Percy Cox
Sir Percy Zachariah Cox, was a British Indian Army officer and Colonial Office administrator in the Middle East. He is considered one of the main architects behind the current Middle Eastern borders.
Family and early life
Cox was born in Harwood Hall, Herongate, Essex, one of seven children born to Julienne Emily Cox and cricketer Arthur Zachariah Cox. He was educated initially at Harrow School where he developed interests in natural history, geography, and travel. In February 1884, being his father's third son and therefore without significant inheritance, Cox joined the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and was commissioned as a Lieutenant into the Cameronians, joining their 2nd Battalion in India. In November 1889, an outstanding planner, he transferred to the Bengal Staff Corps. On 14 November 1889 he married Louisa Belle, youngest daughter of Irish-born surgeon-general John Butler Hamilton.British Somaliland and Muscat (1893–1903)
After holding minor administrative appointments in Kolhapur and Savantvadi in India, Cox was posted to British Somaliland, which was then administered from India, as Assistant Political Resident at Zeila. He transferred to Berbera in 1894. He was promoted to captain in February 1895. In May 1895 he was given command of an expedition against the Rer Hared clan, which had blocked trade routes and was raiding the coast. With only 52 Indian and Somali regulars and 1,500 poor quality, untrained local irregulars, he defeated the Rer Hared in six weeks. Later that year 1895, he was promoted to be assistant to the Viceroy of India's agent in Baroda.For 1899 he had intended to join the US expedition under A Donaldson Smith between the River Nile and Lake Rudolf, but in October 1899, the new Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon appointed Cox Political Agent and consul at Muscat, Oman, inheriting a tense situation between the British, French and Arabs who regarded the area as under their influence. The French had leased a coaling station from Sultan Feisal, the local ruler, for the French Navy. The French also gave protection to the local slave trade, which the British opposed. Feisal was ordered by the British under Cox to board the British merchantman SS Eclipse, whose guns were trained on his palace and reprimanded and informed that his annual subsidy could be withdrawn by the British government.
Cox managed to successfully end French influence in the area; turning the subsidy around, and agreeing that Feisal's son could receive an education in England and visit the Delhi Durbar. When Lord Curzon visited Muscat in 1903, he judged that Cox virtually ran the place. Cox was promoted to the rank of major on 6 February 1902, and was invested Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire; whereas Feisal was rewarded for loyalty with Knight Grand Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire in Curzon's gift.
Political Resident in Persian Gulf (1904–1919)
In June 1904, Major Cox was appointed first British Acting Political Resident in the Persian Gulf and Consul-General for Fars province, Lurestan and Khuzestan and the district of Lingah, residing in the Persian side of the gulf at the city of Bushehr. He began a remarkable correspondence and friendship with Captain William Shakespear, appointed Cox's deputy Political Resident to Persia. Their frank exchange of views at Bandar Abbas was a major element of pre-war policy in the near east. Cox considered peace the priority, in the maintenance of good relations with the Ottomans, who held all the tribal loyalties, whilst prompting India to change policy towards Ibn Saud, the Wahhabi ruler of Nejd and later king of Saudi Arabia, from 1906.One of the few allies was Shaikh Mubarak of Kuwait, whose shared intelligence eventually aided the desert war. Cox was assiduous with his briefs: he prepared in great detail, in fluent Arabic, when he wrote Shaikhs. Warned by the former ambassador to Constantinople of Turkish escalation; preparations were made to make Arabian friends. British forces were called into Bushehr in 1909, and then again to Shiraz in 1911. Cox promised Sheikh Khazal of Muhammarah that troops would protect when the Turks threatened to invade. Khazaal leased the Shatt al-Arab waterway on the Euphrates to the Anglo-Persian Oil Company for the construction of refineries. In 1910 Cox wrote a full report on Shakespear's findings to India, which was passed to London. He was promoted to Lieutenant-colonel in February 1910. Cox promoted trade in the Persian Gulf which doubled between 1904 and 1914, suppressed the illegal arms trade; and improved communications. In 1911 he was created a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire. In 1908 oil fields were discovered in the region of Abadan. On 16 July 1909, after secret negotiation with Cox, assisted by Arnold Wilson, Sheik Khaz'al agreed to a rental agreement for the island including Abadan.
