Ottoman Iraq, 1863-1918

Ottoman post offices

Currency: Ottoman piastre (40 paras = 1 piastre)

A small representative selection.

Mosul and Mosul Vilayet

Baghdad and Baghdad Vilayet

Basra and Basra Vilayet

British Post Offices

Currency: Indian rupee (16 annas= 1 rupee)

A small representative selection.

1. Introduction

1.1 This is a rich, but challenging, topic to write about. In making this attempt, I met with two main difficulties. The first, and undoubtedly the most pressing, is the lack of convenient Turkish sources. I have no particular idea where to go for Turkish postal history and, even if I did, I’d be unable to read it. There is, thus, a regrettable bias on this page towards British sources — in very large part, contemporary British sources, which are often rather venomous towards their Ottoman rivals. That all adds to the charm and colour of the page, of course, but it may detract somewhat from its objectivity. The second difficulty is how to organise the material. I think that a strict chronological approach would be fatiguing, and at times not wholly coherent, so I’ve instead elected for a thematic approach. This has its own issues —some sense of the overall narrative is lost, and I have to repeat myself in a few places— but I hope overall the thing is tolerably readable.

1.2 It will be helpful here to provide the briefest possible historical sketch, so that the reader can have some idea of the overall shape of the thing from the outset. Everything alluded to here will be examined in much greater detail further down the page. Iraq was, in the period under consideration, a region of the Ottoman Empire, and the public post of the Empire operated in Iraq like it did anywhere else. In those days, several of the foreign powers had expansive “capitulation” rights in the Empire, which included a right to run their own post offices, staffed by their own personnel and operating entirely outside of the Ottoman system. In this connection, the British had two post offices, operating as extensions of the imperial Indian service, at Baghdad and Basra. The Ottomans were unhappy about the existence of the foreign offices, Indian or otherwise, and made various attempts to hinder or compete with their operations. The foreign offices, however, stayed open until just before the Ottoman entry into World War I, when the Ottoman authorities ordered them closed. When, during the War, the British recaptured Basra and later Baghdad, their offices were re-opened.

1.3 A vital point to be kept in mind is that this is a postal history website and, accordingly, I’m more or less only interested in historical matters insofar as they have a postal angle. This is a tremendously myopic way to view the source material — the diplomatic and commercial tension between the Ottoman and British governments is an incomprehensibly broad and multi-headed topic, and in approaching it from the philatelic perspective I’m doing nothing more than nibbling on one of the corners a little. For example, the competition between the Ottoman and British steamship lines, which I briefly touch on here where it relates to the carriage of mail, was merely a small part of a much wider dispute as to the navigation of the Iraqi rivers generally, the carriage of freight, the payment of duties, etc. etc.

1.4 Another limitation caused by my reliance on the British sources is that the “action” on this page takes place more or less entirely in the Baghdad-Basra area, with nowhere north of Baghdad getting much of a look in. No doubt postal affairs around Mosul and the Kurdish area were rather colourful, but I lack any information, to my considerable regret.

An important note on terminology.

1.5 The British postal service in Iraq was, strictly speaking, part of the Indian postal service, and Indian stamps were used at all times. “Indian” is thus the word I use, but for the purposes of this page “Indian” and “British” should be considered as synonymous. 

2. Ottoman post offices in Iraq, 1863-1914

2.1 To compress several centuries of history into a couple sentences, what is now modern-day Iraq fell under Ottoman control in the 16th Century and, more or less, remained a part of the Empire until its loss to Britain during the First World War. The administrative sub-divisions changed around on occasion, but in its final configuration (from 1831 onwards) Iraq[1] was divided into three vilayets, each named after their largest city: Basra, Baghdad and Mosul. Baghdad Vilayet was approximately twice the size of the other two regions.

2.2 When a public postal service was established in the Empire in 1840, Iraq was at first not generously served by it — in 1863, when the Empire's postage stamps were first issued, there were just three full post offices in all of Iraq (at Baghdad, Mosul, and Kirkuk), with three letter-only offices at Basra, Rawanduz and Sulaymaniyah.[2] However, the position greatly improved over time, and by 1914 there were 70 post offices or thereabouts, not counting the numbered sub-offices of the larger offices.[3]

2.3 Postal traffic between Constantinople and Iraq travelled the route it had done since time immemorial — eastwards through Anatolia to this or that point, then southwards to Mosul. This is a rather indirect route “as the crow flies”, but no doubt it made perfect sense in view of the difficulties presented by the terrain and so on. Over time, the route would have been improved in certain sections by improvements in the roads, replacing a stretch of road with a steamer service, etc.[4] In late 1913, there was a daily service via the Anatolian Railway from Constantinople to numerous Middle Eastern destinations, including Baghdad, Amarah and Basra. The railway in question terminated in western Anatolia and the mails would have been carried the remainder of the distance by other means.[5]

2.4 The Ottomans established a postal connection, by camel, from Baghdad to Damascus in 1881.[6] By 1885 it was being operated deliberately at a loss to drive the rival British service out of competition (see paragraph 5.8). It was closed in 1887, having fulfilled its goal (again, paragraph 5.8), but was back open by c. 1908.[7]

2.5 The Ottomans had mail steamers on the Tigris, plying between Baghdad and Basra, but these, at least in their earlier days, were badly maintained (see paragraph 3.5). In 1885, the British steamers agreed to carry a limited amount of Ottoman mail (see paragraph 5.6).[8] International shipping was not well developed (see paragraph 3.4).

2.6 Down to 1914 there was no railway anywhere in Iraq.

3. The state of the Ottoman postal service in Iraq and generally

3.1 The British and the other foreign powers justified the continued presence of their posts in the Ottoman Empire with the argument that, simply, the Ottoman postal service was bad at its job, and unequal to the task of assuming the business handled by the foreign offices. With regards to the postal situation in Iraq, Proud cites a contemporary British reference to the Empire’s “great anxiety to undertake postal obligations which she is not able to discharge.”[9] In 1884, an official of the Government of India wrote that he “had no confidence whatsoever in the efficiency of any service that the Turkish authorities might substitute” for British one in Iraq,[10] and in 1914, an official of the British Foreign office opined that “chaos would supervene” in Iraq were the Ottomans to take over the British posts there.[11]

3.2 It might be worth a detour to explore, in a bit more detail, how justified these apprehensions actually were. I think, having done a rather limited bit of reading (with my lack of relevant literature, and inability to read Turkish, as severe restraints) it can probably be said, more or less fairly, that the Ottoman post was not in the first rank of postal services, although it did make significant improvements over the course of its life. Its general deficiencies were perhaps magnified in Iraq, owing to the region’s great distance from improving influences in Constantinople.

3.3 The Ottoman Empire was admitted into the Universal Postal Union in 1874[12] and, from then on, it continually pressed its case for the abolition of the foreign post offices, both to the UPU and to the foreign governments in question. This was strenuously resisted by the foreign governments. For the Ottomans, achieving a monopoly over their own post was a matter of national dignity but, also, it had direct financial implications — the foreign posts, as a whole, brought in some 12,500,000 francs to foreign governments per year.[13] Concessions were made here and there (those made by Britain in respect of Iraq are dealt with in paragraph 4 below) but in general the foreign offices continued to operate until 1914.

