IOR/L/PS/10/463

Papers concerning events in Mesopotamia and in the Persian Gulf, leading up to and immediately after the outbreak of war between Great Britain and Turkey. The file is a chronological continuation of File 3136/1914 Pt 1 ‘German War. Situation in Turkish Arabia & Persian Gulf’ (IOR/L/PS/10/462). Subjects covered include:

• Concerns amongst British officials that Turkey will lay mines in the Shatt al-Arab.
• Reports of the spreading of anti-British and pro-German propaganda by Turkish officials, including an undated manifesto (translated into English from Arabic) issued by an organisation called the Moslem Committee of Learned Men (ff 139-143).
• British intelligence on the movements, actions and correspondence exchanged between the region’s most prominent rulers and key figures, including the former Governor (Wali) of Basra, Seyyid Talib [Saiyid Talib ibn Saiyid Rajab], the Emir of Najd and Al-Aḥsā, Bin Saud [‘Abd al-‘Azīz bin ‘Abd al-Raḥmān bin Fayṣal Āl Sa‘ūd] and the Turkish Minister of War, Ismail Enver Pasha.
• Reports on public opinion amongst the Arab populations of the Persian Gulf, and proposed British propaganda measures, including plans to distribute copies of the Illustrated War News to the various rulers in the Persian Gulf (ff 199-203).
• The breaking-off of diplomatic relations between Great Britain and Turkey on 30 October 1914.
• Reports, submitted by Lieutenant-Colonel Percy Zachariah Cox, Chief Political Officer of Indian Expeditionary Force D (IEFD), on the progress of IEFD at Basra, including reports of military action at Fao [Al-Fāw], (f 56, f 65, ff 67-68, ff 116-120, f 123).
• The death of Captain Richard Lockington Birdwood, Assistant Political Officer to Cox, at Basra, on 17 November 1914 (ff 90-91).
• Reports of anti-British propaganda and activities at Erzeroum [Erzurum], as reported by the city’s British Consul (ff 84-89, ff 103-104).
• Proposals, including those set out in a letter written by Captain Arnold Talbot Wilson of the Indian Political Department, to the British Consul at Mohammerah [Khorramshahr], dated 28 November 1914 (ff 14-17) for Mesopotamia to become an Indian colony after the war.

The file’s principal correspondents include: the India Office (John Evelyn Shuckburgh; Edmund George Barrow; Arthur Hirtzel); the Foreign Office (Eyre Alexander Barby Wichart Crowe; Louis du Pan Mallet); the Chief Political Officer of IEFD (Percy Zachariah Cox).

The file includes a small number of copies of diplomatic exchanges between the British, Ottoman and Persian Governments (notes verbale), which are written in French.