IOR/L/PS/5/428, ff 104-135

This item comprises copies of enclosures to a despatch from the Government of Bombay [Mumbai] Secret Department to the Secret Committee, Number 17 of 1844, dated 28 February 1844. The enclosures are dated 30 November and 28 December 1843.

The enclosures chiefly comprise despatches of Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Taylor, Political Agent in Turkish Arabia [Ottoman Iraq], to: John Pollard Willoughby, Chief Secretary to the Government, Bombay; the Secretary to the Government of India; Lieutenant-Colonel Sheil, HM Chargé d'Affaires at Tehran; and Sir Stratford Canning, HM Ambassador at Constantinople [Istanbul]. They relate to Taylor’s analysis of events at Kerbela [Karbala, also spelled Kerbulla in this item] when Ottoman Turkish forces attacked and captured the town on 13 January 1843. In his despatches the Political Agent:

• Defends himself against complaints that he was slow in communicating news about the attack to Sir Stratford Canning
• States that: accounts reaching Baghdad and Constantinople were exaggerated by both Persian and Ottoman Turkish sources; the number of Persian casualties, initially alleged as 22,000, had been vastly inflated and in reality were closer to 5000; Persian officials had committed obvious fabrications of casualty lists; the investigators sent by Sir Stratford Canning and the Porte [Government of the Ottoman Empire], and Dr Ross, the Residency Surgeon, sent to assist with treating casualties, all concluded that the casualty numbers had been exaggerated
• Asserts that Najib Pacha [Muḥammad Najīb Pāshā, Governor of Baghdad] had done all that was possible to avoid an attack and to ameliorate the effects of it, and deflects accusations that he has endorsed the Pacha’s use of violence
• Relates that his efforts to avert or delay the Pacha’s attack on Kerbela were unsuccessful
• Alleges that ‘the rebel citizens of Kerbela’ were ‘much at fault’ and the town, with a population three-quarters Persian, had for years been anarchical and violently hostile to Ottoman rulers and officials
• Asserts it is his understanding that considerable warning had also been given to the townspeople and that accounts of reputed horrors committed during the attack were untrue
• Asserts it is his understanding that during the Turkish advance the townspeople fired first and used poison bullets.

The item also contains two despatches from Henry Creswicke Rawlinson to the Chief Secretary to the Government, Bombay, and the Secretary to the Government of India, reporting his: arrival in Bagdad on 6 December 1843 to assume the duty of Political Agent in Turkish Arabia in place of Taylor; intention of avoiding any collision between himself and Lieutenant-Colonel Farrant of the Bombay Army, attached to the Persian Mission, who is investigating the attack on Kerbela and observing peace negotiations at Eerzeroom [Erzurum] between Turkey and Persia; conclusion that the recent clash between troops of the Shaikh of Chaab [Banū Ka‘b tribe] and the Governor of Dezful will not disrupt the Erzeroom [Erzurum] negotiations; dismissal of HM brig of war Clio from the Bussorah [Basra] river as it is no longer required.