'Papers relating to transfer of Middle Eastern Affairs to the Colonial Office and creation of a new Department there, 1920-1921, with Cabinet notes of Milner, Montague, Churchill, self, and others' [‎36r] (71/136)

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Thf3 Docum ent fr, th^ Property of
His PfltanniQ f.1 _ • aty's (Sovl mment"
Circulated by the Secretary of State for India.
SECRET.
MESOPOTAMIAN ADMINISTRATION.
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Memorandum ijy Secretary of State for India.
Tliej^Iire two points connected with the administration of Mesopotami^vhich
ked very largely in recent discussions, and on which I wish to offer a few
remarks. One is the cost of the army, the other the so-called “ Indianisation ” of the
administration.
(1) We are all agreed that the cost of the Army is excessive. The point
with which 1 want to deal is the suggestion that the army of occupation, if
the area to be occupied is not reduced, must cost what it tests now.
The present strength (including the troops in North-West Persia) is two
divisions, five infantry brigades, and one cavalry brigade. Successive Com-
manders-in-Chief have estimated that, if all went well, a reduction to one
division, plus one cavalry and one infantry brigade, or even less, would
eventually be possible. But in the meantime the fighting value of the larger force is,
I am informed, no greater than that of the smaller one. Many battalions are being
used to guard Turkish prisoners and Assyrian refugees. All regiments are more or
less below strength—when it was necessary to reinforce the force in North-West
Persia a few weeks ago the two battalions sent up numbered only 300 men each—
owing to the demands on them for administrative services. All this is abnormal, and,
it is to be hoped, temporary ; money is being spent for which no military return is
being received, and which it will no longer be necessary to spend when the adminis
tration settles down. Again, the administrative services, which are not really military
in their nature, nof only use up troops, but are in themselves enormously costly. The
General Officer Commanding thinks it necessary to maintain a huge Inland Water
Transport Department. The wage bill alone of this Department is over 200,000k a
month, and Lord Inchcape, in his report to the Minister of Munitions, wrote that,
from what he had heard, the fleet being retained by the military administration “is
“ much in excess of what might be considered a reasonable reserve ... If the
“ fleet were disposed of, a very expensive establishment could be demobilised.”
I more than suspect that the whole of the military administration is run on a
similarly lavish scale. “It is a sin and a shame,” writes a very competent observer
privately to a friend, “ that money should be wasted in the way that it is here.
Practically nothing is being done to build permanent, or temporary, quarters for
“ people of less consideration, but practically anybody can get a car when he likes
“ to go - six miles to the Sporting Club and back. The streets are still crowded at
“ all times of the day with motor vehicles containing officers with their wives.
“ Reductions are being effected in the strength of units, but these swollen administrative
“ staffs, living under conditions far more luxurious then they will ever see again,
“ even if they go to Simla or Delhi, remain. We have an effective strength
“ of about a division and a quarter, which is divided up for the purpose of
administration into two divisions, and two lines of communication areas—
“ all of them with large staffs, with an enormous General Headquarters on
“ top.” These conditions will be aggravated if the desire of the Imperial
General Staff (which the General Officer Commanding has not asked for) to
send three more brigades from India is persisted in ; and it is conditions like
these that are making our rule unpopular with the people, whose habits are
disturbed and whose houses are occupied by the military. I receive constant repre
sentations on this subject. Again, the hill station which has been established in
Persian territory—and to which the General Officer Commanding and the whole of
the Headquarters Staff and heads of departments withdrew on the outbreak of trouble •
in the Mosul vilayet last month, leaving only a Lieutenant-Colonel to represent them
at Baghdad, the seat of government—is an example of what I believe to be wholly
unnecessary expenditure. At all events it has caused very unfavourable comments
in Baghdad, and Sir A. Wilson tells me that he has had to use his influence to
dissuade the Chamber of Commerce from making a public protest against what they
consider to be extravagant and wasteful expenditure in this and other respects.
I am most anxious to support the Secretary of State for War in his desire to
reduce the expenditure and the army, but before it is decided that the former
cannot be reduced without reducing or withdrawing the latter, I suggest that a
searching enquiry should be instituted into present methods of military expenditure.
IO 1976 100 7.20