Mandatory Iraq

This article is about Iraq (Mesopotamia) under British administration following World War I. For the proposed League of Nations instrument, seeMandate for Mesopotamia.

Kingdom of Iraq under British administration الانتداب البريطاني على العراق(Arabic)
1921–1932
Flag (1924–1932) Coat of arms (1931–1932)
Anthem:(1924–1932) السلام الملكي As-Salam al-Malaki "The Royal Salute"
Status	League of Nations mandate
Capital and largest city	Baghdad
Common languages	Arabic·Kurdish Neo-Aramaic
Religion	Islam·Christianity Judaism·Yazidism Mandaeism
Demonym(s)	Iraqi
High Commissioner
• 1921–1923	Percy Cox
• 1923–1929	Henry Dobbs
• 1929–1932	Francis Humphrys
King
• 1921–1932	Faisal I
Prime Minister
• 1920–1922 (first)	Abd Al-Rahman Al-Gillani
• 1930–1932 (last)	Nuri al-Said
Legislature	Parliament
• Upper Chamber	Senate
• Lower Chamber	Chamber of Deputies
Historical era	Interwar period
•San Remo conference	25 April 1920
•Treaty of Sèvres	23 August 1921
• Coronation ofFaisal I	23 August 1921
•Treaty of Lausanne	24 July 1923
•Treaty of Ankara	5 June 1926
•Anglo-Iraqi Treaty	30 June 1930
• Independence	3 October 1932
Currency	Indian rupee
Preceded by Succeeded by Baghdad Vilayet Basra Vilayet Mosul Vilayet Al-Muntafiq Kingdom of Iraq
Today part of	Iraq Saudi Arabia

TheKingdom of Iraq under British Administration,orMandatory Iraq(Arabic:الانتداب البريطاني على العراق,romanized:al-Intidāb al-Brīṭānī ʿalā l-ʿIrāq), was created in 1921, following the1920 Iraqi Revolutionagainst the proposedBritish Mandate of Mesopotamia,and enacted via the 1922Anglo-Iraqi Treatyand a 1924 undertaking by the United Kingdom to the League of Nations to fulfil the role as Mandatory Power.

Faisal ibn Husayn,who had been proclaimedKing of Syriaby aSyrian National CongressinDamascusin March 1920, wasejectedby the French in July of the same year. Faisal was then granted by the British the territory of Iraq, to rule it as a kingdom, with the BritishRoyal Air Force(RAF) retaining certain military control, butde facto,the territory remained under British administration until 1932.

The civil government of postwarIraqwas headed originally by theHigh Commissioner,Sir Percy Cox,and his deputy,ColonelArnold Wilson.Britishreprisalsafter the capture and killing of a British officer inNajaffailed to restore order. The British occupiers faced the growing strength of the nationalists, who continued to resist against the British authority. British administration had yet to be established inIraqi Kurdistan.

History

Early unrest

Three important anticolonial secret societies had been formed in Iraq during 1918 and 1919. The League of the Islamic Awakening (Jam'iyya an-naḥda al-islāmiyya) was organized atNajaf.The Muslim National League (al-Jam'iyya al-waṭaniyya al-islāmiyya) was formed with the object of organizing and mobilizing the population for major resistance. In February 1919, inBaghdad,a coalition ofShiamerchants,Sunniteachers, and civil servants, Sunni and Shiaulama,and Iraqi officers formed theGuardians of Independence(Harās al-istiqlāl). The Istiqlal had member groups inKarbala,Najaf,Kut,andHillah.

The GrandMujtahidof Karbala,Imam Shirazi,and his son, Mirza Muhammad Riza, began to organize the insurgent effort. Shirazi then issued a ruling, and he called for a resistance against the British. By July 1920,Mosulwas in rebellion against British rule, and the armed resistance moved south down theEuphratesRiver valley. The southern tribes, who cherished their long-held political autonomy, needed little inducement to join in the fray. They did not cooperate in an organized effort against the British, however, which limited the effect of the revolt.

