Miscellaneous

A page for interesting items that don’t really fit on the preceding pages. Organised (approximately, vaguely) chronologically.

The early mail routes between Basra and Constantinople

Proud’s book contains an evocative chapter describing the postal arrangements of the British in Iraq during the late 18th and earlier 19th Centuries. It quotes at length from two memoranda (one 1798, the other 1799) composed by Harford Jones, the Resident at Baghdad, where he compares the relative cost, speed and security of mail sent by the “Route of Baghdad” and the “Route of Aleppo”. Jones prefers to send mail via Baghdad on all counts. Transit was faster than one might imagine: Jones estimates that an average postman could travel from Basra to Constantinople in 27 days in winter, or 24 days the rest of the year. The Aleppo route could potentially match that speed in summer, but apparently never in the winter.

Anyway I’ve taken this delightful contemporary map found on Wikipedia Commons and scribbled the two routes on top of it, as seen above. This one is very similar, but not identical, to the one poorly reproduced in Proud.

“Basra Revenues”

This is a very curious matter found in the India Office correspondence. Summarising heavily, in early 1917 the India Office believed that the current postage stamps in the Basra vilayet were Indian stamps overprinted “Basra Revenues”. A telegram from the India Office to Cox mentioned these supposed stamps, and he replied on 16 September 1917: “In the civil post offices Basra Vilayet plain Indian stamps are used without any surcharge. It is only revenue and court fee stamps which are surcharged ‘Basra revenues’.” (Part 1, 208r)

I have never seen an Indian stamp surcharged “Basra Revenues”. I can find nothing online, and The Revenue Stamps of Iraq by Ross and Powell (2nd ed., 2000), which I must assume is comprehensive, lists no such stamps. A wide and very miscellaneous selection of revenue stamps were in use at this point: most were overprinted Ottoman revenues, but some were Indian revenues, although these were overprinted with “Iraq”. The most obvious answer to this conundrum is simply that Cox was mistaken, but we know from his involvement in the Baghdad and occupation issues that he paid close attention to stamps, and would thus presumably be less likely than others to make a large mistake like this. It’s also unclear where the India Office originally obtained the notion that these stamps existed and were being used for postal purposes. Mysterious.

A salute to Charles Clerici

1. https://www.greatwarforum.org/topic/87293-maj-cj-emile-clerici-cie-obe/?tab=comments#comment-811171

2. Unclear whether he was born in India in 1877 or in Milan “c. 1875” – I have seen both.

3. https://emhs.org.au/person/brooks/constance_jessie

4. Lt-Col. Sir A. T. Wilson, Loyalties: Mesopotamia 1914-1917 (1930), 76. I found this in Khalastchy and can take no credit for it.

5. Ibid.

6. https://www.greatwarforum.org/topic/87293-maj-cj-emile-clerici-cie-obe/?tab=comments#comment-811171

7. F. Khalastchy, “Baghdad in British Occupation”: the Story of the 1917 Provisional Stamps (2017), 14.

8. Proud, 38.

9. Ibid. Despite the name, this was the most senior civilian postal position in Iraq.

10. Khalastchy, 9.

11. Cockrill, 55.

12. https://www.greatwarforum.org/topic/87293-maj-cj-emile-clerici-cie-obe/?tab=comments#comment-811171

13. https://emhs.org.au/person/brooks/constance_jessie

14. Proud, 135.

15. Proud, 136.

16. India Office File 1323/1917, Part 3, 58r-59r.

17. Khalastchy, 303.

18. Khalastchy, 41.

The abortive 1919-1920 definitives

There was an attempt in 1919-1920 to replace the occupation series with a new issue designed specifically for Iraq. This attempt ultimately went nowhere and, rather frustratingly, I can’t actually find any pictures of the proposed designs. But there’s a few interesting details can be located in the India Office correspondence, and so I set these out below. Pictures to hopefully follow in further course.

To vigorously condense the background, it was regarded by many as unsuitable in the post-armistice context that Iraq should continue to use overprinted Ottoman stamps. As early as 25 January 1919, Colonel Wilson of the Civil Commissioner’s Office wrote to the India Office, asking them to procure an entirely new issue with new designs, “to be issued in [Iraq] after its final status has been settled at the Peace Conference.”[1] Wilson set out a few desiderata for the new stamps:

• “For various reasons I am inclined to think that the new stamps should be neither decorative nor pictorial, but of a non-committal design… of a type akin to those issued by the King of the Hejaz.”

