Another of their beliefs is that of a successive incarnation of the Deity in the greatest of their spiritual guides, seven of whom are clubbed together under the name of "Haft-Tan."
When in Mohammedan cities, they outwardly conform to the tenets taught by the Prophet of the Crescent, but secretly they continue the practice of their own mystic rites. They bury their dead without prayer (after keeping the unembalmed corpse six days), but turn his head to face Kerbela, as do the Mussulmans.
They are recognizable from their long moustaches, since the Shiahs are not allowed to have hair so long as to pass the upper lip.
Some authorities proclaim them the remnant of the Samaritans who, as related in 2 Kings xvii. 6 and 7, were carried into captivity by Hoshea, King of Assyria; and Rawlinson, in his writings on Persia, speaks of a rock-tomb which they regard as a place of special sanctity. They call it, he says, Dukka-ni-Daoud (David's shop), because they believe that the Jewish monarch was a smith by trade.
We stayed two nights in Kirind village. Our quarters were a couple of rooms above a stable which sheltered a sundry collection of goats, sheep, two consumptive donkeys and their charvadars, some stray hens, and two or three pariah dogs. Crossing a dirty courtyard, where filth had accumulated for years, we climbed a broken stairway, and were at home. The flat roof of the stable was our promenade;but, since it was full of holes, which were generally concealed by a thin layer of sun-dried mud, great caution was needed to prevent a sudden and undignified descent into the menagerie below. Our rooms opened on to the roof of the stable. We slept on the floor, and, as it was cold, our Persian servant bought some green wood and made a fire in the only fireplace available, which consisted of a small cavity in the mud floor. A hole in the upper roof supplied ventilation, and served the purposes of a chimney.
It was here that the Governor paid an official call upon General Byron. He sent a servant to announce his coming, and presently arrived accompanied by a retinue of unkempt, hungry-looking officials, all wearing the chocolate-coloured sugar-loaf hat peculiar to Persians. The Governor himself was a fat, pompous individual, with a drooping moustache, unshaven face, and no collar. We wondered at first whether the stubble on his chin was due to slothfulness, or was a sign of mourning. We discovered it was the latter, a brother of his having died recently through over-participation in food at some local festivity. To look at the portly form of the Governor made it quite evident that everybody was not going hungry in Kirind. As he sat cross-legged on the floor, his fingers interlaced in front of his breast, and twirling his thumbs, he looked exactly what he was—the personification of hopeless incapacity and lethargy. "What ashes are fallen on my head!" he moaned aloud, by way of expressing sorrow for thedeath of so many of the villagers from starvation. Yet he himself had done nothing to lessen the ravages of famine in the district, and was content to see the wretched inhabitants die, without moving a finger to help them.
His attitude was typical of officialdom throughout this starving land. The Governor was a landowner, and probably, like others of his class whom I came across later in Kermanshah and Hamadan, had plenty of grain hidden away waiting for the day when the British Commissariat, in order to feed starving Persians, would come and buy it at inflated prices, thus enriching a gang of hoarding, avaricious rascals.
When General Byron spoke of what the British were doing elsewhere in the way of feeding the famine-stricken, the Governor's eyes brightened, and scenting the possibility of an advantageous commercial deal in cornered wheat, he replied with a fervent "Mash-allah!" (Praise be to God!) The suggestion that thieving local bakers who had been profiteering at the expense of the starving population might be taught a salutary lesson by having their ears nailed to their bakehouse doors, or otherwise dealt with under some equally benign Persian enactment, seemed to find favour in the eyes of the Governor, for he answered, "Inshallah!" (Please God!)
This Governor, who had so suddenly developed a keen interest in the local food problem, was afterwards present at a full-dress parade of Miss Cowden'sstarvelings. The recipients of mission charity were of both sexes, and varied from toddlers of three to their elders of ten or twelve years. All they had in the way of clothing was a piece of discoloured rag, or a section of a tattered gunny bag, fastened round the loins. Physical suffering long endured was indelibly stamped on their shrunken features and on their emaciated frames. Each was given a substantial chunk of freshly baked chipattee, or unleavened bread, and they were desired to eat it then and there to prevent its being pilfered from their feeble hands by hungry adult prowlers outside the mission buildings. They made no demur, and ate ravenously. Bread is the staple diet, and generally the only article of food, of the Persian poor; and this daily free distribution must have been the means of preserving the lives of many hundreds of Kirind children. Charity in the Anglo-Saxon meaning of the word seems to find no home in the breast of the average Persian; and each day there was a fight between local cupidity, as represented by the Kirind bakers, and foreign generosity as exemplified by the American Mission, which was spending its funds freely in order that these unhappy children of an alien race might have bread and live. Here, as elsewhere during my wanderings through Iran, I was painfully impressed by the appalling callousness and indifference exhibited by the ordinary Persian towards the sufferings of his own people. He would not lift a hand to help a dying man, and dead, would leavehim to the tender mercies of the dogs and vultures rather than trouble to give him burial.
One morning, while preparing for a further move eastward towards Kermanshah, a wireless message, transmitted in haste from Surkhidizeh, ordered us to sit tight and await developments and reinforcements. We were warned that the Senjabis were restless, and might any night swoop down on our slenderly-garrisoned post. Ali Akhbar Khan, who was the Pendragon of the Senjabis and various stray allied bands of nomadic robbers in these parts, was said to be watching us from his eyrie up in the snow-capped hills. His martial ardour had been stimulated to the verge of action by German gold and German rifles, and the promise of much loot when our weak force had been duly annihilated. To the careful, calculating Akhbar, and to the wild tribesmen who had flocked to his standard at the very first mention of the word "unlimited loot," the capture of the Kirind post must have seemed the softest of soft things. To look our way and resist temptation was like flying in the face of Providence. How that dear old bandit's mouth must have watered in anticipation of securing a fine haul of rifles, ammunition, and transport animals!
All that stood between Akhbar Khan and the realization of his project was a platoon of the 14th Hants under Lieutenant Gow, a Lewis gun, a dozen Persian irregulars of doubtful fighting quality, and a very unformidable barrier of two rows ofbarbed wire. The camp was on the edge of a narrow plateau facing the road. In the rear, where this latter became merged in the hills, the smooth slope was like a toboggan run, and the alert Senjabis, if they so wished, might have slid from their hill-top sangars down on to the field of battle. But they held aloof; their day was not yet.
We spent an anxious night. Everybody was under arms waiting for the threatened attack. Morning ended our period of suspense and brought the looked-for reinforcements—a squadron of the 14th Hussars under Captain Pope, a couple of guns, an additional platoon of the Hants, as well as the Dunsterville contingent which had originally set out from Baqubah.
The "mountain tiger," as Ali Akhbar Khan was called in the imaginative and picturesque vocabulary of the district, had hesitated, and missed his chance. The reinforcing party was very much disappointed at Akhbar's display of irresolution and his reluctance to fight. Some amongst the bolder spirits contemplated calling upon him in his mountain lair. But that was not to be. When the "tiger" did spring later on, and sought to cut up a British column, he received the lesson of his life. But our party was not there to share in the glory of his undoing.
Pillage and famine—A land of mud—The Chikar Zabar Pass—Wandering dervishes—Poor hotel accommodation—A "Hunger Battalion"—A city of the past.
