ABSTRACT
The India Office itself did not take the view that oil was the chief objective to be gained in sending the expedition. General Barrow placed oil as the last of five objectives to be thus gained. 2 The Secretary of State for India, writing in a private letter to the Viceroy, after the expedition had been ordered to proceed, stated: 'Of the various objects to be attained by sending a force up the Gulf, I have always regarded the moral effect on the Arab chiefs as the primary and the protection of the oil stores as the secondary.'3 The Government ofIndia also held that oil was not so valuable as to outweigh the consequences of an attack on Persia.'
