You know Arab oil figured into that. They just didn't figure it was the right time to tell the Arabs about it.
The first oil well to strike oil in Saudi Arabia was in 1938.
How Europe Went to War in 1914
- Thread starter DonL
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The first oil well to strike oil in Saudi Arabia was in 1938.
thanks John, but I think we have a good bunch already.
First befriend. Then politically-stabilize. Then drill. It's called, "advance-planning."
20 years ?? Get real.
I think they knew. What do you think?
Actually Monty was a Monash fan, describing him as the greatest general of WW1.
Oil was first found in the region in NW Persia (Iran) in 1908.
In 1923 a concession was signed by the local shiek for oil exploration, but investors were lacking.
When oil was struck in Bahrain in 1933, investors surfaced but drilling wasn't successful in Saudi Arabia till 1938.
So what did the powers that be know about oil in the Persian Gulf, and Saudi Arabia in the WW1 era ? Nothing .
In 1923 a concession was signed by the local shiek for oil exploration, but investors were lacking.
When oil was struck in Bahrain in 1933, investors surfaced but drilling wasn't successful in Saudi Arabia till 1938.
So what did the powers that be know about oil in the Persian Gulf, and Saudi Arabia in the WW1 era ? Nothing .
After WW1 the British and French left the area, leaving it under the rule of the local tribes. It wasn't until 1932 that the modern state of Saudi-Arabia came into being when the area was united by Ibn Saud.
True. But in this case it was the Australian press which was acting against Monash, not the British press. I suspect that Haig would have been able to have 'a few words' with the British press if he felt the need, but with the Australian press I'm far less certain he would have any influence.
This is the Industrial Age. Economics is at the center of this Great War. Oil is economics. They're pumping it out of Persia and going all over the world looking for it. Arabia is no Persia. They drill and build and refine and distribute from there, what will the nomadic tribes say? But that doesn't mean they didn't scout it. And if the oil companies knew it was there, so did the politicians.
Wait until there's a half-way stable regime to protect their big economic investment. In the meantime, befriend them. When they get it going, ring them up.
Then why was it a US company which exploited the oil, not British or French.
It took them a long, long time to exploit it if they knew of it's existence in 1914-18.
Sorry, your theory just doesn't hold water, or oil.
Short answer. Because we struck the deal and you and the French struck out.
Funny you should put it in those terms as it wasn't until the regimes formed that it became apparent to them water wasn't necessarily their most precious natural resource.
A British mining engineer gets the exploration concession in 1923, it takes till oil is found in Bahrain before he can get investors interested in drilling in Saudi Arabia, he finally gets investors from the US and drills for years before they got a producing well.
Yet they knew all this was possible in 1914-18 ??
Sorry, it just doesn't pass the smell test.
parsifal
Colonel
There is a seed of truth in VBFs claim but like all these sorts of theories, you take a little bit of truth and mix it with a whole lot of baloney to generate one big enormous myth.
From wiki....
"On January 15, 1902, 'Abd-al'-Aziz ibn 'Abd al-Rahman Al Sa'ud took Riyadh from the Rashid tribe. In 1913, his forces captured the province of al-Hasa, from the Ottoman Turks. In 1922 he completed his conquest of the Nejd, and in 1925 he conquered the Hijaz. In 1932, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was proclaimed with 'Abd-al'-Aziz as king. Without stability in the region, the search for oil would have been difficult, as evidenced by early oil exploration in neighbouring countries such as Yemen and Oman.]
Prior to 1938, there were three main factors that triggered the search for oil in Arabia:
The discovery of oil by the Anglo-Persian Oil Company at Masjid-i-Sulaiman in the mountains of north-western Persia in 1908; but the consensus of geological opinion at the time was that there was no oil on the Arabian peninsula, although there were rumours of an oil seepage at Qatif on the eastern seaboard of al-Hasa, the eastern province of Arabia.
The demand for oil during World War I. Throughout the war, it became obvious that oil was going to be a crucial resource in warfare for the foreseeable future.[1] Examples that proved this were "General Galleini's commandeering of the Paris taxi fleet to ferry soldiers to the front. This happened when the city seemed about to fall". In addition to this, Germany's shortage of oil supplies hindered their ability to produce aircraft, automobiles, and engines. The allies took advantage of this by producing thousands of vehicles to aid their war effort.
