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During WWI the British encouraged an Arab revolt against the Turks, the Ottomans. The revolt started in June 1916 but most Arabs in the important provinces of Basra, Baghdad and Mosul did not support the British backed leader of the rebellion, the Sherif of Mecca.
The revolt was not a success.
During this period, the British had invaded Mesopotamia (Iraq) because among other considerations they they believed intervention would stretch German and Turkish resources. In spite of dreadful conditions of heat and disease, they secured southern Iraq.
But General Sir Charles Townshend then decided to assault Baghdad. Townshend's army, was defeated and retreated to Kut-al-Amaya where, it was besieged by the Turks for five months when, 9,000 British and Indian troops surrendered.
In 1917 General Stanley Maude's re-organized the army and took Baghdad. The mandate to stay in Iraq came through the post war treaties when the French were given a mandate to run Lebanon and Syria and the British, Iraq and Palestine.
In 1921 a conference was held in Cairo to decide the future of Iraq. The colonial secretary was Winston Churchill who rightly believed that Britain couldn't afford to defend Iraq and thought if he could show big savings it would help his ambition to be Chancellor of the Exchequer.
The conference chose Faisal the Hashemite son of Sherif Hussein ibn Ali as Iraq's first king. TE Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia, was at the Cairo conference - reluctantly perhaps - and supported Faisal from his personal knowledge and friendship. The Cairo Conference introduced a twenty year plan that would let Faisal rule but with British advice . In August 1921 Faisal became king and the British ruled.
Thomas Edward Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia), 1888-1935
From an Anglo-Irish family although born in Wales, Lawrence left Oxford and until 1914 worked with the archaeology team led by Sir Flinders Petrie (1853-1942) on the banks of the Euphrates. Lawrence therefore was an ideal candidate for military intelligence in the Middle East. He took part in the Arab Revolt led by Faisal (1885-1933). He failed to get what he wanted for Arabs at the formal peace conferences and although famous, joined the RAF in 1922 under the pseudonym John Hume Ross. He was exposed and so left to join the army. He died in a motor-cycle accident in Dorset. His most famous writings are in The Seven Pillars of Wisdom.
Until 1947, the biggest single grouping of Muslims in the world was the British Empire. Parts of the Middle East including Egypt, Sudan, some sub-Saharan African and the Indian sub-continent were all British controlled territories. But by backing the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans, the British were sensitive to the Empire's Muslim populations and, not all Muslims wanted to overthrow the Ottoman rule. India's (then) 80 million or so Muslims recognized the Turkish Sultan of the Ottoman Empire as the Caliph of the Faithful. So millions of Indians served one imperial emperor while spiritually acknowledging the religious lordship of another.
Under the Sykes-Picot agreement Arab independence would be something of a chimera:
"France and Great Britain are prepared to recognize and protect an independent Arab state or a confederation of Arab states (a) and (b) marked on the annexed map, under the suzerainty of an Arab chief. That in area (a) France, and in area (b) Great Britain, shall have priority of right of enterprise and local loans. That in area (a) France, and in area (b) Great Britain, shall alone supply advisers or foreign functionaries at the request of the Arab state or confederation of Arab states. That in the blue area France, and in the red area Great Britain, shall be allowed to establish such direct or indirect administration or control as they desire and as they may think fit to arrange with the Arab state or confederation of Arab states."
