Churchill and Iraq

[Eriugena]

British Air Power and Colonial Control in Iraq: 1920 – 1925

By David E. Omissi



The following text is an excerpt from Air Power and Colonial Control: The Royal Air Force, 1919–1939 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990). Omissi often refers to "Mesopotamia," the older name for the territory that would soon be called Iraq.
Omissi is Senior Lecturer in the Department of History, University of Hull (UK)

(pp. 19-20)

Whatever shape the future administration of Iraq might assume, there were many within the British government who could justify, in various ways, a continued British presence in the country, although their reasoning was often challenged by those sections of the press and public who deplored a lengthy occupation. Mesopotamia had only been wrested from the Turks with the sacrifice of many lives and much money, and some clear advantage had to be derived if the imperial victories, and defeats, were to seem worthwhile. A secure route to India across the Middle East offered a useful alternative to the main links by mandatory relationship and the repeated denials of British occupation. As the Royal Navy gradually converted from coal-burning to oil-burning ships, it became more and more difficult to obtain supplies of high quality fuel. Dependence upon the production of the United States and Mexico was a strategic embarrassment which might best be averted by the development of Mesopotamian reserves. The motive power of these hopes for British policy in the early 1920s is not diminished by the fact that they were never entirely fulfilled.

(pp. 20-21)

The cost of the large Mesopotamian garrison was thought excessive by almost all British politicians, but it was much less clear how to limit the occupying forces without loosening the imperial hold over at least part of the country. In August 1919 [Minister of War and Air Winston] Churchill had warned that the garrison of 25,000 British and 80,000 Indian troops would have to be drastically cut, and in November 1919 he suggested that British power could be more cheaply maintained if mechanized forces replaced some units of foot. He advised that the infantry garrison be reduced to a small force in a fortified camp near Baghdad, with blockhouses at other important points, while mechanized units-on land, on river and in the air-patrolled the rest of the country. This was the first of several similar schemes proposed by Churchill over the next two years. […]

But Churchill persisted in his attempts to find cheaper method of holding Mesopotamia. By early 1920 the garrison still included 14, 000 British troops, besides Indians, and expenditure was then running at about £18 million a year. Driven by this financial imperative, Churchill now began to think along more radical military lines. In mid-February he asked [Chief of the Air Staff Hugh] Trenchard whether he would be ‘prepared to take Mesopotamia on’: the bat an increase of five or six million pounds in the air force estimates and appointment of an Air Officer as Commander-in-Chief. Churchill believed that the country could be cheaply policed by aircraft armed with gas bombs, supported by as few as 4,000 British and 10,000 Indian troops; and he invited Trenchard to submit a scheme along those lines. Trenchard obliged, as he wanted to find an independent peacetime role to secure the future of his obliged, as he wanted to find an independent peacetime role to secure the future of his fledging service. The Air Staff drew up a plan by which Mesopotamia would be garrisoned by ten air force squadrons, mainly concentrated at Baghdad. Regular troops would be used only to guard air bases and perhaps for some limited co-operation with the bombers. As Trenchard pointed out, aircraft could strike swiftly into areas barely accessible to ground forces, could distribute propaganda and could obtain early intelligence of hostile masses. Churchill outlined his scheme to the House of Commons on 22 March.

(pp. 22-23)

[President Woodrow] Wilson’s skepticism about air control might have been discounted as his usual scaremongering were it not for the outbreak of a full-scale uprising in Mesopotamia in the summer of 1920. It is impossible to accept the assertion of [professor Elie] Kedourie that the rising was the product of ‘encouragement from outside’ and was important only in so far as external agitation ‘succeeded in magnifying its extent and significance’. On the contrary, the revolt shook the very foundations of British rule in Mesopotamia, and brought about major changes in political and military policy. The rising, mainly a response to British tax policy, began in Rumaitha in early July and insurrection was general along the lower Euphrates by the middle of the month. After a column composed mainly of the 2 Manchesters was almost entirely destroyed by a rebel ambush, a division of Indian reinforcements was hastily summoned to Basra, but the first of these reserves did not arrive until 7 August. The situation was at its most serious during the last week of August when the rebellion spread to the upper Euphrates and to the countryside around Baghdad: there were also the first signs of unrest in Kurdistan. At the height of their effort the tribesmen fielded about 131,000 men, of whom perhaps half were armed with modern rifles. Their leaders were drawn mainly from those groups whose power had waned under British rule: Shia mujahids, former Ottoman civil servants and ex-officers of the Turkish armies. The leading Arab patriots in Baghdad and the wealthy merchants of Basra, men with more to lose, stood aloof and awaited the event. For the British the crisis had passed by mid-September but heavy fighting went on until the end of the following month.