3.4 A crucial point is that the foreign post offices catered in large part to customers sending international mail, an area where the Ottoman post was especially weak. When the public post was first established in 1840, it only covered domestic mail, leaving foreign mail entirely in the hands of the foreign offices.[14] The Ottoman international service only began in 1875,[15] and right down to 1913 (if not later) the Ottoman post had no international shipping capacity —mailbags for foreign destinations had to be handed over to foreign ships, mostly those of the Austrian Lloyd company, whose owners had contracted with the Ottoman government.[16] In Iraq, Ottoman mailbags for India originating were handed over to the British offices for forwarding by sea, on a British vessel under contract with the Indian government.[17][18] As late as 20 October 1914 (i.e., after the Indian offices had been closed), the Ottomans were still trying to conclude negotiations with a British steamship company for a replacement sea service.[19]

3.5 In terms of domestic shipping, the Ottomans had civilian steamers on the Tigris from 1869, operated by the state-owned Oman-Ottoman Company,[20] which was bought out in 1904 by the Hamidiye (“Hamidieh” in contemporary English orthography) Steamship Company, also state-owned.[21][22] By the early 1880s they were, apparently, “in a state of inefficiency and disrepair”[23], a condition which seems to have continued right through to the 1900s (see paragraph 5.12). In August 1883, they began to carry mail, but (according to British sources) this was an unattractive offering, owing to the relatively high Ottoman domestic rates then prevailing; most of the mail so carried was government papers, the general public preferring to use the British steamers or simply entrusting their post to persons travelling to the destination.[24] A contemporary British report claimed that, in 1888, under optimal conditions, a British steamer could get from Baghdad to Basra in 2½ days, the return journey taking 3½. An Ottoman steamer, meanwhile, supposedly required 4-5 days and 11-12 days, respectively.[25] At the time the War broke out, the Ottomans were negotiating with the British India Steam Navigation Company to carry Ottoman mail on the Tigris, under the Ottoman flag, but the War prevented any agreement.[26][27]

3.6 The foreign post offices also offered competitive rates and a wider range of services. Foreign offices (following the practice in their own countries) charged a standard fee which increased in weight increments. The Ottomans likewise charged a standard fee for international mail, but domestic mail until 1884 was assessed under a baroque system of “postal hours”, and for some or other reason the domestic rates were generally higher than international ones.[28] Whether the domestic rates were something like the true cost of mail delivery, and the international rates were run at a loss, for the sake of demonstrating the Empire’s ability to meet its international obligations, I do not know. The Indian offices’ rates would have been especially competitive, as those offices, being part of the Indian postal establishment, could charge domestic rates on post to India.

3.7 Another drawback of the Ottoman post was that postal officials had a wide, and widely used, discretion to open and inspect mail in search of contraband, seditious literature, etc. This power covered incoming foreign correspondence, and was meant not to cover registered mail, but in practice this exclusion was often ignored. In the worst cases, the right of inspection was used by the inspectors to enrich themselves.[29]

3.8 Having now painted this rather mixed picture, it should be noted that Sir Louis Mallet, British ambassador at Constantinople, wrote in 1914 that “Oskan Effendi, Turkish Postmaster-General, has shown great ability and effected great improvements in the postal service, and so long as he remains Postmaster-General there would not be much to fear” from the Ottoman post taking over from the Indian one.[30] It’s a rather miscellaneous source, but the 3 December 1913 issue of “The Orient”, the journal of an American Christian institution in Constantinople, agreed with Sir Louis’ assessment. “If the Ottoman authorities do not succeed in persuading the foreign governments to suppress their separate post offices in this city (viz. Constantinople) and other Turkish towns, it will not be due to any lack of energy on the part of Oskan Effendi, Minister of Posts, Telegraphs and Telephones. If a resident of a few years back were to return today, after gazing in admiration at the new post office building, now only three years old, and most complete within and without, he would notice not only the fleet of motorboats carrying the post office flag, but the fine new brown postal motor vans, with their brass trimmings, that fly around between the central office and the many branch offices of the city.”[31] Of course, Constantinople was not Baghdad, let alone a typical Iraqi town. The Consul-General in Baghdad wrote in 1888 that the Ottoman post was “so centralised […] that, however perfect it may appear (on paper at Constantinople), it is impossible for it to be anything in outlying places than the individual qualities of its superintendents may there admit of, for when the merest clerk at say Beyrout or Basra gives way to maladministration, there is too often no one nearer than Constantinople with the power of supplying check or remedy.”[32]

3.9 “Babamın Pulları” by Sema and Mehmet Özdemir offers a couple of relevant remarks in passing. The authors agree with contemporary British opinion in regarding Oskan Mardikian as an effective “new broom”. When he became Minister of Posts (etc.) in January 1913, “the situation of the post and telegraph administration was not very encouraging. […] the post and telegraph routes were broken, and many abuses had taken place. It was very difficult to maintain and protect the telegraph systems and postal services, not only in Rumelia but also in the Arab regions.” Mardikian improved salaries and working conditions of postal employees, but was ruthless in dismissing those who fell short of his standards. His incognito inspections of post offices in civilian disguise garnered favourable press coverage.[33]

3.10 Incidentally, according to an unsourced Facebook post,[34] Mardikian apparently ended up in Iraq in the 1920s, where he was employed as an advisor to the Finance Ministry. Small world.

4. Indian post offices in Iraq, 1868-1914

4.1 The British/Indian post in Iraq has a quaint and charming prehistory in the pre-stamp era, which is recapitulated in Proud and elsewhere.[35] I pass over all of this here, with regret, as being outside the scope of this work.

4.2 In the 1860s, when the story begins for these purposes, there was a British Consul-General in Baghdad, and a “British Agent” at Basra, upgraded to the status of a Consul in 1877.[36] To summarise the situation then prevailing, the British consulates at Baghdad and Basra had arrangements for communicating with each other by way of two British steamers plying the Tigris, operated by the Euphrates & Tigris Steam Navigation Company; the Baghdad consulate had an overland communication with the British consular establishments in the Levant (and from thence to Constantinople, etc.); and the Basra consulate had a sea communication with Bombay.[37] The sea mail, which depended on private vessels, was rather irregular, the Persian Gulf being difficult of navigation and laden with pirates and so on.[38] In 1862, the situation was improved by the establishment of a regular six-weekly steamer service, run by the British India Steam Navigation Company on behalf of the government of Bombay.[39] This was followed (again, I condense matters heavily) by the opening of Indian post offices in Baghdad and Basra on 1 January 1868.[40] These offices used Indian stamps and were administered as part of the Bombay “Circle”.[41] Postal duties were originally performed by consular staff —particularly at Basra, where the Consul was at first obliged to also be the postmaster— but as time passed dedicated postal staff were hired or brought over from India.[42]

4.3 This remained, basically, the position in 1914. The shipping arrangements mentioned above —i.e. the British India Steam Navigation Company operating the Basra-India connection, and the Euphrates & Tigris Steam Navigation Company operating the Basra-Baghdad connection— continued. By the early 1900s the Euphrates & Tigris Company was shipping mail once per week in each direction.[43]

4.4 There was a British telegraph station at Al-Faw, which performed some of the functions of a post office, although it never achieved that status officially. I deal with this separately in the appendix at the bottom of this page.

