IOR/L/PS/20/C202/5

A volume in a series of official publications entitled ‘Military Report on Mesopotamia (Iraq).’, compiled by the General Staff, British Forces in Iraq.

This volume covers an area called in the volume ‘Area 8: Western Kurdistan’. This roughly spans between Birijik [Birecik], Hogena [Huknah], Mush [Muş], and Kharput [Harput], including Diarbekr [Diyarbakir], Mardin, and Urfa.

The volume consists of nine chapters:

1. ‘History’ – sketching the history of the area from the first settlement of Kurds and Armenians in antiquity to the end of the Ottoman Empire, the Armenian Genocide, the First World War and the Turkish War of Independence

2. ‘Geography’ – defining the area covered by the volume and describing the climate, topography, hydrology, and chief towns of the area, with some notes on local populations, trade, communications, and supplies

3. ‘Climate’ – including tables displaying rainfall and temperature

4. ‘Resources’ – describing agriculture, manufacturing, prospective mineral resources, and banking, with tables displaying data on imports and exports, taxation, and supplies

5. ‘Ethnography’ – including tables displaying data on local populations, generalised notes on ‘races and characteristics’, and notes on local religious groups and languages

6. ‘Tribes’ – including tables displaying tribal groups in various districts with notes on their leaders, strength, and activity

7. ‘Personalities’ – comprising an alphabetical list of persons, mostly tribal chiefs, officials, religious leaders, and military officers, with biographical notes focussing on political inclinations and activity

8. ‘Communications’ – containing notes on roads, rail, air, and water transport and telegraphs in the area. This is followed by descriptions of some routes with details such as road conditions, climate, topography, local populations, supplies, and military considerations

9. ‘Turkish Forces’ – describing the military and police forces of the Turkish National Government present in the area.

The volume also contains four appendices:

• Appendix A – A glossary of Kurdish, Turkish, Persian, Arabic, Syriac, and Hindustani terms which appear in the volume
• Appendix B – Weights and coinage used in the area, with notes on exchange rates
• Appendix C – The estimated distribution of Turkish forces in the area as of July 1922
• Appendix D – Bibliography and maps.

The volume contains three maps:

• ‘Skeleton map to illustrate the layout of the telegraph lines in Western Kurdistan’ (catalogued as IOR/L/PS/20/C202/5, f 60)
• ‘Keymap to illustrate boundaries of Military Report areas in Mesopotamia’ (catalogued as IOR/L/PS/20/C202/5, f 77)
• ‘Tribal and communications map of Area No. 8’ (catalogued as IOR/L/PS/20/C202/5, f 78).

The volume was printed in Harrow by His Majesty’s Stationary Office Press in 1923.