Fulfilling the National Oath
The spoils of the old Ottoman Empire hadn’t been thoroughly divided, and years after peace was signed between the Allies and Turkey the Iraqi-Turkish border was finally being settled. One could wonder if Britain could have settled the issue earlier, when Turkey was facing unrest, in its favour but in the second half of the 1920s, Turkey was more united than ever. As a matter of fact, the Mosul question had gained much attention in the country, where the nationalist frenzy that had begun with the independence war hadn’t settled down. This made the Turkish leaders prone to assert their positions in the region, and to demand a revision of the temporary border, located on the Brussels line.
Mustafa Kemal and his underlings however knew that the demographic situation in the province wasn’t in their favour as it was home to Assyrian Christians who hated the Turks and to Sunni Arabs. The Turkmens were expected to back the Republic, as they were kin to the Turks, but the Kurds were a wild card. Experts who had come to the region earlier had considered it dominated by Turks, but in a few years a distinct Kurdish nationality had begun to form. The Sheik Said uprising, as well as the Turkification policies that denied them any particularism, meant that the factor that made them feel Turkish, the Caliphate, was gone. It was widely expected that the attitude of the Kurds would be the key to Mosul for one side or the other.
What all agreed upon was the dislike of Britain. The Mandate itself was opposed by most Arabs, who wanted independence or union with the rest of Shams; the Kurds had been morally supported by the Allies during the early stages of their rebellions, before the larger Sheik Said uprising, but afterwards had been abandoned and never received the weapons they had hoped for; the Assyrians were supportive of the British but remained a small minority. The Kurds themselves were divided between the ones who wanted an independent Kingdom of Kurdistan and the ones who remained loyal to Turkey and felt Turkish albeit with a different language. The British administration didn’t truly campaign for Iraq, and the Arabs began to publicly oppose the colonizers, who were giving away their homeland to the old Turkish oppressors. The Syrians tried to intervene and to persuade the Iraqi government to offer autonomy to the local minorities to gain their votes, but the Iraqi government had very limited power and couldn’t make such promises. In the meantime, Turkish soldiers arrived in the region, and restored a well damaged public order.
Turkish soldiers near Mosul.
The British Army also moved in to maintain order, but their presence wasn’t as impressive as the Turkish one, as for the first time since the Battle of Megiddo the Turks were setting foot in the region, and if they didn’t openly come as conquerors many locals felt as if the old Ottomans were coming back. Comparing the situation of Ottoman Mosul, close economically to Anatolia, and the perpetual unrest Iraq was facing, coupled to the news of wonderful economic performance in Turkey, made some leaders rethink their positions. The Arab nationalists were horrified at the idea of a return of the Turks and soon the Turkish patrols were thrown rocks upon, and regularly faced attacks. In early April, order had been restored in the province, although tensions between communities ran high. The pro-Turkish campaign orchestrated by the Society with large funds given by the local Turkish consulate was everywhere, and the Iraqi nationalists could only count on private funds.
The organization of the elections was disputed by all parties, as the Turks claimed they would only accept the result concerning the small region the Ottoman Parliament had called a region of Turkey in 1920, while the British intended to let the majoritarily Arab Western regions vote. At the end of the day, the referendum was carried in the entire region, as outlined by the British protocol. Only the wealthy elite, made of conservative Muslims, would get to vote as the mass of Arabs was disfranchised. After all, the tax system in the region was disrupted and only urban elites and rural chiefs were able to cast their votes.
When the result came in, Turkey won by a small margin, a mere 47 votes. 9704 persons voted to remain a part of Iraq, while 9751 intended to go back under the wing of the Turks. However, in the regions outside the scope of the National Oath boundaries, 3228 men voted for Iraq while a mere 403 went to favour the Turks. The Kurdish vote had been determinant and widely in favour of Turkey, as they received promises of cultural autonomy within the Republic, promises the Arabs couldn’t make them. All over Turkey, people demonstrated to show their support for their government that had once again defeated the perfidious Allies, and united a new part of Turkey with the motherland. In Britain, the news was received more cautiously, and ties with Turkey were seen as paramount, for the Navy needed the Mosul oil fields for its operations in the Indian Ocean.
In the Western regions of the Mosul Vilayet, riots broke out. The Turkish and British forces were forced to withdraw, facing attacks by the tribes, reinforced by volunteers from Syria. In Baghdad it took three days to the British army to stop the riots and for three whole days, Baghdad was aflame. In the rest of the country an uprising launched by Mehdi al-Khalissi was gaining momentum although the british troops managed to keep control over vital infrastructure and cities, maintaining their hold on the country.
Abdullah ibn Hussein never had the influence of his brother Faisal and had been appointed King of Iraq merely to please its Arab population. But Abdullah wasn’t the as open-minded as Faisal and saw the inclusion of Mosul as tantamount for Iraq, to bring religious balance in a Shia country. He had no real power, as the British administrators ran the country, but in name he was a monarch, the head of state of Iraq. Following the advice of fellow Hashemites such as ‘Abd al-Ilah and nationalists - Muhammad Hasan Abi al-Mahasin was close to the puppet ruler - he thus made the most important move of his career by abdicating in favour of Faisal. Arabs, he claimed, needed unity and a rump Iraq wouldn’t be able to survive on its own. Facing the heinous resurgent Turks and treachery and disrespect from Britain, he had no other choice than to dissolve his country.
Abdullah and ‘Abd al-Ilah, shortly before the abdication.
At the same time, the nationalist Kurds began to spread their propaganda among the general Kurdish population, that was less supportive of Turkey than the elites, and underground organizations were created to arm and train volunteers before the day of the liberation of all Kurdistan could come. The Khoybun was the main party behind this movement and from Beirut it led the fight for Kurdish freedom. Turkey had to openly welcome the Kurdish regions of Iraq into the republic but at the same time the Kurdish threat was growing and factions in the Parliament opposed all exceptions to Turkification.
The legality of the events in Iraq was dubious and as May Day was celebrated all around the world, Paris, London and Ankara would have to find a fitting solution, to solve the Mosul Question once and for all.