4.5 An important point to be kept in mind is that the two Indian post offices were consular post offices – and, as such, they were only properly entitled to send post to each other, and to other British or Indian offices.[44] This is to be distinguished from the British offices in the Levant, which could send post anywhere they liked. This rule was generally observed, with exceptions I’ll come to further down. I think, strictly speaking, the Iraqi offices were also only supposed to have been used by British subjects. This was honoured far more in the breach more than in the observance, but some cursory sense of propriety had to be maintained, and cases where it seemed like the British were catering too blatantly to Ottoman customers, like the ill-starred “town office” at Basra (see paragraph 5.3), incurred the displeasure of the Ottoman authorities.

4.6 Another important point to note is that, in 1877, when the Indian postal service in India proper began to offer money orders and insured parcel delivery, those services also became available at the Iraqi offices.[45] Parcel pieces are scarcely encountered today (as indeed they are for most countries and eras) and money orders have left more or less no trace in the philatelic record, but, at the time, these two services made up a significant part of the Iraqi offices’ business; and, as the Ottoman offices offered neither service of their own, these services played a large role in driving local traffic to the Indian offices.[46]

4.7 In 1888, the Vice-Consul at Basra wrote that “the bulk of the correspondence from Baghdad and Busrah is with India and other ports served by India”,[47] and this accords entirely with the cover material one sees in trade. In 1883, the Consul-General wrote that the post office at Baghdad was at that time “largely used for the import of valuable merchandise.”[48] The general traffic was that specie flowed from Iraq to India (the banking system in Iraq not being well developed) to pay for purchases, and merchandise flowed in the opposite direction.[49]

4.8 Aside from the sea traffic to India, there was also an overland route from Baghdad to Tehran, operated out of the Baghdad office, and a trans-desert camel post from Baghdad to Damascus and Beirut. The camel post was a fairly ancient establishment,[50] and it anomalously maintained its status as a British consular post, separate from the Indian post office at Baghdad, after that office had been established.[51] It was successfully driven out of business by the Ottomans in 1886, of which more later. The Tehran route seems to have been but lightly used, and it was closed in 1878 after improvements were made in the Persian postal service.[52] 

4.9 How deliveries actually worked is obscure to me. I have a reference from 1896 or thereabouts, stating that the Baghdad office didn’t deliver post it received, other than mail for British subjects or various miscellaneous notables — everybody else was obliged to attend the office to collect their mail there.[53] Whether this practice had prevailed in former times, and/or also prevailed at Basra, I don’t know. The India Office papers describe this sort of “window delivery” system as being the practice at both Baghdad and Basra in the pre-1868 era.[54]

4.10 By 1913, the British government had become somewhat dissatisfied with the performance of the Euphrates & Tigris Company. The Company, in turn, were requesting that the subsidy they received from the British government be increased. In the later part of 1913 (with that company’s decennial contract coming up for review in early 1914) the British wondered whether they could secure some sort of secret concession from the Ottomans, that the latter would allow the Indian mail to be carried instead by the British India Steam Navigation Company. Having done this, the British would then be free to sign a better contract with the British India Company, and allow the contract with the Euphrates & Tigris Company to lapse.[55] The British duly obtained a “secret declaration” from the Ottoman government on 12 December 1913 where the latter consented to the British mails being carried by the British India Company.

4.11 At the same time, the British government also wondered if the whole idea of the steamer mail hadn’t become more trouble than it was worth, and whether the Ottomans would allow them to carry the Indian mail by railway instead (i.e, via the Baghdad Railway, once it was finally completed). In the event, they decided not to pursue this avenue, anticipating that, if they made such a request, the Germans would request the same.[56]

4.12 Back to the steamships. By 1914 the British India Company and Euphrates & Tigris Company had entered into some sort of agreement whereby the former would operate the vessels of the latter, in return for an annual payment (the reason for this I do not know) so the British government decided there was no practical difference between maintaining the contract with the Euphrates & Tigris Company and handing it over to the British India Company.[57] Accordingly, they elected to keep it with the Euphrates & Tigris Company, albeit with a reduced renewal period of only five years. This offer was communicated to the Euphrates & Tigris Company, who indicated they were inclined to accept, but requested that the size of their subsidy be increased.[58] These negotiations dragged on until after 1 October 1914, when the Indian post offices were closed and the entire question became more or less entirely moot.

5. Relations between the Ottoman and Indian posts, 1868-1913

5.1 I’ll pass over this section relatively quickly, as Proud covers it in extensive detail — helped considerably by the vast swathes of text he lifts, without attribution, from earlier sources.[59]

5.2 Things got off on perhaps a bad foot, as the consular post offices were integrated into the Indian postal system without the prior consent of the authorities in Constantinople. The Vali of Baghdad Vilayet was consulted, and he raised no objection, although the offer that the Indian post carry his mails for free, as well as the mails of other local notables, may have influenced his decision.[60][61] He seems to have maintained this privilege to the end of the 19th Century, if not later.[62]

5.3 When the Indian office at Basra hired a separate postmaster in 1870 (freeing the Consul from that duty), it found there was no room to accommodate him within the consulate, so he took up residence in Basra town, apparently some distance away from the consulate.[63] Desiring to “work from home”, in the modern parlance, he installed a letter-box in his house, held incoming mail there for collection, and sold stamps.[64] The consulate moved to new premises, further outside of the town in 1872, which increased the proportion of business going to the postmaster’s residence. All of this was done without permission of the Consul but, over time and through inertia, it became an accepted part of the Indian postal presence in Basra. In 1882, the postmaster went further and erected a pillar-box in the “Kassim Aga Bazaar”, which I must assume was a prominent location in the town. The Ottomans were already irritated by the existence of the “town post office”, and the pillar-box aggravated them further. In 1883, Ottoman gendarmerie were stationed outside the postmaster’s house, and prevented the public from patronising it. The British were able to have the gendarmerie withdrawn, after lodging a complaint to the Vali of Basra, but they realised their overall position was untenable, and the Consul ordered the pillar-box to be dug up later that year. The “town post office” lasted until 1887, when the postmaster moved to a new premises closer to the consulate.[65]

5.4 As noted above, the Indian offices in Iraq weren’t supposed to deliver mail to non-British/Indian offices. However, by the late 1870s, a custom had developed whereby the Euphrates & Tigris Company steamers would accept and deliver mail, provided it was franked with Indian stamps, to or from other towns on the Basra-Baghdad route (e.g., Kut-al-Amara). The steamers sold stamps, and carried a letter-box, to facilitate this business.[66] In 1883, at about the same time as the drama just mentioned in Basra was on-going, the Vali of Baghdad ordered that the Tigris steamers cease delivering mail with Indian stamps, and start delivering mail with Ottoman stamps.[67] The British declined to obey this,[68] and for a time nothing was done, but there was a small to-do in June 1884, when the gendarmerie at Kut al-Amara either searched, or threatened to search (the point is unclear to me) persons disembarking a British steamer there, in search of correspondence franked with Indian stamps.[69] The British made representations to Constantinople and obtained a promise the incident wouldn’t be repeated.[70]

