We have a chilly reception—Our popularity wanes—Preparation for further retirement—Back to the Kuflan Kuh Pass—Our defensive position—Turks make a frontal attack—Our line overrun—Gallantry of Hants and Worcesters—Pursuit by Turks—Armoured cars save the situation—Prisoners escape from Turks—Persians as fighters.
Mianeh, pampered, spoon-fed Mianeh, which had grown fat on British bread and comparatively wealthy on British money, gave the retreating column a chilly reception.
The bazaar looked at us askance, and the Democrats spat meaningly in our direction and muttered a malediction upon our heads. There was joy in the eyes of the people which they took no pains to conceal.
The news of the Turkish success, much magnified in passing from mouth to mouth and village to village, had preceded our arrival, and the barometer of bazaar sentiment, always a sure gauge of Persian public opinion, had veered round to "stormy."
And "stormy" it was to be. It was felt that the sands of the British glass had run out. The attitude of the people underwent a sudden changefrom cringing supplication to one of thinly veiled hostility. Fawning officials, who had battened upon our liberality and profited by our largesse, now fell over themselves in their efforts to sponge the slate clean and write upon it a Persian improvised version of the "Hymn of Hate." They threw the full weight of their mean souls into the job. In the bazaar they buzzed about like so many poisonous gadflies, and in order to curry favour with their new masters-to-be they incited the people to anti-British demonstrations, and beat and imprisoned humble folk whose friendship for our nation was disinterested and had not been offered on the local commercial basis of so many krans per pound. With one exception, all the district notables—who had always been reiterating their professions of friendship, and to whom we had paid large sums as subsidies for faithless, turn-tail levies, or as purchase price for grain—went over to the enemy. Our Mianeh police, my own command, or those of them who were Persians, followed the general example and ran off to join the Turks.
There was one notable exception. Four Kurds who belonged to the police and who could not be intimidated or cajoled, stood firm and refused to be carried off by the wave of desertion, and they remained to guard the Mission premises.
After Turkmanchai we did not tarry long in Mianeh. Preparations were at once made for a further retirement. The Turks were coming onslowly and methodically, and apparently in no immediate hurry to hustle us out of Mianeh. The long and, in a sense, rapid marches of the previous five days during hot weather had told upon the Turkish infantry, and now the advancing enemy had cried a halt in order that his tired troops might enjoy a brief repose.
Our next defensive position was the Kuflan Kuh or Qaplan Kuh (the panthers' hill) Pass, which lies five miles south-east of Mianeh. The main range of the Kuflan Kuh runs roughly from east to west, and the Tabriz-Zinjan road passes over its crest at a height of about five thousand feet. At the end of the Mianeh plain, and some two miles from the village itself, there is a solid brick bridge over the Karangu River. Once the river is crossed, coming from Mianeh, the rise begins gradually, and the foothills of the Pass are met with a mile or so from the river bank. The ascent from the northern or Mianeh end is very difficult, and the road mounts between two perpendicular walls of rock. The gradient is steep, and the outer edge of the roadway was wholly unprotected until a British labour corps took the job on hand and interposed a coping-stone barrier between the exposed side of the road and the abyss below. The same workers also plugged up some of the gaping holes in the roadway which had existed from time immemorial.
On Sunday, September 8th, the whole of Major Wagstaff's force bade farewell without regret toMianeh, marched across the Karangu, and placed the formidable barrier of the Kuflan Kuh between itself and the advancing enemy. Wagstaff established his headquarters in a ruined caravanserai near the stone bridge which spans the Kizil Uzun River at the southern entrance to the Pass. All the stores of wheat and barley which had been accumulating in Mianeh were destroyed before evacuation, and the rearguard crossed the Karangu without molestation either from the Turks or from their new allies, the Mianehites, who were hourly showing themselves more hostile to the retiring British.
NORTH GATE, KASVIN.NORTH GATE, KASVIN.
Headquarters at Kasvin now began to be alarmed at the uninterrupted southward advance of the Turks, for, if Zinjan fell, Kasvin might be expected to follow, and our line of communications from Hamadan towards the Caspian would be cut. General Dunsterville himself was away in Baku, fighting Bolsheviks and Turks. Some weeks earlier, with the help of Bicherakoff and his Russians, he had rooted out Kuchik Khan from his jungle fastness, and opened the road from Manjil to Resht and the Caspian Sea.
Wagstaff was accordingly ordered to hold the Kuflan Kuh at all costs, but what he was to hold it with was not quite clear, inasmuch as his total dependable fighting strength of Hants, Ghurkas, and 14th Hussars did not exceed 250 bayonets and 50 sabres, the few remaining levies being a negligible quantity. He had been given a machine-gun detachment, amountain battery section, two field guns, and a howitzer. His main position was on a line of low hills extending for about three miles below the northern face of the Pass, and commanding the approaches from the Mianeh plain and the brick bridge across the Karangu. The guns were on the reverse or southern slope of the Pass, whence by indirect fire they could make it unpleasant for an enemy crossing the Karangu bridge or fording the shallow river itself.
A platoon of the Worcesters arrived to reinforce our attenuated line, and Colonel Matthews of the 14th Hants took over command on the 9th. The Turks had now occupied Mianeh in force, and during the ensuing two days were busy preparing for an offensive movement. They pushed a considerable body of infantry down to the cultivated fields bordering the north bank of the Karangu. Here, amongst the boundary ditches, topped with low bushes, they found a certain amount of ready-made cover, and they subjected our advanced posts on the right to a harassing fire. These were held by levies with a stiffening of British officers and British N.C.O's. The Persians, as usual, became "jumpy" whenever Turkish bullets hummed in their immediate vicinity, and as they were utterly lacking in elementary fire-control they were a source of vexatious perplexity to their British officers and sergeants. One officer, in despair at their utter unreliability under fire, pleadingly suggested that they might be withdrawnaltogether, and himself left with two British sergeants to hold the post.
Even after making due allowance for the complete worthlessness of our Persian auxiliaries, we hesitated to believe that the Turks would commit themselves to a frontal attack on the Kuflan Kuh. Given a sufficiency of reliable troops, it would have been an admirably strong defensive position, and any enemy who came "butting" against it with lowered head would have found the experiment a costly one.
But the Turks had seemingly gauged the measure of our strength and our weakness more accurately than we had ourselves, for, eschewing anything in the nature of new-fangled turning movements, they came at us in the good old-fashioned way, and by the most direct route.
The attack was delivered after breakfast on September 12th, and on the part of the enemy there was no sign of hurry or confusion. Two thousand infantry, highly trained and admirably handled, belonging to one of their crack Caucasian divisions, crossed the river in extended order and flung themselves against our line. The shock of contact was first felt on the right, where the Persians were in position. These latter promptly broke and fled in utter disorder, all attempts to rally them proving futile. Our line was now in the air, so to speak, with the Persians scuttling like rabbits up towards the entrance to the Pass. It was short and bloody work.
