Reckoning with responsibility: The Mesopotamia Commission into British military failings during a moment of imperial transformation, 1916-1919

Abstract

In August 1916, in the aftermath of significant defeats in the Middle Eastern theatre of the First World War, the British government faced a crisis of confidence in its military power. In Mesopotamia, it was under significant pressure to reckon with its perceived poor strategic decision-making, and its treatment and resourcing of British troops. The Mesopotamia Commission was established to investigate and reassure the wider public that the same mistakes would not be made again. Scholarly explorations of the commission have focussed on the commission’s report published in July 1917. But this neglects what came before: the construction, performance, and repercussions of the commission as it unfolded. This article undertakes a forensic archival analysis of the commission ‘in process’, revealing the political character of the commission – how it presented itself, the commissioner’s decision-making, and the intra-imperial conflicts it aggravated during the war itself – all while operating under (and benefitting from) a expert, impartial guise. This granular approach to inquiry analysis not only contributes to new understandings of British imperial politics during the First World War but demonstrates that, as a selective process of knowledge production, the commission’s outcomes and impact went well beyond just a published report.