Enemy on the Euphrates (50 page)

The following morning, as a large crowd of police gathered outside the serai, curious to learn what was going on, Muhammad al-Amin saw an opportunity to win more of them over to the British. But when he addressed them, offering all kinds of inducements to join him in the progovernment strongpoint, he received a hostile response. Soon the police began shouting abuse at al-Amin, calling him ‘friend of the occupation’, ‘traitor’ and similar insults and refusing to obey his orders, after which the majority of them melted away, back to their homes and families.
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After this setback the demoralised loyalists soon realised the hopelessness
of their position and decided to surrender before the situation became more inflamed. Khan Bahadur, Muhammad al-Amin and a British sergeant who had been training the police handed themselves over to a local notable who subsequently escorted them to the nearest British position on the right bank of the Euphrates, opposite Musayib. Then the leadership of the insurgents in Karbela’ took charge of the money, equipment and munitions in the serai.

In Karbela’, initially the nerve centre of the insurgency, the uprising against British authority was followed by the formation of two committees. The first, and more important, known as the Higher Military Council, was composed of four senior members of the clergy including Mirza ‘Abd al-Husayn al-Ha’iri, second son of Grand Mujtahid Shirazi. In addition Muhammad al-Abtan, one of the leading sheikhs of the Khaza’il confederation, served as advisor to the council.
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The second committee was called the Community Council and consisted of seventeen tribal sheikhs and sada, one of the sada, Sayyid Khalil Azami, acting as secretary.
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The functions of the Community Council comprised the general management of the local government in Karbela’ and its environs and it was also responsible for implementing any of the orders of the Higher Military Council; as such, it was therefore subordinate to the latter, but both committees were ultimately responsible to the Grand Mujtahid Shirazi.

In Najaf, the organisation responsible for ‘general revolutionary affairs’ was the Higher Religious Committee. It was composed of fifteen members with its meetings being chaired by the most senior mujtahid of Najaf, Sheikh al-Shari‘a Isbahani. In addition there were a number of other, subordinate committees of which the most important was the City Council composed of eight members, two from each of the four mahallas of the city.
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Its functions included the collection of taxes and other local dues, the control of public health and internal security.

The death of the aged Taqi al-Shirazi at Karbela’ on 13 August initially caused widespread dismay among both leaders and followers of the uprising. But his position as Grand Mujtahid and effective leader of the insurgents was immediately taken over by Sheikh al-Shari‘a
Isbahani, Shirazi’s widely respected colleague and a man who had stood at his side for many years as virtual co-leader of the politically active ‘constitutionalist’ faction among the mujtahidin in opposition to Yazdi. From then on, Najaf became the real revolutionary centre, and the Higher Military Council of Karbela’ was now transferred to the second holy city, where it took the name Revolutionary High Command, its military leadership being conferred upon Sheikh Abtan of the Khaza’il.
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At around the same time the insurgents apparently decided that the time had come to establish a more formal structure of government for the liberated areas as a whole. We must remember that this was a time when the rebel movement was riding high and when a series of successful – or at least apparently successful – military actions had given them confidence of an outright victory. As a first step therefore, a conference of all the leading sheikhs and sada of the liberated mid-Euphrates towns decided to set up a provisional national government headed by a mutasarrif (governor) and the person chosen for this post was the Shamiyya landowner and veteran of the 1914–15 jihad, Muhsin Abu Tabikh.

In his memoirs written many years later, Abu Tabikh recalled, with evident pride and emotion, the circumstances of his elevation to the head of this new government:

In spite of the fact that it was my desire to continue to remain with my brother fighters on the field of battle, I accepted that important commission and requested permission to go to Karbela’ to make a start on that important work on the 18th Dhu al-Hijja [2 September 1920] the auspicious occasion of the ‘Eid al-Ghadir’ [the festival commemorating the day on which the Shi‘is believe the Prophet Muhammad appointed ‘Ali as his successor]. I set off with a large group of tribal chiefs and Karbela’ notables who were present to escort me. By the night of 17 September this assembly reached its destination and as dawn was just breaking the holy city was teeming with delegates who had come from Najaf and nearby Euphrates towns in addition to parties of tribal mujahidin from this region. Also in attendance from Baghdad were those who had fled British harassment, the leading men of the national movement Ja‘far Abu al-Timman, ‘Ali al-Bazirgan and
Yusuf Suwaydi and many of the officers who had been with us at Kufa. The celebrations were held in the town hall among a throng of tens of thousands and the first Iraqi flag was raised over the building which was adopted as the Government Serai, all the while there were shouts of acclamation ringing out, the ululations of the women and the clamour and rhythmic singing of the people.
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However, one particular feature characterised all these structures of power. In addition to the Shi‘i clergy, their membership was drawn almost exclusively from the traditional elites of the old society which had seen their influence, prestige, and in some cases financial well-being, suffer as a result of the occupation. The ‘revolution’ which they espoused was therefore a fusion of the modern cry for ‘independence’ with a deep yearning to return to the old certainties of the Ottoman era. Indeed, the very title of mutasarrif echoes the title of an Ottoman-period governor of an Arab province.

