'SUMMARY OF THE PRINCIPAL EVENTS AND MEASURES OF THE VICEROYALTY OF HIS EXCELLENCY LORD CURZON OF KEDLESTON VICEROY AND GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF INDIA. PART I - The Persian Gulf.' [‎43r] (90/92)

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meeting every emergency. The British naval arrangements in the Gulf were
reorganised; new marine surveys were carried out; foreign demonstrations
were answered by counter-demonstrations of superior force. The number of
British political representatives in the Gulf was increased, steps being taken
simultaneously to add to their dignity and prestige. The general efficiency of
British action in the Gulf was enhanced by improvements in passenger, postal
and telegraphic communications ; the interests of British trade were promoted
by the despatch of commercial missions ; and the political history and geo
graphy of the Gulf region were brought under close investigation. Prepara
tions were made for safeguarding the rights of the littoral Arabs in the Arabian
pearl banks, and measures were taken to restrict the traffic in arms and
ammunition and to localise its dangerous results. In Oman Prench intrigue
was checked by firm action at Maskat, the question of the Prench flag was
carried before the Hague tribunal by whom it was settled in favour of Britain,
and the Sultan was converted from an attitude of suspicion and hostility to one
of confidence and regard. In Trucial Oman A name used by Britain from the nineteenth century to 1971 to refer to the present-day United Arab Emirates. attempted aggressions by the
Persian Government were frustrated and a remarkable advance in material
prosperity took place. In El Katr piracy was repressed, the maritime peace
was maintained, and the designs of the Turks upon the peninsula were effec
tually thwarted. In Bahrein the authority of the British Government was
proved and emphasised by strong and successful measures for the protection of
foreign subjects, and trade flourished in an unprecedented degree. In El Hassa
piracy was to some extent checked, in most unfavourable circumstances, and
obstacles which had hampered British trade were partially removed. Koweit was
saved from falling under Turkish domination, was protected from attack by
the Amir of Jabal Shammar, and became a British protectorate in everything
but name. Civil war and Turkish intervention in Central Arabia were watched
with a vigilance which precluded the possibility of injury to British interests
at the coast. In Turkish Arabia A term used by the British officials to describe the territory roughly corresponding to, but not coextensive with, modern-day Iraq under the control of the Ottoman Empire. the Shiah doctors of Kerbela and Nejef, the
true leaders of public opinion in Persia, were brought for the first time into
close relations with the representative of the British Government at Baghdad,
and measures were devised for the repression of piracy on the Shat-el-Arab
which Jailed only because the Persian Government withheld their concurrence.
In Arabistan intimate relations were formed with the Sheikh of Mohammerah
and assured the predominance of British influence in his councils. On the
coast of Persia throughout its length British interests were maintained with
success, and an important position was secured at Henjam; while in Persian
Mekran, notwithstanding internal anarchy, British subjects and property were
adequately protected.
It is impossible, by any analytical process, entirely to disentangle from
one another the causes by which the cessation of the attack on British interests in
the Gulf was finally brought about; and it is hardly easier to draw any clear
distinction between the policy of the Government of India and that of His Majesty’s
Government with which it was blended and in which it was absorbed. The
change in the international situation in Europe and elsewhere was undoubtedly
a factor of first-rate importance in the recovery of British prestige; but, had
British policy in the Gulf been supine, no such change would by itself have
availed to prevent permanent injury to the British position. In the defensive
political campaign of this difficult time it was ordinarily the function of the
Government of India to suggest and to execute, of the British Government to
direct and to control; the conduct of operations in the diplomatic field
devolved upon His Majesty’s Government, while the political contest in the
Gulf itself was waged for the most part by Indian officers and with Indian
resources. Lord Curzon, among whose first political acts was the Maskat ulti
matum of 1899 and whose tour in the Gulf at the end of 1903 marked the real
conclusion of the troubled epoch, was entitled at his departure from India in
November 1905 to regard with satisfaction both the issue of the struggle and
the part which had been played in it by his own Government. He had, more
over, evolved a new and original conception of the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. as forming in
itself a complete and distinct political entity: this idea, latent rather than
expressed, dominated his own policy in the Gulf region, and may now be
regarded as having entered the domain of established political principles.
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