From Kirind to Kermanshah, our next stage, is about sixty miles. For the most part it is dreary, barren country, with a few isolated villages astride the line of march. The whole land had been skinned bare of supplies by Turk and Russian, and it was now in the throes of famine.
There was a good deal of similarity in the methods of these successive invaders. They commandeered unscrupulously and without payment, and what they could not consume or carry off they destroyed. There was no seed wheat, and consequently no crops had been sown. Many tillers of the soil had fled for their lives; those who had remained were dying of hunger in this war-ravaged region. The arable land which is noted for its fertility was forlorn and neglected; no plough had touched its soil since the passing of the war storm, and its abandoned furrows were temporarily tenanted by wandering crows struggling to gain a precarious livelihood. It was desolation and ruin everywhere.
This was the country into which we, too, now, in our turn adventured. Armed robbers roamed from hill to plain and back again, holding up and looting passing caravans, preying upon the miserable inhabitants in the remote villages, and relieving them of anything in the nature of food and live-stock that the greedy maw of Turk and Russian had inadvertently overlooked.
Little wonder that the terrified wayside inhabitants fled pell-mell at the approach of our column! It took some persuasion to assure them that they would not be "bled" afresh, nor put to the sword. Not unnaturally, they had reason to dread the exactions of a third invader, and both effort and time were needed to convince them that our intentions were not hostile, but friendly. When confidence was at last restored, the glad tidings of our exemplary behaviour sped ahead of us from village to village, carried by that mysterious agency which in the East lends wings to any news of import, and in speed rivals wireless telegraphy.
So it was that on our further progress ragged and cringing peasants, all semblance of manhood driven out of them by hunger and oppression, would crawl forth into the light of day from some dark hovel to beg, firstly for their lives, and secondly for a morsel of bread. We granted the one without question, but were not always able to comply with the second demand.
From Kirind our progress was slow. The first day,Sunday, April 14th, we barely covered ten miles, arriving at Khorosabad late in the afternoon, where we bivouacked under the lee of the hills. The road beyond was a kind of hog's back strewn with limestone boulders which proved too difficult for the laden Ford cars. To add to our troubles the weather broke in the evening, and it rained steadily throughout the night, so that our camping-ground became a swamp. The Hussars' horses suffered from exposure, while the men themselves were wet through and inclined to be grumpy. In the morning, as the weather showed signs of mending, the march was resumed; but the Ford convoy had to be left behind in charge of an escort to wait until the road became passable.
The infantry units marched through twelve miles of mud to Harunabad, the next stage on the journey. It tried the men's endurance to the utmost. The road was simply an unmetalled track across the plain; there was no foothold in the saturated soil, and at each step a pound or two of clay adhered to one's boots, necessitating frequent halts to scrape them clean. The Persian muleteers were more fortunate. They marched barefoot, and their movements were not handicapped by the encumbering dead weight of adhesive earth.
PERSIAN TRANSPORT.PERSIAN TRANSPORT.
Harunabad does not differ essentially from any other village in South-Western Persia. Dirt and decay have laid their twin grip upon its crooked streets, its tottering mud walls, and ruinous habitations.The inhabitants were as hungry as any other of their class in Persia, and they crowded round the bivouac cookhouses snatching eagerly at any morsel of food that was thrown to them. General Byron, Captain Eve, Lieutenant Akhbar, and I lighted on a couple of rooms in a disused caravanserai, and the local governor, who seemed to bother less about backsheesh than the average of his fellows, procured us some mutton and firewood. Two of his servitors who had brought the supplies were demanding an exorbitant price—the middleman's profit. The Governor, happening to arrive on the scene while the haggling was proceeding, beat the grasping pair soundly in our presence, and promised them a dose of the bastinado on the morrow. Thoroughly abashed by their drubbing, and terrified by the prospect of a fresh one next day, they fell upon their knees, begging for mercy and forgiveness. The General successfully pleaded on their behalf, and they showed their gratitude by kissing his hands, before taking themselves out of range of the still wrathful eye of the Governor.
The night was cold, with a tinge of frost in the air. We sat round the fire after supper drying our sodden garments and removing the encrustations of Persian mud which had settled thickly upon them. Sleep came to us easily after the fatigues of the day, and it was with a feeling of deep personal resentment that we heard the Hussars' trumpeter sound the reveille.
Most transport mules are longsuffering animals, but they rebel occasionally. The Persian variety was inclined to be peevish, when it came to early rising and taking afresh upon its sturdy back the burden of the day. Those of our supply convoy, when prodded into activity before sunrise, rarely failed to make their displeasure felt by a vigorous protest lodged at random in some part of a charvadar's anatomy. On the morning of our departure from Harunabad the mules showed themselves especially intractable. It could hardly have been because of any deep-rooted affection for the locality itself. However, at the cost of much profanity and shouting on the part of the muleteers, during which grave aspersions were cast upon the character of the mules' ancestors, the rebellious beasts were cowed into submissiveness and our column was soon floundering anew in the mud of the Persian wilderness.
A wind from the north blew across our path and sent the menacing rain-clouds scurrying to the right-about. The sun, too, unveiled its face, as if half-ashamed of its tardiness, and speedily dispelled the curtain of white mist which arose from the sodden earth. The air was keen and invigorating, but tempered by the warm breath of spring. Men and horses and transport mules responded to the gladsome call of Nature in her most beneficent mood. British soldier and Persian charvadar each sang the wild songs of his native land, telling invariably ofsome fair, beauteous maiden whom the sentimental songster had left behind somewhere in England or Iran. To the ears of one riding on in advance, as I happened to be that day, this flow of song blending with the deep note of the jingling mule-bells made sweetest music.
Four hours' march brought the head of the column to the top of the Chihar Zabar Pass. The road went sheer down the reverse slope, cutting across an immense plain carpeted with the deepest emerald green. Here wild flowers grew in abundance—crocuses, daffodils, daisies, violets, and a species of indigenous primrose, a woof of rich, glorious colouring in the warp of green. This "Promised Land," the work of Nature's own brush, stretched away from my very feet till it mingled with the grey-blue of the distant horizon. What a pleasing contrast to the dreary, desolate lowlands we had so lately traversed! It was a most welcome prospect to eyes tired of looking upon dull, monotonous landscapes. To me it was the fairest sight I had yet seen in the land of Iran.
While I was revelling in the beauty of the scene, there appeared on the summit of the Pass, coming from this valley of enchantment, three men whose dress and appearance excited my curiosity. They were sturdily built, and dressed in black, skirted coats, fastened at the waist by a girdle from which was suspended a sword and satchel. Their beards were no longer than that permitted by the precepts ofthe Koran. They were without head-covering of any kind, and their long hair fell free and untrammelled on their shoulders. The trio wore shoes of Moroccan leather with pointed, turned-up toes and silver buckles. Each carried a small silver-headed axe at the "slope," as a cavalry trooper does a sabre.
As they approached, my first feeling was one of alarm, and my hand instinctively sought my revolver holster. Seeing this, the foremost raised his hand in friendly salutation, and greeted me with, "Peace be upon thee, O stranger!" They proved to be wandering dervishes who begged their way from end to end of Persia, and to judge by their raiment and their general well-to-do appearance, it must be a profitable occupation.
