This is a somewhat obscure and contorted topic — even after having reviewed the India Office correspondence there’s still a couple of points on which I’m not entirely clear. But I’ll try my best to see if I can get things into some sort of order.

The geopolitical context

Probably best to start with this. The vilayet of Mosul made up the northern third (approximately) of Ottoman Iraq, and was generally Kurdish in character.¹ The Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 drew one of its infamous lines across the Mosul vilayet: the northern half (including Mosul town itself) was placed in the French zone of influence, and the southern half was to lie in the British zone of influence. See the map at right for a closer look.

The British campaign in Mesopotamia had come to almost a halt after Baghdad was captured — other theatres were apparently seen as more of a priority. Some territory north of Baghdad was captured in the earlier part of 1918. Large-scale offensives dramatically resumed in October 1918: active negotiations with the Ottomans for an armistice had begun, and the British wanted to capture as much territory as they could before they were required to stop. By 25 October the British had reached the Little Zab River, which formed the boundary between the French and British zones of influence. The armistice was signed on 30 October, coming into effect on 31 October. Both armies were required to stay in the positions they were holding on 31 October, an arrangement which left Mosul town and the northern part of the vilayet in the hands of the Ottomans. The British solved the problem by immediately violating the armistice and capturing Mosul town on 2 November, followed quickly by the rest of the vilayet.²

The British, having gone to this trouble to seize the entire vilayet, were then required by the Sykes-Picot agreement to hand most of it over to the French. Although “no one in British official circles at the end of the war had any intention of letting the French have it” ³, the matter required delicate handling. In response to a telegram from Sir Percy Cox (Civil Commissioner for Iraq) asking how the vilayet should be governed, the Secretary of State for India replied on 5 November 1918: ⁴

Development

Once the civil post office in Mosul town had been reopened, the question inevitably arose as to what stamps should be employed there. The regular occupation issue was put into use while the matter was considered.⁵ Colonel Wilson (Deputy Civil Commissioner for Iraq) cabled the India Office on 15 November 1918:⁶

Meaning 2 implies a degree of permanence (or, at least, hopes of permanence pending an A-B peace settlement) and an administration of a less overtly military and ad-hoc character. By late 1918 the Basra and Baghdad vilayets were occupied in the “meaning 2” sense – the War was still on-going and the region was still legal Ottoman territory, but the front lines had moved north and responsibility for much administration had passed from the military to the Civil Commissioner. This is the “Baghdad system of civil administration” referred to in the Secretary of State for India’s telegram of 5 November 1918.

Back to the narrative. The India Office took the view that extending the occupation issue to Mosul would be politically harmless. In their opinion the overprint “IRAQ IN BRITISH OCCUPATION” was consistent with the Secretary of State’s instruction that the vilayet should “remain outwardly at least under military administration”.⁷ But they referred the matter to the Foreign Office for a final determination.

The Foreign Office disagreed, writing to the India Office and the Civil Commissioner on 27 November 1918:⁸

That is, it was safe to openly advertise a “meaning 1” occupation – the British army had undeniable, facts-on-the-ground control of Mosul vilayet (although this control had been obtained in part illegally) and stamps of a provisional, field-post sort of character were entirely concordant with an occupation of this nature. However if the stamps of the “Baghdad system of civil administration” were extended to Mosul vilayet, this would imply (or, it was feared it would imply) British intentions to control Mosul vilayet in the more settled, civilianised, expected-to-continue-post-war way it already controlled the Baghdad and Basra vilayets. The use of “IRAQ” in the overprint also in itself implied an intention to treat Mosul as part of the Baghdad-Basra unit.

Expressing an intent to administer Mosul like Baghdad and Basra would have been in defiance of the French claim to part of the Mosul vilayet, and the British didn’t even have such an intent to begin with. In late 1918 they had few fixed notions about what to do with the vilayet, beyond wanting it under their control in one way or another. As well as annexing it to Iraq, it was also proposed at various points to rule it as a separate unit, or to give part of it over to the Kurds. And, with the war now over, this uncertainty couldn't be resolved separately from the broader questions of the overall post-war territorial settlement. It wasn't until the San Remo Conference of April 1920 that the British position coalesced into that the region should be annexed to Iraq. They considered that it would grant Iraq a suitably defensible mountainous northern border, and that annexing it —and its mostly Sunni population— to Iraq would help balance out the rest of Iraq, which was majority Shia but dominated politically by Sunnis. But this is in the future.

The French difficulty anticlimactically resolved itself on 1 December 1918, when Georges Clemenceau withdrew his claim to Mosul "during a private conversation" with David Lloyd George. ⁹

It’s entirely unclear to me when this development became known outside the two Prime Ministers. It isn’t mentioned in the India Office correspondence, despite being fundamentally material to the stamps question, and as will be seen below the Foreign Office was still anxious about not offending the French on 19 December. So it seems that either the Foreign Office didn’t know; or it knew but was concerned the French didn’t know yet; or it and the French both knew but for larger strategic reasons it was considered prudent not to annoy the French in this particular regard.

