Papers of the Interdepartmental Conference on Middle Eastern Affairs [‎93r] (185/290)

in the course of a recent conversation with General Nuri Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. , the
latter had suggested that it would be wiser for us to encourage
the appearance of a spontaneous expression of opinion on the part
of the people rather than that we should ourselves make proposals
and invite native concurrence. This was the principle on which
the British staff attached to Feisal had always worked, and the
result had been that the Arabs were always under the impression
that they themselves had originated the proposals which really came
from their British advisers.
Mr Montagu remarked that this was a procedure not unknown
in political circles outside Arabia. He remained of opinion that
nothing could be better than some form of declaration or
pronouncement calculated to reassure all hostile elements.
The Chairman deprecated any undertaking being given at the
present juncture that the councils would be invited to express
opinions as to the form of the future constitution. He feared that
the effect of such an undertaking would be that political intriguers
would endeavour to get themselves nominated to the councils during
the next few months, in the hope of influencing their eventual
opinions. It had been the intention of the Conference that these
councils should participate in the administration of the country, and
that their members should be selected by the British authorities as
the persons best qualified for that purpose. Once it was understood
that the councillors were to be consulted as to the future constitution
of Mesopotamia, there would be an immediate cry for nomination by
popular election. He was inclined to the view that it was undesirable
to take any steps at present beyond consulting Sir Percy Cox, and
obtaining the views of the civil and military authorities in Mesopo
tamia as to the possibility of transferring further departments from
military to civil.
He was anxious that the Conference should discuss the
question of Kurdistan at an early opportunity. For a long time
some of our officers had been contemplating an autonomous
Kurdistan under a British mandate : he did not know what
authority they had for this project. It was true that the Conference
had authorised Colonel Wilson to establish a fringe of autonomous
Kurdish States round the borders of the Arab vilayet of Mosul,
but there had been no intention of involving His Majesty’s Govern
ment in a Kurdish frontier question analogous to that on the
north-west frontier Region of British India bordering Afghanistan. of India. The fate of the British officers who
had recently met their deaths at the hands of the Kurds filled him
with dismay : why could we not wash our hands of the northern
Kurds altogether ? Presumably we could not avoid incorporating
those tribes which lay between the Mosul vilayet and the Persian
frontier, but his own view was that the northern boundary of
Mesopotamia should be brought down as far south as possible.
Mr. Montagu asked what was the history of the Kurds? Was
it really necessary that Mosul should be defended against them ?
The reasons which impelled us to interest ourselves in the north
west frontier of India were, as he understood them, that the
inhabitants of the Punjab were British subjects, whom His
Majesty’s Government were therefore bound to protect. He was
not, however, convinced that they must necessarily undertake the
same duty with regard to the Arab tribes of the Mosul vilayet, who
would not be British subjects. Another reason why the Govern
ment of India felt bound to hold the uorth-west frontier was the
possibility of an attack by Afghanistan or Russia. Was there the
same danger on the northern frontier of Mesopotamia ? Supposing
that the Turks were, on some future date, to use the Kurds as
a vanguard of an attack on Mosul and Baghdad, could we not meet
them sufficiently well by sending an expedition up the Tigris
from Basrah as soon as we considered that it was in our interests
to do so ?