'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎209r] (422/862)

MODERN IRAQ 305
again were occupied in Abyssinia. Yet it was necessary to move
quickly before hot weather prevented operations.
The Iraqi plan was to seize the British Air Base at Habbaniya and
also to send sufficient forces to the south to oppose any advance
northwards by the British troops landed at Basra. The first part of
the plan failed outright. On the eve of 1 May Iraqi mechanized
forces, including some 50 field-guns, moved from Baghdad to Hab
baniya and surrounded the Air Base. The British Air Officer
Commanding received an ultimatum declaring that if any aircraft
left the ground the base would be bombarded. He decided to antici
pate the attack and struck at dawn on 2 M!ay with all his available
aircraft, including training machines manned by pilots and gunners
under training, and with the small garrison of airfield guards and
the Assyrian and Kurdish Levies. After four days’ fighting the
Iraqis were driven back to Falluja. Meanwhile a small British
motorized column was hastily collected in Palestine and dispatched
across the desert by Rutba with the task of defeating the Iraqi forces
and occupying Baghdad. Falluja, which controls the Euphrates
bridge on this route to Baghdad, was taken on the 19th and then
nearly lost when the Iraqis counter-attacked, but they were again
driven out of the part of the town which they had occupied by a
British counter-attack. This was the only effective operation carried
out by the Iraqi command, and it is pertinent to note that the scheme
was a literal application of a peace-time staff exercise devised by
a British instructor of the Iraqi Staff College.
The second part of the Iraqi plan, the prevention of an advance
from Basra, had been relatively successful. The destruction of the
bridges on the railway between Ur and Samawa, and about Qurna
on the Basra-Amara-Baghdad road, limited the British advance to
Ur by the end of May, but apart from these demolitions there was
little military opposition in the south.
The British advance continued from Falluja, though held up by
demolitions and the cutting of bunds, and reached the outskirts of
Baghdad on 29 May. Rashid Ali’s Cabinet dissolved, the Ministers
fled in panic to Persia, and control of the capital was taken over
by a Committee of Public Safety composed of military and local
officials. An armistice was concluded on 31 May, and the Regent
re-entered Baghdad. The Chosen Instrument thus suffered an igno
minious disaster at the hands of a far smaller force.
Apparently the movement was premature and there was no clear
understanding with the Axis powers. German aid to the Iraqis