TheIraqi revolt of 1920was a watershed event in contemporary Iraqi history. For the first time, Sunnis and Shias, tribes and cities, were brought together in a common effort. In the opinion ofHanna Batatu,author of a seminal work on Iraq, the building of a nation-state in Iraq depended upon two major factors: the integration of Shias and Sunnis into the new body politic and the successful resolution of the age-old conflicts between the tribes and the riverine cities and among the tribes themselves over the food-producing flatlands of theTigrisand theEuphrates.The 1920 rebellion brought these groups together, if only briefly; this constituted an important first step in the long and arduous process of forging anation-stateout of Iraq's conflict-ridden social structure. TheAssyrian Levies,a military force under British command, participated in theKirkuk Massacre of 1924of Kurds, Arabs, and Turkomen. (SeeSimele Massacresof 1933)

Coronation of Faisal as King of Iraq. Faisal seated, to his right are BritishHigh commissionerPercy Coxand LieutenantKinahan Cornwallis,to his left commander-in-chief of all British troops in theMesopotamiaCommander GeneralAylmer Haldane.

Mandatory Iraq, 1921. Remembrance flag of the coronation of King Faisail I

On 1 October 1922, theRoyal Air Force(RAF) elements stationed in Iraq were reorganized into theRAF Iraq Command,which came about partially as a result of the 1920 revolt. This new command was primarily designed to suppress any threats to theHashemite monarchy.Air control was considered by theBritish governmentas a more cost-effective method of controlling large areas of territory than land forces, an idea that was heavily promoted by RAF officerHugh Trenchard.During the 1920s and 30s, the RAF Iraq Command participated in the suppression of numerous protests and revolts against the Hashemite monarchy.HistorianElie Kedourienoted that "the North [of Iraq] as a whole had to be coerced [into submission] by the Royal Air Force."When the Kurdish leader Sheikh Mahmud launched an armed rebellion, the British used the newly established Iraqi army to suppress the revolt, but that proved ineffective. The British then resorted to deploying the RAF, which suppressed the revolt.In the same period, rebellions by the Shia in the South were also suppressed by the RAF.

Coronation of Faisal

At theCairo Conferenceof March 1921, the British set the parameters for Iraqi political life that were to continue until the1958 revolution;they chose aHashemite,Faisal ibn Husayn,son ofSherif Hussein ibn AliformerSharif of Meccaas Iraq's first King; they established an Iraqi army (but keptIraq Leviesunder direct British command); and they proposed a new treaty. To confirm Faisal as Iraq's first monarch, aone-question plebiscitewas carefully arranged that had a return of 96 percent in his favor. The British saw in Faisal a leader who possessed sufficient nationalist and Islamic credentials to have broad appeal, but who also was vulnerable enough to remain dependent on their support. Faisal traced hisdescentfrom the family ofMuhammad.His ancestors held political authority in the holy cities ofMeccaandMedinasince the 10th century. The British believed these credentials would satisfy traditional Arab standards of political legitimacy; moreover, the British thought Faisal would be accepted by the growing Iraqi nationalist movement because of his role in the 1916Arab Revoltagainst the Turks, his achievements as a leader of the Iraq emancipation movement, and his general leadership qualities. Faisal was instated as the Monarch of Iraq after the Naquib of Baghdad was disqualified as being too old (80 yrs) and Sayid Talib (a prominent Iraqi from the province of Basra) was deported on trumped up charges by the British. The voting was far from a reflection of the true feelings of the Iraqi people. Nevertheless, Faisal was considered the most effective choice for the throne by the British government.

A photograph of British and Iraqi dignitaries in Baghdad from 1923 during the era of Mandatory Iraq. From second left to right in the front row,Kinahan Cornwallis,Sassoon Eskell,andGertrude Bell.Bernard Henry Bourdillonstands directly behind Bell in the second row.

