Britain’s build-up to war in Mesopotamia was a back-and-forth affair, with interests ranging from the Admiralty’s desire for oil for battleships (a war aim expressed in agreement quite late in the campaign) to the belief that the vilayets of Basra, Baghdad, and Mosul would be the great breadbasket for India, as well a home for an expanding, spill-over population.

     Some very good sources on the development and deployment of the Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force were published in The Historical Journal and the International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies in the 1970s. V.H. Rothwell’s "Mesopotamia in British War Aims, 1914-1918" in The Historical Journal charts British interests and tactics, both in the India Office and on the ground in Iraq, following certain military and political figures (Lord Hardinge, Viceroy of India, and Percy Cox, the chief political officer with the MEP, among others). Douglas Goold’s "Lord Hardinge and the Mesopotamian Expedition and Inquiry, 1914-1917," also in the The Historical Journal, focuses more specifically on Hardinge, who had a major hand in drafting British policy in Iraq, and had to answer for its failures (namely the surrender of 9,000 MEP soldiers - 3,000 British; 6,000 Indian - to Ottoman forces at Kut, outside Baghdad, in April 1916) during an inquiry in London. Finally, Stuart Cohen’s "Mesopotamia in British Strategy, 1904-1914" in the International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies relates pre-war British tactics in Iraq and argues that "the extension of the Mesopotamian campaign contradicted previous British strategy toward the region."

     There are many other sources, but these three articles offer substantial insight to the British invasion strategy, relating what effect India Office memos and minutes had on the eventual lives of British and Indian soldiers soon to be deployed in Iraq.