• The size should be “varied” for the values of 1 rupee and higher.

• The text should appear in English and Arabic.

The matter then drifted for some months while peace negotiations continued and the question of what currency to use in Iraq remained unsettled (Wilson envisaged the continuing use of Indian currency).[2]

Trial designs were prepared, subject to resolution of the currency question, but by whom and when they were prepared is very unclear. In July 1919 Wilson recommended that the India Office collaborate on designs with a Mr E. L. Norton, who had some knowledge of Iraq and “the local point of view”.[3] Norton doesn’t seem to have been a designer himself. The designs were being worked on (by persons unknown) by July.[4] In or around October 1919 the “Royal Mint” was engaged to prepare plates for printing.[5]

In October 1919 the designs (with gaps left for the denominations to be inserted) had been finalised, and were approved by a committee comprising a representative of the India Office, the Post Office Stores Department and the Civil Commissioner’s Office.[6] By now the idea was that the Royal Mint would prepare the plates, but printing would be done by one of Bradbury Wilkinson, De La Rue or Waterlow & Sons.[7] The King approved the designs before 16 January 1920.[8]

As to what the designs actually looked like, it’s difficult to say too much without being able to see the things. From what I can pick up in the correspondence:

• There were two designs: a “smaller” and “larger” one. The larger one was presumably used for the 1 rupees and above, as suggested by Wilson in his letter of 25 January 1919.[9]

• The designs were bilingual and said “Iraq” in both languages.[10]

• There were “no pictorial representations”.[11]

Printing could have started in January 1920 (presumably once a printer had been chosen) if the currency question had been settled.[12] The India Office believed that Indian currency would remain in use in Iraq for some years, and wrote to the Foreign Office suggesting that printing be commenced with Indian values inserted into the designs, and the stamps overprinted “Provisional Issue”.[13] The Foreign Office insisted that printing not commence before the peace settlement was concluded.[14]

Wilson took advantage of this delay to request that copies of the designs be shipped out to him at Baghdad, so that he could “show them to local dignitaries privately and obtain their views”.[15] Having seen the designs, Wilson disagreed with the use of “Iraq” in the English legend and requested that the stamps say “Iraq” in Arabic but “Mesopotamia” in English, pleading that “the name ‘Iraq’ is unknown outside this country”.[16] “This will involve some modification(s) of design”, he laconically noted. The Arabic calligraphy on the stamps was “unfavourably criticised in local circles”, and Wilson requested that it be “designed in a more artistic manner”.[17]

The matter then drifted again. Some momentum had begun to pick up towards the end of 1920, but Cox poured cold water on the business in a 15 December telegram to the India Office where he stated “please suspend action in this matter pending further communication. Designs have not yet been (? to the) [sic] Council and do not think they will be approved”.[18] It’s unclear to me what “Council” he refers to here. And at this point the India Office file ends.

In March 1919 Waterlow & Sons, apparently unprompted, applied to tender for the contract to produce the new stamps and enclosed sample designs (now lost) with their tender.[19] This appears to be a dead end unconnected with the foregoing.

1. India Office File 1323/1917 Pt 5, 340r.

2. See for example India Office File 1323/1917 Pt 5, 312r.

3. India Office File 1323/1917 Pt 5, 333r.

4. India Office File 1323/1917 Pt 5, 332r.

5. India Office File 1323/1917 Pt 5, 327r. I assume this means the government stamp printing operation at Somerset House, and not the literal Royal Mint.

6. India Office File 1323/1917 Pt 5, 313v.

7. India Office File 1323/1917 Pt 5, 313v-314r.

8. India Office File 1323/1917 Pt 5, 314r. Why he became involved in the process I do not know: did he approve new British/British Empire designs as a matter of routine? There’s no indication he had possessed approval powers over the Baghdad, occupation or Mosul issues, though arguably none of those constituted “new” designs.

