'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎202r] (408/862)

MODERN IRAQ 291
peace or not, gained vital time for the arrival of reinforcements.
Against the influence of the Political Officers was that of the shaikhs.
The British method of administration, unlike the Turkish, had
strengthened the authority of the tribal chiefs by making them fully
responsible for their own tribes and by always working through them
as agents. The nationalist movement had a great appeal for the chiefs
because, as they openly stated, the freedom of Iraq meant for them
the freedom from all government; no police and no taxes.
Trouble was most serious in the Diwaniya and Hilla divisions,
within the focus of Karbala and Najaf, where the Turks had never
been masters and where British troops had been seen least during
the war. The influence of certain of the Shia mujtahids in fermenting
the rebellion was considerable. The first outbreak was at Rumaitha
over a small matter, within a tribe, the Bani Huchaim, which had
suffered long from political and economic disorders. The lands of
two tribal sections, Sufran and Barkat, below Samawa had gone out
of cultivation owing to changes in the river and the tribesmen were
living by plunder and raiding their neighbours. Military action had
been taken recently (in May) against them, and no final settlement
made. Hence when one section of the Bani Huchaim, instigated by
the Mujtahids of Karbala and Najaf, rescued an imprisoned shaikh
from the sarai at Samawa, there was a general rising of other sections,
who cut the railway and besieged both Samawa and Rumaitha.
When immediate relief measures failed the rising spread northward
to the Fatla and the Bani Hasan. Kifl was seized (20 July) and Kufa
was besieged, and when three companies of the Manchester Regiment
set out to the rescue from Hilla they were routed with heavy losses.
The garrisons at Musaiyib and the barrage were then withdrawn,
and by the end of July the whole country west of the Hilla channel
was in arms. But the British forces at Diwaniya withdrew success
fully along the railway northward to Hilla taking their stock and gear
in an immense railway train about a mile long. The success of the
Arabs so far owed much to the presence of trained military officers
from Syria and Turkey, and much also to the weakness in numbers
and training of the British forces. But after the concentration at
Hilla the tide turned. By 12 August the Hindiya barrage was re
occupied, and by the end of August the British controlled the canal
system and were in a position to prevent the spread of anarchy.
The Diyala rising which followed that of the middle Euphrates
caused great alarm because it cut communications with Persia, but
it was not so serious. The tribes lacked trained officers and their