He was confirmed as Resident, a post which he occupied highly successfully until 1914, when he was appointed Secretary to the British Raj. Cox feared reprisals in Arabia would make the tribes turn towards Germany. But the Foreign Office was engrossed with events in Europe. Among his other achievements while at Bushire was the establishment of the state of Kuwait as an autonomous kaza within the Ottoman Empire by the Anglo-Ottoman Convention of 1913, where he improved relations with local ruler, Mubarak, by opening negotiations with Ibn Saud.
The Turks signed a treaty in London on 29 July 1913 concerning Royal Navy patrols in the Persian Gulf littoral, when Cox met then at the Port of Uqair on 15 December 1913. Cox noted their "intractability" and also warned the Foreign and Commonwealth Office about Ibn Saud; the "increased authority of the Wahhabi Chief". Captain Shakespear's letter had passed via Riyadh to the Suez Canal in which his secret War-camp negotiations with Ibn Sa'ud, had revealed the latter's deep hatred of the Turks, who brutalised his people and threatened his ancestral rights. Shortly after his return to India, Sir Percy was sent back to the Persian Gulf as Chief Political Officer with the Indian Expeditionary Force when World War I broke out in August 1914, still with a brief to prevent Turkish entry on the German side. The Islamic Jihad to crush the British and seize Mesopotamia coincided with Turkey's declaration of war in October 1914.
Ibn Saud's mortal enemy, Ibn Rashid, was in the Turkish coalition. Cox sent his deputy to protect Ibn Saud, whose army was attacked at the Battle of Jarrab on 24 January 1915. Shakespear was in command of the artillery when he was charged down and killed in the melee. Sir Percy received immediate authorisation to draft a Treaty of Khufaisa with the Wahhabi ruler with the aim of forming a broader Arab alliance. By April 1915 Cox was based at Basrah where he received a significant Treaty between Ibn Saud and his enemy Ibn Rashid; partition of Arabia in a spirited alliance to rid the peninsula of the Ottomans. They finally met on Boxing Day 1915 at Darin, an island of Tarut, in the bay of Qatif, just north of Bahrain, where they signed the Treaty of Darin.
A local difficulty in Mesopotamia
Cox was Secretary to the Government of India, its chief civil servant, and third in order of precedence. He was despatched to the Gulf as Chief Political Officer with the rank of honorary major-general. The arrival of General Nixon from Simla was "shabby...jobbing" as the military build-up enclosing India's plan to capture Baghdad troubled the veteran political time-servers, morally responsible to humanity and to civilization.For want of a more bland administration, Cox complained to Viceroy Lord Curzon that Barrett, whom Nixon replaced, had not wanted to go to Amara in pursuit of a policy of annexation. In a surprise attack upriver on Qurna before midnight on 6 December 1914, Commander Nunn and a small fleet managed to link up with Brigadier Fry's units of the 45th to force the Turk to surrender; ultimately, by land and by sea, a typical pincer movement in combined operations enabled only 45 officers and 989 men to take a garrison of 4,000 men. At 1.30 pm on 9 December, Sir Percy and Fry took the formal handover from Head of Vilayet, Vali of Basra, Subhi Bey, ending the Battle of Qurna. Cox was not one for sentimentality: but the Turkic rulers had been guilty of several barbarisms: stoning women, and severing thieves' hands off; traitors and spies were buried up to their necks in sand.
