Iraq: World Wars and Oil

The picture on the left is of British forces entering Baghdad on the 12th of March 1917. The Turks, who had sided with the Germans, had surrendered the city to the British. Britain, having converted their entire naval fleet from coal to oil and fast becoming dependent for oil to fuel it's mechanized warfare, saw Iraq as essential to it's national long-term interests.

Prior to WWI oil was merely a product to be traded. By the end of the war it had become a vital necessity to the industrialized nations. Britain, at the start of WWI, had less than 800 motor vehicles. By the end of the war it had 56,000 trucks and 36,000 cars. Airplanes were being mass produced and oil fuelled shipping was replacing the steam powered, coal driven shipping of the earlier century.

Lt. General Sir Frederick Stanley Maude, the British commander issued this statement:

"People of Baghdad, remember for 26 generations you have suffered under strange tyrants who have ever endeavored to set one Arab house against another in order that they might profit by your dissensions. This policy is abhorrent to Great Britain and her Allies for there can be neither peace nor prosperity where there is enmity or misgovernment. Our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators."

The victors of the war divided the Middle-East amongst themselves. Britain was given a mandate to govern Iraq, Palestine, Egypt and Jordan. But the British soon found themselves facing widespread Arab nationalistic opposition. The Arab nationals called for independence from foreign control. This led the British to install Prince Faisal as King of Iraq. Faisal was paid £800,000 a month in exchange for granting oil concessions to British oil companies. It didn't seem to matter to anyone, except the Iraqis, that Faisal was not himself an Iraqi.

Britain soon found the cost of governing Iraq was too high, despite the oil concessions. In 1932 Iraq was granted independence. Faisal died one year later in Switzerland. His son became King and and he died in 1939, the year that WWII began.

The picture he is of British and Indian troops in the Iraqi desert in 1941. This was the year that Iraqi generals, with German sympathies, staged a coup. The British saw that the oil supplies upon which they greatly depended were in jeopardy and they invaded once again.

After WWII Iraq saw a few changes in government. In 1958 General Abdul Karim Quassim overthrew the monarchy and established a republic. By 1963 the Baath Party had taken control of all aspects of public life. The man who engineered the Baathist control of Iraqi society was Saddam Hussein.

And the war goes on..and on..and on.