Page 261 - Gulf Precis (V)_Neat

G3

CHAPTER SIXTH.

Increase of Turkish Military and Naval Forces in the Persian Gulf
and

Turkish Policy.

We havu in our records of this time a memorandum of 2(Jth November
1871 written by Captain T. Doughty on
8ecret, July 1872, Nob. 120—122.
tho state of affairs in the Persian Gulf,
and addressed to Rear Admiral IT. Cockburn, which, would bear being quoted
here; indicating as it does tho forces in operation in connection with the Persian
Gulf politics':—
** I have tho honour to acknowledge your memorandum of October 25th, together with your
private note of same date received by mail of yesterday, and thank you much for the pleasant
commendation you have been pleased to express in regard to my movements and proceedings.
I bad much pleasure also in conveying to Dr. Mulvancy your “ approval and thanks " for the
ability aud zeal ho displayed in the discharge of bis duties.
You desire of me more details about the politics of tho Gulf. While wishing to comply
with your request, I feel and kuow that I have nothing to offer beyond my own views and
deductions from the events taken place around me, therefore hesitate to commit myself in an
offioial despatch. My entire ignorance of the surrounding languages and natives, even of their
very history beyond wha*. little of late I have been able to gather from the few books within
my reach on the subject necessitates ruy requesting that whatever I may say on I ho subject
of “ Gulf politics ” maybe regarded only as they appear to me, and not otiicially trust­
worthy, but rather Gos.-ip founded on current reports and rumours.
The Suez Canal, as you observe, " has its shady side ” and for the pre-eminence we have huld
in the Gulf since the deoline of the Portuguese power a very shady side. For most of nations
of Europe, “ Persia, and Arabia" could have little interest, but for Hussia on one side of this
Gulf and Turkey on the other there appears much attraction. The 1st Napoleon thought it w«>rth
hi9 while to send an embassy lo the Shah of Persia in the hope of outbidding us in the Shah’s
graces, and get him to make a diversion on our Indian bordor, wlieo Napoleon invaded Egypt-.
In latter years the Russians have been steadily at work along the northern border of Persia
and Independent Tartary, till the Caspian may now be regarded as a Russian lake, their joad
in still eastward and southward, and their influence is said to he felt in Afghanistan. West­
ward they have made o prodigious stride, and gained a poiut which thousands of our country­
men gave their lives to maintaiu in 14151-55. These things are portentious. Arabia is the
birth-place of El-Islam, and when driven from Europe, what country, io spite of its sterlity,
c<»uld give the Turks so muoh influence or power of working on the sympathies of the Moslems
of all shades whether Sonneo, Shyia, or fanntio Wahabces as holding ‘Rial" (or Riaz), the
stronghold of the latter, and Mecoa and Medina, and sa red centres of all other Moslem
sects.
Asiatic Turkey the Turks havo, their dominion extending to the h«ad of this Gulf with the
great commercial towns of Bagdad and El Bashra. Till the Suez Canal became a working
fact, the conquest of Arabia could havo been, but a dream, the great desert tracts, the want
of water, the distance from supplies, and tho hostility of the tribes to all invaders, must have
proved insurmountable difficulties, as they havo always been, in all attempts at Aiabiao con­
quest. The Egyptians managed it for a time through clever working of tho clement of
disunion among the independent tribes in their second ultempt under Ibrahim Pasha 1S26, (?)
Ibrahim being a Viceroy of the Turk Sultan, consequently, the conquest of Arabia made
Arabia or rather Nejd (the Wahabeo territory in the centre), which was the object of the
invasion, a fief of the Porte;
The sucoession of monarohs in Nejd since that time would seem to be “ Abd’alla ” captured
by Egyptians and beheaded at Constantinople; Turkcc, his son, who was in exile during the
Egyptian occupation, recalled by tho Nejedoans when in rebollion for the expulsion of the
Egyptians; he was assassinated in 1834 by a Persian, and was succeeded by tho late great
^ ahabco Chioftain, Fusul, who (lied some two or three years ago; the two sons of 11 Fasul,’*
Abd’alla and Saood, are tho two Chieftains now io arms and fighting for tho rule.
" Abd’alla bin Faaul is tlio elder, but primogeniture has never been the Taw, so there is little
in that argument as a matter of justioe, but it affords an opening for Turk interference. The
great difficulty of sending ships and supplies through the length of the Mediterranean and so
down the west coast of Afrioa round tho Capo to tho Red Sea and Persian Gulf (partially
got oyer by tho Alexandria rail to Suoz, whioh enabled supplies to bo sent for shipment at
Suez in foreign bottoms and native craft) is now ontiroly got ovor by just steaming from