Before the rebellion the squadrons of the Royal Air Force had already been active in the policing of Iraq. Lieutenant-General Aylmer Haldane praised the ‘admirable work of …the Raf under extremely arduous conditions’ after bombers had been used to suppress unrest in Kurdistan in the winter of 1919-20 and again the following spring. Aircraft also patrolled the British line of communications between Baghdad and Mosul and took punitive action against the Sufran tribe in the Diwaniyah area. But the 1920 rebellion convinced several observers that aircraft could not replace ground troops as the main imperial police force in Iraq. Haldane acknowledged that aeroplanes had proved proved of great value during the revolt for reconnaissance, close support, pursuit, rapid communication and demonstration; but he denied that aircraft alone could force the submission of tribes who were committed to rebellion. [Civil Commissiner] Arnold Wilson believed that the main the main cause of the revolt was the perceived military weakness of the imperial forces after the reduction of the garrison: ‘to kick a man when he is down is the most popular pastime in the East, sanctioned by centuries of precept and practice’. He also suggested however, that the ‘use of aeroplanes against recalcitrants’ had created deep currents of resentment which had surfaced in rebellion. In August 1920 the Times ran a leading article which claimed that the revolt had tested the methods of air control and found them wanting; and this before they had even been tried.

Both Churchill and Trenchard tried to vast the most flattering light upon actions of the Royal Air Force. During the first week of July there were fierce fighting around Samawa and Rumaitha on the Euphrates but, Churchill told the Cabinet on 7 July, ‘our attack was successful...The enemy were bombed and machine-gunned with effect by aeroplanes which cooperated with the troops.’ During the blockade of Rumaitha, aircraft attacked rebel positions and dropped ammunition and food to the beleaguered imperial garrison.

(pp. 39) The policing role of most political moment carried out by the Royal Air Force during the 1920s was to maintain the power of the Arab kingdoms in Transjordan and Iraq; but aeroplanes also helped to dominate other populations under British sway. Schemes of air control similar to that practiced in Mesopotamia were set up in the Palestine Mandate in 1922 and in the Aden Protectorate six yeats later. Bombers were active at various times against rioters in Egypt, tribesmen on the Frontier, pastoralists in the Southern Sudan and nomads in the Somali hinterland. The air force intervened against organized workers in the British class struggle and against the rebels fighting for Irish independence. As the Treasury imposed strict limits upon military spending, each of the three services fought hard against the others for a larger share of a smaller whole, so the Air Ministry tried to extend the geographical limits of air policing to gain prestige, influence and funds.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security...1990airpow.htm

[Eriugena]

Also, this article taken from a socialist publication (based on Omissi's book):
How the British bombed Iraq in the 1920s

By Henry Michaels
1 April 2003

overnments, and most Western media pundits, have tried to explain the determined resistance of the Iraqi people to the US-led assault by referring to the first Bush administration’s 1991 betrayal of the Kurds in the north and Shiites in the south. Once Iraqis are confident that the Allies are serious about occupying the country, the argument goes, they will rise up and welcome them as liberators.

These assertions ignore the deeply-felt hostility to decades of colonial and semi-colonial rule by the Western powers, who long plundered Iraq’s oil reserves. During World War I, Mesopotamia was occupied by British forces, and it became a British mandated territory in 1920. In 1921, a kingdom was established under Faisal I, son of King Hussein of Hejaz and leader of the Arab Army in World War I. Britain withdrew from Iraq in 1932, but British and American oil companies retained their grip over the country.

