"تاريخ الحرب الكبرى استنادًا إلى وثائق رسمية. الحملة في بلاد الرافدين ١٩١٤-١٩١٨. مجلد I" [و‎‎٣‎٣] (٤٥٤/٧٠)

BRITISH PRE-WAR POLICY
45
that the approaches to, and the upper reaches of, the river
have been charted and periodically surveyed and that for
over sixty years buoys have been maintained to mark the
channel. This was the situation with which we were faced :
a river of which the waterway was owned by Turkey ; where
Persia had freedom of navigation and ninety per cent of the
ocean-going vessels were British ; where Great Britain alone
had maintained order and thus rendered navigation possible
in the past and where she had great interests, not only on
account of her close and intimate relations with the Shaikh
of Mohammerah but also owing to her larger responsibility
for peace in the waters of the Persian Gulf ; a river of which
the importance must increase immeasurably with the advent
of the Baghdad Railway and the development of internal
trade and navigation; a river which presents exceptional
difficulties to the hydrographer and the engineer, where
unskilled intervention may effect great damage both to irri
gation and to navigation, and the technical works, undoubtedly
necessary to meet the requirements of modern shipping, can
only be executed by means of continual expert supervision
and at very substantial cost. This situation was also rectified
by a convention* with the Turkish Government for the estab
lishment of a “ Commission ” to improve the conditions of
navigation on the Shatt al Arab. Ihis Commission was to
consist of two members only, one of whom was to be of British
nationality nominated by the British Government.
The political relations of Great Britain with the Persian
Gulf date from the year 1622, when under an agreement with
the Shah of Persia the East India Company undertook “ to
keep two men-of-war constantly to defend the Gulf ” and at
the same time despatched a fleet to aid the Persians in expelling
the Portuguese, who had established and maintained a close
monopoly of trade. This undertaking to patrol the Gulf
became a permanent obligation which has been fulfilled for
three centuries.
At a very early date, the Arabs, who had shown a superiority
at sea over the Persians—who at all periods of their history
have abhorred that element—possessed themselves of the
harbours and islands of the Gulf and there maintained a rude
independence. Their aggressive character came into special
prominence at the end of the seventeenth and at the beginning
of the eighteenth centuries, when they spread their fleets over
the entire seas surrounding the peninsula of India causing great
See para. (/) on p. 43.