During 1915 he saw action with Major General Charles Townshend's expeditionary force. Throughout the Great War Cox masterminded the Imperial relationship with Turkic Mesopotamia/Iraq. By December 1915, Townshend's division had been defeated at Battle of Ctesiphon and retreated to be besieged in Kut al-Amara. Cox left with Brigadier Leachman's cavalry brigade sent back to Basra. General Townshend came to hate "this accursed country"; fly-blown. Historians point to his brilliant defence of the fort at Chitral on the North-West Frontier in 1895, as evidence of suitability for appointment. Townshend, although promised a relief force from Nixon, knew that it was an unrealistic prospect. Although substantial redoubts were constructed during September to December 1915, the cross-river route remained vulnerable to attack. Townshend blamed Cox for the failure to evacuate civilians in time. Cox was firmly against exposing them to the winter cold. In this assessment he was supported by Arnold Wilson, who wrote that a general was not competent to judge what protection civilians needed. On reflection Cox suggested that the 500 departing unit should turn back; but Colonel Gerard Leachman told him the roads being drenched and muddy were impassable. These men had left on 6 December to be transported downriver to safety. 2,000 would-be fit cavalry men and officers remained behind with the infantry.
Influence in Iraq
Aged 25, Cox first travelled in the Middle East. In 1915 he was sent by the British army to negotiate: On 6 October he met Leachman at Aziziyeh to discuss how to free Baghdad. An emissary was sent into the city to see Nuri al-Said. The Iraqi commander in the pay of the Ottomans was responsible to Talaat Pasha, one of the Young Turks whose coup d'état had seized power in Constantinople/Istanbul. Cox was deeply sceptical about "conciliating with the Arabs".Nuri's Basra Reform Society were negotiating with Cox when the British appointed the violent and intemperate Sayyid Talib as governor of the province. He was eager to work with the Imperial forces, but was deeply unpopular with local Shias. Cox ordered Talib and Nuri to be arrested; they were promptly deported to prison in India for treasonous attempts to stir up revolt. The general turned statesman-diplomat disapproved of army plans to extend the autonomous region; advising against plans to invade into the interior, which he knew to be fraught with dangers. In January 1915, Sir John Nixon's appointment to head a new division with orders from Shimla encouraged the diplomat to draft a similar text for General Nixon that launched the fateful mission to Kut al-Amara. "This would create endless problems for Great Britain..." wrote Gerard Leachman in March 1915, explorer, traveller from India.
Cox early on spotted the important alliance that lay with Ibn Saud. In his capacity as the senior Foreign and Commonwealth Office official, Cox received secret intelligence reports on Ottoman troop movements. In his dealings he was "stoic, patient and tolerant, never allowing any hint of frustration no matter how perverse the commands of his government or the action of his people...".
In January 1915, he was alerted to the Banu Lam and Bani Turuf tribes mobilising for war, declaring Jihad in Persia. Cox was confident that "Qurna was strong" and would hold against an assault. It was imperative to protect the oil pipelines into the Gulf at Abadan; the government ordered a brigade to this duty. Cox was well aware from his own experiences of the vulnerability of the frontier. He was highly respected as a quick, efficient, tireless and energetic soldier-diplomat, as well as being incorruptible. He held a genuine interest in local people, the Arabs and Persians, and was a shrewd and patient listener. As a politician he was a good speaker of Arabic and Turkish. But he knew when to shut up: he kept silent often in the Bedu presence, yet knew when to speak up, which impressed the Arab sensibilities. To Gertrude Bell he became an indispensable and close friend; whom she fondly admired.
By 1914, Cox was a champion of Arab nationalism, working closely with Gertrude Bell, and T. E. Lawrence to that end. During April 1916, Kitchener offered a series of blatant bribes up to £2 million via General Halil "to the people of Kut", disgusted Cox left with Leachman's cavalry brigade sent back to Basra. Gertrude Bell reported she was staying with Sir Percy and Lady Cox in March 1916, living next door to the Military GHQ. On 8 March, Cox had returned from Bushire wherefore gathering intelligence. By May, George Lloyd had joined the unit from London because their work was "political not military," the "Egyptian link" being with the new Arab Bureau.