'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎356v] (715/862)

CHAPTER XIII
COMMUNICATIONS
W ater is the controlling factor of communications in a naturally
arid land. The two great rivers of Iraq have therefore always
formed the natural routes for migration and conquest between the
Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. . From either flank land-routes
come in, from water-point to water-point across the desert, or along
perennial streams which issue from the Kurdish mountains. Thus
the chief aids to movement in the past have been river-craft, the
camel, and the horse.
With the development of modern transport, the same general
principle remains. Shallow-draught steamers supplement native river-
craft, railways supplant the rivers where navigation becomes difficult,
motors may travel from well to well in the desert or the Jazira, but
they all tend to follow the old pattern, though with wider divergence.
Only aircraft, with their greater range and freedom, can ignore the
ancient routes, but even these must in emergency come down by water.
The three most important route-centres are Baghdad, Basra, and
Mosul. Baghdad, the river-port at the normal limit of low-water
Tigris navigation, at the junction of Upper and Lower Mesopotamia,
where the Tigris and Euphrates are less than 40 miles apart, is a rail
way, road, and river centre, with communications up and down both
rivers, and by the Diyala into Persia. Basra, with its deep-water
wharves at Maqil is the interchange point for ocean-going vessels,
river-craft, and railway, with rail and motor routes into Persia, and
desert connexions with Kuwait and Arabia. Mosul in the north has
roads and railway into Syria and Turkey, besides being the route-
centre for the Jazira and Kurdistan. Of lesser centres, Kirkuk and
Khanaqin, at the termini of metre-gauge railways, and both readily
reached at all seasons by motor from Baghdad, have grown in impor
tance with the exploitation of their oil; Karbala and Najaf are foci
which gather Shia pilgrims to their shrines; Rutba is a desert centre
close to the pipe-line from Kirkuk to Haifa, and on the motor and
air-route which links Baghdad with the Mediterranean.
WATERWAYS
The navigable waterways of Iraq are the Shatt al Arab, the Tigris,
the Euphrates, and the Shatt al Gharraf.