The topic of this investigation is the social history of Iraqi military recruitment in the Middle Euphrates region of southern Iraq in the early 1920s. In April 1920, the League of Nations awarded Great Britain a mandate to rule Iraq. Coupled with the devastating impacts of the First World War and British occupation in the region since 1914, the mandate produced a massive political upheaval and armed rebellion in the Middle Euphrates during the summer of 1920. The British defeated the rebellion with a massive force of air power and armies from British India, but were convinced that their model of rule in Iraq was no longer possible. This brought about the formation of an Iraqi nation-state with an Arab monarchy, a constitution, and a treaty legitimizing British authority over Iraqi political affairs. Great Britain installed a centralized government in Baghdad composed of Sunni Ottoman-trained military officials. However, both the new Iraqi government and the British had little popular support throughout the countryside. Because of this, Great Britain was apprehensive of another rebellion, and created a national Iraqi army corps in January 1921 to help enforce the authority of the central government. British officials and members of the Iraqi government spearheaded the army, which opened recruitment centers in southern Iraq in June 1921. The army’s first recruits, predominantly lower-class Shi’is, previously lacked adequate means for social mobility in Iraqi society due to a neglectful Ottoman regime and the destructive impacts of WWI and British occupation on local society. Military service represented a new means for individual survival and social mobility. Yet, initial compensation for military service was inadequate, and potential recruits in the Middle Euphrates faced pressure from local, prominent Shi’i clerics who contested the legitimacy of the nascent Iraqi state. Further, that new recruits were subordinated to a governing elite with extensive military experience, a working history with the British, and a confessional allegiance that awarded them greater social mobility under Ottoman rule, made the process of uniting Iraq’s regions and dissimilar communities through an infant national institution both challenging and contradictory. Utilizing primary sources, this essay studies how, in its infancy, military recruitment impacted patterns of every-day life in the Middle Euphrates, and how the Middle Euphrates responded to recruitment efforts. In doing so, the essay aims to provide a more complex micro-historical analysis than prevalent narratives of British colonial history and Iraqi national formation.