'File II. IRAQ (3) Vol. 1 Shaikh of Kuwait's Date Gardens on the Shatt-al Arab. (Kuwait's relations with Turkish Govt. and Turkish demand that Kuwaitis should take out Turkish Nationality Certificates)' [‎269v] (556/636)

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Dated Constantinople, the 6th January 1911.
From— George T. Clerk,
To—His Majesty's Consul, Basrah.
I am directed by His Majesty’s Chargd d’Affaires to transmit to you here
with copy of a despatch which he has addressed to His Majesty’s Principal
Foreign office No. is, dated the 4 tii January 1911. Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
respecting the policy of the Committee of
Union and Progress with regard to Mesopotamia.
Mr. Marling requests you to inform His Majesty’s Consul at Mohammerah
of the contents of this despatch.
No. 15, dated Constantinople, the 4th January 1911.
From—C. Marling,
To—The Right Hon'ble Sir E. Grey, etc., etc., etc.
I have the honour to enclose translation of two articles recently published
in the Tanin by Ismail Hakki Bey, Deputy for Baghdad, giving his views as
to the policy Young Turkey should pursue in Mesopotamia.
One of Ismail Hakki’s brothers, Hamdi Bey, resides at Baghdad and is one
of the leaders pf the local branch of the Committee, while a second brother,
Hikmet Bey, is on the staff of Beouf Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. , the Ottoman Commissioner in
Egyph He is one of the Committee’s “ experts ” on foreign affairs and their
specialist on matters connected with the Arabian peninsular, Egypt, etc. Last
year he was at one time the Committee candidate for the Ministry for Foreign
Affairs but, perhaps fortunately for Young Turkey, has not yet been appointed
to that post. His ideas, as shown in these two articles, are both crude and
violent. He advocates disarmament on the same lines as in Albania, Macedonia
and Syria, the prevention of arms smuggling by sending Turkish ships to the
Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. and the “ cutting off ” of the poisonous trade by putting an end
once and for all to the seditious existence of Kuwait or by at least blockading
it by land and sea. ” The first of the latter two alternatives would
seem to mean that Turkey should militarily occupy Kuwait by a coup
de main. Ismail Hakki Bey and his friends are no doubt animated by
the best of intentions but past experience of Albania, Macedonia, and the
Hauran leads us to expect they will act with haste, rigour and violence. The
inevitable result will be a disaffected Arab population and, as it is well to lay
the blame anywhere except in the proper place, that is, the wrong policy of the
Committee of Union and Progress, their disaffection is to be set down to
English intrigues and machinations aimed at transferring the Caliphate to some
Arab centre under British influence.
The Committee imitating the French revolution in its hunting down and
destruction of aristocrats, evidently intends meting out a similar treatment to
the Arab Shaikhs. Ismail Hakki Bey would “ punish the principal Shaikhs
on the spot ” probably by court martialling and hanging some of them, would
exile in virtue of the arbitrary decisions of secret courts-martial, the bulk of
the Shaikhs of the second degree, and would reduce the small Shaikhs to the
position of headman and the tribesmen to that of Egyptian fellaheen Arabic for ‘peasant’. It was used by British officials to refer to agricultural workers or to members of a social class employed primarily in agricultural labour. . By
applying the military steamroller he would complete the levelling down process
within a year, so as to defeat the fell designs of foreigners, who have interests
in Mesopotamia and are looking on it “ with hungry eyes. ” Ismail Hakki
Bey further talks of the “ Political meaning impossible to conceal in the
importation into Arak of so many arms of English manufacture, ” but con
veniently ignores that the distributing centres are Jibuti and Maskat rather
than Kuwait, that England has gone to enormous trouble and expenditure to
stop the arms traffic and that she even risked a conflict with France in her
attempt to check arms running at Maskat, while he has evidently little notion
of the extreme difficulty of preventing smuggling along the El Hassa coast line
not to mention the Shatt-el-Arab, Khor Abdullah, etc. The frequent mentions
of “English, Englishmen and English arms” are calculated to poison the
minds of the Turkish public and to convey the impression of Great Britain’s
hostile designs on Mesopotamia. He is evidently desirous of focussing public
attention on Kuwait and Mohammerah. His account of, and the inferences he
draws from, the encounter between the forces of Shaikh Mubarak and Sadun