5.5 The Baghdad office at one time accepted mail for Kadhimiya and Kerbela.[73] Kadhimiya seems to have been considered a suburb of Baghdad even at that time, but the justification for deliveries to Kerbela is unknown to me. The consular employee who took the mail there was paid out of the Oudh Bequest, so I assume the British thought (or affected to think) that improving the communications of this sacred Shia city was an appropriate disbursement of Bequest funds.[74]

5.6 I lose the thread here slightly but, in short, the Ottomans registered their disapproval at the British delivering mail to these various locations outside Baghdad and Basra. In or by 1894 (I lack a exact date) the British conceded the point, and the Indian Postal Guide of that year stated explicitly that “[the] Indian Government maintains post offices at Basrah and Baghdad. It does not, however, undertake to deliver articles posted for Kot-el-Amarah, Amarah Killeh, Kerbelah, Mosoul, or other towns in the Turkish Empire in Asia: such articles will be transferred to the Turkish Post Office for disposal.”[75] Meanwhile, in 1885, the British steamers agreed to carry Ottoman mail, in exchange for concessions in other areas.[71] A 1905 British governmental note describes this as a rather limited service — “as a matter of courtesy merely, a Turkish mail bag [is] carried to and from the various ports on the river at the sole risk of the Turkish authorities.”[72]

5.7 There was a lengthy and tedious dispute as to the payment of Ottoman import duties on parcel bags handled by the Indian offices. In short, the Indian authorities considered that they were taking appropriate steps to ensure that the Ottoman duties were paid by customers, while the Ottoman authorities were concerned (or affected to be concerned) that the Indian offices were allowing customers to skirt the payment of duties. The Ottomans, over time, assumed a stricter supervision of how the Indian offices handled incoming parcels.[76] The final procedure, adopted at Baghdad in 1892 and at Basra in 1895, was that a bag of parcels sent to Iraq was accompanied by an inventory of the parcels in the bag. Before the bag was landed, an Ottoman customs official would go aboard the steamer, open the bag there, in the presence of a British official, and check off the contents against the inventory. Assuming there were no issues, the Ottoman official would take the bag to the customs house and recipients would be duly notified their parcel was ready for collection.[77] This was strictly an affair of parcels, and didn’t affect the transmission of letters.

5.8 I have already mentioned the contention regarding the British Baghdad-Damascus camel post (see paragraph 2.4). I have no particular details of how this post worked, except that it was a consular post and, receiving no British government funding after 1871, it was obliged to sustain itself by “carrying private and commercial correspondence to some considerable extent.”[78][79] The British justified the post’s existence with a claim that the Ottoman post’s Baghdad-Constantinople route (Baghdad to Harput to Samsun overland, then by steamer to Constantinople)[80] was too slow (it should be remembered that Damascus wasn’t so much an important destination per se — rather, it was a key waypoint overland to Constantinople).[81] The Ottoman route apparently took 15 or 16 days in good weather,[82] and regrettably I can’t find the time of the British route. In contrast to their rather haphazard attempts against the Baghdad and Basra offices, the Ottomans dispatched the camel route rather efficiently. They established a rival post in c. 1885, which carried mail at international rates, at a loss, and this diverted sufficient postal traffic away from the British post that it was obliged to close down in July 1886. The Ottomans then closed down their own service in March 1887, meaning there was then no trans-desert post whatsoever.[83] The Ottomans seem to have reestablished a camel Damascus post by c. 1908.[84]

5.9 From 1906 to 1914, the Ottoman postal authority operated a scheme where they sold stamps to large merchant houses at a 20% discount on face value, to encourage them to use the Ottoman posts instead of foreign ones. These stamps were on sale in Iraq as they were elsewhere.

A digression concerning the operations of the Euphrates & Tigris Company.

5.10 The Ottomans made various attempts to remove the British steamers from Iraq entirely. This is a matter of diplomatic history and, as such, I’m wholly unqualified to comment on it. To deal with (or more accurately, avoid dealing with) a tremendously tortuous situation in a few words, the British right to run steamers on the Tigris and Euphrates had a rather tenuous, piecemeal legal basis, and this placed the British in the awkward position of having to justify the presence of the steamers to a great extent on the basis of custom, long usage, etc., as well as the benefits to the Iraqi economy, rather than any strict legal position.[85]

5.11 The Ottomans had conceded to the British the right to run two steamers, and two only, and they kept a careful eye out for breaches of this. The practice of the Euphrates & Tigris Company of having a third steamer in reserve, in case one of the two active steamers broke down, was noted unfavourably. British attempts to increase the size of the concession occupy a voluminous amount of space in the archival paperwork.[86] The Company eventually got its third steamer, in 1907, but it was obliged to fly the Ottoman flag.[87]

5.12 The relatively under-developed shipping infrastructure on the Tigris gave the Ottomans ample room to place petty obstacles in front of the British. For just one example, the Euphrates & Tigris Company, in the hopes of avoiding the increasingly congested wharf at the Baghdad custom house, had constructed a barge for unloading cargo onto. The Ottoman authorities, however, refused to allow them to use it, remarking rather cattily that the Company should “rest satisfied with the privilege they were [already] enjoying to the exclusion of all foreign competitors.”[88]

5.13 In 1909, seemingly as a result of maladministration at the Hamidiye Company, the Ottoman government proposed to their British counterparts that the Hamidiye and Euphrates & Tigris Companies should merge into a new company which would be 50%-50% Ottoman- and British-owned, fly the Ottoman flag, have British management, and have a monopoly on the Iraqi rivers.[89] A draft agreement was signed by the governments, but Ottoman public opinion was against the scheme[90] and it ran into difficulties with the newly established Ottoman legislature, whose approval was needed for the subsidy the Ottoman representatives had proposed the new company be granted. Ultimately the scheme did not proceed.[91]

6. Relations between the Ottoman and Indian posts, 1913-1914

6.1 This part of the story is less well-known, and so I’ll take it in a bit more detail.

6.2 On 1 May 1913 the Ottoman government submitted a memorandum to the British government, requesting (seemingly, more or less politely and diplomatically) various readjustments of the relationship then existing between the two powers. This touched on all kinds of areas (the political status of Kuwait, navigation on the Tigris and Euphrates, etc. etc.) but of interest to us are two linked proposals that all foreign post offices in the Ottoman Empire be closed down; and that, pending their closure, the foreign offices sell Ottoman instead of foreign stamps.[92]

6.3 The British government got to work on its response. The General Post Office informed the Foreign Office that it had no objections in principle to the British post offices in Constantinople, Beirut and Smyrna being closed, if this was seen as politically expedient – these offices made no profit when the sale of the overprinted Levant stamps to dealers was excluded from the figures(!).[93] The GPO demurred on the fate of the British office in Salonica, assuming it would “be a matter for separate consideration” at a later date,[94] and it seems to have forgotten the Baghdad and Basra offices entirely, not mentioning them at all. I cannot imagine the GPO simply forgot about these – perhaps, as they were Indian offices, it felt they were outside of its jurisdiction. The discrepancy was eventually noticed (see paragraph 6.8).

