May 5th, 1941
Baghdad, 09:30 - Nouri Said, after an audience with the regent, announces the composition of his cabinet in front of a small group of journalists - Reuters, the BBC, the major daily newspapers, but not Havas Libre which, despite its efforts since the beginning of the crisis, has not managed to get the authorities to accredit its special envoy.
Also present at the little ceremony are some gutless characters whose uniforms, similar in every way to those of the British, are adorned with the distinctive features of the Iraqi army... The officers without troops of the defeated. Defeated but alive: the regent Abd al-Ilah and his Prime Minister, attached to a justice of another age, have already sent to the gallows without qualms five partisans of the Golden Square without trial. The execution of eight others is scheduled for the next day... not to mention those who were thrown hand and foot bound into the Tigris, without witnesses, under the cover of night: indispensable, their death would not have had, estimated the regent and Nouri Said, been one set for an example.
The new ministry is, unsurprisingly, made up only of men who had long been known for their pro-British sympathies - sympathies encouraged by regular transfers of cash. Colonel Dujardin, who has a good network of honorable correspondents in Iraq, thanks to the PSC, to oil-related service companies and to various teams of archaeologists, had already established the reality of these capital movements in 1938...
11:00 - Interallied conference in a lounge of the Raffles Babylon* hotel, chaired by Sir Archibald Wavell and Sir Kinahan Cornwallis, with Generals Quinan, Slim and Clark, and Colonel Carbury on the left of the general. Some note with surprise that the colonel had put on a mourning armband: it is his way, so unsentimental, of paying a last tribute to O'Flanaghan.
Massiet and Larminat, who had come from the north by plane with only their liaison officer, are sat on the right of Sir Kinahan.
It is a question, for Wavell, of determining the garrisons to be left in Iraq and of fixing dates for the provision of troops for other theaters of operations, present (Greece and Yugoslavia) or potential theatres of operation (the Far East, for example). "Unfortunately," he explains, "I also have to take into account the need to maintain order in Palestine and to stabilization of the situation in Transjordan - not to mention the possibility of an action in another part of the world** in the weeks or months to come."
Massiet then, with an innocent air: "Well, we could, only to help you of course, leave the equivalent of a motorized infantry regiment and a fighter squadron in Iraq permanently - on the understanding that these units, placed at the disposal of the British command, could be returned to the Levant if necessary."
Quinan, who already believes himself to be proconsul in Iraq, jumps up and replies petulantly that the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916, which determined the zones of influence of France and the United Kingdom in the Middle East, does not authorize French troops to be stationed outside the territories of Syria and Lebanon. Moreover, he adds bitterly (and without, apparently, realizing the contradiction), no international regulation has yet fixed stable and recognized borders to the two French mandates! This situation would allow us to intervene with full right in the disputed areas of the Lebanese-Syrian Druze Jebel! Finally, taking up the spirit of the telegram from his staff, he concludes without excessive politeness: "Could we finally know when your forces will have definitively evacuated the provinces of Kirkuk and Mosul?"
The sooner the better! Edward Quinan is one of those, very numerous across the Channel, who will never forgive Gouraud for having driven Faisal I out of Damascus and for having put an end to Lawrence's dream of a great Arab kingdom. For him, as for his fellow men, the French can only be intruders in the Middle East - worse: miserable usurpers - who must be expelled as soon as possible, the sooner the better!
Massiet, happily obeying the orders of Algiers, coldly indicates that he has not received any directive from his government concerning the date of his eventual return to Syria: "However," he adds, "I think I can say that France considers it necessary to begin very quickly a global negotiation on the economic problems of the Middle East, in general and, in particular, on the question of the distribution of oil."
We leave on a note of acrimony, without taking any decision or even sharing the lunch planned.
12:30 - Massiet and Larminat take the plane back to Rasheed to return to the north.
.........
London, 10:30 - Telephone call from Anthony Eden to Paul-Boncour. He is sorry to have to cancel the lunch planned with him and Margerie, but he urgently needs to prepare the Question Time***. Tory MPs, at one time supporters of appeasement, will draw the Cabinet's attention on the situation in Greece and Yugoslavia and reproach it with a lack of military means. Eden will nevertheless remain at the disposal of his hosts from 16:30, he says, and the dinner with Winston Churchill is of course maintained.
11:00 - Telegram from Margerie and Paul-Boncour to Algiers. They wonder if this cancellation is not a cop-out.
12:00 - Reply from Algiers: "Do not give in on anything".
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Baghdad, 15:00 - Secret telegram from Wavell to Churchill. The Marshal reports on the failure of the Raffles meeting and deplores "a really too obvious lack of inter-allies cooperation spirit" in Quinan - without it being possible to discern whether he regretted the "lack of inter-allied cooperation spirit" or the fact that this feeling was "too obvious". And he adds, using a convoluted formulation: "As far as British Forces in the Middle East, in general, are concerned, may be the Cabinet would find it expedient to proceed in the near future with a reshuffle in the chain of command" - this reshuffle in the British chain of command in the Middle East should obviously, in his mind, relieve him of the burden of unwanted political responsibilities.
16:00 - Telegram in code from Massiet and Larminat to Algiers: "We are under strong pressure from some British to leave Iraq as soon as possible. Will naturally not move. Are waiting for instructions."
.........
London, 16:30 - The Cabinet is abused by parliamentarians. The Speaker of the House has to chastise some members for using bad words, such as cowardice or stupidity for example. But Anthony Eden, in his Foreign Office office, is as elegant and courteous as ever. After reading a copy of Reynaud's letter to Churchill, he calmly tells the two Frenchmen: "We are a naval nation. We are still in the habit of giving more autonomy than you do to our great distant subordinates than you do. But it is true that some people let themselves be abused by this tradition."