9. India Office File 1323/1917 Pt 5, 307r.

10. India Office File 1323/1917 Pt 5, 304r.

11. India Office File 1323/1917 Pt 5, 300r.

12. India Office File 1323/1917 Pt 5, 315r.

13. India Office File 1323/1917 Pt 5, 515r-315v.

14. India Office File 1323/1917 Pt 5, 312r.

15. India Office File 1323/1917 Pt 5, 309r.

16. India Office File 1323/1917 Pt 5, 304r.

17. India Office File 1323/1917 Pt 5, 303r.

18. India Office File 1323/1917 Pt 5, 284r.

19. India Office File 1323/1917 Pt 5, 331r.

Wages

The 1926 Report to the Council of the League of Nations on the Administration of Iraq offers some interesting data on wages, which I reproduce below:

In the right-hand column I’ve converted all the sums to dinars, for additional comparanda: this is a straight division by eleven and of course assumes no movement in wages between 1926 and the introduction of the dinar. We can see therefore that the lovely big purple 25 rupees of the 1932 issue would have consumed the entire monthly wages of a man performing regular unskilled work. Of note are the identical wages paid by the Anglo-Persian Oil Company and the Turkish Petroleum Company: the Report rather blandly attributes this to an “arrangement between the companies.”

Exchange Square, Baghdad

Two views of Exchange Square, Baghdad (as known from the postmarks). Left is from the Fortepan archive, right from the Library of Congress.

King Ghazi essays

Spotted at Corinphila (first picture) and Ebay (second). Corinphila’s description states these were produced by Jos. Enschedé in 1935 — was the contract put out for re-tender after the first deliveries of the Bradbury definitives had been made? Anyway, I actually find these quite pleasant — the inner frame undulates agreeably and I like the relative boldness of the lettering. Some colour combinations are less felicitous than others — I have no idea whether these were pure colour trials or whether it was intended, in the manner of contemporary French work, that all the stamps really be bicoloured.

Censorship

This is a rather multifarious topic, and one which needs a separate and substantive treatment. Here I merely set down a few notes.

A report on censorship in WWII

I recently (Jany. 2024) found a very interesting document for sale on Ebay, concering Iraqi censorship in WWII. The seller is asking a fairly absurd price for it, and so it’ll remain outside of my collection (and, I would imagine, anybody else’s), but he posted photos of enough pages for me to be able to gain some idea of its contents. I summarise these below. All text in quote marks is from the document.

• The document is a memorandum prepared by one C. R. Grice, OBE and dated 25 August 1945. Grice was or had been the Deputy Controller of Censorship in Iraq, attached to the Interior Ministry. The memorandum is addressed to Colonel Allan Saunders, CMG, Director of Middle Eastern Censorship at Cairo.

• The censorship operation was headquartered at Baghdad, with offices at Basra and Mosul.

• In charge was one Hamid Beg Rafat of the Interior Ministry, acting as Controller of Censorship, with Mr Grice as Deputy Controller and a Major G. G. Higham as Assistant Controller.

• Total staff was 101 — of which, 78 were paid by Britain, 11 by Iraq, and 12 by Iraq with additional “allowances” from Britain.

• Mails attracting 100% examination:

  • Terminal mails “to or from Turkey or any other neutral”.

  • Outward terminal mails to all destinations (including POW mail, internee mail and mail to the Vatican, Red Cross etc.).

  • Incoming terminal mails (including internal mails) to recipients on the Sorting List*.

  • Mails transiting through Iraq “from or to countries not having Imperial or Allied censorship, but mail addressed to such censorships in distant countries, and that from Turkey and [Iran] which is not examined by Aleppo or Teheran, is examined here since the time factor has a bearing on the value of information extracted [some punctuation added].”

• Postal bags from Turkey to India were passed unexamined on the basis Indian censorship would examine them.

• Transit mails which had already been examined by Imperial or Allied censorship were not re-examined.

• Some inward terminal mails were examined — this seems to have depended on the workload/backlog of the censorship office. Higher-concern countries of origin were dealt with on a priority basis. The list went, from most to least concerning: Iran; Saudi Arabia and Yemen; USA; Syria and Lebanon; Imperial countries; Palestine; Egypt; the UK.

• The goal was not to detain terminal mails for more than three days, although surface-borne outward and airborne inward mails to certain specified destinations could be detained for longer. Both sets of destinations are listed in the memorandum but for space I don’t reproduce them here.

• There was no “contraband control” in place.

• All three stations could carry out telegraph censorship. Destinations attracting examination: Iran; Turkey; Kuwait; “India and farther east”; Saudi Arabia; Palestine; Egypt; “and places beyond, including all places in Europe and America”. Internal telegraphs seem not to have been examined.

