'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎191v] (387/862)

HISTORY
272
Iraq route to the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. was of great strategic importance to
India and to British imperial communications in the Indian Ocean,
particularly because of the increasing interest taken in southern Iraq
and southern Persia by both the British and Indian Governments
in the last quarter of a century. Yet it was not until after the
outbreak of war between Britain and Germany, when collabora
tion between the latter and Turkey almost conclusively proved that
Turkey would enter the war on the side of the Central Powers, that
the two governments took precautionary military measures to safe
guard their interests at the head of the gulf. These comprised the
allocation of a small force which in the event of hostilities was to
support the Shaikhs of Kuwait and Mohammerah and to protect the
oil installations at Ahwaz and Abadan. One brigade of the 6th
(Poona) Division, which had been mobilized in September for service
in France, sailed under sealed orders from Bombay on 16 October,
parted company with the convoy destined for France three days later,
and under escort of H.M. battleship Orion and R.I.M.S. Dalhousie
reached Bahrein on the 23rd. The rest of the division was retained
in India to reinforce it if necessary. War was declared between
Britain and Turkey on 5 November, and the following day the
advanced British troops landed at Fao.
The war in Mesopotamia from such small and improvised begin
nings became the largest and most decisive of the so-called ‘side
shows’. The defensive role of the British force was changed almost
unwittingly to an offensive one. Basra was early occupied to cover
Mohammerah; Qurna, to cover Basra; Amara and Nasiriya, to control
the river routes of southern Mesopotamia; Kut al Imara, to protect
Amara and Nasiriya. Up to this point it may be argued that the
strategy was defensive. But from Kut al Imara the lure of Baghdad
was both politically and militarily irresistible, and after failure at
Ctesiphon (22-26 Nov. 1915) at the first attempt, it became all the
more necessary to retrieve the subsequent disaster of Kut (29 April
1916). Troops and supplies poured into the country, Baghdad was
eventually captured in March 1917, and thereafter the operations in
Mesopotamia were co-ordinated with those in Palestine until the defeat
of the Turks in Palestine in September 1918 and on the Tigris north
of Qala Sharqat in October brought the end. The small force of
one brigade which had been allotted the original task in October 1914
had grown to a vast military organization with a ration strength of
420,000 men. Basra had become a great port with extensive riverside
wharves; fleets of river-boats passed up the Tigris; railways had