Page 197 - The Origins of the United Arab Emirates_Neat

The Exercise of Power: British Representatives i(>3

the Resident overlooked certain factors. Most outstanding, of course,
was the reliance of the British on sea power: the six sloops ol
war that made up the Persian Gulf Division served as a constant
reminder of the unassailable might of Britain and kept the Gull
at its mercy. This fact is of unquestionable importance, and central
to any consideration of British policy in the area; the mere threat
of the arrival of the Persian Gulf Division was always enough
to subdue even the most stubborn resistance to the will of the
British authorities.
Despite the changed climate of world opinion after the end of
World War I, gunboat diplomacy was employed to a surprisingly
large extent on the Trucial Coast in the decade after 1918;2 it
usually took the form of bombarding a ruler’s forts or seizing
a shaykhdom’s pearling fleet. Bombardment was unique to the
Trucial Coast and to those parts of Muscat that the sultan was
totally unable to subdue; Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait were spared
this means of pressure and punishment. One reason for this was
the close control exercised in Bahrain and Kuwait by the Political
Agents, and the fact that Qatar was only slowly drawn into the
British orbit. Moreover, the Coast was generally viewed as a wild
and savage area that would respond effectively only to violent
forms of punishment.
It has been mentioned earlier how in 1921 the towers of Ajman
were bombarded, after its ruler, Humayd bin ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, had
refused to pay a fine imposed by the Resident. This fine had
been imposed because of Humayd’s destruction of a certificate of
manumission, his refusal to visit the ship of the Political Resident
when the standard was hoisted, and his failure to respond to the
efforts made by the Senior Naval Officer to mediate for peace
in Humayd’s fight against ‘Abd al-Rahman bin Muhammad of
the Al-bu-Shamis. The next year the guns fired on Hamriyyah,
a coastal village between Ajman and Umm al-Qaiwain but within
the shaykhdom of Sharjah, from which it had made many attempts
to secede.
In 1917, its headman, ‘Abd al-Rahman bin Sayf of the Al-bu-
Shamis, made yet another attempt to assert his independence. Khalid
bin Ahmad was determined to deal firmly with the insurgents
and sent an armed force to Hamriyyah. This force, however, proved
inadequate to subdue ‘Abd al-Rahman, and it was only with British
intervention that Khalid was able to re-establish his position; the
prolonged fighting had hindered the pearl trade enormously and
there was a danger that the Indian merchants would not be able
to collect their debts, so a sloop was sent to Sharjah to put an
end to the hostilities. The captain negotiated an agreement whereby
‘Abd al-Rahman recognised the suzerainty of Khalid, and peace
was restored.