"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الأجزاء Iأ و Iب. ج.ج. لوريمر ١٩١٥" [‎٣‎٦‎٠] (١٧٨٢/٥٠٣)

Turkish en
croachments
on Kuwait
territory.
360
vessel being present in the harbour ; and the Porte and the British Govern
ment then mutually agreed that the status quo at Kuwait should be respec
ted,. Before the end of the year, in disregard of this agreement, an attempt
was made by the Turks, by means of an ultimatum, to compel the Shaikh
to receive their troops. This time the Shaikh wavered, but in the end,
supported by the presence of British vessels of war, returned a negative
reply. The Porte then asserted that the ultimatum had not been authorised
by themselves ; but a few weeks later there were various indications that a
combined attack upon Kuwait by the Turks and Ibn Rashid was immment,
I bn Rashid had already, for some time, been threatening the place from a
distance. A British naval force of five vessels was accordingly concentrated
in Kuwait Bay, and arrangements were made to assist the Shaikh, both on
sea and land, to repel the expected assault. This crisis, which happened
at the beginning of the year 1902, passed harmlessly over.
Foiled in their design of seizing Kuwait town, the Turks resorted to
piecemeal encroachments on Kuwait territory. Early in 1902 they estab
lished military posts at Safwanand Umm Qasr and on Bubiyan Island,
their object being clearly to secure possession of Khor ^Abdullah and its
branches j nor could their withdrawal from these places be obtained. In the
summer of 1902 arrangements were made at a base in Turkish territory for
a piratical descent on the town of Kuwait from the sea, but they were
di\ ulgcd, and the vessels of the expedition were scattered by a British gun
boat at the mouth of the Shatt-al-'Arab. in the winter of 1902-03 a
demonstration was made against Kuwait by Ibn Rashid, after which exter
nal alarms ceased; but the Shaikh had still to endure various persecutions
at the hands of the Turks which his ownership of large estates in Turkish
'Iraq enabled them to inflict on him.
In 1904, after a visit paid by the Viceroy of India to Kuwait at the end
of 1903, it was decided to appoint a British political officer to Kuwait to
watch Kuwait and Turkish and Central Arabian affairs, but, in consequence
of a complaint by the Porte that the creation of this post amounted to a
violation by Britain of the status quo, it was, after the lapse of some
months, left temporarily vacant.
It should be observed that Germany, on account of her railway schemes,
took almost as close an interest as Turkey in Kuwait. The visit of a
German rarlway commission to Kuwait early in 1900 was the occasion of
no of th( warnings addressed by Britain to Turkey in regard to interfer*
eace with the Shaikh ; and the German Ambassador at Constantinople was
pJirnly informed, at the same time, that the Shaikh was not free to grant
nds Baghdad Railway Company without the permission of the