The Hants and the Ghurkas had now to bear the brunt of the attack. The Turks, reinforced, came on in surging waves and flowed over their trenches. Both units made a gallant but ineffectual fight, and were forced back up the Pass, suffering considerable losses. The enemy followed up his advantage and stormed the Pass itself. A last stand was made at the summit to cover the retreat of the guns. Here Hants and Turks fought hand to hand with bayonet and clubbed rifle, until the sadly diminished remnant of this brave battalion, after losing their gallant sergeant-major, were literally pushed over the crest and down the reverse slope. But they had stood their ground long enough to save the guns from capture.
The Worcesters, who had been in reserve on the southern slope, now came doubling into action to the assistance of the hard-pressed Hants. Taking shelter behind the boulders which are plentiful on both sides of the roadway, they covered the retirement, driving the Turkish snipers off the summit of the Pass and arresting any immediate pursuit on the part of the enemy.
The caravanserai at the Kizil Uzun Bridge, where Colonel Matthews had his headquarters, being now untenable, he withdrew with his remaining force across the Baleshkent Pass to Jamalabad on the road to Zinjan. As for the runaway levies, some of them did not halt until they had placed a good twenty miles between themselves and the scene of the Kuflan Kuh fighting.
The Turks pursued us to Jamalabad, but it was the last kick. Their offensive spent itself here, thanks to a new factor which had entered into the game. This was the armoured car sections, light and heavy, under Colonel Crawford and Lieutenant-Colonel Smiles, which, when our position was indeed precarious, had been rushed up from Kasvin and Zinjan in support of our retiring column. The Turks got a bad peppering at Jamalabad, and a few miles farther south at Sarcham where the cars were in action. The enemy had no liking for this sort of fighting, and troubled us no more. They withdrew from Jamalabad and, in anticipation of a counter-offensive on our part, proceeded to fortify themselves on the Kuflan Kuh.
A week after the fight at the Kuflan Kuh two men of the Hants who had been captured by the Turks arrived in our lines, clothed in nothing save a handkerchief apiece. While their captors were squabbling amongst themselves as to the distribution of the worldly possessions of the prisoners, the latter had slipped away unperceived and gained Jamalabad. There they were waylaid by Persian thieves, badly beaten, stripped of their clothing, and left for dead on the roadside. Still, they were a plucky pair, for, recovering, they set out afresh, and, completing a fifty-mile tramp in the blazing sun without food or raiment, rejoined their unit.
The Crawford armoured cars and the Matthews column slowly fell back on Zinjan, and thereended the military activities of the Tabriz expedition.
My strictures on the fighting value of the Persian may appear unduly severe. I fully realize that one had no right to expect very much from a mass of raw, undisciplined material. The men were hastily recruited, and their training, necessarily circumscribed by the exigencies of time, could not have been anything but perfunctory and imperfect in the circumstances. But I am tilting rather at the theory prevalent in certain quarters at the inception of the Tabriz Expedition that one had only to send British officers into the highways and byways of Azerbaijan and that they would find there "ready-made" soldiers endowed with a fine fighting spirit, hardly inferior in quality to our own superb infantry, men who would stand up to trained and efficient soldiers like the Turks. Having once got the half-trained levies into the trenches, their British officers were expected to hold them by sheer force of will-power, and to hypnotize them into taking aim at an enemy without shutting both eyes. Now the bubble of Persian fighting efficiency has been pricked, and we have a more just appreciation of the virtues and shortcomings of the Persians as a unit in a modern army.
Anti-British activities—Headquarters at Hamadan—Plans to seize ringleaders—Midnight arrests—How the Governor was entrapped.
Back in Hamadan, the fierce political enmity of the Democrats, which had been quiet for some time, broke into fresh activity after the removal of Dunsterville headquarters to Kasvin at the end of May.
General Byron, who was in charge at Hamadan, speedily discovered through his Intelligence Officers that the local Democrats were bent on making things merry for the British, if they possibly could. Previous rebuffs had taught the Democrats the value of silence and a more complete method of organization. Their defects in these directions were now to some extent remedied. Turkish gold, too, was forthcoming, and the Democrats of Hamadan became a secret political organization—a sort of Persian Mafia or Camorra—which was hatching a political conspiracy against the British. It was the Ittahad-i-Islam again at work. This organization, while outwardly making common cause with the Islamic malcontents of Hamadan and elsewhere, was in secret working strenuously for Turkey and the Turkish cause, and the Democratswho were caught in its net were but a means to that end.
One thing, however, soon became clear—that a vast network of Turkish espionage, with ramifications through Persia, had its headquarters in Hamadan. For many weeks the organization was allowed to have free rein in the carrying out of its "holy work."
Its propaganda mills worked long and late; its agents came and went; Turkish emissaries slipped into Hamadan and out again without any difficulty, and the leaders of the Hamadan movement, which aimed at our overthrow by atour de force, must have often chuckled to themselves at our apparent simplicity and at the ease with which we had been outmatched by Oriental cunning.
While feigning blindness, the British were very watchful indeed. It was like the story of the faithful retainer of the Samurai noble in feudal Japan who set out to avenge his lord's death. His enemies were powerful and vigilant, but in the end his carefully simulated indifference threw them completely off their guard, and he triumphed. So it was in Hamadan, where sharp wits were pitted against sharp wits. In time the chiefs of the inner ring of the Hamadan combination grew careless. Little by little, their secret signs and passwords, their working programme, their membership roll, and even full details of the Turkish system of espionage in Persia generally, passed into our hands. There was little more to wait for. It was time to strike.
But a fresh difficulty immediately presented itself. The plotters, in co-operation with Kuchik Khan, had fixed the date for an armed revolt against British occupation; and what afterwards happened in Egypt, was, in June of 1918, deliberately and carefully planned to take place in Hamadan. There were practically no troops in the town at the time, and the torch of revolt once lighted and the work of our extermination begun, ten or twelve officers with a couple of dozen of N.C.O's. of Dunsterforce could not for long have resisted the determined onslaught of a fanatical and arrack-incited population of 70,000.
To arrest the leaders openly in daylight would assuredly have precipitated a disaster, and led to bloodshed, and probably to our own undoing. The inner council of the conspiracy consisted of fifteen members, and included the Persian Governor and a number of local notables.
Secrecy and surprise were essential; so the plan hit upon was a night descent simultaneously on the whole band, an officer and two N.C.O's. being detailed for each arrest.
