"تاريخ الحرب الكبرى استنادًا إلى وثائق رسمية. الحملة في بلاد الرافدين ١٩١٤-١٩١٨. مجلد I" [و‎‎٣‎٤] (٤٥٤/٧٢)

BRITISH PRE-WAR POLICY
47
waters over which she has enjoyed no formal lordship :
has kept, in strange ports, an open door through which
the traders of every nation might have as free access to
distant markets as her own.”*
While our political relations with Turkey and Persia were
conducted by our Foreign Office in London, those with the
Persian Gulf were to a great extent controlled by the Govern
ment of India.f The British Consular representatives in
Mesopotamia under the Foreign Office were the Consul-General
at Baghdad and the Consuls at Mosul, Karbala and Basra.
The Political Resident in the Persian Gulf who was under the
Indian Government was also Consul-General at Bushire, and
to that extent he was under the Foreign Office ; he received
His Majesty s Commission as Consul-General for the provinces
of Pars, Khuzistan and Luristan and the district of Lingeh
and for the coasts and islands of the Persian Gulf, being within
the dominions of Persia. He resided at Bushire and the cost
of his establishment was divided between Great Britain and
India. His judicial powers and jurisdiction were exercised
by virtue of his commission as Consul-General, under the
Persian Coast and Islands Order in Council. He exercised
an undefined but considerable influence upon the political
affairs, more especially external, of Muscat, the Trucial States,
Bahrein and Kuwait, at which places the representatives of
the Indian Government were under him.
Before concluding this chapter it is necessary to refer briefly
to Persia. Situated, as she was, astride the one main outlet
to the east from the Mesopotamian plain, some parts of northern
Persia suffered during the war somewhat severely from the
Turco-Russian operations. The whole country, moreover, was
traversed by Turco-German emissaries and at one time their
activities appeared to indicate them as the advance agents of
an invading force with an objective still further east; but
their efforts were either frustrated or died out for want of
support. British relations with Persia have been of a friendly
and intimate character for many years and owing to her
geographical situation we have special reasons to regard with
* Mr. Thomas Jewell Bennett’s paper on " The Past and Present Connection
of England with Persian Gulf,” read before The Society of Arts on
8th May 1902.
f This arrangement was the reason for the division between the General
Staffs at the War Office and in India of the pre-war duties for the collection
of Military Intelligence described in the next chapter. Collection of such
intelligence in peace-time is intimately connected with our political relations
with the areas in question.