'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎199v] (403/862)

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286 HISTORY
Indian and partly by Iraqi personnel, and thereby laid the founda
tions of the future Iraqi administration (Chapter VIII). After the
armistice Colonel Wilson, as Acting Civil Commissioner, was faced
by a nationalist agitation which from small beginnings gradually
increased in violence and led to the Arab revolt of 1920.
Faisal and Iraqi Nationalism
The mainsprings of the Arab nationalist movement which led
eventually to the establishment of the Iraqi kingdom lay outside Iraq,
in the secret political societies of Syria which were active long before
1914 and in the successful Hejaz revolt of Husain, Sharif of Mecca,
and his sons, Ali, Abdulla, Faisal and Zaid, during the War of 1914-
1918. The main connexion between the Arabs of Iraq and these
movements was that some of the Amir Faisal’s best officers were
Iraqi Arabs who deserted from the Turkish army in which they had
been professional officers. The activities of the Syrian nationalists
had received support from some individuals in Baghdad and Basra
before 1914 and secret societies had existed there also (p. 267). But
generally Arab nationalism in Iraq was a consequence of the great
success attained by the movement led by Faisal in the Hejaz and the
establishment between 1918 and 1920 of a virtually independent,
though provisional, Arab State in central Syria.
At the time of the armistice in 1918 the inhabitants of Iraq had not
established, by their own activity, any very great claim on the British
for the establishment of their independence (p. 270). But the group
of Iraqi officers in Faisal’s service took the view that they were fight
ing in Syria for their own country’s freedom, and in the winter of
1917-1918 while fighting before Maan in Transjordan Used in three contexts: the geographical region to the east of the River Jordan (literally ‘across the River Jordan’); a British protectorate (1921-46); an independent political entity (1946-49) now known as Jordan they founded
or re-formed a society, called Ahd al Iraq, the object of which was to
secure independence for Iraq from foreign control and some con
nexion with an independent Syria, under the family of Sharif Husain.
It was from this group that the men came, such as Yasin Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. al
Hashimi, Jafar Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. al Askari, and Nuri as Said, who played a
great part first in fomenting Iraqi nationalism after 1918, and later
in the government of the Iraqi kingdom.
Allied Manifestos
Meanwhile a series of British and Allied pronouncements had been
encouraging the notion of Iraqi independence. First, in the negotia
tions between Sir H. McMahon and Sharif Husain about the Hejaz
revolt
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