196 A Short History of the Middle East
broke off diplomatic relations with Germany; the Arab Rebellion
in Palestine, already in its dying struggles, ceased with the arrival
of a cavalry division and other troops in the autumn of 1939; and
the Syrian nationalists were firmly repressed. The months of the
eSit2krieg', however, confirmed the idea, already prevalent in
Middle Eastern political circles, that this war between European
powers was none of their business. The German invasion
of France, the entry of Italy into the war, and the capitulation
of France, leaving the small British forces in the Middle East
denuded of the support of the 100,000 French troops in the
Levant States, brought the war to the threshold of the Middle
East in one bound. By this time the Allied disasters of that
dreadful summer and the isolation of Britain had not surpris-
ingly shaken the confidence of the Middle Eastern politicians
in her ability to survive. In Iraq the weak-willed Prime Minister
Rashid AH al Qilani was merely the catspaw of four ambitious
colonels nicknamed the 'Golden Square*, while a shadow-
cabinet of Palestinian extremists was directed by the hostile
Hajj Amin. Freya Stark vividly describes how she encoun-
tered the Mufti in his hotel and saw 'little good, and certainly
nothing disinterested in that face. ... He sat there all in white,
spotless and voluminous, wearing his turban like a halo; his eyes
light, blue, and shining, with a sort of radiance, like a just-fallen
Lucifer*.1 In these circumstances the Iraqi government refused to
break off diplomatic relations with Italy; and as the Battle of Britain
raged, 'the highest military authorities were openly broadcasting
to the Iraqi people that their army and air-force had the glorious
mission of renewing the heroic days of the Arab conquests and the
Crusades, and of liberating the oppressed brethren of Syria and
Palestine from the servitude imposed on them by Europe and the
Jews'.2
In Egypt the British Embassy and military authorities had
reason to suspect the Prime Minister Ali Mahir, son of that
Mahir Pasha whom Cromer had caused to be removed from
office as Under-Secretary for War as 'a bad adviser, a cause of strife,
and an obstacle to harmonious co-operation* between Britain and
the young Khedive Abbas II.3 Following in his father's footsteps,
1 East is West, 143.
2 Round Table, 1941, 705.
s Lord Cromer, Abbas //, 50-59.