These dervishes, amongst the Persians of all classes, have a great reputation for sanctity. The rich help them liberally, and even the very poor will not turn a deaf ear to their request for aid. One of them chattered away like a magpie, recounting adventures which were not always of the kind one is prone to associate with the austerity of a Religious Order. They had come on foot from Meshed in Eastern Persia to Teheran, Hamadan, and Kermanshah, and were now bound for Kerbela and the Shi'ite holy places in the vicinity of Bagdad. The burdens of life sat lightly on their shoulders, and the destroying hand of care had left no traces upon their merry, laughing faces. They were a cheery trio,forgetful of yesterday, unmindful of to-morrow, and living only for to-day.
They were full of a pleasant inquisitiveness, and withal as simple as children. "Were there dervishes across the big water in Faringistan (Europe), and had the man-birds (aviators) come to Bagdad?" they asked. I told them they would see plenty of "man-birds" and "wonder-houses" (cinemas) down yonder in Bagdad, but that an itinerant Persian dervish would be arara avisamongst our benighted folk, not one, so far as I knew, having yet shed the light of his countenance upon our slow-going old Western world. With a small cash contribution oh my part towards the expenses of their journey, and on theirs the formal invocation of the blessing of Allah upon my head, the dervishes and I exchanged cordial adieux, and parted company on the summit of the Chihar Zabar.
Our next halting-place was at Mahidast, a walled town which stands in the midst of an immense plain seventy miles long by ten broad. It is one of the most fertile tracts in Persia, and grows great crops of wheat and barley for the market of Kermanshah. As for Mahidast itself, it consists of a few dirty streets, unpaved and evil-smelling, and a hundred houses, the greater number of which are in ruins. Its inhabitants are chiefly Kalhur-Kurds, semi-nomads, who migrate in winter with their flocks to the neighbourhood of Khaniquin and Mandali. Mahidast is a great resort of pilgrims on the wayto and from Kerbela, and in the main street stands a vast caravanserai built by that industrious architect-ruler, Shah Abbas.
I rode inside the great doorway of Shah Abbas' hostelry hoping to find quarters here, but my nose was in revolt at once. A stagnant pool covered with green slime, where myriads of mosquitoes and flies were undergoing a course of field training, occupied the centre of the courtyard, and this was flanked by festering heaps of garbage amongst which lean, hungry-looking dogs were fossicking for an evening meal.
Turning in disgust from the loathsome spot, I encountered a farrash (messenger) come from the Naib-ul-Hukumeh, or Deputy Governor, The latter had heard of our arrival, and sent to conduct us to quarters near his own dwelling. Our abode proved to be a smaller caravanserai, its living-rooms adjoining the stables and looking out on a manure heap. The Deputy Governor himself turned up presently, and in the usual flowery Persian speech bade General Byron welcome, and assured him that supplies of forage and fuel would be forthcoming.
He hinted that, as the prowling Kurds of the district were keen horse-fanciers, and not always able to discriminate between the niceties ofmeumandtuum, it would be advisable to mount a stable guard. For this purpose he sent us eight truculent-looking rascals, fairly bristling with weapons, who watched over our horses while we sought to snatch a few hours' repose.
Sleep we found to be out of the question. Our sleeping-bags, the latest of their kind from London, had no chance against the incursions of the nimble Mahidast flea, or his bigger parasitical brethren, whom pilgrim caravans had brought from the remote corners of Persia. Emerging angry and unrefreshed from an unequal combat, we quitted Mahidast at an early hour. The major portion of the inhabitants were present to see us off, and incidentally to demand a pishkash for services—chiefly imaginary—rendered us during our sojourn. Akhbar paid off the fuel and forage vendors, and ransomed our horses from the stable guard for a substantial sum in krans. He next gave a considered decision in respect to the claim of the Deputy Governor and his numerous retinue. The former modestly demanded an amount which would have provided him with a comfortable life annuity, pointing out that, as our throats were unsevered and our purses untouched, we could afford to be generous, and reward his protecting zeal. I did not wait for the end of the negotiations, but I heard afterwards that Akhbar, whose temper had been sorely tried, consigned the Deputy Governor tojahannam, and effected a compromise with his insistent retainers for the equivalent of ten shillings.
It is an eighteen-mile march to Kermanshah from Mahidast. The road was harder, and it was easier travelling for the horses and transport animals. There was a good deal of traffic too. We passed numerous caravans, the first being one of tobaccoand general merchandise bound for Bagdad. To this a number of pilgrims had attached themselves for safety, and had hired an armed convoy to protect them against plundering Kurds and, in a minor sense, the exactions of the Persian road guards. These latter were supposed to police the route, and had posts along the road. By way of recompense they were allowed to levy baj (toll) upon travellers. But their rapacity was boundless. They were said to stand in with the freebooters of the district, and woe betide the simple traveller or merchant who, journeying without armed retainers, fell into their hands! Him they fleeced unmercifully, and if the victim were inclined to protest against this bare-faced spoliation, he might always be sure of receiving a sound beating in addition.
So much for Persian road guards and their methods! The British sought to remedy these abuses by subsidizing local chiefs to protect a section of road, but the chiefs took the cash and stuck to it, while the guards still dipped deeply into the pockets or into the bales of merchandise of those who came their way. It was considered a lucrative post, that of road guard, and much sought after by gentlemen who hated the attendant risks of ordinary highway robbery, and preferred the easier and surer means of growing rich by levying toll in a quasi-official capacity.
Presently we met a corpse-caravan bound for Kerbela with its lugubrious freight. A contingent of road guards had gathered round like so manyhuman vultures, and there was much haggling between themselves and angry relatives of the defunct as to what a dead Persian ought or ought not to pay to pass free and unhindered over this section of the long and thorny road that led to the holy of holies of the Shi'ite Moslem.
On the banks of a stream by the roadside was a "hunger battalion" resting. Its members, men and boys, were in a state of semi-nudity; their few garments hung in tattered rags about their wasted bodies, and all looked to be in the last stage of physical exhaustion from starvation. For some the end had clearly come. They were incapable of further effort, and lay waiting for a merciful death to cut short their sufferings. Others there were who still clung despairingly to the enfeebled thread of life. They crouched on the ground, gnawing frantically at a handful of roots or coarse herbs with which they sought to assuage the terrible pangs of unsatisfied hunger. A little apart from the main body was a small group crooning a mournful dirge: it was the funeral requiem of a man whom famine had killed. The body was being prepared for burial and, before committal to earth, was being washed in the stream which supplied a near-by village with drinking water.
We divided some food amongst the sorely stricken survivors of the hunger battalion. It was all we could give. They were thankful, and one man said that he and five companions had originally startedfrom Hamadan, where the people were dying by hundreds daily, in the hope of crossing the frontier to Khaniquin or Kizil Robat, at either of which places they might get work and food in the British Labour Corps. Of the six who had set out on this quest he was the sole survivor.
Kermanshah is a very old Persian city, and was known to writers and travellers from the earliest Christian times. It once was a flourishing industrial and commercial centre, but much of its prosperity and glory have been dimmed by a succession of political and economic vicissitudes. The town itself has a certain military importance. It is close to the Turkish frontier, and is equidistant from Bagdad, Ispahan, Teheran, and Tabriz. During the War Turks and Russians occupied it in turn, and the Turks had a consul and a consular guard here until their army was chased out of the province.
