Persian towns of the Gulf’.1 Kuwait’s success sprang from its trade. Its dhows plied the Gulf between Basra and the Persian ports and on into the Red Sea, to India and East Africa. Its merchants financed over 400 vessels in the annual Gulf pearl fishery and sold the catch in Bombay and the Levant.2 On the landward side, Kuwait was a trading hub for the Bedouin tribes who ranged over the scrubby pastures stretching into the Najd. Caravans travelled from Kuwait into the desert and onwards to Damascus and Aleppo. Bazaars filled large tracts of land on the edge of the town supplying the Bedouin with cotton goods, cooking oil and other staples; there was a brisk trade in guns. Until Knox’s arrival, British political officers had dealt with Kuwait from the residency at Bushire on the Persian coast, a day’s steaming across the Gulf. They 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 170

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estimated the population at 18,000 and growing as the shaikh granted free sites on all sides of the town to be ‘taken up and built upon by enterprising individuals as commercial speculation’.3 Other British observers noted the wider commercial potential; the journalist Valentine Chirol wrote in 1903 that Kuwait would ‘require no excessive expenditure of money or of engineering skill to make it a really commodious port.4 This interest was not lost on Kuwait’s ruler Shaikh Mubarak Al Sabah. For Mubarak, Knox’s appearance on 4 August 1904 as political agent accredited exclusively to Kuwait was the culmination of a long campaign to establish Kuwait’s autonomy from the Turks and his own authority as ruler. Thus when Knox landed and was taken to the shaikh’s residence, he found an enthusiastic welcome. He was received in a high room overlooking the bay, furnished in European fashion with carpets and large armchairs; portraits of Queen Victoria and King George V and Queen Mary hung on the walls. Shaikh Mubarak dominated the room, a tall, well built and commanding figure in his late sixties.5 Knox handled the encounter with some reserve; he was aware that an uneasy compromise lay behind his instructions to proceed to Kuwait. Until the 1890s, Kuwait had merited only the occasional visit from the Royal Navy and passing British officials. The Foreign Office still thought this remote corner of the Gulf best left to the ramshackle Ottoman Empire. But the India Office and the Government of India had reached a different conclusion: British interests in the Gulf required a presence in Kuwait even if it did upset the Turks. With no unanimity over his instructions, Knox had a tricky hand to play. Knox will have been well briefed on Kuwait’s history, which the Government of India had been documenting for some time.6 The British were aware that Mubarak, the present ruler was descended from a long line of Al Sabah shaikhs. The family had governed Kuwait since their tribe, the Al Utub, had emigrated from central Arabia to the Gulf coast some time in the early eighteenth century, eventually settling at Kuwait (the name probably derived as the diminutive from the Arabic kut – small fort). Having lost their roots in the central Arabian desert the Al Utub began to prosper as seamen, pearl fishers and traders. By the mid-eighteenth century, Kuwait began to rival Basra as a point of transit for the trans-desert route from India through the Gulf to the Mediterranean. The Al Sabah acquired a reputation for stable, low profile rule that allowed merchants to flourish. They became skilled at playing off the desert tribes and the periodic attempts of the ramshackle Ottoman Empire to absorb Kuwait and its port. There had been brief British contact with the Al Sabah shaikh of Kuwait in 1756 when merchants of the East India Company (EIC) at Bushire considered an alternative overland route through Kuwait to Aleppo. In the 1770s, the company moved its operations to Kuwait when the Persians occupied Basra. In 1793, the representative at Basra, Captain Manesty, transferred his factory and Indian sepoys to Kuwait after a row with the Turkish authorities. But the EIC preferred whenever it could to deal with the Turks at Basra and to concentrate its Gulf trade on the more navigable, more populated, and commercially more attractive Persian coast. For most of the nineteenth century, British interest in the Arab side of the Gulf was limited to the coastal tribes near the straits of Hormuz and the piracy that had become a menace to Bombay’s trade with Persia and Basra. Maritime treaties were introduced to keep the peace with the arab shaikhs of the Trucial Coast. Kuwait was brought briefly into the system 1841, but the agreement lapsed and was not renewed. A British report at the time described Kuwait as ‘a singular instance of 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 171

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commercial prosperity, although wanting in almost every advantage, excepting its magnificent harbour’.7 Since Kuwait shared the British interest in keeping the Gulf open for trade and communication with India there was little reason for the hard pressed British authorities to devote scarce resources to Kuwait. The Royal Navy looked into the bay occasionally; the consul in Basra and the resident in Bushire kept a watching brief on events in the town and the Najd desert beyond. Otherwise the British left Kuwait to its own devices. This calculation changed as the steamship brought the upper Gulf closer to India and Europe. Kuwait, previously a difficult place to reach by sail, was now just a day’s steaming from the British residence at Bushire, newly linked by telegraph to Basra and to India. Royal Navy surveyors charted Kuwait bay, its approaches and offshore islands. A few far sighted officials saw the strategic potential. Colonel Pelly, the Bushire political resident, explored the waterways north of the bay and concluded in 1865 that the deep Khor Abdalla Channel running past Bubiyan and Wahba islands up to Umm Qasr could some day make a major port linked by railway through Mesopotamia to Europe.8 Pelly went on from Kuwait into the unexplored Najd on a mission to open contact with the Al Saud at Riyadh and Kuwait began to come into focus as a window into the still unexplored and mysterious interior of the northern Arabian peninsula, the ‘Arabia Deserta’ that was to attract Charles Doughty and Wilfrid and Lady Anne Blunt.* The heightened British interest registered in Constantinople. The Ottoman Empire still claimed control of the Gulf coast from Basra south to Bahrain and the Qatif oasis on the mainland (the present Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia) and Qatar. The inauguration of the Suez Canal in 1869 brought the Gulf closer by sea to Constantinople. From the Najd, a vast area of desert and scattered oasis settlements, nomadic tribes roamed into Turkish territory in Syria, Iraq and the Hejaz. The Al Saud family, whom the Turks had crushed in 1818, were again becoming uncomfortably independent as rulers of the central Najd, a magnet for disaffected tribes and a threat to the sultan’s claim as caliph to be protector of the holy places at Mecca and Medina. Pelly’s expedition through the Najd added to Ottoman suspicions that the British were out to undermine their weak grip on the region. The Turks countered at first by wooing the Al Saud with titles, medals and funds. When that failed, they backed the Al Saud’s old rivals, the Al Rashid family, who controlled the Jebel Shammar highlands and northern Najd from Ha’il, an oasis town on the pilgrim route from Turkish Iraq to Mecca. By 1887, the Turks had succeeded in driving the recalcitrant Al Saud leaders into exile in Kuwait and had installed an Al Rashid ruler as their client in Riyadh.9 Recognizing that the Turks had the upper hand, the Kuwaiti ruler, Abdalla Al Sabah, avoided outright conquest by accepting the outward trappings of Turkish control. As an Ottoman qaimaqam (provincial governor), Abdalla joined Turkish forces in expeditions to reassert the Sultan’s influence southwards through the Qatif oasis to Qatar. Kuwaiti ships began flying the Turkish flag, a move they explained to the British at Bombay as no more than a device to benefit from the lower rate of duties charged to Turkish ships.10 The Foreign Office in London took note of reports from the consul in Basra of these developments. So, with greater interest, did the India Office and the

* Palgrave made a journey into areas of Central and Eastern Arabia previously unexplored by Westerners in 1867, the Blunts travelled from Damascus through the Nefud desert to Ha’il in the winter of 1878–9 and Charles Doughty followed the pilgrim route from Damascus to the Hejaz in the 1880s; all wrote up their journeys in books which became classics of desert travel. 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 172

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Government of India. But they had little practical impact on the British interest in trade and secure communications up and down the Gulf. At the time Britain had no ambitions in the unexplored Arabian hinterland and no strong objection to Turkish claims which seemed more about outward symbols – flags, titles and public prayers to the sultan as caliph – than the substance of power. Britain’s regional policy was to shore up the weak Ottoman Empire ‘the sick man of Europe’ against growing Russian ambition. British travellers to the area were already speaking of ‘the coming break up of the Ottoman Empire’.11 Turkish claims were in themselves no threat to British interests in the Gulf. Indeed, if Turkish influence helped reduce piracy it was a plus. So the British authorities were content to leave Kuwait’s status vague. Its relationship with Turkey was similar to that of the autonomous Indian native states with British India. These princedoms were deemed ‘under the suzerainty of’ Britain12 and the term, stopping short of full sovereignty, seemed suitable to describe Kuwait’s relationship with Turkey. It need not preclude direct British dealings with Kuwait from Bushire. When pirates appeared to be operating against Indian shipping from a lair in the Al Sabah date gardens on the Shatt al- Arab south of Basra, the political resident had no qualms in going straight to the shaikh of Kuwait; he seemed in charge of his own affairs and capable of dealing with the nuisance, there was no need to involve the Turks. Apart from such occasional nuisances, Kuwait in 1895 posed no threat to British interests. Neither did the town or the bay on which it stood appear to have sufficient strategic value to justify a British presence and the row with the Turks that would probably follow. The wiser course was to leave Kuwait’s status vague and to deal with it when necessary from Bushire. But these calculations were to change radically over the following eight years leading up to Knox’s arrival in Kuwait.13

2. CURZON, MUBARAK, THE 1899 BOND AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

here were two catalysts for change: the succession of Mubarak Al Sabah in TKuwait in 1896 and the appointment of George Curzon as viceroy of India in 1898. Behind these two large personalities lay a shift in the regional balance of power as the Turkish grip on Arabia eroded, bringing with it both real and perceived threats from Russia and Germany to Britain’s control over the strategic approaches to India. The outward pomp and circumstance surrounding the celebration of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897 concealed growing unease about Britain’s ability to sustain its Empire against rival powers. While the prime minister, Lord Salisbury, worried about imperial overreach, a powerful lobby of self acknowledged imperialists emphasized the threat from rival powers and called for a more activist foreign policy and greater vigilance in defending the Empire. Quite why and how Mubarak seized power in Kuwait in 1896 was unclear to the British Government. Reputedly born in 1837, Mubarak, a younger brother of the ruling Shaikh Abdalla, was ambitious and clever. He showed an early taste for politics. He took a leading part in a Turkish campaign against Qatar in 1895 and had probably been involved in the expedition Abdalla had supported against Qatif in 1871. Mubarak had good contacts among senior Turkish officials in 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 173

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Constantinople, Baghdad and Basra. Yet his older brothers, Mohammed and Abdulla, had kept Mubarak out in the desert dealing with the tribes around Kuwait, an unrewarding but necessary task: prosperity depended on a network of alliances protecting the town and its valuable trade routes to the Najd and the Mediterranean. Mubarak’s isolation had continued when Mohammed succeeded Abdalla in 1892. The British record in Lorimer’s Gazetteer notes that, in May 1896, Mohammed ‘was assassinated in the interest of his half brother Mubarak; Mohammed it was said fell by the hand of Mubarak himself’.14 Lorimer adds: ‘It is not clear whether this event was due to public or domestic differences or whether it was prompted by greed and ambition on the part of Mubarak.’15 There was no evidence to support the inevitable rumours of a British hand in what appeared to have been a swift and successful coup by Mubarak. At the time, British officials took little interest in the affair and were not surprised that Mubarak’s first move was to secure Turkish approval. The family date farms on the Shatt al Arab that had been the supposed pirates’ lair in the 1895 affair were a vital source of income; they were in Turkish territory and subject to Turkish law. Looking into Kuwait Bay shortly after the coup, the captain of HMS Sphinx had noted the Turkish flag dutifully flying over the new shaikh’s house.16 The Turks worried about Mubarak’s ambitions; he still harboured the exiled Al Saud and was allied with them against the Al Rashid through whom the Turks controlled the Najd.17 As the Turks stalled over recognition, Mubarak appeared to fear that they would back Mohammed’s sons against him. Mubarak was in touch with other chiefs in the Gulf and will have been well aware of recent British agreements with the rulers of Bahrain and Trucial Oman, guaranteeing British protection. It had been a time honoured Al Sabah practice to balance one external force against another. To invoke the British against the Turks would be a logical extension of that policy and provide cover under which to build Kuwait’s influence in northern Arabia. Mubarak told the resident at Bushire that he wanted help because the Turks were trying to annex Kuwait. The resident took the bait; he was still grappling with pirates as well as gun running and slavery in the waterways south of Basra and judged that with Kuwait under British influence the upper Gulf would be more orderly; there was also, no doubt, an element of local British rivalry with the Turks at Basra. In London, the India Office consulted the Foreign Office. Officials dusted off the few papers that existed on Kuwait’s status. There was little hard evidence. They concluded that on the one hand Britain had not acknowledged Turkish sovereignty or protection over Kuwait; but that on the other, as HMS Sphinx had reported, Kuwait was ‘heavily under Turkish influence’; since the Turks had shown themselves highly sensitive about their claim to the coastal strip between the Shatt al-Arab and Qatif, they would in all probability protest at any British challenge in Kuwait. Salisbury saw no advantage in getting drawn into squabbles in a remote corner of the Gulf where Turkish claims to sovereignty had no practical effect on British interests; Turkey was a dying empire. Anglo-Turkish relations were soured by much bigger issues: the British occupations of Cyprus and Egypt and indignation at reports of the Turkish massacre of thousands of Armenians. The British interest lay in avoiding yet another point of friction and in continuing to shore up Turkish Iraq as a vital line of communication to India. Kuwait was not worth a row.18 Things looked different to the man on the ground. Colonel Meade, who had taken over as resident at Bushire in 1897, was impressed by Mubarak and keen to 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 174

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get on closer terms with him. Meade saw Turkish activity in the area at close hand and read it as hostile to the British interests he was there to protect. When Turkish troops appeared to be assembling against Mubarak, Meade sent the duty gunboat, HMS Pigeon, to Kuwait in a show of support. The Turks withdrew, but then tried more subtle tactics, threatening Mubarak’s inheritance of the date farms. With few other sources of income, Mubarak needed the revenues to buy loyalty in Kuwait and influence in the desert around. Mubarak had no guarantee that the British would give him protection when he next sought it. So he bent to the Turkish pressure, accepted the title of Ottoman qaimaqam (local governor) and acknowledged the sultan as caliph.19

Challenge to British Supremacy in the Golf There matters might have rested, with Mubarak under Turkish suzerainty, had the government in London not begun to revise its view of Kuwait. Outwardly Britain was supremely confident in the Gulf. The political resident at Bushire, backed up by Royal Navy deployments, controlled both shores of this ‘British lake’. Where it mattered, British forces could intervene with superior force. But there were growing concerns. Experience in Oman and on the Trucial Coast had shown that apparently straightforward interventions could become messy, entailing long and expensive campaigns. Ministers worried about the costs in manpower and money; Britain’s forces were extended around the world with tensions, skirmishes and periodic open conflict in Egypt, Sudan and the Far East. In South Africa, Salisbury saw the growing possibility of war with the Boers and a further expensive commitment of forces. George Curzon was prominent among those warning that Britain’s apparent supremacy in the Gulf was being undermined by rival powers.20 France had challenged Britain in the strategic approaches to the Gulf at Muscat; Russia appeared to have designs on Turkey and ambitions to threaten India through the Gulf as well as through central Asia and Persia; there was talk of a Russian warm water port in the Gulf. Germany too was active in the Middle East. Diligent German businessmen were beginning to compete with British trade in the Gulf. The kaiser made a second visit to the sultan in Constantinople in 1898, and told an audience in Damascus that the 300 million Muslims could look upon him as their friend.21 Still in his late thirties, Curzon was already an authority on the region. He had travelled in Persia and written about it at length. His views were robust: any weakening of Britain’s influence in the Gulf could threaten India; a Russian port in the Gulf would be a ‘deliberate insult to Britain, as a wanton rupture of the status quo, and as an intentional provocation to war’.22 Just as Meade was sig- nalling his worries about growing Turkish influence in Kuwait and arguing for a shift in policy to active support for Mubarak, Curzon was appointed viceroy of India. Before taking up his post, Curzon questioned the wisdom of leaving Kuwait to the Turks: ‘. . . undisturbed there Turkey could (and is very likely even now negotiating to) part with her assumed rights to other parties or Powers . . . I believe that we still have time to avert any such danger, and the step I recommend is the extension at a convenient and, if possible, an early opportunity of the British Protectorate to Kuwait.’23 From Constantinople, Sir Nicholas O’Conor, the ambassador, warned that a challenge over Kuwait would mean a row with the Turks and probably also with Russia; British policy was to support Ottoman integrity in its Middle Eastern territories, not to undermine it. Salisbury agreed. But evidence then surfaced in a 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 175

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London Times report, supported by information from the Constantinople embassy, that the Russian Count Kapnist was planning a railway, with French financial backing, across Turkish territories to the Gulf. Turkey appeared ready to allow Britain’s rivals a means of moving men and materiel rapidly into an area strategically vital to Britain.24 A Russian railway to the Gulf would be a tangible threat to India. This caught Salisbury’s attention. He agreed that Curzon, now in post as viceroy of India, could authorize Meade to strike a deal with Mubarak. But Salisbury still sought to avoid confrontation with Turkey; the British offer to Mubarak was to be strictly limited and to be revealed neither to the Turks nor to rival powers. Meade was to act quickly and in secret. He was to propose to Mubarak a ‘bond’ on the same basis as that successfully used in 1891 to head off the French in Muscat. In return for a cash payment – Meade had discretion to offer the substantial lump sum of up to £5000 and £500 annually – Mubarak and his heirs and successors would be required not to ‘cede, sell, lease, mortgage, or give for occupation or any other purpose any portion of his territory to the Government or subjects of any other Power without previous consent of Her Majesty’s Government for these purposes’.25 The calculation in London appears to have been that secrecy, combined with the limited content of the bond, would make it deniable to the Turks and impossible for Mubarak to construe as formal protection. It would, however, serve to keep Turkey and rival great powers out of Kuwait and away from the most attractive natural harbour at the head of the Gulf, but without open challenge to Turkish claims to sovereignty. The India Office wrote privately to Curzon: ‘We don’t want Kuwait but we don’t want anyone else to have it.’26 Meade let it be known in Bushire that he was off to the Fao peninsula on a hunting expedition and having, as he thought, covered his tracks, set course in the residence steamer for Kuwait. He arrived to find a Turkish gunboat moored in the bay; as it left the next day Meade contacted Mubarak. The shaikh sent a brother on board to hear Meade’s offer before inviting him on shore for talks. Mubarak’s most pressing concern was to secure the income from the date plantations. Meade knew his government would not get involved with a dispute over property rights in what was clearly Turkish territory. But to clinch the deal, Meade went beyond his instructions and drew up a side letter on his own initiative, assuring Mubarak and his successors of the ‘good offices’ of the British Government. For good measure, he added a clause requiring Mubarak ‘not to receive the Agent or representative of any other Power at Koweit, or at any other place within the limits of his territory, without the prior sanction of Her Majesty’s Government’.27 These embellishments upset the Foreign Office but pleased Curzon, who had no qualms about friction with Turkey. In the event, Mubarak accepted the text and settled for a lump sum of £1000; his aim seems to have been protection and access to his own sources of revenue – the date plantations – rather than a British stipend, which if his experience with the Turks was anything to go by, might prove hostage to fortune. Mubarak also wanted to avoid giving the British any pretext for involvement in his internal affairs, a point on which he and his successors were to remain highly sensitive. The Turks soon discovered that the British had done a deal with Mubarak, although they were not to know the details until the Foreign Office handed over a text in 1911. When they raised it with O’Conor in Constantinople he told them only that, while Britain had no designs on Kuwait, they did now have friendly relations with its shaikh. The Turks insisted that they would maintain their liberty of action in what they still considered Ottoman territory.28 This agreement to 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 176

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disagree was to suit the Foreign Office and successive prime ministers until the Young Turks threw in their lot with Germany in 1914; until then, Britain’s wider interests were against a destabilizing row with Turkey over the Gulf. Those responsible for India and the political officers on the ground in the Gulf would continue to see things differently; in their view Turkish activity in and around Kuwait was a threat and Mubarak could be an asset in combating it. In the event the Kapnist railway scheme evaporated. But as it did, a German delegation, led by the consul general from Constantinople, arrived in Kuwait in early 1900 to survey sites on the northern side of the bay for a terminus for a German backed railway across Anatolia, through Baghdad to the Gulf. From India, Curzon urged London to reveal details of Britain’s agreement with Mubarak and to challenge Turkey, Germany and Russia head on; to Curzon and many in London the Baghdad railway scheme was further evidence of the kaiser’s ambitions to bring Muslim Turkey into the German sphere of influence. Salisbury took a broader view; the Boer war had increased the national debt and strained relations with Germany; Britain had to cut its coat according to its cloth and was in no position to launch risky military action in the Gulf where it had few forces. The prime minister ruled that action be limited to a diplomatic warning: Britain would not be indifferent to any Turkish action that gave other powers rights in Kuwait. Encouraged by Germany and Russia, the Sultan took this to mean that he could bring Mubarak back into the Turkish sphere without serious British resistance. He gave Mubarak the title of pasha, reinstated the stipend that had been paid to his predecessor (an annual supply of dates or the cash equivalent), and demanded a written statement of allegiance. Mubarak appears to have seen little option but to give an oral, if not written undertaking, which British observers thought was feigned.29 But Mubarak was now a lot more secure; he had open Turkish backing and a secret agreement with the British; he was being courted by Germany and by Russia, which had sent a four funnel battleship, the Variag, to Kuwait in 1901.* Encouraged by his diplomatic success, Mubarak challenged the Al Rashid. In this he over reached and in a bloody series of skirmishes in the desert near the village of Sarif was roundly defeated. As Mubarak withdrew bruised to Kuwait, the Turks seized the opportunity to demand that he now accept a permanent garrison, customs house and telegraph link to Basra and Baghdad. Faced with this further Turkish pressure, Mubarak turned to the British and appealed to Meade’s successor in Bushire. The new resident, Colonel Kemball, imbued with Curzon’s views of the dangers of Turkish influence in Kuwait, signalled urgently for the twin funnel cruiser HMS Perseus. With eight four-inch guns, Perseus arrived off Kuwait in time to stop the Turks landing troops. Turkey lacked the military and financial muscle for a serious confrontation, but with German diplomatic support complained to London. Once again both capitals backed away from a row and agreed in September 1901 that if Turkey did not make an issue of its claims in Kuwait, Britain would not further formalize its understanding with Mubarak; the status quo would continue. Britain would dissuade Mubarak from further aggression against the Al Rashid while Turkey would lean on its old clients at Ha’il to stop interference in Kuwait. Despite this understanding, in which Turkey appeared for the first time to concede that Britain did have a relationship with Mubarak, the sultan made

* At the turn of the twentieth century, the Royal Navy maintained control of the Persian Gulf with three patrol ships; just one of them, the small single funnel gunboat HMS Lapwing, was on permanent duty; the more powerful three funnel cruisers, HMS Perseus and HMS Pomone, came and went, rotating duties, supplemented by the much smaller HMS Sphinx. 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 177

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another effort to bring him to heel. The shaikh received an ultimatum: he could either retire in splendour to Constantinople as a member of the council of state or else face removal from Kuwait. Mubarak again turned to the British. The British chargé d’affaires in Constantinople protested on instructions to the Turks. In the Gulf, Kemball used his initiative and summoned HMS Pomone with HMS Sphinx to Kuwait where they anchored within sight of the ruler’s residence. Their captains went ashore and Mubarak was able to tell the sultan’s emissary in their presence that if he accepted the sultan’s offer the Royal Navy would open fire on the town.30 After this piece of theatre, the sultan backed down and reverted to indirect pressure, obstructing Mubarak’s revenues from the date farms. But in January 1902, Turkish military detachments occupied several points to the north of Kuwait. They seemed obscure: a small, dusty oasis at Safwan, the hamlet of Umm Qasr at the head of the Khor Abdalla, some shacks and wells at Subbiya on the coast above Kuwait Bay, and two islands, Bubiyan and Wahba both flat, featureless and virtually uninhabited mud flats. Taken together, however, they commanded the Khor Abdalla, the channel that Pelly had noted thirty-five years earlier as the obvious site for the terminus of a railway from the Mediterranean to the Gulf. To those like Curzon who understood the terrain, the Turkish troop movements were deliberately deployed to assert Turkish control of the headwaters of the Gulf. The viceroy demanded action.31 London disagreed; the 1901 status quo was not affected. The central issue was the railway and its probable terminus on Kuwait bay, which Britain would share with other investors, provided Britain’s stake was at least equal to that of any other power. Britain would of course defend the area immediately around Kuwait bay against Turkish encroachments. It had recently done so when HMS Lapwing saw off what was probably a Turkish backed attempt by a cousin, Yusuf al Ibrahim to overthrow Mubarak, an incident in which a British marine had been killed and two injured as Lapwing’s men captured the expeditions’ dhows. But the Foreign Office would not otherwise question Turkish claims; there was no case for action against Turkey in the ill defined frontier region between Kuwait and Basra. Nor were there grounds for agreeing to the formal protectorate Mubarak said he wanted; the resources of the navy in the Gulf were too stretched for such commitments.32 Curzon was not persuaded and, pointing to the inroads rival powers were making in the Gulf, pressed for a clear statement of the British interest. After a visit to the Gulf in 1902, Valentine Chirol of the London Times, weighed in, warning that Britain could be seriously challenged in the Gulf over Kuwait. If that happened, more serious results could follow: Russia and Germany had big schemes of ‘railway conquest’ in Asia Minor; their penetration of the Gulf would challenge not only Britain’s commercial supremacy, but affect the whole balance of naval and military power in the region.33 Chirol was in this an ally of Curzon and through The Times, a powerful advocate. By the summer of 1903, Lord Lansdowne, the foreign secretary, was sufficiently convinced by the rising imperialist chorus to warn in the House of Lords that, if any other power established a naval base or fortified port in the Persian Gulf, Britain would regard it as a grave menace to her interests and would resist with all the means at her disposal.34

A permanent political officer? It was at this point that O’Conor in Constantinople floated the idea of station- ing a permanent political officer at Kuwait. He noted that a political agent had been put into Bahrain to good effect in 1900. The right man at Kuwait could be 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 178

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the most effective way of confining Mubarak’s ambitions to the limited area of territory around Kuwait in which Britain had an interest, avoiding any more unwanted friction with Turkey and so heading off costly military deployments. O’Conor warned, however, that in making the appointment Britain would need to act subtly if the Turks were not to see such a figure in Kuwait as a direct challenge to their authority.35 It helped that the proposal for an agent had come from O’Conor. To ministers in London the status quo with Turkey over Kuwait was the key to keeping rival powers away from the top of the Gulf. But if O’Conor thought the status quo could survive the arrival of a British political agent, well and good. The Foreign Office took O’Conor’s caveat about subtlety seriously and, forgetting the speed with which the Turks had seen through Meade’s secret visit to Mubarak in 1899, stressed that in making the appointment the India Office and the viceroy must proceed with caution; the officer selected for Kuwait should appear to be ‘. . . (visiting) temporarily from Bushire, repeating the visits at regular intervals until his residence became practically permanent’.36 The assumption in these exchanges was that the Kuwait agent, like the agent already established in Bahrain, would report through the resident in Bushire to the political department of the Government of India in Calcutta. With his viceroyalty drawing to a close, Curzon was at last able to organize the Gulf tour he had long wanted to make. Building on Lansdowne’s statement in the Lords, Curzon informed the India Office that his aims would be to ‘show by my presence the intention of His Majesty’s Government to maintain their political and commercial ascendancy in those waters’ and to ‘make a close study on the spot of the question of naval ports, bases . . . and anchorages in the Persian Gulf’.37 To ensure that the shaikhs and rulers and the wider audience of Ottoman and European powers got the message, Curzon arranged for the Far East flagship, the battle cruiser HMS Argonaut, to join him on its way home from the China station; Argonaut did not trump the Variag’s four funnels, but to those who remembered the Russian ship’s Gulf tour in 1902, Curzon’s squadron led by Argonaut with its sixteen guns was demonstratively larger and more powerful. The squadron called at Muscat, Sharjah and Bahrain before arriving in Kuwait Bay in November 1903. Mubarak had prepared a fitting welcome. He had imported from Bombay Kuwait’s first ever carriage, and ‘paraded in a great reception his forces, cavalry, camel cavalry and foot in a shouting galloping crowd’ that accompanied Curzon from the point where Mubarak privately greeted him on the sandy shore, just east of the town, to his residence on the waterfront at its centre. Curzon contrasted Mubarak’s grand ceremony with the public and undignified paddle ashore at Bahrain on the back of a donkey. Curzon immediately took to Mubarak. In his official report on the visit, he noted that:

The Shaikh himself is a tall striking looking man with a strong but rather sinister expression of countenance . . . his carriage was erect; and in conversation he showed far greater readiness and less reserve than the ordinary Arab chieftain. . . . . He has a way, after completing his sentence in Arabic, of turning round and fixing a coal black eye upon you, while he is waiting for or receiving your reply.38 Mubarak claimed to Curzon that he had cut himself adrift from the Turks and resented their presence at Umm Qasr and Bubiyan, which he regarded as his territory; his ally, Ibn Saud, was victorious in Najd and Ibn Rashid had lost his sway. Mubarak was shrewd enough not to repeat his demand for a protectorate, but rather to say that he considered the current arrangements sufficient; he considered 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 179

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himself an independent chief under British protection; all he was after now was a title, a decoration and a salary, presumably as the outward symbols that would count for more than a paper agreement with the Turks and other watchers in the area. Impressed, but sticking to his instructions, Curzon made no promises and warned Mubarak against further entanglements in the interior beyond the immediate vicinity of Kuwait town. The desert inland was outside the British sphere of interest and any adventure there would have to be without British protection. In his private report to Broderick, the secretary for India, Curzon again showed that Mubarak had impressed him: ‘Shaikh Mubarak, though now an elderly man, is by far the most masculine and vigorous personality whom I have encountered in the Gulf.’ There were, however, ample grounds for mistrusting Mubarak. He might again be playing Britain off against rival powers – Turkey, Russia and Germany: ‘there would be nothing in this inconsistent either with the Arab character, or with the previous history and conduct of the Shaikh. He is an adept at intrigue, and would shrink at nothing.’ But Curzon judged that Mubarak had burnt his boats with the Turks and was ‘definitely and finally ranged on our side’.39 Subsequent events suggested that Mubarak in fact kept several boats unburned and, notwithstanding Curzon’s warnings, remained determined to eliminate the Al Rashid and bring their territory under Kuwaiti influence. Discussions with Mubarak concluded, Curzon switched to the second objective of his visit: to see the possible sites of a railway terminus for himself. The area the Germans had surveyed in 1900 on the northern shore of Kuwait Bay would require a pier at least three quarters of a mile long. Far more suitable, Curzon argued, was the Khor Abdalla, ‘a broad inlet, resembling a great estuary, that runs past the eastern side of Boubiyan Island in a north westerly direction up to a point off Wahba Island’. The Khor could provide a deep-water harbour and terminus sheltered from all attack. Curzon was delighted to find that his earlier insistence on protests to the Turks over their occupation of Umm Qasr at the northern end of the Khor Abdalla had hit the nail on the head: ‘. . . for here the Turks have, most probably at German instigation, planted themselves at the very point where they command one of the most splendid internal harbours that can be conceived’. Curzon concluded that even if it were now diplomati- cally impossible to challenge the Turkish presence at Umm Qasr, Britain should assert Mubarak’s claim to Bubiyan Island as well as to the area immediately around Kuwait town; that would give Britain a controlling voice in any decision on a Gulf railway terminal whether on Kuwait Bay or the Khor Abdalla.40 In his lengthy reports on this visit, Curzon makes no reference to the case for an agency at Kuwait, nor does Mubarak appear to have raised the idea. Curzon may have felt that his own rapport with Mubarak and his selection of the experienced and highly able Major Percy Cox as political resident at Bushire in succession to Kemball in May 1904 was sufficient to handle the relationship and to keep Mubarak in check. Cox, like his predecessors, was an army officer who had entered the Indian political service. He was an accomplished linguist, already known for his skill in handling the shaikhs of the Gulf: ‘Cox was content to sit like the Shaikh(s) on cushions on the floor with his devoted Oriental secretary, Mirza Muhamad, at his side. He attached great importance to devising a form of words which should not give rise to dispute . . . only when it had been finally agreed in the vernacular did he essay a translation into English.’41 Cox was a workaholic, who had the knack of picking able men and women and retaining their loyalty; he would serve in Bushire until 1915, then in Iraq as chief political officer and, after a short time in Tehran, as civil commissioner in Baghdad, until his retirement in 1923. 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 180

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As Mubarak again schemed with Ibn Saud in 1904 to bring down the Al Rashid, risking further and, to the British, unwelcome friction with the Turks, Cox reopened the argument for an agent in Kuwait. It was important to have someone on the spot to handle Mubarak. Britain also needed to know what was going on in the still remote and unmapped Najd interior; with its trading and political links into the Najd, Kuwait was an excellent listening post. Curzon accepted Cox’s logic.42 London was now inclined to agree. If the Turks and the Al Rashid managed to crush Ibn Saud, they were likely to try to bring Mubarak to heel. If Ibn Saud came out on top, he might himself turn on Kuwait and unseat Britain’s client. Either way British credibility up and down the Gulf would be seriously dented if things went wrong in Kuwait. On these arguments, reinforced by reports that the Turks were gearing up for armed intervention in the Najd in support of the Al Rashid, the Foreign Office agreed to the appointment of an agent to Kuwait. But in drafting their letter to the India Office, the Foreign Office failed to spell out the condition to which they still attached importance: the first step must be limited to regular visits from Bushire. The message that now issued said only that the new agent should proceed ‘in a manner not to attract attention’ – a pious hope, given the visibility of any British official in the Gulf and Curzon’s determination that the presence of an Agent should have ‘a wholesome effect on the Turkish attitude of mind’.43 The authorities in India, and Cox in Bushire, assumed from this that the Foreign Office now accepted a permanent political agency in Kuwait and were prepared to deal with any Turkish complaints. India selected a robust and experienced political officer for the job, Captain S. G. Knox, a man capable of hiding his vigorous personality under a nonchalant and detached good humour.44 The viceroy’s council agreed that since the costs involved for the agent were high and the life very solitary he should be given the extra allowance of 200 rupees a month paid to most consular officers in Persia.45 From Bushire, Cox advised that the Kuwait agency should be set up on the same lines as that at Muscat with provision for the agent’s domestic accommodation, fitting reception room furniture, a sepoy guard and escort, and adequate funding for tours in the desert interior; offshore activity was a lower priority and the question of supplying a steam launch could be delayed.46 As reports filtered in from the Najd that Ibn Saud had routed Ibn Rashid and his Turkish allies, Curzon’s aides sent instructions to Bushire on 3 August 1904 for Knox to take up his appointment; they added, as the Foreign Office in London had requested, that he should ‘act so as not to attract attention’. Formal instructions were to follow.47 Knox was already on his way and landed at Kuwait the same day.