6.4 The GPO treated the proposal to sell Ottoman stamps more cautiously, considering that this would give rise to various accounting difficulties I’ll avoid going into here. It mounted some interesting counter-proposals – for example, the British government could offer to surrender all of the profits from the operations of the British offices, provided those offices would still be allowed to use British Levant stamps. It was hoped that this would sufficiently mollify the Ottomans, and prevent accounting problems, while still allowing the British the full profits from the sale of Levant stamps to dealers(!!).[95] Another suggestion was that the British offices sell Ottoman stamps with some sort of distinguishing overprint.[96]

6.5 The British sent a draft reply to the Ottomans on 5 June 1913. This reply indicated that the British were inclined to agree to the proposed closure of the British offices, provided they were closed simultaneously with the offices of other foreign countries. The Ottoman stamps proposal was also given cautious assent, provided that the Ottoman stamps sold were given an overprint, and the accounting technicalities were resolved to mutual satisfaction.[97]

6.6 On 23 June 1913, the British Consul-General at Baghdad telegraphed Sir Louis Mallet, the British Ambassador at Constantinople, requesting he telegraph the Foreign Office to insist that the Foreign Office insist that the offices in Iraq be excluded from any concessions made in respect of the Levantine offices. “In view of possible ultimate dissolution of Turkey and formation meanwhile of foreign spheres of interest,” he wrote, “it seems desirable to maintain, and even increase, our establishments in Mesopotamia, which is region [sic] where our stake is most large and our claims greatest. For this reason I submit that no modification should be made in Bagdad and Basra post offices, and that all other institutions which mark our premier position here should be most jealously maintained […] these are ocular proofs of antiquity of our connection with Mesopotamia, where steam navigation and post and telegraph, and nearly all such civilisation as exists, are due to British enterprise.”[98] The Government of India agreed with this view on 5 July,[99] but an internal India Office memorandum of c. the same date was sceptical that it would be possible to retain the Iraqi offices while agreeing to abolish the others.[100]

6.7 The agreement known to history as the “Anglo-Ottoman Convention of 1913” was duly signed on 29 July 1913, but never ratified. The postal agreement wasn’t in the Convention itself — rather, it was in a separate “Declaration”, of the same date, where Britain “conceded the principle of abolition generally” (i.e., simultaneous with the other foreign powers’ offices), subject to the Ottomans providing a replacement service of equivalent quality.[101]

6.8 To sum up very quickly, it was eventually noticed by the British government that the Iraqi offices were under Indian jurisdiction, and that the British had accordingly misspoken to the extent they said they were comfortable with all British offices eventually being closed, when they had only the Levantine offices in mind. However, the British considered that they had satisfactorily secured their position that they would only accept the closure of their offices if all other foreign offices were closed at the same time, and this protected the Levantine and Iraqi offices equally.[102]

6.9 In the immediate lead-up to WWI, the Ottomans made some relatively gentle moves towards undercutting the Indian post. In May 1914 the Ottoman postal authorities it announced their intention to establish a new land route from Constantinople to Baghdad. This route was purportedly faster and more convenient than shipping a letter to Baghdad via India.[103] In June 1914, the Ottomans announced that, at last, they at last planned to conduct their own shipments of mail to India, instead of relying on British vessels.[104] Neither of these measures involved any suppression of the British service — merely the establishment of (supposedly) more attractive alternatives. The War certainly prevented the shipping proposal from going anywhere, and I don’t know what the position with the new route ever was.

6.10 The War, of course, broke out on 28 July 1914. This began an awkward period where the Ottoman Empire, while formally neutral, was inclining with increasing steepness towards the Central Powers. On 8 September, the Ottoman government announced that the capitulations granted to the foreign powers would be abolished, with effect from 1 October.

6.11 On 19 September, the Ottoman Postmaster-General telegraphed the British GPO, to announce that all foreign post offices would be closed with effect from 1 October.[105] This was presented by the Ottomans as a fait accompli to which no appeal would be possible. A “somewhat obscurely worded”[106] provision of the telegram allowed the foreign offices a grace period running into mid-November to deal with mail addressed to them specifically, after which time this mail would be detained and opened by the Ottoman postal service. An India Office minute of c. 23-24 September noted impotently that the Ottomans were in clear breach of the 1913 Declaration.[107]

6.12 It should be noted, in passing, that the same or a similar announcement was made to all the foreign posts operating in the Ottoman Empire, even those of the Central Powers.[108] The latter closed their offices without demur, presumably expecting that this would help their attempts to seduce the Ottomans into entering the War on their side.

6.13 The British were perturbed by this development, and seem to have been uncertain how to react at first, particularly as any sudden or hostile moves risked upsetting the very delicate diplomatic situation between the two countries.[109] Sir Louis registered a protest with the Ottoman government on 22 September,[110] but, writing to the British one the following day, he expressed a desire to be conciliatory. It was here he offered the favourable view of the Ottoman posts cited in paragraph 3.8 above. He said that he had met with the Ottoman government that morning, and reported that they regretted the abrupt nature of the announcement. While they were unwilling to back down from it, they (he reported) were concerned to ensure a smooth handover of postal functions, even to the extent of being willing to offer to take some of the foreign employees onto the Ottoman payroll.[111] He said he had also spoken to the French and Russians (who had received telegrams to the same effect from the Ottomans), and reported that they saw the matter as beyond saving, and planned to close their post offices on 30 September. His recommendation was that the British should follow suit, but under protest, and expressly reserving their rights.[112] The Foreign Office concurred.[113]

6.14 On 25 September, British, Russian, French and Italian officials had a meeting with the Ottoman Minister of Posts to discuss the practicalities of winding down their operations. The Ottomans were, again, polite and helpful, but unwilling to compromise.[114] Something in that meeting perhaps upset the French, as they informed Sir Louis on the following day that they intended to reverse their earlier course and to keep their post offices open on 1 October. They would yield only to threat of force, and if obliged to yield they would be as obstructive and unhelpful as possible.[115] By the end of the following day (i.e. 27 September), however, they had reverted to their original position of intending to close the office under protest. They proposed a joint protest with the British, which seems to have been agreed to.[116]

6.15 In the event, the British post offices were uneventfully closed to the public on 1 October. The Ottoman authorities in Constantinople stationed policemen outside the entrance, and a plain-clothes man was nearby.[117] I would imagine that in Iraq the gendarmerie was brought out again.

6.16 The British delivered their protest on 1 October. With apologies for making this page longer than it already is, I think it might be not wholly uninteresting if I set out the text in full — it presents a charming example of the diplomatic high style as then prevailed.

Therapia, 1st October 1914

To: His Highness Prince Said Halim Pasha, Grand Vizier and Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Monsieur le Ministre: -

I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of the Note No. 96 dated September 27th[118] by which Your Highness requests me to instruct the Directors of the British Post Offices established in the Ottoman Empire to act in accordance with the communications which have been addressed to them by officials of the Imperial Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs with a view to their ceasing their operations from to-day onwards.

The fact that a measure of such importance affecting an official department of His Majesty’s Government should have been adopted in view of a unilateral decision of the Sublime Porte and that effect has been given to the measure in so precipitate a manner, compels me to formulate the most express reservations both as to the procedure followed and as to the principle underlying the question.