Outside the town itself the nomadic and semi-nomadic population consists chiefly of Kurds, and Kurdi is the language of the people as distinct from the merchants. Cereals are extensively grown, but, owing to the lack of communications, the cost of transporting grain to Bagdad or Teheran was triple its local market value, and it was a profitless enterprise. The grain rotted in Kermanshah while people died of hunger in adjoining provinces.
The chief trade route in Western Persia passes through Kermanshah, and it is also an important market for transport mules, which are bred in thedistrict. In pre-war days as many as 200,000 pilgrims passed through Kermanshah each year on their way to and from Kerbela and the other Shi'ite shrines in the Vilayet of Bagdad. The bazaars were well stocked with British and foreign goods, and the local traders were reputed to be wealthy. But the War and the coming of the Turks were fatal to Kermanshah and its commerce; the shops were closed, and the wealthier merchants hid their cash and valuables and sought asylum elsewhere.
Kermanshah suffered much during the Civil War of 1911-12. In July of 1911 it was occupied in the name of the ex-Shah, Muhammad Ali, by a force of irregulars under Salar-ud-Dauleh, the ex-Shah's brother. In the following February the Government troops reoccupied Kermanshah, and the troops of the dethroned Shah were driven out. But a fortnight later Salar-ud-Dauleh, aided by a large force of Kurds, was back again; the town was plundered, and the Governor appointed by the Constitutionalists had his legs cut off and was burnt alive. For the next few months the redoubtable Salar and his military opponent, Farman Farma, hunted each other in turn up and down Western Persia until the Shah's rebellion was finally subdued.
I found the streets of the town narrow and tortuous. The Zarrabiha Street and that leading from the Darvaseh Sarab to the Chal Hassan Khan are about the only two possible for carriages. In the Feizabad quarter, which is remote from the bazaars, are thehouses of the wealthy classes, with their immense courtyards, high walls, and beautifully kept gardens. By contrast, the houses of the poor look despicably mean, being simply a collection of mud hovels into which the light of day penetrates with difficulty.
The rain overtook us afresh at Kermanshah, and we had to stay there for three days weatherbound. The Hussars and the remainder of the column bivouacked on a hill near the British Consulate. It was far from agreeable. The tents were already soaking wet after the downpour at Khorosabad, and had had no time to dry.
General Byron went to stay with the Kennions. Colonel Kennion was Political Officer and Consul, and his wife, a very charming and energetic lady, who held in her hands most of the threads of the political happenings in Persia, worked hard all day in the office ciphering and deciphering despatches. In the evening she entertained her husband's guests and graced a hospitable table.
The foreign colony of Kermanshah was not a large one. Besides the Kennions, there were the Russian Consul and his wife, a French Consul, Mr. and Mrs. Stead of the American Presbyterian Mission, and Mr. Hale, local manager of the Imperial Bank of Persia. Hale has travelled widely in Persia, and knew its elusive and nimble-witted people better than most Englishmen. He was an excellent raconteur, and I spent pleasant evenings in his companylaughing over stories of adventure which irresistibly called to mind that great exponent of Persian drollery, "Hadji Baba."
Leaving our horses behind to be brought on by the marching column, General Byron and six officers, including myself, moved by motor convoy from Kermanshah on April 22nd. With luck we hoped to reach Hamadan in two days.
It is twenty-two miles to Bisitun Bridge and the crossing of the Gamasiab, a tributary of the Kara river. The brick bridge over the stream had been destroyed by the retreating Russians. It had not yet been repaired, and we were to be faced with the difficult problem of getting the Ford cars across to the eastern bank of the Gamasiab. The recent rains had done their worst for the road track which led over the great plain of Kermanshah, and the soil had been converted into a kind of pulpy clay which the passage of recent caravans had churned into puddle. The laden cars bravely struggled through it, sinking occasionally to the axles in the treacherous mire. Finally, we crawled out of this bog and struck a patch of hard road which led to the village of Bisitun, where we halted to allow the other bogged cars to join up. Beyond the straggling village of thirty houses or so the great rock of Bisitun rises perpendicularly from the level plain.
Bisitun is famous for the inscriptions and tablets of Darius found here. It lies on the highway from Ecbatana to Babylon, and was thus chosen by variousmonarchs as a fitting place for the record of their exploits.
It is to British pluck, tenacity, and will-power that the world owes its definite and detailed knowledge of the Darius inscriptions. That "King of Kings," as he proudly styles himself, saw to it that the written account of his greatness should be at a height corresponding with his fame, and had it placed 300 feet above the ground on the wall of a dizzily perpendicular cliff. To climb this rock near enough to read what Persian workmen chiselled there five hundred years before the Christian era is the dangerous and difficult undertaking accomplished by Rawlinson.
The bas-relief tablets and inscriptions on Bisitun's famous cliff wall have all but one object—to glorify Darius Hystaspes ("The great King, the King of Kings, King of Persia, King of the Provinces"), and to give the lie to any of his enemies or rivals who dared to proclaim themselves monarchs also. ("This Gaumata the Magian lied: thus did he speak: 'I am Bardiya; son of Cyrus, I am King!'")
Grandiloquently the names of the countries over which Darius ruled are set forth. They number twenty-three. A Persian Alexander the Great was this "King of Kings."
DARIUS INSCRIPTIONS AT BISITUN.DARIUS INSCRIPTIONS AT BISITUN.
The bas-relief vividly portrays his conquest of the lesser chieftains from whom he wrested their kingdoms. His foot is on the prostrate form of the most formidable of these, Gaumata, while the others are shown tied together by their necks, a sorry companyof defeated royalties. Darius is depicted as physically towering above the men of his day, a giant in every way. Over him hovers the Godhead, Auramazdn, or Ormuzd, who, holding a circlet of victory in one hand, with the other points out the mighty monarch as the wearer-designate.
The whole is in a marvellous state of preservation, thanks to the conscientious work of the craftsmen who laboured at it so many thousand years ago. After first smoothing the surface of the rock, they filled in every tiny crevice or crack with lead. Then they chiselled deeply, and with astonishing accuracy, each character, finally coating the whole with a silicious varnish, a protection against climatic ravages which has stood the test imposed upon it while countless generations of mankind have come and gone.
When we reached the Gamasiab, we found the stream in flood, and a six-knot current swirling through the brick arches of the damaged bridge. There was a great gap in the central span, the latter running to a point almost like a Gothic arch. Gangs of workmen were busy repairing it, under Lieutenant Goupil, R.E.
Captain Goldberg, of the Armoured Car Section, had preceded us to Bisitun. Goldberg, who had ripped roads through East African jungle to get within shooting distance of the Hun, claimed that in his service lexicon there was no such word as fail, and that wherever a transport mule could pass in Persiahe would take his lighter cars. At Bisitun he was as good as his word. The animals of the transport were ferried across on crudely constructed rafts to which were attached inflated goatskins to give additional buoyancy. They were of the type of the Mussik raft of the Tigris, and the scheme worked successfully. But it was a tricky business when it came to ferrying motor-cars over. Our own Fords were emptied of their contents, and a single car was lashed on a raft which was then man-hauled across a hundred yards of stream to the other bank. Sometimes one of the guide-ropes gave way, and the raft and its burden, caught by the swift current, would go gyrating down stream until it was lassooed by pursuing coolies on a second raft. At other times the wheel-lashings would part in transit, and the raft would "nose dip" at a dangerous angle. Then the Persian labour coolies, with wild shouts and cries, would jump into the water and restore the equilibrium of the water-logged raft by clinging to its stern. All our cars were in this manner safely carried over without serious mishap, and the stores and baggage were brought on coolies' backs across the wrecked bridge itself. On the eastern bank the Fords were reloaded and the party got under way once more.
