1941: Iraq

Iraq, an Arab kingdom in the river valleys of the Euphrates and the Tigris, constituted after the First World War as a mandate under Great Britain, became an independent and sovereign nation in 1932, after having concluded an alliance with Great Britain. During the year 1941, Iraq was the scene of a change of government which tried to overthrow the pro-British Iraqi administration and to align Iraq with the Axis powers. The country is also important on account of the fact that it produces more than 4,000,000 tons of oil annually which are vital to the British war effort in the Middle East. The Iraq administration, at the head of which, in view of the minority of King Faisal II, stood his uncle, the Emir Abdul Illah, had General Taha el Hashimi as Premier and Nuri-es-Said as Foreign Minister.

Pro-Axis Coup d'Etat.

On April 4th the Hashimi government was overthrown by a coup d'etat engineered by Rashid Ali Beg Gailani, a former prime minister of outspoken Nazi sympathies. For a long time Nazi propagandists under Dr. Fritz Grobba, the German Minister to Iraq, had tried to win Arab sympathies. The regent was ousted and forced to take refuge with the Emir of Trans-Jordan. The ousted prime minister, Taha el Hashimi, who had been minister of defense and chief of the general staff before becoming premier, died a short while later.

The new pro-Axis Iraqi régime was recognized by the Soviet Union, but was unable to gain the Arab and Moslem support for which it was bidding. Its radio appeals to the Arabs and Mohammedans of neighboring countries to rise against England and to take arms on the side of Iraq and Germany proved futile. The new government declared officially that it wished to abide by the text of the Anglo-Iraq treaty, but when the British sent reinforcements from India to Basra, the Iraqi port on the Persian Gulf, the Iraqi government protested and started to attack the British forces at the air base of Habbaniyah, 65 miles west of Baghdad, the Iraqi capital. From that moment on, the British, by combining the efforts of the Royal Air Force from Egypt and of the Indian land troops, moved to crush the Iraq government and refused the demand of Naci Sefket, the Iraqi minister of defense, for the withdrawal of British troops from the country. Iraqi statesmen visited Ankara to confer there with von Papen, the German ambassador to Turkey, and with Turkish statesmen. As German troops had moved at the same time to occupy the whole Balkan peninsula and stood at the gates of Turkey, the situation in Iraq had become of utmost strategic importance. German planes were reported using the Syrian airfields to establish contact with the Iraqi forces. The Iraq parliament elected Sherif Sharaf as regent in place of the Emir. Rashid Ali entered into negotiations with Germany with regard to the Iraqi oil deposits which, if taken over by Germany, would have given her an impregnable position as far as her oil supply was concerned.

British Invasion of Iraq.

For these reasons Great Britain intervened actively at the beginning of May. The military operations lasted for about four weeks. By the beginning of June the British troops were closing in on Baghdad, Rashid Ali fled, the Iraqi army asked for an armistice, and the Axis envoys left the country. By June 2, Abdul Illah arrived in Baghdad by airplane to set up a new Iraqi administration. On June 4, air-borne British troops occupied Mosul in the northern part of the country, the center of the vitally important oil fields. Thought the pipelines conducting the oil to the Mediterranean ports for the use of the British fleets and armies had been cut they were easily repaired.

The new cabinet under Jamal el Midfai quickly restored order, while the British were most anxious to emphasize the country's independent sovereignty and thus to secure the good will and cooperation of the native population. The attempt to bring Iraq under Nazi influence and thus to destroy the British strategic position to the Middle East was frustrated. A few months later the British occupation of Syria and of Iran made the position of Iraq more and more secure, especially in view of the friendly and loyal attitude of the two neighboring Arab princes, Ibn Saud, the powerful king on the Arabian peninsula, and Emir Abdullah of Trans-Jordan, a relative of the royal house of Iraq. See also ARABIA; PALESTINE.

New Régime.

Jamal el Midfai, the new premier, who had accompanied the regent into temporary exile after the coup d'état of April 4, remained for about four months at the head of the Iraqi government. In the difficult situation, created by the recent troubles and by the loss of trade and income caused by the rebellion, the premier did not prove sufficiently strong. He was replaced at the beginning of October by General Nuri es Said, in many ways the oldest and most experienced statesman of Iraq, who had fought with Lawrence during the famous 'Revolt in the Desert' and had become one of the fathers of Arab independence. He had been six times minister of defense and three times prime minister before assuming the premiership at this critical time. The governor of Basra Salem Jabr, who had proven his loyalty during the whole period of the coup d'état, was made foreign minister. Thus by the end of the year, Iraq had weathered a crisis which threatened not only to shake the country to its foundations, but to change completely the strategic power set-up and relations in the most vulnerable part of the Middle East, guarding the access to the most valuable oil fields and to India.

Economic Conditions.

Economically Iraq suffered less from the war than other nations, because the country is predominantly agrarian and the standards of living are normally very low. There was a certain rise in prices but no restrictions were imposed and no rationing introduced. Towards the end of 1941 the country stood to gain by the possibility of its use as a transit base for military equipment shipped from the United States to the Middle East, and to the Russian front in the Caucasus. These goods were to be shipped to the Persian Gulf, transported thence by rail to Kirkuk in northeastern Iraq, and from there by road to neighboring Iran, which had been occupied by British and Soviet troops. See also IRAN; SYRIA.