'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' [‎45r] (89/136)

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necessary for a very l)rief inspection of troops, and a hurried visit to the Menjill Pass
and for the overhaul on two occasions of the cars which I utilized. On the morning
of 18th June I arrived again in Baghdad, having passed two nights in the train and
covered 1,100 miles in motor car during my absence from headquarters.
Major-General Leslie, who commanded Mesopotamia between the time of General
MacMunn’s departure and my arrival in Baghdad, was in Baghdad as my representative
and was fully acquainted with the situation. My General Staff (less one officer
accompanying me) and a representative of the Administrative Staff remained in
Baghdad.
'lOth September, 1920.
(Signed) A. Haldane, Lieut.-General,
Commanding-in- Chief,
Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force.
APPENDIX.
Note by the Secretary of State for India.
The Secretary of State for War has very kindly shown me his Memorandum and
asked me if I wished to make any remarks on it. I should like to say two things only.
1. The purpose of my Memorandum of 23rd July was not to make “allegations,”
but to show that the present very heavy cost of the garrison of Mesopotamia is not
necessarily the future cost. I wanted to show this in order to meet the argument,
which has just been revived, that because the army in Mesopotamia is costing
£x millions a year, and because we cannot afford £x millions, the only alternative is to
have no army in Mesopotamia. My point was that the cost is at present excessive,
partly for unavoidable reasons—the use,of troops for administrative purposes, guarding
prisoners, and the like, the effect of which is to reduce the fighting power of the present
force to that of a force half its size—partly for the avoidable reason of insufficiently
controlled expenditure. And the inference which I intended to be drawn was that,
when normal peace conditions are restored, both these sets of reasons will disappear, and
the cost of the Army of Occupation will fall automatically.
I may have been mistaken in one or two points of detail, but it seems to me that
General Haldane’s very candid replies to the so-called “ allegations” practically admit
my case, and I hope my colleagues will duly note them. There seems to be no reason
in the nature of things why a division in Mesopotamia should cost substantially more
than a division in, e.g., India.
2. I do not wish to go into the details of General Haldane’s movements in June
and July, and I do not complain of his visit to Tehran. What I thought, and still
think, an error of judgment on his part was the removal of himself and his head
quarters to summer quarters at Ka.rind, in Persia. Such a move was not thought
necessary by his predecessors, and seems to me to have been peculiarly inconvenient in
the conditions prevailing last summer.
E. S. M.