British Attitude Towards Southern Kurdistan between 1917 and 1919

Abstract

To undertake a historical study on the political, military, economic and diplomatic positions of the British representatives in Iraq and the region in general during the transformation from Ottoman rule to a new, independence-seeking political unit of Iraq, after the First World War, it is important to examine the perspectives of the British civil and military authorities and their plan toward the Kurdish districts of the Mosul vilayet, especially southern Kurdistan and protecting the northern frontier of Iraq. Although detailed studies of British post-war strategy towards Iraq have already been undertaken by Western and Eastern historians, much of the historical work that has been done on the British view and their attitude towards southern Kurdistan in general and the local government in Sulaymaniyah in particular, tends more to use imperfect narrations writing from the standpoint of ideological, ethic and political interests. Therefore, through an exhaustive use of British official archives, and analysing original British unpublished documents from various departments of government, this study attempts to objective understanding of the attitude of British officials in London, India and Iraq, toward the future of southern Kurdistan. This study consists of two main sections, the first section examines the situation of southern Kurdistan in the course of World War I. The second one investigates the beginning of the emergence of the Anglo - Kurdish political relations, as well as an analysis of the official position of British representatives toward the local government in Sulaymaniyah. This study rests upon official British and unpublished documents found in the British National Archives, British Library and Parliamentary Archives in London and the Middle East Centre at Oxford University and others were relied upon.