The procedure in the following case may be taken as typical of the others: In the early hours of the morning a Persian batman in the employ of a British officer was directed to deliver a sealed envelope marked "From O.C. Hamadan" at the house of one of the plotters. The messenger, hammering at the door, aroused the sleepy watchman within, and told himthat he had an important letter to deliver from the British General. "Come back in the morning," would reply the watchman, "my master is in bed and asleep." The messenger, duly coached, would reply, "That is impossible. Open the door. The letter, I know, is important, for I have been given ten krans to deliver it safely." The watchman, while wary and inclined to be suspicious of belated callers, was also avaricious, and was not going to let slip any chance of netting a few krans. As had been anticipated, his greed overcame his caution. He opened the door in order to claim his share of the late letter delivery fee. As soon as he did so, a couple of stalwart British sergeants, springing out of the darkness, seized, bound, and gagged him. Once within the high-walled courtyard of the house, the rest was easy. It was but a few steps to the sleeping apartments, and the proscribed conspirator as a rule woke up to find the chilly muzzle of a British service revolver pressing against his temple. He was gagged to prevent his raising an alarm; his hands were bound; and, thus helpless, he was carried off and dumped into a covered motor lorry, where an armed guard saw that he came to no harm.
But the Persian Governor himself was the most difficult of the whole band to surprise and arrest. His residence was in a big walled serai at the extreme end of Hamadan, and, in accordance with Persian custom, and by reason of his official position, he lived surrounded by a guard of about fifty men. Todeal with him tact and finesse were necessarily called into play.
The task of securing the Governor quietly and without unnecessary fuss fell to the lot of a Colonel who had learned something of native ways in Rhodesia and East Africa. He was an Irishman possessing a glib tongue, a knowledge of Persian, and all the suavity of his race. He also had the advantage of being known to the Governor and his entourage. So, when he knocked at the door of the Governor's residence at an hour long after midnight, the watchman admitted him without hesitation. The guard turned out and eyed the intruder suspiciously, but, finding it was the sartip sahib (Colonel) from the British Mission who was making inquiries about the state of the Governor's health, they yawned sleepily and betook themselves to the shelter of their blankets, vowing inwardly that the eccentricities of this strange race called English who paid ceremonious visits in the middle of the night were beyond the comprehension of any Oriental mind.
"There has come wonderful news from Teheran, and the Governor must be told at once," said the visitor, flourishing a big envelope with many red seals attached thereto.
"Good," replied the janitor deferentially, "the Governor is enjoying sweet repose, but if it is the wish of the Colonel Sahib, I will take him the paper."
"Alas, that it should be so!" interposed the caller gravely, "but into his own hands alone am I permittedto deliver this precious letter. Go, faithful one! Summon your illustrious master, the protector of the poor, and the friend of the oppressed! I will remain on guard by the open door, and none shall enter in your absence."
The ruse succeeded. The servitor departed on his errand, and in a few minutes returned with the Governor clad in a dressing-gown and slippers. He greeted the Colonel, who handed him the envelope which contained a blank sheet of paper. It was dark on the threshold where the Governor stood tearing open the missive, so the Colonel proffered the aid of his electric torch. Presently the Governor, divining that something was amiss, looked up with a start, and found himself covered with a revolver. "Come with me," said the officer tersely, "and, above all, do not resist or attempt to summon help!" The trapped official obeyed with docility, and followed his captor to a waiting automobile, into which he was bundled and placed in charge of a British guard. Two sentries at the guardroom door kept the Persian guard within in subjection while the Governor's papers were being seized. These latter proved to the hilt his complicity in the plot that was being hatched to destroy British lives in Hamadan. The deposed official—accompanied by copies of the incriminating documents—was sent as a present to the Teheran Cabinet, with a polite request for an explanation of the gross treachery of their unfaithful servant.
The coup had succeeded without the firing of a shot, and the back of the conspiracy was broken, for it was left impotent and leaderless. Before sunrise all the captives, with the exception of the Governor, were on their way to Bagdad and an internment camp.
An amusing sidelight on the affair was the attitude of the Persian police in Hamadan. Hearing of the arrests, they assumed the worst. They bolted, taking refuge in the neighbouring cornfields, where they remained a whole day under the impression that they were the sole survivors of a "general massacre" of inhabitants carried out by the British.
Kuchik Khan bars the road—Turk and Russian movements—Kuchik Khan's force broken up—Bicherakoff reaches Baku—British armoured car crews in Russian uniforms—Fighting around Baku—Baku abandoned—Captain Crossing charges six-inch guns.
In a previous chapter I pointed out that Kuchik Khan was in military possession of the Manjil-Resht road, and that the Russians under Bicherakoff were concentrating at Kasvin preparatory to trying conclusions with this amiable bandit—the cat's-paw of Turkish-German intrigue—who was barring Bicherakoff's route to the Caspian and to Russia.
At the end of May, in order to bring about a more effectual co-operation between his own force and that of the Russian commander, General Dunsterville transferred his headquarters from Hamadan to Kasvin.
The original purpose of the Dunsterville Mission, it will be recollected, was to fight Bolshevism by the organizing of Armenians and Georgians and, if possible, Tartars, in the Southern Caucasus. This had now become difficult of realization, owing tothe series of bewildering and kaleidoscopic changes in Transcaucasia which had profoundly affected the entire political and military situation. For example, the virus of Bolshevism had infected the Russian troops in Baku; the Germans had landed at Batum and, by making peace with the Georgians, were placed in possession of Tiflis. The Turks had arranged a peace pact with the Armenians which left their armies free to invade north-west Persia, prosecute a vigorous campaign against the Nestorians of Urumia, and, finally, overrun the Caucasus as a preliminary to co-operating with the Germans in their contemplated advance on Baku. Now the Bolshevik leaders in Baku refused to recognize the right of either of the rival belligerent groups—the Central Powers or the Entente—to spoil the flavour of their military hotch-potch in any way. It suited the blasé Russian palate, and that should be sufficient. The Bolsheviks, at all events, were consistent to the extent that, while they opposed the advance of the Germans and Turks towards Baku, they more than once resolutely refused to accept the proposed aid of British troops to help them in overcoming the forces of the Central Powers.
DRILLING ARMENIANS AT BAKU.DRILLING ARMENIANS AT BAKU.
Negotiations with Kuchik Khan had ended abortively. The leader of the Jungalis was quite prepared to permit Russian troops to withdraw from Persia if they wished, and to pass through his "occupied territory" to their port of embarkation on the Caspian. But British, "No!" They had no businessin Persia at all, he argued, and if they were desirous of going to Russia, they would have to find some other road.
The haughty tone of this communication angered the Russian General, and he sent Kuchik Khan an ultimatum, calling upon him to evacuate the Manjil position with all his followers, or be prepared to take the consequences. As Kuchik ignored this, a combined Russian-British force was sent against him on June 12th. Two of the British armoured cars which the year previously had formed part of the Locker-Lampson unit in Russia proper, were present at the attack. After a brief bombardment, a white flag was hoisted on the Manjil bridge position, and two German officers issued from the trenches to parley. They offered, on behalf of Kuchik Khan, to come to terms with the Russians and allow them to pass, provided a similar concession was not demanded by the British. Bicherakoff's reply was to dismiss the impudentparliamentaires, and to intimate that Kuchik Khan and his whole force could have fifteen minutes in which to lay down their arms and surrender. Nothing happened, so at the end of the stipulated period the advance was ordered, and the Russians and British stormed the enemy trenches and speedily disposed of the Jungalis holding them. Kuchik and a portion of his army, with his two German military advisers, escaped for the time; but, after another drubbing had been administered to him, the crestfallen Jungali leader was glad to makepeace, dismiss his German staff officers and drill instructors and release McLaren and Oakshott, two Englishmen, who had spent months in captivity.