We spent the night at Kangavar, a big village at the eastern end of the Bisitun gap, and at the junction of the Hamadan Qum and Daulatabad roads, fifty-five miles from Kermanshah. Kangavar reposes at the foot of a lofty, snow-capped mountain, and isbuilt on a series of natural and artificial mounds which rise corkscrew fashion from the plain. Here are the ruins of a large temple or palace whose history is lost in antiquity. That profound scholar and archæologist, Rawlinson, thinks that Kangavar is the Chavon of Diodorus, where, according to the Sicilian historian, Semiramis built a palace and laid out a paradise. There also existed at Kangavar a celebrated temple of Anaitis, whose lascivious cult was once widespread in this ancient land.
We were hospitably entertained by the representative of the Deputy Governor, who is noted for his pro-British sympathies. The Sheikh, our host, furnished us with quarters within his own residence, a wonderful walled enclosure big enough to hold a battalion, and laid out with beautiful gardens and fountains. In the trees the laqlaqs (storks) nested, and down by the cool splashing fountains a peacock in all the beauty of fully displayed plumage strutted proudly.
We were seven officers to supper, but our host, in accordance with the lavishness required by Persian hospitality, prepared enough food for four times our number. His multitude of retainers looked on while we ate, and what remained of the feast passed to them by right of custom.
It was with considerable misgivings that we heard that the shorter road to Hamadan over the great Asadabad Pass, nearly eight thousand feet high, was closed by snow. We accordingly took the longerand lower road by way of Parisva and Tasbandi which skirts the Alvand mountain range. The cars bogged incessantly in the low, flat country, but going over the Parisva Pass, where the gradients are steep and great boulders strew the route, our progress was also very slow. The cars had to be manhandled, being towed and pushed by peasants collected from the neighbouring fields. There were several "lame ducks" in the convoy, and before evening a number had broken down altogether and had to be temporarily abandoned by the roadside in charge of an armed guard.
CARAVANSERAI, BISITUN.CARAVANSERAI, BISITUN.
Night had already fallen when the leading cars crawled into Hamadan, having taken fourteen hours to cover a journey of about ninety-five miles. Weary and travel-stained, we reported at British Headquarters, and to our joy found that everyone was well, and that the Dunsterville Garrison, overawing the turbulent section of the population, was still in possession of this isolated post in the heart of Persia.
In ancient Hamadan—With Dunsterville at last—His precarious position—"Patriots" as profiteers—Victims of famine—Driven to cannibalism—Women kill their children for food—Trial and execution—Famine relief schemes—Death blow to the Democrats—"Stalky."
Hamadan stands at a height of six thousand feet at the foot of the Alvand range, which is covered with snow for ten months in the year. In summer, when the tender shoots of the growing corn are pushing above the earth, and the trees are blossom-laden, "every prospect pleases." The reverse of the medal is presented after a brief acquaintance with Hamadan's people, and one sadly recalls that "only man is vile."
It is said that modern Hamadan occupies the site of one of the ancient Ecbatanas of the Greeks, of which there were seven, and that it was the treasure city of the Achæmenian Kings, the place taken and plundered by Alexander the Great when he was "strafing" the Eastern World. However that may be, very few ancient remains have been brought to light. On a hill outside the town are the ruins of acitadel, and a carved stone lion of venerable aspect and crude workmanship crouches by the roadside not far from the British Hospital Compound. This lion may once have adorned the façade of an Achæmenian palace, but he has fallen from royal greatness to plebeian utility; for it is popularly believed that he exercises a protective influence against cholera, smallpox, plague, and kindred ills; and Persian mothers bring their children and seat them on his stone back to obtain immunity from disease. Famine is evidently not included, or so many children would not have succumbed during the hunger days of the spring and early summer of 1918, before that never-failing talisman, the British Commissariat, exorcised the famine fiend.
In Hamadan, too, is buried the celebrated philosopher and physician of Bokhara, Abu ali ibn Sina, better known as Avicenna, the legend of whose fondness for eleventh-century wine and women has come down through all the ages, obscuring whatever reputation he may have possessed as a healer or thinker.
The Jews of Hamadan, and they are numerous, point with pride to the site of the tombs of Esther and Mordecai. It is very uncertain whether either of these personages who figure so prominently in the Book of Esther is buried here. Within an insignificant-looking, weather-worn, stucco-covered shrine in the grip of decay, are two wooden sarcophagi covered with faded paint and bearing gilt inscriptions in Hebrew of verses from the Book of Esther.
The Rabbi in charge, a sallow-faced man with a long white beard, who had seen generations of Gentiles come and go while he kept watch and ward here, assured me that the tomb of this heroine of the Jewish race, who stooped to amatory conquest that her people might live, as well as that of her shrewd relative, the opportunist Mordecai, were of unquestionable authenticity. I will leave it at that.
The arrival of our small party in Hamadan at the beginning of May added a hundred or so additional rifles to the unwelcome and uninvited skeleton force already there. As I related in a previous chapter, General Dunsterville, after falling back from Resht, established himself in Hamadan, his available fighting force being a handful of officers and a baker's dozen of N.C.O's. He was in the midst of a more or less hostile population of about 70,000, one-fourth of whom were Turks or of Turkish origin and sympathies, the remainder being Persian, with a small sprinkling of Jews and Armenians.
Yet he sat there unharmed while the Asiatic world wondered. His position was precariousness itself. The full virulence of political animosity was focussed upon him and his dangerously thin khaki line. I am convinced that no Assurance Company, however speculative, would have considered him a "safe life" during those dark and doubtful days, when he was barricaded within the British Compound, alternately waiting for the inglorious but picturesque death so fervently promised him by the local Democrats, orwatching for the reinforcements which dribbled fitfully from Bagdad and over Persian plain and mountain.
Hamadan was at once the foyer of Turkish espionage and of Persian intrigue. The moribund association of local Democrats, merchants and grain-growers, had been largely galvanized into anti-British activity by Kuchik Khan, whose army of Jungalis still barred the road from Manjil to the Caspian Sea. The Hamadan Democrats were "pure patriots," who talked glibly in the local tea-houses of the blessing of political freedom, cursed the British as mischievous, evil-minded interlopers, and called upon Allah to bless their deliberations and rid them of the British oppressor. Incidentally, they would meet in secret conclave and decree a further increase in grain prices, which meant a substantial gain to themselves. Supplies were refused to the British except at very exorbitant rates; the profiteers waxed fat and became more insolent; and the poor of Hamadan were left to die of hunger, victims of Persian cupidity and Persian indifference. Pamphlets, inflammatory in tone, and bearing the imprimatur of the principal democratic club, were distributed broadcast in the streets, and from these the victims of famine had at all events the ante-mortem satisfaction of learning that it was the British who were deliberately starving them to death in order that these beardless intruders might the more easily overrun the whole land of Persia.
