File 3852/1912 Pt 2 'Persia. Conditions in South Persia. German Documents' [‎261v] (154/280)

90
VI.
The aims of the English colonial policy in Asia, for the
promotion of which Lord Curzon undertook his famous
monstrative cruise in the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. in 1904 * are given with
striking terseness in Curzon’s imperative “India must have
the Euphrates as her boundary”. The cordon drawn round
India, the crown jewel, had been extended further. Having
secured control of the Suez-Canal by the purchase of the ma
jority of shares and having occupied Egypt, England established
bases for her fleet at the entrance of the Red Sea. Steps were
also taken to dominate the entrance of the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. .
Treaties were concluded with the heads of tribes of South
and East Arabia for grants of territory and protectorates:
the islands of Sokotra, Kuria-Muria and Mesirah were taken
possession of by England; Bahrein, Oman and Hadramaut
became English protectorates by treaty. At Koweit whose
Sheikh, a vassal of England had been won over by England
with money, arms, and the bait of a title, the British Consul
raised the English flag at the entrance of the port and on two
small islands lying just outside the harbour. In order to detach
El-Ahsa from the Turkish Empire, England amply supported
the Sheikh of the Wahabites with Enghsh gold ever since 1904 .
In this way, secret treaties being also concluded with the
Sheikh of Mohammerah, the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. became a ^mare
clausum” and nothing was wanting in the fortification of the
bulwarks erected westward of India but two coping stones:
Mesopotamia and the securing of the Afghan-Indian Glacis,
viz. Persia.
England did not allow the opportunity of the world-war
to escape her; while the allied French and Russians were bleeding
to death at the western and eastern fronts, she tried to realise
the Curzon programme and to make Mesopotamia an “ap
pendage of India”.
England’s insatiable greed for territory is again revealed
by the perusal of a letter from one of the best known Oriental