• In “an average month for the last 18 months” of WWII, the three offices together handled the following volumes:

  • Terminal outward seaborne mail (all destinations): 3,040 scrutinised (1,590 examined)

  • Terminal outward surface mail (all destinations): 16,842 (15,642)

  • Terminal outward airmail (all destinations): 34,250 (21,490)

  • Terminal inward seaborne mail (all origins): 11,880 (1,350)

  • Terminal inward surface airmail (all origins): 18,024 (8,024)

  • Terminal inward mail (all origins): 16,000 (2,350)

  • Transit seaborne (all destinations): 830 (180)

  • Transit surface (all destinations): 4,72X [partially illegible] (783)

  • Transit airmail (all destinations): 13,920 (4,010)

  • Internal 245,000 (9,600)

  • Telegrams (in and out): (20,800)

• The censorship offices sent regular reports to London, and also sent newspapers “if likely to be of interest”.

• The original pretext for introducing censorship was the regulations introduced in early September 1939 which prohibited trade with Axis countries. “The Controller decided that it was impossible to implement this provision without a system of censorship of postal and telegraphic communications and it was therefore agreed that he should have access to all communications with European countries…”

• “The Cabinet” (the Iraqi one, presumably) terminated censorship in Iraq on 30 September 1945.

*No more information about the Sorting List is available. Evidently it was a list of names of dubious persons.

Articles

The Civil Censorship Study Group Bulletin has several articles on Iraq. The January 2008 instalment has a superb piece by Marc Parren on censorship after the 1958 coup. It’s presented as a part 1 — no doubt further parts have subsequently appeared (I only have a few issues of this journal). Other material can be found in April 2002 (1958-present); January 2004 (ditto); January 2008 (1958); October 2009 (ditto).

Purple single-line datestamps

In later times (the 1960s onwards) one often sees purple single-line datestamps on covers. These appear to have been part of the censorship mechanism — I have seen one cover, from 1962, where a datestamp and a purple censorship triangle are both somehow under the one of the postage stamps, strongly suggesting they were applied simultaneously.

Unused designs of the Faisal II era

Above: this appeared at auction a few years ago. With no context it’s unclear what the proposed purpose for this vignette might have been. The shape of course suggests insertion into the pre-1948 frames.

Above: a rejected design for what would become the 1948 definitive issue. Perfectly handsome, although the eventual decision to ditch the old frames was courageous and well-taken. The pictures are from Robson Lowe’s Iraq: The influence of Bradbury, Wilkinson & Co. Ltd. on the Postage, Official & Revenue Stamps (1984). Not a common publication and long out-of-print, so I hope to be doing no harm in reproducing these (quality as per original).

Above: a regrettably rejected Courvoisier effort — the Faisal I portrait is superb, particularly. The intended purpose of these stamps isn’t wholly clear to me: this site dates them to 1949 and describes them as a proposal for the 1949 UPU issue, which I think must be correct — the (far inferior) designs which were actually chosen share the motif of the three monarchs. Spink, from whom I have stolen this image, dates them to 1939, which I cannot support.

Above: an unused design from 1950. Entirely satisfactory but perhaps unnecessary so close to the 1948 issue. Again pictured in Lowe, and again a Bradbury Wilkinson effort.

Above: a rejected design for the 1953 definitives. Why the terrible portrait actually used on the 1953 issue was chosen over this one, I couldn’t begin to guess. Robson Lowe (who had gone to school with the young Faisal II) regarded this as the best likeness of him. Lowe/Wilkinson again.

A blog here shows a planned commemorative of the ill-fated Arab Federation. The latter was also a Bradbury Wilkinson effort and is pictured in lower quality in Lowe’s book. Mono-colour proofs occasionally appear as well as the multi-colour scheme shown at the link.

Effects of geo-politics on the postal service

A collection of items seen in the Iraq Times.

The Arab-Israeli War

7 April 1948: “Owing to the present situation in Palestine, the acceptance of registered articles, whether sent by air or overland, addressed to Palestine and those addressed to Egypt and Sudan sent by the overland route will be at sender’s risk as from 10th April 1948. This Department will accept no liability for loss of such articles after having crossed the borders of Iraq and while on the Palestinian soil. It would, therefore, be advisable that registered articles addressed to Egypt and Sudan be sent by Airmail only. Director General of Posts & Telegraphs.”

15 April 1948: “With immediate effect, correspondence addressed to Palestine for transmission by the trans-desert route Baghdad-Haifa will cease to be accepted. Airmail correspondence for Palestine will, however, continue to be accepted until further notice. Director General of Posts & Telegraphs.”

