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June 2, 2009 During the 16th and the 17th centuries the lands making up present day Iraq where gradually incorporated into the Ottoman Empire as the three Mesopotamian provinces based around the towns of: Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra. The British Mesopotamia Expeditionary Force landed at Basra at the end of November 1914 defeating a Turkish force at Sh’aiba on April 1915,advancing fifty miles to the outskirts of Baghdad by the end of November. A Turkish counter attack drove them to Kut. During the month of March of 1917 Baghdad eventually fell to British forces, Kirkuk not occupied until 1918 resulting in the destruction of the Turkish 6th Army.The Ottomans sued for peace. The British moved on to Mosul demanding its surrender. The Ottomans protested that this was not part of Mesopotamia and not covered in the original surrender agreement. The British persisted ,Mosul eventually placed under their control. In 1914 the governor Sayyid Talib had approached the British asking that Basra be incorporated within the British Empire. Planning ahead the British instead moved him to India where he stayed until the end of the war,to be brought back to Basra in 1920, the thinking behind this being that he would be useful to British plans for the area. In 1920 there was an armed revolt by the Kurdish chiefs who captured towns on the Persian border .The Shaiks of Kut and Asmara regions, their land holdings approved by the British, refused to take part thus allowing the British time to regain control of the whole area by the end of October 1920.With the surrender of the leaders Najaf and Karbala, the revolt was over leaving five hundred British troops dead and two thousand Iraqis. In 1923 the British became aware that the shaik Mahmud of the old Mosul province had plans to incorporate it into Kurdistan, Turkish forces and the northern chieftains supporting him. The Royal Air Force attacked in March, After conducting repeated attacks British and Iraqi forces re occupied Sulainaya town on July of 1924. Shaik Mahmud fled to Persian frontier where he occupied himself with guerrillas attacks upon British and Iraqi forces until his capture in 1931. The Anglo Iraqi treaty signed in 1930 gave the British control of the Habbaniya airbase outside of Baghdad and the Shu’aiba base outside of Basra including all of its facilities. In the event of war Britain had the right to move troops through Iraq. A further specification was that Iraq’s military equipment and military advisers all must come from Britain. In 1932 riots and demonstrations in Kurdish areas lead to fighting pinning down large parts of the Iraqi Army. The Royal Air Force helped to suppress the revolt and within one month Shaik Mahmud sued for peace. Insurrections and RAF counter measure occurred spasmodically until the coup of 1941.This was the age of the biplane ground attack aircraft allied with the RAF armoured car squadrons. (One of its members Lawrence of Arabia going under the alias of Aircraftman Ross.) The main RAF base at Habbania contained some eighty or so elderly training aircraft consisting of thirty two Audaxes, 29 Oxfords, 9 Gladiators, 8 Gordon's and 1 Blenheim of 'The No 4 Flight Training School'. Most were capable of carrying only a limited number of 25 pound bombs. Approximately a third of the aircraft subsequently proved to be unserviceable or unsuitable for combat. Apart from these the only other available aircraft at RAF Habbaniya capable of carrying heavy bomb loads were the three heavy unwieldy biplane bombers, the Vickers Valentia's of the Communications Flight. There was another coup which unlike the others was aimed at the regent who directed the Iraqi armed forces. Britain, in order to test the new government, asked permission to land troops. The Iraqis agreed in a limited way. Troops were landed at Basra, the Iraqi government countering by stationing troops on the hills over looking Habbaniya air base. The Iraqi commander informed the British commander that all air activity must cease; if not aircraft landing and taking off would be fired at. The British countered by stating that the Iraqi troops must be withdrawn or a state of war would exist between the two countries. There was no withdrawal. The British attacked driving the Iraqis to Baghdad. After two days of fighting they took up positions in and around Falluja. Troops were called in from India and assembled in Trans -Jordan. Iraqi Prime minister Rashid Ali saw a chance for a more general assault upon the British and so asked for help from the Axis powers. Germany and Italy enlisted the aid of Vichy France which provided heavy weapons ,small arms, and about thirty warplanes for Mosul which played but a small part in the campaign.
Britain built up forces in Basra cutting off Baghdad
from the north. Although numerically superior the
Iraqi army could not withstand the British military
power, British troops were soon on he outskirts of Baghdad, the Iraqi government disintegrating with the
relentless advance upon the capital, the
tribes not only not responding to the call to jihad, the Kurds
and the Shia’a actually joining the British in fighting the Sunni fascists.
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