Papers on British policy and the Arab movement [‎64v] (132/380)

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(5) It is the "wish not only of iny King and his peoples, but it is also the
wish of the great nations with whom he is in alliance, that you
should prosper even as in the past, when your lands were fertile,
when your ancestors gave to the world literature, science, and ait,
and when Baghdad city was one of the wonders ol the world.
{(j) Between your people and the dominions of my King there has been a
close bond of interest. For 200 years have the merchants of
Baghdad and Great Britain traded togeiher in mutual profit and
friendship. On the other hand, the Germans and lurks who have
despoiled you and yours, have for 20 years made Baghdad a centre
of power from which to assail the power of the British and the
Allies of the British in Persia and Arabia. Therefore the British
Government cannot.remain indifferent as to what takes place in
your country now or in the future, for in duty to the interests of
the British people and their Allies, the British Government
cannot risk that being done in Baghdad again which has been
done by the Turks and Germans during the war.
(7) But you people of Baghdad, whose commercial prosperity and whose
safety from oppression and invasion must ever be a matter of the
closest concern to the British (lovernment, are not to understand
that it is the wish of the British Government to impose upon you
alien institutions. It is the hope of the British Government that
the aspirations of your philosophers and writers shall be realised
and that once again the people of Baghdad shall flourish, enjoying
their wealth ayd substance under institutions which are in con
sonance with their sacred laws and their racial ideals. In Hejaz
the Arabs have expelled the Turks and Germans who oppressed
them and proclaimed the Sherif Hussein as their King, and
his Lordship rules in independence and freedom, and is the ally
of the nations who are fighting against the power of Turkey and
Germany ; so, indeed, are the noble Arabs, the Lords of Koweyt,
Nejd, and Asir.
(S) Many noble Arabs have perished in the cause of Arab freedom, at
the hands of those alien rulers, the Turks, who oppressed thefh.
It is the determination of the Government of Great Britain and
the great Powers allied to Great Britain, that these noble Arabs
shall not have suffered in vain. It i*the .hope and desire of the
British people and the nations in alliance with them, that the
Arab race may rise once more to greatness and renown among
the peoples of the earth, and that it shall bind itself together to
this end in unity and concord.
In conclusion, the inhabitants were called upon “ to participate, in
“ the management of your civil affairs in collaboration with the political
“ representatives of Great Britain who accompany the British Army, so that
“ you may be united with your kinsmen in North, East, South and West in
realising the aspirations of your race.”
6. At the end of March 1917 Uis Majesty’s Government, in a telegram
to the Government of India, laid it down as their policy (1) that the Basra
Vilayet should remain permanently under British administration; and
(2) that the Baghdad Vilayet should be made into an Arab State with a
local ruler or Government, but under a British Protectorate in everything
but name ; the State, behind its Arab facade, to be administered as an
Arab province by indigenous agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. and in accordance with existing laws
and institutions as far as possible.
In his recent speech on the War Aims of Great Britain, the Prime
Minister declared (5th January .1918) that “Arabia, Armenia, Mesopotamia,
“ Syria and Palestine are, in our judgment, entitled to a recognition of their
“ separate national conditions.” He added that it would be “ impossible to
restore ” the territories in question “ to their former.sovereignty.”
Both Baghdad and Basra lie within the “ red area ” as defined by the
Anglo-Russo-French Agreements of May 1910, i.c., the zone within which
the British Government may “ establish such direct or indirect administra-
“ tion or control as they desire and as they may think fit to arrange with the
“ Arab State or Confederation of Arab States.”