22 April 1948: “Owing to the suspension of mail communications on the Baghdad-Haifa trans-desert route as a result of the present disturbances in Palestine, this Department was compelled to direct Iraq mails for Egypt via the Baghdad-Damas-Beyrouth route and as these mails might be in view of the fact that surface communications between Lebanon and Egypt are not regular subject to undue delay [sic!], special arrangements have been made with the Iraqi Airways for the conveyance of all letters and postcards from Iraq to Egypt by air. [...] Director General of Posts & Telegraphs.”

7 June 1949: “With immediate effect postal correspondence of all classes will be accepted to the Arab Part of Palestine namely; Jerusalem (Old City), Ramallah, Nablus, Tulkarm, Jenin, Bethlehem, Al-Khalil and Jericho. Director General of Posts & Telegraphs.” This presumably reflects a normalisation of postal arrangements following the armistice and these areas coming under Jordanian administration.

The Suez Crisis

8 November 1956: “Postal service which was interrupted between [Iraq and Egypt] by military operations is about to be resumed. [Iraq] made arrangements to send the Iraqi post to Egypt through Libya while the Egyptian post would be received here via the same route. Direct air mail between the two countries had also been suspended as the Egyptian goverment has declared Egypt prohibited air space to operating airlines, following the Israeli attack. [...] Postal service between Iraq and Syria continue [sic] by road only as Syria also had prohibited its airports to all airlines.”

The same issue also mentions planned diversion of Iraqi Airlines' Baghdad-Beirut service, via Turkey.

15 November 1956: “Iraqi Airways will resume its services to Beirut when conditions return to normal. [...] Iraqi Airways have given up a plan to divert the Baghdad-Beirut flights through Turkey. Turkish authorities asked that the planes should stop at Ankara thus increasing the rate by 1D. 40 in addition to the fact that it will take longer to reach Beirut [...] Air mail to Egypt will go through Benghazi, Libya, and the ordinary mail will be routed through Saudi Arabia via Basrah. Egyptian mail will follow the same routes.”

19 November 1956: “The Government of Saudi Arabia has agreed to an Iraqi request to route Iraqi surface mail, including parcel post, to Egypt through its postal facilities. [Currently, Iraqi] surface mail to Egypt is now sent to Bahrain [...] then it is sent through Saudi Arabia and across the Red Sea to Egypt. [...] the air mail to Egypt is going via different European cities to Libya then either by plane or rail to Cairo. The Libyan Government recently agreed to extend every possible assistance in delivering Iraqi mail to Egypt. [...] owing to the interruption of air services between Baghdad and Damascus, arrangements have been made to send the air mail by the usual desert transport until normal air service is resumed.”

Early Iraqi philatelic societies

An interesting item found in the 4 February 1954 edition of the Iraq Times.

“The Iraqi Philatelic society, recently established in Baghdad, has come out with its first publication. […] The society has 47 members, the bulk from Baghdad, with a few from other of the country’s Liwas [administrative divisions] and European affiliations. And its sponsors do not propose to let go the way of predecessor stamp collector organisations in Iraq — extinction, it is declared in a foreword in the current publication by a spokesman of the society. The first philatelic club was set up in Baghdad in 1933, its members both Iraqi and foreigners. But it did not survive for long. Later, the Babylon Stamps and Exchange Club was formed from among ex-members of the Philatelist Club, but suffered the same fate. More recently, an amateur stamp collector made an attempt at yet another project. This, too, was shortlived. He had omitted getting the necessary authorisation from the Ministry of Interior and the project came to nothing.”

Contemporary opinion

The Iraq Times, 22 October 1948: In a parliamentary debate, the MP for Mosul claimed that the proposed new postal rates (the tariff of 1 January 1949) would make Iraq’s rates “some of the highest in the world, especially inland rates.”

The Iraq Times, 4 February 1954: In the first issue of the philatelic journal mentioned in the section above, apparently one Colonel Abdul Aziz complained that “in Iraq pictorial and commemorative stamps are issued in large quantities, thereby losing their philatelic value.”

The 1963 definitives

Putting this here for now so I don’t lose it when I come to do a page on these stamps in 2045 or circa.

The Iraq Times, 17 February 1963: “New postage stamps were placed in circulation yesterday […] These stamps will replace those stamps which were carrying the picture of the tyrant Qassim. It has been decided that stamps bearing the picture of Qassim are not to be used and that any letter to which such stamps are affixed shall be neglected. The Iraqi News Agency learned that the new postage stamps are 90 million in number but were frozen and Qassim had prevented their circulation because they were not bearing his picture.”