File 4722/1918 Pt 8 'Mesopotamia: Situation' [‎114v] (239/995)

4
situation in Mesopotamia as a wbole and there is good reason to think that pro
vided military measures now in progress or in contemplation during next fort
night are successful, there will be a steady change for the better and that by
the middle or end of October affairs will be ripe for a settlement.
Speech by Acting Civil Commissioner at Railway Directorate Dinner,
September 20th, 1920.
I feel I owe it to the Railway Directorate, whose guest I am this evening,,
to record the satisfaction with which I received last March the decision of His
Majesty’s Government to transfer railways in this country to the Civil Adminis
tration.
Adverse conditions have since arisen to which I will refer later, but these
cannot obscure the magnificent work already done by the Directorate. No
Department has a better war record, and my only regret is that a fresh war has
prevented equally striking peace achievements, but I am sure that this will
follow. With Colonel Lubbock as your Director, and as Heads of Departments
Mr. Rothera, Mr. Tainsh and Mr. Kiernander, whose wide experience and high
qualifications are known beyond the limits of Mesopotamia, we need have no fear
as to the future.
The record of every grade and Department of the Railway Directorate dur
ing these past few difficult months have been most creditable and worthy of the
high traditions of British and Indian Railways, and of the British Army of
which atone time or another you have most of you been an integral part. The
notable services rendered by drivers, guards, workshop foremen and administra
tive staff of the Railway, both British and Indian, have repeatedly been
brought before my notice both by Military and Civil Authorities in this
country, and were the subject of a special reference in the Indian Legislative
Council a few days ago.
I thank you once more Col. Lubbock for what you have said. I thank you
all again for the very kind reception you have given to Col. Lubbock’s remarks,
and I wish you one and all success in the great tasks still before you.
1 now turn to current events in this country.
The last few months have saddened us all; doubt has replaced hope. Why,
we ask, should these things have occurred? I believe the truth to be, that the
world is swayed now, even more than of old, by moral rather than by material
forces; by ideas and theories rather than by. Governments and facts. Time was
when ideas which had their birth in the East had a profound influence on
Western thought. We are now seeing the opposite process at work.
The end of the Nineteenth Century witnessed the “ revival; of Nationalism
in Europe and Asia—a re-action of the man in the field and in the street from
the conception and existence of great Empires. The people had their part in
these Empires in which the common interests rather than the differences of the
component parts were emphasized, but they could not see it. They preferred
something smaller which they could feel to be their own. Nationalism is the
basis of the latest Peace Treaties. It was to protect the rights of small Nations
that we fought, and no idea appealed more widely to Die many races composing
the British Empire. Critics of Nationalism as a constructive policy were
silenced; doubters, were perforce dumb; Nationalism held the field, and every
official utterance of the Allies, and of the Allied Nations’ chosen leaders,
emphasized this as the basis of future policy.
The seed of Nationalism was sown broadcast at home, but the Army that
landed at Basrah in 1914 was animated by no such ideas. Our mission was to
beat the Turk and we did so. Meanwhile, to quote Lord Hardinge’s words when
he visited Basrah in 1915, “We were not fighting single-handed and we could
not lay down plans for the future without a full exchange of views with our
Allies, but we were confident that henceforth a more benign Administration
would bring back to Mesopotamia that prosperity to which her rich potentialities
gave her so clear a title. ’ ’
On this nebulous basis we went ahead until the capture of Baghdad. The
seed of Nationalism had grown in Europe meanwhile, and the plant had borne
fruit in the East. The Sharif 's revolt was proclaimed as a national movement
of Arabs against the Turks, and in return for the co-operation of Arab forces
the Allies pledged themselves to respect and further Arab aspiration. The
prowess of the armed Forces of the Crown in Mesopotamia resulting in the
capture of Baghdad, and the devoted labours of the officers of the Civil Admi
nistration made it possible for His Majesty’s Government to conceive as a
practicable possibility the application to Mesopotamia of the policy enunciated
by General Maude in 1917, and lately embodied in the Turkish Peace Treatv
viz., the creation of independent States from those parts of the Turkish Empire
inhabited mainly or wholly by non-Turkish races.
Each fresh victory in Mesopotamia involved a further advance inland until
as a result of the armistice we found ourselves responsible for the Wil^yets of
Mosul, Baghdad and Basrah, pledged to the policy enunciated by General Maude,