The First Coup D'états (1932 - 1945)

Shortly before his death in September 1933, King Faisal I contemplated the fractious and divided society that formed the precarious underpinning of the state which he had helped to found.  With the death of King Faisal I, the modern state with its diverse ethnics and confessions, lost its urgently needed intermediator. His son Ghazi became the second king of Iraq, but he was only 21 years old and not very much interested in politics, but whose general sympathies were broadly pan-Arab. Ghazi was a product of a system which exacerbated Shia resentment of Sunni-dominated state during the next few years. He was more a rebel than a diplomat like his father. He called for reunification under the one Arab country and pledged to liberate Kuwait from the British protectorate and to consolidate with Iraq. He established his private radio station in the royal palace Al Zahour to broadcast his Arab nationalist tendencies, his Kuwait proclamations and his anti-British position. He died in a mysterious car accident in April 1939. His successor was his son Faisal II, who was only four years old. A regency was set up under his uncle Prince Abd Al Ilah, who was likewise not very much interested in politics and left most of the operational tasks to pro-British Nuri Al Said, who would later become known for his oppressive leadership style.

In 1934, the parliament passed the National Defense Bill setting up a machinery of conscription. After an unrest of Shia tribes in the south of Iraq in 1935, the regent appointed Yasin Al Hashimi as Prime Minister who crushed the rebellion. He did the same with a revolt of the Kurds in the north, who mainly renegades because of the fear of conscription. In October 1936 and in order to put an end to the alleged tyranny and corruption of Yasin Al Hashimi regime, Iraq witnessed its first coup d'état, which was at the same time the first in the Arab world. Made possible by two widely different opposition movements (the Ahali Group, advocating socialism and democracy and an Army officers group, emphasising nationalism), it introduced a five-year period of military interference in political affairs which culminated in the Rashid Ali Al Gaylani revolt in 1941.

In 1936, the ownership of railways moved to the Iraqi government and the Iraqi State Railway was established. In 1940, with the completion of the Baghdad Railway, the pendant to the non-completed infrastructural project Berlin-Baghdad-Railway, the first "Taurus Express" arrived from Istanbul to Baghdad. During the 30s the government started to give scholarships to study abroad, including art and architecture. It also opened facilities in art education starting with the establishment of the Institute of Fine Arts (first called Music Institute) in 1936.

Between 1932 and 1941, the German Embassy in Iraq significantly propagandised its Nazi ideology and antisemitism among both the legislative and the population and supported the emergence of Al Futuwa Youth (a movement similar to Hitler Youth). On 1 April 1941, the pro-German Rashid Ali Al Gaylani and the Golden Square, a cabal of pro-Nazi army officers of the Iraqi armed forces, launched a coup d'état to topple the government of the regent and briefly instituted the Golden Square National Defense Government. Prince Abd Al Ilah, Nuri Al Said and other pro-British politicians escaped. The subsequent Anglo-Iraqi War, the British military campaign against the coup regime, led to its capitulation on 30 May 1941. On 1 June, the regent and its pro-British team returned to Baghdad. It was the day of the Jewish holiday of Shavuot. Disappointed and frustrated, a mop of Futuwa members and leaderless soldiers then marched through Jewish residential areas in Baghdad and massacred hundreds of Jews and looted their property. The massacre was essentially a pogrom, farhud in Arabic. It was a mixture of indoctrinated Nazi ideology and disappointment with British policy in Mandatory Palestine. The latter fact caused continuous threats and massacres against the Jewish population in the following years and in March 1950, the government passed an immigration law, 'recommending' the local Jewish to leave for Israel.

As a consequence of the 1941 coup d'état, the British army occupied Iraq again and the newly formed pro-British cabinet with Nuri Al Said on the forefront declared martial law, which remained in effect until the end of World War II in 1945. Al Futuwa and opposition movements were banned. Three of the Golden Square members were publicly hanged in front of the Ministry of Defense on 4 May 1942 and in April 1944 the fourth member got executed in the same way. An interesting and significant corollary of the defeat of the four members was the emergence of the martyr cult in Iraq.

This article was written by Hella Mewis and is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.