With a view to avoiding incidents of a public nature I have instructed the British Post Offices in the Empire to suspend their ordinary postal operations from to-day onwards. By so doing and authorising a verbal exchange of views, in order to mitigate the inconvenience resulting from this suspension, I must not be considered to have prejudiced the question of principle. It will be for my Government to consider what further action will be taken in the matter.

I avail myself, &c.,

(Signed) Louis Mallet[119]

6.17 What happened between 1 October and the Ottoman entry into the War on 31 October, I don’t particularly know. The abolition of the foreign post offices would have left large gaps in the Empire’s ability to handle international mail. As already noted (see paragraphs 3.4-3.5), the Ottomans tried to get up replacements for both the British Tigris steamers, and the British Iraq-India mail shipments, but it seems like nothing was achieved before the Empire entered the War.

7. Events of 1914-1916

7.1 I have relatively little material for this period. Britain formally declared war on the Ottomans on 5 November 1914, and began attacks on Iraq the following day. After a brief campaign Basra fell to the Indian Expeditionary Force on 22 November. The British advanced in the direction of Baghdad, and by late 1915 had got within 30 miles of it, but they were checked by the Ottomans at the Battle of Ctesiphon. They retreated to Kut-el-Amara and were besieged there. Attempts to relieve the British defenders were beaten back by the Ottomans and, ravaged by disease and running out of supplies, the British surrendered on the 29th April 1916. Over 13,000 British and Indian soldiers were taken prisoner in one of the worst defeats for the British during the war. And we leave the military history here for now.

7.2 In occupied Basra, the British had two civil post offices, one in Basra town (March 1915), the other on the Ashar creek (December 1914).[120] These two locations were where the Ottoman post offices in Basra had been located, but the British ones were in different premises.[121] Delivery of post started c. December 1914.[122] As the front line moved up towards Baghdad, new civil post offices were opened behind it. These were all under the supervision of the Bombay Circle, and internal Indian rates applied.[123] When the Viceroy visited Basra in 1915, the welcome speech of the local burghers apparently offered him specific praise for allowing Indian rates to apply.[124] At some point c. 1915 the Basra town office was made head office of the other ones in Iraq, as well as the Kuwait office.[125] These civil offices used regular Indian stamps and were run by seconded Indian officials together with local assistants.[126]

7.3 The Indian Expeditionary Force of course had its extensive apparatus of field post offices — this is an enormous topic and I’m unqualified to say anything about it. The field offices used Indian stamps overprinted with "I.E.F.".

7.4 The Euphrates & Tigris Company steamers were still in Iraq at the time the British forces arrived. The British took them over them for war purposes, and this kicked off a legal dispute with the Company I don’t need to go into (and don’t anyway have a very clear picture of). “In negotiating with [the Company],” noted an unsympathetic British official in April 1915, “it should be borne in mind that their ships would have been earning little or nothing if we had not commandeered them.”[127] To break out of the chronology a little, on 18 September 1917 the army released one of the Company’s steamers back to them,[128] and on 24 October 1917 the British government vaguely indicated that the Company’s contributions before and during the War would be remembered favourably when the time came to distribute contracts after the War.[129] I lose the thread after this.

7.5 I unfortunately know very little about the operation of the Ottoman posts in Iraq during the War — presumably services continued to function in some sort of restricted condition. New postmark varieties appeared in the war years, plus a new Baghdad sub-office “Iraq Headquarters”.  Ottoman censorship, and the German contingent in Iraq, also employed their own markings. As the Ottomans retreated northwards they fastidiously cleared out their post offices before abandoning them.[130]

8. Ottoman stamps in Iraq

8.1 When postage stamps were actually introduced to Iraq is unfortunately unknown to me. The inaugural Ottoman stamp issue appeared in 1863. Proud meanwhile states that stamps weren’t used in Iraq until 1868.[131] A delay between stamps first appearing in the Constantinople GPO and their diffusion to provincial offices feels plausible, but perhaps not one as long as five years. “Triple box” cancellations dated 1281 (Gregorian 1865) were used at Baghdad, Kirkuk and Mosul, which presumably implies stamps were available in those cities in at that date. 1865 is also the date stamps of the famous “Duloz” design were first issued. So 1865 I would guess is the correct starting-point.

8.2 Throughout the whole Ottoman period regular Ottoman stamps were used in Iraq without any differentiation. The only peculiarity specific to Iraq was the authorisation of bisects in 1890-1892[132] — at Baghdad, 2 piastre stamps were cut in half and overprinted to meet a local shortage of 1 piastre stamps. This exercise appears to have been sincere, and done with at least some degree of official authorisation, and covers bearing these stamps did pass through the mails, including internationally, without incident.[133] The exercise had also, so far as is known, been completed before the philatelic papers got wind of it.[134] Nevertheless, these stamps are somewhat more common as neat on-piece specimens than they perhaps ought to be. We underestimate the amount of collectors within the Ottoman Empire, perhaps.

8.3 A few broad generalisations about the postmarks. The earliest designs were negative or intaglio type designs, all in Ottoman. I lack a good specimen at time of writing. In the later 1870s and 1880s, the larger offices received bilingual circular postmarks with the town’s name in Ottoman and French, or sometimes in French only. In 1900-1901 a new German-style postmark was rolled out to all offices —a bilingual circle (again, Ottoman above and French below) with a wide transverse bar containing the date according to the Ottoman Civil and Gregorian Calendars (see e.g. the circular Baghdad 1 postmark pictured at the top of the page). A slightly modified design appeared a few years later, with vertical bars filling in the gaps between the outer ring and the date bar (see e.g. the “Iraq Headquarters” postmark). Late issues, e.g. those during the War, seem to have mostly been of the “no bars” design. Baghdad was unique in having octagonal postmarks — these first appeared later the circular ones but seem to have been in use alongside them.[135]

8.4 And finally, the stamps on this page. This is a rather specialist area (or, I suppose, two rather specialist areas) and not my main focus. I do keep an eye out for specimens though, and the images up top represent my haphazard collection of this era as it currently stands. Condition of these is a little variable, as can be seen — a large hinge is all that’s holding the Kirkuk Duloz stamp together. I’ve organised and uploaded these in what I appreciate is a very pedantic sort of way — every number from the Giray book’s listing I have gets an upload, as does every colour variation. I apologise for the awkward geometry of some of the cut pieces.

9. Appendix — Postal affairs at Al-Faw, 1867-1914

9.1 Al-Faw (invariably “Fao” in British sources) is a town on the south bank of the Shatt al-Arab, only about 15km upstream from the mouth of the Persian Gulf. In the 1890s its population was not more than 2,000.[136] The British established a station of the Persian Gulf Telegraphic Cable there in 1865.

9.2 Al-Faw was a port of call for British mail steamers from 1867 (by 1912, weekly),[137] and until 1886 there was a British/Indian postal bag sent down to Al-Faw from Basra, containing “letters, both paid and unpaid, for Turkish officials at Al-Faw, and occasional letters for the Arab villages on the opposite bank of the Shatt-el-Arab” [this must mean the north bank, i.e. modern Iran][138] as well as, I must assume, mail for the staff of the telegraph office and any other British residents. The practice was discontinued in 1886, as it was inconvenient for the telegraph office staff to have to deliver the mail, and to collect unpaid postage from recipients.

