Page 173 - Arabia the Gulf and the West

170 Arabia, the Gulf and the West

the construction of a railway from Constantinople to the head of the Gulf
While they were prepared to act to forestall the possible use of Kuwait as the
terminus for a railway constructed under German or Russian auspices, the
British were not willing to contract any formal treaty relationship with Kuwait

(such as they had with Bahrain and the Trucial States), both because of the
shaikhdom’s legal status as an Ottoman dependency and because of the damage
that any interference with that status would do to Anglo-Turkish relations in
general. The upshot was that in January 1899 the political resident concludeda
secret engagement with Mubarak, whereby, in return for the sum of 15,000
rupees, the shaikh bound himself, his heirs and successors not to alienate any
portion of his territory to foreign governments or individuals, or to receive the

representative of any foreign power, without the prior sanction of the British
government.
For the next fifteen years the British had to exert considerable pressure both
to keep Mubarak to the due observance of his bond and to prevent the Turks
from tightening their grip upon Kuwait. At length, in the Anglo-Ottoman
convention of July 1913, the status of Kuwait as an autonomous qaza of the
Ottoman empire was agreed by the two powers, and the shaikhdom’s frontiers

were formally defined. The ratification of the convention, which also defined
the status of Qatar and the Emits of the sanjaq of Najd, was delayed by the
Turks, and ratification had still not taken place when war broke out between
Britain and the Ottoman empire in November 1914. On the eve of ±e
declaration of war a formal undertaking was given to Mubarak by the British
government, recognizing Kuwait as an independent shaikhdom under British
protection on the understanding that Mubarak would co-operate in the forth-

^U^undHh^11 agrnst Turks in Ira<l-
fulfil his side of the bar2^r|dea d f°1IowinS year Mubarak had done little to
the next three years can ha hP e tW° ^abab rulers who succeeded him in
Their energies were mai . r y e sai<^ to have improved on his performance.
the struggle between the Z C°nsuJPed *n playing desert politics, in exploiting
and perhaps the Rashidis of Jabal Shammar!

way to profit f~om th Capita^z^nS upon the opportunities that came their
blatant and extenTivThad^h SUppHes t0 Turks' S°

last year of the war th u Kuwaitis smuggling operations become by the
shaikhdom which clamped a naval blockade upon the
The price for K *s not lifted until well after the termination of hostilities.
frontier withther h d°Uble game was paid in when her southern
ment in the Con • anu^ate°flslaidwasdeterminedbytheBritishgovern-
compensat ibn 9 Tr°n ? signed on 2 December of that year’ To
the drawing of th ^°SS °^die territory he was forced to cede to Iraq in
south of the bound a,d~Iraq frontier> Kuwait’s rights to the coastal hinterland
JuN io a ary all°Cated to Kuwait in the Anglo-Ottoman convention of
nter and twice as large as the shaikhdom itself- were abrogated