Time Frame: How the British seized Dubai’s firepower

It is just over a year since the launch of a massive digital archive of documents from the former archives of the British India Office.

A collaboration between the British Library and the Qatar Foundation, it has made hundreds of thousands of historic documents, maps and photographs – many from this part of the world – available to anyone with internet access.

One of these concerns a disastrous military operation more than 100 years ago that became known as “The Dubai Incident”.

On December 24, 1910, the British warship HMS Hyacinth put a landing party ashore after complaints about arms smuggling from Dubai across the Arabian Gulf.

The head of the British contingent of sailors and marines was supposed to meet the Ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Butti bin Suhail Al Maktoum, but failed to locate him, and the Navy forces pushed into the narrow streets of the town and homes, where they uncovered three elderly rifles of “obsolete pattern”, according to the official report.

As the British searched more houses, there were reports of armed men in the area followed by shooting, in which 17 people died – 12 from Dubai and five sailors. Both sides claimed the other fired first.

The landing party withdrew in boats as HMS Hyacinth, a 5,171- tonne armoured cruiser, began shelling the town with covering fire, causing up to 25 more deaths.

It was only the arrival of Sheikh Butti that stopped the gunfire. The British punishment of Dubai included a demand for 400

“serviceable rifles” from its citizens, shown in this photograph with British officers on the deck of the cruiser HMS Fox, which joined the Hyacinth. A 50,000-rupee fine was also

imposed, with the threat of further bombardment “which would to a large extent destroy the value of

Dubai as a trading port ... but it would not necessarily bring about the submission of the tribesmen”.

The British account of the incident was contested by Dubai, which produced its own document signed by witnesses. It flatly rejected several of Britain’s terms, including the imposition of an imperial agent and hundreds of occupying troops.

As it turned out, the final report, which rejected the idea of more military action, concluded the Navy’s high-handed behaviour in the first place was: “likely to provoke reprisals and was hardly prudent”.

Bullet-EndofStory: • To read the full original report visit www.qdl.qa/en

* James Langton