ABSTRACT
The process leading to the independence of Qatar was completed with the signing of the long awaited Treaty of 1916; the historical foundations upon which this treaty rested were Britain's 1853 Treaty with the Trucial Shaikhs, the treaty of 1861 with Bahrain as well as the Qatar Treaty of 1868. Article eleven of the unratified Anglo-Ottoman convention of 1913, recognised the independence of Qatar, under the leadership of Shaikh Jasim and his heirs, but Britain was unable to achieve its objectives in Qatar immediately, because of the death of Shaikh Jasim, initiator of the treaty, and the outbreak of the First World War. Britain had to wait until the Ottoman troops themselves deserted al-Bida fort, the symbol of the Ottoman empire in Qatar, which cleared the way for the opening of formal Anglo-Qatari negotiations. Unlike the Anglo-Qatari Treaty of 1868, the Treaty of 1916 was freely negotiated. It differed from the British treaties with the Trucial states in so far as the British agreed to grant Shaikh Abdullah good offices against any attack by land and to suspend three unwelcome clauses for an indefinite period. Shaikh Abdullah's extraction of these concessions from Britain was a diplomatic victory. While Britain achieved its long cherished aim of integrating Qatar into the chain of communications linking Britain and India and establishing the Trucial system in Qatar, Shaikh Abdullah gained some degree of protection from external threats to Qatar by land.
