'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎190r] (384/862)

THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE 269
neither to enter into agreements with, nor to make concessions to any
other government. The Turks took alarm and sought to strengthen
their position at the head of the gulf. Iraq became their base for
military operations in north-eastern Arabia. Turkish sovereignty
was weakly established in Kuwait, and Hasa was occupied in 1871
and controlled until the expulsion of the garrison by Ibn Baud’s
Wahhabis in 1913. A garrison was also established at Doha, on the
Qatar peninsula south-east of Hasa.
In Kuwait Turkish influence was ousted by the British (1899), who
secured Turkish recognition of their treaties with Kuwait in 1913;
Kuwait at this time was in alliance with Ibn Baud, who was restoring
the Wahhabi dominion, but on bad terms with his rival Ibn Rashid
of Hail. British control of the whole Arabian coast of the gulf was
completed in 1916 by the formation of another ‘exclusive agreement’
with the Shaikh of Qatar. At the head of the gulf there was also a
close friendship between Britain and the Shaikh of Mohammerah who
controlled southern Arabistan, east of the Shatt al Arab; the Turks
sought vainly to compel him to admit their suzerainty. British in
terests were further safeguarded by control of the Shatt al Arab,
which had been policed, charted, and, since about 1850, buoyed by
the British navy alone. By an agreement of 1913, which consolidated
the rights of Britain in Iraq, a joint commission was established for the
conservancy and improvement of the channel, and British navigation
rights were confirmed and extended; the Boundary Commission of
I 9 I 3 ~ I 9 I 4 placed the whole of the channel, except the anchorage at
Mohammerah, within Turkey. Thus it came about that in 1914
British gunboats were already stationed on the Shatt al Arab.
While the British came by ship the Germans advanced as usual by
railway. After establishing themselves in Asia Minor by railway
concessions, they penetrated into Mesopotamia by gaining the con
cession for the extension of the Istanbul-Konya railway to Baghdad
and beyond Baghdad to Basra (1899-1903). The failure of the British
to prevent the latter sector from being included in the German con
cession was a great diplomatic defeat. But by the Anglo-Turkish
agreement of 1913 Britain gained representation on the board of the
railway and the right to control any extension south of Basra, in
addition to the control of the Shatt al Arab mentioned above. Thus
the strategic importance of Iraq as providing the shortest route
between Europe and India was rapidly reasserting itself.
At this date communications rather than oil deposits were the key
to the interest taken in Imq. But oil had already been discovered in