The final major decision taken at the Cairo Conference related to theAnglo-Iraqi Treaty of 1922.Faisal was under pressure from the nationalists and the anti-Britishmujtahidsof Najaf and Karbala to limit both British influence in Iraq and the duration of the treaty. Recognizing that the monarchy depended on British support— and wishing to avoid a repetition of his experience in Syria — Faisal maintained a moderate approach in dealing with the UK. The treaty, which had been originally set as a 20-year engagement but later reduced to four years, was ratified in June 1924; it stated that the king would heed British advice on all matters affecting British interests and on fiscal policy as long as Iraq had abalance of paymentsdeficit with the UK, and that British officials would be appointed to specified posts in 18 departments to act as advisers and inspectors. A subsequent financial agreement, which significantly increased the financial burden on Iraq, required Iraq to pay half the cost of supporting British resident officials, among other expenses. British obligations under the new treaty included providing various kinds of aid, notably military assistance, and proposing Iraq for membership in the League of Nations at the earliest moment. In effect, the treaty ensured that Iraq would remain politically and economically dependent on the UK. While unable to prevent the treaty, Faisal clearly felt that the British had gone back on their promises to him.

The British decision at the Cairo Conference to establish an indigenous Iraqi army was significant. In Iraq, as in most of the developing world, the military establishment has been the best organized institution in an otherwise weak political system.Thus, while Iraq's body politic crumbled under immense political and economic pressure throughout the monarchic period, the military gained increasing power and influence; moreover, because the officers in the new army were by necessity Sunnis who had served under the Ottomans, while the lower ranks were predominantly filled by Shia tribal elements, Sunni dominance in the military was preserved.

Later years

TheAnglo-Iraqi Treaty of 1930provided for a "close alliance," for "full and frank consultations between the two countries in all matters offoreign policy,"and for mutual assistance in case of war. Iraq granted the British the use of air bases nearBasraand atHabbaniyahand the right to move troops across the country. The treaty, of twenty-five years' duration, was to come into force upon Iraq's admission to the League of Nations.

With the signing of the 1930 Treaty and the settling of theMosul Question,Iraqi politics took on a new dynamic. The emerging class of Sunni and Shia landowning tribal sheikhs vied for positions of power with wealthy and prestigious urban-based Sunni families and with Ottoman-trained army officers and bureaucrats. Because Iraq's newly established political institutions were the creation of a foreign power, and because the concept of democratic government had no precedent in Iraqi history, the politicians in Baghdad lacked legitimacy and never developed deeply rooted constituencies. Thus, despite a constitution and an elected assembly, Iraqi politics was more a shifting alliance of important personalities and cliques than ademocracyin the Western sense. The absence of broadly based political institutions inhibited the early nationalist movement's ability to make deep inroads into Iraq's diverse social structure.

The Mandatory administration continued to operate until 1932.

In 1936 and 1937 various protests and revolts broke out against the Iraqi government, with the main issues centering around agrarian issues andconscriptioninto the armed forces. These were suppressed by the Iraqi government with assistance from the RAF Iraq Command, with Kedourie writing that the "killing, it seems, was indiscriminate, and old men, women and children were the victims." An armed revolt which broke out in 1937 over agrarian issues and conscription was also "put down with the help of indiscriminate aerial bombing."During these disturbances, Shia religious leaders were expelled from Iraq due to being Persians.Kedourie describes the monarchy as despotic, with a record "full of bloodshed, treason and rapine" and "however pitiful its end we may know that it was implicit in its beginning."

In his assessment of the British mandate and the Iraqi monarchy, historiansKanan Makiyaconsiders the British mandate and its institutions more as "agents of modernisation" than colonialism:

The British mandate and the institutions it gave rise to in Iraq, were the agents of a modernisation that did not arise gradually or indigenously as the outcome of a population’s own resourcefulness and engagement with the world. The British in Iraq were modernisers more than colonisers, despite acting out of self-interest.

Kedourie's judgement, however, is different:

When we consider the long experience of Britain in the government of Eastern countries, and set beside it the miserable polity which she bestowed on the populations of Mesopotamia, we are seized with rue- ful wonder. It is as though India and Egypt had never existed, as though Lord Cornwallis, Munro and Metcalf, John and Henry Lawrence, Milner and Cromer had attempted in vain to bring order, justice and security to the East, as though Burke and Macaulay, Bentham and James Mill had never addressed their intelligence to the problems and prospects of oriental government. We can never cease to marvel how, in the end, all this was discarded...[in] Mesopotamia.