9.3 After this, there remained a certain degree of postal service. The telegraph office employees could still send and receive mail to and from other Gulf locations (unregistered letters directly, anything else via Bushire).[139] Ottoman subjects sometimes put their own mail in these bags, despite not being supposed to do this,[140] and some Ottoman official mail was also carried, “by the courtesy of the telegraph employees.”[141] At some point, mail bags from the consular post office at Kuwait started to travel via Al-Faw, as well.[142]

9.4 Al-Faw didn’t have an Ottoman post office in 1884, but a small one had opened by 1891.[143] In 1884 the Ottoman postal guide noted the presence of an Ottoman telegraph station there.

9.5 In 1905, the director of the telegraph office proposed that a full Indian post office be established, so that the employee responsible for the existing postal business could be paid an official postal salary for performing that work.[144] The proposal got as far as the Consul at Basra, who declined to take it further.[145]

9.6 British Political Resident in the Persian Gulf and Stamp Contriver-in-Chief Sir Percy Cox[146] saw Al-Faw playing an increasingly important role in the future of Gulf communications. Accordingly, he regretted that Britain had suppressed its pre-1886 postal business there, and he wondered if it were possible “to do something to retrace our steps in this matter.”[147] In December 1912, he proposed that Britain surreptitiously establish something of a post office in Al-Faw. This would be achieved by paying a telegraph employee an additional stipend to manage postal business; “a date stamp and other essential paraphernalia” being issued; and Al-Faw being listed in the Indian postal guide as a branch office.[148] None of this seems, to me, to be especially surreptitious, but never mind.

9.7 Cox’s proposal reached the Consul at Basra who, again, thought it not worth taking further.[149] The Consul-General at Baghdad was more sympathetic to the idea (agreeing that the telegraph employee handling the postal business in addition to his actual work really ought to be paid for his trouble), provided it could be done without any representations needing to be made to the Ottoman government, seeing as the British government had recently agreed in principle to the abolition of the foreign offices (see paragraph 6.7)[150]. The Government of India declined to take the matter forward. Writing on 19 March 1914, it considered that the existing arrangement was working tolerably well, and that it would be injudicious “to press for any overt change in the system” under the current circumstances.[151] Rather coldly, it also took the view that the employee handling the mails didn’t deserve a pay increase, as “the main portion of the work is transacted in the interests of the telegraph staff”.[152]

9.8 On 30 April 1914, the British Ambassador at Constantinople emphatically rejected the proposal. Britain had committed to the principle of doing away with its post offices, so “the establishment of an official post office, however unpretentious, at Fao could hardly fail to attract the attention of the Turkish Authorities within a short time, and such an act intervening between [the signature of the Anglo-Ottoman Convention of 1913 and its future ratification] would inevitably suggest to the Turkish mind a suspicion of the sincerity of His Majesty’s Government.”[153]

9.9 The telegraph office staff were still at their posts when the Ottoman Empire entered the War, at which point they were captured and “taken to Baghdad.” What ultimately became of them, I do not know. [154]

[1] I use "Iraq" throughout this page and the next few as an abbreviation for "the territory which is presently known as Iraq". During this time, “Mesopotamia” seems to have been the prevalent English-language usage, with "Turkish Arabia" enjoying some currency in British political circles. "The Iraq" (with definite article) seems to have existed as a specialist term — we see e.g. Gertrude Bell use it. The British began issuing revenue stamps for the occupied Iraqi territory in 1915: where they bore the place-name in English this was always rendered as "Iraq", and this of course was the spelling used on the postage stamps when they appeared. In the India Office correspondence the conventional spelling used is "Irak" until c. later 1918 when "Iraq" becomes more common. One encounters differing opinions as to whether "Iraq" was a relevant concept to the Ottomans and to the locals during the Ottoman era. Received wisdom is that Iraq is a wholly British concoction, but I've seen it convincingly argued that to some degree a shared "Iraqi" identity existed among the inhabitants of the three vilayets during the later Ottoman period, and that the Ottoman authorities considered some matters on an Iraq-wide basis. Certainly the term was in use administratively: for a philatelic example see the Ottoman "Iraq Headquarters" postmark pictured above. See Nahar Muhammed Nur, Iraq is not Artificial: Iraqi Trends and the Refutation of the Artificial State Hypothesis (2018) for much more on this point. In any event, the question isn’t for me to resolve here.

[2] Proud, The Postal History of Iraq (1996) 26.

[3] I get this from Giray, The Ottoman Post Offices and Services in Iraq (2023), which is a superb work in general.

[4] The badness of the Ottoman road network was proverbial. Figures for the quantity of modern roads etc. can be found here and there.

[5] The Orient, 3 December 1913, 4.

[6] Proud, 154.

[7] Giray, xvi.

[8] There is no longer a footnote here, please disregard.

[9] Proud, 27.

[10] India Office file “Précis of Turkish Arabia Affairs, 1801-1905”, 118v.

[11] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 80r-81r.

[12] Okan, The Ottoman Postal and Telegraph Services in the last Quarter of the Nineteenth Century (2003), xlvii-xlviii.

[13] Okan, xlii-xliii. If this refers to the French or Latin Monetary Union gold franc, that works out (according to a truly back-of-napkin calculation conducted by the author) as £294,930,862 sterling (2025 prices) per year.

[14] Okan, xxxix.

[15] Turgut says 1 July 1875, while Okan says 15 September 1876 (at liii).

[16] Okan, liii.

[17] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 63r-64r. These shipments also took Ottoman mail to the British offices in southern Persia.

[18] To be very exact, the British shipped Ottoman mail to India in the manner described only if the mail hadn’t originated from the Ottoman post offices in Baghdad or Basra. So a letter from say, Mosul, franked with Ottoman stamps, was valid, but not a letter from Baghdad – the latter required Indian stamps. See “Précis of Turkish Arabia...”, 121r.

[19] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 13r.

[20] “Précis of Turkish Arabia...”, 117v.

[21] Malleson, Diary of a Tour in the Persian Gulf and in Turkish Arabia (1906), 21.

[22] Çetinsaya, 40.

[23] “Précis of Turkish Arabia...”, 117v.

[24] “Précis of Turkish Arabia...”, 119v.

[25] “Précis of Turkish Arabia...”, 120r. The Basra to Baghdad trip was of course the more difficult of the two, the boats being obliged to sail against the current.

[26] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 11v.

[27] India Office file 342/1913, 45r.

[28] Okan, lxxxix-xc. I take the 1884 date from Turgut.

[29] Okan, lxiii.

[30] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 48r.

[31] The Orient, 3 December 1913, 4.

[32] “Précis of Turkish Arabia...”, 119v.

[33] Babamın Pulları, 75. The text is my own (i.e., Google’s) translation of the Turkish text, not the somewhat less “Précis of Turkish Arabia...”e English text provided in the book.

[34] The best kind of source there is.

[35] “Précis of Turkish Arabia...” from 112r and generally.

[36] “Précis of Turkish Arabia...”, 65r-65v. Between 1877 and 1879 he was a vice-consul, a full consul thereafter.

[37] “Précis of Turkish Arabia...”, 112v-113r.

[38] “Précis of Turkish Arabia...”, 113r.

