Bahrain, home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet and naval command, has suffered in the most recent war in the Gulf between Israel, the United States, and Iran. Its role played hosting the U.S. naval base turned the nation into a major target for missiles and drone attacks. However, long before the Fifth Fleet would make Bahrain its home, Great Britain had built the naval base there nearly a hundred years ago. The strategic interests that made Bahrain ideal for the Fifth Fleet takeover in 1971 were the same one identified in a secret British communication mentioned as early as 1929, years before the base was built.
“With the development of air communication, Bahrain and not Kuwait will be the Gulf centre for airways,” said a secret communication from C.J.
Barrett, the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf in 1929.
Yet the modern history of Bahrain began long before it became the new headquarters of the Political Residency in the Persian Gulf, and before its sheikhs signed their first exclusive agreement with Great Britain in 1880. Modern Bahrain traces its roots to 1783, decades before the British came to its shores.
For much of its history, Bahrain's sovereignty was decided by conquest. In the 19th century, everything changed. Bahrain's sovereignty was no longer tied to conquest from the mainland but increasingly determined by treaties aligning the ruler’s interests with those of a greater power.
Through centuries of power struggles over dominion, archival records make clear that, for over a millennium, Bahrain did not simply refer to the set of islands known today. It represented a much larger area that included the western coast of the Persian Gulf. A confidential British memo fromthe India Office, B446, the Historical Memorandum on Bahrein, stated,
"The term ‘Bahrein’ formerly embraced the promontory of Qatar and the oasis of Qatif and Hasa on the Arabian mainland, as well as the islands of the archipelago and, according to Lorimer, ‘some authorities would attribute to it in the past an even more extended application...that it once denoted the whole western side of the Persian Gulf from Ruus-al-Jibal to the mouth of the Shatt-el-Arab.”
Historical Map 1740 showing Bahrain on Western coast. Source: By Jacques-Nicolas BellinJacques-Nicolas BellinJacques-Nicolas Bellin - Karte von der Küste von Arabien, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6574216
However, the ever-changing contest for sovereignty over Bahrain would take a conclusive turnwhen the Arabs of the mainland conquered the island in 1783. The Utub took over the island from its ruler, who governed in the name of Persia. The ruling family that emerged from the Utub survives today still as the Al Khalifa, Bahrain’s royal family.
Although Al Khalifa secured the island in 1783, the years that followed would be anything but smooth sailing. The island offered some protection from the politics of the mainland, but it also possessed something immensely valuable: the pearling banks that supplied demand to a significant share of the globe’s pearls.
For decades, the Ottomans, Persia, Qatari tribes, and different factions of Arabia attempted to control the island. Some, like the Wahabis of the mainland, were able to control the island for a brief period. The Ottomans' attempts to control the island failed repeatedly.
For Bahrain to survive these attempted hostile takeovers, the island’s allegiance shifted from one power to another for generations. In the 17th century, when the Ottomans took over Bahrain’s fort, the island’s ruler was aided by the Portuguese, who controlled Hormuz. When the island’s sovereignty was threatened by Oman on Arabia’s mainland, the sheikh gave his allegiance to Persia, which ruled over the island decades before.
Sovereignty over Bahrain remained a contested issue. The Ottomans, in their days of decline, wanted it. Tribes from the mainland, including the Wahabis of central Arabia, wanted it. By the time Persia later attempted to reclaim the island, Britain had already begun to secure its interests on the Arab coast of the Gulf.
In 1820, as the British were beginning to cement their control over the Persian Gulf and securetheir maritime interests, they struck the first agreement with the Sheikhs of Bahrain. Yet this agreement offered the latter little beyond an obligation to refrain from piracy. It was a mechanism to maintain maritime order in the Gulf, nothing more.
The 1820 agreement did not turn Bahrain into a British protectorate. Great Britain kept Bahrain at arm's length while maintaining maritime order in the Gulf. In the meantime, the Sheikh of Bahrain hinged his survival and rule on paying tribute and shifting his allegiance to whoever exerted power, be it Egypt, Persia, or Oman.
In 1880, everything would change for Bahrain and its ruling family. The Sheikh struck an exclusive agreement with Great Britain that, as in Kuwait, barred him from maintaining relations with the foreign powers without the direct authorization of London. Bahrain's sovereignty now hinged only on its protectorate status. The agreement read:
“I, Isa bin Ali Al-Khalifah, Chief of Bahrein, hereby bind myself and successors in the Government of Bahrein to the British Government to abstain from entering into negotiations or making treaties of any sort with any State or Government other than the British without the consent of the said British Government”
In 1913, the Order in Council was introduced, expanding the authority to the Political Agent in day-to-day affairs. Article 45 of the law gave judicial powers to the Political Agent in Bahrain’s administration,
“Article 45. - (1) When a Bahrein subject desires to bring a suit against a person to whom this order apples, or a person to whom this Order applies desires to bring a suit against a Bahrein subject, the Political Agent shall admit the complaint and (a) with the concurrence of the Sheikh of Bahrein, may hear and determine the suit in his District Court or (b) may hear and determine it in a Joint Court or...”
Effectively, the Shaikh had given power to the Political Agent in matters concerning foreign subjects as well as the pearling business. But on the ground, the Political Agent's power extended beyond jurisdiction over foreigners; it encompassed the general direction of the Sheikh and his policy.
The political control Britain exerted over the island ripened in the 1930s, when Britain was managing the outrage in Palestine. In 1936, a Defense of Palestine conference was scheduled in Damascus, and invitations were sent out to Arab leaders and chiefs across the Arab world. When that invitation reached the Sheikh of Bahrain, the Political Agent managed and directed his response.
When the people of Bahrain raised over 9,000 pounds in charity to send to the Arabs of Palestine, the funds were instead rerouted through the Political Agent, who managed the handoff through an official directly approved by Britain.
Year upon year, the Sheikh of Bahrain limited his own power while expanding that of the British resident through subsequent treaties. With the rise of oil in the Middle East, the Sheikh agreed,
“Not to search for oil himself or give others permission to do so without consulting the Political Agent and receiving the approval of the Government of India,” said a confidential British appendix summarizing the treaties and the engagements between Britain and the Arab chiefs.
It was thus with the British approval that the American oil company entered Bahrain, which drew concern from the Political Resident C.J. Barrett, who wrote in a 1929 telegram, “We should not recede from our present position in Bahrain, especially if American oil interests obtain, what may, if not properly controlled, be a strangle-hold on the island.”
By the 1940s, Britain had moved the headquarters of its Political Residency from Bushire, Iran, to Bahrain. The headquarters overseeing British
maritime interests and Gulf politics now sat on the island. The Royal Navy Base at HMS Juffair, established in 1935, had already made Bahrain Britain’s naval anchor in the region. Together, they consolidated Britain’s position. Before the United States fully inherited such a position, it had already begun leasing part of HMS Juffairfrom Great Britain.
Upon Bahrain’s independence in 1971, Britain would leave HMS Juffair and the United States would inherit the base. Bahrain’s sovereignty after nearly a century under Britain’s protection,would now depend on a new power, one that has yet to grasp the wheel of control as its predecessor did.
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