The Republic of Yemen occupies an increasingly important position in the geopolitical and economic landscape of the Arabian Peninsula region and in the wider context of Middle Eastern and international relations. Formed in 1990 by the unification of the Yemen Arab Republic and the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen, the modern state extends from the strategically significant southern ports and islands of the Red Sea, through the coastal plains, mountains, and cultivated highlands of south-western Arabia, to the deserts of the great Rub‘ al-Khali (“Empty Quarter”) and the oil fields of south-eastern Arabia.

Files and printed reports were preserved by the India Office and labeled as Secret, Confidential, or ‘For Official Use Only.’

Now made available for the first time in one major series, the material in this collection consists of printed political and military reports, handbooks, maps, memoranda, and intelligence reports, together with Political and Secret Department policy files that both describe the wider context of international relations and provide detailed information on local politics and society. The collection differs in this important respect from other document-based publications, which used only the day-to-day files of the local Aden administrations and concentrated to a much greater extent on local issues to the exclusion of international geopolitical and economic interests.

British relations with Yemen
Formal British relations with Yemen were established in 1839 when a coaling station was constructed at Aden, on the route to India. A British Residency, under the administration of the British Government in India, was opened at the same time. British interests in Yemen, however, date back to seventeenth-century East India Company trading activities in the Red Sea and to the Company’s subsequent involvement in the coffee trade through Mocha.

From the 1840s, after the establishment of the Aden Residency, Anglo-Yemeni relations were conducted locally by the Political Resident, who reported directly to the imperial administrations in India and, ultimately, to the India Office in London. British Government policy toward the region was formulated in the India Office, where the department responsible for the conduct and supervision of relations with areas outside the subcontinent was the Political and Secret Department. After the First World War, the involvement of the Foreign Office and the Colonial Office in Arabian affairs increased and departmental responsibilities were more complicated. Aden became a British Colony in 1937 and the Colonial Office took over responsibility for its administration. However, the India Office continued to play an important role in regional policy-making until the Second World War, and was particularly involved in the politics of the Aden Protectorate and its boundaries, and in the development of the oil industry in south-eastern Arabia.

Provenance and archival background
The India Office Political and Secret Department archives form part of the Oriental and India Office Collections (OIOC), which are now within the Asia, Pacific, and Africa Collections at the British Library. The Political and Secret Department papers and printed material have now been catalogued under the OIOC reference L/PS. Military Department papers are located under the reference L/MIL.

From 1902, the most important of the Political and Secret Department’s correspondence and papers accumulated in London were registered, indexed, and arranged in files according to subject. From 1902 to 1930, the “Subject Files” are located under the reference L/P&S/10. Around 1930/1931, the Department replaced its subject file system with a new series of “Collections,” arranged according to geographical area. They are now to be found under the reference L/P&S/12. Material in this IDC Publishers' edition is drawn from Collections 1 and 6 (“Aden” and “Arabia”). During the same period, and earlier, the Department also maintained its own reference library of confidential handbooks for the restricted use of its own officials, as did the Military and other India Office departments. The departmental reference libraries from which the printed items in the collection are drawn are now classified as L/P&S/20 and L/MIL/17.

Contents of the files
The materials in these groups are both wide-ranging and detailed. The printed Handbooks include historical, topographical, social, and economic information on all areas of the “two Yemens,” as well as maps, descriptions of tribes, and biographical notes on major personalities.

The Political and Secret subject files include reports and correspondence from the British Residency in Aden, from political officers in the Aden Protectorate, and from diplomats, agents, and travelers in San‘a, Taiz, Hudaydah, and other Yemeni towns. They include details of diplomatic negotiations relating to foreign and treaty relations, boundaries, and oil concessions; they also include secret internal British government policy documents such as, for example, the minutes of interdepartmental meetings in London and, in particular, meetings of the Committee of Imperial Defence Standing Official Sub-Committee for questions concerning the Middle East.

Beginning with the Anglo-Turkish boundary negotiations before the First World War, there are reports, maps, agreements, and diplomatic correspondence continuing through the 1930s, when the development of the oil industry and the struggle for oil concessions in the Arabian Peninsula became the dominant economic and diplomatic issue of the region.

In addition, the regular Aden Political Intelligence Summaries, together with the reports of travelers and envoys, provide wide-ranging and unique information on topography, social, tribal and religious life, and major personalities.

Yemeni relations with Saudi Arabia
After the end of the First World War and the demise of Turkish involvement in south-west Arabia, the most important geopolitical issues in the region were the Imam’s conflicts with Sayyid Idrisi of Asir and with King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz Al Sa‘ud, and the delineation of the boundaries of independent Yemen, the Aden Protectorate, and the newly created Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Local British officials reported regularly on the shifting balance of power in south-west Arabia and on the struggle between Saudi and Yemeni interests, which culminated in the Saudi absorption of Asir in 1930 and the delineation of the Saudi-Yemen boundary in the 1934 Treaty of Taif.

The majority of the key files on Saudi-Yemen relations, together with some additional files on British and Italian interests in Asir, Yemen, and the Red Sea islands, have been reproduced in IDC Publishers' collection The Creation of Saudi Arabia (2004). Rather than duplicating the files in the two collections, a list of all the items relevant to Yemeni history during this period and already published in The Creation of Saudi Arabia is included in this catalogue. The two sets together make an essential source for the history of the region.

Organization of the material
For the present publication, the material has been arranged in four groups. The first (BIY-1) comprises printed gazetteers and handbooks now preserved in the departmental library of the Political and Secret Department (L/P&S/20), together with a few relevant items from the library of the India Office Military Department (L/MIL/17). The second group (BIY-2) comprises India Office Political and Secret Department Subject Files covering the period 1902-1930. The third and fourth groups comprise Political and Secret Department Collections for the period c. 1930-1948, broadly subdivided into material relating to independent Yemen and the Red Sea (BIY-3), and material relating to the British Protectorate in Aden (BIY-4).

BIY-1 Gazetteers and handbooks, 1877-1917
BIY-2 Political and Secret Subject Files on Yemen and the Aden Protectorate, 1902-1930
BIY-3 Political and Secret Collections on Yemen and the Red Sea, c. 1930-1945
BIY-4 Political and Secret Collections on the Aden Protectorate, c. 1930-1948

Within the four groups, the following information is provided for each item.
Section 1: fiche and reel number; print title; date and place of publication; security classification; number of pages; OIOC reference number.
Sections 2-4: fiche and reel number; original file title and, where appropriate, additional summary of contents; covering dates; OIOC reference number and original P&S registry number; number of pages or folios.