The agency up and running At their first meeting, Mubarak invited Knox to stay with him in his large residence on the seafront, an offer it would have been impolitic to refuse. But Knox was keen to find his own accommodation and to get the agency up and running. Curzon had ordered a general improvement of the residencies in the region; an excellent house had been built for the political agent in Bahrain two years before; a handsome block of buildings was being added to the agency at Muscat and a palatial new Residency was under construction on the river bank at Baghdad; this expansionary zeal encouraged Knox to set his standards high.48 So Knox was unimpressed when after a few days Mubarak told him he had found a house and took him to see it: 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 181

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. . . a very brief inspection . . . sufficed to convince me that it was quite unfit- ted for the permanent residence of a European. Towards the sea it looks out on a ship building yard with a very unpleasant smell of tallow. On all the other three sides, it is shut in by insanitary surroundings. The space the building covers is also too confined for the purposes for which it is required. Knox inspected what he considered another equally unsuitable house the same morning and in the afternoon went off on his own on horseback to make a thorough search.49 Mubarak had been giving developers plots of land on the edge of town and Knox was determined to find one on which to build an imposing agency to the new standards. He looked first on the eastern side of town where there was plenty of space, but reckoned that the ground was too sandy for solid construction, the beach shelved, exposing a wide stretch of sand and slime at low tide, making it hard to come and go by boat with any dignity. As he rode back round the western end of the town, Knox came upon what he needed. He wrote to Cox the next day, enclosing a sketch and an enthusiastic description of the building he envisaged, set in five acres complete with promenade and flagstaff on ‘. . . what appears to me to be incomparably the best site for the new house’.50 Far from the periodic visits and low profile the Foreign Office believed it had agreed. Knox, three days into his tour, was seeking immediate agreement to an imposing building in a prime location, which would be obvious to all as the permanent residence of the political agent. Mubarak wrote to Cox by the same mail from Kuwait. He was equally enthusiastic about the agent’s arrival. Knox would be given the best house available and paid all honour. But there was a warning: if Mubarak did not in return get secure protection of his rights from Britain ‘no good will result to me from the stay of Captain Knox’. In his reply Cox ignored the accommodation issue and made no attempt to dampen Mubarak’s expectations of what Knox could deliver: ‘it is by closer knowledge of your feelings and difficulties that we shall be able to help you more and more fully as time goes on, and no doubt this is the very purpose for which the British Government have arranged to send a representative to live in your territory and to be always [sic] at hand to give you advice and help’.51 By 17 August, Mubarak had sorted out a lease for Knox with a certain Jasim Al Asfur, a neat way of both accommodating the British and helping a merchant family that had fallen on hard times; Jasim’s father, Muhammed, a leading pearl deal- er, had gone bankrupt some years earlier.52 Faced with an offer that it would have been impolitic to refuse, Knox swallowed his objections. He quickly wrote to Cox seeking his approval on the basis that the house would be a temporary solution until a permanent agency could be built in a better location. Pointing out that the rent was exceptionally low, Knox argued for urgent repairs and additions to provide four ground floor rooms, including a general office and an essential reception room for Arab visitors. Knox’s own office and living accommodation would be on the first floor; Knox also wanted the plot of land next door for stabling for his horses and those of any escort he might in due course be allocated.53 Under the usual arrangements for political officers, the Government of India expected Knox to pay rent for this accommodation out of his allowances. Knox argued that, since he would not personally be occupying the whole building, his rent should reflect just the cost of the original lease; the cost of improvements should be born by the government. The money spent on a temporary building would not be wasted; when the new agency was completed the Al Asfur house would make an excellent post office for the weekly British steamer service. Cox forwarded all this to India endorsing the terms of the lease and the alterations Knox recommended, but suggesting delay on a new building until a decision was 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 182

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reached on whether or not to go ahead with a post office in Kuwait. Cox showed no concern about Knox’s determination to see a large and prominent new agency in Kuwait.54 Several weeks later, Knox received formal instructions from India for his mission. They gave him a wide mandate. His first object was to cultivate Mubarak and other principle personages in Kuwait; he was to protect British trade and traders; he was also to ‘keep a vigilant watch over the proceedings of the Turks on the boundaries of Koweit’s territories’, particularly in the Khor Abdulla area. He was to look out for the Turks or any other power seeking a foothold in Kuwait that might tempt Mubarak to breach his 1899 bond with Britain (still in 1904 a secret document). Knox was also to establish just how far Mubarak’s influence with the tribes extended to the north of Kuwait, and what was going on in the struggle between the Al Rashid and Al Saud for supremacy in the Najd. Finally, Knox was to find out more about the Kuwaiti role in supplying modern weapons to the Al Saud (the British were aware of a brisk arms trade in the bazaars of Kuwait), but he was to take no position on this.55 These instructions bore Curzon’s imprint; as he put it in a speech after his retirement from India in 1905:

The public at large hardly recognizes what the ‘Political’ may be called upon to do. At one moment he may be grinding in the (Calcutta) Foreign Office; at another he may be required to stiffen the administration of a backward Native State; at a third he may be presiding over a jirga of unruly tribesmen on the frontier; at a fourth he may be demarcating a boundary amid the wilds of Tibet or the sands of Seistan. There is no more varied or responsible service in the world than that of the Political Department of the Government of India.56

Not only did Knox’s instructions reflect Curzon’s expectations of what a ‘Political’ could achieve, they were also far more wide ranging than the Foreign Office had envisaged and implied that Britain was ready to take a high profile in Kuwait, define Mubarak’s territory and keep the Turks out of it. They also reflected India’s growing interest in Ibn Saud, who until his capture of Riyadh in 1902 had lived as an exile and Mubarak’s protégé in Kuwait; Mubarak had since made common cause with Ibn Saud in his struggle against the Al Rashid at Hail who remained under Turkish protection. The trade in arms was a sensitive issue that had seriously troubled the British up and down the Gulf; powerful modern rifles could empow- er insurgencies, including Ibn Saud’s against the Turks, and threaten stability. Knox got down to work. He held periodic meetings with Mubarak, avoided comment on Ibn Saud’s campaign against the Al Rashid in the Najd and tried not to get drawn in as Mubarak continued to wrangle with the Turkish authorities at Basra over the date farms. As Cox summed it up from Bushire at the end of 1904, Mubarak now appeared confident of British support and was showing keen interest in the design of the new agency building; if tempted again to wan- der from Britain because he was not getting all the backing he wanted in the Najd or over his farms, Mubarak would ‘keep himself straight’ because he feared Britain’s enmity more than Turkey’s.57 But the Turks could hardly fail to note Knox’s arrival. Once word had passed to Constantinople, they began to make a fuss. From Cairo, the pro-Turkish Egyptian newspaper Al Ahram reported that the shaikh of Kuwait had given up his neutrality, openly taken up British protection and allowed the British to fly their flag on strategic Turkish territory. In face of this British ambition for Iraq (sic), Turkey should turn to France and Russia.58 At the official level the Turks made pointed enquiries in Constantinople and London. The Foreign 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 183

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Office enquired what had been going on. Asked to account, Knox pointed out that Turkish allegations of flags and sepoy guards were greatly exaggerated; the engineer sent from Bushire to plan the new agency building had been careful to work in the privacy of the office and avoid any measuring or drawing on site. The Foreign Secretary assured the Turkish ambassador that Knox was not going to take up permanent residence. The Turks were unconvinced; the grand vizier told O’Conor that his Government hoped Knox would leave Kuwait; his presence there was an infringement of the 1901 status quo. Further and more lurid Turkish accusations followed: Knox was alleged to have incited the Arab tribes to submit to Mubarak and forced the shaikh to fly the Union Flag. Knox pointed out that this was nonsense; on his desert expedition north of Kuwait he doubted if he had spoken to more than twenty persons outside his camp; ‘I carefully avoided all communication with the natives at either Um-Qasr or Safwan, and the rest of the country was uninhabited.’ As to the flag, it had been a large blue and white survey marker and the fact of its being hoisted over the shaikh’s residence had no political significance, the building was simply a conspicuous and convenient point for survey operations.59 But however low Knox tried to keep his profile he could not do his job without drawing attention to himself; the Turks and their propagandists could always find ground for complaint. With the prime minister’s support, Lansdowne reminded the India Office that ministers had never agreed to an officer residing permanently at Kuwait; Britain’s interest remained primarily in avoiding a row with Turkey and in keeping out of unfortunate entanglements in the Najd; Knox would have to withdraw. He could, however take some time in doing so. The Turks had recently been acting unreasonably in Aden, just as they had in putting troops on Bubiyan Island; a slow withdrawal from Kuwait would signal British displeasure. Cox responded sharply. He had been unaware of Foreign Office objections to a permanent agent; but to appear now to be succumbing to Turkish pressure would be disastrous for British prestige in the Gulf; if Knox had to withdraw it must be temporary and arranged to look like a break for leave. Cox no doubt knew that he would have Curzon’s robust support. Lord Ampthill, acting during the viceroy’s leave, wrote privately to the secretary of state for India to warn that removing the agent would be ‘a very serious blow to our prestige in the Gulf and a bitter disappointment to Lord Curzon, for it will mean the annihilation of the work of his great Persian Gulf tour’.60 Curzon’s friends at the Times of India chimed in with an editorial: ‘If the Turks back Ibn Rashid and he succeeds against Ibn Saud pressure will be on Kuwait. The Government must intervene to stop Kuwait passing under Turkish influence . . . the Kaiser has his heart set on the railway; his influence is supreme at Constantinople.’61 On return to India, Curzon responded in a magisterial dispatch: the instructions from London to India had made no reference to the appointment at Kuwait being temporary; India had proceeded on the basis that it was permanent; but the Turkish ambassador had now been informed that it was temporary and India was being asked to withdraw their man; that could lead to the seces- sion of Mubarak who had already suffered at Turkey’s hands because of his British association; Britain’s reputation in the Gulf would not be helped. The best way forward, Curzon concluded, would be for Knox to go on leave for the summer, ostensibly awaiting construction of a new and suitable residence. For good measure Curzon restated his view that the Kuwait agency needed a grand, modern building that would leave Mubarak and the Turks in no doubt about Britain’s influence.62 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 184

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London made no comment on the building, but agreed to compromise on the presentation of Knox’s departure. Knox could tell Mubarak he was going on leave, put the agency in the care of a local clerk and depart for Bushire. There matters rested for several months. Frustrated on many fronts, Curzon had resigned as viceroy. Knox followed instructions, explained his leave to Mubarak and got away in time to avoid the worst of the summer heat. Cox kept an eye on Kuwait from Bushire; officials in London saw no reason for an early decision about Knox’s return. Their attitude changed when reports reached Constantinople of German engineers on their way to Kuwait to inspect sites for a railway terminus. This brought Curzon’s warnings of the strategic implications of the Turkish military post on Bubiyan sharply into focus. Knox was ordered to return to Kuwait and arrived from Bushire on the evening of Wednesday 26 October. He had no reason to complain at his reception: At break of day on Thursday a messenger arrived to say that Shaikh Mubarak proposed to visit me and the Shaikh followed hard at his heels. He was accompanied by his son, Shaikh Jabir, and Moolla Abdulla, his secretary. This was the beginning of a long stream of visitors of all ranks who kept me busy all day . . . The very warm welcome which I have received may effectively dissi- pate any doubts that may have been raised as to Shaikh Mubarak’s attitude towards the English.63 Knox returned to the Al Asfur house where work continued with refurbishment and extension. In his dealings with Mubarak, Knox trod a difficult line. Mubarak was nearly seventy and still kept all power in his own hands. He used Knox’s presence to play off the Turks while, as Knox reported, ‘intriguing in all directions’ with Ibn Saud in the Najd, and with the shaikh of Mohammareh, across the Gulf on the eastern shore of the Shatt al-Arab, a strategic point nominally within Persia. Mubarak kept a canny eye on his date farms on the Turkish shore of the Shatt, invoking the British when necessary against any Ottoman legal obstruction. The farm income remained important, paying for Mubarak’s large new residence built in 1907, a steam yacht and one of the first cars in the Arabian Peninsula – modest by later standards, but lavish displays of wealth at a time when Kuwait had no roads or port. In private, Knox worried that the people of Kuwait, ‘complaining about their ruler and looking to Britain for deliverance’ would at some stage ‘realize that it is our support chiefly that has enabled and will enable Shaikh Mubarak’s despotism to flourish, and taught him that he need no longer rely on the affections of his people and their confidence in his strength, wealth and justice’.64 In his dealings with Mubarak, Knox kept such criticisms to himself. His priorities were now to deter Mubarak from further adventures in the interior and to find a site for the Baghdad Railway’s Gulf terminus. By the end of his tour in 1908, Knox had negotiated with Mubarak a lease on a large piece of land at Shuwaikh on Kuwait Bay. This brought closer the prospect of a railway reaching the Gulf through the Mesopotamian delta, developing the rich resources in water and agri- culture on the lower Euphrates and increasing the area’s strategic importance. British interest in the delta area had already grown with the discovery of oil in 1904 at Masjed-e-Suleiman in Persian territory north-east of Basra.

One of the most respected outposts As he settled into the job, Knox found the refurbished Al Asfur house a convenient place from which to work. It was close to the ruler’s residence and to the town’s commercial centre; it gave an excellent view of shipping coming and 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 185

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going within the Bay. Plans for a new agency building were quietly shelved. Curzon’s successors lacked his enthusiasm for outward demonstrations of the imperial presence. On the ground in Kuwait, Knox’s successor, Captain William Shakespear, saw the need for a properly representational building but was prepared to make the best of the premises he had inherited. Shakespear put in an extra bedroom and imported iron and teak beams to enlarge the first floor drawing room.65 Shakespear’s photograph of the building in June 1909 shows a neat, whitewashed two storey structure with the added dignity of a curving external double staircase from the first floor balcony to the ground, and a wide terrace overlooking the foreshore, which put some distance between the agent’s accommodation and the boatyards. Enlarged and with its high mast and large union flag the agency had become a prominent landmark. An experienced ‘Political’, Shakespear continued Knox’s work of testing how far Mubarak’s writ ran among the tribes around Kuwait and establishing his claim to Bubiyan and Wahba islands. Shakespear travelled the desert in some style on a fine riding camel, accompanied by saluki hunting dogs, falcons, retainers and tinned supplies of European delicacies. He acquired the long delayed steam launch in 1909 after further battle with the Treasury.66 Shakespear had been Cox’s deputy in Bushire and, like Cox, saw Ibn Saud as the coming man in the Najd. He was also prepared to be more robust than Knox in his dealings with Mubarak, with a shrewder understanding of Mubarak’s position:

That the Shaikh desires absolute independence is certain but he has sufficient acumen to see that his property on the river [near Fao] furnishes Turkey with a valuable hostage from himself, that we for our own reasons do not desire the growth of Turkish influence at the head of the Persian Gulf, and that Kuwait is therefore in the happy position of being sought by two Great powers, thus affording him a lever by which he can increase his own importance while balancing the two Powers against each other in all matters concerning himself.67

Kuwait again came to Foreign Office attention in 1909 after the Young Turks had seized power and sought to define spheres of influence in the Gulf. Their aim was to concentrate Turkey’s limited resources on Iraq and the strategic coast to the south, through Kuwait to Al Hasa; for that they were willing to give up the Sultan’s claims to Bahrain and Qatar and to accept a British role in the Baghdad railway.68 In London, the Liberal government elected in 1906 maintained their predecessors’ aims: to keep rival powers out of Kuwait and ensure British control over any extension of the railway south of Baghdad. But they were prepared formally to acknowledge Turkish suzerainty over Kuwait if the new Turkish Government stuck to the 1901 status quo and accepted the secret deals Britain had already done with Mubarak. To the British authorities in India, that looked too conciliatory; they raised the old argument of Curzon and the imperialists that acknowledgement of a Turkish role in Kuwait would signal loss of Britain’s predominance in the Gulf and endanger India’s security. Liberal ministers accepted that Britain needed physical control over any port at Kuwait, but otherwise insisted on compromise with the Young Turks: to challenge them head on in Iraq or Kuwait could push them into the arms of Germany, now openly con- testing Britain’s predominance in the Near East. This did not, however, prevent encouragement of Mubarak’s loyalty to Britain when the opportunity arose. During a naval visit to Kuwait, in April 1912, the commander in chief, India, invested him with due ceremony with the KCIE (Knight Commander of the Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire).69 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 186

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Negotiations with Turkey on Kuwait were sporadic and inconclusive while war in the Balkans distracted the Turks. It was not until 1913 that a deal was struck. The Anglo-Ottoman Convention70 confirmed that Kuwait was autonomous within defined territory that included, as Britain wished, the islands of Wahba and Bubiyan. This was a major advance for Mubarak, based on the evidence Knox and Shakespear had painstakingly gathered to demonstrate his control on Kuwait’s northern borders and encapsulated in a ‘Map Showing the Limits of Kuwait Principality’ sent to the Turks in 1912.71 But there was a downside: the agreement described Kuwait as a Qada (administrative unit) of the Turkish Empire and Mubarak as a Turkish official – qaimaqam – required to fly the Turkish flag and accept a Turkish agent in Kuwait. This infuriated Mubarak, who complained bitterly to Cox and Shakespear that allowing a Turkish official to reside at Kuwait was something he had consistently resisted since his 1896 coup. To Mubarak, now visibly aged and ill, the presence of a British political agency was little reassurance of his independence if the Turks were also to get their man on the ground.72 Before the convention could be ratified, Turkey finally broke with Britain and joined Germany as war swept Europe in November 1914. With Turkish Iraq now in hostile hands, Kuwait’s strategic value soared. As Britain prepared to secure the waterways, productive agricultural land and oilfields of southern Iraq for the war effort, Cox and Shakespear encouraged Mubarak to attack the Turkish positions at Umm Qasr, Safwan and Bubiyan, and to help in the British advance on Basra. Cox assured Mubarak that as they fell into British hands, the date farms at Fao would remain his and immune from taxation. Mubarak, now in failing health and fearing that his murdered brothers’ sons might try a coup against his own heirs, sought a guarantee of British backing for his chosen successor. Cox offered reassurance on this as well as the formal British protection Mubarak had coveted since his negotiation with Meade in 1899; Kuwait became ‘an independent principality under British protection’.73 There was no longer any question of a Turkish claim to Kuwait. Although the Anglo-Ottoman agreement had collapsed with the outbreak of hostilities it left a significant legacy: the definition of Kuwait’s borders including the northern frontier with Iraq, the first such line drawn on any map of the Arabian Peninsula. The final version of the map annexed to the convention had placed a red line around the territory over which the British believed Mubarak had direct control, a circle drawn with a sixty mile radius running from Kuwait town to the northern tip of Wahba Island, but bulging to include all of Bubiyan. The rest of the 1912 outer limit line became a green line marking territory in which the tribes were considered subordinate to Mubarak and where the Turks were neither to post troops nor to make administrative changes.74 The distinction between the directly controlled ‘red line’ territory and the much bigger desert ‘green line’ area was to prove important when the British drew Kuwait’s boundaries after the war. As British forces occupied Mesopotamia, the agency in Kuwait symbolized Britain’s commitment to the principality’s separate existence and independence. The combination of Mubarak’s shrewd exploitation of his strategic position and Shakespear’s incisive reporting, exploration of the desert interior and cultivation of the ruler, had made it one of the most respected outposts of the Indian Government. When Mubarak died in 1915 he left in place a series of bilateral agreements with Britain, including the lease on land at Shuwaikh and arrangements for a post office and quarantine station as well as a little noticed measure Percy Cox had introduced in 1913, requiring the ruler and his successors to consult the British Government before awarding any oil concession. 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 187

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But, as the war continued, Britain’s focus shifted away from Kuwait. The campaign in Mesopotamia moved towards Kut and Baghdad. The Arab Bureau in Cairo led in managing a new front in the Hejaz north of Medina. In the British view, Mubarak’s sons and successors, Jabir and Salem, lacked Mubarak’s skills and experience in statecraft. Jabir died in 1917 and before his own death in 1921, Salem lost much of the influence Mubarak had wielded over the tribes in the desert interior. Kuwait’s relations with Ibn Saud, already souring in Mubarak’s last years, declined as Ibn Saud’s ambition became increasingly open for control of the northern desert from the Red Sea to the Gulf and north to the Euphrates and, with it, Kuwait as a port and entrepot within his dominions. This placed new strains on Kuwait’s relationship with Britain. As the campaign in Mesopotamia progressed, British commanders in Iraq, like the Turks before them, understood that they neglected the Najd at their peril. Shakespear was summoned from military training in England and sent to offer Ibn Saud a friendship treaty allying him with Britain against the Turks and their Al Rashid allies. Shakespear, conspicuous in his British uniform, was shot in the fighting, and Percy Cox, now chief political officer with the British forces in Mesopotamia, completed negotiations with Ibn Saud at a ‘Great Durbar’ in Kuwait in November 1916. The Kuwaitis viewed this with suspicion. It seemed a deliberate British tilt towards an emerging rival. At the same time British suspicions were growing that Kuwaiti merchants had been supplying weapons and materiel to the Turks in Mesopotamia and the Levant. British forces began to blockade Kuwait, frustrating the transit trade with the Najd on which Kuwaiti merchants had always prospered, the blow was the greater because Kuwait’s traditional wooden sailing ships were losing out to the modern British flagged steamers now operating regular routes up and down the Gulf from Indian ports. These developments foreshadowed a more complex set of post-war relationships. Like others, Arnold Wilson was to look back on the simpler pre-war years with nostalgia:

Before the Great War my generation served men who believed in the right- eousness of the vocation to which we were called, and we shared their belief. They were the priests, and we the acolytes, of a cult – pax Britannica – for which we worked happily, and if need be, died gladly. Curzon, at his best, was our spokesman and Kipling, at his noblest, our inspiration.75 It is probable that without this spirit of empire and Curzon’s driving enthusiasm the Kuwait agency would not have opened in 1904 and that the British might have continued to manage their relationship with Mubarak from Bushire until the outbreak of war in 1914. Curzon had taken a direct and personal interest in the Gulf; he had been prepared to challenge London from an unrivalled depth of knowledge and commitment, which none of his successors was to share. Once established, the agency had proved its value to both Britain and Kuwait over the years before the War, and, in Knox and Shakespear, Mubarak had astute British advisers. With support from Cox in Bushire, whose experience and competence impressed Mubarak and carried credibility in India and London, the agents had been robust in defence of Kuwait as well as of British interests as they saw them. Ministers in London had taken a more rounded and more prosaic view, balancing rivalries in the Gulf against the complex and shifting pattern of great power alliances, the consequences for Britain of Turkey’s weakening grip on its Arabian territories and the strain of Empire on Britain’s stretched finances and military resources. They were not persuaded that the Kuwait agency needed 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 188

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more than the modest building Mubarak had assigned to Knox on his arrival as the first Political Agent in 1904. In the period up to 1914, decisions on Kuwait had been relatively straightforward, involving only a small circle in India and in London. Few beyond those on the ground had any knowledge of or particular interest in Kuwait and its ruler. That was to change radically in the aftermath of war as Britain’s ‘moment in the Middle East’ began.76

3. AFTERMATH OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR

isitors to Kuwait in the years immediately after the First World War found it Vlittle changed from the town Knox had explored in 1904. It had grown a bit further along the shore and into the desert. But apart from the handsome new residence Mubarak had built for himself in 1907 and a few other prominent houses belonging to the shaikh of Mohammareh and to rich merchant families, single story mud buildings still lined narrow unpaved streets. The agency remained in the building Mubarak had found for Knox overlooking the foreshore, where dhows were beached, unloaded and repaired. The day to day work of the agency went on much as before the war. Shakespear’s three successors had had the tricky job of handling Mubarak’s sons who succeeded him, first Jabir, then Salem, against a background of declining British confidence in their rule. The agents still reported through Bushire to the government in India. Communications were faster; urgent messages could now go telegraphically, but the process of ciphering, deciphering and transmission was long and laborious; most correspondence was still by the ‘fast’ fortnightly steamer that anchored offshore and sent a launch to collect mail from the small post office that had been fitted into the ground floor of the agency. It was now a dis- tinctly shabby and uncomfortable building. Curzon’s enthusiasm for a new building had been forgotten. In 1917, the agent, Colonel Hamilton, had recommended either rebuilding or construction of an entirely new agency elsewhere; the upshot had been a decision to go for a new roof, still of mud propped up with steel gird- ers, but lighter so that it would put less strain on the walls; this meant, however, less insulation in the summer and less protection from the heavy winter storms. There was no interest in a new building in so remote a corner of the empire. Around Kuwait much had changed. Britain had driven the Turks out of a sweep of territory from the Persian border to the Mediterranean which it now governed as occupying power. Britain was again without rival in the Gulf. Germany lay defeated, Russia wracked by revolution and France focused on the Levant and North Africa. Although Britain had been successful militarily, the country was financially exhausted. Ministers and officials working in the Eastern Committee of the War Cabinet under Curzon, now foreign secretary, had to come to terms with a set of conflicting commitments made to sustain strategic alliances struck in the heat of war. Undertakings to the French over Syria (in the Sykes-Picot agreement), to the Zionists over Palestine (in the Balfour Declaration), and to the Hashemite King Husain of the Hijaz and his son Faisal over a wide sweep of territory between the Mediterranean and the Euphrates (in the MacMahon letters) were impossible to reconcile. British interest in the northern Gulf was now as much economic as strategic; oil and Iraq’s rich agricultural potential overshadowed lingering concerns 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 189

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about the secondary route to India. The Royal Navy had begun to switch from coal to oil power before the war; in 1913, Churchill at the Admiralty had warned that ‘we must become the owners, or at any rate the controllers at the source of at least a proportion of the supply of natural oil which we require’.77 Throughout the war, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company had supplied the fleet from its Persian fields by pipeline through Mohammareh to Abadan on the Shatt Al Arab waterway. The capture of Basra and the nearby oilfields in November 1914 had shown the importance of southern Iraq. As the war ended, Cabinet Secretary Maurice Hankey, already thinking of a future war noted that ‘Oil . . . will occupy the place of coal in the present war, or at least a parallel place to coal. The only big potential supply that we can get under British control is the Persian and Mesopotamian supply. Control over these supplies becomes a first class British war aim.’78

Oil, the United States and threats to Kuwait Oil also brought a new great power to the Gulf. Under Woodrow Wilson, the United States advocated self determination and wanted no part in occupation, mandates or treaties of protection. But as oil reserves in America appeared to dwindle and consumption rose, American companies began to look for productive concessions elsewhere. They had powerful friends in Washington and British ministers aware of the size of Britain’s indebtedness to the United States came under diplomatic pressure to allow American companies into territories within Britain’s new sphere of influence. The search for oil focused, however, on Iraq and Persia; few in international oil circles believed there were any worthwhile deposits on the Arab side of the Gulf. Percy Cox’s 1913 agreement with Shaikh Mubarak of Kuwait remained largely unnoticed on the shelf. The immediate British concern was with Iraq. While the peacemakers deliberated at Versailles, a British military government led by Arnold Wilson, Cox’s successor as civil commissioner, faced tribal insurgency. The British occupation was patently more honest than Turkish Government and had at first given greater security. But as Gertrude Bell, Wilson’s shrewd and incisive oriental secretary later acknowledged: ‘We had promised self governing institutions and not only made no step towards them but were busily setting up something entirely different . . . We had promised an Arab Government with British advisers and had set up a British Government with Arab advisers.’79 Cox was sent back to Baghdad in October 1920 to get a firmer grip on its government. The Iraqi insurgency with its roots among the Shi’a tribes did not seem to menace predominantly Sunni and independent Kuwait. The threat to Kuwait was rather from developments in the Najd. Ibn Saud had prospered since his 1915 agreement with Cox and in his ambition for territory created a formidable and unruly fighting force. The Ikhwan (literally the Brethren) were a conscious rein- carnation of the fanatical Wahhabi tribesmen who had conquered northern Arabia for an earlier generation of Al Saud rulers. Modernity and encroaching Westernization – roads, motor cars, the telegraph and fixed borders – threatened their way of life; there was also a strong acquisitive streak driven by the famine and poverty that still pervaded the Najd. In 1919, Ikhwan forces threatened Mecca and Medina. In 1920, Ibn Saud turned them north to Hail where they overran and at last defeated his old rivals, the Al Rashid, removing the buffer the Turks had been careful to sustain between the Al Saud and Ottoman Iraq. Ibn Saud’s ambition for territory north to the Euphrates then became a serious preoccupation of British commanders in Iraq. 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 190

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In 1920, the Ikhwan mounted a serious attack on Kuwait. Many in Kuwait saw the hand of Ibn Saud. He had already challenged Salem’s hold on the coast at the southern end of the 1913 ‘green line’ border; the key point was Balbul where Salem planned to build a seaside residence in what Ibn Saud now claimed was his territory.80 Ibn Saud appeared determined also to seize control of Kuwait town, its harbour and its potentially rich trade with his growing territories in Najd. Ikhwan objections to modernity did not apply to their rifles and they were known to be well armed, fearless and fanatical, ready to ride straight at the enemy regardless of injury or death. Kuwait was vulnerable and exposed. The old fortifications had completely disappeared in the pre-war building boom; Kuwaitis were traders not soldiers. Kuwait’s tradition, epitomized by Mubarak, had been to rely on statecraft and skilful manipulation of alliances. Salem chose to deal with the challenge head on and without resort to the protection agreement with Britain that he had inherited from Mubarak. In an aston- ishing burst of organization and energy over four summer months of intense heat, the people of Kuwait laboured to throw a new wall round the landward side of the town in a rough three-mile semicircle. The four gates were heavily fortified. Crenellated and loop-holed towers at two hundred yard intervals were linked by a platform running the length of the wall. As the weather cooled in October, the campaigning season opened and the Ikhwan mustered for attack. Kuwait’s citizens rushed to the walls: ‘. . . no one was unarmed and nearly all carried Mauser and Martini rifles with plenty of ammunition while some had swords and revolvers as well. One could hardly recognize friends for with short white gowns belted with bandoliers, and white head cloths and black head ropes, people were transformed.’81 The redoubtable Faisal Darwish, the man who had done more than any other warrior to entrench Ibn Saud’s power in the Najd, led the Ikhwan force. Rather than go direct for Kuwait town, Darwish attacked Salem’s mud walled Red Fort at Jahra, a strategic oasis to the north. The Ikhwan charged headlong. Salem’s garrison managed to break the attack and inflicted heavy casualties (800 killed and many more wounded out of a force of 3,500 Ikhwan), but it had been close run. Darwish regrouped his men in the desert and looked set on a further serious assault on the town itself. Salem valued his independence and only at this point reluctantly turned to the British agency for assistance. The new political agent, Lt Col. J. C. More, sought reinforcements.82 The British had anticipated the request and were soon on the scene. Two gun- boats landed men, arms, food and water; Arnold Wilson broke off his handover to Cox in Baghdad and came down from Basra on a third ship to coordinate tactics with More and the senior naval officer, Persian Gulf. They decided to deploy aircraft from Iraq as well as the ground troops. The aircraft soon showed their worth; an RAF de Havilland biplane spotted the Ikhwan in the open desert. It cir- cled the Ikhwan encampment, the pilot leaning from his open cockpit to drop a package trailing red, white and blue ribbons; the content was less attractive, an order to Darwish to leave Kuwaiti territory or be bombed. When aircraft returned the next day the Ikhwan had gone, an early demonstration of the effectiveness of air power in open desert. Britain had reacted as soon as the Ikhwan threatened the port at Kuwait. But no one in London or India was prepared to back Salem’s authority beyond the limited ‘red line’ area of the Anglo-Turkish 1913 agreement. It included Bubiyan and Wahba islands, but stopped far short of the much greater ‘green line’ area that Mubarak had controlled in his heyday and which Salem still claimed as his border – hence the significance of his decision to build at Balbul. British interest 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 191

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was confined to the strategic bay of Kuwait and the Khor Abdalla waterway to the north. They were assets as protected harbours on the approaches to the oil fields in Mesopotamia and Persia and the still important route between India and the Mediterranean; they also provided a useful foothold for British forces should things go seriously wrong in Iraq. Territory beyond the ‘red line’ was a different matter; efforts to protect Kuwaiti interests there would bring Britain little advantage and could mean friction with Ibn Saud whom Cox and Gertrude Bell already saw as a key figure in the Arabian peninsula. In these calculations there appears to have been no thought that oil might lie under the ‘green line’ territory.

Churchill takes charge It was at this point that Winston Churchill, the colonial secretary, determined to take a grip on the confused strands of British policy in the region. The India Office and the government in India still ran the Gulf administratively, while the Foreign Office handled relations with Turkey and other powers. But it was the Colonial Office, with its new responsibilities for the mandates in Iraq, Transjordan and Palestine, that was in the regional driving seat. In March 1921, Churchill brought the Middle East policy-makers together in Cairo. Palestine and Iraq dominated the agenda; Kuwait was a minor item, significant because of its strategic position south of Iraq. The conference met over several days, interspersed with group photographs and a visit to the Pyramids. It set Iraq on the road to independence as an Arab state under Faisal, the son of the Hashemite ruler of the Hejaz, and decided that relatively cheap air power would have to be the key to control in an area that included thousands of square miles of desert yet to be defined on the map. The conference marked the moment when Whitehall recognized that Britain had become a land power in the region. What happened in the Gulf was no longer a matter to be left to the authorities in India, a few specialists in London, the political resident and a handful of political agents in the Gulf. The Colonial Office, the Board of Trade, the Treasury and the three armed services ministries now each had their own direct interest in Gulf affairs; by the late 1920s, representatives from as many as eighteen government departments and agencies could be involved in deliberations about Kuwait. This shift was not immediately visible on the ground in Kuwait. British reinforcements had left in November 1920 as soon as the Ikhwan retreated. The agency reverted to its placid routine and the buildings were again allowed to deteriorate. Major More lacked Knox’s enthusiasm and Shakespear’s drive and did not bother much with maintenance. Economically, times became very hard as Ibn Saud kept the pressure on Kuwait by diverting much of its lucrative trade with the Najd to the small ports he had taken from the Turks on the Qatif coast. On Shaikh Salem’s death, his nephew Ahmed, Jabir’s son, took over in an apparently smooth succession and the immediate Saudi threat appeared to recede. Ahmed had not long before made an official visit to Britain with Ibn Saud’s fourteen-year old son, Faisal. The two were on good terms; Ibn Saud went into the desert to meet Ahmed, embraced him warmly and declared that there could be no quarrel between their peoples and no further need to define a frontier between Kuwait and the Najd.83 Despite the fine words, Ibn Saud maintained his blockade and Kuwait’s trade continued to suffer. Nearing the end of his career in Baghdad, Cox saw the need to come to terms with Ibn Saud. The Ikhwan were still in the field; there was no sign that Ibn Saud had lost his ambition to push his territories to the Euphrates. He threatened both British mandated Iraq and British protected Kuwait. Cox dealt with Ibn Saud first 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 192

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through correspondence and then, after a couple of largely abortive meetings, agreed to meet him in November 1922 for formal talks in a tented encampment that Ibn Saud set up for the purpose at Uqair, a small port in his recently acquired territory on the mainland opposite Bahrain. Cox brought with him the Iraqi minister of communications to speak for King Feisal and his government. Major More was instructed to join Cox’s delegation to represent Shaikh Ahmed on the basis that Britain took responsibility as protecting power for Kuwait’s external affairs. Cox had sent ahead as his emissary to Ibn Saud another experienced Indian political officer and Arabist, Major Harold Dickson. Once the meeting got under way, Cox let claim and counter claim between Ibn Saud and the Iraqis run for five days before stepping in. Once he did, Dickson recorded, Cox dominated everything and everybody. Tempers rose on both sides. In a one on one meeting Cox ‘reprimanded Ibn Saud like a naughty schoolboy’ for his demands for territory up to the Euphrates and said that he would decide the line himself. At the next plenary Cox took a red pencil and, relying on brief- ing from Gertrude Bell,* carefully drew lines on the map defining the Saudi-Iraq border and the Saudi-Kuwait border. On the former, Cox rejected most of Ibn Saud’s claims; on the latter he followed the ‘red line’ of the 1913 Anglo-Turkish agreement including Wahba and Bubiyan islands, then added neutral zones to the south and west of Kuwait to provide elbow-room for the tribes.84 In deciding to draw the Kuwait border as he did, Cox appears to have relied largely on Bell’s advice. Cox left no record of his reasoning, but Dickson’s account suggests that Cox not only accepted Ibn Saud’s case that Salem had lost Mubarak’s old ‘green line’ territory to Saudi control but maintained the view of Britain’s interests confined to the strategic ‘red line’ area: the town of Kuwait, the bay and the Khor Abdalla waterway. Britain’s defence of Kuwait had never gone beyond this area. It was of course convenient to Cox in brokering a deal between Ibn Saud and the Iraqis to allow Ibn Saud much of Mubarak’s old ‘green line’ territory to sugar the pill of rejection of his claims to Iraq, but Ibn Saud’s claim to have had control over it for some years was not implausible. When Cox travelled on to Kuwait with More and Dickson to explain this outcome to Shaikh Ahmed, the new ruler took a very different view: Kuwait had an irrefutable claim to the whole ‘green line’ area. Dickson later said that to the day of his death Ahmed complained he had been unjustly treated; ‘he had trusted Sir Percy as his father only to be robbed of two thirds of his kingdom with no say in the matter; that had been very hard indeed’.85 Oil does not appear to have entered Cox’s calculations at Uqair. Conventional British oil company wisdom held that the oil deposits ran under the Persian side of the Gulf and that prospects under Arabia were poor. Ibn Saud appears to have had had other ideas. He knew of Turkish reports of oil seepages around Dhahran and had encouraged a maverick New Zealand engineer, Major Frank Holmes, to prospect secretly. Holmes, who told those curious about his activities that he was searching the dunes for a rare black butterfly, was a shadowy presence on the fringes of the Uqair meeting. Dickson at the time saw Holmes as a thorn in Britain’s flesh in the Gulf, noting in his memoirs that as soon as Ibn Saud had struck his deal with Cox, Holmes sought a concession in territory up to the new Saudi/Kuwait Neutral Zone.86 The following year Holmes moved on to Kuwait and lobbied Ahmed for an exploration concession on behalf of Eastern and General, a small syndicate with

* Gertrude Bell, now Cox’s oriental secretary in Baghdad, had become Britain’s leading expert on the tribal structures of Iraq and the Najd. She was one of the few Westerners apart from the Blunts to have visited Ha’il when the Al Rashid were in power. 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 193

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strong American connections. The snag for Holmes was that Cox’s 1913 agreement with Mubarak still stood, giving Britain a veto over any concession in Kuwaiti territory (known as the ‘nationality clause’). With Anglo-American rivalry already apparent over oil in Persia and Iraq, Holmes will have known that the chances were high that Britain would advise Ahmed against a deal. Undeterred, Holmes rented a house in Kuwait and cultivated the shaikh. British companies showed little interest. The Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) had made a preliminary approach to Ahmed in 1922 but, short of finance and heavily committed in Persia, were in no hurry to take a long chance in Kuwait. They withdrew in 1926 when a geological survey proved unfavourable. Ahmed desperately needed revenue from concession fees and was anxious to press ahead with Holmes and his Americans. More told Ahmed that Britain would hold him to the nationality clause. Holmes increased his offer, but Ahmed could not afford to ignore More’s advice; he needed British protection against the Ikhwan, still a real and present danger. So Ahmed stalled and Holmes angrily turned to his new American principles. Gulf Oil, larger and more powerful than Eastern and General, soon began to lobby for diplomatic pressure on London.87

4. DICKSON, THE IKHWAN AND OIL

s Holmes fretted, Harold Dickson arrived in Kuwait in May 1929 to succeed AMore as political agent. Dickson had first visited Kuwait on his way back from Uqair with Cox seven years before. He was well qualified for the job. Now a married forty year-old ‘Political’, Dickson had spent his childhood in Jerusalem where his father was consul general, and spoke fluent Arabic. Like many of his colleagues among Wilson’s ‘acolytes’ in the Indian political service, Dickson was a self-con- fessed imperialist, but he had a talent for winning the respect and friendship of tribal Arabs. They liked his manifest selflessness, firm principles and genuine interest in their traditions, which he later recorded at length in a book, The Arab of the Desert, that remains a classic of its type.88 Dickson had been an effective district officer during the uprising in southern Iraq where he had shown great personal bravery. In Kuwait he was quickly to develop a respect for the ruler, Shaikh Ahmed; the feeling appears to have been reciprocated.89 Dickson’s wife, Violet, shared her husband’s interests. In a brave and radical move for the time, she had decided to accompany him to Kuwait with their two small children. The journey from Europe to what was still regarded as a remote and backward corner of the Gulf involved a slow and uncomfortable train journey from the Mediterranean through Syria and Iraq, then a long day’s travel by car on dusty tracks across the desert from Basra.90 The link to India was by the weekly steamer that worked its way up and down the ports of the Gulf. Apart from the agent, only a handful of Westerners lived in Kuwait, including Dr Stanley Mylrea, a Scottish physician and his wife Bess; they ran the pioneering American Mission clinic.* Although Kuwait was less humid and healthier than the rest of the Gulf, Westerners still found the six summer months unbearably hot. The electricity

* The Arabian Medical Mission of the Dutch Reformed Church of America had first opened a clinic in Kuwait in 1910. The clinic developed into a men’s hospital in the 1940s, and then also one for women. Kuwait’s modern health service replaced them in 1967. The old American hospitals have now been restored as part of Kuwait’s historical heritage. 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 194

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which brought ice and fans and was already installed in the Baghdad residence had yet to reach Kuwait. Dickson and his family had spent the year before in Bushire, where he had understudied the political resident and prepared for Kuwait. Taking over from More, whom he found tired and dispirited after ten years in post with infrequent leaves, Dickson determined to shift the agency into higher gear. This was a chal- lenging task. The town was in a bad way. Smallpox had again broken out, Kuwait’s economy was stagnant and unemployment high. The pearl trade had begun to collapse as cheaper cultured pearls entered the market. A world wide slump, Ibn Saud’s blockade, and the Ikhwan campaign, had brought Kuwait’s old transit trade with the Najd to an almost complete halt; the bustling bedu encampments around Kuwait and the caravans to the interior were reduced to a few stragglers. Shaikh Ahmed, like his grandfather Mubarak, ruled with a firm hand. He declined to convene the advisory council of merchants that he had accepted in principle on succession. It was quickly apparent to Dickson that Ahmed would be as determined as Mubarak to make his own decisions and refuse to be swayed by unpalatable British advice. The shaikh had strongly resisted a British Order in Council giving the political agent jurisdiction over British subjects and ‘protected persons’ resident in Kuwait, a provision designed to bring Kuwait into line with British practice elsewhere in the Gulf.91 As he got down to his new job, Dickson had to make the agency building inhab- itable for his young family. It was now some seventy years old. Traditional mud buildings needed regular maintenance; without it, rain had weakened the walls, the roof, last repaired in 1917, was cracked and thin and parts of the building were in precarious condition. Violet Dickson recalled that: ‘when the autumn rains came in 1929, a “good” year for rain, the water poured in to the house in all directions at the first downpour. Many of our pictures and carpets were damaged.’92 During his Bushire posting, Dickson had already begun a campaign to revive Knox’s plans for a new building at Kuwait. Dickson got the residency engineer to prepare sketch plans and persuaded the resident to send them to Calcutta, stressing the urgency. Dickson pressed at the same time for immediate repairs and alterations to the existing house to provide enough space for his family, the first in the agency’s history, to live there.93 Dickson found himself at the end of a daunting double chain of bureaucracy. The Government of India still looked after the internal administration and affairs of Kuwait, delegating routine matters to the resident in Bushire. Ministers in London had ‘general control’ through the Foreign Office and India Office. Since the war, the Colonial Office, responsible both for Iraq and for dealings with Ibn Saud, had taken a strong interest in Kuwait and its ‘prior concurrence’ was now necessary on all Kuwait matters deemed of political significance. Financial responsibilities were also divided between London and India; spending on Kuwait needed approval from the Treasury in London, which bore half the capital costs (known as a ‘moiety’). Communication with the Treasury was through the India Office and the Foreign Office. On top of the bureaucratic hur- dles Dickson faced a general clamp down on spending. Britain was suffering from the international economic depression, the Treasury was depleted and buildings in a distant corner of the Gulf took low priority.94 Not surprisingly, Dickson had to wait three months for a reply to his proposals. When it came the news was not good. India had decided that a new building in Kuwait was out of the question and that any repairs to the old agency 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 195

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would be subject to the Treasury in London covering half the total cost of Rupees 1800. Dickson had, however, found an ally at the India Office in London; Gilbert Laithwaite was an experienced officer who took a constructive interest in Kuwait (although there is no evidence of him ever visiting). He felt for the Dicksons’ plight and pushed hard for early Treasury agreement on the grounds that the Kuwait accommodation was unsuitable for a young family. While they waited for repairs to get under way, the Dicksons settled as best they could into the upper floor rooms of the agency building. The ground floor served as offices where shaikhs and merchants came to call. Dickson quickly found himself preoccupied with two political issues: the protection of Kuwait’s border with the Najd, and the growing pressures from Holmes and his American backers for a Kuwait oil concession. Dickson believed that after Uqair, Ibn Saud had decided to rein in the Ikhwan. But confined within the new borders – a revolutionary phenomenon to those accustomed to regular annual movement across hundreds of miles of open desert – and with no further territory to conquer, they had become ‘a fire almost too difficult to extinguish’. With or without Ibn Saud’s connivance, the Ikhwan flaunted his agreement with Cox at Uqair on borders and ranged far into Kuwaiti territory. Their leader, Faisal Darwish, ‘dour and silent by nature, too much of a stern visionary to see things . . . from a politician’s point of view’ then ran into difficulties with Ibn Saud and tried for Kuwaiti backing.95 Darwish held out to Shaikh Ahmed the prospect of recovering the large ‘green line’ area Cox had handed over to Ibn Saud at Uqair. News of this alarmed the residency at Bushire; for the Kuwaiti ruler to join forces with the Ikhwan in an attempt to topple Ibn Saud would destabilize the whole area. Dickson was told to talk Shaikh Ahmed out of any such enterprise. Ahmed had his own reasons for closing Kuwait to the Ikhwan and may not have needed much persuading, but it was a tricky moment for Dickson who reckoned Darwish capable, given Kuwaiti backing, of uniting most of the tribes of the Najd against Ibn Saud; it was, after all, only thirty years since the Al Saud had been refugees in Kuwait and Ibn Saud’s grip on the Najd still relied on the loyalty of the tribes. The crisis coincided with the hot summer months. The Ikhwan were dependent on their camels and desperate for water and grazing; in August they ignored Ahmed’s decision and crossed into Kuwaiti territory, where there were wells of brackish water, with women and children mixed up with the 5,000 fighting men, 2,000 tents and 100,000 camels. The resident instructed Dickson to issue an ultimatum: if the Ikhwan had not left Kuwaiti territory within forty-eight hours, the RAF would send aircraft from Iraq and bomb them. Dickson had deep affection for the bedu, genuine sympathy for the predicament of the families and an understanding of the effect of fixed borders on nomads; he was determined to head off a disaster. In his memoirs Dickson recalls that he drove out of Kuwait alone in his car to find Darwish with around forty lieutenants, ‘a tough and fanatical lot’ just before sunset on a hill in the desert fifteen miles south of Kuwait. Shaikh Ahmed, concerned he said for Dickson’s safety, followed at a distance escorted by four armed slaves. Dickson asked for Darwish’s word that he and his people would go within the deadline; after a tense hour of argument and hesitation, the rebels made their evening prayer as the red ball of the sun went down; when they finished Darwish gave Dickson the undertaking he was after. Darwish kept his word and by January 1931 the rebellion had collapsed without bloodshed. Darwish surrendered to Dickson, seeking a guarantee for his life and sanctuary for the women. In an act that was long to be remembered in Kuwait, the Dicksons took the leaders’ now 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 196

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destitute women and children into the agency outbuildings and fed and clothed them until they could be resettled under the eye of Ibn Saud in Riyadh.96 Although the formal lines of authority still ran through the resident in Bushire and to India, it was clear that for all practical purposes, the defence of Kuwait lay with the RAF and the British land forces based in Iraq. The political agent had been making military decisions for the Ruler in concert with the British command in Iraq, and for a period in the 1920s the RAF command in Baghdad had sent its own intelligence officer to Kuwait. All this raised questions about Kuwait’s independence. As the India Office had already noted in a policy paper in 1928, perceptions were growing that Kuwait and Iraq were moving to unification under British protection. This would not necessarily serve British interests; as British control decreased in Iraq, a British protected Kuwait would take on increased strategic importance as a foothold at the head of the Gulf; it would be a mistake, having avoided the absorption of Kuwait by Ibn Saud, to allow the shaikhdom to drift to Iraq.97 Dickson strongly agreed, and such points would be an important element in his case for a new agency building. Dickson’s determination to move to more prestigious premises was strengthened by the progress Holmes appeared to be making on the oil concession. Ministers in London were again under American pressure to allow Gulf Oil into Kuwait. But while Ahmed hesitated and Holmes complained at the delay, officials at the Colonial Office stood out for a deal with a British company. Ahmed put the ball into Holmes’ court: it was up to him to get the British to waive their ‘nationality requirement’. While Gulf Oil worked behind the scenes Holmes, to Dickson’s annoyance, hung on in Kuwait to press the American interest on the ground.* As Kuwait’s financial position deteriorated, the American money on offer looked increasingly attractive. Dickson lobbied hard where he could for the return of APOC. On leave in London in summer 1931 he wrote to Arnold Wilson, now a Director of APOC: ‘I am very imperialistic and cannot stand the thought of an American concern getting in here. You can rely on me to hold things pending your people coming to a decision.’98 There followed a stalemate in which APOC remained reluctant to commit themselves to further negotiations while Dickson, with support from Bushire and London managed to dissuade the shaikh from signing with an increasingly angry Holmes. The breakthrough did not come until 1934 when APOC and Gulf Oil decided to stop competing and to make common cause in a fifty-fifty consortium they called the Kuwait Oil Company (KOC). A senior APOC executive, John Chisholm then arrived in Kuwait to join Holmes as a joint KOC team. Dealing with these two very different personalities, the maverick New Zealander and the establishment oil company executive from London, Ahmed still insisted on keeping matters entirely in his own hands. Complications arose when a mysterious second British company, ‘Traders’, sought to enter the lists. Dickson suspected, probably wrongly, that APOC were somehow behind them; others saw Shaikh Ahmed’s hand in setting up a stalk- ing horse with which to draw better terms out of KOC. Whatever the truth,

* Kuwait had not been part of the ‘open door’ policy under which the British allowed American companies into consortiums operating in British controlled Iraq and the Persian fields. Kuwait was also to be the only northern Gulf state to lie outside the 1928 ‘Red Line’ agreement under which the British, American and French partners in the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC) agreed to develop further concessions in the region as a consortium or not at all. The red line was drawn by the minority five per cent shareholder Calouste Gulbenkian on a map at a meeting of the partners, reflecting his memory of the old Ottoman borders. 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 197

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Dickson judged that Ahmed had played ‘a supremely clever game’ as the concession agreement was signed with Dickson as witness in the agency dining room on 28 December 1934.99 The terms were not unreasonable for the time and for a concession that still carried no certainty of oil; it was to be another four years before KOC struck the giant Burgan field.