If Makiya is referring to economic development in his account of the British modernising legacy in Iraq, an authoritative study demonstrates that Iraq's productivity in agriculture, the most important sector at the time, in fact declined from 275 kg per acre in 1920 to an average of 238 kg per acre between 1953 and 1958.

Under the British mandate a new ruling class of 'government shaikhs' was created. "Many of them [the Shaikhs], reported Major Pulley to the British commissioner in Baghdad in 1920," were small men of no account until we made them powerful and rich. "The Civil Commissioner Wilson reported on his part that the Shaikhs" were in most cases directly dependent on the civil administration for the positions they held; realising that their positions entailed corresponding obligations, they co-operated actively with the political officers. "

In a dispatch by a British official to London in 1928, there was a description of how the electoral system worked: the government's provincial governors were in fact election agents who drew up lists of those to be elected and of those who would do the electing.Elections to "the chamber of deputies and appointments to the senate," comments Keeourie, "were an additional weapon in the hands of the government wherewith the better to control the country."

Independence

On 3 October 1932, theHashemite Kingdom of Iraqbecame a fully-sovereign state.Ruled by the Hashemites, it lasted until 1958.

Economy

Nomadic bedouin tribes within Iraq, which had previously traded all throughout the Middle East, became confined to trading only within the borders of the Mandate itself. This decision by the colonial administration proved economically troubling and devastating for the bedouins.

Oil concession

Before the collapse of theOttoman Empire,the British-controlledTurkish Petroleum Company(TPC) had held concessionary rights to the Mosulwilaya(province). Under the 1916Sykes-Picot Agreement— an agreement in 1916 between Britain and France that delineated future control of the Middle East — the area would have fallen under French influence. In 1919, however, the French relinquished their claims to Mosul under the terms of theLong-Berenger Agreement.The 1919 agreement granted the French a 25 percent share in the TPC as compensation.

Beginning in 1923, British and Iraqi negotiators held acrimonious discussions over the new oil concession. The major obstacle was Iraq's insistence on a 20 percent equity participation in the company; this figure had been included in the original TPC concession to the Turks and had been agreed upon at Sanremo for the Iraqis. In the end, despite strong nationalist sentiments against the concession agreement, the Iraqi negotiators acquiesced to it. The League of Nations was soon to vote on the disposition of Mosul, and the Iraqis feared that, without British support, Iraq would lose the area to Turkey. In March 1925, an agreement was concluded that contained none of the Iraqi demands. The TPC, now renamed theIraq Petroleum Company(IPC), was granted a full and complete concession for a period of seventy-five years.

British High Commissioners

• 1920–1923:Major-GeneralSir Percy Cox
• 1923–1928:Sir Henry Dobbs
• 1928–1929:Brigadier-GeneralSir Gilbert Clayton
• 1929–1932:Lt. ColonelSir Francis Humphrys

See also

• Guardians of Independence
• Mesopotamian campaign
• Ottoman Iraq
• RAF Iraq Command

Sources

This article incorporates text from this source, which is in thepublic domain.Country Studies.Federal Research Division.

Further reading

• Barker, A. J.:The First Iraq War, 1914-1918: Britain's Mesopotamian Campaign(New York: Enigma Books, 2009).ISBN978-1-929631-86-5
• Fuccaro, Nelida:The Other Kurds(London: IB Tauris, 1999).
• Dodge, Toby:Inventing Iraq(2009).
• Fieldhouse, David K.:Western Imperialism in the Middle East, 1914–1958(2006).
• Fisk, Robert:The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East,(2nd ed. 2006).
• Jacobsen, Mark: "'Only by the Sword': British Counter‐insurgency in Iraq", in:Small Wars and Insurgencies2, no. 2 (1991): pp. 323–63.
• Simons, Geoff:Iraq: From Sumer to Saddam(2nd ed. 1994).
• Sluglett, Peter:Britain in Iraq: Contriving King and Country, 1914–1932(2nd ed. 2007).
• Wright, Quincy (1931). "The Proposed Termination of the Iraq Mandate".American Journal of International Law25(3): 436–446.
• Vinogradov, Amal: "The 1920 Revolt in Iraq Reconsidered: The Role of Tribes in National Politics,"International Journal of Middle East Studies3, no. 2 (1972): pp. 123–39.