The onset of the Great Depression. Prior to the depression, a major source of income for the ruler of Hijaz was the taxes paid by pilgrims on their way to the holy cities. After the depression hit, the number of pilgrimages per year fell from 100,000 to below 40,000. This hurt their economy greatly and they needed to find alternate sources of income. This caused King 'Abd-al'-Aziz to get serious about the search for oil.
In 1922, King Abdulaziz met a New Zealand mining engineer named Major Frank Holmes. During World War I, Holmes had been to Gallipoli and then Ethiopia, where he first heard rumours of the oil seeps of the Persian Gulf Region.[1] He was convinced that much oil would be found throughout the region. After the war, Holmes helped to set up Eastern and General Syndicate Ltd in order, among other things, to seek oil concessions in the region. [my note: he appears to have sought US backers for purely comercial reasons and no other....ther certainly were no "Imperial" overtones]
In 1923, the king signed a concession with Holmes allowing him to search for oil in eastern Saudi Arabia. Eastern and General Syndicate brought in a Swiss geologist to evaluate the land but he claimed that searching for oil in Arabia would be "a pure gamble". This discouraged the major banks and oil companies from investing in Arabian oil ventures.
In 1925, Holmes signed a concession with the sheikh of Bahrain, allowing him to search for oil there. He then proceeded to the United States to find an oil company that might be interested in taking on the concession. He found help from Gulf Oil. In 1927, Gulf Oil took control of the concessions that Holmes made years ago. But Gulf Oil was a partner in the Iraq Petroleum Company, which was jointly owned by Royal Dutch/Shell, Anglo-Persian, the Compagnie Française des Pétroles, and "the Near East Development Company, representing the interests of the American companies. The partners had signed up to the "Red Line Agreement" which meant that Gulf Oil was precluded from taking up the Bahrain concession without the consent of the other partners; and they declined. Despite a promising survey in Bahrain, Gulf Oil was forced to transfer its interest to another company, Standard Oil of California(SOCAL), which was not a bound by the Red Line Agreement.
Meanwhile King Abdulaziz had dispatched American mining engineer Karl Twitchell to examine eastern Arabia. Twitchell found encouraging signs of oil, asphalt seeps in the vicinity of Qatif, but advised the king to await the outcome of the Bahrain No.1 well before inviting bids for a concession for al-Hasa. To the American engineers working in Bahrain, standing on the Jebel Dukhan and gazing across a twenty-mile (32 km) stretch of the Persian Gulf at the Arabian Peninsula in the clear light of early morning, the outline of the low Dhahran hills in the distance were an obvious oil prospect.
On 31 May 1932, the SOCAL subsidiary, the Bahrain Petroleum Company (BAPCO) struck oil on Bahrain. The discovery brought fresh impetus to the search for oil on the Arabian peninsula.
Negotiations for an oil concession for al-Hasa province opened at Jeddah in March, 1933. Twitchell attended with lawyer Lloyd Hamilton on behalf of SOCAL. The Iraq Petroleum Company represented by Stephen Longrigg competed in the bidding but SOCAL was granted the concession on 23 May 1933. Under the agreement, SOCAL was given "exploration rights to some 930,000 square kilometers of land for 60 years". Soon after the agreement, geologists arrived in al-Hasa and the search for oil was underway
SOCAL set up a subsidiary company, the California Arabian Standard Oil Company (CASOC) to develop the oil concession. SOCAL also joined forces with the Texas Oil Company when together they formed CALTEX in 1936 to take advantage of the latter's formidable marketing network in Africa and Asia.
When CASOC geologists surveyed the concession area, they identified a promising site and named it Dammam No. 1, after a nearby village. Over the next three years, the drillers were unsuccessful in making a commercial strike, but chief geologist Max Steineke persevered. He urged the team to drill deeper, even when Dammam No. 7 was plagued by cave-ins, stuck drill bits and other problems, before the drillers finally struck oil on 3 March 1938. This discovery would turn out to be first of many, eventually revealing the largest source of crude oil in the world.For the king, oil revenues became a crucial source of wealth since he no longer had to rely on receipts from pilgrimages to Mecca. This discovery would alter Middle Eastern political relations forever.
