War by Revolution. Germany and Great Britain in the Middle East in the Era of World War I

84 WARBYREVOLUTION

Thedecision,however,whichhadtakenover twomonthstomake,
cametoolate. AsBerlinwasorderingtheKleinmissiontoTurkey,
theBritishIndianArmylandeditsExpeditionaryForce 0 (knownas
"IEF0")attheheadofthePersianGulfSimultaneously,theIndia
Office wasorganizingthedisseminationofpro-Britishpropaganda
amongthelocalArabtribes.Furthermore,theIndiangovernment
noworderedoneofitskeypoliticalofficersintheGulf,Shakespear,
totraveltotheArabrulerofNajd,IbnSaud,topersuadehimtotake
sideswithBritainwhenwarcamewithTurkey.»
IEF 0apparentlyknewnothingoftheplansdevelopedinBerlin
tocapturetheAbadanoilfieldsfor Germany.OnceintheGulfit
awaitedtheoutbreakofwarwithTurkey-whichthePorteforcedon
29 OctoberbyshellingbasesintheBlackSeaofBritain'sally,Russia.
On 6 NovembertheexpeditionaryforcelandedatAbadananddrove
backtheTurkishsoldiersabovetheoilinstallations,whereuponthe
governmentinLondonsanctionedthecaptureofBasra,seventy-five
milesnorthoftheGulf.IEF 0seizedthecityon 22 November,andby
thebeginningofDecemberithadadvancedtothejunctionofthe
TigrisandEuphratesrivers.
HistorianshavedebatedenergeticallythegoalsofIEF0;theweight
oftheevidence,however,fallsheavilyontheargumentthatBritain
intendedprimarilytodemonstratepowertotheArabs,whoseback-
ingagainsttheOttomansLondonhadnowdecidedtoenlist.vThat
decisionresultedinpartfromthewishoftheBritishtopreservetheir
powerfulpositioninthePersianGulfandMesopotamia.Butwhat
generatedsuchthinkingwasthestrongfeelingamongBritain'slead-
ersinLondonandtheMiddleEastthatnotonlydidtheYoungTurks
intendtoenterthewarbutthatthecombinedstrengthofGermany
andTurkeyseriouslythreatenedtheheartoftheBritishEmpire,in
EgyptandIndia.Fearsofsuchamenacehademergedamongimpor-
tantBritishcircles evenbeforethewar."
Britain'smovetosecuremilitarycontroloftheGulf,as well asthe
difficultyofshippingweaponsandtroopsthroughRomaniatoTur-
key,forcedtheGermanstochangethenatureoftheKleinexpedi-
tion.On 10 NovembertheGeneralStaffandforeignministrydecided
againstsendingalargenumberofGermantroopsto theGulf; in-