The road to Resht and Enzeli was open at last, and Bicherakoff moved to the Caspian without delay and set about embarking his command for Baku. As a leader, Bicherakoff was popular amongst his men; and in the Caucasus he enjoyed deserved prestige as a soldier. He was pro-Russian—that is to say, anti-Bolshevik; and it was felt that his own personal influence, no less than the presence of his troops at Baku, would serve as a powerful antidote to Bolshevik activity in Southern Caucasia.
Bicherakoff's contingent embarked at Enzeli on July 3rd. A British armoured car battery accompanied the Russians, and, in order not to ruffle unduly the susceptibilities of the Bolsheviks, British officers and men wore Russian uniforms. But these they discarded on landing at Baku. Bicherakoff, who made a favourable impression locally and was well received by the inhabitants of the great oil centre, lost no time in seeking out and engaging the Turks, who were menacing Baku from two sides. A good deal of heavy fighting went on during the middle of July, and the British armoured cars rendered signal services, being engaged almost daily in close-quarter fighting with the Turks, enfilading their infantry and breaking up their threatened attacks, and, on another occasion, repulsing a cavalry charge with heavy loss to the enemy.
Bicherakoff, however, soon found that the local troops were not to be relied on, even when they professed their readiness to fight under his flag and against the Turks. On July 29th the Turks, who seemed bent on getting possession of Baku at any cost, succeeded in capturing Adji-Kabul station, a short distance south-west of Baku. Using this as a pivot, they swung northwards in order to complete the envelopment of Baku.
The Russian commander now became anxious for his own safety. Realizing his powerlessness to carry on an effective offensive, and fearing lest he should be shut up in Baku when the Turkish encircling movement became complete, he hurriedly abandoned the town, and with his British armoured car auxiliaries went off north by rail towards Derbend and Petrovsk, to operate against the Bolsheviks and Dageshani Tartars who were terrorizing the country bordering on the Caspian.
In the attack on Petrovsk, the armoured car unit led under the command of Captain Crossing. Their fire threw the Bolshevik troops into confusion, and, when the latter broke, the cars pursued them through the town, capturing several hundred of their number. A battery of six-inch guns which had subjected the attacking force to an annoying fire was with extraordinary temerity engaged by the armoured cars and put out of action by the simple, but dare-devil expedient of dashing up within range and shooting all the gunners. This splendid and heroic deed wonfor Captain Crossing—"the super-brave Crossing," as Bicherakoff designated him—the Cross of St. George, and the Order of St. Vladimir for Lieutenant Wallace; nor in the distribution of awards for gallantry were the men who accompanied the two officers in the armoured car charge against the guns forgotten by the grateful Russian commander.
Treachery in the town—Jungalis attack Resht—Armoured cars in street-fighting—Baku tires of Bolshevism—British summoned to the rescue—Dunsterville sets out—Position at Baku on arrival—British officers' advice ignored—Turkish attacks—Pressing through the defences—Baku again evacuated.
We were soon to discover that we had not cut the claws of the Jungali tiger, and that he was yet capable of giving us serious trouble.
There had been a good deal of unrest amongst the disbanded followers of Kuchik Khan. Men had gone back to their villages to brood over their reverse of fortune. The hotheads amongst them were not at all satisfied at the easy way in which they had been beaten out of their entrenchments on the Manjil road. Various pretexts were put forward with a view of explaining away the sharp reverse they suffered on that occasion. Further, there was a recrudescence of propaganda activity amongst them, carried on by Turkish agents and sympathizers who came and went in the jungle country on the shores of the Caspian.
Bicherakoff and his Russians had gone off to Baku, and a small force of British alone was holdingResht. Admirable for the Jungalis' plan, thought their leaders! This time they would be able to settle their account with the British without any intervening Russian mixing himself up in the business.
Early on July 20th a large force of Jungalis made a surprise attack on Resht. Aided by armed partisans within who, once the attack developed, brought hitherto concealed rifles into play from window and roof-top, the enemy achieved a distinct measure of success. The street fighting was desperate and severe. The attacking force fought with great bravery, determination, and skill. They dug themselves in, and threw up barricades the better to aid them to hold ground they had won.
But, although the greater part of Resht passed into their hands, following their first impetuous dash, the Jungalis were never able to make themselves masters of the south-western section of the town which was held by British troops. They knocked their heads against this in vain. It was left to the armoured cars, moreover, once more to demonstrate their great value in street fighting. The heavy cars of the Brigade and the 6th Light Armoured-Motor Battery were rushed into action, and although the streets had been dug up by the enemy in order to impair the mobility of the Brigade, the latter made short work of the Jungalis, driving them from point to point, and from street to street, until the town was once more in our possession. The enemy found themselves at a complete disadvantagewhen facing armour-plated fighting machines. The moral effect of these alone, apart from their fire efficiency, proved disastrous to Jungali nerves, and spread panic and disorganization in the ranks of the foe. Profiting by the bitter example of treachery that the Jungali attack had furnished, the British this time were less lenient when it came to imposing terms upon the beaten enemy.
Towards the end of July signs of dissension showed themselves amongst the Bolshevik militants who controlled the political and military destinies of Baku, a matter of which I wrote in the previous chapter. The Turks were without the gates. Bicherakoff had gone north, and the Bolshevik military machine had helplessly broken down. It could neither organize any scheme of defence, nor evolve any offensive plan for relieving the city from the gradually tightening grip of the Turk. The people of Baku found that mediocrity and mendacity were but poor and unsatisfactory weapons with which to attempt to arrest the march of a modern army, and these were about all the Bolsheviks possessed in their mental arsenal. Above the chaos and welter of discordant opinion arose the murmurings of a discontented, fear-stricken people. They had suffered much from Bolshevik oppression and from Bolshevik ineptitude, and clamoured for a new set ofdramatis personæand the recasting of the principal roles in the Baku tragedy. So these politicalfarceurs, the Bolsheviks, were figuratively hissed off the boards, and disappeareddown the stage trap-door to an oblivion which, alas! was but temporary. They were baffled, but not beaten.
Their places were taken by men holding saner and less violent political views. One of the first official acts of the new Baku Government was to summon the British to their aid.
It was the chance for which Dunsterville had lived and waited, and he lost no time in grasping it. At Enzeli he embarked a mixed force of about two thousand, made up of unattached Imperial and Dominion officers of the original Dunsterforce, a battalion or so of the North Staffords, a detachment of Hants, howitzer and field gun sections, two armoured cars, two sections of the motor machine-gun company, and other sundry units and details which had been commandeered from Resht for the move upon Baku.