Wilson agreed with the use of an “I.E.F. D” overprint, but suggested to the India Office on 3 December 1918 that it be applied to Indian stamps, not Ottoman ones. “I think use of Indian stamps surcharged I.E.F.D., would serve the purpose equally well. They were in use here [i.e., Baghdad] until a few months ago. Is this approved?” ¹⁰ To pause the narrative again, it should be noted that, contrary to Wilson’s assertion, stamps overprinted “I.E.F. D” had never been used before, in Iraq or elsewhere. The British force in Iraq was Indian Expeditionary Force D, but it of course used Indian stamps overprinted simply “I.E.F.”

It therefore seems that the reason why the Mosul stamps ended up being overprinted “POSTAGE I.E.F. ‘D’” was simply because Wilson erroneously thought that there had already been stamps overprinted “I.E.F. D”. He then introduced this error into the correspondence, beginning with his telegram of 15 November 1918, and nobody ever corrected him.^10A

The India Office agreed with Wilson’s proposal to use Indian stamps instead of Ottoman ones, but again deferred to the final judgment of the Foreign Office. ¹¹ The Foreign Office insisted on 19 December 1918 that Ottoman stamps be used: ¹²

The sole reason given is still the French.

Wilson conceded the point and got to work looking for Ottoman stamps. In the section of the India Office papers relating to the Mosul difficulty there’s no mention at all of Bradbury Wilkinson, so it seems to have been decided at an early stage (see e.g. Wilson’s telegram of 15 November 1918 quoted above) that the overprint would be done on-location with stamps found on-location, rather than having the stamps printed and overprinted in England. Speed was presumably the dominant consideration.

The stamps found in Mosul town were revenue stamps, not postage stamps, of a somewhat miscellaneous character. Major Clerici reported to Wilson on 31 December 1918 that he had managed to find “1,864,000 [stamps], made up of numerous denominations with several classes in each denomination and generally with an old and a new variety in each class.” This total only included “those varieties which may safely be expected to yield sufficient stock of postage stamps” (presumably out of a concern not to create rarities, a consideration which had also been applied to the Baghdad stamps) and excluded stamps which had been rendered useless through having been stored improperly. Of the 1,864,000 stamps, Clerici proposed to overprint 1,360,000 and keep the rest for revenue purposes.¹³

Clerici noted in the same letter: “it has not been possible, nor does it appear to be material, to maintain any correspondence between the surcharged and the original impressed values of the stamps.” Nothing further arose on this point and there’s no evidence of any objection having been taken, in contrast to the complications the occupation issue encountered at this stage.

The stamps were sent down to Baghdad to be overprinted at the Government Press. I don’t know when they were despatched, or when they arrived back, but it all had to have been done within January, which is a tight enough turnaround.

To return briefly to the geopolitical side for some final head-scratching. As noted above, it’s barely possible the French surrender of their claim to Mosul hadn’t filtered down to the Foreign Office by 19 December 1918. But surely it was known to all (including the French themselves) before 1 February 1919 when the stamps were issued. And of course in their 19 December communication the Foreign Office cited no reason for Mosul needing a special issue beyond “French susceptibilities”. So there was perhaps, in theory, a window where the issue of the stamps might have been halted, them having been rendered unnecessary by events. They were issued, regardless: perhaps there was no such window, or production was sufficiently advanced it was thought better to complete it on a “sunk costs” kind of analysis, or the British thought it prudent to dissemble their intentions anyway.

Issue and subsequent events

The stamps went on sale on 1 February 1919. On the same date the occupation issue was invalidated, and stocks held in Mosul post offices were returned to Baghdad where there was a need for them.¹⁴ A second printing of the 8 annas value was ordered on 21 June 1919.¹⁵

The stamps lasted until some uncertain date when stocks ran out. Proud dates this to sometime in 1921¹⁶, meanwhile Cockrill claims not to have seen non-philatelic uses postmarked later than December 1919.¹⁷

This issue generated some collector interest at the time it appeared¹⁸, and the stamps were trading on the secondary market for inflated prices even while they were current. An official notice was issued on 28 June 1919 reminding the public that the entire set could be obtained at face value from any post office in the Mosul region.¹⁹ The stamps were also offered for sale (strictly as complete sets) at the Baghdad GPO: no reason for this occurs beyond a desire to extract money from collectors and dealers.²⁰

Anyway the stamps ran out at some point, whenever exactly this was, and the occupation stamps reappeared, it evidently being regarded as politically safe enough to do so by then. The The Mosul issue was eventually invalidated on the 1st September 1922.²¹

Geopolitics, again

The Ottomans hadn’t forgotten that Mosul had been taken in violation of the 1918 armistice. They refused to accept its loss, and so did the new Republic of Turkey. The dispute ended up being referred to the League of Nations for arbitration. The League, long story short, ultimately awarded Mosul to Iraq in 1926.

Amounts printed

There’s no information on this in the India Office papers. Cockrill rehearses two different estimates, made at different points, and I reproduce the one he regards as more probable: ²²