One of the most bitter chapters in this history, one with direct parallels to the current military campaign, occurred during the 1920s. In many respects, the air war now being employed in Iraq is an offshoot of a military policy developed by Britain as it clung to its Iraqi colony 80 years ago.

Confronting a financial crisis after World War I, in mid-February 1920 Minister of War and Air Winston Churchill asked Chief of the Air Staff Hugh Trenchard to draw up a plan whereby Mesopotamia could be cheaply policed by aircraft armed with gas bombs, supported by as few as 4,000 British and 10,000 Indian troops.

Several months later, a widespread uprising broke out, which was only put down through months of heavy aerial bombardment, including the use of mustard gas. At the height of the suppression, both Churchill and Trenchard tried to put the most flattering light upon actions of the Royal Air Force.

British historian David Omissi, author of Air Power and Colonial Control: The Royal Air Force 1919-1939, records: “During the first week of July there was fierce fighting around Samawa and Rumaitha on the Euphrates but, Churchill told the Cabinet on 7 July, ‘our attack was successful.... The enemy were bombed and machine-gunned with effect by aeroplanes which cooperated with the troops’.”

The order issued by one RAF wing commander, J.A. Chamier, specified: “The attack with bombs and machine guns must be relentless and unremitting and carried on continuously by day and night, on houses, inhabitants, crops and cattle.”

Arthur “Bomber” Harris, a young RAF squadron commander, reported after a mission in 1924: “The Arab and Kurd now know what real bombing means, in casualties and damage: They know that within 45 minutes a full-sized village can be practically wiped out and a third of its inhabitants killed or injured.”

The RAF sent a report to the British Parliament outlining the steps that its pilots had taken to avoid civilian casualties. The air war was less brutal than other forms of military control, it stated, concluding that “the main purpose is to bring about submission with the minimum of destruction and loss of life.”

Knowing the truth, at least one military officer resigned. Air Commander Lionel Charlton sent a letter of protest and resigned in 1923 over what he considered the “policy of intimidation by bomb” after visiting a local hospital full of injured civilians.

The methods pioneered in Iraq were applied throughout the Middle East. Omissi writes: “The policing role of most political moment carried out by the Royal Air Force during the 1920s was to maintain the power of the Arab kingdoms in Transjordan and Iraq; but aeroplanes also helped to dominate other populations under British sway.

“Schemes of air control similar to that practiced in Mesopotamia were set up in the Palestine Mandate in 1922 and in the Aden Protectorate six years later. Bombers were active at various times against rioters in Egypt, tribesmen on the Frontier, pastoralists in the Southern Sudan and nomads in the Somali hinterland.”

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/ap...-a01_prn.shtml

[Biggles]

I dont refute any of it, its a little anti-British in tone but when talking about parts of Britains history what other tone could you use .

Can we now have some anti-German exerts , their history isnt exactly smudge free either .

[Eriugena]

Originally Posted by Mr Curzon Biggles

I dont refute any of it

Well you are hardly in a position to do that now!

its a little anti-British in tone but when talking about parts of Britains history what other tone could you use .

So anything that paints less than a rosy picture of Birtain's history is anti-British? Very odd. So who decides what is pro-British - considering that the people of Britain do not all think the same way about their past?

Can we now have some anti-German exerts , their history isnt exactly smudge free either

I'm sure you can dig something up. You might even try and find some anti-Irish stuff seein as you like to personalise everything

[Biggles]

Ermm no i didnt mean it was anti-British because its about unpleasant things the British did i meant the tone of the author towards Churchill for one is quite demeaning to me at least .

[Eriugena]

Originally Posted by Mr Curzon Biggles

Ermm no i didnt mean it was anti-British because its about unpleasant things the British did i meant the tone of the author towards Churchill for one is quite demeaning to me at least .

How are you supposed to talk about a man who gassed defenceless civilians? This reveals that you have swallowed the Churchill myth, so much for your protestations to the contrary.

[Biggles]

You could say the same about Bush, or Blair, isnt it something like 100,000 Iraqi civilians who have died so far ?.

