1st April – 31st August 1941 – Iraq, Syria, and Iran – Part I
The fighting in the Balkans, followed by the actions in Crete, Ethiopia and Egypt tend to overshadow everything that happened in the Middle East during 1941. The reality was that securing the British position in the region required multiple interventions, a series of actions that flatly contradicted the prevalent attitude in Rome and Berlin that the British were overextended and lacked the means to fight back. They would be too distracted by events in the Balkans and Egypt to understand how wrong they were until disaster fell on them directly and those in the region who looked to the Axis for support would be disappointed and find themselves left to face the wrath of the British alone [1].
The government of Iraq in early 1941 was nominally pro-British, with though a significant element of anti-British and pro-German cabinet ministers and senior army officers. Rashid Ali al-Gaylani had served as Prime Minister twice between 1940 and 1941, being forced to step down in the aftermath of Operation Judgement owing to his pro-German leanings, inspired by his strong desire for Iraqi independence and the hope that this might be achieved with German support. Out of power once again he began to co-operate with the so called ‘Golden Square’ a cabal of virulently anti-British military officers who also looked to Berlin and Rome for support. The Axis powers were happy to encourage the plotters, though the practical support they could offer amounted to a few Luftwaffe fighters and bombers, unconvincingly repainted in Iraqi colours, and some Regia Aeronautica aircraft that were obsolete even by Italian standards. Some of these aircraft would be staged through Vichy French territory, including bases in Syria. These aircraft only arrived after the coup had had taken place and had no impact on the outcome of the battle. Besides offering proof that the leaders of the coup were collaborating with the Axis the major effect of this intervention was to create problems for Vichy as the British resolved to deal with this blatantly violation of Vichy’s alleged neutrality, once the the situation in Iraq had been dealt with [2].
The British were well aware of the volatile situation in Iraq and while they didn’t want to intervene unless they had to, they did put contingencies in place. This was why General William ‘Bill’ Slim who had been wounded in the fighting in East Africa and was still recuperating found himself temporarily assigned to General Staff at GHQ in Delhi in March, where he played a major role in preparing the plans for a British response to the threat to British control in Iraq and would in due course find himself in the vanguard of those very same plans. Rashid Ali al-Gaylani and the plotters remained oblivious to this and pressed ahead with their plans, egged on by the Axis and convinced the British would have no choice but to negotiate for full Iraqi independence rather than face a costly battle for control of the country. They were hardly the only one to entertain such sentiments in the Middle East and the fate of the plotters would provide an object lesson in the folly of such beliefs. The coup was launched on the 1st of April and given the support of the military the Iraqi government had little choice except to capitulate and Rashid Ali al-Gaylani was restored to the office of Prime Minister. With this done attention moved to RAF Habanera, which was at this time the only significant British military presence in Iraq. The airbase had not been given a high priority for modernisation either in terms of its ground defences or its air group. The aircraft based at Habbaniya consisted of some one hundred and five aircraft, most either purpose-built trainers or obsolete fighters converted to serve as trainers. The one exception was the nine Hurricanes that had been deployed from Palestine a few days before the coup was launched. To protect the base itself there was one battalion from the King's Own Royal Regiment (Lancaster), well short of its establishment strength, several companies of Assyrian Levies and of course men drawn from amongst the RAF personnel. This came to around two thousand troops, backed up by eighteen armoured cars.
The Iraqi force dispatched to Habbaniya was far more powerful, with a full infantry brigade and an artillery brigade, plus armoured cars, tanks, and support from the Royal Iraqi Air Force, which possessed many modern aircraft, including some British models. When they arrived on the plain above Habbaniya the Iraqis issued demands that neither aircraft nor troops should leave or enter RAF Habbaniya. The reaction from the British was to set out their own demands, namely that the Iraqis should immediately withdraw from the area. The British forces went so far as to issue an ultimatum to the Iraqis and when this expired on the 2nd of May they launched air attacks against the Iraqi troops. The training aircraft may have been only lightly armed, but they proved more than a match for the Iraqi air force, who were not able to even prevent the arrival of a quartet of Blenheim bombers on the 3rd of May. When the Hurricanes joined the battle, they inflicted such severe losses that the RIAF didn’t just withdraw from the fighting around Habbaniya, they effectively abandoned the coup altogether [3].
