As in many instances where the monarch dies before his or her time, there can be problems with succession. But succession in the case of Iraq was never really in any doubt. Ghazi’s three-year-old son Faisal II would ascend to the throne but would not take power until he was old enough. Faisal I’s cousin, Abd al Ilah, would act as regent. He chose Nuri es Said as his Prime Minister. It was a truly pro-British administration that would find itself under fire much sooner than it expected – because in 1940, Rashid Ali Al-Gaylani succeeded Nuri as Prime Minister. Ali was avowedly anti-British and one of his first moves as PM was to establish contact with Nazi Germany in the hope that Germany would free Iraq from British domination. Before Ali came to power, there had been Pan-Arabist sympathies inside the Iraqi military that led to the formation of the Free Officers Movement. The Free Officers were dedicated Pan-Arabists and staunch nationalists The Palestine revolt in 1936 –9 contributed further to anti-British feeling. Rashid Ali can be seen as a coming to a head of those simmering feelings of anti-British/nationalist sentiment.
When Nuri and Abd al Ilah discovered Ali’s plans they pressed him to resign but it was useless. On April 13, 1941, Rashid Ali and four generals calling themselves the “Golden Square” overthrew the monarchy while the Regent was absent from the country. Nuri was forced to flee. It was the second coup in less then ten years and this time the British would have the final say.
In the same year latent anti-Jewish sentiment was being fuelled by propaganda coming from the German embassy under the direction of its propagandist, Dr Fritz Grobba. Jewish businesses and synagogues were attacked by pro-Nazis in the farhud –which means a breakdown in law and order where no one is safe: it was Iraq’s Kristellnacht.. Ali had already formed a government composed of ultra-nationalist civilians who restricted British military access to the country. The British responded by landing a force at Basra on April 19th. Many Iraqis regarded this as a British attempt to restore their rule over the country. The Iraqis concentrated their forces near the large British base at Habbaniyah – which lies to the west of Baghdad. The British commander there took no chances and opened hostilities. Due to overwhelming firepower and reinforcements from Palestine, the British were able to establish the upper hand and marched on Baghdad.
The war - a war within a war, if you think about it – lasted less than a month. The British restored the regent and General Nuri; Rashid Ali and his government fled the country on May 30th.