The advanced guard disembarked at the Caspian oil port on August 5th, and the remainder speedily followed.
The position in Baku was not one to inspire confidence. There were Bolshevik troops in the town who did not attempt to conceal their displeasure at the arrival of the British. The "Red Committee," too, was gathering fresh strength and planning the overthrow of its successors in office—the Government that had invited Dunsterville to Baku. Muddle and confusion prevailed everywhere. Jealousy, distrust, and bickering were rife amongst the heterogeneous,ill-disciplined mass of Russians and Armenians which passed for an army in Baku. It was computed that there were about 20,000 Russians of various political hues, ranging from bright Bolshevik red to sober Imperial grey, in and around the town, while the number of Armenian auxiliaries was estimated at 5,000. Yet the brunt of the fighting had to be borne by the British infantry, chiefly the North Staffords, for it was rarely that over 5,000 of our more than doubtful allies could be rounded up to assist in holding the far-flung defensive line of Baku.
Despite the stiffening of British troops in the front line, the moral encouragement of British officers, and the active material support of British artillery and British armoured cars, it was found impossible to infuse any real or lasting enthusiasm into the Baku army. It had its own ethics of fighting and stuck to them. War, it was felt, was a job not to be taken too seriously, and must never be allowed to interfere with one's customary distractions, nor with one's business or social engagements. Russians and Armenians would leave a "back to-morrow" message, and casually stroll out of the front-line trenches, whenever they felt in the mood, to go off to attend some political meeting in Baku, or seek refreshment and questionable enjoyment at some of the local cafés.
The position of the unattached British officers was a difficult one in Baku. They were there in anadvisory capacity chiefly, but their counsel and presence were alike resented by all parties, political and military. Suggestions for a more efficient co-operation between infantry and artillery, for the filling up of dangerous gaps in the line, the better siting of trenches, or the establishing of observation posts and the employment of "spotters," were usually received in silence and with a disdainful shrug of the shoulders.
While striving to beat off the Turk outside, the British, too, had to sit on the head of the rabid Bolshevik within, and prevent his regaining his feet and running amuck once more.
The economic situation was also serious. Food supplies were lamentably short, and the available stock was running low. A super-commercial instinct had been developed, and gross profiteering was widely practised. It was true that the pre-war standard value of the paper rouble had suffered a heavy depreciation, but this hardly justified the exorbitant tariff of some of the Baku restaurants. It was no uncommon thing for them to exact five roubles for the bread eaten at meals, and about seventy roubles for the very indifferent meal itself.
Colonel Keyworth, R.H.A., was appointed to the command of the troops in the Baku area. His heavy duties confined him a good deal to the port itself, and he was unable to see very much of the defensive perimeter; but he had excellent coadjutors in Colonel Matthews of the Hants, and in ColonelStokes of the Intelligence Department, an officer who had been for many years British Military Attaché in Teheran. Then, too, there was Lieutenant-Colonel Warden, a blunt, straight-spoken Canadian, and a very keen and efficient infantry soldier whose permanent telegraphic address in Flanders had been "Vimy Ridge." Warden was generally an optimist, but the Baku problem was responsible for his passing sleepless, unhappy nights; and finally he gave up attempting to instil martial ardour into the non-receptive mind of the Baku soldier. In his own racy speech, redolent, of his native prairie, he summed up his efforts in this direction as being as futile as trying to flog a dead horse back to life.
I am not so much concerned with describing the military operations in detail as I am with laying stress upon the many difficulties that beset the path of the British during their first and short-lived occupation of Baku. The wonder is that, instead of giving in after a few days, they were able to cling to the position for weeks.
On August 26th, the Turks, who had been preparing for days, delivered a heavy attack against the Griazni-Vulkan sector. Their advance took place under cover of destructive artillery fire which caused many casualties. The section of the line where the Turks struck first was held by about one hundred and fifty of the North Staffords, supported by four machine-guns of the Armoured Car Brigade. Despite severe losses, the Turks, being reinforced, pressedhome the attack, and the auxiliary troops on the right flank were flung back and forced to retire. At this point two of the machine-guns failed to hear the order to retreat, and fought the Turks until their crew were surrounded and cut off. The other machine-gun section, under Lieutenant Titterington, stuck it to the last, and when they withdrew the Turks were already firing upon them from the rear. But the surviving members of the gun crews managed to "shoot" their way through the ranks of the foe.
The enemy, who had suffered very heavily in the attack of the 26th, resumed the offensive on the 31st, when he bit another slice out of the thinly held line and captured the position known as Vinigradi Hill. After this the Turk advanced from success to success, slowly driving back the garrison on the inner defensive line.
GROUP OF THE STAFFORDS, WHOSE HEROIC ATTEMPT TO RECOVER THE SITUATION FOLLOWING THE ARMENIAN RETIREMENT WILL ALWAYS BE REMEMBERED AT BAKU. THE SCENE WAS AT BALADADAR STATION.GROUP OF THE STAFFORDS, WHOSE HEROIC ATTEMPT TO RECOVER THESITUATION FOLLOWING THE ARMENIAN RETIREMENT WILL ALWAYS BEREMEMBERED AT BAKU. THE SCENE WAS AT BALADADAR STATION.
His crowning victory was the storming of the Voltchi Vorota sector on the morning of September 14th. An Arab officer who deserted two days previously furnished full particulars of the impending attack, but his information was regarded with suspicion. It proved, however, to be absolutely correct, for the enemy made a feigned attack on the neighbouring Baladjari sector and delivered his main blow against Voltchi Vorota. He got home at once, driving out the Russian troops, who retreated in some confusion. An armoured car, however, intervened between the retiring troops and the oncoming enemy, and, although heavily shelled by the Turkish batteries,it manoeuvred adroitly, paralyzing the advance by its deadly fire and allowing the broken Russians time to reform with a leavening of British bayonets. The Turks later in the day converted the feigned into a real attack, and broke through at Baladjari.
This series of reverses contracted the daily shrinking perimeter still more. It was now clear to Dunsterville that his troubled occupancy of Baku had come to an end, and orders were issued for an immediate evacuation. The Bolsheviks had got the upper hand again. Their attitude was doubtful and, in the first instance, they had objected to the troops being withdrawn, threatening to use the Caspian fleet of gunboats to fire on the laden transports should the latter attempt to sail. It was not exactly altruism, nor the promptings of a generous nature, that led them to do this. On the contrary, it was rather a tender regard for their own cowardly skins. Should the victorious enemy storm the town the British would serve as a useful chopping-block upon which the Turks might expend their fury; and, if the worst came to the worst, and there was no other way out of a disagreeable dilemma, grace and favour might be won from the Osmanli by uniting with him in administering thecoup de grâceto the trapped and betrayed remnant of Dunsterville's Army of Occupation.
Although the town lay defenceless and at their mercy, the Turks—victims probably of their periodical inertia—did not follow up their advantage. TheBolsheviks hesitated to strike, and, after the motor-cars, stores, and transport had been destroyed, the evacuation was successfully carried out under the menacing guns of the Caspian Fleet.
