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two military bases, one at Habbaniya near Baghdad and the other at “Shuayba” near Basra, under the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty, which specified its numbers and locations. But the English paid no heed to the treaty’s provisions. Despite the Iraqi authorities’ repeated protests, they began greatly increasing their army with forces pouring in from India and elsewhere, reinforced with armored cars, tanks, heavy guns and air forces whose like Iraq did not possess. Iraq had no intention of going to war; its sole concern was neutrality and respect for the treaty’s terms. After occupying Basra with their army and fleet, the English were able to reinforce their troops at Habbaniya with large forces made up of mechanized units with armored cars and guns under General Kingstone, accompanied by other units.

The Iraqi government had made every effort to obtain arms for the army from friendly countries. Some German and Italian warplanes reached it despite the vast distances and opposition from English aircraft on their way to Iraq. Their arrival did much to strengthen morale and revive hope, but they did not have the effective impact expected and could not be put to use in the battle against the English. Although oil flowed from Iraq’s soil, the colonial companies had denied it the establishment of a refinery for aviation fuel. Iraq therefore imported some of its air force’s requirements from “Abadan” in Iran. When the conflict between Iraq and England broke out, Iraq could not supply either its own aircraft or those arriving from Germany and Italy to help it with the special gasoline they required. Thus they remained almost entirely out of action. Other such incidents occurred, leading to the sad outcomes inevitable in any clash between a mighty, aggressive empire and a small, newly established, peaceful state.

On May 19, the British forces at Habbaniya launched a fierce attack on the Iraqi units defending “Fallujah” and occupied it. Some Iraqi forces tried to recapture it in an attack on May 21 and nearly succeeded, actually entering Fallujah. But they could not take the city because there were no mechanized forces or aircraft to reinforce the army units. Thus this attack ended in failure.

On May 27, the British forces advanced on Baghdad and encountered resistance that continued until the evening of the 29th, when the Iraqi government and army commanders decided to withdraw from Baghdad to the mountainous regions of northern Iraq to resume its defense. But colonial intrigues, together with the superiority of the large British forces and the lack of reinforcements, did not allow the army