The new agency sanctioned By 1934, Dickson had also made progress on the new agency building. The turning point had come in 1930, as Faisal Dawish surrendered. A dreadful cloudburst swept away a wall of the old building, flooding out the Dicksons and their children. Having disposed of the Ikhwan, Dickson determined to get some action on his house.100 Hugh Biscoe, the new resident and a good friend of the Dicksons, weighed in from Bushire telling the administrators in Delhi that an early decision was essential; the agency was ‘a most deplorable building, uncomfortable and bad for the prestige of His Majesty’s Representative who received the shaikh of Kuwait in his offices twice a week and on the King’s birthday entertained seventy prominent shaikhs and other citizens to dinner’.101 Dickson enlisted the support of Sir Robert Clive, the ambassador in Tehran, when he passed through Kuwait and, as the heat and humidity of early summer arrived, anxiously enquired of Biscoe whether he had raised the issue on his leave visit to Simla; Dickson felt like ‘a squeezed sponge’ in the airless old building. Although electricity and ice had now reached Bahrain and Bushire, there were still no such luxuries in Kuwait. Biscoe’s lobbying bore fruit when Simla asked the India Office in London to approve 1,800 rupees for immediate repairs to the old agency, and an estimated 154,600 rupees, or about £12,000, for a new building that could no longer be postponed. Biscoe followed up with a private letter to Laithwaite, painting a grim picture: ‘The wretched Dickson lives in the most appalling shanty in the middle of town . . . how he sticks it I don’t know . . . [it is] unfair to ask any European to continue to live under such conditions [which are] a perfect dis- grace to the Government of India’.102 Laithwaite again proved a firm ally. Within a few weeks he had organized a letter to the Foreign Office seeking the Treasury’s moiety (50% contribution) and an instruction to the viceroy to go ahead with the new building in advance of Foreign Office approval. Laithwaite had been prescient; it took four months and repeated reminders to get the money out of the Treasury. As the India Office waited, there were some second thoughts about the wisdom of tapping the Treasury; sharing the cost of the new buildings could further erode India’s policy lead in the Gulf. Treasury officials did get their oar in, noting acidly that India had recently considered moving the residency from Bushire to the Arab side of the Gulf; was Kuwait not an option as well as Bahrain and if so would not a single new building at Kuwait serve as combined residency and agency? The decision had in fact already been taken for Bahrain, although it was not to be implemented until 1946. Kuwait’s proximity to the Najd and Iraq certainly gave it the wider outlook onto general Arab politics, but, in 1929, American oil interests looked more threatening in Bahrain; as the then resident put it, ‘we should not recede from our present position in Bahrain, especially if American oil interests obtain what may, if not properly controlled, be a stranglehold on the island’.103 The Treasury accepted that the Kuwait project would go ahead as an agency. But the point had been made that day to day policy in the upper Gulf was no longer the exclusive preserve of India. 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 198

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Shaikh Ahmed appears to have welcomed the prospect of the new building. Whatever his problems with Britain over the border settlement at Uqair and his negotiations with Holmes, Ahmed still needed Britain as a balance against powerful neighbours. Although the Ikhwan threat had receded, Ibn Saud’s intentions towards Kuwait and its port remained unclear. Iraq was moving towards independence and might reopen the old Ottoman assertion of sovereignty and claims to Wahba and Bubiyan islands. A higher British profile would be welcome, provided the agent stayed out of Kuwait’s internal affairs, and continued to let the ruler make his own judgements about the growing pressures for a more consultative style of rule. So when Dickson approached him, Shaikh Ahmed will- ingly offered a substantial plot of land; it lay next to one already presented by Shaikh Khaz’al of Mohammera. The latter, a nominal suzerain of Persia, also relied on Britain for his autonomy. As ruler of a small principality on the Persian shore of the Shatt al Arab, Khaz’al had long links with the Al Sabah and had acquired property in Kuwait. His wealth came from the construction of a major oil terminal on his territory at Abadan (now Khoramshah). The adjoining plots presented by Ahmed and Khaz’al lay between their private residences at the eastern end of the town and the sea, the area that Knox had investigated on his first foray in Kuwait in August 1914. Familiar by now with the problems that could arise with buildings near the shore, Dickson asked Ahmed to guarantee that the beach that bordered both plots would be kept free of the fish traps and boats that had made the old agency so unpleasant in the hot summer weather. The shaikh also undertook to prevent any buildings being erected at any time in the future between the new agency and the sea.104 The agreement, which bound Shaikh Ahmed’s successors, was to prove far- sighted and of great value to the future embassy as Kuwait expanded, in particular in the 1990s, when developers wanted to put up a shopping mall between the Embassy and the shore, on the seaward side of the corniche road, built in the 1970s. With the resident’s enthusiastic support, Dickson got the local assistant engineer based at Bushire to work on designs for the new agency. Dickson drew on his recollection of the Bahrain building where he had stayed in 1922 while preparing the Uqair conference. Dickson saw neither the sandy soil nor the shallow water as a problem; good foundations would take care of the former and a jetty of the latter. He had incisive views about the design and offered to work with the local Persian builder, Ustath Ahmed, who had successfully repaired the old agency, to establish what could be done for the money the Government were prepared to spend. Dickson was ready to get the work done under his own direction. In forwarding this proposal to Delhi, Biscoe dryly noted that this approach might not ‘commend itself to the Government of India although it would of course obviate departmental charges’.105 Delhi did not rise to the bait, but wanted Dickson’s views on what would be needed in a new building. The reply was clear: the office and residence should be in the same building, on no account should single storey construction be contemplated, it was essential that the living accommodation be on the first floor where it could catch the breeze and the verandas should be no less than twelve feet wide to provide adequate shade. When he called at Kuwait to survey the site, the assistant engineer had Dickson’s further advice born of his experience in Iraq, Bahrain and Bushire: the best form of construction would be burnt bricks from the kiln yards at Amara on the Euphrates above Basra; boats could sail directly from Amara to the site. The building itself should face exactly north west so that the fresh air of the prevailing breeze would blow in from the sea and directly through the first floor living rooms.106 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 199

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After this flurry of activity, the autumn passed without a decision to go ahead. In December, Biscoe prodded Delhi again; Dickson was most anxious for building to start during the cool winter season, since he was in the meantime compelled to live in deplorable conditions. Nothing happened and on a duty visit to Delhi the following May, Biscoe tracked down Robert Russell, the chief architect working under Lutyens in the Public Works Office. Lutyens and his team were fully engaged in building the new imperial capital. Russell had direct responsibility for the grand Connaught Place scheme and a number of major Delhi residencies; Kuwait had had to take its turn. But with Biscoe’s prompting, Russell in due course delivered a new and altogether better design for Kuwait in a set of detailed drawings. The wait had been worthwhile. Russell incorporated the features Dickson wanted, but gave the building a much more solid and modern construction: steel beams, concrete reinforcements and contemporary plumbing, which sub- stituted sea water flushing for the old ‘thunder boxes’ emptied by bearer from the balconies. Russell had taken Dickson’s advice and oriented the building for maximum benefit from the cool northwest breeze that prevailed for much of the year; thick rear walls provided protection from the hot south easterly that made the hot weather particularly wearisome. An electric generator and fans would go immediately into the old agency for transfer to the new building when it was ready. The men on the spot were not at first convinced. The assistant engineer at Bushire found it all too new fangled; would the steel beams not expand and contract in the Gulf heat? Dickson grumbled that the changes would produce a much more grandiose affair than the simple design he had put forward; the delay they had entailed was ‘a great disappointment .... [which] has not done our prestige much good’.107 As the plans evolved and costs rose, Laithwaite at the India Office found himself caught again between Delhi and a sceptical Treasury expressing itself, in the barbed language of Whitehall, ‘a little anxious about the standards adopted at Indian establishments in Persia and the Gulf’, while Laithwaite warned his under secretary that ‘[t]he history of the Kuwait house is a bad one, the Treasury are very touchy at the continual revision of estimates’.108 In July 1932, Biscoe died suddenly of a heart attack on his way to Muscat, a shock and setback for Dickson. He found the new resident, Trenchard Fowle, more distant and less supportive, but by August construction was at last under way. A shortage of materials and a limited budget meant that work was slow, with little more than the foundations completed by the end of the year. Dickson sought to put more unemployed Kuwaitis onto the job and as work speeded up in the first months of 1933, his confidence grew: ‘The building of the new Agency has already been much commented on and progress is being watched even by king Ibn Saud in Riath (sic). This is all to the good as proving that His Majesty’s Government does intend to keep her hold and influence over Kuwait in spite of many rumours to the contrary.’109 That all could now see that Britain was putting up a large new building in Kuwait was a boost to Dickson, as he sought to convince Shaikh Ahmed both that Britain continued to support him against Ibn Saud’s ambitions and that he should continue to resist Holmes and his American backers pending APOC’s return to negotiations. Dickson turned to the question of furniture. Fowle supported him in telling Delhi that most items from the old house were old and shabby and would have to be replaced. Dickson had prepared lists and estimates; new office furniture and that for the private residential areas could come from India, but the formal 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 200

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reception areas would need superior quality, which would be better and cheaper from England. Delhi replied that the private furnishings would of course need to be plain (no pianos or billiard tables), and while the best settees and easy chairs could come from England, the cabinets, tables and dining room furniture should, for climatic reasons be from India; and by the way were there any savings on the agreed estimates? Dickson shot back via Fowle that there were no savings and that as secretary to the Maharaja of Bikaner for four years in the 1920s, he had been intimately connected with the buying of all kinds and qualities of furniture from India and from England, and could be safely relied on to obtain the best results for the money spent.110 With the building work making good progress under Dickson’s eagle eye, estimates for furniture costs of 5300 rupees wound their way from Delhi to the Treasury, via the India Office and the Foreign Office. These were accepted just as Dickson came up with further costs: 1500 rupees for built-in cupboards for which Delhi had not budgeted, 500 rupees for a tennis court – the political agent had considerable entertaining to do – and 2500 rupees for extra woodwork. In the summer of 1934, Dickson was able to take a long leave in England, his first trip out of the Gulf since 1931. He found another ally in London in West, the Head of the Indian Stores Department; Laithwaite ‘worked the oracle’ and West sent a man along to Maples with Dickson to ensure that he did not get ‘done’. Fowle complained that he had been short circuited; he should have been consulted. It was too late and 2,340 rupees worth of furniture was purchased from Maples for the reception rooms. Dickson pushed the costs up further by ordering a large English fireplace for the drawing room, an attractive and practical, if expensive, way of taking the chill off on Kuwait’s cool winter days. It was a grander version of the one Dickson had installed in the drawing room of the old agency. The new building was sufficiently complete for the Dicksons to move in during February 1935. Work on electrification continued, with the agency ‘Intelligence Summary’ recording on 30 April ‘wiring under way, but behind programme because of bad heat wave . . . little likelihood of things improving until fans arrive and are erected’.111 It was not until the end of August that the building was completed and formally handed over to Dickson. There were further rumbles over the costs which had overrun by 10,000 rupees. Delhi complained to the political resident that they had been kept in the dark; some of the excess, such as the ornamental fireplace and the extra cupboards, might otherwise have been avoided. Dickson was unapologetic about his insistence on quality in so important a building. Fowle laid the responsibility on his engineer for not keeping him in the picture; he could not understand how that had happened since it was the engineer’s duty ‘to keep the Resident who has many other claims on his time and attention and who is a Political not a Public works department Officer, fully informed’. Delhi attributed the overspend either to the confused state of the engineer’s accounts or to ‘genuine misapprehension on the permis- sibility of excess’.112 The India Office concluded that the less said to the Foreign Office and the Treasury the better; in the event neither appears to have noticed. The building was judged a success in spite of the delays and expense. Fowle, who was not given to overstatement described it as ‘one of the finest in the Persian Gulf’ and his chief engineer in a formal report noted ‘I despaired of inspecting a well built building in the Gulf until I came (to Kuwait) and was agreeably surprised to find that well finished work can be done in the Gulf. . . . I understand from Colonel Dickson that it gives entire satisfaction.’113 No doubt it did, since Dickson had succeeded in ensuring that the building met his own exacting criteria. 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 201

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These were highly practical and have proved lasting assets. The site, on a slight promontory at the eastern end of Kuwait’s old waterfront, was close to the one Knox had found and dismissed in 1904. It was far enough away from the shipyards and docks to avoid the disturbance and the smells but still near enough to the town centre and the shaikh’s palaces for the Agent quickly to get around and for dignitaries to call on him. Placing the main living and entertaining areas on the upper floor, behind a wide veranda – Delhi had enlarged Dickson’s twelve feet width to twenty – arranged in a gentle curve and positioned to capture the northwest breeze, kept these areas light but cool in the days before efficient air conditioning. Like everyone else in Kuwait, the agent and his family slept on the roof throughout the summer months. This had covered areas and stores for bedding, all reached by an internal staircase from the main floor. Below, on the ground floor, was the agent’s office and waiting room, some smaller offices and beyond them the kitchen. In the large grounds to the west of the main building, enclosed by a cement wall lay the servants’ quarters, stables, garage and the tennis court, a centre for the social life of the small 1930s expatriate community. The compound gave directly on to the beach where the water was still clean enough to swim and where a long cement jetty stretched out to deeper water so that launches could land passengers in comfort. With fresh water in short supply the agency had no gardens and, for drinking and bathing, relied like everyone else on shipments in drums from Basra; the plumbing otherwise relied on sea water. When it opened in 1935, the new building was one of Kuwait’s most modern and substantial, an outward symbol of the strategic importance Britain still attached to the shaikhdom. On an official visit to Kuwait, Ibn Saud called at the Agency. The formal first floor rooms were hastily cleared of the Dicksons’ photographs and pictures to avoid any risk of offence to the Wahhabi monarch. The women of the family were shut away, although Dickson’s young daughter Zahra nearly collided with the shaikh’s coffee bearer as she strained for a view of the great man.114 While the new building was under construction, some basic repairs were made to the old agency, triggering correspondence about its future. At some point, Mubarak had acquired the house from the Al Asfur family and by the 1920s it was being let rent free to the British Government. As the new agency neared completion in1934, Fowle supported Dickson’s proposal that Dr Greenway, the medical officer, and his wife take over the old building; otherwise the shaikh would want it back. Cost conscious officials in Delhi saw the opportunity to get rid of an old and expensive building. It now had strengthened foundations and buttresses at the front, but needed attention every year to make it comfortable. Having earlier played up the shabbiness and disadvantages of the old agency to make the case for the new, Dickson began to praise its merits; repairs and the installation of electricity went ahead and the Greenways moved in. Shaikh Ahmed now charged a rent of 60 rupees a month. The following spring, having enjoyed the cooler and more comfortable new agency for just over a year, Dickson celebrated his fifty-fifth birthday and took statutory retirement from the Indian Political Service. As he appears to have fore- seen, the Kuwait Oil Company were on the lookout for a representative on the ground to manage their crucial relationship with the ruler. Dickson was the obvious candidate; the Government of India gave their approval and Shaikh Ahmed made a formal request. Dickson became KOC’s chief local representative and suggested he make the old agency his new home and office. Shaikh Ahmed took the hint and it was not long before the Greenways were moved out to allow the Dicksons to return. Violet described their feelings; 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 202

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compared with the new building it seemed rather primitive ‘but we realized once we were back that we both had a special affection for the old house which we had repaired with our own hands in our first winter’.115 Shaikh Ahmed increased the rent to 150 rupees a month, presumably on the basis that KOC’s pockets were deeper than those of the Indian Government. There the Dicksons were to stay, Harold until his death in 1959, when he was still writing long detailed letters to KOC about necessary repairs to the house, and Violet until the Iraqi invasion in 1990, when she was evacuated in poor health to England. The Iraqis later looted and burnt the house. In 2000, the Kuwaiti authorities in tribute to the Dicksons refurbished and redecorated the old agency much as it had been during their life there. As ‘Dickson House’ it is now a Cultural Centre.

Gerald de Gaury Dickson’s successor as political agent, Captain Gerald de Gaury, took over as the Dicksons packed and moved along the seafront. He was an experienced political officer and a well travelled Arabist, who had served in Iraq and Iran and had come to know Ibn Saud. He had spent three not very happy months in Kuwait staying with the political agent in 1928, reporting as an intelligence officer to the RAF in Baghdad on the desert tribes and their movements in Kuwaiti territory as aircraft searched out Ikhwan rebels. On arrival de Gaury showed none of Dickson’s fascination for the new buildings, although he settled happily enough into the modern accommodation with the new luxuries of ice and electric fans. Beyond the Agency compound the town had changed little since the Ikhwan attacks. Gawain Bell, who was to become political agent in 1955, recalled Kuwait on a visit in 1938 as ‘one of the most exciting-looking places’ he had seen in the Arab world with a waterfront crowded with dhows and beyond it the grey and white town with a few small minarets rising above the skyline, still encircled by crenellated walls on the landward side running down to the water’s edge with beyond them the desert.116 With negotiations on the oil concession complete and Dickson now managing relations between KOC and the Government, de Gaury spent little time on oil issues. Nor did his watching brief on the Najd require much activity; relations between Shaikh Ahmed and Ibn Saud remained cool, the Saudi blockade continued and there was little opportunity for contact with Riyadh. The agency’s attention switched to the pressures on Kuwait from Iraq, fanned by the winds of Arab nationalism and democratic change that were blowing through the region. Since Cox had first drawn the line of the Kuwait-Iraq border at Uqair in 1922 there had been uncertainties about precisely where it ran on the ground. In 1923, the Kuwait agency had put up a wooden notice, board where the line changed direction at a point just south of the small and dusty oasis at Safwan. The board soon disappeared and it was not until the mid-1930s that Dickson found the time to re-measure the distance and restore the board where he thought it should be. Although they had formally accepted Cox’s line after independence in 1932 the Iraqi authorities took little notice of it and continued to pursue suspected smugglers into Kuwaiti territory. The issue became more serious as the KOC began to explore the outer reaches of its Kuwait concession and ran into Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC) teams working from the other side of the border. Both international companies pressed for clarification. As they did so, the politics of Iraq shifted. In 1933, King Faisal died prema- turely and was succeeded by his son Ghazi, a young man with Arab nationalist sympathies. Ghazi allowed these play in Iraq’s press and through the private 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 203

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radio station installed in his Baghdad palace, pushed the view that Kuwait had always been part of Ottoman Iraq. The Baghdad media began to portray Shaikh Ahmed as a backward and repressive ruler and Kuwait as a former division of the Ottoman vilayet of Basra that should be absorbed back into Iraq. The first part of this message had some resonance in Kuwait. A number of Kuwaiti families had tribal and business links in Iraq; Arab nationalism and liberal ideas had an appeal to the younger generation in a society that had changed little since the days of Mubarak, thirty years before. Although the KOC had started paying money for its concession, Kuwait’s merchants had had no part in the arrangements and saw little benefit. Times were hard and they began to press for a voice in government and in doing so attracted the sympathy of Shaikh Ahmed’s cousin Abdulla. As the son of Salem, who had ruled from 1918 to 1922, Abdulla had a strong claim to succession. In 1922, he had stood aside for Ahmed as the senior in age. He had then supported pressures for an elected council (or Majlis) of senior merchants which Ahmed had reluctantly agreed but since ignored; the Majlis had never met. Whereas Dickson had been a staunch defender of Ahmed and had solidly backed him as ‘a right-minded man who could be counted on to do the right thing in the right place’,117 de Gaury listened to Abdulla Salem and the merchants. He also took a more detached view of Ahmed’s rule. In this he had the support of Colonel Fowle, the political resident in Bushire, always uncomfortable with Dickson’s dogged and principled approach to issues ranging from furniture to the proper treatment of surrendering Ikhwan. De Gaury and Fowle were also conscious that democratic movements existed in many countries around the world; they were not surprised that one should spring up in Kuwait and indeed thought it desirable with fascism on the rise in Europe that rulers like Shaikh Ahmed should involve their people in governance. In June 1938, Abdulla Salem approached de Gaury, warning of popular agitation. The KOC had struck oil at Burgan in February that year, serious revenue was beginning to flow in and pressure was mounting for Shaikh Ahmed to take notice of the Majlis and give it a role. Abdulla told de Gaury that he feared that if the Majlis were not now installed, Kuwaitis would turn not just against Ahmed, but against the Al Sabah as a whole. Abdulla and his allies were ready if necessary to seek direct British rule if Ahmed would not give way. The British record does not show precisely how de Gaury replied. But his report to Fowle suggests that he was sympathetic; he thought Abdulla Salem’s group serious men who, given a degree of fiscal power, would bring in more efficient administration. De Gaury also gave weight to Abdulla’s argument that Baghdad was fanning the flames in the hope of absorbing Kuwait and its new riches into Iraq. Ahmed at first stalled; then, after a few days deliberation, gave way and reluctantly signed documents convening the Majlis, as Abdulla and his allies had demanded. Fowle’s first telegram to India was reassuring: ‘The Shaikh of Kuwait after considerable public pressure, which took a peaceful form, had been applied by merchants and notables of Kuwait, has agreed to formation of a Council with a voice in the Administration. The Council is friendly to us.’118 But two days later he was showing greater concern: ‘The Council under the presidency of Abdulla Salim . . . have obtained complete control of the administration and, for the time being, the Shaikh is a cypher.’ In an assessment for Whitehall, Fowle sought to put a positive gloss on the episode: Abdulla Salem’s ‘coup d’état’ had taken place peacefully without a shot fired, the popular party were well disposed towards Britain and the fact that they had secured wide ranging powers for the Majlis was down to Shaikh Ahmed’s 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 204

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ineptitude in negotiating with them. Fowle argued that it was hard for Britain as the chief exponent of democracy to stamp out such movements; the important thing was to ensure that change, when it took place, did so peacefully. De Gaury, he maintained had ‘acted with tact and discretion in refusing to be drawn into the struggle’.119 The India Office were not reassured; that the ruler on whom they relied for the stability of a vital foothold in the Gulf was now reduced to a ‘cypher’ was worrying: ‘The sudden transference of authority from the autocratic Shaikh to a junta of fifteen notables is difficult to explain, and is certainly far from what was intended . . . the opportunities for Iraqi intrigue are multiplied and unless the Shaikh secures sufficient authority to dominate the Council he may have a difficult time.’120 Matters were complicated by the perception in Kuwait that de Gaury had actively encouraged Abdulla Salim’s action; this view of affairs soon spread up and down the Gulf. De Gaury’s relations with the ruler became fraught and he quickly found himself drawn into local politics. The minority Shi’a community, excluded from the council, sought British nationality and protection. Fowle, too became involved in the affair, having to intervene from Bushire with the ruler and the council. Further and more damaging consequences arose when the council claimed responsibilities that cut seriously across British interests: it wanted full authority in Kuwait’s foreign affairs, still a British preserve; it also wanted the right to issue instructions to KOC and to collect revenue from the company. The British records do not show much of Shaikh Ahmed’s reaction to these events. But it is clear that Abdulla Salem’s challenge was serious. He sought not only control of the oil revenues but also of the still substantial income from the family date farms near Al Fao. In January 1939, Shaikh Ahmed moved decisively against the Majlis group. In reasserting his authority he arrested those who refused to come into line and installed his own council of nine notables and four senior Al Sabah shaikhs. He was clear that this was to be a consultative, not decision making body, and was to meet only rarely. In a conciliatory move, Ahmed put Abdulla Salem at its head and gave him and his allies key government posts. This effectively brought the Majlis movement to an end although it did mean that by Ahmed’s death ten years later, Abdulla Salem, his close family and merchant allies had gained control of finance, customs and the police. Abdulla Salem was then able to succeed Ahmed without contest and with a solid grip on the state. There were lessons in this affair for the agency. Involvement in Kuwait’s internal affairs, particularly if construed as support for opposition to the Ruler, could bring unintended consequences. De Gaury and Fowle had underestimated the capacity of the Majlis movement for independent action against British interests. Had it succeeded in retaining control, Britain might have found Kuwait moving into Iraq’s orbit; even if it had not, Kuwait governed by the Majlis movement could have proved a more difficult ally in the world war that was now looming. As Shaikh Ahmed reasserted his authority in 1939, Major Galloway replaced de Gaury as political agent in Kuwait, and Colonel Prior took over in Bushire. They quickly concluded that their predecessors’ handling of the Majlis movement had been mistaken. Although he recognized that there was no hard evidence that de Gaury’s action had helped precipitate the crisis, Prior noted in a letter to New Delhi: ‘I am quite clear . . . that there is something in the Shaikh’s grievances’ (Prior’s underlining).121 Prior and Galloway proceeded to seek to shore up Shaikh Ahmed’s confidence in Britain, possibly with help from Harold 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 205

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Dickson behind the scenes. Although in reply to an enquiry from Delhi, Prior said he had no evidence of Dickson’s involvement in the affair, he did, however, acknowledge that Dickson ‘given his temperament and training’ must have been an embarrassment to his successor de Gaury.122 Dickson would have looked on with alarm during the Majlis episode and may well have encouraged the ruler towards the deal struck with Abdulla Salim As war approached, Kuwait was again strategically important; the head of the Gulf was a key point on a route that could be needed to move troops from India to the Mediterranean and Europe. Iraq and Persia, exporting through Fao and Abadan, were already vital sources of oil, although Kuwait was not to join them as a producer until hostilities were over.

5. THE SECOND WORLD WAR

n 1938, the Iraqi foreign minister, Taufiq Suwaidi, proposed to the British that IIraq extend its railway system through Kuwait to a terminus on Kuwait Bay. The Foreign Office had no hesitation in turning this down; such an extension of Iraqi influence into Kuwait was quite unacceptable. A British adviser to the Iraqi Government, Sir John Ward, then suggested that Iraq build a port on the Khor Abdalla. On this, the Foreign Office was much less negative. Cooperation over a port would give the Iraqis an incentive to allow the troop transits between India and the Mediterranean that could be vital in the event of war. As the idea evolved, the Foreign Office also agreed with Suwaidi that Iraq could not afford to rely solely on the Shatt al-Arab waterway; it was shared with Persia and already congested. It would be ‘better for stability if Iraq as the state that controls the Mesopotamia plain had undivided control of at least one good access to the sea’. That would mean Kuwait handing Wahba and Bubiyan islands over to Iraq so that both banks of the Khor Abdulla lay within Iraqi borders. Foreign Office officials had forgotten Curzon’s warnings fifty years before about the dangers of Turkish control of the Khor Abdalla and could not see why Kuwait should disagree. There could perhaps be a swap of territory, the islands for land further inland; the Kuwaitis must be able to see that hanging onto the islands ‘could have unexpected consequences and lead to trouble that a different course could have avoided’.123 When he was belatedly brought into the picture, the political resident took a very different view. From Bushire, Prior pointed out that the Iraqi attitude to Kuwait was essentially dishonest; the Iraqis were perfectly aware that they had no claim to any part of Kuwait; any extension of Iraqi influence in Kuwait, no matter how hedged would be a danger. Shaikh Ahmed would anyway make no territorial concession to Iraq, no matter how it was packaged. Prior was concerned that ‘over the two years of discussions with the Iraqis there had been no mention of them to the Shaikh nor any attempt to reassure him regarding the very disquieting rumours reaching him from Iraq’. All this would only fuel his suspicions of British intentions, already aroused during ‘De Gaury’s ill-starred regime’.124 Prior warned that there could also be damage to relations with Ibn Saud. He was an important ally in the war and had a shared interest in keeping the Iraqis out of Kuwait. Prior recalled that Ibn Saud had moved troops to his frontier with Kuwait in support of Ahmed’s ‘come back’ against the Majlis movement in 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 206

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January 1939, and added that ‘had that coup failed he would have unquestion- ably have brought [his troops] in to support the Al Sabah’. In short, favouring Iraq would not be without its own unexpected and damaging consequences.125 In Baghdad, the embassy had been following with growing concern the army’s emergence as a powerful player behind the scenes in Iraqi politics. A faction within the officer corps, led by Rashid Ali al-Gailani, favoured stirring up revolution in Kuwait against the Al Sabah as a prelude to absorbing the shaikdom into Iraq. Al Gailani had a strong pan-Arab agenda and, as war broke out, his faction began to impose their German sympathies on the government. Sir Basil Newton, the ambassador, reminded London of the significance of the Khor Abdalla, and warned that with Iraqi aims diverging from Britain’s, robust retention of Kuwaiti sovereignty over Wahba and Bubiyan would be advantageous to Britain.126 This concern about the Khor Abdalla receded with the failure of Al Gailani’s coup in 1941 and the return of civilian government under the Regent Abdul- illah, and the pro-British prime minister, Nuri Said. But it did not go away entirely. Nuri Said still wanted land from Kuwait for a bigger port at Umm Qasr. The resident in Bushire again argued that the creation of an Iraqi port on the Khor Abdalla would be ‘a very serious blow indeed for Kuwait’.127 In the event, British interest in the port receded as the war moved away from the Levant and the Caucasus. Sir John Ward’s ambitious plans were scaled back to a few jetties that were little used for the rest of the war. The fine points about where the line of the border ran in the waterways south of Umm Qasr went on hold as Whitehall concluded that a solution would have to await the end of the war and detailed demarcation on the ground. Apart from these tensions with Iraq the war years were relatively quiet in Kuwait. Ibn Saud appeared now to accept Kuwait’s borders as defined by Cox at Uqair and the Saudi blockade receded. Galloway worked hard to restore relations between the agency and the ruler while noting that he saw it as his duty to ‘to see that the Shaikh does not lapse into his former attitude of indifference to public opinion to which, I am convinced, most of his troubles are due’.128 Oil exploration continued until KOC were forced through lack of materials to cap their wells and suspend drilling operations in July 1942. While what was now known to be a massive reserve of oil lay underground, poverty returned, particularly in the desert around Kuwait. Harold Dickson had stayed on as the KOC representative and was now covering when necessary for gaps between successive political agents. The Dicksons kept to their routine of desert excursions. Troubled by the condition of the bedu, they privately imported from Persia a hundred pairs of grinding stones which they dealt out, one pair to every ten of the tents clustered around the town. The Dicksons also purchased supplies of barley from their own funds. ‘At that time’, Dickson later recalled, ‘there was practically no wheat or flour in the town, rice was terribly scarce, and the price of dates had reached starvation level.’129 Things were only slightly better for many of the townspeople; the income from KOC in the years before the war had funded a few basic municipal and services and a number of schools. But it was not much and in Bushire the political resident, worried that Ahmed was still not spending wisely, recommended the appointment of a British financial adviser to establish a systematic distribution of the funds. Fowle and de Gaury had made little progress with a similar proposal and it was to become an issue of still greater contention as revenues soared in the post-war years. Whatever his private feelings about Britain’s interventions in his domestic affairs and dealings with Iraq, Ahmed remained loyal to Britain throughout the 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 207

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war, justifying in Harold Dickson’s mind ‘the great trust that His Majesty’s Government had so long reposed in him’.130 For an experienced Kuwaiti leader, this was largely a matter of shrewd calculation. Although an American oil company held 50% of KOC, it had as yet produced no oil; the United States had no forces in the region and showed no strategic interest in Kuwait. At the same time Iraq, even under the more moderate Nuri Said, remained a threat to the Al Sabah and there was still no guarantee that without British protection Kuwait could count on escaping absorption into Ibn Saud’s greater Najd. The Al Sabah and their territories still depended on British protection; their interest lay in remaining loyal to Britain.

