Mosul
Mosul names 2 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Mosul former vilayet of the Turkish Empire
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
former vilayet of the Turkish Empire, occupied oc bied by British-Arab forces, 1918, and subsequently incorporated in the new Arab kingdom of Irak (Mesopotamia). It is claimed by the Turkish Nationalist government as belonging to Turkey both historically and ethnologically, the majority of its inhabitants being Turks and Kurds. An effort was made by the Turks to obtain it at the Near Eastern Conference at Lausanne, 1922-23; but Great Britain refused to admit the claim, declaring it was now a part of Irak and referring the question of boundaries to the League of Nations. The district contains oil fields of great wealth to which there are numerous conflicting claims. American claims are mostly based on the so-called Chester concessions of 1908, obtained from the former Turkish Sultan, Abdul Hamid. Present British operations are based on pre-war concessions reconfirmed by the treaty of Sèvres, 1920. But this treaty was not recognized by the Turkish Nationalists, who have also refused to accept without revision any and all concessions of this nature granted by former Turkish governments. An agreement between Great Britain and France made at San Remo, 1920, provided for division of the Mosul oil concessions between these countries and the new local government, but the United States refused to recognize their right to exclude American claims and interests, and at the conference of Lausanne above referred to, declared for the principle of complete equality of commercial opportunity throughout the Near East.
Mosul a formerly important town of Asiatic Turkey
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a formerly important town of Asiatic Turkey, in the province of Al- Jezireh (ancient Mesopotamia); on the Tigris, opposite the ruins of ancient Nineveh, 200 miles up the river from Bagdad. During the Middle Ages it was a very prosperous city (muslin takes name from this town); now its bazars are filled with the manufactures of the West, and almost the only export is gall nuts, from the Kurdish mountains. Mosul was formerly the metropolis of the Mesoians (the Nest potamian Christians e Nestorians, the United Chaldæans, the Jacobites, Jacobites, etc.), and still contains many Cat Catholic Christians. The town, which existed in 636, enjoyed its greatest prosperity in the 9th century, and onward, till the desolating inroads of the Mongols in the 12th. Then came the Seljuks; and they were followed by the Turks; since then Mosul has steadily declined. Captured by Anglo- Egyptian army, October, 1918. Pop. about 80,000.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The Mosul question that Collier's left hanging in 1921 was settled in 1926, when the League of Nations and the Treaty of Ankara confirmed the province as part of Iraq, Turkey accepting a 10 per cent share of oil royalties for 25 years instead. The oil the entry called "of great wealth" duly came in at Baba Gurgur near Kirkuk in 1927, and northern Iraq's fields have shaped the region's politics ever since. The "formerly important town" of 80,000 is now Iraq's second city, with well over a million people, but it suffered catastrophically after Islamic State seized it in June 2014 and declared its caliphate from the al-Nuri mosque; the nine-month battle to retake it, ending in July 2017, wrecked the old city, and the mosque and its leaning al-Hadba minaret were destroyed. The ancient Christian communities the entry lists — Nestorians, Chaldean Catholics, Jacobites — were largely driven out in 2014 and have returned only in small numbers.
Written for this edition, 2026.