Mss Eur F112/286

The file contains memoranda, correspondence, and other papers relating to the Mesopotamia [Iraq] Commission (the parliamentary commission of inquiry into the Mesopotamia campaign), British policy in relation to Mesopotamia after the First World War, and the Cabinet Committee on Iraq.

These papers include:

• ‘MEMORANDUM BY LORD CURZON ON THE REPORT OF THE MESOPOTAMIA COMMISSION.’, printed for the War Cabinet, 4 June 1917 (ff 2-7)
• ‘BRITISH POLICY IN MESPOTAMIA. Memorandum by Lord Curzon.’, 21 September 1917 (ff 14-18)
• ‘PEACE CONFERENCE. MEMORANDUM RESPECTING MESOPOTAMIA.’ (with appendices, some of which are in French), by Sir Erle Richards, printed for the War Cabinet (ff 19-33), which includes three maps on folios 30, 31 and 32 (Mss Eur F112/286, f 30; Mss Eur F112/286, f 31; and Mss Eur F112/286, f 32)
• Conclusions and draft conclusions of meetings of the Cabinet Committee on Iraq of 8 December 1922 and 18 January 1923 (ff 34-44 and ff 59-64 respectively)
• The report of the Cabinet Committee on Iraq, 23 March 1923 (ff 70-76)
• ‘Memorandum on the Assyro-Chaldean Situation.’, Foreign Office, 11 October 1923.

The correspondence consists of letters to Curzon from: Leopold Charles Maurice Stennett Amery, First Lord of the Admiralty; Sir Eyre Alexander Barby Wichart Crowe, Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs; and Ronald McNeill, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. There is also a letter to Robert Gilbert Vansittart, Private Secretary to Lord Curzon (as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs), for Curzon’s information, from Sir John Evelyn Shuckburgh, Assistant Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, enclosing a private letter to Shuckburgh from Sir Henry Dobbs, High Commissioner for Iraq, regarding the political situation in Iraq.