[39] “Précis of Turkish Arabia...”, 113r. This company still had the contract in 1906 (Malleson, 23) and presumably continued to have it down to 1914.

[40] “Précis of Turkish Arabia...”, 113r-113v.

[41] “Précis of Turkish Arabia...”, 113v.

[42] “Précis of Turkish Arabia...”, 113v-114r.

[43] India Office file 342/1913, 137v. This file, in general, abounds fatiguingly with details of the Tigris Company’s contractual arrangements.

[44] “Précis of Turkish Arabia...”, 118r.

[45] Proud, 25.

[46] “Précis of Turkish Arabia...”, 120v, 122v.

[47] “Précis of Turkish Arabia...”, 120v.

[48] “Précis of Turkish Arabia...”, 65v.

[49] “Précis of Turkish Arabia...”, 123r.

[50] It had existed since c. the late 18th Century (Proud, 14), being operated out of Basra, then closed down in 1833 (Proud, 17), then re-opened in “1843-44”, now from Baghdad (Proud, 19).

[51] “Précis of Turkish Arabia...”, 116v.

[52] Proud, 26.

[53] “Précis of Turkish Arabia...”, 134r.

[54] “Précis of Turkish Arabia...”, 113r-113v.

[55] India Office file 342/1913, 108r-109r.

[56] India Office file 342/1913, 82r.

[57] India Office file 342/1913, 81r-83r.

[58] India Office file 342/1913, 72r.

[59] He evidently had access to the “Précis on Turkish Arabia Affairs”, from which many paragraphs have been borrowed with minimal editing or attempts at organising. I have no pretensions to a better grasp of the subject-matter than he had, and I make considerable use of the same source, but I at least have attempted to re-arrange the material into a more coherent order — and, of course, I cite my sources.

[60] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 80r.

[61] “Précis of Turkish Arabia...”, 115v.

[62] “Précis of Turkish Arabia...”, 134r.

[63] “Précis of Turkish Arabia...”, 114r. Where exactly the consulate was at this time, I don’t know – it didn’t move to Al Maqal until 1872 (see 67v).

[64] “Précis of Turkish Arabia...”, 114r.

[65] This all from “Précis of Turkish Arabia...”, 114v.

[66] “Précis of Turkish Arabia...”, 116r.

[67] “Précis of Turkish Arabia...”, 116v-117r.

[68] There is no longer a footnote here, please disregard.

[69] “Précis of Turkish Arabia...”, 118v.

[70] “Précis of Turkish Arabia...”, 119r.

[71] India Office file “Memorandum Respecting the Navigation of the Tigris and Euphrates”, 46r.

[72] “Précis of Turkish Arabia...”, 121r.

[73] “Précis of Turkish Arabia...”, 116r.

[74] “Précis of Turkish Arabia...”, 116r. The Oudh Bequest, now completely forgotten to history, occupied a great deal of British time and attention at this point. Wikipedia has a short summary.

[75] “Précis of Turkish Arabia...”, 121r.

[76] “Précis of Turkish Arabia...”, 121r-121v.

[77] “Précis of Turkish Arabia...”, 121v-122r, 133r-133v.

[78] “Précis of Turkish Arabia...”, 129r.

[79] The India Office papers record an incomprehensible 1883 incident where, we read, “foreign correspondence carried to Baghdad by the English dromedary post and specially marked ‘Par Poste Ottomane’ was delivered by the British post office at Baghdad and subjected to a surcharge of 2 piastres per three grammes.” An Indian postal official justified this charge on the grounds that “the desert post was quite apart from the British Indian post office at Baghdad […] and that the charge referred to was not postal”(!) The sense of this is beyond me. “Précis of Turkish Arabia...”, 116v.

[80] Okan, lxxx.

[81] Okan, lxxxix.

[82] Okan, lxxx.

[83] Proud, 160.

[84] Giray, xvi.

[85] “Memorandum Respecting...”, 36v onwards.

[86] See “Memorandum Respecting...”, more or less generally.

[87] “Memorandum Respecting...”, 112v.

[88] “Memorandum Respecting...”, 45v.

[89] “Memorandum Respecting...”, 62v.

[90] The British regarded much of the negative publicity as having been got up by German interests. See e.g. India Office file 3531/1905 Pt 2, 165r and onwards. On the other hand, the same file (at 124 onwards) contains a detailed and articulate protest from a British merchant at Baghdad, where he rails against the greed and complacency of the Euphrates & Tigris Company. He claims that competition from the Hamidiye Company, as inefficient as it is, has been effective in bringing freight costs down.

[91] “Memorandum Respecting...”, 62v-64r.

[92] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 149v-151r.

[93] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 152r and 153r.

[94] At the time of writing it was under Greek occupation, and it was given over to Greece in the August 1913 Treaty of Bucharest.

[95] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 152v.

[96] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 152r.

[97] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 150r.

[98] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 148r.

[99] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 53v.

[100] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 144r-144v.

[101] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 84r, 53r.

[102] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 68r.

[103] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 65r, 75r-76r.

[104] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 63r-64r, 85r-86r.

[105] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 58r-60r.

[106] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 58r.

[107] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 53r.

[108] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 31r.

[109] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 51r-55r.

[110] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 35r.

[111] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 46r.

[112] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 48r.

[113] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 32r.

[114] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 38r.

[115] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 34r.

[116] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 31r.

[117] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 27r.

[118] I haven’t mentioned this telegram in the text — a copy is contained in the papers (India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 8r) and it simply repeats the order that the post offices be closed on 1 October. Its significance might have been simply that it came from the Grand Vizier and not merely the Postal Ministry.

[119] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 9r-10r.

[120] Proud, 33.

[121] Proud, 35. The Ashar office was in “a house” and the Basra office was “near” the former Ottoman office.

[122] Proud, 35.

[123] Proud, 33, 35.

[124] Proud, 36.

[125] Proud, 36.

[126] India Office File 1323/1917, Part 1, 208r.

[127] India Office file 342/1913, 37r-37v.

[128] India Office file 342/1913, 22r.

[129] India Office file 342/1913, 5r.

[130] Wilson, Loyalties: Mesopotamia 1914-1917 (1930), 321.

[131] Proud, 132.

[132] Proud at 132 gives the dates as 1879 and 1882, which I think must be incorrect.

[133] Giray & Zywietz, Baghdad Provisionals Revisited, Middle East Philatelic Bulletin 5, (2017), 47 and generally.

[134] Giray & Zywietz, 46.

[135] This paragraph all from my review of Giray.

[136] Giray, 63.

[137] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 179r.

[138] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 178v.

[139] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 179r.

[140] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 179r.

[141] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 178v, 179r, 125r.

[142] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 104r.

[143] Giray, 63.

[144] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 125r.

[145] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 123r.

[146] See the next two pages for much, much more on this man.

[147] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 178v.

[148] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 178v.

[149] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 123r.

[150] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 105r-106r.

[151] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 96r.

[152] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 96r.

[153] India Office file 1912/897 Pt 1, 89r.

[154] Sams, The Post Office of India in the Great War (1922), 113.

Written 2015 sometime
Heavily revised 1 June 2020
More stamps and edits 2 January 2021
Entirely re-written 22 April 2025