Page 16 - Arabia the Gulf and the West

The Abandonment of Aden 3

plateaux, ravines, wadis and deserts. Few cultivable areas existed in these
parched wastes, and they were mainly to be found in the upper reaches of the
Wadi Hadramaut and in the vicinity of Aden. The tribes of southern Arabia
were as wild and as primitive as the land itself. Wretchedly poor, harried by
famine and disease, riddled with superstition and religious fanaticism, they
spent their energies almost as much in feuds among themselves as they did in
wresting a meagre living from the hostile earth. To the miscellany of sultans,
saiyids, shaikhs and amirs that ruled over them they accorded only a perfunc­
tory obedience, changing their allegiances as the impulse seized them. It is
little wonder, therefore, that the British Indian authorities set their faces
against any involvement in the interior of South Arabia in the nineteenth
century, other than what was required to ensure the security of Aden. The
policy was much the same as that followed throughout the century, and for
many of the same reasons and reservations, towards the tribes and prin­
cipalities along the Arabian littoral of the Persian Gulf.
Turkish expansion in south-western and eastern Arabia in the last three
decades of the nineteenth century and down to the outbreak of the First World
War forced a modification of this policy of non-involvement. A series of treaties
was concluded with the rulers of both the Gulf shaikhdoms and the South
Arabian principalities from 1880 onwards which placed the conduct of their
foreign relations in British hands and required them not to alienate any portion
of their territories without British permission. The First World War led to
further British intervention in the affairs of Arabia. Troops were committed to
the defence both of Aden against the Turks and of Muscat against insurgents
from the interior of Oman; alliances were concluded with the sharif of Mecca
and with his arch-rival, Ibn Saud, the ruler of Najd; and Kuwait and Qatar
were brought formally under British protection. After the war the pace of
involvement slackened, though less so in South Arabia than elsewhere. There
responsibility for the conduct of British relations with the assorted sultanates,
amirates and shaikhdoms with which treaties had been concluded was transfer­
red in 1921 to the Colonial Office in London. A tug-of-war then ensued
between the Colonial Office and the government of India for control of Aden
itself. Delhi wanted to keep Aden within the Indian orbit. Its character and
distinctive flavour were Indian, its historical ties were with India, much of its
trade was in Indian hands, it was still, as it had been since its annexation, an
outpost of India’s defensive system. The Colonial Office would have none of
this. Aden, in its view, was part of Arabia, the majority of its population was
Arab, its future lay in integration with its hinterland, with the rest of the
Arabian peninsula, and with the Arab world at large. Analogies with Gibraltar,
Hong Kong or Singapore were brushed aside as irrelevant. The Colonial Office
had its way, and in 1937 Aden became a Crown colony under the direct
authority of Whitehall.
Thereafter it was governed along customary Crown-colony lines, by a