The establishment of the East India Company Residency at Baghdād, 1798–1806

1967 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 323-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. E. Yapp
Keyword(s):  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Persian Gulf ◽  
East India Company ◽  
British Government ◽  
British Policy ◽  
Political Agent ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Persian Gulf ◽  
Important Shift

The establishment of a British political agent at Baghdad marked an important shift in British policy in the area of the Persian Gulf. It underlined the changing interest from trade to politics, the recognition of the strategic problem of Indian defence, and the assertion by the British Government in India of a policy towards the Ottoman Empire which was in contrast to that of the Government in England. During the period of office of the first Resident, Harford Jones, these changes were but dimly perceived through the fog of personal feuds which surrounded him. None the less these feuds did ultimately reflect significant divisions about policy.

A Mid-Victorian Coverup: The Case of The “Combustible Commodore” and the Second Anglo-Burmese War, 1851–1852

1978 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-183
Author(s):  
Oliver B. Pollak
Keyword(s):  
Policy Change ◽  
Persian Gulf ◽  
East India Company ◽  
Royal Navy ◽  
Capacity To Act ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Persian Gulf ◽  
Armed Intervention ◽  
Line Officer

The origins of the Second Anglo-Burmese War in late 1851 were the subject of a Mid-Victorian bipartisan and bureaucratic coverup throughout 1852-53. The Government of India in Calcutta had successfully maintained a policy of “non-intercourse” following removal in 1840 of its diplomatic representatives from Burma despite frequent uncoordinated calls for remonstrance by merchants, missionaries and military administrators. In 1851, a convergence of factors, most notably the alleged mistreatment of British subjects in Rangoon, captured the President in Council's attention in Calcutta resulting in a policy change which led to armed intervention. Calcutta's renewed interest in Burma occurred while politicans in London prepared to scrutinize the bureaucratic relations between the London-based Cabinet and the East India Company.Official discussions in Calcutta about Burma occurred while Governor General Dalhousie was “up country on progress” and at the very time that the Council wanted to test its capacity to act independently. The Council resorted to a unit of the Royal Navy then in Calcutta enroute from Acheh to the Persian Gulf. Commodore George Robert Lambert offered to deliver letters to Burmese authorities in Rangoon and negotiate on behalf of the English subjects. Lambert's reputation for moderation recommended him to Calcutta officials. His instructions from Council and private letters from Dalhousie advised caution and the avoidance of confrontation. Yet Lambert, a line officer, ultimately responsible to the Admiralty in London, could conceivably ignore Calcutta's wishes and chart his own course.

scholarly journals The formation of the Ulster Home Guard

2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (158) ◽  
pp. 230-246
Author(s):  
William Butler
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Police Force ◽  
British Government ◽  
Law And Order ◽  
World War ◽  
British Policy ◽  
The Government ◽  
Second World

AbstractThis article explores the problems encountered in the formation of the Ulster Home Guard, supposedly a direct equivalent to its well-known British counterpart, as part of the paramilitary Ulster Special Constabulary in Northern Ireland, during the Second World War. Predictably, the Ulster Home Guard became an almost exclusively Protestant organisation which led to many accusations of sectarianism from a variety of different national and international voices. This became a real concern for the British government, as well as the army, which understandably wished to avoid any such controversy. Though assumptions had previously been made about the numbers of Catholics in the force, this article explores just how few joined the organisation throughout the war. Additionally, the article investigates the rather awkward constitutional position in which the Ulster Home Guard was placed. Under the Government of Ireland Act, the Stormont administration had no authority on matters of home defence. It did, however, have the power to raise a police force as a way to maintain law and order. Still, the Ulster Home Guard, although formed as part of the Ulster Special Constabulary, was entrusted solely with home defence and this had wider implications for British policy towards Northern Ireland throughout the Second World War.

Mesopotamia in British Strategy, 1903–1914

1978 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Late Stage ◽  
Persian Gulf ◽  
Political Interest ◽  
British Government ◽  
Railway Line ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
The Persian Gulf ◽  
The City ◽  
Experienced Difficulty

Britain's strategic interest in Mesopotamia in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was a consequence of her control over India. The valleys of the Tigris and the Euphrates constitute a natural highway from Syria to the Persian Gulf, and thence to the Indian Ocean. Not until a relatively late stage in Imperial history, however, did Britain extend her formal protection to this region. In the nineteenth century successive British governments had refused to finance the establishment of either a Mesopotamian steamer service or railway line. Subsequently, they had first (1903) rejected participation in an international Baghdad railway scheme, and then (1914) sanctioned complete German control over the project as far as Basra. A small Indian force was despatched to the head of the Persian Gulf in October 1914, but the subsequent Mesopotamian campaign was ‘a haphazard affair from start to finish’ lacking political or military direction. Thus, the De Bunsen committee, which reported on Britain's desiderata in Asiatic Turkey in June 1915, had concluded that Ottoman “devolutionary control” over Mesopotamia was preferable to Indian annexation of any part of the region other than the Basra vilayet; that October, the War Cabinet experienced difficulty in deciding whether to sanction an advance on Baghdad. No proclamation of political interest in Mesopotamia was in fact made by a British government until the capture of the city in 1917. The immediate and local arguments impelling that operation have been fully investigated. By contrast, the strategic tradition that deprecated it has been relatively neglected. This paper proposes to survey the latter and to indicate the degree to which the extension of the Mesopotamian campaign contradicted previous British strategy toward the region.

scholarly journals The weaponized Gulf riyal politik(s) and shifting dynamics of the global arms trade

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma Soubrier
Keyword(s):  
United Arab Emirates ◽  
Persian Gulf ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
The Political ◽  
Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia ◽  
Industrial Companies ◽  
Arms Trade ◽  
The Persian Gulf ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Important Shift

This article considers the politics and economics of arms trade in the Persian Gulf from the perspective of the importers, rather than the usual focus on the exporters. It analyses the purposes that weapons purchases have served over the last three decades for three of the most important Middle Eastern arms importers—the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. This shows an increasingly blurred divide between the political, economic and strategic dimensions of the arms trade. It suggests an important shift in the relations between the arms client/importing states, supplier/exporting states, and defense industrial companies.

Ratansi Purshottam, the Gujaratis of Muscat, and the Global Connectivity of Indian Ocean Transregional Markets

2019 ◽  
pp. 269-284
Author(s):  
Calvin H. Allen
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
East Africa ◽  
Consumer Goods ◽  
Persian Gulf ◽  
Global Market ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Persian Gulf ◽  
Commercial Network

This chapter provides a case study of the career of Seth Ratansi Purshotam to demonstrate the role of Gujarati Banyans of Muscat, Oman in linking that port’s transregional commercial network of India, the Persian Gulf, and East Africa to the global market. Ratansi, a native of Mandvi, Kachhch, began his career as a clerk in his uncle’s shop in 1857, opened his own shop in 1867, and by the 1880s until his death in 1904 was one of the leading importers/exporters and money lenders of Muscat and a principal financier of the government of Oman as the customs farmer. During that period Ratansi joined with other Banyan, Khoja, and Arab merchants to expand and strengthen direct contacts with European and American commercial outlets for the export of Omani products, especially dates, and the import of Western manufactured consumer goods, most notably arms and ammunition.

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