'Mosul Question, Lausanne 1922-1923 and after - Papers, despatches, speeches - Hotel de la Mer at Lausanne - Correspondence about oil' [‎56v] (114/501)

4
2. The Kurds of the Mosul Vilayet showed, throughout the war, that far from
being united with the Turks in aim, they regarded the Turkish quarrel
with the Entente as none of theirs. The Turkish delegation can be
challenged to produce any evidence that the Turkish forces in Irak ever
received any assistance from the Kurds against the British. A small
Kurdish tribal contingent was present with the Turkish force at
Shu’aibah, near Basra, in the spring of 1915. They were present, but
they took an insignificant part in the operations; they returned to their
homes after the battle; and from that time the Turks got no more help
from the Kurds than they did from the Arabs. The Kurds of the Kifri
and Kirkuk areas left their homes and lands in great numbers to avoid
conscription, and as soon as those areas were occupied by British troops
thousands of local Kurds came down from the hills whither they had
fied to avoid having to identify themselves with the aims of Turkey.
Finally, there remain the large Christian element (mainly Nestorians and
Chaldeans) and the Yazidis. If the claim of the Turkish delegation is weak in so
far as the non-Turkish Moslem population is concerned, it is still weaker as applied
to these non-Moslem communities. It is to Turkish misrule, active and passive, that
the Y^azidis attribute the enormous reduction in their numbers which has occurred
during the last generation. The Chaldeans remember too well wdiat their
co-religionists in the Diarbekir-Mardin-Jazirah area suffered during the war to
desire the restoration of the Turkish rule. And finally, the Nestorians, who were
driven from the region of Julamerk and the Persian border by Turkish troops during
the war, who died in thousands in their flight to Irak, and w 7 ho have settled in that
alien country rather than submit to Turkish rule in their own land, w T ould fight to
the death rather than permit the return of their new homes to a people who to them
are the symbol of misrule and oppression.
3. Historical.
The Turkish contention that the long historical connection of Mosul with the
Ottoman Empire justifies their demanding its return would apply with equal force
to Bagdad : for, except for insignificant periods when it was under Persian rule,
Bagdad was part of Turkey as long as Mosul. Both are Arab towns built by Arabs
and maintaining their Arab character, in spite of their long inclusion in the Turkish
Empire. In point of fact, the close connection between Mosul and Bagdad was
recognised by the Turks to this extent, that the Mosul Vilayet was formerly part of
the Pashalik of Bagdad. Even as late as the eighties of the last century, when
Midhat Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. was Vali of Bagdad, Mosul was included in his governorship. The
conversion of Mosul into a separate vilayet in Turkey, depending upon
Constantinople, was a measure dictated by administrative convenience only.^
The argument from history is therefore not one to which importance can properly
be attached. It could equally be applied to a demand from Turkey for the return
of all the territories and States vdiich she has lost. It would justify the demand by
any country for any city or province of which it had been deprived as the consequence
of defeat in war.
4. Economic.
If we turn to the economic argument, it is the weakest of all. The economic
relations of the Mosul Vilayet are entirely with Bagdad and with the Arab City
of Aleppo, both of which cities the National Pact itself leaves outside the boundaries
of Turkey. If we take the three chief towns in the vilayet, viz., Suleimaniyah.
Kirkuk and Mosul, the exports of Suleimaniyah all go to Bagdad, whence all its
requirements in foreign goods are obtained in exchange; Kirkuk lives mainfy on the
carrying trade between Bagdad on the one hand, and Mosul and Suleimaniyah on
the other, and its prosperity depends on the maintenance of the connection between
the three; as for Mosul, which, being nearest to Turkey, should present the most
favourable case for the argument of the Turkish delegation, it is notorious that the
trade of Mosul is almost entirely down-river with Bagdad and across the desert
with Syria. The imports of the vilayet are piece goods, tea, sugar and coffee.
Not one of these is produced in Turkey or could even'be obtained through Turkish
territory except with great difficulty and by diverting trade from routes which it
has followed for centuries. As to the exports, the principal are grain, wool and
hides, and tobacco, and the smaller but still important exports are timber, gum-

'Mosul Question, Lausanne 1922-1923 and after - Papers, despatches, speeches - Hotel de la Mer at Lausanne - Correspondence about oil' [‎56v] (114/501)

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'Mosul Question, Lausanne 1922-1923 and after - Papers, despatches, speeches - Hotel de la Mer at Lausanne - Correspondence about oil' [‎56v] (114/501)

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