Oil comes on stream Kuwait’s fortunes changed radically in the years immediately after the war. In 1946, Shaikh Ahmed ceremonially opened valves at the new port of Ahmadi to load BP’s tanker British Fusilier with Kuwait’s first export cargo of crude oil. This flowed from what was clearly a giant field at Burgan. As the oil revenues began to mount in Kuwaiti coffers, Britain gave India independence in 1947 and began to withdraw from east of Suez. The old interest in Kuwait as a vital stepping stone to India, which had briefly revived during the war with plans for a major port in the Khor Abdalla, now receded. It was soon overtaken by an acute concern for Kuwait’s stability and loyalty as the supplier of more than half Britain’s oil and one of the few producers prepared to accept and hold payment in sterling. For a period in the 1950s when the British Treasury lacked the foreign currency to buy oil in dollars, Kuwait became crucial to Britain’s economic well-being. Administratively, Whitehall adjusted in the Gulf to Indian independence by giving the Foreign Office lead responsibility for the Gulf shaikhdoms and transferring the political resident from Bushire to the Arabian side of the Gulf. With oil coming on stream in Kuwait as well as in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, British interests now lay primarily in the strip of territory from Kuwait to Muscat. Kuwait had been an option for the residency since the transfer was first mooted in the 1930s; based in Kuwait, the resident would benefit from the superior harbour and better land routes to Iraq and the Najd. Kuwait already had a fine agency building and a compound with room for any necessary new building. But Kuwait was at the northern end of the Gulf, less central than Bahrain and too far from Oman and the Trucial States; the southern shaikhdoms, even if less developed, would continue to require the resident’s close attention. So, in 1946, the decision was confirmed for new buildings at Jufair in Bahrain. As Gulf policy making moved to the Foreign Office, a new generation of officials appeared on the scene. Diplomats trained in Arabic language skills with a background in policy work and negotiation began to replace the ‘hands on’ political officers and administrators of British India, most of whom had been military men. There was no sudden transition and for many years ex-Indian ‘Politicals’ and members of the Sudan political service with their valuable combination of Arabic and local administrative skills, continued to serve in the Gulf alongside diplomatic service colleagues. Some commentators, such as the New Zealand historian, J. B. Kelly, regretted the arrival of the diplomats; Kelly thought them insufficiently robust, too ready to understand the Gulf rulers’ desire for local autonomy and British non-intervention and saw a fundamental divergence from the style of the Indian ‘Politicals’. The diplomats may have lent a readier ear to the rulers’ concerns than some of their predecessors, but the record shows them equally alert to 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 208

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British interests and perhaps better equipped to defend them in an era in which the old colonial certainties were fast vanishing. Shaikh Ahmed died in Kuwait in 1950. As Abdulla Salem took over in a smooth succession, Kuwait’s oil royalties stood at £3.5million a year. By 1952, they had risen to over £50 million. This massive increase in wealth triggered an economic boom which brought its own problems: how to manage new wealth and how to administer a rapidly expanding state. British officials faced a familiar dilemma. Abdulla Salem once installed as ruler was just as fiercely independent on internal matters as his predecessors. Yet the British stake was high. The political resident, Sir Rupert Hay, warned London that inflation and maladministration would lead to instability in Kuwait. The thought that the sterling that was piling up in Kuwaiti hands could at the ruler’s discretion be converted into dollars and other currencies or simply be misspent was frightening; Kuwaiti action could put the Britain’s depleted post-war financial reserves under serious strain.131 British officials had worried about Kuwait’s finances before the war. In the 1930s, the India Office had tried to persuade Shaikh Ahmed to take on a British financial adviser; de Gaury, instructed to explain the proposal, had made little headway. In 1939, the political resident concluded that Ahmed had been receptive only to the extent that he thought it might win him a trick in his sparring with Abdulla Salem: ‘the Shaikh and the Council played the issue of adviser in the hope of restricting each other’s powers when their own stars were temporarily in eclipse’.132 Ahmed had otherwise preferred to keep his own council, turning when absolutely necessary to his London legal adviser. The issue of a financial adviser resident in Kuwait had arisen again during the war and as oil came on stream in 1946. Two years later the Foreign Office was warning the Political Resident that, with its special position in the Gulf, Britain could not ‘remain indifferent to the standard of administration in the shaikhdoms, for the shortcomings of which Her Majesty’s Government, whatever their legal position, will be held responsible’. When pressed soon after his succession, Abdulla Salem had reluctantly agreed to take on a financial expert and a customs expert, but the men he selected were not policy makers and he made sure they had no real responsibility. In 1953, the Foreign Office, Treasury and Bank of England in London took stock. Not only were Kuwait’s oil and sterling holdings important to the British economy but British companies had a major stake in the shaikhdom: APOC, now British Petroleum (BP), retained its 50% share of KOC; five British contract- ing companies dominated the construction boom. Whitehall concluded that British interests required British advisers in Kuwait with real clout, with the access and authority to influence both domestic spending and overseas investment. Abdulla Salem remained resistant. He did agree to set up a board in London with British advisers to inform Kuwait’s overseas investments, but he gave no ground on allowing British advisers into Kuwait, even when Prime Minister Churchill raised the matter directly during his first (and only) official visit as ruler to London. To have conceded the point would have been to allow Britain more influence over Kuwait’s internal affairs than the Al Sabah had ever been prepared to accept. The British managing director of KOC, possibly at Harold Dickson’s prompting, suggested a compromise. The political agent was the British official on the spot and should have the authority to deal with the ruler; at the same time the agent should have a direct line to London the better to communicate between the ruler and HMG; it was an anachronism that the agent still reported through the political resident. The Foreign Office agreed, reinforced the staff at Kuwait 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 209

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and created a new economic counsellor post. The political agent was instructed to ‘maintain and indeed expand his function of being able to proffer advice to the ruler, not only upon external affairs . . . but also upon all matters concerning the good government of Kuwait’. The instruction tacitly acknowledged that this might be uphill work: ‘some sacrifice of interest to local susceptibilities and to inevitable if unwelcome movements of thought may become unavoidable’; in other words, if it was, the agent was to tread carefully.133 This approach set the pattern for the future. London would expect British representatives to build a sufficiently close relationship with the senior Al Sabah, tactfully to get over unpalatable messages. This was a tough job for even the most seasoned diplomat. The Majlis episode had shown the pitfalls of involvement with domestic Kuwaiti politics. And the Al Sabah had had two centuries of experience in defending their autonomy, of balancing one form of pressure against another; they were a difficult and elusive target. The political agent in post at the time, James Pelly, immediately spotted and flagged up the difficulty: ‘The Subah (sic) family are quite willing to cooperate with us within the traditional framework on which our relations have been built . . . But when we try to bring about some major change in the traditional framework, the Subah will resist strongly any encroachment on what has traditionally been regarded as their responsibility.’134

6. THE IMPACT OF SUEZ

awain Bell was handpicked as Pelly’s successor in 1955; he had just left the GSudan Political Service after twenty-four years and found little difficulty adjusting to the Foreign Office. If it left less room for individual initiative, the Foreign Office shared similar values and viewed problems and personalities in much the same way. Bell and his wife arrived in Kuwait in May. Some things had not changed since 1938. The Bells found the summer desperately humid and hot. At the edge of Kuwait town, close to the shore, the agency building where Bell had stayed with de Gaury, still stood with offices on the ground floor and residence above, while ‘[v]ery dimly the ghost of Lord Curzon . . . lingered on among the framed photographs of my predecessors which lined the corridor between the entrance hall and the Chancery’.135 In addition to the cement tennis court and stables, the agency now enjoyed a small swimming pool and a beach cottage where parties of the staff went for picnics on the weekly Friday holiday. An elderly motor launch enabled the agent to visit the largely uninhabited offshore islands, including Bubiyan, flying the flag and demonstrating Britain’s residual responsibility for the ruler’s overseas possessions and foreign relations. Beyond the agency, Kuwait was very different from the uncomplicated Arab town Bell had visited in 1938. The ruler, Abdulla Salem lived in his family’s Sha’ab Palace, some way down the coast from the agency; Shaikh Jaber, son of Shaikh Ahmed, who was to succeed in 1977, occupied the Dasman Palace near the agency. The ruler still worked in the Seif Palace on the site of Mubarak’s residence. But supermarkets and asphalt streets were steadily replacing the old town and market. Concrete blocks of offices, shops and flats looked down on an endless procession of air-conditioned and ceaselessly hooting cars. At night, the neon lights of advertisements for Pepsi Cola, Ford, Cadillac, Sanyo, and much 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 210

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else took over. The town walls that Salem had rebuilt in 1920 still just survived; they would be bulldozed the following year. Beyond the walls, a cement works, a water treatment plant, and a dozen other signs of prosperity, most of them British built, stood where goats had grazed on the desert scrub. A score or more freighters were anchored in the bay, all but a few of the dhows had gone and the pearling fleet had been reduced to a dozen vessels. Twenty miles south of Kuwait, the oil town of Ahmadi had sprung up at the centre of the oilfields, neat and tidy, geared for efficiency with plumes of dark smoke visible by day and the red flares of surplus gas at night. The population had more than trebled since the 1930s. The need for education, health and other new services brought in skilled workers, technicians, teachers and doctors from other parts of the Arab world, the majority from Egypt, Palestine and the Levant. Radio broadcasts and newspapers linked Kuwaitis and Arab expatriates to centres of Arab thought and propaganda in Beirut and Cairo. Political activity in Kuwait was no longer the preserve of the 150 leading families that had pressed in 1938 for an elected Council. A much wider circle was engaged in active politics, listening avidly to Nasser’s ‘Voice of the Arabs’ and organized through a network of social clubs. Bell’s instructions told him that, while Kuwait’s independence should be Britain’s ultimate goal, the immediate aim was to secure Britain’s economic and strategic interests through his influence with the ruling family. As he got to know Kuwait, Bell recognized, like his predecessor, that the policy was unrealistic; foreign control, however inconspicuous or disguised or beneficent, would be resented; Kuwait was now likely to acquire full and formal independence sooner rather than later. By 1955, the tolerance for the British consultants and contractors who had enjoyed, and in some cases abused, a virtual monopoly for more than five years was beginning to evaporate; Britain’s favoured position was under scrutiny and criticism. The ruler had already in 1954 succeeded in revising KOC’s concession agreement to bring it into line with Saudi Arabia’s 50/50 profit sharing and revised price formula and had exacted a retrospective payment of £25 million.136 In his dealings with the ruler, Bell found Abdulla Salem shrewd and cautious; he was his own man, quite prepared when he judged it necessary to reject British advice. London had returned to the wartime idea of a Kuwaiti deal with Iraq over a port on the Khor Abdalla. Officials no longer thought of adjusting the frontier but suggested that Iraq would supply fresh water by pipeline from the Shatt al-Arab in return for port facilities in Kuwait territory south of Umm Qasr. With Iraq under its Hashemite monarchy now closely aligned with Britain in the Baghdad Pact, London thought it desirable that Kuwait draw closer to Iraq, stiffening this bulwark against the Soviet Union through Iraq, Turkey and Iran. It did not look that way to Abdulla Salem who saw the risks for Kuwait and stalled. As he put it to Bell: The Foreign Office seems curiously blind. How do they know what is going to happen in Iraq? Have they forgotten that in 1941 the Iraqis besieged the British Embassy (in Baghdad)? Perhaps they will do so again one day. Do they want me to put my head in a noose by giving Iraq control over Kuwait’s water supplies? The Regent and Nuri Es Said are friendly to me, but one day they will be replaced by others.137 Bell respected what turned out to be a prescient reply. He also disagreed with London when the Foreign Office argued that the Al Sabah system of rule was outdated. Bell advised against another tilt to the progressives. To court them, as Britain had appeared to do in 1938 would be neither honourable nor wise; the 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 211

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Al Sabah were a close-knit, flexible unit, sufficiently astute to handle their internal problems effectively. So it proved over the Suez crisis, when Britain’s invasion of Egypt aroused well founded Arab suspicions of complicity with Israel and triggered demonstrations throughout the Arab world. Kuwait was no exception. The Al Sabah depended on Britain for protection against a still ambitious Iraq. But this now had to be balanced with the outward distancing from Britain essential to credibility with the people of Kuwait and in the region more widely. As the Suez crisis broke, the Al Sabah also had the immediate problem of keeping order. Abdulla Salem privately assured Bell that although the reaction in Kuwait, as elsewhere in the Arab world, would certainly be hostile, he would see to the maintenance of public order. To avoid any local attempt to pressurize him into acting against Britain, Abdulla Salem withdrew to his offshore retreat on Failaka Island. The tactic worked; it left room for the members of the family with responsibility for public order (the ruler’s cousin, Abdulla Mubarak, and brother Sabah Salem) to act with the support of the merchants who gave priority to stability. The shaikhs dealt firmly with anti-British demonstrations as they erupted, including one immediately in front of the agency. Perceptions that the Al Sabah had defended Britain against popular protest were potentially damaging. As the crisis simmered down, the Kuwaiti leadership moved to put some public distance between themselves and the political agent. Abdulla Salem accelerated what was already a building momentum towards independence in dealings with other Arab countries and more generally in foreign affairs, areas in which Britain still formally had an advisory role. Internally, he hastened the winding up of Britain’s old responsibilities: jurisdiction through the political agent’s court over Europeans, Americans, and other Christians, and the issue of visas to Kuwaitis for travel outside the Arab world. Bell saw and well understood what was going on. Suez had further reduced the Agent’s ability to influence the ruler. At the same time the pressures for change in Kuwait now had their own momentum. Abdulla Salem had been a proponent of reform in the 1920s and 1930s and post-Suez recognized that fresh winds of change were blowing through the Arab world. Kuwait’s newly prosperous and rapidly growing middle classes were attuned to progressive secular thinking in Egypt and the Levant; the Al Sabah needed to move with the times. London, in the meantime, stuck to the pursuit of closer links between Kuwait and Britain’s two key remaining allies in the Arab world, the Hashemite monar- chies of Jordan and Iraq. For Nuri Said in Iraq, there was another advantage: Kuwait’s rapidly increasing oil wealth could be the key to the survival of the impoverished Hashemite Union. Here too Abdulla Salem kept his own council and again resisted British pressure; his suspicions of Iraqi intentions deepened when Nuri Said renewed the old claims to Wahba and Bubiyan Islands and territory down to Kuwait Bay. But before Nuri Said could make a further move, he and the monarchy were swept away. Iraq’s violent revolution in July 1958 led to immediate questions in London about the viability of Kuwait and the other Gulf States; should Britain intervene militarily and run Kuwait as a Crown Colony? Calmer councils prevailed; officials recognized that Britain’s long term strategic and economic interest still lay in a separate and independent Kuwait. But they worried that with Arab nationalism on the upsurge, Kuwait could tip into the Nasserite camp. Abdulla Salem had never been prepared to go that far. He was well aware that Kuwait remained vulnerable and that, as a small independent shaikhdom, its best hope of protection from a revolutionary Iraq with territorial ambitions still lay in Britain, the only friendly power with adequate forces in the region. Yet having experienced 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 212

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Britain’s behaviour over Suez and the Hashemite Union, and aware of the damage open dependence on Britain could do to the standing of the Al Sabah in Kuwait and the wider Arab world, Abdulla Salem appears to have concluded that it was essential for Kuwait now to be seen to be in full charge of its relations with other Arab states. This led to a compromise that was to hold over the next few years as Kuwait moved towards full independence; Britain remained the protecting power and was perceived as such in the Gulf, but British guidance to the ruler on external, as well as internal matters became still less obtrusive. Kuwait began openly to run its own regional policy.

Agency to embassy By 1960 the Foreign Office had posted the first career diplomat to Kuwait as political agent. John Richmond had spent his childhood in Palestine, and had served in Iraq and Amman. As Richmond settled into the job, Abdulla Salem told him that the 1899 ‘Bond’ was now obsolete and should be replaced by a new agreement more in line with Kuwait’s status. Familiar with the independent Arab states to the north, Richmond was not surprised. Whitehall, too, accepted that Kuwait now had to balance reliance on British arms with political support from Egypt and its Arab allies. Britain still needed a formal defence agreement with Kuwait. Post Suez, Britain remained the major Western military presence in the Gulf. The United States had no significant forces in the region and had not intervened during the 1958 coup in Iraq. Failure to ensure the safety of Kuwait would further undermine Britain’s tattered credibility. Like their predecessors in 1899, Harold Macmillan’s government saw Britain’s basic interest as securing Kuwait’s borders against its neighbours and keeping it outside the influence of rival powers – which in the 1960s meant primarily the Soviet Union. Kuwait also remained important, if no longer vital, to Britain’s economic well-being. The shaikhdom remained a major holder of sterling; it made a substantial contribution to the profitability of British companies, including BP and also now Shell (through an offshore concession). An official committee estimated that the balance of payments might suffer by over £100 million a year if the position of British oil companies in Kuwait was seriously affected.138 Britain publicly welcomed Kuwait’s move to formal independence in April 1961 and two months later reaffirmed the old commitment to defend Kuwait. But this was now in the context of an agreement negotiated between sovereign partners; the Kuwaiti leadership would have equal voice in any decision to deploy British troops. Days later, the Iraqi revolutionary government under Abdul Karim Qasim reopened the Iraqi claim to Kuwait. Qasim demanded not just the strip of territory Nuri Said had been after around the port at Umm Qasr, but the whole of Kuwait. Like Ghazi in 1938 and Al Gailani in 1941, Qasim alleged that the new state was part of the province of Basra and an integral part of Iraq. Under the new defence agreement, Britain and Kuwait moved fast. The amir invited British troops back; the Macmillan government rushed in 7,000 men but, in keeping with the times, supported the Kuwaiti invitation to an Arab force and its application to join the Arab League. The new reality was that the Al Sabah needed regional allies – in this case Nasser’s Egypt – as well as Britain. As Robert Walmsley, one of the young generation of Arabists in the Foreign Office, minuted, ‘mentally it is difficult, but politically it is necessary [for Britain] to stop thinking of Kuwait as a “Gulf Shaikhdom”, and to treat it as the foreign and friendly Arab power which it is’.139 On the ground in Kuwait, Richmond noted that in spite of careful presentation, 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 213

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the British intervention had not been without cost to the leadership: Kuwait now ‘faced the task of proving that she was something more than a collection of oil wells sheltering under a new form of British Imperialism’.140 This, the Al Sabah proceeded to do. Elections to a constituent assembly took place in December 1961. By November the following year, the assembly had produced a modern constitution characterizing the state of Kuwait as an hereditary monarchy under the Al Sabah but placing restrictions on the powers of the amir and giving significant powers to the judiciary and elected National Assembly. For its time, it was a far sighted document. Kuwait remained an autocracy but a particularly liberal one for the region with potential, some thought, to develop into a constitutional monarchy. In December 1961, the government announced the formation of the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development to cultivate regional support through soft loans. In early 1962, the government began reform of the Kuwait Investment Board to bring Kuwaitis and international banking figures into a previously British dominated institution. A Ministry of Foreign Affairs was set up, initially as a Foreign Department in August 1961 and began to train Kuwaiti diplomats under Shaikh Sabah Salem (who was to succeed his brother Abdulla Salem as amir in 1965). In the meantime, the political agency became the British embassy. Outwardly, little changed. The building remained as it had been in the 1930s, although office space on the ground floor became cramped as London sent more staff to match the task of managing relations with what was rapidly becoming a fully fledged national government. Under Sabah Salem and Ahmed’s increasingly influential son Jaber (who would succeed as ruler in 1977) Kuwait moved more fully into the Arab mainstream. In doing so it became a haven for the opponents of British-backed regimes in Oman, South Arabia and Bahrain. The Al Sabah tolerated strong criticism of Britain and its regional policies in the Kuwaiti press and in the National Assembly. Richmond, Britain’s first ambassador, pointed out in his reports to London that some of this might be expedient if Kuwait, geographically small, military weak, yet envied for its growing wealth, was to survive in a region dominated by Nasser and the Ba’athist dictatorships in Iraq and Syria. It seemed an extension, post-Suez, of the old Al Sabah technique of accommodating and balancing between powerful neighbours. Until 1967, the British connection remained a positive, if understated, factor in this equation. The defence umbrella was an important asset in maintaining the security of a small, rich state in a tough neighbourhood. The calculation changed when Britain was suspected throughout the Arab world of complicity with Israel in the June 1967 Six Day War and, along with the United States, made the target of an Arab oil embargo. In 1968, Jaber Ahmed, now prime minister and heir apparent declared that Kuwait would tolerate no foreign presence in the area, British or otherwise.141 British policy had shifted too; the Labour government that came to power in 1964 decided, primarily for economic reasons, to revoke the assurances on Gulf security it had given on election and, after a bitter cabinet battle in January 1968, announced that British forces would withdraw from the Gulf by the end of 1971.

Termination of 1961 Defence Agreement As a ruler who still saw the value to Kuwait of the British presence in the Gulf, Sabah Salem was privately dismayed at the decision. He hoped that the return of a Conservative government would see it reversed. But when the Heath government, elected in June 1970, made clear that they were going to stick to their 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 214

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predecessors’ policy of withdrawal, Sabah Salem accepted the inevitable and Kuwait signed an exchange of letters with Britain in May 1971 terminating the 1961 Defence Agreement.142 For the first time in three quarters of a century, Kuwait found itself without the formal protection of a major power. Sabah Salem took the logical step of turning to the United States, already a major economic power in the region, and sought to interest the Nixon administration in Kuwait’s fate. Sabah Salem had initiated a dialogue with the United States on his state visit in 1968, and moved to full diplomatic relations in 1971, symbolically transferring his oldest son Salem from London to be Kuwait’s first ambassador in Washington. An American ambassador arrived in Kuwait and in 1972 the US Defence Department surveyed Kuwait’s national defence requirements. But apart from some limited equipment supplies and training, the Americans remained reluctant to engage any further militarily. Embroiled in Vietnam, the Nixon administration offered little practical support to the small states of the Gulf; as the ‘Nixon Doctrine’ put it: ‘nations in each part of the world should assume primary responsibility for their own well-being’.143 This was to remain the American position until the October 1973 war led to growing American unease about the security of oil supplies from the Gulf and President Carter’s determination in 1977 that the Gulf had become a ‘a vulnerable and vital region to which greater military concern ought to be given’.144 This doctrine hardened in the aftermath of the Iranian revolution. In 1978, Carter echoed British pronouncements on the Gulf three quarters of a century earlier: the United States would repel any assault on its interests in the Gulf, if necessary by force. But it was not until 1986 in the context of the Iraq-Iran war that the United States showed itself willing to commit forces in defence of Kuwait, and then only to the extent of protecting Kuwaiti shipping. Until then Kuwait had to rely primarily on inter-Arab diplomacy. This worked to the extent that it defused the immediate tension with Iraq. But it left still unresolved the demarcation of the border and latent Iraqi claims to Kuwait as a whole. Iraqi troops remained stationed on the Kuwaiti land they had occupied in 1973 south of the Samta border post and near the Iraqi port at Umm Qasr. They were to stay there until 1991 and the ejection of all Iraqi forces from Kuwait. In this new environment, the role of the British embassy in Kuwait fell into a more conventional pattern; that of a friendly country with a wide range of shared interests, maintaining a close interest in the host state’s wellbeing, but with no special claim to the ear of the Ruler and his senior advisers. The job of the ambassador was now primarily that of seeking to maintain a relationship between equals, one in which Britain had no formal commitment to Kuwait’s defence. The economic side of Kuwait’s relationship with Britain also saw fundamental change in the 1970s. Kuwait had already stopped accepting payment for oil in sterling. Under pressure from the National Assembly, the government began to impose pricing and gas flaring policies on BP and the other international oil companies operating in Kuwait. By 1976 Kuwait had followed the trend throughout the Middle East and nationalized KOC. The takeover was reasonably amicable and Kuwait retained a significant shareholding in BP – this was still as high as 9.9% in 1989. But with BP’s involvement in Kuwait reduced to a few service contracts the British interest declined. The unfettered flow of Kuwait’s oil to world markets still mattered, but the umbilical economic link through BP and the now defunct sterling area had been cut. With the accession of Jaber Ahmad as amir on the death of Sabah Salem in 1977, the top leadership of Kuwait moved to a new generation, one with less vivid memories of the British guarantee of Kuwait’s security and the interventions 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 215

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by British forces to protect the small state from ambitious neighbours. Britain remained a close friend and ally. The job of the ambassador was still to use his experience and skill to cultivate the ruler and senior members of his family and government. There were regular meetings, warmth, and many shared confi- dences. But Britain now had no pretence to any direct influence over the governance of Kuwait. The work of the embassy in Kuwait became very similar to that of many other bilateral missions around the world. Harold Dickson had died in 1959; his widow Violet was able to remain in the old agency building on the waterfront, a well known and respected figure and a great help to embassy staff in pointing them at the most useful Kuwaiti inter- locutors. The embassy team turned their attention increasingly to trade promotion, as London drove to offset higher oil prices with increased civil and military exports to the oil producing states. It was at this period that Britain made very vigorous attempts to sell the Kuwaitis nuclear technology for power generation. Walter Marshall, head of Harwell made the running on this and the embassy made quite a lot of progress before the Kuwaitis backed away because of the expense; there had never been any intention to go for a weapons programme, and with all Kuwait’s oil, expensive nuclear power was hardly an essential.145 Although Britain had withdrawn major military forces from the region, Britain remained keen to train and equip indigenous armed services. The British Army’s Kuwait Liaison Team took on an expanded training role with the Kuwaiti forces. While Kuwaiti pilots trained, British pilots flew the Hunter and Lightning aircraft the Kuwait Air Force had purchased from Britain. And in keeping with the drive for exports, British officials battled to sell the Kuwaiti armed forces Chieftain and later Challenger tanks.146 This widening range of activity put pressure on the embassy’s office space, still limited to the ground floor of the 1935 building. The first floor remained sufficient for the ambassador’s residence and entertaining. It was still laid out as Harold Dickson had planned, except that his central staircase had been replaced with a rather cramped wooden spiral stair and the ground floor kitchens had been surrendered to the embassy’s archives and communications. The residence staff now had to manage to produce meals for up to fifty guests from a narrow space squeezed onto the first floor. Externally the embassy compound had been separated from the beach in the 1970s by a corniche road leading down the coast to the rapidly expanding new suburbs of Sha’ab and Salmiyya, and to a new diplomatic quarter where other embassies had begun to cluster. The Americans now had a large compound a short distance away which was soon to be overlooked by the tower block of the new Hilton Hotel. At the outbreak of the Iraq-Iran war in 1981, Kuwait found itself, in spite of the large diplomatic presence, without immediate recourse to a major power. Britain no longer had the military capacity to act alone to protect Kuwait and neither government now contemplated such a request. Diplomatic and military relations with Moscow had developed substantially but these did not extend to Soviet military protection. Kuwait had become an outspoken critic of any American presence in the Gulf, and, even had Kuwait wanted to change tack and the Americans been willing, the new American command structure, Central Command (CENTCOM) covering the Gulf region* had no force capable of quick

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deployment to the Gulf or the systems and agreements in place necessary to support such a force. So Kuwait joined the other Gulf States, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman in a new regional alliance, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Based in Riyadh the GCC provided for much closer diplomatic and economic cooperation among its members but at that time had little military substance. In common with its GCC partners, Kuwait concluded that it had little option but to assist Iraq logistically and financially in the struggle with Iran. As Iran began to get the upper hand and occupied the Fao peninsula in 1986, the pressures increased on Kuwait, which along with other GCC states was by now giving substantial support to the Iraqi war effort. Iran had already tried internal subversion against Kuwait and began to threaten oil exports, tar- geting Kuwaiti tankers as they moved down the Gulf. In keeping with long tradition, Kuwait’s rulers turned to the major powers to protect its seaborne trade. Just as Kuwaiti trading dhows had flown the Turkish flag in the nineteenth century so now the amir approached both the United States and its regional rival the Soviet Union to place Kuwaiti tankers under their flags. The play on great power rivalry worked, as it had done in the days of Mubarak; the United States, initially reluctant, was persuaded openly to bring Kuwait’s vital trade under its protection.

7. IRAQ INVADES: THE EMBASSY UNDER SIEGE

hen Iraq turned on Kuwait in August 1990, the re-flagging of Kuwaiti Wtankers in 1986 provided a valuable precedent for seeking American protection. Some three hours after Iraqi troops crossed the border, the crown prince, Shaikh Sa’ad Abdulla,* appealed to Washington. CENTCOM as yet had few forces on the ground and no immediate American military options were available. The crown prince made a quick decision that the ruler must escape into exile. This was wise; Saddam’s troops headed for the ruler’s offices at the Saif Palace and for the Dasman Palace where he lived, sweeping past the British embassy as they did so. Saddam’s immediate aim was to eliminate the Al Sabah and present the Iraqi takeover as a response to an indigenous pro-Iraqi republican revolt. These were circumstances in which Britain was ready again to play a significant part in expelling a foreign aggressor from Kuwait. The Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had been in America when the crisis broke; speaking at Aspen she declared ‘Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait defies every principle for which the United Nations stands. If we let it succeed no small country can ever feel safe again. The law of the jungle would take over from the rule of law.’147 Britain then took a leading and high profile role with Washington, in the Security Council and in a flurry of international diplomacy to support the Al Sabah and to rally an international coalition in Kuwait’s defence. On the ground in Kuwait, this had immediate consequences for the embassy and for the 4,000 strong British community for which it was responsible. One of the paradoxes of Britain’s role in Gulf in the second half of the twentieth century

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had been that as the imperial role declined, the expatriate community grew. Throughout the Gulf, Britons outnumbered Americans and other Europeans. Kuwait was no exception; the presence of so many Britons was to a large extent a function of the growth in the economy, but it also reflected the ties that had been forged since Meade’s encounter with Mubarak in 1899. The mutual confidence and understanding that had developed between the British and local communities was striking. Violet Dickson was emblematic of this; she had been able to stay on in the old political agency building after Harold’s death in 1959, a respected friend of many Kuwaitis and honoured by the British for her contribution to British Kuwait relations, as Dame Violet Dickson. As the Iraqi tanks rumbled into Kuwait city on 2 August 1990, the British embassy found itself at the centre of an anxious expatriate community. At the height of the summer leave season, numbers were down to perhaps 2,000, but the embassy still faced the task of making sense of what was happening in a very confused situation and advising a lot of troubled people on their fate. The compound had suffered very little damage and the Iraqi Governor, General Douri, although unpleasant and unyielding, had indicated that Iraqi troops would respect the embassies. On the first day of the invasion, few staff had been able to get to work; the consul, Larry Banks had for a time been held captive on the beach opposite the embassy as gunfire and skirmishing continued around the Dasman Palace. As people got to their desks, they were swamped with requests for information and assistance and had to deal with the potentially very serious Iraqi capture of a large part of the British military liaison team.148 By 7 August, Saddam Husain appeared to have realized that he had failed totally to predict the reaction of the Kuwaiti people; no one had come out in support of Iraq; armed resistance continued, egged on by clandestine broadcasts. The Iraqi leader now dropped all pretext of internal revolution and announced that Kuwait south of the Mutla’a ridge was to be annexed as Iraq’s nineteenth province, with territory to the north forming part of Basra Province. The justification was Iraq’s old claims to Kuwait, those that King Ghazi had aired in the 1930s, the military regime of Al Gailani in 1941 and Qasim in 1961. The UN Security Council, in Resolution (SCR) 662 of 9 August, immediately rejected such claims as ‘null and void’. But that did not stop Saddam following his tortured logic and ordering embassies in Kuwait to close by 24 August, with the threat of loss of diplomatic immunity. In the meantime, Iraqi troops began rounding up British and American civilians and went on doing so, despite SCR 664 on 18 August, which demanded that the safety of all foreign nationals should be ensured, that they should be allowed to depart if they so wished, and that they should have access to consuls. General Douri warned the embassies that water and electricity supplies would be cut off and that diplomats would be at risk of removal to strategic sites in Iraq. Saddam had already distributed many of the adult male civilians he had taken from the expatriate ‘coalition’ communities in Iraq and Kuwait to sites throughout Iraq as ‘human shields’ against anticipated US and UK bombing.149 There were three arguments for continuing to man the embassy: the outward signal it gave of Britain’s support for Kuwait, maintenance of contact with the remaining British community, and the safekeeping of the embassy compound. Given the reduced work load, food shortages, lack of medical facilities, and now real danger to staff, the Foreign Office decided to reduce the embassy to four vol- unteers – the ambassador, Michael Weston, the commercial secretary, Donald Macaulay, the consul, Larry Banks and security officer Brian McKeith. Other British staff and families left in a long and difficult journey via Baghdad; locally 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 218

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engaged staff either left for their home countries or went to ground if they believed they would be safer staying on in Kuwait. As the 24 August deadline neared, Weston and his small team packed their bags and prepared for the Iraqis to enter the compound and evict them at gunpoint.150 In the event the Iraqis did no more than place a light guard outside the embassy, but it was enough to prevent anything short of a military force getting safely in or out. On 25 August, the Iraqis cut off the electricity, water and telephones, missing a couple of unlist- ed phone lines that were to give the embassy team a vital link to the Britons still in hiding and to other embassies. In the August heat, British officials experienced for the first time since 1935 life without fans or air conditioning. Dickson’s wide balcony came into its own as Weston and his colleagues set up office and living quarters at a point where they were out of sight of any hostile observer and positioned to catch what sultry summer breeze filtered in from the sea. At night they slept on sun loungers taken from the pool and contended with swarms of biting flies and mosquitoes, regretting having sent a stock of old net curtains to the church bazaar; they would have made good mosquito nets. Water tanks within the compound provided a reserve of drinking water, sufficient for a long haul, if eked out; the swimming pool water, into which several cats had fallen and died, was fit only for washing. In the days before the Iraqis cut them off, the embassy team had managed to build up a stock of food and drink, donated by those leaving for Baghdad. There was enough diesel to run a small generator sparingly; this kept some refrigeration going, powered an electric ring for cooking and allowed a brief daily radio contact with London. Weston and his colleagues felt quite well set up to withstand the siege and, so long as the Iraqis left them alone, confident of making ‘a worthwhile contribution to the British community’s determination to withstand the Iraqi assault on Kuwait’.151 The Iraqi intention appeared to be to avoid direct confrontation and to wait for the diplomatic corps still in Kuwait to emerge from their compounds dotted around the town as food and water ran out. There were now fewer than twenty occupied embassies. Most soon ran out of supplies or were instructed by capitals to leave; diplomats travelled uncomfortably to Baghdad where they had to stay. By the end of October, only the British, American, Iranian and a handful of Asian and Arab embassies were left. To conserve supplies, and with a smaller community to care for, the British team reduced to two.

A settled routine and BBC bulletins Weston and Banks fell into a settled siege routine focused around BBC bulletins, telephone contacts with the British community and radio contact with London. As water supplies dwindled they decided to dig down to the water table through the still empty double grave consecrated before the invasion as a final resting place for Harold and Violet Dickson. Harold Dickson’s body had lain in the KOC cemetery at Ahmadi since his death in 1959; the intention had been that Dame Violet would in due course join him in the embassy grounds. Aged ninety-three, she was frail and in March had taken a turn for the worse. But as medical conditions deteriorated under the Iraqi occupation she was evacuated to England, the Iraqis being sufficiently astute to raise no objection. She died with her family in England in January 1991 before she could return to Kuwait. Even with their consecrated well and an improvized pump driven by the generator there was not much Weston and Banks could do to save more than the most resilient trees in the compound. It had been freshly landscaped at a cost of 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 219

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£250,000 a few months before the invasion, and as September wore on, much began to die. Banks managed with the brackish water to preserve the vegetable patch he had carved out in one corner and by mid-November he and Weston were able to supplement their by now very restricted diet with home grown water melons, cucumbers, radishes and spinach – a feat much commended by their many well-wishers following the siege from London. From the outset, the embassy had been hugely constrained in what it could do for the British community. Wives and children had been able to leave for Baghdad and from there to Britain; as the occupation dragged on, the men who could no longer get out stayed where they were in Kuwait, hidden in scattered groups where it was felt they would be safer, better fed and have more chance of access to any necessary medical treatment than in the embassy compound. The locally engaged vice-consul, Rajopalan, an Indian national and as such regarded by the Iraqis as a non-combatant, was able to work on semi-covertly from his home to provide a link with the embassy, and to negotiate when necessary with the Iraqis. A few Western expatriates from what the Iraqis had deemed ‘third countries’, such as Australia, also managed to move around. They and members of the Kuwaiti resistance brought food, water, messages and other essentials to the expatriates who had had to go to ground, although they were not able to get near the British embassy compound. All these activities brought considerable personal danger, particularly to Kuwaitis whom the Iraqis were summarily arresting, torturing and executing. The Security Council had already condemned Iraq’s treatment of civilians and its breaches of the Vienna Convention on diplomatic and consular relations in SCR 674 of 29 October 1990, but this was not much comfort. Tension rose further as the Council passed Resolution 678 on 29 November setting a deadline for Iraqi withdrawal by 15 January 1991. This resolution threatened the use of military force. On 6 December, Saddam unexpectedly announced the release of all expatriates. In Kuwait many Britons came out of hiding, astounding the Iraqis at the number who had managed to stay. After some appalling journeys to Baghdad, most managed to leave Iraq. Once they had gone, with no give from Saddam over Kuwait, and with the coalition visibly mustering an invasion force, the case for sustaining the embassy presence declined. Weston and Banks would have been prepared to stick it out, remaining in touch with the resilient members of the locally engaged staff, who had been able to stay on, and with the small band of some thirty Britons who had chosen to stay in hiding until liberation. But the calculation in London was that with their food stocks dwindling, growing risks to their health, much of the community gone, and military action now probable, it was time for the diplomats to leave. Washington reached a similar conclusion; the remaining American diplomats left on 13 December. Two days later, Weston and Banks destroyed their communications equipment, locked up carefully and emerged from their embassy, almost the last of the diplomats to depart – the Bahrain ambassador stuck it out to the bitter end. As an Iraqi soldier waved a gun and gestured him back into the embassy Weston told him flatly: ‘you’ll have to shoot me I’m afraid’, and stood his ground.152 The Iraqis insisted that Weston and Banks leave Kuwait through Baghdad; as they drove to the airport they noted the weakness of the Iraqis’ defences. For the first time since Knox in 1904, Britain had no official representative in Kuwait, although the Union flag continued to fly over the embassy. On 16 January 1991, the fourteen nation coalition launched a campaign of aerial bombardment followed by a ground offensive in south eastern Iraq. On 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 220

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24 February, coalition forces attacked on several fronts in a combined surface, naval and air offensive and within a few tense days succeeded in liberating Kuwait. The British diplomats were the first back on 28 February. The day before, vice- consul Rajagopalan at considerable risk entered the compound using the keys he had retained throughout the siege; he was relieved to find everything intact. As journalists gathered at the embassy gate later in the day, several military helicop- ters flew in from the sea and hovered over the embassy as commandos from the Special Boat Squadron abseiled onto the roof. The soldiers blew open and wrecked the main door with an explosive charge and shot their way through the internal security doors – in the process inflicting more damage than the Iraqis during their six month siege of the Embassy. A helicopter returned with Michael Weston who landed to a welcome from Rajagopalan and his colleagues, joined by an enthusiastic group of Kuwaitis. The military, apparently unaware of Rajagopalan’s inspection, maintained that the explosives had been a precaution against booby traps. To some it looked like overkill; it was to be over ten years before the Embassy fully restored the front door and entrance lobby. On 14 March, with the town fully secure, the amir returned. The government set about the long task of putting out the oil fires and repairing massive Iraqi damage. At the embassy, Michael Weston restarted operations. As staff returned to work, Larry Banks went to Ahmadi, exhumed Harold Dickson’s remains and placed them in the rebuilt grave under a specially commissioned headstone in the Embassy garden. Banks reckoned that digging up a former head of post to bury him again in his own residence garden was probably a first in the history of the consular service. Banks also planted a number of citrus trees to ensure that any future occupants of the compound cut off from outside supplies should not go short of vitamins.153 Over the next ten years, the Embassy offices and first floor residence reception rooms were extensively refurbished and redecorated by successive incumbents. In the compound, the work on the garden begun in the months before the invasion was restarted and extended. New lawns, shrubs and trees were planted, including those in memory of Douglas Croskery, a Briton killed in still unsolved circumstances in the early hours of the invasion, and of Alex Duncan, son of the commander of the British liaison team who had been killed in an accident in October 1990 under Iraqi escort. The result was one of the finest gardens in Kuwait. In the cooler months it provided a venue for receptions, theatricals and car launches, bringing the British community and many Kuwaitis into the Embassy. It was the setting for events in 1999 to mark the centenary of the ‘Treaty of Friendship’. A large crowd gathered in February 2001 on the tenth anniversary of liberation to see Lady Thatcher and Sir John Major plant new trees to mark the occasion. In a town where few old buildings have been preserved, the fine 1935 embassy structure stands out as a link with Kuwait’s past and a reminder of Kuwait’s long ties with Britain. It is also a rare demonstration in the Gulf of the twenty-first century that there can be alternatives to towers of concrete, marble and glass.

