Soc (2012) 49:386–388 DOI 10.1007/s12115-012-9568-2

BOOK REVIEW

Charles Townshend, Desert Hell: The British Invasion of Mesopotamia Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. 2011. 624 pp. $35.00. ISBN: 978–0674059993 Alexander H. Joffe

Published online: 24 May 2012 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012

Charles Townshend’s Desert Hell, The British Invasion of Mesopotamia reminds us that before there was an American intervention in Iraq in either 1991 or 2003, or even a nation called Iraq, there was Mesopotamia in 1914. The furthest reach of the Ottoman empire was a multicultural society before the term was coined. Muslims, Christians, Jews, Kurds, Yazidis, Assyrians, Persians, and a plethora of Arab tribes coexisted unhappily in the baked mud of the Tigris and Euphrates valley. Neglected by their empire, the land was divided into three administrative districts, which were managed with typical corruption and abuse. The great irrigation works of previous millennia had mostly fallen into disrepair, leaving the twin essences of Mesopotamia, mud and water, to prevail. Still, the name Baghdad resonated mythically in Western consciousness, and interest in Mesopotamia had been stimulated in the decades prior to World War I by discoveries of the great Assyrian and Babylonian cities and the translation of the cuneiform writing system, which both opened up a new realm of history and appeared to confirm Biblical accounts. For a century prior as well the British had crept up the Persian Gulf, making tenuous alliances with the ‘Trucial States’ of Oman, Bahrain and Kuwait, as well as establishing a ‘residency’ at Bushehr, and alliances in the oil-rich region of southwest Persia. Peace, piracy, and securing the route to India were the primary goals. But as World War I began the possibility of undoing the Ottoman Empire bubbled up inside British officials previously dedicated to its preservation, while Indian officials gazed longingly at the parched plains of Mesopotamia and dreamed of resettling there some of that country’s fractious groups. A. H. Joffe (*) 56 Irving Place, New Rochelle, NY 10801, USA e-mail: [email protected]

Once committed to intervention, mission creep was inevitable. At first the Anglo-Indian forces secured the Shatt al Arab, then Basra, then surrounding areas. Baghdad loomed, although there was no strategic rationale for the British going there at all. Easy successes in occupying southernmost Iraq in 1914 were followed by failures generated by staggering incompetence. Above all there was the retreat to Kut, after the failed attack on Baghdad in November 1915. There a British army under General Charles Townshend (no relation to the author) was besieged for 6 months and forced to surrender, despite the offer of £1 million in ransom carried to the Turks by T.E. Lawrence. Some 13,000 British and Indian personnel were then brutally marched into captivity in Anatolia. The author pointedly notes the different experiences of British officers, who were permitted to take 200 lb of their gear with them, and the infantrymen, especially the Indians, who were starved, beaten and who died by the hundred. But he seems at a loss to explain the “ferocious cruelty,” perhaps unwilling to admit that Turkish brutality, perfected against the Armenians not much earlier, was an end unto itself. The closest thing to a David Petraeus-like character in 1916 was Stanley Maude. His own instructions were not to advance, but the hard-charging and inspirational Maude instructed one of his divisions to hold the line “offensively, not defensively.” With almost 100,000 men in the theater, defense could only mean one thing. It took Maude only 3 months to capture Baghdad in March 1917. After another long pause, during which time Maude died of cholera, the advance was continued. Before the war was over, all of Mesopotamia was in their hands. Efforts to think seriously about the future of Mesopotamia had begun earlier but were part of the larger projects of mobilizing ‘the Arabs’ against the Turks, vying with the French and Russians for influence, and continuing the British

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civilizing mission. Conflict between British military and civilian officials broke into the open after the capture of Baghdad, which even the Chief of the Imperial General Staff deemed as having produced an “objectionable political effect.” And so the politicals began their own games. Ibn Saud had recently won out against his Central Arabia rival Ibn Rashid, and so was feted by the British. Gertrude Bell fawned about his “splendid physique” and condescended to the “racial, the secular weariness of an ancient and self-contained people.” Early in 1918 new Prime Minister Lloyd George gave a speech promised the liberated peoples of the Middle East, including “Mesopotamia,” were “entitled to a recognition of their separate national conditions.” But was “Mesopotamia” a single unit or three separate ones? Was there to be a protectorate or trusteeship, and if so, for how long? Who would be the “Arab façade,” as some British officials bluntly called it? With covert agendas, condescending instincts, and contradictory promises, the die was cast for disaster. Bell in particular set out a vision to recreating Mesopotamian greatness in a new Iraqi nation in effect by creating Iraqis out of disparate tribes, ethnic and religious groups. In doing so she helped invest sheikhs with huge new powers, by cutting out their rivals, undoing the balance between Sunni and Shia, and by casting Jews and Christians on the absent mercies of Muslims. But with British public opposition rising, and British coffers unable to support the enormous occupation force, pressure quickly mounted to withdraw the military and find a political solution. The San Remo conference of 1920 confirmed the British Mandates over Palestine and Mesopotamia. But the tribes and nationalist officers were unhappy at the pace of movement toward independence, and the prospect of being ruled by non-Muslims, produced open rebellion, especially among Shia tribes of the Euphrates. The ‘Iraqi Uprising,’ as it was deemed, was a turning point. Even Gertrude Bell called it a “full-blown jihad”, and the tide was turned by a ‘surge’ and the new technology of air support. But was this nationalism, or simply an effort to defeat the British and then their own rivals? The British exit strategy was to import a monarch for Iraq, Faisal, son of Hussein, who had recently been expelled from his reign as King of Syria by the French. Faisal’s brother, Abdullah, was also handed his own ‘state,’ Transjordan, which was severed from Palestine. Thus kingdoms were born, one of which at least had oil. Although not emphasized by the author, countless disturbingly familiar parallels emerge throughout the book. Initially the British had no intention of occupying Baghdad much less all of Iraq, and they had no plan for ‘post-conflict reconstruction’ as it is called today. As one high-ranking administrator put it dryly, “We rushed into the business with our usual disregard for a comprehensive political scheme.” The Shia majority frightened the British, and one soldier-