Captain Suttor, an Australian officer, and two sergeants, were overlooked in the hurry of embarkation. But they escaped and, boarding a steamer full of Bolshevik fugitives, induced the Captain to land them at Krasnovodsk on the eastern shore of the Caspian and the terminus of the Trans-Caspian Railway. Suttor knew that a British military post had been established there. Of this the Bolsheviks were ignorant, and their fury and amazement were great when they found themselves marched off as prisoners.
SIX-INCH HOWITZER IN ACTION AT BAKU WITH A DETACHMENT OF DUNSTERFORCE GUNNERS.SIX-INCH HOWITZER IN ACTION AT BAKU WITH A DETACHMENTOF DUNSTERFORCE GUNNERS.
The day after the British evacuation of Baku the Turks entered, and for two days the town was given over to pillage, many of the Armenian irregulars being killed in cold blood by the enemy.
Guerrilla warfare—Who the Nestorian and other Christian tribes are—Turkish massacres—Russian withdrawal and its effect—British intervention.
The Nestorians, Jelus, and other racially connected Christian groups who, in the region around Lake Urumia, had been carrying on a guerrilla warfare against the Turks, at the beginning of July were reduced to very sore straits indeed by losses in the field, disease, and famine.
As already related in a previous chapter, Lieutenant Pennington, a British aviator, flew into Urumia in the first week in July, carrying General Dunsterville's assurance of speedy help. The leaders of these Christian peoples, in full accord with the British, decided that after evacuating Urumia an attempt should be made to break through to the south in the direction of Sain Kaleh and Bijar, in order to get in touch with the British relieving column which was marching north from Hamadan bringing ammunition and food supplies.
For the better understanding of this narrative, some explanation is due to the reader as to who andwhat are the Nestorians and their kindred Christian clans who were now about to run the gauntlet of the Turkish Army operating in the Lake Urumia district.
The Nestorians are the followers of the Patriarch of Constantinople who was condemned for heresy in the year A.D. 431. They inhabit Kurdistan and north-western Persia, are also known as Assyrians, and are indeed often loosely referred to as Syrians. They live in that portion of the country which the Bible has familiarized to us as Assyria, and are confusedly termed Syrians, not because they come from Syria proper on the Mediterranean littoral, with its cities of Antioch, Aleppo, and Damascus, but rather because their rubric and sacred writings are in ancient Syriac, while the language of the people themselves is modern Syriac.
Hundreds of years ago the seat of the Nestorian or Assyrian Patriarchate was near Ctesiphon on the Tigris, a short distance below Bagdad. But the Turkish conquerors persecuted the Christians, the Patriarch was forced to flee, and finally took refuge at Qudshanis, in the highlands of Kurdistan. The present spiritual head of the Assyrians, who is ecclesiastically designated Mar Shimun, is said to be the one hundred and thirty-eighth Catholicos, or Patriarch, of the Nestorian Church.
At the outbreak of the European War there were three distinguishable main groups of Assyrian Christians. One inhabited the Upper Tigris Valley beyondMesul and the hilly country towards Lake Van; a second was to be found on the Salmas-Urumia plateau and in the mountainous country bordering on the Persian-Turkish frontier; the third group lived on the Turkish side of the frontier between Lake Van and Urumia. Roughly they may be classified as Highlanders and Lowlanders, with various tribal subdivisions, of which one of the better known is the Jelu group.
Urumia itself is the scene of considerable foreign missionary activity, and is the headquarters of the Anglican, American, French, and Russian religious missions to the Assyrian Christians. Each had its own well-defined sphere of influence, and worked in the broadest spirit of Christian tolerance. When war burst upon this unhappy land, anything in the nature of sectarian rivalry and proselytizing zeal vanished, to give place to a united effort to aid and materially comfort the victims of Turkish fury.
The retreat of the Russians from Urumia, at the beginning of January, 1915, left some thousands of Urumia Christians who were unable to accompany them at the mercy of the Turks and their savage auxiliaries, the Kurds; and the usual massacre followed. The Christians, though poorly armed, defended themselves as best they could, and the survivors were driven to seek sanctuary in the American Mission Compound. Those who surrendered and gave up their arms to the Turks were put to death without mercy. At the beginning of May, 1915, thearmy of Halil Bey, operating in North-Western Persia, was routed by the Russians, who reoccupied Urumia. But the beaten Turks in their retreat westwards killed every Christian tribesman they could find. A second Russian evacuation of Urumia in August, 1915, led to a fresh exodus of the able-bodied Assyrian fighting men, and to another massacre of those who remained behind.
From then until 1918 they had endured all the horrors and vicissitudes of war, with its fluctuations of victory and defeat. The Christian army had put up a brave fight against the Turks after the final Russian withdrawal from North-Western Persia. Now, hemmed in and suffering from hunger, they were about to attempt a third exodus, this time towards the South into the British lines.
During the last week in July the Christian army—probably about 10,000 fighting men, but with its ranks swelled to 30,000 by women and children refugees—withdrew from Urumia and marched southwards. The Turks gave pursuit and much harried their rearguard, which they subjected to artillery fire, inflicting severe losses. Ultimately the retreat under Turkish pressure degenerated into a rout, during which the mass of fugitives was severely cut up. In the course of the panic which prevailed, the Nestorian Army lost its artillery and its remaining supplies, while many of the women and children were abandoned in the generalsauve qui pent, and fell into the hands of the enemy.
The Turks reoccupied Urumia on August 1st, and vented their displeasure upon the defenceless people in the customary Turkish way. The aged were killed, and young girls were carried off and subjected to a fate worse than death.
Mgr. Sontag, the head of the French Lazarist Mission, a saintly man who was revered even by the local Moslems amongst whom he had lived for many years, was one of those who fell victims to the blind fury of the Turkish soldiery when they found themselves once more masters of Urumia.
At Sain Kaleh and Takan Teppeh, to the north-west of Bijar, the British were able to intervene between pursuers and pursued. The Nestorians, a sadly diminished band, were drafted back to Bijar and thence south to Hamadan. Harbouring vindictive feelings against Moslems in general as a result of the atrocities perpetuated upon them by the Turks, it is not perhaps surprising that they in their turn made an onslaught upon the inhabitants of the Persian villages encountereden route, and left them in much the same condition as the man who, going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, fell among thieves.
Mar Shimun, the spiritual head, and Agha Petros, the recognized military leader, accompanied the Nestorians from Urumia. The survivors of the exodus were put in a concentration camp at Hamadan with their women and children. The able-bodied and healthy amongst the men were subsequently drafted out and sent to Bakuba near Bagdad, wherean attempt was made by the British to organize and train them into fighting units. They received good pay and rations, but proved very difficult material to handle. Their wild, free lives had apparently unfitted them for a régime of discipline and ordered restraint. A large contingent refused to sign attestation papers lest they should be sent to fight overseas. It was useless attempting to reassure them on this point, and to tell them that all the military service they were expected to render in return for British pay and British rations was that of defending their own country against the common enemy, the Turk. It may be that their physical sufferings had demoralized them, but the irregulars of Agha Petros were incapable of attaining an ordinary degree of military efficiency as judged by British standards. They were a perpetual source of embarrassment to the British officers entrusted with their training. The experiment proved a failure, and at last, on the Turks suing for an armistice, the men of Agha Petros' command were disbanded and sent back to their own country.
