Britain and Iraqi barley during the second world war

Abstract

In May 1941 Britain ousted the pro-Axis regime in Iraq and installed a compliant government in Baghdad. British troops then remained in Iraq for the duration of the war to defend the country against German attack, facilitate the movement to supplies to the Soviet Union, maintain the integrity of the air route to the East, and secure the rich oilfields around Kirkuk from which large quantities of oil flowed through pipelines to Haifa and Tripoli on the Mediterranean Sea.' After May 1941 the British did not seek active Iraqi participation in the war because they believed that the Iraqi army could be most profitably employed maintaining internal security and guarding Britain's lines of communication within Iraq. They also did not want to provide the arms and equipment which the Iraqi army would require for combat or movement abroad because they did not trust it, and in any case they preferred to allocate their limited quantities of surplus war material to countries like the Soviet Union and India which were making very substantial contributions to the Allied war effort. In addition, the British did not like the idea of placing Iraqi troops in Syria or Palestine, which was where Iraqi leaders wanted their troops to go, because Iraq would then be well placed to influence the political destinies of those countries. Finally, they feared that sending the Iraqi army abroad would be unpopular within Iraq, and since Britain was so closely linked to the regime would result in a weakening of Britain's position in the country. While the British did not seek active Iraqi participation in the conflict, they did want Iraq to contribute to the Allied war effort by producing large quantities of cereals. Such production would enable the British to supply their military forces in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. It would also enable them to supply other countries in the area for which they were ultimately responsible and which were badly in need of food. In addition, it would obviate the need for them to bring considerable amounts of grain to the Middle East from distant countries like Argentina and Canada, thereby saving scarce shipping space. Of Iraq's cereals, the British were primarily interested in barley because it was the only one which the country produced in sufficient quantities to allow for substantial exports.2