42 / 128
T
HE
B
RITISH
M
ANDATE
After the end of the First World War, an armistice line was drawn
north of Mosul, leaving the British firmly in control of all three of
the former Ottoman provinces in Mesopotamia.
The British and their allies had encouraged the Great Arab
Revolt by making vague promises to Arab nationalists that the
region would be united as an Arab state. However, when the war
ended, a newly created international organization, the League of
Nations, divided the Arab region into a number of smaller territo-
ries. At the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, Great Britain was given a
mandate
to rule Mesopotamia, as well as other territories in the
Middle East. The area of the British Mesopotamian mandate was
also given a new name, Iraq, from an Arabic word meaning “shore-
line.” This term had previously been used to designate the south-
ern part of the country.
Some of the Arab leaders felt the British mandate was just a way
to bring their country into the British Empire. They had a legitimate
reason to worry, because British officials were discussing whether
England should directly rule the territory or help it develop self-
government. Under the League of Nations’ mandate system, the
established European governments were supposed to help the
former Ottoman territories build governments and rule themselves.
But the European powers seemed to be interested in making the
mandate areas part of their colonial empires. France, for example,
had been given the League of Nations mandate to rule Syria and
Lebanon in April 1920. The month before, a Syrian national
congress had selected a king for Syria—Faisal, the son of Sharif
Hussein bin Ali. After the French arrived, they forced Faisal to flee
the country, then set up their own government.
There were other problems with the mandate that created Iraq.
For one, the population of the region was quite disparate. For exam-
I
RAQ
42