Consider, for example, Abu Tabikh himself. His forebears had acquired large estates in the Shamiyya region when much of the land of questionable ownership had been converted to
tapu sanad –
a form of tenure barely distinguishable from private ownership – during the Ottoman modernisation reforms of the 1870s. One of the largest landowners and rice-growers in the Shamiyya Division, he was also widely respected as one of the leading sada of the region. Precisely what decided him to join the insurgents in 1920 remains unclear, but while moral and religious ideology clearly played a part, the ‘freedom’ that Abu Tabikh sought to defend was also the freedom to rule over his estates and peasants in a manner to which he had become accustomed, especially during the years 1915–17, when, by and large, he and the other members of his strata did pretty much as they pleased.
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But the direct control that the British forced upon his region and the unprecedented regularity and efficiency with which they proceeded to collect taxes was exceptionally galling to a man of his status. As for Abu Tabikh’s feudatories – the peasants who toiled on his extensive rice lands – as the ultimate source of those tax revenues and in a world where custom and religion still bound the lowly cultivator to his tribal sheikh, it is by
no means surprising that their master’s decision to oppose the ‘infidel’ tax collector found a ready response which overruled any incipient class differences between landlord and peasant.
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Another prominent feature of government in the insurgent areas was the role played by age. Seniority and experience were greatly honoured in this society and deference towards the elderly frequently played an important part in determining the structure of decision making. For example, in Karbela’, sessions of the Community Council were held under the chairmanship of whoever was the oldest member present.
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Similarly, age played an important part in determining who should be a member of the Higher Military Council. It is also noteworthy that, although the insurgents clearly made use of the technical experience of the former Ottoman army junior officers and NCOs who took part in their military operations, not one of these men appears to have been co-opted into the actual leadership of the uprising.

Religious authority, social status, wealth and age – these were the attributes widely considered most relevant to determining who should occupy the positions of leadership in the insurgent movement. But they were not attributes necessarily related to military effectiveness or productive of sound tactical and strategic decision-making – except perhaps in one particular respect.

From the very outset of the insurgency, its leaders appreciated the need for communication with their followers throughout the liberated territories both to encourage the fighting men by celebrating their successes and to maintain morale in the major rebel towns by refuting the propaganda emanating from government sources. One of the most active participants in the rebels’ own propaganda machine was Muhammad Baqir al-Shabibi, scion of one of the great families of Najaf. Shabibi, now in his forties, had a long history of engagement in Shi‘i politics. He had been a member of the progressive, constitutionalist tendency among Iraqi Shi‘is which supported the Persian revolution of 1906; he had been active in organising opposition to the British invasion and after the crushing of the Najaf uprising of 1918 he had fled to Baghdad, where, according to some accounts, he was one of the founding members of
Haras al-Istiqlal and at one point served as an emissary from Abu al-Timman to Taqi al-Shirazi.
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Throughout the rebellion Shabibi wrote pamphlets which were printed in Najaf. They reported news of the fighting on the different fronts and relayed decisions of the insurgent leadership to the people. They also offered political, religious and military guidance to the rebels, as in the following pamphlet published on 30 July 1920.

The nation which each one of you must defend requires you to heed the following:

1) Every tribal chief must ensure that all its sections understand the objectives of this uprising which is nothing less than the demand for complete independence.

2) On the battlefield every one must cry out for independence.

3) The security of the roads and the maintenance of communications between yourselves and between the insurgent regions is essential.

4) Discipline is essential … no robbery, no looting, no old grudges, no incitement to hatred.

5) It is essential to make every effort to safeguard ammunition.

6) It is obligatory to take good care of prisoners of war, both officers and men, both British and Indian.

7) The telegraph and telephone systems and the telegraph poles must be maintained because their retention is of great value to the motherland. But yes, you should cut the telegraph wires where necessary so that the communications of the occupying government are disrupted.

8) It is essential to tear up the railway lines and blow up the bridges, particularly those used by the trains.

9) Make sure that you retain any transport vehicles which fall into your hands.

10) Take good care of your artillery and machine guns and do not allow them to be damaged or lost. For these are one of the best means of achieving victory.

11) It is essential to retain captured ammunition, bullets, shells and hand grenades …

12) If you are obliged to abandon a town or village do not leave it weak and broken. You must arrange a provisional government for it.

13) Do not destroy government buildings except those which are military strong-points and do not destroy their furnishings which may be needed in the future.

14) Take care of hospitals and all their equipment and staff.

15) Show kindness to your opponents’ wounded, for nothing deserves kindness and sympathy like a man suffering from the pain of his wounds.
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Here we see a combination of clear political guidance (the sole objective is ‘independence’), practical advice on military affairs (safeguard ammunition, tearing up railway lines), preserving discipline (no indiscriminate looting, no destruction of government buildings): but also, and most notably, moral guidance on the ‘rules of war’ (take care of prisoners, look after the wounded). That, in the heat of battle, the rebels themselves did not always heed such moral exhortation does not in any way diminish the intrinsic humanity of this appeal and refutes the oft-repeated assertions of the British authorities and their apologists in later accounts of the uprising that the rebels were simply mobs of savage looters led by cruel fanatics.

It was some time before the transition to real insurgent newspapers occurred and, again, it was Al-Shabibi who led the way. On 15 September the first issue of his paper
Al-Furat
(Euphrates) appeared in Najaf.
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It was followed, on 1 October, by another paper,
Istiqlal
(Independence), also published in Najaf. Both papers carried news of the fighting on the different fronts and what was happening in the various insurgent towns.
Istiqlal
also offered its readers a clear, concise explanation of exactly why the insurgents were fighting – that the British had been devious and deceitful whereas the Arabs had justice and legitimacy on their side.
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Both Ja‘far Abu al-Timman and ‘Ali al-Bazirgan wrote articles for
Al-Furat
and
Istiqlal
.
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In the event, only five issues of
Al-Furat
appeared and eight issues of
Istiqlal.
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Precisely why
Al-Furat
only appeared five times is unknown, but the demise of
Istiqlal
coincided with the submission of Najaf to British forces on 18 October 1920. Although resistance to British rule
continued throughout large parts of Iraq, by then it was entering a more fluid and disorganised type of warfare in which there was little role for organised government and central leadership; ultimately this would contribute to the insurgents’ defeat but it would be another three and a half months before that day would arrive.