Even before the climax of events at Habbaniya British forces were on the move to crush the coup, though these plans were almost undone when the Italians launched their invasion of Egypt only a few days after the coup. It would be wrong to say that Wavell panicked, he simply saw Iraq as a pointless diversion and one that now threatened far more vital strategic considerations, he event went so far as to suggest a withdrawal from Palestine, which given the political situation there might well have led to another anti-British coup. Churchill and Brooke in London saw things rather differently. Wavell had been given plenty of time and resources to prepare for the Italian attack and General O’Connor as field commander of the Western Desert Force seemed confident of being able to hold them, a confidence vindicated as the Italian advance rapidly ran out of steam. Far from agreeing to scale back on operations in Iraq Wavell’s superiors in London insisted that he commit the needed resources to deal with the coup as swiftly as possible precisely so efforts could be concentrated in Egypt. This proved somewhat optimistic as we shall see, but Wavell did his level best to comply. Confidence in Wavell had declined sharply in the wake of this, and it appears Churchill discussed with Brooke the question of replacing Wavell as early as the 20th of April, with both General Claude Auchinleck and General Harold Alexander being suggested as possible candidates [4].
On the 17th of April several hundred troops were airlifted into RAF Shaibah, near Basra, with a seaborne landing at Basra the following day, supported by a Royal Naval force including the carrier
HMS Glorious, bringing in several more battalions and effectively securing the vital hub at Basra. In a highly optimistic move Rashid Ali, the head of state in the government installed by the coup, called for the British to deploy no more troops to Basra until those already there had marched out of the country. This request was passed through diplomatic channels to London, where it was naturally rejected as the troops were there to help secure British control in Iraq, though this information was not shared with Rashid Ali. The purpose of the rapidly building troops strength in Basra was made clear anyway in its designation as Iraq Force. The operations out of Basra suffered a small set back when the commander of the Indian 10th Infantry Division, Major-General Fraser, fell ill. Fortunately, General Slim had been dispatched to take up a staff position and he was now given command of the 10th Indian. This was the beginning of a long relationship between the General division. He not only led them throughout much of the rest of 1941, but also when they were transferred to Burma in 1942 and continued to serve there after Slim assumed overall command of operations in Burma until the conclusion of the Burma campaign in 1943. Slim would establish a reputation as one of Britain’s most capable Generals during his time in Burma, though he never quite reached the level of fame of his more PR friendly counterpart in Malaya [5].
Basra was not the only direction from which forces were dispatched. General Wavell in overall command of forces in the Middle East had initially been concerned about the prospect of dispatching a force from Palestine, but with intelligence providing reassurance that the Italian advance in Egypt was unlikely to resume he did formulate a plan to dispatch two formations into Iraq. The first was a column of the Arab Legion dispatched towards the fort at Rutbah. This had been seized by elements of the Iraqi Desert police who had opened fire on British workers in Rutbah itself. The Arab Legion column was supported by No. 2 Armoured Car Company RAF, dispatched ahead of the main British column and a trio of Cruiser Mk II tanks. The exact origin of these tanks is still something of a mystery, but a number of these older models were in Palestine for internal security and this trio seems to have simply been scooped up by some local officer and dispatched to Iraq without any formal orders to do so being issued. They were nonetheless highly useful as the Arab Legion column halted near the fort on the 8th of May and waited for the RAF to bomb it. This attempt was less than successful but it did rattle the defenders and a probing attack with the tanks in the lead, backed by No. 2 Armoured Car, was simply too much for the defenders of the fort who concluded that the armoured car force was in fact comprised of tanks and surrender before dusk on the 8th. A column of some forty machine gun armed trucks intended to reinforce the Iraqi defenders of the fort arrived after nightfall and being unaware that the fort had surrendered found themselves in a confused action where both sides suffered friendly fire casualties, though the truck force came off worst and barely a dozen survived to withdraw [6].