If a Persian Democrat be valorous in speech, he is fortunately discreet in deeds. An ukase would go forth from Kuchik Khan that there was to be a truce to temporizing, and that the Dunsterforce must be sent without delay to the Jehannam of Unbelievers. "By Allah, it will be accomplished!" would be the prompt reply. Then the fearless Democrats, always careful never to risk their own skins unduly, would hire some half-starved fedais or irregulars, who for a kran or two would fire a few shots into British Headquarters, or, under cover of dusk and a sand-bank, snipe some solitary officer or soldier of our force. Whereat there would be much rejoicing in democratic circles, and the club would sit up late drinking arak.
Meanwhile the hunger mortality in Hamadan was increasing. Bread, the chief, indeed the only, article of diet of the poor, was at 14 krans a batman (roughly, the equivalent of ten shillings for 7 lbs.), and the wheat combine saw to it that the price increased rather than decreased. On May 6th Mr. McDouell, the British Consul, officially computed that the daily deaths from starvation were two hundred. Hamadan was a city of horrors. The unburied victims of famine—men, women, and children—were lying in the streets and in the fields adjoining British Headquarters. The Kashish or priest of the Shi'ite mosque, who received a fee of about twopence for officiating at the funerals of those buried informa pauperis, admitted that the daily interment-roll wasone hundred and sixty during the first fortnight of May. The hunger-enfeebled survivors became herbivorous, eating the grass in the fields like so many animals. A short course of this diet proved as fatal as the want of bread, for it invariably caused peritonitis and a lingering, agonizing death.
But there was worse to come. The foodless people, driven crazy by their sufferings, now resorted to eating human flesh. Cannibalism was a crime hitherto unknown in Persia, and no punishment exists for it under Persian law. The offenders were chiefly women, and the victims children stolen from the doorsteps of their homes, or snatched up haphazard in the bazaar purlieus. Mothers of young children were afraid to leave them while they went to beg for bread, lest in their absence they should be kidnapped and eaten. I never went into the Bazaar or through the narrow, ill-paved streets without a feeling of sickly horror at the sight of the human misery revealed there. Children who were little better than human skeletons would crowd round to beg for bread or the wherewithal to purchase it, and in parting with a few coppers to them, one could not help shuddering and wondering if they, too, were destined, sooner or later, to find their way into the cooking-pot.
The Persian Governor one day awoke from his habitual lethargy and roused the local police, who set out on the track of the child-eaters. A series of domiciliary visits brought to light fragments of human bones and rags of clothing. They arrestedeight women, who confessed that they had kidnapped, killed, and eaten a number of children, pleading that hunger had driven them to these terrible crimes.
On the following day, May 8th, a yet more horrifying case of cannibalism was discovered. Two women, mother and daughter, were caught red-handed. They had killed the daughter's eight-year-old child, and were cooking the body, when the police interrupted the preparations for this horrible feast. The half-cooked remains were removed in a basket, and an indignant crowd of well-fed Democrats followed the wretched offenders to the police-station, threatening them with death.
Some of the people, who did not share the noble view of the Democrats that the poor should starve rather than that cornered wheat should be released, went to the telegraph office with the intention of informing the weak and incapable Teheran Government of the true state of affairs.
But the Democrats would have none of that; it might upset their carefully laid schemes for enrichment at the expense of the flesh and blood of their fellows. There was no telling what effect a telegraphed protest might have upon the supineness of the Shah's Cabinet Ministers. Those administrative sluggards might be goaded into some action bordering on interference with the policy of the Hamadan Democrats, which Heaven forbid! So Democrat emissaries picketed the Persian telegraph office, and pitched into the street any of their adversaries whoquestioned their right to impose an arbitrary censorship. Thus was made manifest the "benign rule" of the "friends of Persia" in all its callous disregard for the first principles of humanity.
On the following day there was the sequel to the case of child murder by mother and daughter, when these two unfortunates paid the cruel penalty imposed by Persian law for killing one's own offspring—that of being stoned to death. The "execution" took place in front of the Hamadan telegraph office. The condemned women, already on the borderland of death from hunger, were staked down in two shallow pits near where heavy stones were plentiful. Then the police, reinforced by a willing mob, armed themselves with heavy boulders and pounded the flickering life out of their emaciated frames, silencing for ever their unavailing cries for pity and mercy. It was a revolting spectacle, and although their crime was an abominable one, no one not a Persian could repress a feeling of compassion for the wretched creatures who, made desperate by hunger, had become so dead to all human instinct as to kill and be prepared to eat their own flesh and blood.
Other women were apprehended and executed for child murder. It was reported that there was plenty of wheat stored in private houses, and it was urged that severe measures should be taken against the hoarders. The men were still eating their evening meal of grass, flavoured with a little salt. One of the favourite trysting-places of the Democratstalwarts was the football-ground near the Hospital Compound. Nearly every afternoon in fine weather, when the ground was not being used for play, they sat there cross-legged—in their brown and black loose-fitting robes, resembling so many clucking hens on a roost—discussing and planning the overthrow of the British, while hundreds of their own people lay dying around them of starvation.
In Hamadan, to add to our other difficulties, we were greatly troubled with professional mendicants, whose ages varied from six to sixty, and whose energy and begging zeal were unbounded. In time we got to know them, chiefly, I think, because of their physical fitness. They were always in the pink of condition, sound in wind and limb, and could run a mile in pursuit of a likely dole without turning a hair, while their vigorous lung power would have done credit to a "cheap jack" auctioneer.
I always did, and always shall, admire the wonderful patience and clemency exercised by Dunsterville when faced with the Democratic organization, which aimed at nothing short of wiping out both himself and his force in Hamadan, if not by atour de force, then by starvation. They were always inciting the populace to rise and finish us. But hungry men have little stomach for blood-letting, and although those in Hamadan found it difficult enough to exist owing to the food shortage, they were in no hurry to abridge their unhappy days by flinging themselves on British bayonets.
The Hun or the Turk would have ended this intolerable situation long ago by decorating Hamadan lamp-posts with the dangling bodies of local Democrats; but Dunsterville was forbidden to embark upon any strong measures. Our own Minister in Teheran, Sir Charles Marling, kept warning us that we were neutrality-breakers, and wondering whether the Persian Government, even by the exercise of all his (the Minister's) diplomatic skill, could ever be induced to forgive us. Sir Charles, who has since been transferred to some other sphere of usefulness, was always quick to grasp and expound the Persian official point of view. I often wonder if he ever busied himself with attempting to understand that of the British concerning the occupation of Hamadan and Kasvin.
One of the contributory causes of the Hamadan famine was the insane behaviour of the Russian Army when in occupation of the town and district. They destroyed the growing crops of wheat and barley, and wantonly wasted the grain they were unable to consume or carry off. The Hamadan harvest is not ripe for gathering until about the first week in July, so the British, in May, were faced with the problem of feeding a starving population for some sixty days. It was not incumbent upon them to do so, but both pity and policy coincided in indicating the necessity for combating the evil of food shortage that was so rapidly thinning out the population.
