Baghdad, 1917–1923: U.S. Consular Reporting on the Armenian and Assyrian Genocides

Turkish and British forces had been fighting in southern Mesopotamia since 1914. In March 1917, British forces captured Baghdad, ending centuries of Ottoman rule in the region. Turkish forces retreated north to Mosul and attempted to establish a stronghold there. Fighting continued at a greatly reduced level. After the October 1918 armistice between the Turks and British, British forces moved into Mosul. Conflict continued to flare periodically between British and Iraqi forces on one side and Kurdish forces on the other. Turkey never abandoned its claim to the Mosul region, but the question was placed before the League of Nations in 1924, and a Council decision the following year awarded the territory to the newly established country of Iraq, where the British had installed Amir Faisal as king in August 1921.

Iraqis resisted British rule, but their rebellion was crushed by the end of 1920. That same year, the British received a League of Nations mandate for the area, now designated Iraq, and Sir Percy Cox arrived in Baghdad as the first High Commissioner. Under British supervision, an Iraqi government with limited powers was established in 1921, and the two nations quickly signed the first in a series of Anglo-Iraqi Treaties setting forth their respective rights and obligations.

After the British capture of Baghdad in March 1917, Assyrian and Armenian refugees soon began to flee toward the British-occupied area. Most of the Assyrians came originally from the Urmia region in Azerbaijan province in Persia. They had fled south to British military lines around Hamadan when Turkish and Kurdish forces were in the final stages of their conquest of Urmia in late July 1918. Housed in temporary camps and unable to return home, they soon moved on to more permanent camps set up by the British military around Baghdad. Some Armenians accompanied the Assyrians in this exodus, but most came from various locations in the Ottoman Empire after being brutally evicted by Turkish forces.

Assyrian and Armenian church leaders asked Great Britain and the other Western powers for military protection and assistance in returning to their homes, but those requests were turned down for a variety of reasons. The refugees in the camps around Baghdad were destitute. The American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief — later Near East Relief — and other organizations provided funds and supplies that sustained many of them. Family members in the United States also sent funds. The consulate was frequently involved in facilitating this vast relief effort.

The consulate handled numerous requests from individuals in America for help in locating family members, working closely with U.S. missionaries and Assyrian and Armenian leaders to answer them. The consulate’s immigration workload grew as more refugees sought to come to the United States. For the few who had previously become U.S. citizens, or who had close relatives who were citizens, this was relatively straightforward. For most, immigration was a distant prospect — and grew more so after new laws took effect in the early 1920s, imposing strict quotas on immigration from Middle Eastern nations. The consulate did what it could with the resources at its disposal to help as many people as possible.