8. CONCLUSIONS

ver the hundred-year history of the British mission in Kuwait the buildings Ohave outwardly changed little. Shakespear gave the old agency a facelift in 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 221

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1909, further repairs were made in 1917, Dickson saved it from collapse in 1929, the Iraqis gutted it in 1991; but as ‘Dickson House’ it stands today on the sea front, heavily restored and on a dual carriageway, but essentially the house Mubarak took Knox to see in August 1904. Its successor, the elegant structure designed in Delhi in the 1930s, has survived intact. Yet behind the façade the role of the mission is totally different, the ghost of Curzon now only the faintest of admonitory presences as the occupants go about their business. Curzon landed in Kuwait in 1903 representing an imperial power beginning to feel defensive and anxious about its rivals. There may have been no great enthusiasm about bringing Kuwait into the empire but there was a resolute determination that others should not have it. The prize then was Kuwait’s waterways and harbours, strategic assets on India’s defensive perimeter and on one of the Empire’s key lines of communication. The costs of influence were relatively low. Britain had the military and technological advantage; when Shaikh Mubarak was threatened a gunboat was dispatched in a straightforward projection of superior power. These conditions still applied after the First World War and when oil was first discovered in Kuwait in the 1930s. Aircraft extended Britain’s reach from the coasts into the desert. But with Britain now a regional power on land as well as at sea, the agency found itself drawn into the definition of Kuwait’s borders and their defence against encroachments, first from Ibn Saud and later from a series of more or less threatening Iraqi regimes. Kuwait’s enormous post-war accumulation of oil wealth set up an entirely different dynamic. By a coincidence of geology, vital oil supplies lay under the old strategic imperial route; by a coincidence of history they were discovered and brought on stream in Kuwait just as Britain began to divest itself of empire, gave India independence and lost interest in the Gulf as a link to the east. So it was for entirely new reasons that the northern Gulf remained vital to British interests in the post-war years, as for two further decades Britain hung on as the major military power in the region. As it did so, Britain had to come to terms with an increasingly independent Kuwaiti leadership and a relationship rapidly becoming one between sovereign states as Kuwait entered the mainstream of Arab politics. Kuwait was the smaller and physically by far the weaker partner. But its massive revenues and readiness to hold them in sterling made it crucial to the British economy. British attempts at intervention in the economy and governance of Kuwait through the assignment of advisers were not a success. Diplomatic nudging and the influence of successive political agents may have achieved more, but Kuwait’s 1962 constitution and the decision of the Al Sabah leadership to share power with the National Assembly were home grown. This was part of a long evolution in Kuwait’s political structures that had its roots in the early days of the Al Sabah dynasty and reflected wider trends in the Arab world of which Kuwait in the 1950s became an integral part. By 1971, nearly a quarter of a century after Indian independence, Britain’s ‘moment’ as the power in the Middle East came to an end, hastened by financial strain and the Suez debacle. As British forces withdrew from the Gulf, the formal British commitment to Kuwait’s defence lapsed. But a tradition that had lasted since the Royal Navy first came to Mubarak’s assistance in 1897, that had been formalized when Kuwait came under British protection in 1914 and again on independence in 1961, proved more enduring than many sceptics had thought possible. Until the Khomeini revolution, Britain accepted the American view that Gulf security was best left to the ‘twin pillars’ of the shah and the Al Saud. During the 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 222

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Iran-Iraq war Britain sat uneasily on the sidelines as Kuwait backed Saddam and faced Iranian subversion. But as the full extent of Kuwait’s vulnerability was exposed when Saddam invaded in 1990, Britain once again moved without hesitation in defence of Kuwait and, once Saddam had been driven out, joined the United States in sustaining the newly demarcated border with air power. The deployment of a squadron of RAF Tornados to the Ali Al Salem air base in northern Kuwait between 1992 and 2003 in the international coalition for Operation Southern Watch relied for its legality on its presentation as protection of the Shi’a of southern Iraq; but it served equally to provide a defence of the Kuwait- Iraq border. The line of the border was demarcated by the United Nations in 1993 in Security Council Resolution 833 of 27 May 1993; whether this will be the end of the matter it is too soon to say. Paradoxically, the nationalization of KOC in 1970 and the end of Britain’s formal defence role in 1971, led to a widening and deepening in other aspects of the relationship. The British community grew substantially from the 1960s onwards as Britons provided expertise to Kuwait’s expanding economy. Cultural and commercial links flourished; Britain trained the Kuwaiti military and sought to sell it equipment. Analysts and policy makers in London recognized Kuwait as a major political and economic player in the Arab world, a leading banking and financial centre. The personal ties grew if anything closer. The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh visited Kuwait in 1979, and the Amir Shaikh Jaber Al Ahmed made a state visit to Britain in 1995. Following his succession in 2006 the new Amir Shaikh Sabah Al Ahmed made an official visit to Britain in early 2007. The embassy buildings reflected the shifting pattern of relations; in the mid- 1980s, the Foreign Office added a commercial and visa wing in a new marble clad building, which in floor space was almost as large as the 1935 agency. The old building still housed the ambassador’s office, the refurbished political and defence sections as well as the residence on the first floor. The compound, remodelled and replanted after the invasion, provided valuable space for official entertainment in the cooler months. The most enduring feature of the relationship has been Britain’s recognition of Kuwait’s vulnerability as a small state and a robust readiness to come, when needed, to its defence. A Memorandum of Understanding signed in February 1992 builds on the close historical ties and provides in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s language ‘a modern basis for the traditionally strong defence relationship’.154 This is short of a firm commitment that Britain would again play a lead in defending Kuwait against a future threat from its powerful neighbours. The presence of the embassy, still a local landmark, refurbished after the Iraqi invasion, is some guarantee that it will.

NOTES

1. Valentine Chirol, The Middle Eastern Question, (London: John Murray, 1903), p. 231 2. Saif Marzoog Al-Shamlan, trans. Peter Clark, Pearling in the Arabian Gulf: A Kuwaiti Memoir, (London: London Centre of Arab Studies, 2000), p. 86. 3. John Gordon Lorimer, Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, Oman and Central Arabia Volume II: Geographical and Statistical, (Calcutta: Government of India, 1908), 1050. 4. Chirol, Middle Eastern Question, p. 231. 5. Chirol, Middle Eastern Question, p. 237. 6. This history is summarized in Lorimer, Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, II, 1000–1016; see also B. J. Slot, The Origins of Kuwait, (Leiden: Brill, 1991; second edition, Kuwait: Centre for Research and Studies on Kuwait, 1998), and Ahmad Mustafa Abu Hakima, The Modern History of Kuwait 1750–1965, (London: Luzac and Company, 1985). 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 223

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7. S. Hennell, political resident Persian Gulf to the Secret Committee, East India Company, Kuwait, 24 April 1841. Reproduced in Hakima, Modern History of Kuwait Appendix III, pp. 177–9. 8. Lorimer, Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, I, 1011. 9. For an account of the Turkish preoccupation with the Najd, see Frederick F. Anscombe, The Ottoman Gulf: The Creation of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), pp. 28–32, 50–1. 10. Lorimer, Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, I, 1012. 11. Lady Anne Blunt, A Pilgrimage to Najd: The Cradle of the Arab Race, (London: John Murray, 1881), I, p. 273. 12. IOR Home 1722/97, Memorandum, n. s., February 1897; David Gilmour, The Ruling Caste: Imperial Lives in the Victorian Raj, (London: John Murray, 2005), p. 177. 13. The question of Kuwait’s status at this point is examined in a well balanced way in B. C. Busch, Britain and the Persian Gulf 1894–1914, (Berkeley CA: University of California Press, 1967), pp. 94–113. 14. A fuller account appears in Salwa Alghanim, The Reign of Mubarak Al Sabah, Shaikh of Kuwait, 1896–1915, (London: I.B. Tauris, 1998), p. 1. 15. Lorimer, Gazetter of the Persian Gulf, I, 1016. 16. Lorimer, Gazetter of the Persian Gulf, I, 1017. 17. Anscombe, Ottoman Gulf, p. 98. 18. Busch, Britain and the Persian Gulf, p. 107. 19. Lorimer, Gazetter of the Persian Gulf, I, 1021. 20. David Gilmour, Curzon: Imperial Statesman 1859–1925, (London: John Murray, 1994), p. 201. 21. A. J. P. Taylor, The Struggle for Mastery of Europe, (London: OUP, 1971), (Oxford Modern History of Europe), p. xvii. 22. G. N. Curzon, Persia and the Persian Question, (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1892), II, 465 quoted in Busch, Britain and the Persian Gulf, p. 116. 23. IOR Home 2430/98, Curzon memorandum (B 120), 19 November 1898, quoted in Busch, Britain and the Persian Gulf, p. 106. 24. IOR Home 2519/98, O’Connor to Salisbury, 22 December 1898. 25. IOR/R/15/1/739, Government of India, Foreign Department, ‘Treaties and undertakings in force between the British Government and the rulers of Kuwait, 1841–1913’. 26. Godley, India Office, to Curzon, 6 January 1899, private, quoted in Busch, Britain and the Persian Gulf, p. 108. 27. IOR/FI 319/99, Meade to Foreign Secretary, India, 30 January 1899. 28. Busch, Britain and the Persian Gulf, p. 209. 29. Lorimer, Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, I, 1030. 30. Lorimer, Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, I, 1030. 31. IOR/FI 495/02, Viceroy telegram to Secretary of State for India, 29 March 1902. 32. IOR/Home 2283/03, Lansdowne telegram to O’Connor, 13 March 1903. 33. Chirol, Middle East Question, p. 261. 34. Chirol, Middle East Question, p. 264; Gilmour, Curzon, p. 203. 35. IOR/Home 2787/03, O’Connor telegram to Lansdown, 18 July 1903. 36. IOR 2/15/5/59, Foreign Office to India Office, 13 August 1903. 37. IOR L/PS/7/106, Curzon to Broderick, Government of India Foreign Department, secret foreign letter no. 196, 17 December 1903. 38. IOR/EUR F 111/156, Curzon collection mss: Curzon to Secretary of State for India, no. 90, 1 December 1903. 39. IOR L/PS/7/156, Curzon to Brodrick, secret letter no. 196, 7 December 1903. 40. IOR L/PS/7/156, Curzon to Brodrick, secret letter no. 196, 7 December 1903. 41. A. T. Wilson, S.W. Persia, A Political Officer’s Diary 1907–1914, (London: Oxford University Press, 1941), p. 93. 42. IOR/R15/5/59, Viceroy Simla to Secretary of State for India, tel. 1663E-A, 20 May 1904. 43. IOR R15/5/59, Viceroy (Simla) to Secretary of State for India, tel. 174E-A, 29 May 1904. 44. Wilson, S. W. Persia, p.191. 45. IOR L/PS/10/69, Governor of India in Council to Secretary of State for India, 21 July 1904. 46. IOR L/PS/10/69, Cox to Dane, Secretary to the Government of India, 30 July 1904. 47. IOL R/15/5/59, Foreign Department tel. no. 2457, 3 August 1904. 48. British Library Curzon Collection, MSS Eur. F111/531, Summary of the Principle events and measures of the Viceroyalty of Lord Curzon in the Foreign Department, 1 Jan 1899-April 1904: Volume IV Persia and the Persian Gulf 1907. 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 224

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49. IOR/ L/PS/10/47, Knox to Cox, no. 4, 8 August 1904. 50. IOR/ L/PS/10/47, Knox to Cox, no. 4, 8 August 1904. 51. IOR/ L/PS/10/47, Mubarak to Cox, 7 August 1904; Cox to Mubarak 16 August 1904. 52. Al Shamlan, Pearling in the Arabian Gulf, p. 94. 53. IOR L/PS/10/47, Knox to Cox, no. 7, 17 August 1904 54. IOR L/PS/10/47, Knox to Cox, no. 7, 17 August 1904; Cox to Foreign Department telno. 300, 3 September 1904. 55. IOR L/PS/10/47, Under Secretary, Government of India to Cox, no. 2918 E.A, 7 September 1904. 56. Gilmour, Ruling Caste, p.183. 57. IOR L/PS/1047, Political Resident Persian Gulf to Foreign Department, telegram, 23 December 1904. 58. Al Ahram, Cairo, 16 September 1904. 59. IOR R/15/5/59, Knox to political resident, Bushire 11 February 1905. 60. FO 918, Ampthill Mss., Ampthill to Brodrick, private, 21 November 1904, in Busch, Britain and the Persian Gulf, p. 232. 61. Times of India, Bombay, 26 November 1904. 62. IOR L/PS/10/47, Government of India Foreign Department to Brodrick, Secretary of State for India, despatch no. 18, 19 January 1905. 63. IOR R/15/5/59, Knox to Cox, no. 134, 28 October 1905. 64. FO 424/219 Confidential Print, Turkey, Knox to Cox, 8 July 1908, in Busch, Britain and the Persian Gulf, p. 312. 65. Violet Dickson, Forty Years in Kuwait, (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1970), p. 77. 66. H. V. F. Winstone, The Illicit Adventure: the story of political and military intelligence in the Middle East from 1898 to 1926 (London: Cape, 1982), p. 48; IOR L/PS/10/69, Treasury to Foreign Office, 5 August 1909. 67. IOR/R 15/5/59 Shakespear to Political Resident Bushire, no. C-36, conf., 15 June 1910. 68. Anscombe, Ottoman Gulf, p. 139. 69. IOR/SF (RS) 17/12, 2218/12, Bethell to Admiralty, tel. 16 April 1912. 70. Text in IOR/L/PS/10/60. 71. IOR/R15/1/612, ‘Four copies of map of Kuwait hinterland’ with red line denoting the outer limits. 72. IOR/SF 66/12/2692/13, Shakespear to Cox, 28 May 1913. 73. IOR/P/15/1/165, Cox, to Government of India tel., 7 December 1913. 74. IOR map W/L/P&S/10/60 (i). 75. Wilson, S. W. Persia, p. x. 76. Elizabeth Monroe, Britain’s Moment in the Middle East 1914–1971, (London: Chatto and Windus, 1981). 77. W. S. Churchill, House of Commons 13 July 1913, speech in defence of the Anglo-Persian Convention, in P. H. Frankel, Essentials of Petroleum, (Frank Cass: London 1946, reprinted 1976), p. 110. 78. Hankey to Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour, quoted in Daniel Yergin, The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power, (London: Simon and Schuster, 1991), p.188. 79. Gertrude Bell: Letters, selected and edited by Lady Florence Bell, (London: Ernest Benn, 1927, 2 vols.), I, 171 80. IOR R/15/1/615, agent Kuwait to civil commissioner Baghdad, 8 February 1915. 81. Charles Mylrea the Head of the American Arabian Mission Hospital in Kuwait, typescript memorandum, November 1920. 82. H. R. P. Dickson, edited by Clifford Witting, Kuwait and Her Neighbours, (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1956), p. 256. 83. Dickson, Kuwait and Her Neighbours, p. 256. 84. Dickson, Kuwait and Her Neighbours, pp. 270–6. 85. Dickson, Kuwait and Her Neighbours, p. 279. 86. Dickson, Kuwait and Her Neighbours, p. 278. 87. For a detailed history of the negotiation see A. H. T. Chisholm, The First Kuwait Oil Concession Agreement: A Record of Negotiations 1911–1934, (London: Frank Cass, 1975). 88. H. R. P. Dickson, The Arab of the Desert: A glimpse into Badawin life in Kuwait and Sau’di Arabia, (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1949). 89. Dickson, Kuwait and Her Neighbours, p. 258. 90. Dickson, Forty Years in Kuwait, p. 92. 91. IOR B395/P4224/28, ‘Koweit 1908–1928’, memorandum, India Office, 1 October 1928. 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 225

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92. Dickson, Forty Years in Kuwait, p. 77. 93. IOR, Political Resident Bushire to Foreign Secretary Government of India, 26 January 1929. 94. IOR B395/P4224/28, ‘Koweit 1908–1928’, memorandum, India Office, 1 October 1928. 95. Dickson, Kuwait and Her Neighbours, pp. 295, 312. 96. Dickson, Kuwait and Her Neighbours, pp. 311–13. Darwish himself died in prison in Riyadh eighteen months later from a throat haemorrhage. 97. IOR B395/P4224/28, ‘Koweit 1908–1928’, memorandum, India Office, 1 October 1928. 98. Dickson to Sir A Wilson, Director APOC, letter, 25 September 1931. Reproduced in Records of Kuwait 1961–1965 Vol 5, p 103, edited by Anita Burdett (Slough, Archive Editions) 99. Dickson Papers, (NRA 41057 Dickson), Dickson diaries, 28 December 1934. 100. Dickson, 40 Years in Kuwait, p. 126. 101. IOR/R/15/5/11, Bushire to Foreign Secretary Government of India, tel., 11 August 1929. 102. IOR/R/15/5/11, Hugh Biscoe to Laithwaite, India Office, private, 17 July 1930. 103. IOR/R/15/5/11, Secret P 345/30 B421, ‘Transfer of Residency Headquarters to Kuwait’, Political Resident, Bushire, express message to Foreign Secretary Government of India, 17 July 1929. 104. IOR/R/15/5/11, Agreement Between the Political Agent, Kuwait and the Ruler of Kuwait, 23 April 1931. 105. IOR/R/15/5/11, Political Resident, Bushire, to Foreign Secretary Government of India, 17 November 1929. 106. IOR/R/15/5/11 Assistant Engineer, Bushire to Political Resident, 16 September 1930. 107. Kuwait Administration Report, 1931, Dickson Archive (GB165-0085), Box 3, File 5, Middle East Centre Archive, St Anthony’s College, Oxford (MECA). 108. IOR/R/15/5/11, Under Secretary, Treasury to Under Secretary, Foreign Office, 6 July 1932; ms. file note, India Office, 28 July 1932. 109. Kuwait Administration Report, 1932, Dickson Archive (GB165-0085), Box 3, File 5, MECA. 110. IOR/R/15/5/11, Memorandum, political resident to Foreign Secretary, Government of India, New Delhi 3 March 1934. 111. IOR/R/15/5/11, Kuwait Intelligence Summary, 30 April 1935. 112. IOR/R/15/5/11], Political Resident to Foreign Secretary Government of India, tel., 4 November, 1934; Under Secretary Government of India to Laithwaite, India Office, 1 March 1935 IOR/R/15/5/11. 113. IOR/R/15/5/11, Political Resident, Bushire, to Under Secretary, Government of India, 31 August 1935. 114. Dickson, Forty Years in Kuwait, p. 128. 115. Dickson, Forty Years in Kuwait, p. 128. 116. Gawain Bell, Shadows in the Sand: The Memoirs of Sir Gawain Bell, (London: C .Hurst, 1983), p. 223. 117. Dickson, Kuwait and Her Neighbours, p. 258. 118. IOR L/PS/12/3894B, Political Resident to Secretary of State for India, tel. 16 July 1938. 119. IOR L/PS/12/3894B, Fowle to Peel, India Office, 18 July 1938. 120. IOR L/PS/12/3894B, internal minute, India Office, 20 July 1938. 121. IOR L/PS/12/3894B, Prior to Olaf Caroe, New Delhi, 12 November 1939. 122. IOR L/PS/12/3894B, Prior to Olaf Caroe, New Delhi, 20 November 1939. 123. IOR/R/15/1/56, Foreign Office to India Office, E1033/63/93, 6 March 1940. 124. IOR/R/15/1/541, Political Resident to Peel, India Office, tel. C/93, 8 February 1940; Political Resident to Secretary to the Government of India, demi-offical, no.172, 28 March 1941. 125. IOR/R/15/1/541, Political Resident to Peel, India Office, tel. C/93, 8 February 1940. 126. IOR/R/15/1/541, Baghdad despatch no. 72 to Foreign Office, 16 February 1940. 127. IOR/L/PS/12/2893, Political Resident Bushire to India Office, tel., 12 November 1942. 128. IOR/L/PS/12/2892, Political Agent Kuwait to Resident, C/135, 5 March 1941. 129. Dickson, Kuwait and Her Neighbours, p. 451. 130. Dickson, Kuwait and Her Neighbours, p. 450. 131. FO 371/91300, Sir R. Hay to G. W. Furlonge, no 111/12/16, 13 November 1951, quoted in Simon C. Smith, Kuwait 1950–1965: Britain the al-Sabah and oil, (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 1999), p. 38. 132. IOR/L/PS/12/3599 Prior, Political Resident, to Hay, Government of India, 9 November 1939. 133. FO 371/104264, Secretary of State to Burrows, Political Resident, no. EA 10111/24, 20 November 1953. 134. FO 371/104330, Pelly to Burrows, no. 1015/2, 20 November 1953. 2406_CH04.qxd 5/19/08 4:47 PM Page 226

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135. Bell, Shadows on the Sand, p. 227. 136. Smith, Kuwait 1950–1965, p. 56. 137. Bell, Shadows on the Sand, p. 227. 138. Memorandum by the Lord Privy Seal (C(61)140), October 1961. Reproduced in Records of Kuwait 1961–1965, 1, 42. 139. FO 371/156670, Minute by Walmsley, 2 February 1961. 140. FO 371/168726, Richmond to Lord Home, no. 2, 2 January 1963. 141. J.B. Kelly, Arabia, the Gulf and the West: A Critical View of the Arabs and their Oil Policy, (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1980), p. 172. 142. Robert L. Jarman, Sabah Al-Salim: Amir of Kuwait 1965–1977, (London: London Centre for Arab Studies, 2002), p. 280. 143. Richard M. Nixon, ‘Address to the Nation on the war in Vietnam, 3 November 1969, text in The American Presidency Project, at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=2303, accessed 16 December 2006. 144. Michael A. Palmer, Guardians of the Gulf: A history of America’s expanding role in the Persian Gulf, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), Chapter 5. 145. Peter Hinchcliffe, HM ambassador Kuwait 1987–1990, private communication. 146. Peter Hinchcliffe, private communication. 147. Statement by Mrs Thatcher at a press conference at the Aspen Institute on 5 August 1990, quoted in Lawrence Freedman and Efraim Karsh, The Gulf Conflict 1990–1991: Diplomacy and War in the New World Order, (London: Faber and Faber, 1993), p. 111. 148. Larry Banks, HM consul Kuwait 1988–1991, unpublished ms., pp. 3–4 149. Banks, ms., p. 5. 150. John Levins, Days of Fear: The inside Story of the Iraq Invasion and Occupation of Kuwait, (Dubai: Motivate Publishing, 1997), p. 189. 151. Banks, ms., p. 11. 152. Levins, Days of Fear, p. 554. 153. Banks, ms. 154. ‘The UK & Kuwait’, British embassy Kuwait website, at http://www.britishembassy.gov.uk/ servlet/Front?pagename=OpenMarket/Xcelerate/ShowPage&c=Page&cid=1060854671243, accessed 16 December 2006. 2406_CH05.qxd 5/19/08 4:49 PM Page 227

PART FOUR: OMAN

Terence Clark 2406_CH05.qxd 5/19/08 4:49 PM Page 228 2406_CH05.qxd 5/19/08 4:49 PM Page 229

CHAPTER 5 Oman

1. BRITISH REPRESENTATION IN MUSCAT 1645–2005

he beginning of 1995 witnessed an historic and symbolic moment in the Tlong relationship between Britain and Oman, when the British embassy in Old Muscat moved to its new site at al-Khuwair, closing a chapter of history that opened nearly two centuries before. In 1800, A.H. Bogle, an assistant surgeon with the East India Company (EIC), and the first political agent to be appointed to Muscat,1 arrived to fulfil one of the conditions of the treaty signed that year with Sayyid Sultan bin Ahmad, which said that ‘an English gentleman of respectability should always reside at the port of Muscat’ and that the friendship between the two countries should ‘endure till the end of time or the sun and moon cease in their revolving career’.2 But Britain’s relations with Oman had started long before in the days of the East India Company’s penetration of the Gulf from India, when Britain was in competition with Portugal, Holland and France. Persia was then regarded as potentially more attractive than the shaikhdoms on the Arab littoral, which were seen as little more than the havens of pirates. However, when in 1645 the Imam Nasir bin Murshid, the first Ya’ruba Imam of Oman, wrote to the EIC offering them trading facilities at Sohar, the British were naturally interested in following up. In February of the following year, the Imam Nasir and Philip Wylde of the EIC signed the first treaty3 between the two countries giving the English exclusive trading rights at Sohar as well as the freedom to practise their own religion and extraterritorial jurisdiction. The spirit of that treaty was still alive nearly 350 years later when, in 1991, Sultan Qaboos bin Said generously allocated to the Christian communities in Sohar a plot of land on which to build a place of worship. When the British ship Fellowship called at Muscat in 1650, shortly after the Omanis recaptured the town from the Portuguese with some discreet British help, the captain was offered ‘the best house in the town’ if the company would settle a trading factory there. So well-disposed was the new Imam, Sayyid Sultan bin Saif, that in 1659 he negotiated a treaty with Colonel Henry Rainsford on behalf of the EIC which provided that the English should have one of the two forts in Muscat, be given part of the town for residence, provide a garrison of a hundred soldiers and share the customs. However, like so many visitors to Muscat in these early days, Colonel Rainsford died in May of that year and by 2406_CH05.qxd 5/19/08 4:49 PM Page 230

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the time a successor arrived to renegotiate the treaty – apparently a diplomatic necessity in those days – the imam had had second thoughts, possibly under the influence of the Dutch, who were then strong and successful rivals of the British for trade in the area. The English were nonetheless invited to trade in Muscat as merchants and start a factory. Thereafter they certainly visited Muscat to trade but there is no evidence that they established a factory. By the late eighteenth century, British interests were being looked after by a local merchant who acted as ‘Consul for the English’. It is not clear whether the later embassy compound was on the same site as the ‘miserable hovel’, as Lorimer called the house provided by Sayyid Sultan bin Ahmad for the use of Bogle. He had accompanied Captain (later Sir) John Malcolm, one of the EIC’s most able young officers, who had been sent from Bombay in the Intrepid on a mission first to Muscat and then to Fath Ali Shah in Tehran to secure British interests against the French. Thus, Bogle became the first British resident representative on the Arab side of the Gulf. Sayyid Sultan had asked that a British doctor should be sent to attend him in place of the Frenchman, whom he had been obliged to dismiss in accordance with the treaty he had signed in 1800 with Captain Malcolm on board the imam’s ship Gunjava in the anchorage between Qishm and Henjam islands off the Iranian coast. This, treaty confirmed the earlier treaty or Qaulnameh4 in Persian of 1798 signed by Sayyid Sultan and Mirza Mahdi Ali Khan, a Persian gentleman of good standing who had been selected by the EIC for the appointment of British resident at Bushire in Persia, the main object of which was to exclude French influence from a country which it was believed Napoleon planned to use for a naval attack on India. By the terms of the treaty, Sayyid Sultan bound himself always to take the part of the British Government in international affairs, to deny any commercial or other foothold to the French or their Dutch allies whilst warfare between them and the British continued, to dismiss employees of French nationality, to exclude French vessels from Muscat port and to permit the British to establish a large fortified factory and a sepoy garrison at Bandar Abbas, which Sayyid Sultan then controlled by virtue of a lease from Persia. In return, Sayyid Sultan was to receive 2,820 rupees. However, he was killed in a battle with pirates in 1804 and, after Napoleon’s successes in Europe, his successor Sayyid Said resumed relations with France through Mauritius, signing a Treaty of Amity and Commerce in 1807. But when this French possession capitulated to the British in 1810 ‘the Gallophile phase came to an end and British influence was firmly and finally established’.5 The rigours of conditions in Muscat claimed the lives of the first four British representatives. Bogle, who had quickly established himself in the regard of Sayyid Sultan, died within a year a victim of the Muscat climate. He was succeeded in 1801 by Captain David Seton of the Bombay Army, who was obliged to take a year’s leave in India in 1802 on account of ill health, though he returned in 1803. In the following year, the post was temporarily closed until 1805. Amid renewed British fears of French interest in Oman, the post was re-established in May 1805 again under Captain Seton who was instructed to obtain the recognition of Sayyid Sultan’s de facto successor, Badr bin Saif, of the treaties of 1798 and 1800. But the internal situation was confused by competing claimants to the succession, which was resolved only after Badr was killed in a strange shooting incident in 1806 by his cousin Said bin Sultan, who took control. The post was closed again in 1806 until 1808, partly for reasons of economy and unwillingness to risk further involvement in Muscat’s affairs, and partly because of the health hazards.6 After it was re-opened, Seton was himself carried off by a malignant fever in August 1809. 2406_CH05.qxd 5/19/08 4:49 PM Page 231

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His deputy, Lieutenant Watts, had already died in 1808 and his successor, Bunce, also died in December 1809. Thereafter, the residency at Muscat was considered too unhealthy for permanent occupation and was placed under the supervision of the resident at Bushire. In January 1810, Captain Malcolm, then on his third mission to Persia, recommended that the residency in Muscat should be abolished, because ‘English constitutions were unequal to withstand the baneful effects of the climate at Maskat’, and that the representation of British interests should be entrusted to the resident at Bushire. The Government of Bombay accepted that advice and wrote to Sayyid Said accordingly.7 Mr Hankey Smith, then resident at Bushire, may have been instructed to reside in Muscat or to order one of his staff to do so. However, he reported in May 1810 that ‘. . . the pernicious effect of the climate of Muscat obliged him to resign all further charge of the duties of that station’. For the next thirty years until 1840 there was no British representative in Muscat but a native agent looked after British commercial and consular interests, while Britain’s military and political representatives were engaged elsewhere in suppressing piracy in the Gulf. Robert Binning, who passed through Muscat in October 1850, described the then native agent, Khoja Ezekiel, as ‘an indolent and nonchalant rascal’.8 Meanwhile the British agent had moved with the Sultan’s court to Zanzibar. His absence from Muscat did not however inhibit Britain’s political ties with Oman that were reinforced by a series of treaties over the next several decades. Not least because of its own territorial ambitions, Oman was often a helpful ally, contributing ships and men in support of British raids on the pirates’ ports in the Gulf and being generally cooperative over the slave trade, despite the harmful effect on its own economy. In 1822, the so-called Moresby treaty was signed between the two countries as a step towards banning the carriage of slaves in Omani vessels south of a line drawn across the Indian Ocean.9 In 1839, this treaty was revised and the line was moved further north so that it ran from Socotra to a point on the Makran coast, where Oman owned the enclave at Gwadur until 1958. The most comprehensive treaty of all was concluded in 1871 under which Oman agreed to prohibit the importation of slaves, to close public slave markets and to guarantee the freedom of all people entering the country.

Sayyid Said bin Sultan Sayyid Said bin Sultan, who according to Arab historians ruled effectively for over half a century from 1804 to 1856, looked from time to time to the British to help him defend his western and northern borders against repeated incur- sions by the Saudi Wahhabis, who had occupied Oman’s Buraimi oasis in 1800, and his maritime trade against Qawasim pirates, but in accordance with its long- held policy in the region Britain refused to be drawn into what were regarded as Oman’s internal affairs. This policy was to change drastically only towards the end of the century. However, there was one occasion when Britain was dragged willy-nilly into a costly intervention. This was in 1820–21 when Britain had no political agent resident in Muscat but relied on Captain T. Perronet Thompson, then involved in subduing the Qawasim pirates in Ras al-Khaimah, to sort out what appeared to be an act of piracy by tribesmen from the Wahhabi Bani Bu Ali on an Indian merchant ship near Sur in Oman. Thompson attempted to send a message to the shaikhs of the tribe demanding the return of the stolen goods by hand of the commander of the cruiser Mercury but local tribesman killed the ship’s pilot when he went ashore. Thompson was then authorized to join in an expedition which Sayyid Said was already preparing and to destroy any pirate 2406_CH05.qxd 5/19/08 4:49 PM Page 232

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boats but not to land any troops ‘unless with the strong prospect of striking some blow without going far inland’.10 Thompson set sail immediately from his base on Qishm island with a fleet of about half a dozen ships with sepoys and marines on board. Translating his instructions too liberally, for which he was later severely reprimanded, Thompson landed his men at Sur and jointly with the sultan’s forces marched inland to the date plantations of the Bani Bu Ali. After a series of disastrous manoeuvres when the sepoys panicked before a flanking attack by a force of some 4–500 tribesmen, Thompson was obliged to retreat, leaving 317 out of his force of 400 men dead in the field. The news of the defeat was received badly in Bombay and it was decided to seek retribu- tion and restore British prestige with a large force of about a division under a seasoned officer Major-General Lionel Smith. In February 1821, the force with support from the sultan overran the fort and villages of the Bani Bu Ali though not without incurring further losses.11 This episode served to confirm the wisdom of the then policy of staying out of Oman’s internal disputes. By the middle of his long reign, Sayyid Said had prospered considerably from the security of his maritime trade, so much so that he was in a position to exchange expensive gifts with the British monarchy. He presented King William IV with a grey mare on his coronation in 1830. In 1834 he presented the king with the Liverpool, the largest ship of his navy, which had been built in Bombay and later served for many years with the Royal Navy as the Imaum (then the spelling of Imam) in recognition of the donor. Sayyid Said received in return one of the late King George IV’s finest yachts called the Prince Regent. For her coronation in 1837 Sayyid Said presented Queen Victoria with an Arabian stallion; and in 1842 he even sent his ambassador Ali bin Nasir in one of his finest ships, the Sultanah, to London to present his credentials to the queen. The queen responded in the same year with the gift of a state carriage and harness, though there were no suitable roads to run it on, and in 1844 she gave him the equally impractical present of a silver gilt tea service. In 1854, the sultan made the queen the most generous gift of all – the Kuria Muria Islands (since renamed the Hallaniyat) off the Oman coast, in which British merchants were interested for their rich covering of guano. Rather inappropriately, Lord Clarendon, then foreign secretary, sent him a snuff box in return! In due course, the islands became the joint responsibility of the British authorities in Aden and the Gulf until they were returned to Oman in 1967 when Britain withdrew from Aden.12 At the beginning of 1840, Captain Atkins Hamerton of the Bombay Army was appointed to re-open the residency at Muscat, though mainly in response to a different political stimulus. The British had received intelligence that the Egyptians in Eastern Arabia might intend to invade Oman and the British decided that they would need to have a representative in Muscat to help with counteracting such Egyptian expansionism. The Treaty of Commerce concluded the previous year provided for the appointment of a consul to protect British commercial interests and traders and Captain Hamerton was so appointed,13 thus becoming answer- able to both the Government of Bombay through the resident in Bushire and the Foreign Office in London.

Move to Zanzibar However, in 1843, the residency was more or less obliged to move to Zanzibar, which was at that time part of Oman’s overseas territories, leaving the Muscat post for the next sixteen years in the charge of a native agent. The sultan preferred to live in Zanzibar, which had grown rich on the trade in cloves, and to govern the 2406_CH05.qxd 5/19/08 4:49 PM Page 233

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mainland through periodic visits and his representative in Muscat.14 In Zanzibar, the resident could pursue the sultan more closely over the trade in slaves from East Africa and successfully negotiated in August 1845 an agreement whereby the sultan would help the British apprehend British subjects engaged in the slave trade. A few months later, the sultan further agreed to prohibit all such trade between his African possessions and Arabia, including giving the British the right to seize any Omani vessels involved. Sayyid Said bin Sultan paid his last visit to Muscat in 1854 and died at sea en route back to Zanzibar in 1856, whereupon two of his sons, Thuwaini and Majid, assumed authority in Oman and Zanzibar respectively. In recognition of Zanzibar’s superior wealth, Majid agreed to pay his half-brother 40,000 crowns annually. In an attempt to prevent the inevitable squabbling over payments between them, which threatened to destabilize the peace of the region, Britain intervened, sending in 1860 a mission under Colonel Coughlan, political resident in Aden, to study the situation. On the basis of his recommendations, Lord Canning, governor-general of India, made an arbitration award in 1862 under which the ruler of Muscat abandoned all claims on Zanzibar in return for the continuance of the annual payment of 40,000 crowns by the ruler of Zanzibar plus the two years’ arrears. Coughlan also felt that the sultan in Muscat was at a disadvantage compared with his half-brother in Zanzibar, who had the benefit of advice from the British resident, and that for this and other commercial reasons the residency in Muscat should be re-established.15 Lieutenant W. M. Pengelly was the first incumbent in 1861, and the post has remained occupied in one form or another virtually ever since. Pengelly, who was also given consular rank and authority, was under instructions to report primarily to the Government of Bombay, copying to the political resident at Bushire, but this arrangement lasted only until 1865, when his successor Lieutenant-Colonel Disbrowe was made subordinate to the political resident at Bushire and ordered to communicate through him. This chopping and changing of the lines of communication between the Persian Gulf posts and not only the British authorities in India but also the departments in Britain continued for a number of years until in 1873 they were transferred to the direct control of the Government of India, though the wider conflict between the authority of the Government of India and the home departments remained unresolved.16 The Muscat post continued to be responsible to the Government of India and the India Office in London right up to independence in 1947. The residents seemed to come and go frequently during the following decades, partly because of the practice of escaping to the hills in India in the summer and leaving a junior officer or the surgeon in charge. They had no easy task as they dealt with the consequences of the Canning award. Despite Zanzibar’s annual subsidy, Oman was left desperately short of funds, which made it difficult for the sultans to meet the needs of their people and the period is marked by challenges to their rule, in overcoming some of which they had to call on Britain for support. In return for the abolition of free traffic in slaves between the African coast and Zanzibar, Britain had already become obliged in 1873 to take on the burden of the annual payment from Zanzibar, at first together with the Government of India. India alone was responsible for the payment thereafter until India’s independence in 1947, when Britain took it over again until 1970. There were even discussions between the India Office and the Government of India in the early 1890s about establishing a protectorate in Oman like that in Zanzibar. It is, therefore, not at all surprising that Lord Curzon predicted on his first visit to Muscat in 1889 that the Union Jack would one day 2406_CH05.qxd 5/19/08 4:49 PM Page 234

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fly from Muscat’s towers.17 He was even more forthright later when he wrote: ‘We subsidize its ruler; we dictate its policy we should tolerate no alien interference.’18 Britain’s freedom of action in this regard was, however, limited by the seemingly short-sighted declaration issued by Britain and France on 10 March 1862 after the Canning award that required the consent of the French to any compromise of Omani independence,19 either on the mainland or in Zanzibar. However, in 1898, there occurred an incident that showed clearly that Britain would not be swayed by that declaration where its perceived national interests were concerned. Sayyid Faisal bin Turki, possibly seeing in the French a more pliant partner in the slave and arms trade, had unwisely acceded to a French request for a coaling station at Bandar Jissah down the coast from Muscat.20 The British political agent, Major Percy Cox, invoked the more recently concluded ‘secret Bond’ better known as the Treaty of Friendship and Commerce of 1891 that obliged the sultan ‘his heirs and successors, never to cede, to sell, to mortgage, or otherwise give for occupation, save to the British Government, the dominions of Muscat and Oman or any of their dependencies’,21 backed up with the threat to blow his palace to smithereens if he did not comply. As a compromise, Major Cox offered the French Consul, M. Ottavi, the use of half of Britain’s own coaling station on the western side of Muscat harbour, where the French could, of course, be kept under closer observation. Their joint facilities continued in existence until 1972 when they were demolished to make way for the Omani Navy’s new base on the site. So, to avoid the threat of instability in an area of great importance, Britain became increasingly obliged to offer Oman support and advice without the administrative control that a protectorate might have brought. During Colonel Miles’ long incumbency from 1872 to 1886 this task required only an occasional show of force. Grattan Geary, editor of The Times of India, a casual visitor to Muscat in 1878 wrote: ‘Colonel Miles, sitting alone in the Residency, and the beautiful little gunboat at anchor in the harbour preserve Muscat and its prince from the ravenous prowlers who long to sack the one and depose the other.’22 However, on more than one occasion ships of the Royal Navy had to come to Sayyid Turki’s aid: in 1873, HMS Daphne captured the pretender Salim bin Ali al-Harthi as he attempted to return to Oman and took him off to exile in India; in 1877, HMS Teazer shelled rebels attacking Muscat; and, in 1883, the guns of HMS Philomel helped to repulse another rebel attack on the town. Subsequently, Sayyid Turki’s successor, Sayyid Faisal, also needed help against a rebellion in 1895–97, when HMS Cossack was involved. Oman’s already close connection with India was further developed when, in 1901, a branch down to Muscat was laid from the first overland cable from Europe to India at Jask on the southern Persian coast. The offices of the operating company, the Indo-European Telegraph Department, were located in the political agency’s compound. In later times, rather more military help was needed by Sayyid Faisal’s son, Sayyid Taimur, who succeeded in 1913. Another rebellion broke out soon after and the sultan had to seek the assistance of Royal Naval ships to bombard several towns along the coast. British Indian troops, who had been sent to defend the Muscat area in 1913 and remained until 1921, were confronted by a major force led by the rebellious Imam Salim bin Rashid al-Kharusi at Bait al-Falaj. Although the attack was beaten off, the sultan was unable to reassert his authority over large areas and an uneasy peace prevailed during the First World War. Afterwards, the British political agent, Major Haworth, was instructed to promote negotiations between the sultan and the imam in an attempt to resolve their differences. It 2406_CH05.qxd 5/19/08 4:49 PM Page 235

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was only after the death of the imam and his replacement by Muhammad bin Abdallah al-Khalili in 1920 that the new British political agent, Ronald Wingate, succeeded in mediating an agreement between the two sides at Seeb on 25 September. It broadly recognized the status quo and was the basis of the peaceful coexistence between them that lasted until 1954, when the imam died. His successor, Ghalib bin Ali, who with his brother, Talib bin Ali, entertained aspirations to establish a separate Imamate, was soon in conflict with the sultan and was forced to flee. He returned in mid-1957 to lead a guerrilla campaign against the sultan’s armed forces, with British military support, that continued off and on until the British Special Air Service Regiment were called in to drive the remaining rebels out of their Jabal Akhdar fastnesses in January 1959. The British military relationship with the sultan’s armed forces had already been put on a more contemporary footing with the signature in 1958 of an Exchange of Letters.23 This agreement also concerned economic development and civil aviation and in the latter regard updated earlier agreements of 1934, which, among other things, regularized the airfield on Masira Island, where the RAF had had a refu- elling facility for some years and since 1932 a runway, and of 1947, which also covered use of the airfields at Salalah and Gwadur in return for an annual payment. The BBC later established in 1969 a relay station on Masira. In 1977, the RAF handed over to Oman all their facilities on the island. British residents there were fond of telling visitors about a sinister incident in Masira’s past that involved Major W.G. Grey, the then political agent, in an unpleasant consular duty. In 1904, the steamer Baron Innerdale ran aground off the Kuria Muria Islands (Hallaniyat). The British captain and sixteen survivors of the mainly Greek crew made their way to Masira, where instead of finding succour, they were slaughtered by the local inhabitants for the few belongings that they possessed. The sultan intervened rapidly and decisively and after a trial in Muscat, nineteen of the islanders were returned to Masira where, in the presence of the sultan, Grey and a party of seamen from HMS Merlin, they were shot and buried in an unmarked grave.24 The earlier Treaty of Friendship and Commerce that had been concluded in 1839 between Britain and Sayyid Sultan Said bin Sultan, described as ‘Imam of Muscat’, provided specifically in Article 3 for the reciprocal appointment of consuls. This Article was reaffirmed in the Treaty of Friendship and Commerce of 1891, which ran for many years until replaced by a much revised version in 1939 and another in 1951. Incumbents of the post were called variously political residents until 1810 and political agents until the Foreign Office took over responsibility for their appointment in 1948 when they became consuls or, after 1951, consuls general. From 1863 until 1958, there was a subordinate post under an assistant political agent, later replaced by a native agent, in Gwadur and another such post in Salalah during the Second World War. However, locally they were more generally known as consuls than agents. As was the custom also in many parts of the Ottoman Empire, Omanis used the curious title of Balios for the consul and the beach in front of the former embassy was still known locally as Sahil al-Balyooz in the 1990s. The Muscat post was supervised by the political resident in the Persian Gulf, either from Bushire in Iran or later Bahrain, until Britain gave up its special relationship with the Gulf states in 1971.