Im keeping my mind open, that means not swallowing what you say either .

[Zyklop]

The Churchill you didn't know

Thousands voted him the greatest Briton - but did they know about his views on Gandhi, gassing and Jews...

[Churchill in favour of gassing 'lower grade' of races]:
"I do not understand the squeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favour of using poisonous gas against uncivilised tribes." -- Writing as president of the Air Council, 1919

[Churchill the racist]:
"It is alarming and nauseating to see Mr Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well known in the east, striding half naked up the steps of the viceregal palace, while he is still organising and conducting a campaign of civil disobedience, to parlay on equal terms with the representative of the Emperor-King." -- Commenting on Gandhi's meeting with the Viceroy of India, 1931

[Churchill the racist]:
"(India is) a godless land of snobs and bores." -- In a letter to his mother, 1896

[Churchill in favour of exterminating lower grade of races]:
"I do not admit... that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America, or the black people of Australia... by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race... has come in and taken its place." -- Churchill to Palestine Royal Commission, 1937

[Churchills views on communist Russia, more extreme than Hitler's]:
"(We must rally against) a poisoned Russia, an infected Russia of armed hordes not only smiting with bayonet and cannon, but accompanied and preceded by swarms of typhus-bearing vermin." -- Quoted in the Boston Review, April/May 2001

[Churchill on the Irish spectre, horrid and inexorcisable]:
"The choice was clearly open: crush them with vain and unstinted force, or try to give them what they want. These were the only alternatives and most people were unprepared for either. Here indeed was the Irish spectre - horrid and inexorcisable." -- Writing in The World Crisis and the Aftermath, 1923-31

[Churchill wanted to sterilize the mental ill]:
"The unnatural and increasingly rapid growth of the feeble-minded and insane classes, coupled as it is with a steady restriction among all the thrifty, energetic and superior stocks, constitutes a national and race danger which it is impossible to exaggerate... I feel that the source from which the stream of madness is fed should be cut off and sealed up before another year has passed." -- Churchill to Asquith, 1910

[Churchill in praise of Adolf Hitler]:
"One may dislike Hitler's system and yet admire his patriotic achievement. If our country were defeated, I hope we should find a champion as admirable to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations." -- From his Great Contemporaries, 1937

[Churchill condemns the Polish exile government]:
"You are callous people who want to wreck Europe - you do not care about the future of Europe, you have only your own miserable interests in mind." -- Addressing the London Polish government at a British Embassy meeting, October 1944

[Churchill handing over whole nations to Stalin]:
"So far as Britain and Russia were concerned, how would it do for you to have 90% of Romania, for us to have 90% of the say in Greece, and go 50/50 about Yugoslavia?" -- Addressing Stalin in Moscow, October 1944

[Churchill the anti-Semite]:
"This movement among the Jews is not new. From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, and down to Trotsky (Russia), Bela Kun (Hungary), Rosa Luxembourg (Germany), and Emma Goldman (United States)... this worldwide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been steadily growing. It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the 19th century; and now at last this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their heads and have become practically the undisputed masters of that enormous empire." -- Writing on 'Zionism versus Bolshevism' in the Illustrated Sunday Herald, February 1920

http://globalfire.tv/nj/04en/history/churchillunknown.htm

[Eriugena]

Originally Posted by Mr Curzon Biggles

You could say the same about Bush, or Blair, isnt it something like 100,000 Iraqi civilians who have died so far ?.

Im keeping my mind open, that means not swallowing what you say either .

I don't know what you mean by 'swallowing' - we are having a discussion, no? As fo Bush and Blair. Bush is a friend of "the haves and the have mores" as he says himself. Blair might even be worse than Churchill because Blair gives this impression of being a deeply concerned and moral man and a nice guy. He is none of those things.
Also, the 100,000 figure is not verified, although it is within the bounds of possibility if you include indirect deaths as well.

[Biggles]

Im not turning a blind eye mate, but imagine for a second Churchill was an Irish leader who got Ireland through a World War () and is a very much distinguished & respected person in British society, then you see my point .

I agree with you on Blair.