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scholar later described “the atmosphere within, and radiating from the Shi’i shrines” as “sinister, obscurantist, and anti-government.” The British even conducted investigations into the disastrous planning and conduct of the war. The British also had an ever-present fear of a Turkish ignited jihad that would enflame Middle Eastern and especially Indian Muslims. But at the same time they felt a continual need to demonstrate seriousness and success to ‘the Arabs,’ calculating that only a position of strength would be respected by leaders and the ‘street’ alike. This is one of the many calculations that drew them further into the fray. Americans have learned similar lessons, that only strength is respected, but that this generates neither affection nor gratitude, but only postpones confrontations. But once strength is deployed rather than implied, what are the exit strategies? Familiar figures run throughout the book. British military and political officers were instantly drawn into the most local depths of Mesopotamian affairs. Lieutenants, Captains and Majors found themselves dealing with police and finances, they formed local ‘councils,’ and contending with endless feuds and conflicts, mostly through a plethora of sheikhs upon whom they depended to keep the peace. Political officers like Harold Dickson were one man rulers of districts, much like Rory Stewart, author of The Prince of the Marshes, was 80 years later, negotiating with tribes by day, and being robbed and sniped at by them by night. Then as now realists vied with idealists, and in the end, intervention won out, in the name of both British national interest and democratic uplift. Various experts like Mark Sykes and Gertrude Bell waxed rhapsodically about the nobility of their Arab charges, touting their cultural achievements, moral superiority, and readiness for democracy, albeit under suitable British guidance. But Townshend points out, with apparent amazement, in 1916 no less than 18 British and Indian officials had “formal advisory roles” on Mesopotamian policy. If only there had been just 18 involved in formulating US policy toward Iraq in 2002 and 2003! The British even had their equivalent of Ahmad Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress in various Arab defectors from the Ottoman army, who claimed to have knowledge of Arab nationalist officers and secret movements. The ‘Arab nation,’ newly theorized by a handful of intellectuals and officers, was dangled as a formidable reality ready to rise up in support of the British. But Townshend underplays the role of oil in British war aims and especially post-war machinations over borders and treaties. Though they stood in the background, the Turkish Petroleum Company, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, Royal Dutch Shell, and their British and German owners, profited throughout the war and played critical roles in its aftermath, especially the construction of a ‘peace for oil.’ In some fortunate ways the British and American experiences were pointedly different. The numbers of wounded in both conflicts were both staggeringly high

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but the suffering of the British even in that early technological era was so immense and unnecessary as to be scandalous, and hence politely glossed over by the investigating commission. Injured Americans were not crammed on barges and lazily dragged down river for 2 weeks. Townshend addresses the vast literature on World War I in the Middle East with confidence and ease. He describes battle scenes in depth, perhaps too much depth given the inadequacy of the few maps. His passion for strategy and tactics is evident, as is his sympathy for the infantryman. He quotes to great effect the letters and memoirs of men forced to march tens of miles through the astonishing heat without water, only to freeze at night, who were drowned in torrential rainfalls and canals, and who went days without food, mostly thanks to their incompetent and uncaring commanders. One salutary outcome, unmentioned by Townshend, was that junior British

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officers who endured Mesopotamia, like future Field Marshals Claude Auchinleck and William Slim, were far more sensitive to the suffering of their troops in the next war. Entire generations of American officers have been similarly forged in Iraq and Afghanistan. How much Mesopotamian history did American planners know before either 1991 or 2003? Would it have made a difference? Neither question can be easily answered. But thanks to Townshend we have another compelling portrait that should alert us to the benefit of studying history before wars of choice.

Alexander Joffe Advisory Editor of Society is an archaeologist and historian in New York. His web site is alexanderjoffe.net.