With the approval of the British Government ascheme of famine relief was inaugurated by General Dunsterville. Labour gangs were formed, and under the supervision of our officers the starving multitude was set to work road-making. In about the first week three thousand offered themselves for employment, and were enrolled. Nominally, only the able-bodied were supposed to be eligible, but judging by the human wrecks that one saw in the Labour Corps few of this category existed in Hamadan. The road-makers, at the beginning, were paid four krans per diem (a kran is, at war-exchange, the equivalent of a franc), and it was stipulated that they should provide themselves with a spade or mattock and a basket in which to carry away the loosened earth. A number, it is true, did present themselves armed with the narrow-bladed bilm or spade of the Persian agricultural labourer, but there were hundreds who heroically tackled the job equipped with nothing more efficacious than wooden rice-spoons. Still, no one kicked at this, and the rice-spoon wielders did their "bit," or attempted to do it to the best of their enfeebled ability. Our object was rather to be content with some colourable imitation of aquid pro quofor cash disbursements, than to exact a stiff day's labour from people wholly incapable of performing it.
In our blissful ignorance of Persian psychology, we fondly imagined at first that the equivalent of £400 a day paid out in wages to roadmakers would sensibly alleviate the prevailing distress. But wedid not reckon upon Persian avarice, selfishness, and untrustworthiness of character. The price of bread, somewhat to our surprise, did not fall. In fact it became dearer than ever. The bakers saw to that. Money was beginning to circulate more freely; the very poor were no longer empty-fisted; so up went the price of bread with a bound! In short, it was found that the more we distributed in famine relief the lower fell the purchasing power of the kran. Another thing, too, that militated against the successful working of the "all cash" scheme of assistance was that it did not to any extent ameliorate the pitiable lot of the women and children. The men did not always bother to buy bread for their starving dependents, preferring to dissipate their earnings in a nightly carouse in an opium den—the local equivalent to a British gin palace.
An unpleasant element of "graft" was also brought to light. No Persian for very long can keep his itching fingers from other people's money. The native foremen of the road gangs were not an exception to the rule, and for a brief period they made a lucrative income by trafficking in labour tickets. First they issued spurious ones to their friends and relatives, none of whom had done a stroke of work; they even sought, somewhat clumsily to be sure, to counterfeit the official stamp which each ticket bore on its face. They rubbed some Indian ink on the reverse side of a two-kran piece, and with this stamped the forged tickets, adding a few pencil strokesà lafantasieby way of giving a finishing touch of verisimilitude.
As the tickets entitled the bearers to draw four krans when presented nightly at the pay office, the thieving foremen were in a fair way to becoming rich by the time the fraud was discovered. The same individuals were also in the habit of coercing their hapless underlings into selling their tickets for a kran or two. These were then resold to a middleman, who cashed them at their full face value. But a liberal application of the bastinado worked wonders, and speedily rendered such dishonest practices highly unpopular.
Still, it was felt that some radical alteration was necessary if we were to get full value for, and the Hamadan poor full benefit from, the money that was being expended on their behalf. General Byron, a level-headed practical soldier, and very wise in worldly knowledge, who at this time was second in command to General Dunsterville, now took over control of famine relief work. He decided upon an alteration of the existing system of doles in favour of one consisting of a free distribution in food supplemented by payment in cash of two krans instead of four. Bread alone was deemed to be insufficient, and it was felt that the starving people who toiled daily road-making required some more nourishing food. After overcoming many difficulties, official as well as unofficial, and silencing the usual group of objectors who vowed that it could not be done, theGeneral opened soup kitchens at several centres, and fed as many as 2,000 hungry people per day.
The recipients were delighted and grateful. But it was now that the local Democrats, who throughout had stood aloof from the movement for succouring their starving brethren, reached their high-level of political strategy. It was not at all to their liking that the detested British interloper was filling the empty stomachs of the people gratis. In such circumstances they could not be expected to revolt and join hands with the Democrats, and besides, if this free distribution of food were not stopped, it would be a bad day for the wheat-trust and inflated grain prices. So they set to work and issued broadcast handbills warning the poor against partaking of British soup, on the ground that it was heavily flavoured with poison. It was part of another "deep-laid plot," they said, to kill off all the Hamadani whom the ravages of famine had so far overlooked.
The average Persian peasant is an ignorant and gullible individual as a rule, but this time the Democrats overshot the mark and their assertions were too much even for Persian credulity. The hungry people came and ate. The second and succeeding days they came in thousands. Barricades and armed soldiers were required to prevent their storming the distribution centres and carrying off all the available supply. And, to the dismay and horror of all good Democrats, not a single one died from poisoning. This was the deathblow to the prestige of the Democraticmovement. It lost its grip on the people. There is nothing a Persian, or indeed any Oriental, hates so much as being made to look ridiculous; and the Democrats became the target for quip and jest in the bazaars of Hamadan, until in rage they plucked their beards and tore their garments, exclaiming, in accents of sorrow and humiliation, "Alas, what ashes have fallen on our heads to-day!"
But they rallied in their last ditch, and made an eleventh-hour attempt to avert the consequences of the moral defeat which had overtaken them. Kuchik Khan, the "Robin Hood" of the Caspian Marches, yielding to democratic pleadings, and in the hope possibly of discrediting British famine relief work, sent fifteen mule-loads of rice to Hamadan to be sold for the benefit of the poor. But Kuchik's agents had seized the rice without payment from growers living in his "protected area," so he was able to play the merry game of robbing the Persian Peter in order to comfort the Persian Paul.
The artifice was too thin. Hamadan was not deluded. The British werede factomasters of the situation. They had conquered the people of Hamadan not by the sword and halter of the Turk who had preceded them, but by a modern adaptation of the miracle of the loaves and fishes.
By aruse de guerrethe grain owners were induced to disgorge some of their hoarded stocks. Telegrams purposely writtenen clairwhich passed between Bagdad and Hamadan made it appear that largesupplies of wheat were being forwarded from Mesopotamia, whereupon the local Hamadan hoarders rushed into the market and sold readily at daily diminishing rates, until something like normal prices were reached once more. And so the bottom fell out of the wheat ring.
Private foreign effort closely co-operated with the military in the distribution of food and the relief of the famine-stricken. Dr. Funk and Mr. Allen of the American Presbyterian Mission, Mr. McMurray of the Imperial Bank of Persia, and Mr. Edwards, local manager of the Persian Carpet Factory, amongst them spent considerable sums of money and devoted a great deal of time to this work of charity.
Mr. McMurray is a man possessing much business acumen and financial ability, and as expert adviser to the British in occupation at Hamadan he was able to render very great services to his country. Too modest to seek reward or recompense of any kind, he nevertheless had an honour thrust upon him. It was a minor class of a minor decoration which a grateful Government in England somewhat grudgingly, it seems, bestowed upon him in generous recognition of his zealous labour in the common cause of Empire. So now, should he attend a public function at home, and the question of precedence arise, he will probably find himself ranking next after some lady typist from the War Office, who can write shorthand and spell with tolerable accuracy. To bean unofficial Briton working for Britain abroad is a very serious handicap for the Briton concerned. The Government of the Empire sees to that. I have never been able to discover exactly why it is, but the handicap holds good all the way from Tokio to Teheran, and from Salonika to Archangel. Should you desire to acquire merit, and you happen to be the possessor of a name that betokens pure British ancestry, hide it, and let it be inferred that the cradle of your race is somewhere in Palestine or the Middle East. Then your path is easy. The India Office will pat you on the back, and the British Foreign Office will ecstatically fold you to its bosom.
