'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎199r] (402/862)

THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
285
The Campaign of October 1918
The end came quickly. After Allenby’s destruction of the Turkish
armies in Palestine, 1 resulting in his capture of Damascus (30 Sept.),
the only Turkish forces left in the field were in the Caucasus and in
Iraq. The Turks were strongly entrenched in the Jabal Hamrin
astride the Tigris at the Fat-ha gorge, while they still occupied
Altun Kopru, with forward troops at Kirkuk. A turning-movement
over the Jabal Hamrin forced the Turks out of their Fat-ha position
on 24 October; two days later the cavalry, watered by mechanical
transport in the steppe between the Little and Great Zabs, forded
the Tigris at Hadhraniya, 14 miles north of Qala Sharqat, and cut
the Turkish communications with Mosul; a relieving force from the
north was driven back, and at dawn on the 30th the whole Turkish
army on the Tigris surrendered. A British column was already on
its way to occupy Mosul, which had been evacuated by the Turkish
high command, and Altun Kopru had also been taken, when news of
the armistice signed at Mudros between the British and the Turks
was received on 31 October.
V. MODERN IRAQ
From Mandate to Independence, 1918-1932
During the war the government of the area occupied by the British
forces, outside the zone of operations, was carried on by Civil Com
missioners subordinate to the military authority but drawn from the
Indian political service The branch of the British Government of India with responsibility for managing political relations between British-ruled India and its surrounding states, and by extension the Gulf, during the period 1937-47. . At the head was Sir Percy Cox, known and
dear to the tribal shaikhs as Cokkus, who first as consul and then as
, Resident in the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. between 1904 and 1914, had been
largely responsible for the successful British policy in the Gulf
(p. 268); his assistant was Colonel A. T. Wilson, who had been
political agent A mid-ranking political representative (equivalent to a Consul) from the diplomatic corps of the Government of India or one of its subordinate provincial governments, in charge of a Political Agency. in Arabistan. Though always harassed by their prime
duty of keeping the peace and organizing supplies for the army,
these men and their assistant Political Officers in charge of the
divisions (liwas, p. 386) of the country, at once set about re-creating
a Civil Administration in the southern vilayets staffed partly by
1 The two Indian divisions (3rd Lahore and 7th Meerut) which came to Mesopo
tamia from France for the relief of Kut (p. 280), and which captured Baghdad
(p. 283), were transferred to Palestine in 1918 and took part in Allenby’s last
offensive. They were replaced by new divisions from India.