'تقرير حول مهمة نجد ١٩١٧-١٩١٨ [ظ‎‎١‎٠] (٦٠/٢٠)

16
In Mesopotamia the Blockade problem presented peculiar difficulties, in
that it was always an important part of our policy to enlist the sympathy of
the Arabs in our cause. It was therefore always considered important to
extend to them all reasonable facilities for providing themselves with the
necessaries of life, while ensuring that those necessaries should not reach the
enemy, but the Arabs themselves, by failing to reciprocate in the spirit in
which we met them, rendered it incumbent on the British authorities to devise
measures for the strict enforcement of the blockade.
The difficulties experienced in the Occupied Territories of Iraq need not
be considered here. Suffice it to say that in the light of experience a fairly
effective scheme of blockade was evolved, the effect of which on the enemy
became daily more apparent.
For the complete success of the Iraq scheme however—involving, as it
did, a rigorous blockade of the northern part of the Arabian peninsula by
the establishment of a cordon along the Euphrates line—it was essential that
no leakage of supplies should occur through neighbouring neutral or friendly
countries not under our control, and in this connection Eastern and Central
Arabia with its inlets on the Persian Gulf coast had long been an object of
anxious consideration.
It was obviously absurd to expect uncontrolled Arabs—whether Badawin
or Hadhr—not to take advantage of the enormous profits to be made by meet
ing the enemy's demands for supplies. At the same time it was out of the
question to adopt the simple expedient of blockading the Persian Gulf ports,
as such a course would have involved our friends in the same fate as our
enemies. The course adopted was to enlist the active co-operation of the
Arab rulers allied to us, namely, Ibn Saud and the Shaikh of Kuwait, the one
to prevent leakage of supplies across his frontier to the enemy and the other
to refuse access to the Kuwait market to enemy purchasing agents. The
arrangements by which these objects were to be achieved were left entirely
to the discretion of the two rulers themselves in accordance with our con
sistent policy of refraining from interference in the internal arrangements
of native states except when circumstances make it absolutely necessary to
do so.
The experiment was, unfortunately, doomed to failure from the begin
ning and it failed—its only substantial result being to enhance the bitterness
and antipathy already existing between Ibn Saud and Ibn Subah.
Indeed, some time before the departure of the Mission from Baghdad,
information from prejudiced and unprejudiced sources made it abundantly
clear that Kuwait had, in consequence of the tightening of the Iraq blockade, ^
begun to enjoy a profitable monopoly as a source of enemy supply, while the
Qasini was profiting by the enjoyment of corresponding advantages as a dis
tributing centre. The climax was reached towards the end of September,
1917, when a caravan of 3,000 enemy camels came down to Kuwait through
the Qasim with a passport signed by Ibn Sand's eldest son, Turki, who ^"as
at the time in command of the forces nominally engaged in preventing the
leakage of supplies to the enemy. The debacle was completed by the clear
ance of the same caravan, loaded with supplies from Kuwait with the sanction
or ccnnnance of the Shaikh himself m spite of specific orders telegraphed
from Baghdad that it should be detained pending further consideration.
Colonel Hamilton pursued the caravan without result and the enemy,
doubtless, duly received a welcome addition to their stores, but matters were
now seen to be really serious and our allies had shown themselves to be broken
reeds. The Mission was accordingly directed to discuss the question of the
blockade with Ihn Saud and to submit proposals for its stricter enforcement,
while the question of the feasibility of establishing a proper blockade post on
Iraq lines at Kuwait began to engage attention.
The incident of the Shammar caravan above referred to proved to be a
blessing in disguise, in that it provided me with a solid and notorious fact,
on which to base both a complaint as regards the past and an ultimatum in
respect of the future. To do him justice, Ibn Saud made little serious at
tempt to defend his untenable position. As regards Turki's action, he ex
plained that the passport given to the caravan was in no sense intended to
give the Shammar export facilities from Kuwait—it was indeed merely a
safe conduct through the Xajd tribes on the road, but he could not explain 1
the extension to enemy subjects of even such a concession as this. Doubtless
Shaikh Salim's explanation-of the clearance of the enemy caravan was equally
convincing.
As regards the caravan itself, Ibn Saud admitted that it could only have
gone to the enemy and, as regards enemy trade in general, he inveighed
strongly against the Shaikh of Kuwait as being personally and deeply impli
cated in contraband business, out of which he made large profits. He assert
ed that the bulk of the traffic went direct from Kuwait to Hail or Damascus,
giving his own frontiers a wide berth, but he admitted that the merchants
of the Qasim vere also to a certain extent involved. On my pointing out,
however, that this was scarcely consistent with his own solemn undertakings:
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