The Ottoman View of British Presence in Iraq and the Gulf: The Era of Abdulhamid II

Abstract

Throughout his lengthy reign, Sultan Abdulhamid 11 (1876-1909) was preoccupied by his Empire's vulnerability to the European Great Powers. It was not simply that he feared military attack, and knew that his chances of resisting it were slim; he also feared that the Powers might undermine his Empire's independence and integrity from within, through techniques of 'peaceful penetration'. The latter fear was grounded in historical experience since the 1830s.' To Sultan Abdulhamid and his advisers, the danger seemed obvious: if left to penetrate unchecked, European influence would eventually undermine the political authority of the Ottoman government, leading to the establishment of 'zones of influence' and to ultimate partition. The examples of Egypt and India were not encouraging. In Iraq and the adjoining regions of Arabia and the Gulf, the obvious source of danger was Britain. Since the 1830s, the British had acquired a virtual monopoly of European influence in the region.2 British warships regularly patrolled the Gulf, where many of the local shaikhdoms had concluded 'trucial', protective agreements with representatives of the government of British India. A large proportion of the trade of Iraq and the Gulf was done with British India, and British and British Indian vessels dominated Gulf merchant shipping. A British enterprise, the Lynch company, held a concession for steam navigation on the Euphrates and the Tigris. Since 1862, a British mail service had run between Iraq and India, and British-constructed telegraph lines linked Baghdad to India, Istanbul and Tehran. The British Indian pilgrims and students who flocked to the Shi'i shrines of southern Iraq were a further channel for British influence, and the Oudh Bequest brought the British directly into contact with Shi'i religious leaders in the region.3 Even during the Tanzimat era, when Anglo-Ottoman relations had been generally close, the growth of a paramount British influence in the Gulf region had caused the Porte serious concern, leading it to strengthen the Ottoman naval presence in the region in the 1860s, and to bring Najd and the Arabian coast of the Gulf down to Qatar under its direct control in the 1870s.4