Copyright by Dart Brooks Risley II 2010 The Thesis Committee for Dart Brooks Risley II Certifies that this is the approved version of the following thesis: British Interests and the Partition of Mosul APPROVED BY SUPERVISING COMMITTEE: Supervisor: William Roger Louis Yoav Di-Capua British Interests and the Partition of Mosul by Dart Brooks Risley II, BA Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts The University of Texas at Austin May 2010 Dedication To my Parents. Abstract British Interests and the Partition of Mosul Dart Brooks Risley II, MA The University of Texas at Austin, 2010 Supervisor: William Roger Louis This thesis seeks to examine and analyze British interests in the Iraqi province of Mosul during World War I. The province was significant from many different points of view, diplomatic, strategic, and economic. Most scholars have tended to focus on one of these aspects and neglect the larger picture; this study will attempt to fill in the gap by discussing all of these aspects in their proper context. v Table of Contents List of Illustrations ............................................................................................... vii Introduction: Mosul and History ............................................................................1 Chapter 1 Mosul before World War I ....................................................................7 Growing Interests and Rivalries .....................................................................9 The Baghdad Railway ..................................................................................13 War Begins: The Basra Campaign and the Route to Mosul ........................18 Continuity in British Policy .........................................................................23 Chapter 2 Mosul between Britain and France .......................................................25 Defining British Interests .............................................................................26 Sykes-Picot Agreement .................................................................................39 Promises to Sharif Husayn ...........................................................................44 The Capture of Mosul ..................................................................................47 The Eye of the Storm ...................................................................................50 Chapter 3 Mosul and British Interests ..................................................................53 The Lloyd George-Clemenceau Agreement ................................................54 The Spoils of War .........................................................................................65 Mosul in Context ..........................................................................................74 Conclusion: Mosul in Perspective .......................................................................76 Bibliography .........................................................................................................79 Vita ......................................................................................................................85 vi List of Illustrations Illustration 1: The Modern Borders of Iraq .........................................................8 Illustration 2: de Bunsen Committee Maps ......................................................38 Illustration 3: Sykes-Picot Partition ..................................................................39 vii Introduction: Mosul and History In the discipline of history one frequently encounters the danger of excessive specialization. The pursuit of obscure or narrow topics often leads the historian to conclusions that leave little impression on the collective knowledge of society, or to conclusions that inflate the significance a given topic. Yet at the same time, the historian is compelled to explore uncharted territory for the expansion of knowledge and one’s own career. Hence, scholars find themselves in a difficult predicament. The subject of this study attempts to find a balance between these two forces. The Iraqi province of Mosul, a province with rich and diverse culture, opens the historical profession to a wide range of topics, debates, and trends. The timeframe, 1914-1918, and perspective, British interests, of this study automatically strikes a sensitive nerve in the profession. The study of Empire and its inhabitants is divided and politically charged; many argue that studying from the view of the colonizer projects a negative and inaccurate view onto the culture of the colonized while others hold that without the view of the colonizer the historical record is incomplete and inaccurate. Both of these views make valid points, but suffer from a grave misunderstanding of each other. In the case of Mosul, much of its future during the First World War depended to a large degree on the decisions of British officials. This focus merely tells one part of the history of Mosul and by no means does it claim to describe its culture. The actions and words of the British statesmen represent a different time than our own and historians, unlike other scholars, cannot truly visit the area of their study. One can travel to Iraq, but one cannot travel to the past. Since the time of the British, the culture and ethnic composition of Iraq has changed radically. Iraq’s Jewish population is 1 now almost non-existent, the swamps of the Basra province are drained and numerous populations in Iraq were forcibly moved from their home origin and in Mosul many were brutally murdered.1 Needless to say these events have changed Iraqi society and if one seeks to study the past then one needs to understand society as it stood in its own time. The British archives provide the most abundant and readily available collections of sources for this very task. Thus, from a historical as well as methodological point of view Britain is inseparable from our understanding of the region. Mosul reveals something about the British Government and how it operates. In the process of analyzing Mosul, British officials had to consider many kinds of interests whether they were diplomatic, strategic, or commercial. All of these overlap at many points, but nevertheless contain unique elements that work together with one another to drive foreign policy. Some scholars have noted that it was commonplace that where trading ventures have gone forth to new lands in search of wealth the extension of the political authority of the mother country eventually follows in direct proportion to the economic value of the territory. Political authority brings the potential of force to guard its new possessions and allow commerce to commence without harassment.2 It was also commonplace that once political authority has been established, it forgets the commercial origins which it sprang and maintenance becomes its chief objective. Often the new administration of these new territories claim that only through the maintenance of its own power can economic development occur to the benefit of the mother country. And if a new territory becomes economically vital to the home country, 1 Kurdish deaths in the aftermath of an Iraqi military campaign in 1987-1989 are estimated at 50,000 – 70,000 2 Philip Ireland, Iraq: A Study in Political Development (London, 1938), p. 34 2 then steps are taken to protect that area very often including the acquisition of new territory.3 The distinction between a commercial interests, strategic, and diplomatic interests are not always clear. The control of a regions trade, for instance, allows a country to collect revenue from taxes, tariffs, and shares which it may then use to finance the construction of weapons, train armies, and wage war upon her rivals. Aside from the military aspect of power, the revenues obtained from trade compel nations to negotiate with one another and can even provide welfare services to its citizens. Hence, commercial interests and all its spoils are an essential component to a political entity’s ability to project all dimensions of its power and influence. There is much truth to the idea of commercial expansion leading to political expansion, especially in the case of India and the Iraqi province of Basra. But Mosul on the other hand is a unique case as its significance to the British was equally economic as well as strategic. In fact, as this research will show, Mosul’s future among the great powers during World War I was highly depended on how British and French officials viewed Mosul. Was it a vital economic interest or was it an inseparable strategic interest? Even within these debates, officials argued over which aspects of Mosul were more strategically valuable (e.g. oil versus terrain). Ultimately, the kind of interests in the region determined how the Britain conducted herself in it. These debates also reflected a more time-specific set of interests, mainly those of the First World War. Here again, Mosul offers us an important insight into British policy during the war. Britain throughout this period, but especially during the beginning, prioritized war-time concerns in Europe over imperial ambitions elsewhere in the world. 3 Ibid, pp. 35-36 3 This was particularly evident during partition negotiations with the French in 1915 and 1916, resulting in the Sykes-Picot Agreement. The debate over Mosul gives us a direct case study of this larger pattern of policy