Page 15 - Arabia the Gulf and the West

2 Arabia, the Gulf and the West

Beyond Aden, in the hinterland, the primitive structure of law and order
that had been sustained by the sultans, shaikhs and amirs of the former Aden
Protectorate (since 1963 the Federation of South Arabia) was falling apart.
British troops had been withdrawn from the up-country districts in June and
concentrated inside the Aden perimeter. The duly of upholding the authority
of the federal rulers now rested wholly with the federal army, which was in the
process of being hurriedly enlarged and placed under Arab command. But the
army was racked by discontents and jealousies among its officers, by tribal
factionalism, and by nationalist sedition within its ranks. There was even
greater disaffection in the federal armed police, who had at one stage broken
out in open mutiny. Deprived of any support from the federal armed forces,
the hereditary rulers of South Arabia stood little chance of holding out against
the nationalist guerrillas and the tribesmen they had won over to their cause.
Before the summer was out nearly every ruler had been toppled from power,
the hinterland had been overrun by the nationalist revolutionaries and their
cohorts, and the federal government had completely collapsed.
All this was taking place in a country which was still, in name at least, under
British protection, and part of which, the colony of Aden, had been a British
possession for nearly 130 years. Yet while the tribal Caliban prowled
unchecked in the interior, and the British Army strove gallantly to give to the
people of Aden some measure of that protection which it is the first duly of a
civilized government to accord to its subjects, the British administration was
packing its bags and counting the days to its final departure. How, it might well
be asked, did such a lamentable state of affairs come to pass? To answer this
question with any degree of thoroughness would require an extensive examin­
ation both of the history of Aden colony and protectorate since the First World
War, and of the course of British imperial and foreign policy during the same
period, an undertaking which lies beyond the scope and purpose of this book.
Yet some account of the last years of British rule in South Arabia, and of the
reasons for its dismal end, is essential to that scope and purpose; for what
happened in South Arabia in those years, and especially between the formal
inauguration of the Federation of South Arabia in January 1963 and the British
withdrawal in November 1967, cast its shadow across the rest of the Arabian
peninsula in the succeeding decade, and may well help to determine the shape
of events yet to unfold in that corner of the world.

For nearly a century after its acquisition in 1839 Aden was administered from
India as an outpost of the Indian empire. Its consequence and its prosperity
derived from three sources: its strategic position on the world’s sea lanes,
commanding the passage of the Red Sea and the routes to India and the Far
East; its function as a bunkering port for shipping; and its role as a mart for the
trade of Ethiopia, Yemen, South Arabia and the Horn of Africa. The hinter­
land behind Aden was a harsh and desolate land of jagged mountains, stony