Growing importance of oil By the mid-1950s, oil was beginning to introduce a new consideration in Britain’s relations with Oman, though its origins went back almost half a century. In the light of prospecting in Persia at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the 2406_CH05.qxd 5/19/08 4:49 PM Page 236

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Geological Survey of India sent G. E. Pilgrim to look at the geology of the Gulf, including Oman, and to examine the prospects for oil and minerals. He made a short survey on both sides of the Gulf between November 1904 and January 1905 and concluded that the prospects were better in Persia than on the Arab side of the Gulf. However he admitted that much of the latter remained unknown. Indeed, in Oman his work was limited mainly to the Muscat area, although he managed a foray to Samail and made an excursion to the base of the Musandam peninsula, because of the unsettled tribal situation wider afield. The D’Arcy Exploration Company had already discovered oil in Persia, when it sent an expedition in the winter of 1925–26 to survey Oman and the south-eastern Arabian coast as far as Dhofar, but like the Pilgrim mission, it failed to penetrate beyond the mountains into the interior because of the hostility of the tribes. In 1937, the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC) signed a concession for Oman and separately for Dhofar and sent in some geologists to make a survey. However, the opposition of the tribes once again limited their work to coastal areas and the Second World War brought all further exploration to a halt. After the war, IPC began to pursue prospecting in earnest and was soon posing some awkward questions for Britain in the area. Through its treaty relationships with the Gulf states, Britain was responsible for delineating and defending their frontiers. In an area where ownership of large tracts of virtually unmarked desert was often open to dispute, problems with oil company survey teams were bound to occur. One particularly contested area that for nearly a decade from 1949 was to preoccupy the first consul general, Major F C L Chauncy, was around the oasis of Buraimi, which was regarded by Britain as belonging partly to Oman and partly to Abu Dhabi. However, the Saudis also considered it to belong to them, as they had occupied it from 1800 to 1870. After a number of clashes between troops and survey parties, Saudi Arabia forced the issue by occupying the whole oasis in August 1952. The sultan was for ejecting them but accepted British advice, with American backing, that the issue should be resolved by arbitration rather than force. Talks between Britain and Saudi Arabia followed and it was agreed in 1954 to seek internatioal arbitration. But in October of the following year, after an abortive meeting in Geneva, British-led forces from the then Trucial Oman Scouts, acting with the authority of both the sultan and the ruler of Abu Dhabi, ejected the Saudi garrison from Buraimi, with the support of a troop of Muscat Infantry.25 In 1955, the prospect of oil in the interior of Oman was also a factor in encouraging the supporters of the Imam Ghalib to rebel against the sultan, who, fearful of their alignment with Saudi Arabia and the potential threat to his authority, was obliged to re-establish his control there, with the consequences already described above.26 After all this turbulence and a number of false starts, Petroleum Development (Oman), formed mainly from Royal Dutch Shell, with a minority holding by Compagnie Française des Pétroles, and Partex finally discovered oil in commercial quantities in the general area of Fahud and production started in 1964, with the first consignment being exported at the end of July 1967. The sultanate was soon receiving a regular income and a new development and planning board was set up under a former political agent, C. J. Pelly, which initiated work on a series of major development projects. Ever since the rebellion in the 1950s, successive consuls general had attempted to convince Sultan Said bin Taimur of the need to develop his country but had had little success. Much of his income had had to be spent on internal security, especially after an insurrection in Dhofar became serious in the summer of 1965, and his bitter experience of penury in 2406_CH05.qxd 5/19/08 4:49 PM Page 237

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his early reign had in any case taught him to be cautious. Indeed his excessive caution proved in the end to be his undoing. In a further measure to encourage him to bring his country from its medieval condition into the twentieth century Britain decided to upgrade its representation in Muscat in the hope that the sultan might be more receptive to the advice of an ambassador. Donald Hawley had been told in May 1970 that he was to be appointed ambassador to Sultan Said bin Taimur, Sultan of Muscat and Oman but before receiving the latter’s agreement, his only son, Qaboos, took power on 23 July 1970, sending his father into exile in London, where he died in 1972, and renaming the country the Sultanate of Oman.* Hawley became in due course accredited to Sultan Qaboos, but served for his first two months as the last consul general while waiting for the Sultan to return from a tour of three months abroad and to present his credentials to him.27 The opening years of the new reign were fraught with major problems, notably the increasing seriousness of the insurgency in Dhofar and international resistance to the recognition of Oman as an independent country, and the British ambassador had an important role to play in formulating advice both to the British Government and the sultan on the assistance that Britain could give in overcoming the problems. ‘The Question of Oman’, as it was known, had been since 1960 a hardy annual at the United Nations General Assembly, where various Arab countries regularly questioned the legitimacy of Sultan Said bin Taimur, partly at the behest of the dis- sident Imam Ghalib. After taking power, Sultan Qaboos sent goodwill missions to those Arab countries where there were imamate offices, offering an amnesty for all dissidents in exile. Applications for membership of the Arab League and the United Nations were made successfully in September and October 1971 respectively, and the sultan made a number of state visits abroad, starting significantly in Saudi Arabia, previously the strongest supporter of the Imam Ghalib, where King Faisal received him with full honours. Hawley conveyed to the sultan Britain’s full support for all these moves and played a direct role in stimulating Iranian military assistance in Dhofar first by helping to draft the official request to the shah in 1971 and then by giving the shah an oral presentation on the situation in Dhofar at an audience in April 1972.28

Military matters Military affairs were indeed to dominate Hawley’s time in Oman. Increasing support from the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY) with the backing of several Communist states, including the Soviet Union, China and the German Democratic Republic, as well as Iraq, had significantly improved the Dhofar rebels’ military capability and the sultan was faced with a major insurrection, which his forces, despite considerable British backing, were finding difficult to quell. After a detailed appraisal on the ground, Hawley, with invaluable help from Brigadier John Graham, commander of the Sultan’s Armed Forces (SAF), successfully made the case to the chiefs of staff committee for deeper British involvement. As a result, a number of measures were taken, including notably the provision of two squadrons of British Army training teams. One such team had already been operating very successfully in the mountains with the local tribal fighters loyal to the sultan. With enhanced British military support as

* Qaboos had been held under virtual house arrest in Salalah since returning from a world tour after completing his education in Britain, where he had graduated from Sandhurst. 2406_CH05.qxd 5/19/08 4:49 PM Page 238

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well as a technical assistance grant of £250,000 and military assistance from Iran, and, on a smaller scale, from Jordan, the SAF slowly drove the rebels back from their positions in the mountains dominating the coastal plain around Salalah. After the rebels’ defeat in a major confrontation around the small coastal town of Mirbat in July 1972, it was clear that an important corner had been turned, for the rebels were never again able to launch a major attack on the SAF. The sultan decided at this time on a major expansion of his armed forces and requested the loan of a British general to command them as a replacement for Brigadier Graham. Major-General Timothy Creasey arrived in the autumn of 1972, while Brigadier Jack Fletcher took command in Dhofar. Creasey drew up plans for the expansion of the SAF to 12,000 men, with an increased number of British loan service personnel, and with Hawley’s support they received official acceptance in London. Thereafter, Hawley returned to London every quarter with Creasey to attend the chiefs of staff committee to review progress. And progress there was. Despite an abortive attempt by the rebels early in 1973 to open a second front in northern Oman and the continued support from the PDRY and its allies, the SAF consolidated their hold on the eastern mountains and interdicted the rebels’ supply routes from the west. The sultan’s declaration of an amnesty for opponents to his father’s rule together with an active civil development programme, supported by the British Army’s civil aid teams, also won over hearts and minds. The combination of relentless military pressure, tangible improvements in living standards across the country, and growing disillu- sionment with communism led inexorably to the rebels’ defeat. When both Hawley and Creasey left Oman in February 1975, not long after major assaults on rebel strongholds in the western mountains close to the PDRY border, the end of the war was in sight. It fell to their successors, C. J. ‘Jim’ Treadwell and Major-General Kenneth Perkins, to observe the final throes and to hear the sultan announce on 11 December 1975 that the war was over. This was somewhat premature as a formal ceasefire was negotiated only in the following March and fighting at a low level continued on and off for years. While military affairs continued, therefore, to be a major preoccupation of Treadwell, as well as his immediate successors the Hon. Ivor Lucas and Duncan Slater, until the normalization of relations between Oman and the PDRY in November 1983, the State Visit of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II to Muscat on board the Royal Yacht Britannia in November 1979 and the return State Visit of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said to Britain in March 1982 were major events that set the seal on the new relationship between the two countries. Oman has continued over the years to receive a steady stream of royal and ministerial visitors, serving to underline the high esteem in which the sultanate is held in Britain. Nevertheless, defence remains at the core of this relationship to the present day, as Britain has continued to provide much of Oman’s defence equipment as well as a slowly declining number of loan service personnel to train Omani counterparts for senior positions in the SAF. However, during Lucas’s time, this special relationship underwent a significant change that reflected in part Britain’s revised status in the Gulf following the decision of 1968 to withdraw its forces by the end of 1971. The United States had had trading connections with Oman going back to the late eighteenth century, and established a consulate in Muscat for a few years in 1838 and again in 1880 until 1915 but it opened an embassy only in 1972, with a non-resident ambassador until 1974. America’s policy to the region was firmly based at that time on ‘the twin pillars’ of Iran and Saudi Arabia, and 2406_CH05.qxd 5/19/08 4:49 PM Page 239

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little attention was devoted to relations with Oman. The overthrow of the shah in 1979, followed closely by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, challenged this policy and caused America to rethink fundamentally its attitude towards the Gulf region. President Carter enunciated a new doctrine in 1980 and a rapid deployment force was established to intervene there in the event of ‘Any attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf.’ Such a force needed facilities in the area, if not bases from which to operate, and where better than in Oman? Negotiations were opened to obtain such facilities, which were complicated in April 1980 when the Americans used Masira airfield in the abortive bid to resolve the hostage crisis at their embassy in Tehran. The Omanis saw then the kind of problems such an association could bring and Lucas was able to offer them some useful advice to overcome their doubts.29 The United States duly signed an agreement with Oman in June 1980 that afforded the United States contingent use of and access to facilities at Salalah, Thumrait, Masira, Seeb and Khassab. Although the circumstances in which the US could use these facilities were hedged around with restrictions, the agreement guaranteed US military support for the sultan in the event of a threat that Oman could not repel alone as well as funds for economic and technical cooperation. The US therefore assumed a leading role in a task that had hitherto been undertaken mainly by Britain. Changes also occurred in the way Britain assisted the SAF with military loan personnel. By 1985, it was felt that Omani officers were becoming ready to take over the most senior positions and the following year Major General Johnny Watts handed over command to an Omani officer. Over the next several years the British officers commanding the army, navy and air force were successively replaced by Omanis, though a significant number of other British loan service and contract officers and non-commissioned officers have continued to the present day to fill mainly technical posts until they can be Omanized. The first Gulf War of 1991 to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi occupation, the following decade of United Nations’ sanctions on Iraq and the second Gulf War of 2003 to liberate Iraq from the regime of Saddam Husain and its weapons of mass destruction thoroughly tested the new arrangements, which proved to be of great value in support of military operations further up the Gulf. Britain also made good use of its longer-standing access to facilities in Oman and the ambassadors during this period – the author, Richard Muir, Ivan Callan and Stuart Laing – and their defence staffs were kept busy ensuring that all these threads of this cooperation functioned smoothly. In the author’s time, the embassy was particularly engaged in the immediate aftermath of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 when Oman offered assistance to ‘Operation Granby’ (the British part of Desert Storm) by making available its airfields at Seeb and Thumrait to a Royal Air Force Jaguar squadron, VC10 tanker aircraft and Nimrod surveillance aircraft. It was also a period of intense lobbying on behalf of Britain’s defence industry that resulted in the successful conclusion of contracts for two corvettes in March 1992 and eighteen Challenger battle tanks in January 1993; John Major was pleased to announce the latter in Muscat on his first overseas visit on becoming prime minister. In the light of this close defence relationship, it is no surprise that the largest post-war exercises of the British armed forces outside the NATO area have been held in Oman with the full cooperation of the Sultan’s Armed Forces. The first exercise, called Saif Sari’ [Swift Sword] I, was held during Robert Alston’s tenure in the autumn of 1986 and Saif Sari’ II in Sir Ivan Callan’s time in 1999. They were to provide invaluable experience of the Gulf for the British element in the 2406_CH05.qxd 5/19/08 4:49 PM Page 240

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US-led coalition of armed forces that expelled Iraq from Kuwait in 1991 and that later invaded Iraq in 2003 in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Geographically well distanced from Palestine and Iraq, Oman remained tran- quil. The sultan and his senior advisers followed closely what went on in the Gulf, in Iran across the water, and in the wider Arab world. They listened carefully to British views and offered many of their own. As Arab relations with Israel eased, the sultan agreed to accept an Israeli trade office. It was later to close abruptly as the Palestinian intifada began in 2002, and Israel’s relations with the Palestinians and the Arab world soured. At the same time, his ministers exchanged official visits with their Iranian counterparts and messages went backwards and for- wards at top level between Muscat and Tehran. Oman’s foreign policy continued however to be guided by its shared interests with its neighbours in the Gulf Cooperation Council, while preserving its low-profile but solid links with Britain and the United States in recognition of their role in the security of its borders. On the management of its internal affairs, Oman remained fiercely independent. It listened to outside advice but kept its own counsel. The country continued to develop slowly but surely economically with a giant new shipping container transhipment centre in the south at Salalah and beginning in 2000 the export of liquefied natural gas from a massive new plant at Sur 150 km south of Muscat. In 1995, the government had held a major public consultation ‘Vision 2020’ to demonstrate the necessity for diversification from oil and to underpin a policy of private sector job creation. The detailed strategy that flowed from this began to be slowly implemented with emphasis on job creation and education. Politically, too, Oman made progress with publication of a ‘Basic Law’ setting out a framework for further constitutional development, the first copy of which was delivered by courier to the British embassy – implicit recognition of strong British interest in such progress. The sultan created and appointed members to a new upper parliamentary house – the council of state – to complement the lower elected consultative council. Both houses had women members and women voted in elections for the lower house. Although defence affairs have loomed large in Britain’s relations with Oman, this has not been at the expense of its other interests. Even when the Dhofar war was dominant, the Sultan and his government were pressing ahead with civil development in which Britain played a prominent part. Britain provided a range of experts and technical assistance to help Oman through the difficult transition from its previous isolation and backwardness to the modern world and British companies were involved in many of the major construction projects. All of these looked to the embassy for advice on a market that was becoming increasingly sophisticated and open to foreign competition. Robert Alston took a major initiative to uphold Britain’s prestige in Oman by organizing early in 1989 ‘Oman with Britain’, a hugely successful bilateral programme of commercial, cultural and sporting events. In the introduction to the exhibition’s brochure he summed up succinctly Britain’s long relationship with Oman:

Maritime interests first brought the two peoples together: nautical and mercantile traditions are deeply engrained in each nation’s history. While trading interest provided the initial contact, the relationship between the two countries was soon expanded to the basis of shared interests in the Indian Ocean. This long relationship based on mutual interests grew naturally into one of mutual respect, trust and friendship. That friendship has been twice tested in conflicts in which British and Oman servicemen have fought – and died – in the cause of the stability and prosperity of modern Oman.30 2406_CH05.qxd 5/19/08 4:49 PM Page 241

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2. THE EMBASSY SITE IN OLD MUSCAT

arly nineteenth century travellers to Muscat record the British representative Eas living on the seafront, probably in the same area as that occupied by the former embassy until 1995. Occupation of this site goes back at least to 1860 when Lt. A. W. Stiffe in his survey of that date placed it on his map of Muscat and Matrah in this location.31 There had been a building on this site dating back to the 1820s. In 1863, the British, through the Government of India, tried to purchase the building but its owner. Bibi Zainab bint Mohamed Ameer, refused to sell it. However in 1870, she relented and offered it for $4,500. It was finally purchased in 1878 when it was decided that no other suitable building was available in Muscat; and the British did not want this building to fall into other hands. The purchase price was $3,650 (the equivalent of 7,829 rupees), residential property in Muscat having fallen in value in the intervening years. Between 1870 and 1878 1,900 rupees was spent on repairs to mitigate the building’s dangerous condition and to shore up a central portion which had begun to give way. The house was built in the Arab style with a well in the centre surrounded by arched patios. It had a sea frontage of 113 feet and a depth of 90 feet, giving an area of about 10,170 square feet. The adjacent garden of about 70 square feet was given to the political agent by Sayyid Turki. It had formerly been stables that by 1878 had been reduced to a heap of rubble. The house itself consisted of two floors, the ground floor being the agency offices, the post office, prisoners’ cells and stores, and the first floor being the political agent’s residence. At the time of purchase the then agent, Lt. Colonel S. B. Miles, reckoned that a sum of 1,500 rupees was needed annually to keep the building in a reasonable state of repair, due to the unfavourable climatic conditions and the proximity of the cannon batteries on Forts Jalali to the east and Mirani to the west. Jalali, which was completed by the Portuguese in 1587, was less than 100 feet away, and the con- temporaneous Mirani about 100 yards. The editor of the Times of India, Grattan Geary, observed on a visit to Muscat that the occupants of these forts occasionally fell out with each other and resorted to firing at each other or on the town itself, so that the cannons of Fort Jalali once riddled the neighbouring political agency with shot and Colonel Miles had to threaten to return fire from a British gunboat: Jalali ceased firing.32 In 1888, it was decided that a new building should be constructed on the same site. On 20 August 1889, a contract was signed with Messrs McKenzie of Karachi for the construction of the new agency. The cost of the work was not to exceed 80,000 rupees. The final cost was however Rupees 87,000 (or $5,000), the extra 7,000 rupees being a grant to Messrs McKenzie from the Government of India to indemnify them for unexpected losses arising from the construction. The new agency was ready for occupation in less than a year on 4 July 1890 and 2,000 rupees was granted for furnishing it. It was again built in the Arab style with thick walls of small stones embedded in mud and plastered with gypsum. The exterior walls and some of the interior ones were 27 inches thick, which helps to explain how the building stood up so well to the elements over the next century and why it remained comparatively cool in summer. However the use of these primitive materials left an expensive legacy. The lack of a damp course and the rising salts meant a continual battle to preserve the fabric of the building. In 1892, Lord Curzon, then a member of parliament, made a tour of the Gulf from Tehran and paid a visit to Muscat. He described the fine new agency building as ‘the handsomest structure in the town’, adding ‘and being situated 2406_CH05.qxd 5/19/08 4:49 PM Page 242

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close to a gap in the rocks where a side breeze comes in from the ocean renders life less insupportable during the appalling heat of the summer months when the sun’s rays refracted from the glowing rocks seem literally to scorch and the rocks themselves are like the walls of a brazen oven’.33 Major Percy Cox, political agent 1899–1904, however, deemed that work on the house had been skimped by the contractor owing to the absence of expert supervision. Yet Ronald Storrs, visiting in April 1917 en route to Basra to take up a military post in Baghdad, thought it ‘well and solidly built. Good drawing-room with a new Collard and Collard, and two large China rice vases.’34 After lunch he accompanied the political agent, Major Howarth, on the new piano. The big outside verandah overlooking the sea and the four bathrooms on the side of the building above the main entrance appear to have been added later, but a photograph of 1902 shows the building more or less as it was later in the century. The agency in Muscat was in fact the first British mission in the Gulf to be fitted with modern bathroom facilities. This came about as the result of a lucky coincidence. The Stella Polaris, a Norwegian cruise ship chartered by an American concern for a luxury world cruise, visited Muscat in April 1935. One of the passengers, Robert Crane, was among those invited to a meal at the agency. Afterwards he was shown to the existing facilities – the ‘thunder box’ – and was so appalled that on his return to the United States he sent two complete installations of his own vitreous enamel ware as a gift. Thus for several years Muscat was in advance of Bushire, Bahrain and Kuwait. Later two further installations were added for the visit of Princess Alice. The beautiful floral tiles covering most of the bedroom floors came from McKenzies in Karachi: some of them were lifted and incorporated in the terrace of the new British residence as a link with the past. The same floor tiles are also to be found in the British embassies in Baghdad and Kuwait and in the former residence of the high commissioner in Kuala Lumpur and the former consulate in Mosul. Karachi was also the source of the black and white tiles on the main verandah that had been purchased for £30 in November 1919. Ronald Wingate was political agent at the time and his wife, Mary, had gone over to choose them personally, as well as some chintz for the furnishings. The wrought iron balustrade that was at the top of the staircase was also stamped with the name of McKenzie, and such was its quality and attractiveness that it was hoped to remove it and incorporate in the new building but this proved impractical. Previously this ironwork had also formed the balustrade around the main verandah, but at some stage this was replaced by an ornamental concrete one that stood up better to the corrosive effects of the salt-laden humidity. The stone for the façade was local and probably came from the coast east of Muscat or, possibly from a quarry at Saih al-Malih near Mina al-Fahal. The main gateway and the portico leading into the embassy was built in Major Bremner’s time in the early1930s with the help of the Reverend Dirk Dykstra of the American Mission who lived in Muscat for about forty-five years. At about the same time, a rather grand second staircase was added from the courtyard to the first floor for the servants’ use, but it was condemned as unsafe in 1973 and was replaced by a smaller staircase from a corner of the courtyard. The massive teak doors into the compound with their inset wicket gate were such a feature of the embassy that they were dismantled and re-erected in the garden of the new embassy. From time to time over the years, the building itself was condemned as unsafe and restrictions had to be imposed on the number of people who could be entertained on the main verandah, but fortunately for posterity the strength of the opposition from incumbents was enough to secure its reprieve. After the post 2406_CH05.qxd 5/19/08 4:49 PM Page 243

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was upgraded to an embassy in 1971, the building underwent major renovations. Extra offices were built in the open area under the verandah, and a swimming pool in the garden at the rear. In the residence, the improvements included extending the dining room out towards the sea, incorporating the little study and adjacent alcove into the drawing room and converting the large store near the kitchen into a single bedroom and bathroom. At the beginning of the last century Captain (as he then was) Cox, found that having organized his residence and offices, he still needed to find accommodation for other members of his staff. He recommended to the political resident in Bushire that the Government of India should build quarters for the clerical establishment and the agency surgeon adjacent to the agency, so that the staff could ‘be available at short notice and to facilitate their getting to the office on occasions of disturbances and petty risings that occur from time to time in Muscat’. This was a particular problem for the surgeon, Dr Jayakar, who had lived for the past twenty-three years in Matrah, then connected to Muscat by boat, which could be a difficult passage in rough seas.35 Cox’s recommendation was accepted, not least because the Russians and the Germans had also wanted to accredit consuls to Muscat and it was feared that they too might want to try and obtain the waterfront properties. So in 1901 the neighbouring property, then belonging to Ratansi Parshotam, a British Indian merchant, was bought for 50,000 rupees to accommodate the agency surgeon, three clerks and the telegraph office. In 1904, a tenement building next to the old Customs Wharf was purchased to complete the sea frontage area and the Sepoy Line and a house belonging to the agency head clerk were also purchased for 12,000 rupees. In 1906, the buildings that stood along the waterfront were completed to provide accommodation for the head clerk, the clerk in charge of telegraphs and his assistant, two other clerks and ten native servants. In 1909, further property was purchased for 2,500 rupees from Galpaljee Waljee in the area behind the agency to accommodate the sepoy guard, which became known as the Escort Lines. A detachment of Indian infantry had first been appointed to the agency in 1880 to provide a military guard. Later their functions were taken over by the Muscat Infantry until the 1950s. The small mosque in the compound was built at the beginning of the First World War especially for the needs of soldiers of the Muscat Infantry. The house, with its beautiful arched verandah overlooking Muscat bay, and which was occupied by the deputy head of mission until 1993, is shown in an old photograph as being on three floors. At some stage, however, the top floor was removed, as the foundations were considered not strong enough to take the weight. The French had also been interested in acquiring one of these waterfront properties for establishing a consulate. In 1803, Sayyid Sultan declined to accept a representative sent by Napoleon but for a short while between 1807 and 1810 a French consular agent resided in Muscat. However, towards the end of the century, the then sultan leased to the French the property now known as Bait Fransa, which had been occupied by American missionaries. The French held Bait Fransa from 1894 until 1914, when the consulate was closed. They retained the lease until 1945 but then gave it up. The property was leased first to the British Bank of the Middle East and later to Petroleum Development (Oman), whose Muscat representative resided there until 1980. France having appointed a resident ambassador in February 1974, the French were then given the property back as a potential ambassadorial residence, but although the building was beautifully restored, it remained vacant until it was converted into the Omani-French Museum, which was opened by Sultan Qaboos and President Mitterrand in 1992. 2406_CH05.qxd 5/19/08 4:49 PM Page 244

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The agency also acquired property immediately outside the main gate to the compound for the purpose of building a small hospital. In April 1899, bubonic plague hit Muscat and Matrah and the question arose of sanitary control of the ports. On 1 October 1900, the sultan, Sayyid Faisal, placed the agency surgeon in charge of the sanitary administration and staff, and at the same time appointed him personal physician to the royal family. From 1900 onwards, various agents and surgeons made efforts to improve the buildings and equipment of the agency dispensary, but in 1910 it was decided to build a proper hospital. It was erected opposite the embassy tennis court, probably on the site of the former dispensary, and was called the ‘Muscat Charitable Hospital’. Part of the land on which it stood was purchased by the British Government, while the other part was covered by a grant from a local Muslim endowment fund (Waqf). The building was erected and maintained by public subscription but was run by the Agency with its running expenses met initially by the British Government, and after 1958, half by the British Government and half by the sultan. In March 1970, the British Government decided it could no longer continue to finance the hospital and it was handed over to the Oman Government. After the construction of modern hospitals elsewhere in the area, the old hospital was pulled down to make way for a car park for the Royal Guard Waljat Barracks. Immediately behind the compound stood a fine old building known until recent times as Bait Nasib. The British occupied it too from time to time, though it also served as the United States consulate from 1880 to 1917 and again in 1972 after the United States established its embassy next door in Bait Zawawi. The building had been empty for many years when, in 1929, it was leased by the Royal Air Force who wanted to set up a small permanent wireless post in Muscat. The Flying Boat Squadron took it over. Ownership of the building changed hands two or three times between 1930, when it was sold to Malullah bin Jan Habib Murad, and 1936, when it passed to Abdallah bin Ali Khan Musa Khan, the great grandfather of Dr Ali Musa, who was for many years minister of health. It came into the ownership of Yahya bin Mohammed Nasib as part of the inheritance of his wife. He gave it the name of Bait Nasib. In 1945, the Royal Air Force gave the building up and the political agency took the lease over, though it continued to be known as the RAF Rest House into the 1970s, when the British embassy first secretary lived there. The lease was subsequently given up, but was taken back again in 1993 when the consulate was transferred there temporarily as part of the handover of the compound prior to the Embassy’s transfer to its new location. A telegraphic office was established in Muscat in 1901 inside the agency compound. The property was eventually taken over by Cable & Wireless who continued to operate external communications from there until the 1970s when the Oman Government became responsible for them. In 1973, the British Government purchased part of this property for £35,000 and later purchased the remainder.

The flagpole and two tombstones One of the prominent features of the compound for many years was the flagpole that stood in the centre of the external courtyard. It appears to have been originally an iron ship’s mast complete with wooden crosstrees, and had an interesting history both as a highly visible projection of Britain’s presence and as a symbol of freedom. Slaves seeking their freedom would make their way to the agency, clasp the flagpole and demand their manumission. In the year 1890, under the 1873 treaty on the abolition of slavery, thirty-two fugitive slaves were freed under this procedure at the agency. They would be given a manumission certificate in Arabic 2406_CH05.qxd 5/19/08 4:49 PM Page 245

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and English declaring that the bearer was a free man or woman. In about 1963, sultan Said bin Taimur told the consul general that no further certificates needed to be issued as he had instructed his Walis to free any slaves and to inform their previous owners accordingly. However the manumission certificates continued in use long after as they were often the only means of identification that the bearers had, and even served as a kind of passport within the Gulf. Indeed the bearers would sometimes return to the agency asking for their certificates to be renewed as they had become worn and covered with visa and immigration stamps. The flagpole was also used as an aid to navigation by day and by night and was shown on Admiralty charts. The red light on the pole when lined up with another light on a wall in the rocks on the hill behind the agency served as a leading light for ships entering Muscat harbour. The Union Jack continued to fly on the pole after the post became an embassy on 28 June 1971. However, it fell into disrepair and had to be dismantled in November 1972. Some of the crew of HMS Andromeda, which was visiting Muscat, were giving the pole a new coat of white paint when they discovered that, nearly to the cost of the life of one of them, the wooden crosstrees had rotted and had to be removed for safety. Thereafter the flag was flown on a pole on top of the embassy building, as is the normal practice. A year later, the iron pole too was cut down except for a stump that for years served as a turning point for cars in the compound. This too was eventually removed as an obstacle to circulation and was replaced by a brass plaque, which was later transferred to the new embassy. The entrance to the agency, as well as the embassy later on, was flanked by two brass mortars, one of which bears the name of Hutchinson. George Hutchinson had been appointed ‘Superintendent and Director of the East India Company’s Gun Foundry’ in 1822, when he was a captain in the Bengal Engineers. In 1834, the foundry was moved at Hutchinson’s instigation to Colssipore, where it remained until 1939. Thus, one of the mortars must have been cast somewhere between 1822 and 1839. The other mortar is identical in every other way except that it bears the name Sherwood and was probably cast at the same foundry sometime before. It is not known how they came to be at the agency but in Hutchinson’s time, the EIC presented brass guns to several independent Indian Rulers and it seems likely that these two high quality pieces were for presentation purposes as they are almost too fine for ordinary service. They now stand on either side of the steps at the front of the new Residence. When Major Bremner was political agent in the early 1930s, two tombstones were found in the sand in what was then known as Chinaman’s Cove. In the 1970s, this was filled in to provide a helipad for al-Alam Palace further along from the embassy in Muscat bay. One of the tombstones was raised and insert- ed in the west wall of the embassy compound, where it remained until 1993, when it was removed for preservation prior to the transfer of the embassy. The intelligible part of the tombstone bore the following inscription in Portuguese:

ESTA.E.AS THIS IS EPVLTVR THE GRAVE A DE PAS O/QAL.COM ESOQVA OF PASQAL GOMES LA QVICA WHO HERE SEAIF/ECE OA DIS 2406_CH05.qxd 5/19/08 4:49 PM Page 246

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There is no record of what became of the other tombstone but a similar one can be seen today in Fort Mirani as part of the heritage from the period of the Portuguese occupation of Muscat in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Until the modernization of the compound in the early 1970s and the need for greater security, there was another entrance through a pair of high wooden gates with a British crown carved at the top. Before cars came to be used, the consul general would make formal visits to the sultan in his neighbouring palace on foot preceded by a Qawas (known as Cavass) carrying a silver-mounted stick. His route took him through these gates and past the customs to the Qasr al-Alam. When Ronald Storrs called on the political agent, Major Howarth, in 1917, he was taken in turn to call on the sultan. Storrs described how they were preceded ‘by the superb consular Cavass in a long scarlet coat reaching to the feet and a large turban’ as they walked to the Palace.36 Unfortunately no trace has been found of the silver-mounted stick. The gates are now inside the new deputy head of mission’s house at al-Khuwair. Mounted on a wall inside the inner courtyard of the embassy was a brass ship’s bell that had been rescued from the British India steamer the Dahpu. A Japanese midget submarine torpedoed the Dahpu on 28 June 1943 in Muscat bay through the gap in the rocks behind Fort Jalali. It happened as the captain was taking his leave of the consul, Neil Pelly, on whom he was calling. The bell is now nicely mounted on a wall in the new embassy recreational club, ‘The Thirsty Camel’. At one time, the steamer’s anchor was occasionally visible lodged in the sandy bottom of the bay and the remains of the anchor chain could be seen twined around a rock on the eastern side, but these have all disappeared. Until the 1950s, visitors to the consulate always made their formal arrivals and departures by sea and a whaler manned by four local boatmen was kept for this purpose. When Ronald Wingate arrived in 1919 as political agent, four sailors in scarlet uniforms rowed the whaler out to meet him off his ship in the bay, one to each oar. After an eleven-gun salute, Wingate was carried ashore on the back of one of the crew. In the 1920s, the whaler crew carved a special kind of sedan chair for carrying dignitaries ashore. It was like a cane-bottomed carver standing on two poles each about five feet long. Unfortunately this chair has since disappeared, but a similar one is preserved at the embassy in Bahrain, which had been used to carry Lord Curzon ashore when visiting Bahrain during a tour of the Gulf as viceroy of India in 1903. The Muscat chair remained in use for thirty years. Sir Rupert Hay was the last person to have been carried in it when he was political resident, Persian Gulf in 1951. The Muscat whaler was replaced first by a small dhow known as the African Queen and in 1973 by a Singapore harbour launch, which carried the ambassador on his official calls on visiting Royal Navy ships and was used for staff recreation until 1980 when it was abolished by FCO Inspectors as an unjustifiable luxury. Moreover, by then RN ships could tie up alongside in the harbour at Mina al- Qaboos. The ambassador, Ivor Lucas, could hardly complain about the decision since the launch was a potential disaster on health and safety grounds, as he discovered by chance when the British naval officer who was called in to inspect the boat recognized it as the one he had condemned in Singapore fifteen years earlier.37 At one stage, the former consulate had a recreation room for visiting sailors and in the Coxes’ time the India Office thoughtfully provided a billiard table for their use. Such a table remained in the Oasis Club, which formed part of the former embassy, together with an old upright piano bequeathed to the consulate 2406_CH05.qxd 5/19/08 4:49 PM Page 247

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by the Muscat Levies. It was inscribed at the back with the name ‘Muscat Infantry Jazz Band’, which had been formed along with a military band during sultan Taimur’s time. The billiard table and piano were disposed of on the move to the new embassy. Major Chauncy, the first consul general in Muscat, apparently initiated the ‘Rogues Gallery’ of portrait photographs of past incumbents of the post that formerly extended round the stairway up to the residence but now cover the wall outside the ambassador’s office in the new chancery. These photographs go back to 1870, starting with Surgeon Lieutenant Colonel Jayakar, Indian Medical Service, who was agency surgeon from 1870 to 1900 and was frequently in charge when the agent was absent. He was a great naturalist and linguist and gave his name to a number of discoveries, including the Arabian Tahr (Hermitragus jayakari), a type of mountain goat found only in the Oman mountains. Both Major (as he then was) and Mrs Percy Cox (1899–1904) were keen on wild life and both had their hobbies. He liked falconry and she kept ‘a troop of apes’, who lived by the stairs up to the residence to scare off unwanted callers. When Vice-admiral Boyle Somerville visited Muscat in 1902, he met these colourful characters who ‘gnashed their teeth, yearningly, on the unfortunate visitor; they leapt and danced at the full extent of their straining waist-chains, clucking and gibbering at him, or hideously shrieking battle, murder, and sudden death; they seized the handrail – mercifully a stout one, and they could only just reach it – and shook it in impotent fury. In brief, they put the wind up you.’ In India in 1895, Mrs Cox had kept two monkeys, Toto and Teddy, who were ‘always getting loose and making hay around the place’, but it is not recorded whether it was these two that Somerville encountered. Around the rocks to the east from the former embassy lies a small and seclud- ed cove where for about a hundred years from the second half of the nineteenth century Christians were buried in two small cemeteries there. The nearer one contains graves mainly from the nineteenth century, including notably that of the former Bishop of Lahore, Bishop French, who arrived in Muscat in February 1891, and who died of sunstroke after travelling in an open boat from Matrah to Seeb. He was buried on 14 May 1891. A former assistant political agent, Major Alfred Cotton Way, who died in an accident on 1 May 1871, is also buried there. The further cemetery contains graves from the last century, including those of some British servicemen, who died on active service in Oman. The cemeteries are no longer used for burials. The rocks around Muscat bay are themselves a fading epitaph to the long British connection with Oman as for many years visiting ships of the Royal Navy painted their names there. Sultan Taimur used to call it his marine autograph book. Lord Curzon gave the following explanation of the origin of the practice: ‘These decorations, however, appear to be an evidence less of the aesthetic than of the too convivial instincts of the British mariner; for, upon enquiry, I learned that the ships’ crews of men-of-war are never allowed to land in the town of Muscat, for fear of the possible consequences of their hilarity.’38 This was, even then in 1903, a very old custom as the name of HMS Seahorse is recorded there, possibly from the time when Admiral Lord Nelson was on board her as a midshipman in the period 1773–5 and sailing in the Indian Ocean. This rather ten- uous connection of Nelson with Muscat may explain why his portrait hung for years in the dining-room of the residence until more recently it was recalled to London to take part in an exhibition connected with the Trafalgar bicentenary and has not been returned. 2406_CH05.qxd 5/19/08 4:49 PM Page 248

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3. MOVING WITH THE TIMES – A FRESH START OUTSIDE OLD MUSCAT

n the latter part of the 1970s, many of the newly established embassies took Iup the invitation of the Oman Government to move out of their rented accommodation in the cramped confines of Old Muscat to sites that had been allocated to them in 1973 in the spacious Diplomatic Quarter along the beach at al-Khuwair, where they could construct to their own designs purpose-built premises. They would still be in Greater Muscat but would be nearer to the centre of development of the new administration, the expanded commercial area and the new international airport at Seeb. However, the British embassy was under no such compulsion as it was alone in owning its property, which was large enough to meet all foreseeable needs. It was decided that it should stay where it was and that the prime site provisionally allocated to Britain on the sea front in the Diplomatic Quarter should be returned to the Omani authorities. Sir Donald Hawley recalled39 that the sites were allocated to heads of missions in the order of their seniority in Muscat and as he was the most senior the first choice fell to him. The matter did not rest there and came up again towards the end of Duncan Slater’s time as ambassador, during the visit of the then foreign secretary, Geoffrey Howe. The sultan also raised it subsequently at a lunch he gave for Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher at his home at Wargrave in Berkshire during one of his periodic visits to Britain. On both occasions, the British Government remained of the view that the embassy was best placed where it was and the matter was dropped. However in 1991, the Oman Government reviewed its requirements for land in the vicinity of al-Alam Palace in Old Muscat for the Silver Jubilee celebrations of the accession of sultan Qaboos bin Said in 1995, and approached the British Government again to reconsider the decision to keep the embassy on its site next to the palace. They offered a package that included financial compensation for the loss of the Muscat site, land in the Diplomatic Quarter at al-Khuwair for a new embassy and a spectacular site for a residence at al-Rawdha, mid-way between Old Muscat and Bustan. After long and careful consideration, the offer was finally accepted and incorporated in a formal agreement that was signed on 4 January 1993 between deputy prime minister Qais bin Abdul Munim al-Zawawi for the Oman Government and the author as the British ambassador at the time. The ambassador subsequently entertained the sultan and the deputy prime minister and gave them a tour of the residence to show them the extent of Britain’s attachment to this historic site. The British Government considered a number of parcels of land on offer at al- Khuwair and decided to accept a particularly fine site on the sea front at the entrance to the Diplomatic Quarter. There was a need to move swiftly to meet the required transfer date of 1995. The first step was to select one from four British architectural practices on the basis of their proposals to design premises on the two sites to meet the British requirements. The internationally recognized YRM Partnership, which had previously designed the Sultan Qaboos University, was chosen for the work. The final design provided a simple but dignified solution, which is modern in approach yet sits comfortably with traditional Omani architecture. The main embassy building is on two floors, with the consular and management sections on the ground floor and the chancery above. Later in the building programme, it was decided to move the commercial section from leased premises in Ruwi 2406_CH05.qxd 5/19/08 4:49 PM Page 249

