RAF KHORMAKSAR

[DeanoP]

'Without Glory In Arabia: The British Retreat from Aden' by Peter Hinchcliffe, John Ducker and Maria Holt

Reference Etudiant's observation: ' Images of a striking disconnect between the locals and their British overlords.'
The paragraphs below are taken from the title article and gives some of the reasons for the disconnect:


Britain's retreat from Aden was not determined by Islamic radicalism but by Arab nationalism, Nasser's ambitions, the Yemen Revolution, worldwide anti-imperialism, lukewarm American support, successive sterling crises and ultimately a failure of will. Although successive 20th century British governments accepted imperial disengagement as inevitable, it became an article of faith that the Aden military base must be retained at almost any cost. By 1961, as HQ Middle East Command, it maintained 15,000 British servicemen with wide ranging strategic responsibilities - above all the Gulf's oil. Military expenditure took absolute priority. Little Aden's Falaise Camp (completed just as we left) cost thirty six times the entire 1964/67 Federal development budget. If Nasser was Britain's bugbear, Aden became its albatross.

Turnbull described the ill fated Federation (designed to unify and safeguard Aden and the tribal states) as a 'ramshackle contrivance'. But in principle the concept had long been supported by Arab nationalists and eventually became the catalyst for the modern Yemen Republic. Unfortunately, Britain's model was flawed due largely to its policy of cynical parsimony that had created an unbridgeable economic, political and social chasm between Aden and the Protectorate and an unworkable constitution that gave unelected tribal rulers excessive powers and over-representation.