IOR/L/PS/10/772

This volume contains correspondence, memoranda, reports, telegrams and minutes, regarding the importance of re-establishing telegraphic communication between India and England via the Persian Gulf and Mesopotamia [Iraq] to Mediterranean ports under British control.

The papers notably cover the following: postwar reorganisation of the telegraph communication, including the rebuilding of lines, re-establishing of old routes, introducing new routes, and proposals submitted by the Indo-European Company; relations with and between the Indo-European Company, Indo-European Department and the Eastern Telegraph Company.

Also included in the volume are the following documents:

• ‘A collection of Conventions and Agreements relating to Telegraphs in Turkey in Asia, Persia, the Persian Gulf and Mekran, September 1916’ (ff 127-144)
• ‘Indo-European Telegraph Department. Statement showing Amounts paid into and drawn out of the Indian Joint Purse by the Department to the year 1917-1918’ (f 122)
• ‘War cabinet. Imperial Communications Committee's proposed diversion of the Indo-European Telegraph Company’s route of India’ (ff 58-65)
• Four maps in showing the lines of telegraphic communication between Europe and India passing through Persia [Iran] and Mesopotamia (ff 13, 14, 37 and 123).

The volume comprises internal correspondence between British officials of different departments. The principal correspondents are: the Committee of Imperial Defence, Imperial Communications Committee; Sir Rayner Barker, Director-in-Chief of the Indo-European Department; the Civil Commissioner, Mesopotamia [also known as Civil Commissioner, Baghdad]; the Acting Civil Commissioner in Mesopotamia; the Viceroy and Governor-General of India in Council; and the General Post Office.