Volta
Politics3 October 1932

Independence of the Kingdom of Iraq

Iraq, a British mandate, became independent on joining the League of Nations—the first mandate to do so—though Britain kept military bases and oil interests.

Faisal I in the Iraqi parliament after independence, 1932
Faisal I in the Iraqi parliament after independence, 1932

Unknown author · Public domain · Source

In 1921 Britain placed the Kingdom of Iraq, with Faisal as king, under its mandate. The great oil strike at Kirkuk in 1927 raised Britain’s stake. In the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty of 1930 Britain promised independence in return for air bases and wartime cooperation, and on 3 October 1932 Iraq joined the League of Nations as the first mandate to become independent. British influence persisted, however, and after a pro-German coup in 1941 British troops returned. The monarchy fell in the revolution of 1958.

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States at the time
Mandatory Iraq · dissolved
Iraq · independence
Great Britain
Places
Baghdad

People

  • Faisal I of Iraq1885 – 1933

    monarch · Son of Hussein bin Ali and a commander of the Arab Revolt, briefly King of Syria (1920) and then King of Iraq (1921–1933)

Before and after

Earlier
1258 Siege of Baghdad

Themes that include this event

  • National Movements in Asia and Africa1915 – 1948

    From the Hussein–McMahon correspondence to the founding of Israel — three decades in which India, West Asia, Southeast Asia and Africa, swept up in the tide of self-determination after the First World War, pressed toward independence and modernization