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to offices on the ground floor at the rear. The main feature of the façade is a double-volume courtyard entrance, open to the front and lit from above by an octagonal clerestory. This lofty space provides a cool and welcoming transition from the often hot and humid conditions outside to the cool interior, which is further enhanced by a water sculpture by the well-known British artist William Pye. On 10 May 1994, the author lowered into a cavity in the entrance a time capsule in polished steel, made by Entech of Knebworth, Hertfordshire, to be buried there for posterity. It contained an eclectic mixture of documents recording different aspects of the history of Britain’s relations with Oman as well as an enamelled box marking Queen Elizabeth’s fortieth anniversary.40 The other facades are plain white with strong emphasis on shading structures to provide good environment control and to allow light and shadow to play a dominant role in the design philosophy. The compound also contains staff housing and other facilities. The housing is positioned away from public areas and faces directly towards the sea. It is designed with reception areas on the upper levels to take advantage of sea breezes and views and with bedrooms below, protected from heat gain. The general approach is less formal and relaxed, with simple cubical forms, which reflect the traditional Omani architecture in a modern context with timber shading and screens. A contract for the construction was awarded to Wimpey Alawi LLC in June 1993, following a tender competition between selected British companies and work began on site in July. British sub-contractors and suppliers were also selected for a major proportion of the work, supplying most of the specialist fittings and fixtures. Wimpey had to work to a very tight programme and made excellent progress. A major sea defence wall had to be built before the winter to guard against the possibility of flooding down the adjacent wadi meeting an incoming exceptionally high tide. Work was started simultaneously on all the other buildings, often working through the night using ice-cooling techniques to keep concrete temperatures down in the summer. Piling was not used for the foundations as all the buildings are designed using concrete frames on strip and raft foundations. Particular attention was paid to an efficient central air conditioning system. By March 1994, the main structures were complete and work started on fitting them out, with only the commercial section being completed a month later. The objective was for Richard Muir, the new ambassador, to make the move from Old Muscat at the end of the year but in fact there were a few delays towards the end and the new embassy opened for business only in March 1995. The old building was demolished some months later in preparation of the site for redevelopment. In parallel, work was proceeding on the new residence on a headland above the Capital Area Yacht Club at al-Rawdha, set well back along a winding drive- way from the main Muscat to Bustan road, with excellent views to al-Jissah and the coastal headlands to the southeast. The residence is L-shaped and allows all the main reception rooms and bedrooms to enjoy the views. The two-storey entrance reflects the concept of the inner courtyard of the old embassy and divides the public and private areas of the house. On the seaward side, the main reception areas open onto a large shaded terrace, with the swimming pool below. The large garden in front can also be used for public functions. The initial designs were prepared by the FCO’s own architects who then invited a British architectural practice, the Huckell Tweddell Partnership, who had an 2406_CH05.qxd 5/19/08 4:49 PM Page 250

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established presence in Oman, to develop the principal design in more detail, with a blend of the best of British residential architecture and more traditional Omani elements notably in the terraced balconies and wooden mashrabiyya screens over the windows. An early start was made by letting a preliminary enabling contract for the preparation and levelling of the rocky site. After a call for tenders a contract for the construction was let to Douglas OHI. Work began in July 1993 and finished in time for the move. The embassy move was a two-stage operation. The new offices and housing on the diplomatic quarter site were completed by December 1994. The embassy team took advantage of the slow down in business from London over the Christmas holiday period to move offices and settle in to the new housing. Finishing touches were still being made to the new residence, and Richard and Caroline Muir did not move in there until March 1995. It coincided appropriately enough with a visit by Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd for the formal opening of the embassy. As Richard Muir described the occasion,41 ceremonies began at the new embassy with the foreign secretary and his Omani counterpart Yusuf bin Alawi unveiling a plaque. They both delivered short speeches celebrating the length and warmth of the relationship and its capacity for renewal demonstrated in the move. After a lunch with the sultan in his desert camp, Douglas Hurd adjourned at sundown with embassy staff to Old Muscat. As the daylight faded, and the floodlit forts around the bay stood out against the darkening sky, the Union Jack, stirred gently by the sea breeze, came down for the last time. The small group took a last round of drinks out onto the terrace that held so many memories of the last hundred years. Three of the embassy’s oldest and most faithful Omani watchmen, with a combined age of 160 and proudly wearing their traditional silver khanjar (dagger), were pensioned off in a quiet ceremony; the new embassy was to be guarded by khaki-clad Ghurkas. The party then moved up the road where senior members of the sultan’s family and ministers, led by the sultan’s uncle Sayyid Fahr, the defence minister, joined the foreign secretary for an inaugural dinner with the Muirs at the new residence. Sayyid Fahr remarked that as the former owner of the site he was particularly appreciative of the imaginative use that had been made of it. Some weeks later, the sultan called in person at the residence for tea, having driven over from his palace at Bait Al Barakah beyond Seeb, on the other side of town. He stayed for a couple of hours, pronounced himself satisfied and presented two handsome oil paintings of Omani scenery to hang in the residence. Later in the year, the Prince of Wales, on an official visit to the sultanate in October, was guest of honour at the new residence for a reception for Omani scholars, who had been to Britain on scholarships provided by the locally British-funded organization – British Scholarships for Oman, and a lunch afterwards for senior Omani businessmen. Having anticipated a monstrosity, Prince Charles acknowledged that he was pleasantly surprised at what the FCO had achieved in the building and the way in which it fitted into its setting. The Prince of Wales’ visit was followed not long after by those of Princess Anne and the Duke of Edinburgh The residence soon established itself as one of Muscat’s social centres. It was partly the novelty of the new but a lot was on offer. In the first year, the garden provided a setting almost as romantic as that of the old residence – and a lot more spacious – for the annual Queen’s Birthday Party reception, for concerts, plays and the launch of new British cars. Inside, the interconnecting public rooms provided excellent space for official lunches, dinners, receptions and 2406_CH05.qxd 5/19/08 4:49 PM Page 251

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entertainments. They also successfully converted for a week into a substantial and elegant art gallery for the first ever joint exhibition by British and Omani artists opened by Sayyid Faisal bin Ali, the minister of heritage and culture, and attended by most members of the Omani cabinet and others as keen to inspect the new residence as they were to view and purchase pictures. The embassy settled quickly into the new buildings at Al-Khuwair as more ministries moved into the area, hotels opened and development spread eastwards towards the airport. The sultan provided a new focus for the area with a vast and elegant Grand Mosque, completed in 2001. New suburbs including the country’s first hypermarket sprawled along the coast beyond the airport and towards the town of Barka 80 km east of Muscat. At the other end of town, a marina was built in the bay below the residence, reducing its isolation but also some of its calm. In 2002, the government and private sector combined to launch construction of Oman’s first really large tourist development on a rocky cliff site beyond Al Bustan reached by a road blasted through the surrounding hills. In Old Muscat, the remaining old buildings were demolished to make way for modern extensions to the sultan’s 1970s palace built on the site of the original Al Bu Said Muscat residence. On the old embassy site, a new guest palace has been completed to give visitors the unrivalled view over Muscat’s original port previously enjoyed by British agents, consuls and ambassadors over almost two centuries. Oman has rapidly modernized since 1970. It was right that the British embassy should do so too, though the break with tradition was hard at the time.

ANNEX

ontents of the time capsule buried on 10 May 1994 in the entrance to the Cnew British embassy, Muscat:42 Copy of the agreement on the new embassy site. Copies of other historic agreements with Oman: Treaty of Commerce and Navigation (1929) Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation (1952) Exchange of letters concerning the Sultan’s Armed Forces, Civil Aviation, Royal Air Force facilities and economic development in Muscat and Oman (1958) Air Services Agreement (1974) List of Omanis returning from their studies in the UK (incomplete) Catalogue of the 1992 exhibition of Sir Wilfred Thesiger’s photographs of Oman. Other British Council exhibition catalogues. Brochure of the Oman with Britain exhibition in English and in Arabic. Photographs: British embassy compound by Peter Cook HM ambassador and Omani British Scholarships for Oman students. BAe products – photographs and brochures. Manumission certificates (1 male and 1 female) A representative sample of British Council study fellows under a covering letter. Floral enamelled commemorative box produced for the 40th anniversary of the accession of Queen Elizabeth II. 2406_CH05.qxd 5/19/08 4:49 PM Page 252

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Embassy project design and construction organogram. Embassy telephone directory.

NOTES

1. P/381/12, Bombay Political Proceedings, p. 2473, GOB to Asst. Surgeon Bogle. 2. Ian Skeet, Muscat and Oman: the end of an era, (London: Faber & Faber, 1974), p. 213. 3. Skeet, Muscat and Oman,, pp. 211–12. 4. Skeet, Muscat and Oman, pp. 213–14. 5. George Nathanial Curzon, Persia and the Persian Question, (London: Longmans, Green, 1892), II, 435. 6. Penelope Tuson, The Records of the British Residency and Agencies in the Persian Gulf, (London: India Office Records, 1979) p. 151. 7. Tuson, Records of the British Residency and Agencies, p. 151. 8. Robert Binning, A Journey of Two Years’ Travel in Persia, Ceylon etc. (London: W. H. Allen, 2 vols. 1857), I, 125. 9. This and subsequent agreements can be found in C. U. Aitchison (ed.), A collection of Treaties, Engagements and Sanads relating to India and Neighbouring Countries, (Calcutta: Government of India, 5th ed., 1933), X1, pt III, No. III, 289 et seq. 10. Hubert Moyse Bartlett, The Pirates of Trucial Oman, (London: Macdonald, 1966), p. 317. 11. Bartlett, Pirates of Trucial Oman, pp. 133–66. 12. Skeet, Muscat and Oman, pp. 47, 158–9. 13. L/P&S/3/130 Political & General Correspondence, pp. 433–41. 14. L/P&S/6/477 Political Despatches to Bombay, Despatch No. 15 of 20/9/1843. 15. Government of India, Proceedings connected with the Commission appointed by Government to investigate and report on the disputes between the Rulers of Muscat and Zanzibar, (Bombay: Government of India, 1861). 16. Tuson, Records of the British Residency and Agencies, p. 154. 17. David Gilmour, Curzon: Imperial Statesman, 1859–1925, (London: John Murray, 1994), pp. 79–80. 18. Curzon, Persia and the Persian Question, p. 443. 19. John Gordon Lorimer, Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, Oman and Central Arabia (Calcutta: Government of India, 1908, 1915, 2 vols.), II, 476. 20. Lorimer, Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, II, 556–560. 21. Aitchison, Collection of Treaties, Engagements and Sanads, II, 318. 22. Philip Ward, Travels in Oman: on the track of the early explorers, (Cambridge: Oleander Press, 1987), p. 52. 23. Exchange of Letters between the Government of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland and the Sultan of Muscat and Oman concerning the Sultan’s Armed Forces, Civil Aviation, Royal Air Force facilities and Economic Development in Muscat and Oman, London, 25 July 1958 (Cmnd 507) 24. Lorimer, Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, II, 574–5. 25. Edward F. Henderson, This strange eventful history, (London: Quartet Books, 1988), pp. 154–174, gives an eye witness account. 26. John Barrett Kelly, Eastern Arabian Frontiers, (London: Faber and Faber, 1964) contains a detailed account of the Buraimi dispute. 27. Sir Donald Hawley, Desert Wind and Tropic Storm: an autobiography, (Norwich, England: Michael Russell, 2000), p. 160. 28. Hawley, Desert Wind, pp. 176–7. 29. Hon. Ivor Lucas, A Road to Damascus: mainly diplomatic memoirs from the Middle East, (London: Radcliffe Press, 1997), pp. 194–5. 30. Paul Tempest, ed., An enduring friendship, (London, Stacey International, 2006), p. 73. 31. Capt. A.W. Stiffe, ‘Ancient Trading Centres of the Persian “Arabian” Gulf’, Geographical Journal (Muscat), 10:6, (1897), 608–18. 32. Ward, Travels in Oman, p. 50. 33. Curzon, Persia and the Persian Question, II, 441–42. 34. Sir Ronald Storrs, Orientations, (London: Nicholson & Watson, 1937), p. 243. 35. Lorimer, Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, I: 2, 577–8. 36. Storrs, Orientations, p. 243. 2406_CH05.qxd 5/19/08 4:49 PM Page 253

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37. Lucas, A Road to Damascus, pp. 197–88. 38. Curzon, Persia and the Persian Question, II, pp. 439–40. 39. Personal discussion with the author in 2005. 40. A full list of the contents is at annex. 41. Personal correspondence with the author. 42. British Embassy, Muscat file 3/TIME/M of 3 October 1993 et seq. 2406_CH05.qxd 5/19/08 4:49 PM Page 254

Heads of Mission in the Gulf Posts

IRAN 1799 Special mission to Shah by Mahdi Ali Khan, acting East India Company (EIC) Resident in Bushire 1800–1 Special mission by Captain John Malcolm,* Envoy from the EIC 1808 Special mission by Brigadier-General John Malcolm, Envoy from the EIC 1809–11 Sir Harford Jones, Bt. (later Jones Brydges), Envoy 1810 Brigadier-General John Malcolm, Envoy from the EIC, not received by the Shah 1811–14 Sir Gore Ouseley, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary 1814–15 James Morier, Minister Plenipotentiary ad interim (FO) 1814 Henry Ellis,* special mission with Ouseley and Morier 1815–26 Major Henry Willock,* Chargé d’Affaires 1826–30 Colonel John Kinneir Macdonald,* Envoy from the EIC 1830–35 Captain John Cambell,* Chargé d’Affaires 1830–4, Consul General and Plenipotentiary 1834–35 1835–6 Rt. Hon. Henry Ellis, Ambassador on special mission 1836–42 Dr John McNeill,* Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary [1839–41 Breach in relations] 1842–53 Col. Justin Sheil,* Chargé d’Affaires 1842–44, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 1844–53 (after which date until 1944 all British envoys were accredited as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary) 1854–59 Hon. C.A. Murray* [1855–57 Breach in relations; Herat war 1856–57] 1859–60 Major-General Sir Henry Rawlinson 1860–72 Charles Alison 1872–79 W. Taylour Thomson* 1879–87 Ronald F. Thomson* 1887–90 Rt. Hon. Sir Henry Drummond Wolff 1891–94 Sir Frank Lascelles 1894–1900 Sir Mortimer Durand 1900–05 Sir Arthur Hardinge 1903 Viscount Downe Special envoy to invest Shah with Order of the Garter 1906–08 Sir Cecil Spring-Rice 1908–12 Sir George Barclay 2406_CH05.qxd 5/19/08 4:49 PM Page 255

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1912–15 Sir Walter Townley 1915–18 Charles Marling* 1918–20 Sir Percy Cox 1920–21 Herman Norman 1921–26 Sir Percy Loraine 1926–31 Robert Clive* 1931–34 Reginald Hoare* 1934–36 Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen* 1936–46 Sir Reader Bullard. (In 1944 and thereafter, the Legation became an Embassy and the Head of Mission was an Ambassador.) 1946–50 John le Rougetel* 1950–52 Sir Francis Shepherd 1952 (January to October) George Middleton, Chargé d’Affaires [October 1952–December 1953 Breach of relations] 1953–54 Denis Wright* Chargé d’Affaires 1954–58 Sir Roger Stevens 1958–63 Sir Geoffrey Harrison 1963–71 Sir Denis Wright 1971–74 Hon Peter Ramsbotham* 1974–79 Anthony Parsons* 1980 John Graham* [June 1980, breach of relations. September 1980 British interests under the protection of Sweden. The following were Head of the British Interests Section of the Swedish Embassy:] 1982–83 Nicholas Barrington* 1984–86 Michael Simpson-Orlebar* 1987 Christopher MacRae* [The Embassy reopened in December 1988]. 1988 Gordon Pirie, Chargé d’Affaires ad interim (a.i.) 1989 Nicholas Browne, Charge d’Affaires a.i. [Iran severed diplomatic relations with the UK from 7 March 1989 to 28 October 1990] 1990–93 David Reddaway, Charge d’Affaires a.i. 1993–97 Jeffrey James, Charge d’Affaires a.i. 1997–99 Nicholas Browne,* Charge d’Affaires a.i. 13 November then ambassador from May 1999 [Britain and Iran upgraded relationship to ambassadorial status in 1999.] 1999–2002 Sir Nicholas Browne, Ambassador 2002– Sir Richard Dalton

* later knighted

IRAQ Residents: Mr James Morley 1766 (From 1766 to 1798 the Residency was in abeyance but from 1781 there was a Native Agent in Baghdad.) Mr Harford Jones (afterwards Sir Harford Jones Brydges) 1798–1806 2406_CH05.qxd 5/19/08 4:49 PM Page 256

256 HEADS OF MISSION IN THE GULF POSTS

Dr John Hine, Residency Surgeon (acting) 1806–1808 Mr Claudius James Rich 1808–1812 (In 1610 the Residency was amalgamated with that of Basra and in 1812 the combined Residencies were converted into the Political Agency in Turkish Arabia)

Political Agents: Mr Claudius James Rich 1812–1821 (died in the appointment) Captain R. Taylor, 3rd Bombay Native Infantry 1822–1843 (promoted Major in 1827 and Lieut. Colonel in 1831) Major Henry C. Rawlinson 1843–1849 Captain Arnold B. Kemball 1849–1851 Major (afterwards General Sir) Henry C. Rawlinson 1851–1855 Major Arnold B. Kemball 1849–1859 Dr J. M. Hyslop, Agency Surgeon 1859–1861 Major (afterwards General Sir) Arnold B. Kemball 1861–1868 Colonel C. Herbert 1868–1874 Colonel J. P. Nixon 1874–1879

Residents: Colonel S. M. Miles 1879–1880 Mr T. J. C. Plowden, Indian Civil Service 1880–1882 Colonel W. Tweedie 1882–1883 Mr T. J. C. Plowden* 1883–1885 Colonel W. Tweedie 1885–1888 Major A. C. Talbot 1888–1889 Colonel (afterwards General) W. Tweedie 1889–1891 Colonel E. Mockler 1891–1897 Lieutenant-Colonel W. Loch 1897–1898 Major P. J. Melvill 1898–1899 Lieutenant-Colonel W. Loch 1899 Major P. J. Melvill 1899–1902 Colonel L. S. Newmarch 1902–1906 Colonel J. Ramsay 1906–1909 Mr J. G. Lorimer 1909–1913

Civil Commissioners: Sir Percy Cox 1917–1918 Lieutenant-Colonel Arnold J. Wilson (acting Civil Commissioner)* 1918–1920

High Commissioners: Sir Percy Cox 1920–1923 Sir Henry Dobbs 1923–1929 Sir Geoffrey Clayton 1929 Sir Francis Humphrys 1929–1932 2406_CH05.qxd 5/19/08 4:49 PM Page 257

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Ambassadors: Sir Francis Humphrys 1932–1935 Sir Arthur Clark Kerr 1935–1938 Sir Maurice Peterson 1938–1939 Sir Basil Newton 1939–1941 Sir Kinahan Cornwallis 1941–1945 Sir Francis Stonehewer Bird 1945–1947 Sir Henry Mack 1947–1950 Sir John Troutbeck 1951–1955 Sir Michael Wright 1955–1958 Sir Humphrey Trevelyan 1958–1961 Sir Roger Allan 1962–1965 Sir Richard Beaumont 1965–1967 Sir Trevor Evans 1967–1969 Mr Hugh Balfour Paul 1969–1971 British Interest Section, Swedish Embassy 1971–1974 Sir John Graham 1974–1977 Sir Alexander Stirling 1977–1980 Mr Stephen Egerton* 1980–1982 Mr John Moberly* 1982–1985 Mr Terence Clark* 1985–1989 Mr Harold Walker* 1990–1991 Mr Edward Chaplin 2004–2005 * later knighted

KUWAIT Political Agents Captain, later Lt. Colonel S. G. Knox CIE 1903–1909 Captain W. H. I. Shakespear 1909–1914 Lt. Col. W. G. Grey 1914–1916 Lt. Col. D. E. A. Hamilton 1916–1918 (later Baron Belhaven and Stenton CIE) Lt. Col. P. G. Loch (later Dalyell of the Binns CIE) 1918–1920 Lt. Col. J. C. More DSO CIE 1920–1929 Lt. Col. H. R. P. Dickson CIE 1920–1936 Captain G. De Gaury MC 1936–1939 Lt. Col. A. C. Galloway CIE OBE 1939–1940 Lt. Col. (Rtd) H. R. P. Dickson CIE 1940–1941 Major T. Hickinbotham CIE OBE 1941–1943 Mr C. J. Pelly CMG OBE 1943–1944 Major P. O’C Tandy 1945–1948 Lt. Col. A. C. Galloway CIE OBE 1948–1949 Mr G. N. Jackson CMG OBE 1949–1951 Mr C. J. Pelly CMG OBE 1951–1955 Mr G. W. Bell CMG CBE 1955–1957 Mr A. S. Halford CMG CVO 1957–1959 Mr J. Richmond CMG 1959–1961

Consul General Mr J. Richmond CMG 1961 2406_CH05.qxd 5/19/08 4:49 PM Page 258

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Ambassadors Mr J. Richmond CMG 1961–1963 Mr G. N. Jackson CMG OBE 1963–1966 Mr G. G. Arthur CMG 1967–1968 Mr S. Falle CMG DSC 1969–1970 Mr A. J. Wilton CMG MC 1970–1974 Mr A. T. Lamb CMG MBE DFC 1974–1977 Mr S. J. G. Cambridge CMG CVO 1977–1982 Mr M. R. Melhuish CMG 1982–1985 Sir Peter Moon KCVO CMG 1985–1987 Mr P. R. M. Hinchcliffe CMG CVO 1987–1990 Sir M. Weston KCMG CVO 1990–1992 Mr W. H. Fullerton CMG 1992–1996 Mr G. W. Boyce CMG 1996–1999 Mr R. J. S. Muir CMG 1999–2002 Mr C. Wilton CMG 2002–2005 Mr S. Laing 2005–

OMAN Political Residents Assistant Surgeon A H Bogle (died in the appointment) 1800 Captain David Seton (on sick leave 1802–3; died in the appointment) 1801–1809 Lieutenant Watts (acting; died in the appointment) 1808 Mr Bunce (acting; died in the appointment) 1809 The Residency remained in abeyance until Captain A Hamerton 1840 The Residency transferred to Zanzibar until 1861

Political Agents and Consuls Lieutenant W. Pengelley 1861–1862 Major M. Green 1862 Lieutenant-Colonel Herbert Disbrowe 1863–1867 Captain G. A. Atkins 1867–1869 Lt. Col. H. Disbrowe 1869–1870 Maj. A. C. Way (died in the appointment) 1870–1871 Maj. E. C. Ross 1871–1872 Capt. S. B. Miles 1878–1879 Maj. C. B. E. Smith 1879–1880 Maj. C. Grant 1881–1883 Maj. E. Mockler 1883 Lt. Col. S. B. Miles 1883–1886 Lt. Col. E. Mockler 1886 Lt. Col. S. B. Miles 1886–1887 Lt. Col. E. Mockler 1887–1889 Lt. W. Stratton 1889 Maj. C. E. Yate 1889–1890 Lt. Col. E. Mockler 1890–1891 Maj. J. Hayes Sadler 1892–1895 2406_CH05.qxd 5/19/08 4:49 PM Page 259

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Capt. J. F. Whyte 1895 Maj. J. Hayes Sadler 1895–1896 Capt. F. A. Beville 1896–1897 Maj. C. G. F. Fagan 1897–1899 Maj. P. Z. Cox 1899–1904 Maj. W. G. Grey 1904–1906 Lt. W. H. I. Shakespear 1906 (officiating) Maj. W. G. Grey 1906–1908 Mr R. E. Holland 1908–1910 Maj. A. P. Trevor 1910–1911 Maj. S. G. Knox 1911–1914 Lt. Col. R. A. E. Benn 1914–1915 Maj. H. Stewart 1915–1916 Lt. Col. C. Ducat 1916 Maj. H. Stewart 1916 Lt. Col. C. Ducat 1916 Maj. E. B. Howell 1916 Maj. L. B. H. Haworth 1916–1919 Mr R. E. L. Wingate 1919–1921 Maj. E. Ras 1921–23 Mr R. E. L. Wingate 1923 Maj. R. G. Hinde 1923–1924 Lt. Col. C. G. Crosthwaite 1924–1925 Capt. R. G. E. W. Alban 1925 Lt. Col. C. G. Crosthwaite 1925–1926 Maj. C. C. J. Berrett 1926 Maj. G. P. Murphy 1926–1930 Maj. T. C. Fowle 1930–1931 Capt. R. G. E. W. Alban 1931 Maj. T. C. Fowle 1931–1932 Maj. C. E. U. Bremner 1933–1935 Maj. R. P. Watts 1935–1939 Capt. T. Hickinbotham 1939–1940 Capt. J. B. Howes 1940 Major T. Hickinbotham 1940–1941 Capt. J. B. Howes 1941–1942 Maj. R. G. E. W. Alban 1942 Mr C. J. Pelly 1942–1943 Capt. R. E. R. Bird 1943 Capt. R. D. Metcalfe 1943–1944 Lt. Col. A. C. Galloway 1944–1945 Mr R. I. Hallows 1945–1946 Maj. A. C. Stewart 1947–1948 Capt. J. E. H. Hudson 1947 Maj. A. C. Stewart 1947–1948 Mr R. E. Ellison 1948–1949

Consuls General Maj. F. C. L. Chauncy 1949–1958 Mr W. N. Monteith 1958–1960 Mr J. F. S. Phillips 1960–1963 2406_CH05.qxd 5/19/08 4:49 PM Page 260

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Mr J. S. R. Duncan 1963–1965 Mr D. C. Carden 1965–1969 Mr D. G. Crawford 1969–1971

Ambassadors Mr D. F. Hawley 1971–1975 Mr C. J. Treadwell 1975–1979 The Hon. Ivor Lucas 1979–1981 Mr D. Slater 1981–1986 Mr R. J. Alston 1986–1990 Sir Terence Clark 1990–1994 Mr R. J. S. Muir 1994–1999 Sir Ivan Callan 1999–2002 Mr J. S. Laing 2002–2005 2406_CH05.qxd 5/19/08 4:49 PM Page 261

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(ii) Records of the Government of India in the British Library India Office Records (IOR) Letters/Political and Secret (L/PS) EUR F 111/156, Curzon collection mss. MSS Eur. F111/531, Summary of the Principle events and measures of the Viceroyalty of Lord Curzon in the Foreign Department, 1 January 1899–April 1904: Volume IV Persia and the Persian Gulf 1907. 2406_CH05.qxd 5/19/08 4:49 PM Page 262

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P381 Bombay Political Proceedings Introduction to East India Company correspondence on G/29 in the Old India Office, British Library.

(iii) Records of the British Embassy Muscat British Embassy, Muscat file 3/TIME/M of 3 October 1993 et seq.

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Name Index

Abbas Shah 29, 55, 68 Al Sabah, Mubarak 170, 172–87, 188, 189, 190, Abbas Shah II 56 192, 193, 194, 201, 203, 209, 216, 217, 221 Abdalla, Shaikh 172 Al Sabah, Sa’ad Abdulla 216 Abdia, princess of Iraq 154 Al Sabah, Sabah Ahmed 222 Abdul Ahad 116 Al Sabah, Sabah Salim 211, 214 Abdul Majid, sultan 157 Al Sabah, Salim Mubarak 187, 188, 190, 191, 192, Abdul Muhsin Bey 131, 133 211, 213–14 Abdul Qadir Dallah 116 Al Said, Qaboos bin Said, sultan of Oman 229, Abdulillah, prince and regent 144, 145,146, 151, 237, 238, 243, 248, 250 153–54, 206, 210 Al Saud family 171, 173, 182, 189, 195 Abdulla Bishara xii al-Sawwaf, Majid 142 Agha Muhammad 114, 115, 116 al-Suwaidi, Yusuf 160 Ahmad 42 al-Umari, Arshad 146, 147 Ahmad Pasha 83 al-Zawawi, Qais bin Abdul Munim 248 Ahmad Shah 21, 27, 28, 29 Alam, Asad’ollah 45 Al Asfur family 201 Alber, Moris Charl [sic] 126 Al Asfur, Jasim 181 Albert I, king of the Belgians 138 Al Asfur, Muhammed 181 Allen, David 36 al-Bakr, Hasan 160 Alexander I, tsar of Russia 6 al-Busaid, Sayyid Sultan bin Ahmad, 229, 230 Ali, Caliph 19n, Al Douri, Izzat Ibrahim 217 Ali Khan Nawab 65–66 al-Gailani, Rashid Ali 143, 144, 145, 206, 212, 217 Ali Pasha 82, 83, 89 al-Gailani, Sayyid Abdulrahman, Naqib of Ali Reza Pasha, Hajji 98 Baghdad 114, 130, 131 Alice, Princess 242 al-Gailani, Sayyid Yusuf 116 Alison, Charles 8, 10, 11,12, 13,14, 16, 24, 50 al-Hashimi, Taha 143 Alison, (later Kalustoff) Victoria 8, 24 Al Ibrahim, Yusuf 177 Alison (later Ossipoff), Victoria 24 al-Jamali, Fadhil 149 Allen, Roger 158 al-Khalili, Muhammad bin Abdullah 235 Alston, Robert 239, 240 Al Rashid family 171, 173, 176, 179, 180, 182, Amin al-Sultan 21 187, 189 Amin ol-Molk 73 Al Sabah, Abdalla 171, 173 Amouzegar, Jamshid 44 Al Sabah, Abdulla Mubarak 211 Ampthill, Lord 183 Al Sabah, Abdulla Salim (alt. Salem) 203–04, 205, Anne, princess royal 250 208, 209–12, 213, 216n Antowan, Zoltin 126 Al Sabah, Ahmed Jaber 191, 192–99, 201–208 Arghun 5 Al Sabah family 198, 202, 204, 206, 207, 209, Arif, Abdul Salam 154 210–13, 216, 221 Arthur, Geoffrey 151 Al Sabah, Jaber Ahmed 209, 213, 214, 216n, 222 Al Sabah, Jaber Mubarak 184, 187, 188, 191 Badiya, Princess 154 Al Sabah, Mohammed 173 Badr bin Saif 230 2406_INDEX.qxd 5/19/08 4:51 PM Page 272

272 NAME INDEX

Baghdad, Wali of 116 Carter, James Earl 44, 214, 239 Bakhtiari 21, 22, 27 Chaderchi, Reouf Bey 117 Bakhtiari Khan 40 Chalabi, Musa 122 Balfour Paul, Hugh Glencairn 159 Chamberlain, Austin 29 Banks, Larry xii, 217–220 Chamoun, Camille 154 Barclay, George 21 Chaplin, Edward 160 Barmecides family 96 Chardin, John 62 Bartellot, Major 30 Charles, Prince of Wales 250 Basra, Wali of 111 Chauncy, Frederick Charles Leslie 236, 247 Bazargan, Mehdi 47 Cheesman, Florence Edith 122 Beaumont, Richard 142, 147, 152, 155, 158–159 Cheesman, Robert 122, 124, 127 Belgrave, Charles 96 Chesney, Francis 99–100 Bell, Gawain 202, 209–10, 211 Chirol, Valentine 170, 177 Bell, Gertrude viii,, xii, 15, 116, 117, 119, 121–22, Chisholm, John 196 123, 124, 127, 129, 130, 134–35, 160, 189, Cholet, Armand Pierre de 114 191, 192 Churchill, Alfred 59 Bell, Silvia 209 Churchill, Harry L 58 Bellasis, Lt. 90 Churchill, Winston Spencer 22–23, 33–34, 38, 41, Berkeley, Colonel 151 125, 130, 189, 191, 208 Bertram, Mark xi Clarendon, Lord 14, 232 Bevin, Ernest 149 Clark Kerr, Archibald 136, 137, 139 Bibi Zainab bint Mohamed Ameer 241 Clark, Terence 157, 159, 239, 248 Bikaner, Maharaja Ganga Singh 200 Clarke, Caspar Purdon 14 bin Alawi, Yusuf 250 Clayton, Gilbert 135 bin Ali, Ghalib 235, 236, 237 Clive, Robert 197 bin Ali, Talib 235 Cloake, John xi bin Nasir, Ali 232 Cloake, Molli xi bin Othman, Hajji Ibrahim 108 Cockburn, James Binning, Robert 231 Cogan, Thomas 82 Birdwood, Christopher (Lord) 140, 152, 154 Coke, Richard 117, 119 Biscoe, Hugh 197, 198–99 Colbert, Jean-Baptiste 56 Bloor, Peter xi Connal, William 126 Blunt, Anne 107, 109, 171, 192n Connock, Edward 29, 55 Blunt, Wilfred Scawen 109, 171, 192n Cook, Lennox 38–39 Bogle, Archibald H. 229, 230 Cook, Peter 251 Bonar Law, Andrew 127 Cornwallis, Kinahan 138, 144, 146–48 Bonham, Edward Walter 76n Cotte, Edouard 21 Bonham-Carter, Edgar 130 Cotton, Dodmore 55 Bosanquet, Jacob 88 Coughlan, colonel 233 Bowsher, Lieutenant 105 Cox, Louisa Belle 124, 126–27, 128, 132, 246, 247 Braithwaite, Ronald Arthur 159 Cox, Percy Zachariah viii, 30, 62, 63, 67, 73, Bremner, Claude Edward Urquhart 242, 245 119–32, 179–84, 185–87, 189, 190, 191–93, Brett, R. B. 68–69 195, 202, 234, 242, 243, 246, 247 Broderick, William St John 179 Crane, Robert 242 Browne, E. G. 19, 21 Creasey, Timothy 238 Bruce, William 98 Cromwell, Oliver 82, 123 Buckingham, James Silk 92, 96 Croskery, Douglas 220 Budge, Ernest Alfred Wallis 96, 109–11 Crow, Francis Edward 69 Bullard, Reader William 33–34, 40, 117, 130 Crow, N. 87 Bunce (or Bonce) 231 Curtis, John xii Busk, Douglas 149 Curzon, George N viii, ix, 4, 5, 15, 20, 21, 26, Butler, Rohan 73 27, 29, 36, 42, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 64, 66, 67, Byron, Robert 32, 39 72n, 73, 123, 172, 174–80, 182, 183, 184, 185, 187, 188, 205, 209, 221, 233–34, 241, Cadman, John 30 246, 247 Cadogan, Alexander ix Callan, Ivan 239 Daneshyar, Mr 39 Campbell, John 9 Daoud Pasha 97, 98 Canning, Lord 233, 234 D’Arcy, William 21, 22, 30 Canning, Stratford 110 Darwish, Faisal 190, 195–96 2406_INDEX.qxd 5/19/08 4:51 PM Page 273

NAME INDEX 273

Davison, Lord 148 Gaselee, Stephen 42 De Gaury, Gerald 149, 155, 202–04, 205, 206, Gaskin, J. C. 113 208, 209 Gault, Charles 69, 73 Dickson, Harold 192–202, 203, 204–05, 206, 207, Geary, Grattan 234, 241 208, 215, 217, 218, 220, 221 Geber, Gill xii Dickson, Violet 193, 194, 201–202, 206, 215, George V, king of Great Britain 138, 170 217, 218 George IV, king of Great Britain 232 Dickson, Zahra 201 Ghazi, king of Iraq 138, 140–41, 142, 202–203, Disbrowe, Herbert 233 212, 217 Dobbs, Esmé Agnes 133 Gillan, George van Baerle 121 Dobbs, Henry 131, 133–35, 136 Gilmour, David 27 Dorrill, Thomas 83 Gladstone, William Ewart 14 Doughty, Charles 171 Gloucester, Duke of 147 Drower, Lady see Stevens, Ethel Stefana Glubb, John 146 Duff, Grant 19–20 Gomes, Pasqal 245 Duncan, Alex 220 Grafftey-Smith, Laurence 141–42 Dundas, Henry 88 Graham, John 155, 159, 237 Dunlop, W. 134 Graham, Ludovic 155, 157 Dunsterville, Lionel Charles 28 Graham (also Graeme), Mungo 60 Dykstra, Dirk 242 Graves, Philip 62, 123, 124, 127, 130, 131 Greenway, Dr 201 Eatwell, Lieut. 90 Greener, Mr and Mrs 106 Eastwick, Edward B. 7, 8, 10,11, 12, 24, 42 Grendon, Thomas 83–84 Edgerton, Stephen 159 Grey, Edward 20 Edinburgh, Duke of 222, 250 Grey, William George 235 Edward I, king of England 5 Grobba, Frau 140–41 Edward VII, king of Great Britain 25 Grobba, Fritz Konrad Ferdinand 139–41, 143 Edward VIII, king of Great Britain 33 Groves, Anthony Norris 98 Eisenhower, Dwight David 37 Groves, Mary Bethia 98 Elizabeth I, queen of England 81, 82 Gulbenkian, Calouste 196n Elizabeth II, queen of Great Britain 152, 222, 238, Gurney, John xi, 7, 13, 51n 249, 251 Ellis, Henry 7, 9 Hadi 151 Ellis, Tristram 100, 105–106 Haig, Thomas Wolseley 66–67, 72, 73 Elton, John 60 ‘Hajji Baba’ see Morier, James Erskine, Keith 117 Hamerton, Atkins 232 Evans, Trefor 159 Hamilton, D. E. A. 188 Hainsworth, Norman 153 Faisal I, king of Iraq 130, 131, 132, 133, 134–35, Hankey, Maurice 189 138, 188, 191, 192, 202 Hardinge, Arthur 21, 23. 24, 59 Faisal Ibn Abdul Aziz Al Saud, king of Saudi Harriman, Averill 37 Arabia 237 Haroun al-Rashid, Caliph 96n, 132 Faisal II, king of Iraq 43, 150, 152, 153–55 Hart, John 152 Farouk, king of Egypt 43 Hassan ibn Ali 19n Fath Ali Shah 5, 6, 7, 9, 15, 16, 42, 56, 230 Hawley, Donald 237–38, 248 Father Noel of the Carmelite Order see Antowan, Hawley, Ruth xii Zoltin Haworth, Lionel Berkeley H. 234–35 Finch, John Philip Gordon 142 Hay, Bruce 137 Fitch, Ralph 61 Hay, Rupert 208, 246 Fletcher, Jack 238 Hayun, Princess 154 Fowle, Trenchard Craven William 199, 200, 201, Heath, Edward 213–14 203–04, 206 Herbert, C. 107–08 Fraser, David 19, 20 Hikmat Sulaiman 139, 143 French, Martin 83 Hilprecht, H. V. 95 French, Thomas Valpy 247 Hinchcliffe, Peter xiii Freese-Pennefather, Harold 147 Hine, John 90, 91, 95 Hitler, Adolf 31, 32, 140 Gallman, Waldemar 153 Hoare, Reginald 69 Galloway, Arthur Crawshaw 204–05, 206 Holmes, Frank 192–93, 195, 196, 198 Garden, Robert 84–85 Holt, Vyvyan ix, 138, 144 2406_INDEX.qxd 5/19/08 4:51 PM Page 274

