of date-palms on each side of the river. But every town as far north as Samarra on the Tigris and 'Ana on the Euphrates has its date- groves. Large flocks of sheep are raised, particularly in the Mosul and Kurdistan areas ; their wool and skins are important articles of export.
Industries. The industries of the country dyeing, tanning, leather- working, silk-spinning and weaving are for the local market only. The large towns, especially Bagdad, live on the distributing trade of Mesopotamia and Persia. On account of the competition of the Caucasus routes Bagdad was declining in importance during the decade before the World War.
POLITICAL HISTORY, 1910-21
The Constantinople revolution of 1908 brought to Mesopota- mia as to other parts of the Turkish Empire such advantages as freedom to travel, but the population outside the big towns was scarcely affected. The strong centralizing influence of the Committee of Union and Progress was represented by branches in the large towns, and the decentralization (Adem-i-Merkeziyet) party seems to have had little open support, though the tribal Arab continued to resist centralization as represented by attempts to collect taxes, and in Basra a local notable, Saiyid Talib, was able to raise himself to a position of influence from which no efforts of the Turkish Government could oust him. In the matter of education Syria was half a century ahead and that perhaps accounts for the greater strength of the Arab movement in Syria. Even in the use of their mother tongue the inhabitants of Mes- opotamia seem to have been lukewarm, and the concession re- garding the teaching of Arabic and its use in official documents, wrung from the Turks mainly by disturbances in the Yemen, was little appreciated if indeed adopted in Mesopotamia. The most important posts, e.g. the governorships of Bagdad and Mosul, continued to be filled by Turks, and such posts of influence as were given to Mesopotamians went, with very few exceptions, to the local Turks of Kirkuk, Erbil, etc. Attempts to encourage education were, however, made, and the largest school in Bagdad owes its construction to a subscription not perhaps always voluntary raised by the Committee of Union and Progress. The " Young Turks " also paid some attention to the possibility of developing Mesopotamia. They engaged the distinguished engineer Sir William Willcocks to draw up an irrigation scheme for the country and, by acting on his report to the extent of getting a British firm to build the Hindiya Barrage, whereby the Euphrates could at will be turned down the left arm of the river, past Hilla and Diwaniya, they restored to prosperity an area which had fallen into destitution and been largely depopu- lated. The claim that this policy was due to real foresight on the part of the " Young Turks " is discounted to some extent by the manner in which they treated the Crown lands which had formerly belonged to Sultan 'Abdul Hamid and had been con- fiscated when he was deposed. 'Abdul Hamid had been a model landlord to the cultivators of these estates, giving advances of seed on easy terms and granting remissions of revenue in bad years; but the Turkish Government concerned itself with nothing but squeezing out the maximum revenue, and the estates had deteriorated considerably by the time the war began. One real concession, however, was made to provincial opinion in Turkey, and Mesopotamia profited by this. Certain minor heads of revenue were allocated to objects of public utility, e.g. education and medical work, in each province and the control of the expenditure was given to the provincial council.
Law and order were no better, though perhaps no worse, than in 'Abdul Hamid's time. Nearly every summer, when the crops had been harvested, there was trouble somewhere. Travel on the Hai and the Euphrates was often unsafe; there were several serious acts of piracy on the Shatt al 'Arab at Basra; the inhabi- tants of Diwaniya cut off the head of their governor; and in the spring of 1914 Turkish forces were defeated in a pitched battle at Shatra and lost guns and many men.
An important and disagreeable feature of the period was the anti-British attitude of the Turkish authorities in Mesopotamia. Partly as a result of a quite legitimate desire to throw off all foreign control, as represented especially by the judicial and other privileges of foreigners (usually known as the " Capitula-
tions "), and partly as a consequence of an inflated conceit, the " Young Turk " was inclined to be hostile to foreigners in Turkey, and in Mesopotamia there were few other foreigners to share this hostility with the British. Her long connexion with the Persian Gulf, the proximity of Basra to India, the importance attached by the Indian Government to Mesopotamia as a market and as the goal of thousands of Indian pilgrims, and the importance of British trade in the country, combined to give Great Britain a predominant position in Mesopotamia, and that predominance was emphasized by certain privileges consecrated by concession or custom, notably the right of the British Consu- late-General at Bagdad to have a sepoy guard at the consulate and an armed Royal Indian Marine ship in the river, and the right of Messrs. Lynch to run boats on the Tigris and to fly the British flag on them. There is no doubt that the hostility of the Turks was fostered by the Germans, who had begun to build, a section of the Bagdad railway northwards from Bagdad and had started several German firms in Mesopotamia. Meanwhile British interests were increasing in importance, owing to the relations with the neighbouring sheikhs of Kuwait and Moham- merah, to the growth of the oil interests just over the Persian border, and to the now urgent necessity of ensuring that no European Power should establish itself at the head of the Persian Gulf. Negotiations which had for their object the settlement of all outstanding questions in Mesopotamia were in progress when the World War broke out. It is said that, under an agree- ment which had been initialed but not ratified, the British Government were to participate in the last section Bagdad to Basra of the Bagdad railway, and were to have a controlling interest in the port of Basra.
The outbreak of the World War, however, in Aug. 1914 put an end to this. It speedily became evident that the attitude of Turkey towards the Allies would at best be that of malevolent neutrality, and in Mesopotamia this attitude was particularly marked. Before the end of Aug. the Basra authorities were making badly concealed preparations for blocking the Shatt al "Arab, with the result that only two British vessels ventured up to Basra during the next two months, and those at the masters' own risk and peril. In defiance of ancient treaties the Turks, believing that Europe was too busy to resent any affront, how- ever gross, issued decrees declaring that as from Oct. i 1914 the Capitulations would cease to be recognized, the foreign post- offices in Turkey would be closed, and the customs dues would be raised from 11% to 15% ad valorem. The predominance of British over all other foreign interests in Basra and Bagdad made it seem to the local population as though these measures were directed almost exclusively against England, and anti- British feeling was created and fostered by the dissemination of propaganda derived mainly from German sources. Not content with action within their own borders, the Turks threatened the sheikh of Mohammerah and the independent sheikh of Kuwait with hostile action unless they adopted a policy of active coopera- tion with the Turks.
With the outbreak of war consequent on the Turkish bom- bardment of Odessa the Turkish officials' policy of pin-pricks changed to active hostility. British and British-Indian subjects were arrested and British goods of all kinds seized; and at the British Consulate-General at Bagdad the floors of the cellars were pulled up in a vain search for the stores of arms and ammu- nition and the hoards of gold which were supposed to be hid- den there to be used in a British attempt to seize Mesopotamia.
The hostile attitude of the Turkish Government, their threats to the friends of Great Britain in the Persian Gulf, and the menace to the oil industry in Persia had already compelled the British Government to take precautionary measures. In Oct. a force of all arms was sent from India to Bahrein to await developments. When the Turks forced war on the Allies by attacking Russia, this force moved up the Gulf and occupied Fao and, after some resistance, Basra. The military campaign, from the occupation of Basra with one division till the time of the Armistice, when British and Indian troops the advance- guard of a great host were at Mosul, threw a great strain