McMurray's bungalow was the chief trysting-place for the British officers in Hamadan. It stands within the great walled enclosure or compound where many members of the British and American colonies had made their homes. It was a city within a city, fringed with trees and pleasant pathways, and bordered by flower-beds. Mrs. McMurray was always "at home" to her compatriots from about 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily. While she fed starving Persians, she also gave luncheons and dinners to British officers. Rarely were there fewer than six of the latter billeted under her hospitable roof. The eaglets of the R.A.F., and especially the fledglings still without their second wing, found her an admirable foster-mother, who counselled them in health and nursed them in illness, and was always a sympathetic amanuensis whenfevered brows and unsteady hands attempted to grapple with the problem of inditing a "line or two" for home to catch the outgoing mail.
Dunsterville, as he was popularly called, was a frequent visitor at the bungalow. The original of Kipling's "Stalky," he rode easily and without straining on the anchor of his reputation. He is keen-witted, with an illimitable fund of dry, racy humour, and no drawing-room was ever dull when the General was having his fling. As a retailer ofbon motsthe G.O.C. had no compeer in Hamadan. His shafts were never envenomed, and his victims laughed as heartily as anybody else, as, for instance, once when rations were running low and cannibalism was in vogue among the poor of the city, Dunsterville, turning to a very youthful A.D.C. whose cheeks were the colour of a ripe apple, said in his droll way, "I shall never starve, my lad, while you are about!"
One of hisobiter dictawas that every British officer in Persia should be compelled to pass a qualifying examination in "Hadji Baba"—the Oriental Gil Blas—for he would then know more about the Persians, their manners and customs, than could be acquired by months of travel and unaided observation.
"Stalky" had no fear of personal danger. He was an optimist who always saw a diamond-studded lining to the blackest of clouds. It is related of himthat at his fateful interview with the Bolsheviks on the occasion of his raid on Resht he told the "Red Committee" so many amusing stories in their own mother-tongue that they quite forgot the principal business of the evening, which was to sentence him (Dunsterville) to death.
Official hindrances—A fresh blow for the Caucasus—The long road to Tabriz—A strategic centre—A Turkish invasion—Rising of Christian tribes—A local Joan of Arc—The British project.
By the middle of May Dunsterville began to feel his feet. Reinforcements were trickling in, officers and N.C.O's., but no fighting men, and always in thepetits paquetsso beloved by the parsimonious-minded officials who sat at General Headquarters down in Bagdad.
Dunsterville's own position was not an enviable one. His path was beset by difficulties of every description, and, much against his wish, he found himself engaged in a kind of triangular duel with British officialdom at home and abroad. First the Minister in Teheran, and apparently also the Foreign Office, were wringing their hands in despair, asking what he was doing in Persia at all, and urging him to "move on" towards the Caucasus. Next there was Bagdad, who, deeply incensed that Dunsterville had an independent command, and was in direct communication with the War Office, never lost a chance of putting a retarding spoke in his wheel,even going to the extent of telegraphing up the line that no member of "Dunsterforce" was to be furnished with supplies from the military canteens. Then, finally, there was the War Office, who had sent him to Persia in the first instance because it was the most direct route to the centre of Bolshevik activities in the Caucasus. For some time they continued to support him against the pretensions of Bagdad, but ultimately they yielded, and Dunsterville and his force became subordinate to the Bagdad command. Of course, there were, in addition, the malcontents amongst the Persians, notably the Democrats and their Turkish-German sympathizers, who had more than a passing interest in all this bickering and wrangling. They, too, were anxious that a British force should not sit down indefinitely in Persia.
At last it was determined to do something and to strike a fresh blow for the Caucasus; but the initiative no longer rested with Dunsterville. It had passed to Bagdad. New difficulties arose immediately. How were the Caucasus to be reached—by the Caspian Sea and thence by steamer to Baku? Or overland from northwards, through the province of Azarbaijan to Tabriz and railhead?
The direct route to the Caspian from Hamadan was not possible, because Kuchik Khan and his Jungalis still held the Manjil-Resht section of the road, and Dunsterville unaided was not then strong enough to turn them out. True, there were the Russian auxiliaries under Bicherakoff, but these valued allieswere making ready for an offensive in their own leisurely fashion, and were not to be "speeded up" by any known methods of British hustling.
From Hamadan to Tabriz by way of Zinjan is about three hundred miles. The route for the most part lies over difficult and mountainous country, where supplies are scarce or hard to procure. The wild and scattered tribesmen are not noted for extreme friendliness. Zinjan itself is 115 miles from Hamadan in a northerly direction. The next important stage on the road to Tabriz is Mianeh, eighty-five miles north-west of Zinjan. From Mianeh, Tabriz itself is distant about one hundred miles.
Tabriz, the ancient Tauris, and capital of the province of Azarbeijan, is the largest city in the Persian Empire, and the most important commercial centre in all Iran. It is the residence of the Valiahd, or heir-apparent to the Persian throne. It occupies much the same position in north-western Persia as does Meshed in the north-eastern part of the country. Marco Polo visited it during his long overland trek to far Cathay, and found it a fair city, full of busy merchants and wealthy citizens.
But for the British, seeking to arrive within fighting distance of the Turks, Germans, and Russian Bolsheviks overrunning the Caucasus, Tabriz had its own special military importance. It was a point of great strategic value. Julfa, on the Russian-Persian frontier, and ninety miles from Tabriz, is the terminus of the Trans-Caucasian Railway which runs to Tiflis,the Caucasian capital and main British objective. Tiflis is 320 miles from Tabriz. The railway from the former city continues west to Poti and Batum, the shipping ports on the Black Sea, and east (also from Tiflis Junction) to Baku and its oilfields on the Caspian Sea.
From Julfa, connecting with the Trans-Caucasian Railway, a Russian company had built a branch line to Tabriz, and an extension to Sharaf Khane on the eastern shore of Lake Urumia. On the lake itself was a fleet of Russian-owned steamers, which maintained communication between the railhead at Sharaf Khane and Urumia city, famous as the legendary birthplace of Zoroaster, which is on the western shore of the lake, and about twenty-five miles from Sharaf Khane.
When the Russian Army, stricken by the deadly plague of Bolshevism, retreated northwards towards Tiflis, they accommodatingly left behind at Sharaf Khane, for the use of the first comer, their fleet of lake steamers, hundreds of guns of heavy and medium calibre, dumps of shells and small-arms ammunition, thousands of serviceable rifles, and quantities of other military stores.
The Turkish frontier line, passing about forty-five miles west of Urumia, continues due north to its junction with the territorial boundaries of Russia and Persia on the perpetual snow-clad summit of the Greater Mount Ararat. The region round Lake Van having been cleared of potential enemies—theRussians had retired, and the Armenians were put to the sword—the Turks, swinging eastward, lost no time in crossing the frontier and violating Persian territory. They pleaded military exigencies for the step they had taken, and turned a very deaf and unsympathetic ear to the mere paper remonstrances of the Persian Government. But in the invaded territory they met with severe and unexpected opposition, not from their own Islamic kindred, but from hated and despised Infidels of the Christian sect.