274 NAME INDEX

Hooper, Richard 154 Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhllah 43, 44–45, 47, Hope-Gill, Cecil 145, 146 49, 221 Hossein ibn Ali 19n Kidby, C. R. E. 41 Howarth, Lionel Berkeley Holt 29, 242, 246 Kipling, Rudyard 187 Howe, Geoffrey 248 Kokkus see Cox, Percy Howell, Evelyn Berkeley 130 Knabenshue, Mrs 145 Hoveyda, Amir Abbas 44 Knabenshue, Paul 144, 145, 146 Hurd, Douglas 250 Knox, Stuart George 72, 169–70, 172, 180–84, Hurst, Leonard Henry 115 185, 186, 187, 188, 191, 194, 201, 219, 221 Humphrys, Francis 135–37, 138, 148 Kuchik Khan 27, 28, 58 Husain, Hashemite king of the Hijaz 130, 188, 191 Kuwait, emir of 72 Husain Pasha 82, 131n Hutchinson, George 245 Lacey, Clive xi Hyslop, J. M. 104 Laing, Stuart 239 Laithwaite, Gilbert 195, 197, 199, 200 Ibn Rashid 178, 183 see also Al Rashid family Lambton, Ann xi, 16, 17 Ibn Saud 122, 131, 178, 180, 182, 183, 184, 185, Lancaster, Osbert 41 187, 189–92, 194, 195, 196, 199, 201, 202, Lansdowne, Lord 177, 178 205–207 see also Al Saud family Lascelles, Frank 11, 15, 18 Imam Nasir bin Murshid 229 Lascelles, Mary 15 Imam Reza 59 Latouche, William 86 Ingrid, princess of Sweden 138 Layard, Austen 96, 100, 104 Ironside, Edmund 27–28 Le Mesurier, P. 87 Le Quesne, Martin 150 Jabr, Salih 147, 149 Le Rougetel, John 40, 41 Jayakar, Atmaram S. G. 243, 247 Le Strange, Guy 131n Jenkinson, Antony 54 Leachman, Gerard 120, 124 John, N. Goscombe 121 Lenczowski, George 31, 36 Jones, Felix 62 Levins, John xii Jones, Harford 6, 7, 8, 42, 87–90 Liakhoff, Colonel 21 Jordan, Julius 140 Lloyd, Selwyn 154 Lloyd, Seton 95, 96, 116 Kadhim Pasha 126 Loch, W. 114 Kalustoff, M. 24 Longrigg, Stephen Hemsley 124, 126, 131, 135, Kalustoff, Madam – see Alison (later Kalustoff), 144, 146 Victoria Loraine, Percy 23, 29, 67, 134 Kapnist, Paul 175, 176 Lorimer, John Gordon 83, 85, 102, 109, 116, 117, Karim Khan Zand 68 118, 126, 173, 230 Kashani, Ayatollah Sayyed Abu’l Qassem 36 Lorrimer, David 73 Kazemi, Baqer 71–72 Lucas, Ivor 238, 246 Kazim Pasha see Kadhim Pasha Lutyens, Edwin Landseer 199 Kellas, Arthur 41 Lynch family 91–92, 100, 105, 106, 107, Kellas, Bridget 41 108, 118 Kelly, John Barrett 207 Lyster, Dymock 84, 85 Kemball, Arnold B. 104–105, 107 Kemball, Charles Arnold 176, 177, 178 Macaulay, Donald 217 Kennedy, John Fitzgerald 43 Maccan, Arthur Ernest Henry 64 Kennedy, Robert 43 McDouall, William 66 Keppel, George 98 Mack, Lillian May 150, 151 Ketabji, Antoine 21 Mack, (William) Henry 150–51 Khalil Pasha 117, 118 McKeith, Brian 217 Khan Sahib 150 Mackintosh, James 91 Khanum, Aisha 121n Mackintosh, Mary see Rich, Mary Khatun (Lady) see Bell, Gertrude Maclaren, Charles Walter de Bois 30 Khaz’al Khan, shaikh of Mohammerah, 22, 27, Maclean, Fitzroy 69 28, 63, 64–65, 72, 76n, 184, 188, 198 McMahon, Henry 119 Khoja, Ezekiel 231 Macmillan, Harold 212 Khoja, Marcar 86 McNeill, John 4, 11 Khojah, Raphael 84 Macpherson, Ian 158 Khomeini, Ahmad 49 Mahir, Muzahim, mutssarif of Basra 152 2406_INDEX.qxd 5/19/08 4:51 PM Page 275

NAME INDEX 275

Mahmoud, Nuruddin 152 More, James Carmichael 190–92, 193, 194 Maitland, Donald 151 Morgan, Jacques de 21 Majid, sultan of Zanzibar 233 Morier, James 6, 7, 8, 42 Major, John 220, 239 Morley, James 85–86 Malcolm, John 4, 5, 6, 230, 231 Morrison, Betty 145 Mallet, Louis 117 Mozaffer al-Din Shah 18 Manesty, Samuel 56, 86–87, 89–90, 91, 92, 104, Muhammad (The Prophet) 59 108, 168 Muir, Caroline 250 Mar Shamun 138 Muir, Richard 239, 249, 250 Marling, Charles 66–67, 122 Murad, Malullah bin Jab Habib 244 Marlowe, John 123 Murray, Charles 11–12 Marr, Phebe 131, 141 Musa, Ali 244 Marriot, A. L. 21 Musa Khan, Abdallah bin Ali Khan 244 Marshall, Walter 215 Mussadiq, Mohammed 36–38, 43, 52n, 71, Marshall, William Raine 122 73, 74 Mary, queen of Great Britain 170 Mussolini, Benito 32 Maude, Frederick Stanley 118–21, 122, 124, 148, Mylrea, Charles Stanley Garland 193 152, 155, 158 Mylrea, Bess 193 May, Major 121 Maxwell, Gavin 139 Nadhim Pasha 117–18 Meade, Malcolm John 173–74, 178, 217 Nefessa, Princess 154 Mecca, sharif of 119 Najd, emir 72 Mehdi Ali Khan 5 ‘Naji’ 159–60 Mehmet V, sultan of Turkey 134 Namik Pasha 107 Mehr Ali 42 Napoleon I, emperor of France 5, 6, 87, 230, 243 Meissner Pasha 126 Nasib, Yahya bin Mohammed 244 Melvill, P. J. 114 Nasir al-Din Shah 11, 12, 16, 17, 18, 24, 42 Middleton, George Humphrey 37, 39, 73, 74 Nasr ud-Din Shah 20, 50 Middleton, Marie 37 Nasser, Gamal Abdel 210, 211, 212, 213 Midfa’i, Jamil 139, 141, 142 Nazim 126 Midhat Pasha 107 Nafeesa, princess 154 Miers, David 48 Neligan, A. R. 24 Miers, Imelda 48 Nelson, Horatio 247 Miers, Thomas 48 Newmarch, L. S. 112, 113, 114 Miles, Samuel Barrett 234, 241 Newton, Basil 143, 144, 206 Mills, S. M. 109 Nicholas II, tsar of Russia 25 Millspaugh, Arthur Chester 28, 36 Niebuhr, Carsten 85, 131n Mirza Abdul Hasan 6 Nixon, J. P. 108, 109 Mirza Firuz Nosrat al-Dauleh 26n Nixon, Richard M. 214 Mirza Mahdi Ali Khan 230 Norman, Herman 27–28, 72–3 Mirza Mehdi Khan 16 Nuri Said 136, 139, 140, 143, 148, 152, 154, 206, Mirza Mohammed Hasan Khan Muhsin 115 207, 210, 211, 212 Mirza Muhamad 179 Mirza Taqi Khan 16 O’Connor, Frederick 60–61, 65, 66, 68 Mitford, Edward 100 O’Conor, Nicholas 174, 175, 177–78, 183 Mitterrand, François 243 Ossipoff, M. 24 Moberley, Frederick James 119, 126 Ossipoff, Madam see Alison (later Ossipoff), Moberley, John 159 Victoria Mockler, E. 114 Ottavi, Pierre 234 Mohammed Ali Shah 20, 21 Ouseley, Gore 6, 7, 8 Mohammed Reza Shah 16n, 32, 36, 38, 43–47, 71, 75, 237, 239 Pachachi family 117 Mohammed Shah 9, 10, 16, 57 Palgrave, William Gifford 171n Mohammerah, shaikh of 22, 184, 188 Palmerston, Lord 12 Monck-Mason, G.E.A.C. 140–42 Parshotam, Ratansi 243 Monroe, Elizabeth vii Parsons, Anthony 43, 44–47, 151 Moola, Abdulla 184 Pelly, Cornelius James 209, 236 Moore, Benjamin Burges 23 Pelly, Lewis 171, 177 Moore, Henry 86 Pelly, Neill 246 Moore, W. E. 21 Pengelly, Willliam M. 233 2406_INDEX.qxd 5/19/08 4:51 PM Page 276

276 NAME INDEX

Perkins, Kenneth 238 Salman, Mahmoud 143 Peterson, Maurice 140, 141, 143 Sardar-e Moazzen 73 Philby, Harry St John 123, 124, 130 Sarem al-Dauleh 26n Phillips, Percival 126–29 Sargon II, king of Assyria 111 Pierson, William 13–15, 42 Saud, king of Saudi Arabia 154 Pilgrim, G. E. 236 Sayyid Fahr 250 Pilsbury, Miss 155 Sayyid Faisal bin Ali 251 Plowden, Trevor 109, 112–13 Sayyid Faisal bin Turki 234, 241, 244 Pomphret, Nathaniel 83 Sayyid Said bin Sultan 230, 231–33, 235, 243 Preece, John 68 Sayyid Salman al-Naqib 122 Price, William 84 Sayyid Sultan bin Ahmed 229, 230 Prior, Charles Geoffrey 204–206 Sayyid Sultan bin Saif 229 Pye, William 249 Sayyid Taimur 234 Scott, David 69–70 Qashqai 26, 27 Scott, E. H. 117 Qasim, Abdul Karim 154–55, 156, 157, 159, Segar, Christopher 160 212, 217 Seton, David 230–31 Qavam, Ahmad (Qavam as-Saltaneh) 4, 35–36 Seyyed Zia 29 Shabib, Kamil 143 Rainsford, Henry 229 Shakespear, William Henry Irvine 185–88, Rajagopalan, N 220 191, 220 Ramsay, John 116 Sharif Husain 154 Ramsay, William 88 Sharp, Norman 38 Rassam, Christian 102, 103 Shaw, William 84 Rawlinson, George 103–104 Sheil, Justin 7 Rawlinson, Henry 8, 102–104, 110 Sheil, Mary 7, 10 Razmara, Ali 36 Shepherd, Francis 37, 71–72 Reinaud, John Louis 89 Sherley, Anthony 29, 55 Reuter, Herbert de 21 Sherley, Robert 55 Reuter, Julius de 16–17, 18, 21 Shuster, Morgan 25, 36 Reza Khan see Reza Shah Pahlavi Sidqi, Bakr 139, 143 Reza Shah Pahlavi 3, 16n, 27, 28–32, 36, 55, 60, Sinderson, Harry 132–33, 139, 140, 141, 143, 65, 68, 69, 73 144, 145 Rich, Claudius James 90–97, 110, 113, 156, Sitwell, Sachervell 39–40 160n Skinner, Thomas 99 Rich, Mary 90–97, 156 Skrine, Claremont 60, 61, 63, 64, 65 Richmond, John 212–13 Slater, Duncan 238, 248 Ritchie, Lynn xii Slater, Owen 130 Robertson, consul 107–09 Sluglett, Peter 137 Robey, John 159 Smart, John 110n Roosevelt, Franklin Delano 33–34 Smart, Walter 63 Ross, Archibald 73 Smith, Hankey 231 Ross, E. C. 62 Smith, Lionel 232 Ross, John 99 Smith, Murdoch 13, 14 Rushdie, Salman 75 Smyth, Henry 28 Russell, Robert 199 Somerville, Boyle 247 Spring-Rice, Cecil 19, 20, 24, 63 Sabbagh, Sala al-Din 143 Stalin, Josef 32, 33–34, 43 Saddam Husain 160, 216, 217, 219, 222, 239 Stark, Freya 145 Safwat, Najdat Fathi 153 Stevens, Ethel Stefana 127 Said bin Sultan 230 Stewart, Dugold 151 Said bin Taimur, sultan of Oman 236–37, Stiffe, Arthur William 241 245, 247 Stirling, Alec 142, 157, 159 Said, Fahmi 143 Stonehewer-Bird, Françoise 148–9 Saif Marzooq Al-Shamlan xii Stonehewer-Bird, Hugh 147–49 Salah, princess 144 Storrs, Ronald 119, 242, 246 Saldanha, J. A. 83, 86, 102 Stuart, Charles 7 Salim bin Ali al-Harthi 234 Stuart, James 84 Salim bin Rashid al-Kharusi, Imam 234 Sulaiman Pasha 84, 86, 88, 89, 92–93 Salisbury, Lord 18, 69, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176 Sulman, Betty see Morrison, Betty 2406_INDEX.qxd 5/19/08 4:51 PM Page 277

NAME INDEX 277

Sullivan, William H 47 Watts, Lieutenant 231 Suwaidi, Taufiq 205 Way, Alfred Cotton 247 Sykes, Christopher 32 Weale, William 82 Sykes, Ella 61 Webb, F. C. 105–107 Sykes, Percy viii, 22, 26, 59–60, 61, 66 Welby, Reginald Erle 64 Wells, Fred 141 Tabatabai, Seyyid Zia ud-Din 27, 28 Wellsted, James Raymond 99 Talbot, Adelbert 111 Weimers, Baron de 103 Talbot, Agnes Mary 111 Weston, Michael 217–20 Talbot, Gerald 17 White, Captain 89–90 Taqizade, Sayyed Hassan 20, 21 Whitwell, Nathaniel 83 Taylor, Mrs 98 Wild, James William 13–14, 42 Taylor, R. 97–102, 104, 108 Willcocks, William 126 Thatcher, Margaret 216, 220, 248 Willcox, William Henry 120 Thesiger, Wilfred 251 William II, kaiser of Germany 25, 174, 176, 183 Thomas, Bertram 96 William IV, king of Great Britain 9n, 232 Thomson, William Taylor 16, 17 Williams, Alan Meredith 148 Thompson, Geoffrey 147–8 Williams, Masha 141, 148, 150 Thompson, Mary Bethia -see Groves, Mary Bethia Williamson, Hajji Abdullah 123 Thompson, T. Perronet 231–32 Wilson, Arnold 63, 117, 120, 122–23, 124, 125, Thuwaini, sultan of Oman 233 129, 130, 187, 189, 190, 196 Todd, Herbert 158 Wilson, Henry Maitland (‘Jumbo’) 147 Treadwell, Charles James 238 Wilson, Woodrow 189 Trevelyan, Humphrey ix, 151, 156–57 Wingate, Mary 242 Troutbeck, John 151–52 Wingate, Ronald 235, 242, 246 Troutbeck, Katherine 152 Winstone, H. V. F. 134 Truman, Harry S. 36, 37 Wolff, Henry Drummond 17, 21 Tweedie, William 109–13 Woodward, E. L. 73 Wratislaw, Albert Charles 57, 58, 65, 115 ud-Dawlah, Iqbal 96, 99, 110 Wrench, Peter 85 Ustath, Ahmed 198 Wright, Denis xi, 4, 8, 24, 27, 38, 39, 41, 42, 57, 58, 61, 64 Vartini, Mme see Alison, Mrs Wright, Esther Ursula 152 Victoria, queen of Great Britain 110, 170, 172, 232 Wright, Iona xi, 41 von Bloomberg, Axel 146 Wright, Joe Booth 152 von der Goltz, Colmar Freiherr 119 Wright, Michael Robert 152–53, 155–56, 157 Von (also Van) Mierop, – 60 Wylde, Philip 229 Vosuq ed-Douleh 26, 27 Yasin Pasha 139 Wahhab, Muhammad ibn Abdul 87 Yazdi, Elahe xi Wallace, Charles 159 Young, Hubert Winthorp 137 Waljee, Galpaljee 243 Walker, Harold 159 Zahawi, Jamil 124 Walmsley, Robert 212 Zahedi, Fazlollah 38, 69 Ward, John 205, 206 Zayd, Amir 149 Warren, Edward 121 Zeman Shah 5 Wassmuss, Wilhelm 65 Zubaida 131 Watts, John P. B. C. 239 2406_INDEX.qxd 5/19/08 4:51 PM Page 278

Place Index

NB: Since Iran/Persia and Iraq appear so frequently throughout the book, they have not been indexed, and neither have Britain, Great Britain or other variations. The same applies to the Gulf, Persian Gulf or other variations. Also generally omitted are references when countries or capital cities are used to indicate governments. Places within cities such as Baghdad and Tehran are indexed under the main city heading.

Abadan Island 22, 31, 118, 189, 198 134, 145; Baghdad Hotel 155, 156, 158; Abu Dhabi 236 Baghdad Museum 133; Bait al Hakim (Doctor’s Abu Musa 42, 67, 159 House) 116; Bait Lynch 91–92; Bank Street 117; Aden 42, 88, 183, 232, 233 British cemetery 134, 145; British Club 132; Adhamiya 138 Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery 121; Afghanistan 4, 5, 11, 59, 60, 239 Eastern Palace/Hotel Abdul Ahad/Zia 116; Ahmadi 207, 210, 218, 220 Deutsche Orient Bank 119; Faisal Bridge 154; Ahram 66 Faisal Statue 154; German consulate 118; Ahwaz 12, 28, 61, 64–65, 68, 70, 72, 74 ‘Green Zone’ 159; Haiderkhaneh bazaar 117; Al Hasa 185 Haifa Street 157; Institute for the Development Aleppo 91, 99, 101, 122, 169 of English Teaching in Iraq 159; IPC chief Alexandria 13, 138 representative’s residence (Todd Hall) 156, Amara 151, 198 157–58; Iraq Museum 134; Jumhuriya bridge Amman 138, 154, 212 134; Jumhuriya Street 122; Kadhimain mosque Anatolia 176 96; Karadet Miriam 155; Khalil Pasha Street/ Ankara 154, 155 al-Sharia al-Jadid (New Street)/ Rashid Street Antioch 55 118; Maidan 117; Mansour 159; Marjan mosque Aras River 6 117; Melia Mansour Hotel 137; Military Arabia 88, 172, 189, 233 Museum 156, 157; Ministry of Information 137; ‘Arabia Deserta’ 171 Ministry of defence 159; Muadham Gate 117; Arabistan 63, 76n Mustansir Street 92; Nawab Quarter 96; Palace Asia Minor 91, 95, 177 of the Barmecides 96; Qadiriya mosque 116; Aspen CO 216 Qasr al-Rihab (Royal Palace) 154; Qasr (Palace) Asterabad 58 of Kadhim Pasha 126, 129, 159; Radio Australia 138, 219 Baghdad 137, 154, 159; Railway Club 132; Azerbaijan 4, 6, 35, 54, 57, 74 railway station 154; Rashid Bridge 121, 160; St George’s Church 132, 135, 137, 140, 156, Baaqubah 154 160; Sayyid Sultan Ali mosque 116, 117; Bab al-Mandab 88 Shariya al-Tamar (Date Landing) 117; Shariya Babylon 95, 96 Pachachi 117; South Gate 144; tomb of Zobeide Baghdad ix, 6, 25, 63, chapter three, passim, 102; YMCA 155 173, 176, 179, 180, 187, 190, 191, 202, 206, Bahrain 56, 67, 70, 96, 169, 171, 173, 177, 178, 210, 217, 218, 219, 242; Al-Askari Street 140; 180, 185, 192, 197, 198, 207, 213, 216, 235, Alwiya 144; Alwiya Club 132, 146; Austrian 242, 246 consulate 119; Bab al-Sharqi 116, 117, 121, Bait al-Falaj 234 2406_INDEX.qxd 5/19/08 4:51 PM Page 279

PLACE INDEX 279

Baku 6, 22, 28, 58 Dair al-Zor 109 Balbul 190 Damascus 99, 101, 121, 169, 171, 174 Balkans 186 Darvaze-ye-Shemiran see Tehran: Baluchistan 65 Delhi 199 Bam 50 Shemiran Gate Bandar Abbas 26, 55, 56, 61, 65, 67, 70, 82, 83, Dhahran 192 84, 230 Dhofar 236, 237–38, 240 Bandar Jissah 234 Diana 142 Bandar Lingeh 67 Dijon 90 Bani Bu Ali 232 Diyarbekir 91, 122 Barbados 149 Durham 121, 134 Barcelona 91 Duzdab see Zehedan Barka 251 Basra xii, 35, 56, 63, 66, 67, 72, chapter three, East Africa 169 passim; 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 176, 184, 186, Eastern Arabia 232 190, 193, 194, 198, 201, 203, 212, 217; Ashar Egypt 87, 88, 101, 151, 153, 173, 174, 210, 211, 212 creek 85; Belvoir 85, 86, 108; British cemetery Enzeli 58, 122 108; Kut al-Faranji 85; Natural History Erzerum 11 Museum, 115; Ma’gil 85, 104, 108; Euphrates River 89, 95, 99–100, 103–04, 105, 109, Batum 58 131, 184, 187, 188, 189, 192, 198 Behistun 104 Europe 55, 95, 171, 193, 203, 205 Beirut 37, 100, 210 Berlin 140, 146 Fahud 236 Berne 138 Failakah Island 97, 211 Birejik 99 Fallujah 120 Birjand 60, 70 Fao (also Al Fao) 118, 175, 185, 186, 204, Bisitun 8 205, 216 Bitlis 122 Far East 174 Black Sea 34 Fars 3, 62, 66, 68, 74, 122 Bokhara 60 France 40, 121, 188, 229 Bombay 84, 85, 86, 87, 90, 91, 95, 97, 113, 169, 171, 178, 230, 232 Georgia 6 Brindisi 138 German Democratic Republic 237 British Somaliland 118 Germany 4, 172, 188 Brussels 138 Ghararah 93 Bubiyan island 171, 177, 178, 179, 183, 184, 185, Gilan 58, 74 186, 190, 192, 198, 205, 206, 209, 211 Glasgow 14 Buraimi 231, 236 Good Hope, Cape of 95 Burgan field 197, 203, 207 Gombroon see Bandar Abbas Bushire 5, 12, 39, 56, 62, 65, 66, 67, 70, 74, 86, Gulhek 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 23–24, 28, 30, 32, 90, 97, 98, 112, 169, 170, 171, 172, 174, 175, 33, 38–41, 43, 48, 49, 50, 58n, 62; British School 176, 178, 179, 180, 182, 183, 184, 185, 187, 40; Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery 40 188, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 203, 205, 206, Gwadur 70, 231, 235 207, 231, 232, 233, 235, 242, 243 Bussorah see Basra Habbaniya 70, 140, 145, 146, 149, 151, 152, 155, 156 Cairo 91, 119, 121, 122, 138, 142, 153, 182, 187, Haifa 138, 151 191, 210 Ha’il 121, 171, 176, 182, 189 Calcutta 5, 6, 90, 178, 194 Hallaniyat see Kuria Muria Islands Caspian Sea 31, 54, 55, 58, 59 Hamadan 69–70 Caucasus 4, 5, 6, 9, 35, 95, 206 Henjam 230 Central Asia 59, 174 Herat 5, 11, 12, 16, 57, 58 China ix, 141, 237 Hijaz 120, 171, 187, 188 Clifton, Bristol 103 Hillah 95 Colssipore 245 Himalaya Mountains viii Constantinople 82, 83, 84, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 95, Hinaidi 136, 143 103, 108, 109, 111, 112, 115, 117, 132, 171, Hindiyah Dam 126 174, 175, 176, 177, 182, 183, 184 Holland 81, 229 Ctesiphon 116 Hormuz, Straits of 55, 56, 81, 170 Cyprus 173 Huwaiza 83 2406_INDEX.qxd 5/19/08 4:51 PM Page 280

280 PLACE INDEX

Iceland 150 Lahore 150 India vii–viii, 4, 5, 6, 11, 12, 26, 55, 55, 57, 58, Lar Valley 10 60, 61, 66, 67, 81, 87, 88, 95, 97, 100, 102, Lebanon 45, 116, 154 118, 122, 144, 152, 169, 171, 174, 188, 196, Levant 81, 169, 187, 188, 206, 210, 211 205, 207, 229, 234 Liverpool 86, 99 Indian Ocean 16, 87, 247 London 4, 5, 6, 14, 22, 58, 131, 135, 138, 149, Isfahan 5, 17, 26, 38, 55, 56, 65, 66, 67, 68–69, 151, 153, 154, 171, 173, 182, 232, 237; 73, 74 Chrystal Palace 105; Christ Church Israel 213, 240 Streatham 13; East India House 87, 88; Lord’s Istanbul 8 cricket ground 107; Maples furniture store 200; Oval cricket ground 107; South Jabal Akhdar 235 London (Victoria and Albert) Museum 13; Jahra 190 Wimbledon 138 Jaria Island 99 Jask 55, 56, 234 Mahabad 4, 35 Java 81 Maidan-e-Naftan 22 Jazira 100 Majles see Tehran: Majles Jebel Shammar highlands 171 Malta 103 Jerusalem 121, 144, 193 Makran 65, 231 Jiddah 145, 148 Manila 155 Jordan 154, 211, 238 Mardin 91 Jufair 207 Marseilles 37 Masira 235, 239 Kadhimain 114, 116, 131 Masjed-e-Suleiman 22, 184 Kandahar 103 Matrah 241, 243, 244, 247 Karachi 114, 142, 241, 242 Mauritius 230 Karbala 18, 19n, 115–16, 133 Mazanderan 58 Karun 12 Mecca 99, 171, 189 Karun River 63 Medina 171, 187, 189 Kausimain 101 Mediterranean 88, 91, 173, 188, 191, 193, 205 Kerman 26, 31, 56, 59, 60, 61, 63, 65, 70, 73 Meidan-e Tupkhanei see Tehran: Artillery Square Kermanshah 8, 66, 70, 74, 122, 133 Mesopotamia 91, 95, 113, 119, 120, 121, 122, 124, Khabur River 99 125, 127, 171, 184, 186, 187, 189, 191, 205 Khan Kuchik 27, 28 Meshed 17, 26, 59–60, 62, 63, 64, 65, 68, Khan Nuqta 120 70, 74 Kharg Island 11, 12 Mina al-Fahal 242 Khassab 239 Mirbat 238 Khiaban-e Ferdowsi see Tehran: Mohammareh 66, 67, 189 Ferdowsi Avenue Moscow 35 Khor Abdalla channel 171, 177, 179, 182, 191, Mosul 91, 95, 100, 102, 103, 111, 112, 120, 192, 205, 206, 207, 210 131, 133, 138, 139, 140–42, 145, 146, 156; Khorramshahr 70, 74, 75, 198 British cemetery 141; former British Khorasan 54, 59, 60 consulate 242; railway station 142; Telafar Khoshab 12 Road 141 Khuzestan 20, 21, 22, 28, 65 Musandam peninsula 236 Kirkuk 146, 156, 158, 160 Muscat 42, 61, 70, 81, 96, 142, 174, 175, 178, Knebworth (Herts) 249 180, 199, 207; chapter five passim; al-Alam Kuala Lumpur 242 Palace 245, 248; al-Khuwair 229, 246, 248, 251; Kuria Muria Islands 232 al-Rawdha 248, 249; Bait Al Barakah 250; Bait Kurdistan 95, 99, 142 Fransa (Omani-French Museum) 243; Bait Kut 118, 147, 187 Nasib 244; Bustan 248, 249, 251; cemeteries Kuwait 70, 87, 97, 154, 158, 159, chapter four 247; Chinaman’s Cove 245; Fort Jalali 241, passim, 242; Al Asfur house (now Dickson 246; Fort Mirani 241, 246; Grand Mosque 251; House) 181–82, 184–85, 194–95, 197, 201–202, Mina-al Qaboos harbour 246; Muscat 221; Ali Al Salim air base 222; American Hospital Charitable Hospital 244; old British embassy 193n; Dasman Palace 209, 216, 217; fortifications 241–46, 249–50; old Customs Wharf 243; new 190, 210; harbour 190; Hilton Hotel 215; British embassy 248–51; Ruwi 248; Sahil Mutla’a ridge 217; Salmiyya 215; Sha’ab 215; al-Balyooz 235; Sultan Qaboos University 248; Sha’ab Palace 209; shaikh’s residence 180, 184, US embassy 244; telegraph office 244; Waljat 188; Seif Palace 209, 216; US embassy 215 Barracks 244 2406_INDEX.qxd 5/19/08 4:51 PM Page 281

PLACE INDEX 281

Najaf 18, 43, 44, 115, 133 Saint Petersburg 11, 25 Najd 133, 135, 169, 171, 173, 178, 180, 182, 183, Salalah 235, 238, 239 184, 185, 187, 189, 190, 191, 192, 194–95, 197, Samail 236 202, 207 Samarra 146 Naksh-i-Rustam 103 Samta 214 Naples 91, 138 Sarif 176 Niavaran 10 Saudi Arabia 207, 210, 216, 236, 237, 238 Near East 185 Scotland 138 Netherlands 40 Seeb 235, 239, 247, 248 Nimrud 104 Seoul ix Nineveh 95 Shah Abdul-Azin shrine 18 North Africa 188 Sharjah 159, 178 North America vii Shatt al-Arab 12, 22, 63, 82, 83, 85, 86, 113, 118, Norway 40 172, 173, 184, 205, 210 Nosratabad see Zabol Shemiran 9, 30 Shiraz 5, 17, 26, 38, 39, 55, 62, 63, 65, 66, 68, 69, Oman 169, 173, 207, 213, 216; chapter five passim 70, 73, 74, 97 Oman, Gulf of 55 Shirvan 6 Orontes River 99 Shuaiba 149, 151, 152 Oslo 153n. Shuwaikh 184, 186 Ostend 138 Simla 64, 122, 197 Ottoman Empire see Turkey Singapore 246 Oxford 121 Siri 42, 67 Oudh 96 Sistan 60, 64, 182 Socotra 231 Pakistan 152 Sohar 229 Palestine 139, 142, 149, 150, 188, 191, 210, South Africa 174 212, 240 South Arabia 213 Paris 12, 45, 47, 95, 146; Oriental Institute 113 Spice Islands 81 Persepolis 3, 97 Subbiya 177 Poland 40 Sudan 174 Portugal 229 Suez Canal 153, 159, 171, 207 Potsdam 25 Sultanabad 70n Sumatra 81 Qasr-e-Shirin 22, 70n Sur 231, 232, 240 Qasr Khubbaz 100 Surat 55 Qatar 171, 185, 216 Susa 21 Qatif 171, 172, 173, 191 Switzerland 138, 154 Qayen 60 Syria 55, 91, 95, 99, 116, 120, 121, 135, 138, 148, Qazvin 55, 70n 153, 159, 171, 188, 193, 213 Qishm 98, 230, 232 Qum 18, 45 Tabriz 7, 11, 17, 21, 35, 57, 58, 64, 65, 68, 70n, 74, 76n Rabat 142 Tall al-Amarnah 110 Ramadi 147 Tehran xi, chapter one, passim, 54, 57, 58, 59, 62, Rangoon 150 65, 66, 67, 68, 70, 74, 75, 122, 144, 179, 230, Ras al-Khaimah 158, 231 239, 241; Artillery Square 12, 15; Ferdowsi Rayat 142 Avenue 12, 33, 45, 48; Great Mosque 7; Majles Red Sea 169, 187 20; 25; Naderi Avenue 32; Niavaran Palace 46; Resht 58–59, 70n, 74 Sepah Salar mosque 20; Shemiran Gate 12; Rio de Janeiro 150 French embassy 45–46; US embassy 45, 47, 49 Riyadh 87, 171, 182, 196, 199, 202, 216 Thumrait 239 Rowanduz gorge 142 Tibet 182 Russia/Union of Soviet Socialist Republics 4, 6, Tigris River 91, 96, 97, 98, 99–100, 101, 103, 104, 31, 40, 54, 59, 139, 172, 188, 210, 212, 215, 105, 113, 122, 137, 139, 145, 154, 158 216, 237 Tilset 6 Rutba 144 Torbat-e Heidari 60 Transcaspia 4 Sabzabad 62, 70n Transjordan 191 Safwan 177, 183, 186, 202 Trucial States see United Arab Emirates 2406_INDEX.qxd 5/19/08 4:51 PM Page 282

282 PLACE INDEX

Tunbs 42, 67, 159 Versailles 189 Turkestan 4 Vienna 88, 150 Turkey 11, 31, 43, 82, 87, 88, 90, 95, 96, 102, 103, Volga River 58 116, 117, 132, 146, 158, 172, 174, 210 Turkish Arabia (Iraq) 81, 88, 89 et seq., 173 Wahba island 171, 177, 179, 185, 186, 190, 192, 198, 205, 206, 211 Ukhaidhir 116, 121 Wargrave (Berkshire) 248 Umm Qasr 171, 177, 178, 179, 183, 186, 206, Washington DC 189 210, 212, 214 Washington (Durham) 134 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) see Russia/Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Yazd 26, 66, 70n United Arab Emirates 42, 43, 67, 207, 216 Yemen People’s Democratic Republic 237, 238 United States of America 139, 189, 212, 213, 214, 215–16, 238–39 Zabol 60, 64, 70 Uqair 192, 193, 195, 198, 202, 206 Zahedan 61, 64, 70 Urfa 122 Zanzibar 231, 232–34 Urmia 122 Zargandeh 9, 10, 11, 28, 30 2406_Plates 5/20/08 4:58 AM Page 1

THE EMBASSY 2 3 4 5 6

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2 1. South front of Residence, Tehran compound, with wisteria in full bloom (Mark Bertram, 3 2005) 4 5 6

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2. North front of Residence main entrance, Tehran compound (Mark Bertram, 2005)

R 3. Staff of Legation in the Tehran compound with Sir Percy Loraine in the centre, showing the Indian cavalry (sowar) escort. Undated, from an album of photographs belonging to Sir P. and Lady Loraine taken between 1925 and 1926.

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2 3 4. North side of the Legation building, Gulhek, 1925/6. (Ambassador’s summer residence 4 from 1946 to 1978. Lorimer album.) 5 6

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8 9 5 5 5. Legation summer camp in the Lar valley 1925/6 (Lorimer album) 5

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6. A demonstration / religious procession passing the Legation compound (wall on left) in Tehran, c.1910.

R 7. Food being cooked in Iran. Photograph c.1910 shows type of cooking which would have been done in the Tehran compound during the bast of 1906.

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THE CONSULATES

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8 9 8. At the Koran Gate, Shiraz. Consul Chick with Indian Cavalry escort, 1925/6. (Lorimer album) 5 5 5

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9. Rasht, the Bazaar in early 1920s, from a postcard.

R 10. Consulate at Shiraz, 1925/6. (Lorimer album)

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11. Consulate-General at Kerman, 1925/6. (Lorimer album)

12. Consulate at Isfahan. Undated. Probably of Consul Crow in 1920.

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13 14

14. Site map of the East India Company’s coaling station at Ma’gil, c.1850 by Capt. Felix Jones.

13. Site map of the East India Company’s factory in Basra, c.1850 by Capt. Felix Jones.

15 16

R 15. Claudius Rich, Resident, later Political 16. Sir Henry Rawlinson, Political Agent, Agent, Baghdad, 1808-21, after a painting Baghdad, 1843-55, after a painting by T. Phillips, RA, British Museum. by T. Phillips, RA.

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2 3 4 5 6 17. Courtyard of the Residency, Baghdad, c.1850 by J. Hyslop. 8 9 3 18 2 3 4 5 6

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8 9 5 18. River frontage of the Residency, Baghdad, c.1850 by J. Hyslop. 5 5

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19. Lord Curzon of 20. Sir Percy Cox, Civil 21. Sir Arnold Wilson, Acting Kedleston. Commissioner, Baghdad, Civil Commissioner, 1917-18, and High Baghdad, 1918-20. Commissioner 1920-23.

22. The Residency, Baghdad, and Residency yacht, 1911, by Gertrude Bell.

23 24

R 23. Gertrude Bell’s house in Baghdad (by Gertrude Bell). 24. Gertrude Bell memorial plaque in the Baghdad Museum. (University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne Gertrude Bell Photographic Archive.)

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2 3 4 5 25. Internees hearing the news at the Residence, 1941. (E. Fraser) 6

26 27 8 9 4

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8 9 5 26. Equestrian statue of General Maude 27. Rolls Royce of the Nairn Transport Co. en outside the gates of the Embassy in the late route to Beirut-Baghdad, c.1950. (E. Fraser) 5 1940s. (E. Fraser) 5

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28. The former Consulate, Mosul, in 1953. (Sir L. Grafftey-Smith)

29. The former Consulate, Mosul, in 1988. R (T. Clark)

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2 3 30. Sir John Troutbeck’s staff on the Residence steps in 1954. (FCO) 4 5 6

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2 3 4 5 31. Residence drawing-room in April 1958 (IPC) 6 8 9 5 32. Residence drawing-room in July 1958 after the 5 coup (FCO) 5

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33. Residence fountain in April 1958 (IPC)

34. Residence fountain in July 1958 after the coup (FCO)

35. Temporary Residence after the coup of 1958, known as ‘Todd Hall’ (IPC) R

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2 3 4 5 36. Former Consulate-General, Basra, in 1988 during the Iran-Iraq 6 War. (T. Clark) 8 37 9 2

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2 3 4 5 37. Former High Commission as it appeared in 1988. (T. Clark) 6

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8 9 5 5 5 38. Pen and ink drawing of Baghdad Embassy, 1985, 39. New British Embassy, Baghdad, in the by Tessa Rickards. so-called ‘green zone’ around the former presidential palace, 2007. ( J.Cochrane)

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40. Mubarak Al Sabah; Shaikh of Kuwait 1896–1915

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2 3 41. HMS Lapwing, the Royal Navy’s Gulf patrol in 1901. 4 5 6

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8 9 5 42. Curzon landing at Kuwait, greeted by Mubarak. (British Library) 5 5

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43. Lt Col S. G. Knox, first Political Agent, Kuwait, 1903–1909 (British Embassy, Kuwait.) 44

44. The Agency in 1909, a prominent landmark; Shakespear’s photograph (Royal Geographical Society)

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45 46

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8 9 2 45. Lt. Col. O. C. More, Political Agent, 46. Col. H. R. P. Dickson, Political Kuwait, 1920–1929 (British Embassy, Agent, Kuwait, 1930–1936 and 2 Kuwait). 1940–1941, from 1936 KOC’s representative (British Embassy Kuwait). 3 4 5 6 47 8 9 3

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8 9 5 5 5 47. Air power in the 1920s; RAF deHavilland above the Bedouin near Kuwait.

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48. ’The most appalling shanty in the middle of the town’, aerial view of the Agency in 1928.

49. Kuwait from the south in the 1930s ’one of the most exciting looking places in the Arab world’; the walls hastily erected against the Ikhwan in 1920 clearly visible. ■ K U W A I T ■ 2406_Plates 5/20/08 4:58 AM Page 21

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52. The new Agency in the 1940s; the compound contains stables, garage, servants’ quarters and tennis court; a long jetty stretches to deep water.

R 53. The Embassy in the 1970s with the new corniche road between the compound and the sea.

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55. The Embassy today: Dickson’s wide first-floor verandah. (R. Muir) 56

56. Corridor leading to the verandah; before air conditioning, a conduit for the cooling north-west breeze. (R. Muir) 57

57. The Embassy today: entrance to the Chancery at the northern end of the main building. (R. Muir)

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2 3 58. The ’Dickson House Cultural Centre’, the old Agency restored by the Kuwait 4 Government after Liberation as a tribute to Harold and Violet Dickson and the bilateral 5 relationship. (R. Muir) 6

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8 9 5 5 59. Harold Dickson’s grave in the Embassy 5 compound. (R. Muir)

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60. Consulate-General, Muscat, with the surgeon’s house, on three floors.

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63. Plans for the reconstructed Embassy, c.1974. (T. Clark)

64. British Embassy, Muscat, in 1992. (T. Clark)

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8 9 3 65. Manumission Certificate. (T. Clark) 2 3 4 5 6

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66. Sedan chair at the British Embassy, Bahrain, of the kind used for carrying the Political Agent at Muscat ashore. (T. Clark)

R 67. Entrance to the Consular Section in Bait Nasib, 1994. (T. Clark)

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2 3 4 68. The new British Embassy at Al Khuwair. 5 6

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69. The new British Residence. (T. Clark)

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