In 1943, the name of the company in control in Saudi Arabia was changed to Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO). In addition, numerous changes were made to the original concession after the striking of oil. In 1939, the first modification gave the Arabian American Oil Company a greater area to search for oil and extended the concession until 1999, increasing the original deal by six years. In return, ARAMCO agreed to provide the Saudi Arabian government with large amounts of free kerosene and gasoline, and to pay higher payments than originally stipulated.
Beginning in 1950, the Saudi Arabian government began a pattern of trying to increase government shares of revenue from oil production. In 1950, a "fifty-fifty profit-sharing agreement was signed, whereby a tax was levied by the government. This tax considerably increased government revenues". The government continued this trend well into the '80s. By 1982, ARAMCO's concession area was reduced to 220,000 square kilometers, down from the original 930,000 square kilometers. By 1988, ARAMCO was officially bought out by Saudi Arabia and became known as "Saudi Aramco"."
From wiki....
"On January 15, 1902, 'Abd-al'-Aziz ibn 'Abd al-Rahman Al Sa'ud took Riyadh from the Rashid tribe. In 1913, his forces captured the province of al-Hasa, from the Ottoman Turks. In 1922 he completed his conquest of the Nejd, and in 1925 he conquered the Hijaz. In 1932, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was proclaimed with 'Abd-al'-Aziz as king. Without stability in the region, the search for oil would have been difficult, as evidenced by early oil exploration in neighbouring countries such as Yemen and Oman.]
Prior to 1938, there were three main factors that triggered the search for oil in Arabia:
The discovery of oil by the Anglo-Persian Oil Company at Masjid-i-Sulaiman in the mountains of north-western Persia in 1908; but the consensus of geological opinion at the time was that there was no oil on the Arabian peninsula, although there were rumours of an oil seepage at Qatif on the eastern seaboard of al-Hasa, the eastern province of Arabia.
The demand for oil during World War I. Throughout the war, it became obvious that oil was going to be a crucial resource in warfare for the foreseeable future.[1] Examples that proved this were "General Galleini's commandeering of the Paris taxi fleet to ferry soldiers to the front. This happened when the city seemed about to fall". In addition to this, Germany's shortage of oil supplies hindered their ability to produce aircraft, automobiles, and engines. The allies took advantage of this by producing thousands of vehicles to aid their war effort.
The onset of the Great Depression. Prior to the depression, a major source of income for the ruler of Hijaz was the taxes paid by pilgrims on their way to the holy cities. After the depression hit, the number of pilgrimages per year fell from 100,000 to below 40,000. This hurt their economy greatly and they needed to find alternate sources of income. This caused King 'Abd-al'-Aziz to get serious about the search for oil.
In 1922, King Abdulaziz met a New Zealand mining engineer named Major Frank Holmes. During World War I, Holmes had been to Gallipoli and then Ethiopia, where he first heard rumours of the oil seeps of the Persian Gulf Region.[1] He was convinced that much oil would be found throughout the region. After the war, Holmes helped to set up Eastern and General Syndicate Ltd in order, among other things, to seek oil concessions in the region. [my note: he appears to have sought US backers for purely comercial reasons and no other....ther certainly were no "Imperial" overtones]
In 1923, the king signed a concession with Holmes allowing him to search for oil in eastern Saudi Arabia. Eastern and General Syndicate brought in a Swiss geologist to evaluate the land but he claimed that searching for oil in Arabia would be "a pure gamble". This discouraged the major banks and oil companies from investing in Arabian oil ventures.
In 1925, Holmes signed a concession with the sheikh of Bahrain, allowing him to search for oil there. He then proceeded to the United States to find an oil company that might be interested in taking on the concession. He found help from Gulf Oil. In 1927, Gulf Oil took control of the concessions that Holmes made years ago. But Gulf Oil was a partner in the Iraq Petroleum Company, which was jointly owned by Royal Dutch/Shell, Anglo-Persian, the Compagnie Française des Pétroles, and "the Near East Development Company, representing the interests of the American companies. The partners had signed up to the "Red Line Agreement" which meant that Gulf Oil was precluded from taking up the Bahrain concession without the consent of the other partners; and they declined. Despite a promising survey in Bahrain, Gulf Oil was forced to transfer its interest to another company, Standard Oil of California(SOCAL), which was not a bound by the Red Line Agreement.
