IOR/L/PS/10/565

Correspondence and papers concerning trade in those parts of Mesopotamia [Iraq] under British military administration during the First World War. Subjects covered include: the resumption of trade between Britain and traders at Basra; claims by British firms for the losses of goods looted or destroyed at Baghdad and Basra by Turkish troops during the initial British invasion of Mesopotamia in 1914; the British Government’s response to claims made by British firms in Mesopotamia over losses incurred during the War; correspondence concerning the seizure and consequent liquidation of enemy (i.e. German and Austrian) commercial interests in the Persian Gulf, with specific reference to the German firm Robert Wönckhaus & Company; statements of balances of enemy commercial concerns seized by British forces for September 1916 (ff 116-117) and December 1916 (ff 79-80); the payment of funds from the assets of Robert Wönckhaus & Company, to employees of the firm interned as prisoners of war at Ahmednagar, India; representations made by the French ambassador to London on behalf of a French firm that had 180,000 Francs held in the Ottoman Bank, Baghdad.

The file’s principal correspondents include: the Chief Political Officer of Indian Expeditionary Force D, Percy Zachariah Cox; the Foreign Office; the India Office; the Foreign and Political Department of the Government of India.

Several items of correspondence in the volume are written in French.

The file includes a divider which gives the subject number, the year the subject file was opened, the subject heading, and a list of correspondence references by year. This is placed at the back of the correspondence.