The last phase—Dunsterforce ceases to exist—The end of Turkish opposition—Off to Bijar—The Kurdish tribes—Raids on Bijar—Moved on by a policeman—Governor and poet.
It was in South-Western Kurdistan that I saw the last phase of the war between the Turks and ourselves.
At the end of September, Dunsterforce had ceased to exist, at any rate under that name. Dunsterville himself had gone down to Bagdad to discuss the whole Caucasian and North Persian situation with General Headquarters, and the officers of Dunsterforce had either gone back to their units in France, Salonika, and Egypt, or had been absorbed by the North Persian force which was concentrating under General Thompson at Enzeli for a fresh smack at the Turk in Baku.
After his capture of the oilfields' port, the enemy seemed to have reached the last stages of physical exhaustion, and to be incapable of further effort. His push through from Tabriz towards Zinjan and Kasvin had been finally arrested, and he had been driven back to his entrenchments on the Kuflan Kuh Pass, where he was well content to sit down toa peaceful, inoffensive life, smoke his hubble-bubble, nurse his blistered feet lacerated by long marches on unfriendly Persian roads, and, in general, by his exemplary behaviour earn "good conduct" marks from the inhabitants of the zone of occupation.
But in the country to the west of Mianeh and south of Lake Urumia the enemy was still inclined to spasmodic activity. It was in this region that he had harried the Nestorian Army as it was fighting its way to the south and to safety. At the beginning of October, 1918, the Turks held Sauj Bulagh, the local capital of the Kurds of Azerbaijan, Sakiz, Sain Kaleh, and Takan Teppeh, all of which were in more or less precarious touch with Kowanduz on the western slopes of the Kurdistan Range, and thence with the main and sole surviving Turkish Mesopotamian Army which was clinging tenaciously to Mosul. Their occupation of these several strategic points on the Persian side of the frontier enabled the Turks to threaten the British post at Bijar, on the confines of South-Western Kurdistan, and in a sense to menace the British occupation of Hamadan.
GENERAL VIEW OF THE SCENE FOLLOWING THE ARMENIAN RETIREMENT.GENERAL VIEW OF THE SCENE FOLLOWING THE ARMENIAN RETIREMENT.
But Allenby's smashing blow at the Turk in Palestine had its repercussion in the remote highlands of Persia and in the remoter region of the Caspian Sea. Its effect was instantaneous. It broke the Turkish grip on Baku and appreciably loosened his hold on Azerbaijan. He withdrew from Mianeh and made ready to evacuate Tabriz and retire into his own territory in an eleventh-hour effort tobuttress up his remaining Asiatic provinces which, one after the other, were tottering beneath the sledgehammer blows of the British.
Early in October the wheel of fate and the illness of a brother officer led to my being transferred from Caspian Headquarters to Bijar, as Assistant Political Officer and Intelligence Officer. I looked it up on the map and started. It was a long and interesting zigzag trek across Persia, first south-west to Hamadan, then north-west to Bijar and the wild country of the Kurdish tribes.
Few Europeans can lay claim to any intimate knowledge of Kurdistan and its predatory but fascinating people. It is distinctly remote from the beaten tourist track. Russian and German travellers and scholars have nibbled at the ethnological and philological problems which it presents, and, much more recently, our own Major Soane in his remarkable book, "Through Kurdistan in Disguise," draws aside the veil a little, and we are able to take a peep at Kurdish life and manners naturally portrayed.
Kurdistan cannot be said to possess either natural or political boundaries, for it embraces both Persian and Turkish territory, and in it live people who are not racially Kurds. Broadly speaking, it may be said to stretch from Turkish Armenia on the north to the Luristan Mountains on the south, and the Turkish-Persian frontier cuts it into two longitudinal sections. Persian Kurdistan, then, is bounded by Azerbaijan on the north, the Turkish frontier on thewest, Kermanshah on the south, and Khamseh and Hamadan on the east. Its old administrative capital is Sinneh.
Its geographical outline is one of bold and rugged mountains which in winter are covered deep in snow. Narrow valleys run far into the flank of the towering hills, and it is here, taking advantage of these natural barriers, that the villages cluster and the inhabitants attempt to keep warm during the long, bitter, and often fireless, winter months.
A nonsense rhymester who evidently knew something of the proclivities of the Kurds once scored a palpable bull's-eye on the target of truth when he wrote:
"The hippo's a dull but honest old bird;I wish I could say the same of the Kurd."
The Kurds themselves have more traducers than friends outside their own country. As the great majority of them are Sunni Moslems, it has been pointed out, and with a certain element of truth, that the root of the Persian-Kurdish Question is the religious hatred between Sunni and Shi'ah, just as the root of the Turkish problem is the undying hatred between Moslems and Christians. Kurmanji, the main Kurdish language, has been incorrectly described as a corrupt dialect of Persian, whereas it is really a distinct philological entity, tracing an unbroken descent from the ancient Medic or Avestic tongue of Iran.
I had a good deal to do officially with several ofthe principal Kurdish tribes, such as the Mukhri, Mandumi, and Galbaghi, while I was stationed at Bijar, and I cannot agree with the generally accepted estimate of their character as "a lazy, good-for-nothing set of thieves." They are admittedly fierce and intractable, of noted predatory habits, and ready to prey with equal impartiality upon Persian or Christian neighbour. On the other hand, I found that they were neither cruel nor treacherous; they are never lacking in courage, and possess a rude, but well-defined sense of hospitality and chivalry.
Unarmed, save for a riding-crop, and accompanied only by a few Sowars, I have gone into their villages in search of raiders—not always a pleasant task amongst Asiatic hill tribes—and the inhabitants would be amiability itself. Here one saw the happier side of these wild, free people who, revelling in the unrestrained life and the health-giving ozone of their native mountains, find the trammelling yoke of modern civilization about as irksome and fearful an infliction as a bit and saddle are to an unbroken colt.
What I liked about the Kurds was their habit—the common inheritance of most free men—of looking their interlocutor straight in the face. Their women, many possessing great physical beauty, and glorious creatures all, would crowd round to do the honours to those visiting their village. Amongst the Kurds the women are allowed a great deal of freedom. They shoot and ride like so many Amazons. It is true they are the hewers of wood and the drawers ofwater in the village or community, but, save for lacking parliamentary enfranchisement, they do not seem to have many grievances against the masculine portion of the Kurdish world. They always go unveiled, are not a bit "man-shy," and, unlike their Moslem sisters in Turkey and Persia, do not consider themselves spiritually defiled when their faces are gazed upon by some Infidel whom chance has thrown across their path.