Meanwhile King Abdulaziz had dispatched American mining engineer Karl Twitchell to examine eastern Arabia. Twitchell found encouraging signs of oil, asphalt seeps in the vicinity of Qatif, but advised the king to await the outcome of the Bahrain No.1 well before inviting bids for a concession for al-Hasa. To the American engineers working in Bahrain, standing on the Jebel Dukhan and gazing across a twenty-mile (32 km) stretch of the Persian Gulf at the Arabian Peninsula in the clear light of early morning, the outline of the low Dhahran hills in the distance were an obvious oil prospect.
On 31 May 1932, the SOCAL subsidiary, the Bahrain Petroleum Company (BAPCO) struck oil on Bahrain. The discovery brought fresh impetus to the search for oil on the Arabian peninsula.
Negotiations for an oil concession for al-Hasa province opened at Jeddah in March, 1933. Twitchell attended with lawyer Lloyd Hamilton on behalf of SOCAL. The Iraq Petroleum Company represented by Stephen Longrigg competed in the bidding but SOCAL was granted the concession on 23 May 1933. Under the agreement, SOCAL was given "exploration rights to some 930,000 square kilometers of land for 60 years". Soon after the agreement, geologists arrived in al-Hasa and the search for oil was underway
SOCAL set up a subsidiary company, the California Arabian Standard Oil Company (CASOC) to develop the oil concession. SOCAL also joined forces with the Texas Oil Company when together they formed CALTEX in 1936 to take advantage of the latter's formidable marketing network in Africa and Asia.
When CASOC geologists surveyed the concession area, they identified a promising site and named it Dammam No. 1, after a nearby village. Over the next three years, the drillers were unsuccessful in making a commercial strike, but chief geologist Max Steineke persevered. He urged the team to drill deeper, even when Dammam No. 7 was plagued by cave-ins, stuck drill bits and other problems, before the drillers finally struck oil on 3 March 1938. This discovery would turn out to be first of many, eventually revealing the largest source of crude oil in the world.For the king, oil revenues became a crucial source of wealth since he no longer had to rely on receipts from pilgrimages to Mecca. This discovery would alter Middle Eastern political relations forever.
In 1943, the name of the company in control in Saudi Arabia was changed to Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO). In addition, numerous changes were made to the original concession after the striking of oil. In 1939, the first modification gave the Arabian American Oil Company a greater area to search for oil and extended the concession until 1999, increasing the original deal by six years. In return, ARAMCO agreed to provide the Saudi Arabian government with large amounts of free kerosene and gasoline, and to pay higher payments than originally stipulated.
Beginning in 1950, the Saudi Arabian government began a pattern of trying to increase government shares of revenue from oil production. In 1950, a "fifty-fifty profit-sharing agreement was signed, whereby a tax was levied by the government. This tax considerably increased government revenues". The government continued this trend well into the '80s. By 1982, ARAMCO's concession area was reduced to 220,000 square kilometers, down from the original 930,000 square kilometers. By 1988, ARAMCO was officially bought out by Saudi Arabia and became known as "Saudi Aramco"."
GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
In regards to the "Imperial Overtones" note, that would be correct. The U.S. had no deep interest at the time in any oil production expansion, because prior to WWII, the U.S. had more oil reserves than the rest of the entire world combined.
The American involvement was based more on investment than consumption, plus there was some ugly monopoly litigations directed at Standard Oil, so oil investors were looking around for more secure source to put thier money.
The American involvement was based more on investment than consumption, plus there was some ugly monopoly litigations directed at Standard Oil, so oil investors were looking around for more secure source to put thier money.
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Why are we discussing oil in the middle east in a "how ww1 started" thread?
Took a wrong turn along the path. Happens occasionally.
I'll plead guilty to that. I was wondering how this critical economic resource figured into the British rounding up the Arabs to their cause.