In his eyes, the reference to the sacrosanct British tradition seems to solve the problem. He then goes on to say that His Majesty's government, as far as it is concerned, wants to "freeze"**** until the Victory everything related to the Empire, whether it was its future extent or its evolution.
.........
Iraqi-Iranian border, 17:30 - On information, a guard post of the 21st Brigade on the road to Mehran in Iraqi territory, two kilometers before the border, stops a Fordson tractor that had seen better days and a reed cart. The second lieutenant in command of the British has no trouble discerning that the driver and passengers of the caravan, whose rags are frankly of local color, are of European origin. Among the passengers, a fake malaria patient, Captain Stellenbrünn, of the Brandenburgers, who, really wounded, bites his lips to keep from screaming in pain on the floorboards of the jeep. The officer and his three soldiers arethe only survivors of a skirmish that took place the day before, not far from Jassan, with they don't know who. Some robbers or deserters from the marauding 4th Iraqi Division.
In spite of the care immediately given by the British doctors, then a transfer to the central hospital in Baghdad in a sanitary Valentia, Captain Stellenbrünn does not survive his wounds. He is buried with military honors in the small cemetery adjacent to the Lutheran temple in the capital.
Colonel Carbury is unaware of this, as are Messrs Régnier and Gullbrandsson, but with the capture of the four men, the German expedition in Iraq, the last jolt of the great oriental dream of William II and the pangermanists, comes to an end. It is the final point of operation Ostmond. There will be no more passages, nor new prisoners. A page has been turned on an episode that would seem to sink into the derisory or the chromatic if it did not include, first of all, a part of tragedy.
.........
French HQ, Kirkuk, 18:30 - Kervilzic's father enters Larminat's office, in the presence of Massiet, a man with a martial appearance despite his poor peasant clothes: Brigadier Saïd Mansour, who has definitely understood where the wind is blowing, comes to announce his rallying to the regent.
The two generals notice that Mansour, trained by the Turks before 1914, speaks perfect French. Perhaps believing themselves to be in unsubdued Morocco, they grant him the aman. "We will do our best," Massiet promises, "to facilitate the transport of your troops to Baghdad - or any other garrison - as soon as the regent himself has taken note of your... reconciliation."
Full of solicitude, the French even offer the brigadier an airplane to reach the capital - as soon as Mansour is convinced that he is safe with Nouri Said.
One can think that Massiet and Larminat are all the more eager because they would not be mad to throw Mansour, who would be indebted to them, at Quinan's feet.
.........
London, 20:00 - Winston Churchill never forgets his aristocratic origins. He knows how to play with nuances like a virtuoso. He does not offer dinner in the salons of 10 Downing Street, but in a private room at Simpson's, on the Strand, a mecca of English gastronomy - and one of the four restaurants in the capital***** authorized to free themselves from restrictions, at the cost of a tax that doubled the already huge bills. The roast beef, the glory of the house, kept its pre-war cooking and taste.
Informal, these agapes, which he waters, since the aperitif, with his customary generosity, allows him more freedom of speech. In truth, he speaks as clearly as the French-English sabir that he likes it allows him. He condemns without ambiguity all those who, in the circumstances, would like to put what they take to be the best interests of the Empire before the needs of the Franco-British Alliance. "Moi," he proclaims with, evidently more clarity than respect for Voltaire's language, "I don’t care qu’ils m’obstaclent****** et je les punitionnerai!" Recourse to the Old Testament, he boldly compares oil in Iraq to Esau's lentils. The British Prime Minister eventually pierces under the loyal ally of France, indicating that the United Kingdom, committed to the oil status quo in Iraq and elsewhere, which satisfies it, intends to receive a share of the resources to be discovered, in the future, in the French colonies. "We've been told here", he insinuates, "that, from your Sahara, we may expect..."******* He also hints that, in his opinion, the distribution of the zones of influence in the Middle East could, one day, be the object of a reform in the best interest of both parties.
In short, Churchill undertakes to write to Paul Reynaud the next day to put an end to the tensions and to take the commitment to respect the French Empire "in the Middle-East and elsewhere". Margerie, if he could delay his departure time, would be able to take care of this letter himself.
Eden, who is no stranger to his Prime Minister's desire for conciliation, merely nods his head. Margerie and Paul-Boncour take note.
* Operated by the Raffles Company and as comfortable and luxurious, according to travelers, as its counterparts in Hong Kong and Singapore, this palace, then considered one of the gems of the Empire, has now disappeared.
** Following the age-old practice of Whitehall's responsibilities to the man on the spot, Wavell was kept informed of Sir Reader Bullard's interview with Reza Shah.
*** Members of the House of Commons may question the Prime Minister and other members of his Cabinet on any matter of interest to them every Tuesday and Thursday between 3 and 4 p.m. There is no way to avoid it. It's always a great time.
**** To make his point clear, Eden will say, "We've put these items into a huge deep-freezer. They'll wait quietly there, like mammoths in Siberian permafrost."
***** With Rule's, near Covent Garden, the Ritz and the Savoy. Oscar Wilde sometimes claimed that Simpson's roast beef - truly exceptional - was proof of the existence of God.
****** Winston Churchill loved this turn of phrase. We know his famous apostrophe: "General de Gaulle, si vous m’obstaclerez, je vous liquidera!"
******* The Prime Minister is implying here that he was aware of Conrad Kilian's reports on the oil resources of the Sahara - and that he took them more seriously than French officials.