The second and much more powerful force dispatched from Palestine was called Habforce, short for Habbaniya Force as one its major objectives was the relief of the RAF base. Habforce was, with some small additions and subtractions the 1st Cavalry Division, which was indeed cavalry, not an armoured formation. Its operations would effectively be the last cavalry action undertaken by the British. Some criticism was levelled at Wavell for not using it to form a mobile column earlier, however the divisions attached artillery and mechanized transport had been constantly earmarked for detachment to other operations and by the time it was clear that these plans had been abandoned it was all rather late in the day for creating such a formation. Nonetheless the 1st Cavalry Division was at full strength when it entered Iraq on the 10th of May, and it had been given some modern cavalry equivalents to aid it in the form of four troops of Mk VI B Light Tanks. Like the cruiser tanks these had been dispatched to Palestine for security duties, for which they were far better equipped than they had been for combat operations in France. Neither the machines nor their crews were the best the British had to offer; against the limited resources of the Iraqi Army they would prove quite adequate. Major-General George Clark, commanding the 1st soon decided to take advantage of the more mechanized elements available to him by creating a ‘flying column’ called Kingcol after its commander, Brigadier James Kingstone. This force contained some cavalry units as well as all the tanks and most of the armoured cars available to General Clark. With word of the surrender Kingcol was ordered to bypass it and catch up with the Arab Legion column and reach Habbaniya as soon as possible. Linking up with the Arab Legion forces proved more difficult than expected and the two forces did not join up until Kingcol reached Habbaniya on the 15th of May. Discovering that the siege had already been lifted and that troops of the 1st battalion The Essex Regiment were already being airlifted in Kingcol swiftly moved on [7].
There were several battles fought by British, Arab legion and Indian troops over the next several weeks in and around Fallujah, and Basra. The outcome of the fighting was never in doubt by this point. Even where the Iraqis had a numerical advantage on the ground the speed of the British advance and the dominance of the RAF in the air kept them off balance and sapped their morale. The attack on Baghdad began on the night of the 25th of May and although progress was hampered by destroyed bridges and flooding cause by further sabotage. Nonetheless the National Defence Government collapsed and fled to Persia on the 27th, though some members perish in a strafing attack by RAF Hurricanes, before travelling on to take refuge in Germany. On the 28th the Mayor of Baghdad arranged the surrender of the city and by the end of May a pro-British government was back in control of Iraq. This may have been the end of the fighting in Iraq, many of the British forces involved would however soon find themselves deployed to deal with the Vichy regimes in the Levant and working with the Red Army to occupy Iran [8].
[1] These battles really tend to get lost in the shuffle when compared to what was happening elsewhere. These updates are intended to redress the balance, and there will be an impact on future events courtesy of the Alt version of these battles.
[2] Hardly the only nationalists to think the Nazis would be an upgrade over the British Empire, I guess distance did lend a certain charm.
[3] So OTL the Iraqi Air Force did lose to the training aircraft, but there were no Hurricanes so they sort of stayed in the fight as best they could. Facing first line modern fighters is their breaking point here.
[4] Again OTL Wavell suggested making a deal with the coup plotters anyway. Here his suggestion of getting out of Palestine means confidence in him declines far faster than OTL, where at least he could count on the success of Compass and the diversion in Greece as a justification for his caution.
[5] So the beginning of Slim’s rise to prominence and I decided at the last moment not to include the name of the General who makes his name in Malaya.
[6] OTL the armoured cars only joined up later and there were no tanks, the fight with the armed trucks wasn’t quite the rout depicted here.
[7] And 1st Cavalry did take part in the fighting as described, with the differences that its artillery and mechanized transport ended up joining the piles of equipment abandoned in Greece, and they had no supporting armour. Despite this they acquitted themselves well in the fighting. Also, the fighting dragged on a little longer at Rutbah in OTL, so Kingcol didn’t bypass it.
[8] Overall the fighting wraps up a few days earlier than OTL, and Wavell is hanging on to his position by a thread at this point.