The Chessboard of Empire: Britain’s Strategic Imperatives

As World War I raged across Europe, British imperial strategists were already playing a different game in the Middle East—one where oil fields mattered more than trenches and tribal allegiances weighed heavier than European alliances. The crumbling Ottoman Empire presented both opportunity and danger, with Germany making overtures to Persia while Arab nationalism stirred across Mesopotamia. Britain’s dual objectives emerged clearly: secure oil reserves critical for its naval supremacy, and establish pliable local regimes to safeguard imperial interests.

This geopolitical calculus led British diplomats to identify Farman-Farma, a Persian prince with substantial investments in London’s stock market, as their ideal candidate for prime minister. His financial ties to Britain made him a natural ally. In a telling December 1915 meeting, the British ambassador informed the Shah that Farman-Farma’s appointment would be “most favorably viewed in London,” couching the demand as necessary to purge “hostile elements” from government. The Shah, ever impressionable, complied within days—a pattern of intervention that would define Britain’s approach across the region.

Oil and the Redrawing of Maps

The discovery of massive oil reserves transformed imperial priorities. Admiral Slade, former head of British naval intelligence and later director of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, warned in stark terms: “Under no circumstances must our control over Persian oilfields be disturbed.” His 1916 report identified Mesopotamia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Arabia as containing “vast petroleum deposits,” urging immediate revision of the newly minted Sykes-Picot Agreement to secure these territories for Britain.

British diplomats weaponized rumors of German designs on the Persian Gulf to justify rapid consolidation. By war’s end, Prime Minister David Lloyd George had successfully pressured French Premier Georges Clemenceau to cede Mosul—a region potentially richer in oil than anywhere in France’s colonial holdings. The negotiation revealed imperial realpolitik at its rawest: Clemenceau reportedly traded Mosul and Jerusalem for British support on Alsace-Lorraine, dismissing Middle Eastern territories with a curt “You shall have it.”

Engineering Nations: Iraq and the Anglo-Persian Agreement

Britain’s postwar nation-building exposed the contradictions of imperial idealism. In Mesopotamia, officials cobbled together three disparate Ottoman provinces—Shia-dominated Basra, Sunni Baghdad, and Kurdish Mosul—into the artificial construct called Iraq. The choice of Faisal ibn Hussein as king in 1921 reflected cynical calculation: a Sunni ruler imposed on a Shia majority, his legitimacy deriving from wartime cooperation with T.E. Lawrence rather than local consent. Gertrude Bell’s designed flag and ceremonial trappings couldn’t mask the reality enshrined in the 1922 treaty—Iraqi “independence” required British approval on all major policies.

Parallel efforts in Persia culminated in the controversial 1919 Anglo-Persian Agreement, granting Britain control over Persian finances and military. The deal, secured through lavish bribes, provoked nationalist outrage. A contemporary poet lamented: “O eternal shame upon him / Who sold the Sassanians’ land,” capturing the humiliation of a civilization once rivaling Rome now reduced to British clientage. Soviet commissars denounced it as “shackling Persia’s neck,” while French media mocked the Shah as “a half-centimeter dwarf” who sold his country.

The Rise of Reza Khan: Britain’s Strongman Solution

Facing resistance, Britain sought more reliable proxies. Their gaze fell upon Reza Khan, a towering Cossack officer described by British envoy Percy Loraine as “a man of action” refreshingly free from “Persian verbosity.” Though “ignorant and uneducated,” his perceived pliability made him ideal. Evidence suggests British military commander Edmund Ironside facilitated Reza’s 1921 coup; U.S. envoy John Caldwell later called him “virtually a British spy.” By 1925, Reza Shah Pahlavi sat on the Peacock Throne—a monarch installed to safeguard imperial interests.

The American Challenge and the Red Line Agreement

Emerging U.S. interest complicated Britain’s designs. Alarmed by domestic oil depletion forecasts (some predicted nine years’ supply remained), Standard Oil sought concessions in northern Persia. Persian newspapers welcomed Americans as counterweights to British and Russian dominance, but London invoked dubious prior treaties to block competition. The resulting 1928 Red Line Agreement—echoing the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas—carved up Middle Eastern oil between British, French, and American firms, exposing the region’s continued status as imperial prize rather than sovereign space.

Legacy of Intervention: The Seeds of Future Conflict

Britain’s maneuvers established patterns haunting the Middle East today. The imposition of Faisal created Iraq’s sectarian fault lines; Reza Shah’s British-backed authoritarianism foreshadowed the 1953 CIA coup in Iran. Most consequentially, the treatment of oil as imperial prerogative rather than national asset bred generations of anti-Western resentment. As a 1920s Persian editorial presciently warned, great powers remained “worshippers of gold and bullies,” dividing resources while local populations paid the price—a dynamic fueling regional instability into the 21st century.

The interwar years revealed empire not through romanticized colonial adventures, but through oil pipelines, financial advisors, and carefully selected strongmen—a legacy proving far more enduring than any battlefield victory.