From this I do not wish it to be inferred that the Kurdish women are immodest in conduct, or of what might be described as "flighty morals." Far from it.
These self-same tribesmen who received us so hospitably in their villages, and gave us entertainment of their best—treating us in friendly fashion according to their laws, because we had come trusting to their honour in the guise of friends and without hostile intent—would, when they took the "war path" and raided a British post, put up a spirited fight, fully bent on killing or being killed.
Persian Kurds are largely pastoral and nomadic. There are the sedentary tribes who are the tillers of the soil and never move very far away from home. The nomads, on the other hand, roam with their flocks and herds and womenfolk from winter to summer quarters and vice versa, and it is during these periodical migrations that the inherited predatory instincts of the Kurds are given free rein. Many are the armed forays made on a peacefulPersian neighbour's stock. Often there is resistance, and occasionally an attempt at reprisals; so a respectably-sized Persian-Kurdish hill-war may have had as its origin the theft of half a dozen goats by Kurdish robbers. Stray bands of brigands who had made life more than usually interesting for some Persian village or other, if pursuit became too vigorous and they were threatened with capture, were always able to escape the consequences of their depredations by slipping over the frontier and seeking bast (sanctuary) in Turkish territory.
Whether the Kurds are, or are not, the descendants of those first-class fighting men of long ago who opposed the retreat of the Ten Thousand through the bleak mountain passes of Kurdistan, they undeniably are imbued with a certain pride of ancestry which manifests itself in various little ways. No pure nomadic Kurd will ever engage in manual labour, which he looks upon as a disgrace, and a job fit only for helots, nor will he become a Charvadar (muleteer).
The Kurd undoubtedly possesses an unenviable reputation for lawlessness amongst the more law-abiding Persians and Turks of this wild and turbulent frontier land. He is handicapped, perhaps, to this extent, that, being an alien to the Turk in language, and to the Persian in religion, he is looked upon as a pariah, and the hand of both is ever raised against him. Being resentful and overbearing, if not arrogant, in manner, and knowing no legal code beyond that which a rifle imposes, he seeks to enforce hisown arbitrary ready-made justice, to call it by that name. So the merry game goes on, and up amongst the snows of Kurdistan Persian and Kurd and Turk kill each other on the slightest pretext, and often for no ascertainable cause.
The Kurd is always well armed, and usually well mounted—often at the expense of some lowland Persian villager. He invariably affects the national costume, which is an abbreviated coat and enormous baggy trousers, with a capacious Kamarband of coloured silk in which he carries pipe, knife, and odds and ends.
Ten armed Kurds riding into Bijar, a town of 10,000 inhabitants, would start a panic in the Bazaar. Shutters would go up and shopkeepers would vanish as if by magic, while the small force of Persian police in the place, who were usually suffering from the combined effects of malnutrition and arrears of pay, would discreetly go to cover, and not be seen again until the visitors had departed. Usually a British military policeman, armed with a stout stick, would be sent to handle the delicate situation, to see that there was no looting, and that the King's peace was preserved inviolate by these quarrel-seeking, pilfering rascals from beyond the hills.
Bijar itself, unhappily for the peace of mind and pocket of its shopkeeper-citizens and wealthy agriculturists, is unhealthily near the "Bad Man's Land" of the nomad Kurds. It is built in a cup-shapedhollow surrounded by barren peaks, and its altitude (5,200 feet) gives it a rigorous winter climate. The enclosed gardens which usually lend a touch of picturesque embellishment even to the meanest and dirtiest of Persian towns are lacking at Bijar. It grows wheat and corn in abundance on the long, wide plateau which stretches unbrokenly for miles between the bare, rugged hills. The arable land is so fertile, and its acreage so abundant, that but one-third is cultivated yearly. The average wheat yield is enormous, yet the people are always hovering on the border-line of starvation, the result of mismanagement, misappropriation, and all the other evils which may be grouped together under the head of Persian official maladministration.
When the British marched into Bijar in the summer of 1918 anarchy and disorder were paramount. The Persian Government is supposed to keep a garrison here, but the oldest inhabitants had never seen it. If it did exist, it was carefully hidden away and not allowed to meddle in such troublesome affairs as Kurdish forays. The Turks during their occupancy looted Bijar very thoroughly, and roving Kurds, too, when short of supplies—and that was often—never forgot to extend their unwelcome patronage to the local bazaars, on the principle of "Blessed is he that taketh, for he shall not want."
The Governor was a local resident, and his office an unpaid one as far as the Persian treasury was concerned; but his power was great and his rulearbitrary, and the post brought him considerable emoluments. He was a timid and vacillating but well-meaning individual, who always trembled at the knees when brought face to face with the unusual. The mere brandishing of a loaded pistol anywhere in his immediate vicinity would throw him into a paroxysm of terror. He spoke halting French, and was afflicted with the prevailing Persian mania for verse-writing. Still, he never allowed his literary pursuits to clash with or nullify his keen commercial instincts; and he grew daily in affluence.
But even a Persian peasant has his limits of endurance when he finds himself being ground to fine powder in the mill of oppression and corruption. Those of the Bijar district were no exception. After having been systematically looted all round, by Turk, Kurd, and dishonest local officials, they rose in revolt when a demand was made upon them for the payment of the Government Maliat, or grain tribute. They followed up an emphatic refusal by threatening to duck the Governor and his coadjutor, the Tax-collector, in the local horsepond. The latter fled the town, while as for the terrified Governor, he promptly shut himself up, seeking bast (sanctuary) with an ill-armed following within the sacred precincts of his serai. From the roof, one of his retinue, using his hands for a megaphone, sent out an urgent S.O.S. call to the British, with the result that a compromise was effected; the Governor was rescued from his undignified plight, and the angry peasantswere appeased by his promise that the collection of the unpopular tax would rest in abeyance until Teheran gave its decision on the subject.
Our job in sitting down in Bijar was to hold the place against the Turks and prevent their coming back, to instil a little wholesome respect for law and order into the minds of the plunder-loving Kurds, and to stop them from eating up the smaller and unprotected Persian fry. To keep the Turk at bay and hold the Kurd in awe, we had approximately a couple of squadrons of the 14th Hussars, under Colonel Bridges, a detachment of the Gloucesters in charge of Captain Stephenson, machine-gun and mountain battery sections, and a couple of hundred of Persian levies who were commanded by Captain Williams, an Australian officer. Colonel Bridges was in command of the whole force. The total certainly did not err on the side of numerical superiority.
The day after I reached Bijar the Governor arrived to pay an official call. After the usual formalities as laid down by Persian etiquette for ceremonies of this kind had been safely negotiated, he begged my acceptance of a manuscript copy of his poems, and incidentally hinted that, as the district was in the throes of famine, he would have no objection to collaborating in the purchasing of wheat with British money in order to alleviate the prevailing distress.