Originally Posted by Zyklop

The Churchill you didn't know

Thousands voted him the greatest Briton - but did they know about his views on Gandhi, gassing and Jews...

[Churchill in favour of gassing 'lower grade' of races]:
"I do not understand the squeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favour of using poisonous gas against uncivilised tribes." -- Writing as president of the Air Council, 1919

[Churchill the racist]:
"It is alarming and nauseating to see Mr Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well known in the east, striding half naked up the steps of the viceregal palace, while he is still organising and conducting a campaign of civil disobedience, to parlay on equal terms with the representative of the Emperor-King." -- Commenting on Gandhi's meeting with the Viceroy of India, 1931

[Churchill the racist]:
"(India is) a godless land of snobs and bores." -- In a letter to his mother, 1896

[Churchill in favour of exterminating lower grade of races]:
"I do not admit... that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America, or the black people of Australia... by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race... has come in and taken its place." -- Churchill to Palestine Royal Commission, 1937

[Churchills views on communist Russia, more extreme than Hitler's]:
"(We must rally against) a poisoned Russia, an infected Russia of armed hordes not only smiting with bayonet and cannon, but accompanied and preceded by swarms of typhus-bearing vermin." -- Quoted in the Boston Review, April/May 2001

[Churchill on the Irish spectre, horrid and inexorcisable]:
"The choice was clearly open: crush them with vain and unstinted force, or try to give them what they want. These were the only alternatives and most people were unprepared for either. Here indeed was the Irish spectre - horrid and inexorcisable." -- Writing in The World Crisis and the Aftermath, 1923-31

[Churchill wanted to sterilize the mental ill]:
"The unnatural and increasingly rapid growth of the feeble-minded and insane classes, coupled as it is with a steady restriction among all the thrifty, energetic and superior stocks, constitutes a national and race danger which it is impossible to exaggerate... I feel that the source from which the stream of madness is fed should be cut off and sealed up before another year has passed." -- Churchill to Asquith, 1910

[Churchill in praise of Adolf Hitler]:
"One may dislike Hitler's system and yet admire his patriotic achievement. If our country were defeated, I hope we should find a champion as admirable to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations." -- From his Great Contemporaries, 1937

[Churchill condemns the Polish exile government]:
"You are callous people who want to wreck Europe - you do not care about the future of Europe, you have only your own miserable interests in mind." -- Addressing the London Polish government at a British Embassy meeting, October 1944

[Churchill handing over whole nations to Stalin]:
"So far as Britain and Russia were concerned, how would it do for you to have 90% of Romania, for us to have 90% of the say in Greece, and go 50/50 about Yugoslavia?" -- Addressing Stalin in Moscow, October 1944

[Churchill the anti-Semite]:
"This movement among the Jews is not new. From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, and down to Trotsky (Russia), Bela Kun (Hungary), Rosa Luxembourg (Germany), and Emma Goldman (United States)... this worldwide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been steadily growing. It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the 19th century; and now at last this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their heads and have become practically the undisputed masters of that enormous empire." -- Writing on 'Zionism versus Bolshevism' in the Illustrated Sunday Herald, February 1920

http://globalfire.tv/nj/04en/history...illunknown.htm

I'm begining to like Churchill

[Eriugena]

Originally Posted by Mr Curzon Biggles

Im not turning a blind eye mate, but imagine for a second Churchill was an Irish leader who got Ireland through a World War () and is a very much distinguished & respected person in British society, then you see my point .

But this is the lie. Churchill dragged Britain into a war that was bad for Britain. His whole record is a disgrace taken rom a purely British point of view!

[Biggles]

Originally Posted by Reinhold Elstner

But this is the lie. Churchill dragged Britain into a war that was bad for Britain. His whole record is a disgrace taken rom a purely British point of view!

Whatever, and yes im being ignorant.

[Eriugena]

Originally Posted by Mr Curzon Biggles

Whatever, and yes im being ignorant.

Thats unfortunate, because then you forfeit the right to be taken seriously.

[Arawn]

"(India is) a godless land of snobs and bores."

Hehe, thats not far from the truth