World War I in Mesopotamia: The British and the Ottomans in Iraq

by Nadia Atia

Overview

The Mesopotamian campaign during World War I was a critical moment in Britain's position in the Middle East. With British and British Indian troops fighting in places which have become well-known in the wake of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, such as Basra, the campaign led to the establishment of the British Mandate in Iraq in 1921. Nadia Atia believes that in order to fully understand Britain's policies in creating the nascent state of Iraq, we must first look at how the war shaped Britons' conceptions of the region. Atia does this through a cultural and military history of the changing British perceptions of Mesopotamia since the period before World War I when it was under Ottoman rule. Drawing on a wide variety of historical and literary sources, including the writing of key figures such as Gertrude Bell, Mark Sykes and Arnold Wilson, but focusing mainly on the views and experiences of ordinary men and women whose stories and experiences of the war have less frequently been told, Atia examines the cultural and social legacy of World War I in the Middle East and how this affected British attempts to exert influence in the region.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781784531461
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	12/23/2015
Series:	Library of Middle East History
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.70(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Nadia Atia is Lecturer in World Literature at Queen Mary, University of London. She holds a PhD from the Department of English at Queen Mary, University of London.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ix

Acknowledgements xi

Introduction 1

1 Mesopotamia in the British Imagination, 1907-14 19

2 The Mesopotamian Campaign 1914-16 58

3 The Siege of Kut and its Aftermath in Britain 108

4 The Mesopotamian Campaign 1916-18 150

5 From Armistice to Coronation: 1918-21 189

Conclusion 213

Notes 217

Bibliography 247

Index 262