British Interests in the Middle East

Abstract

Although Britain had interests throughout the Middle East, she did not directly make a colonial settlement in any part of it. The seventy-five square miles of Aden, first acquired as a coaling-station, took on a new importance after the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. It was administered casually from Bombay until 1932 when it was taken over by the India Imperial Government in New Delhi. Five years later, in 1937, it was transferred to the control of the Colonial Office in London as a Crown Colony. Apart from this colony, the relationships of Britain and the Middle East were guarded by special treaties of friendship, by protectorate, or in the years after the First World War, by mandate. Until the loss of India in 1947 British policy decisions were made in two quarters. The Government of India made its own decisions on the Indian Ocean area. It negotiated with the Sheikhs of the Gulf and with Aden, and kept a Resident in Lower Mesopotamia until 1932. The Colonial Office and the Foreign Office dealt with Mediterranean interests. Persia lay between them, until in 1860 there was an agreement to divide the staffing of posts.