East and West of Zagros

East and West of Zagros

Iran Studies Editorial Board

Ali Gheissari University of San Diego, CA

Roy P. Mottahedeh Harvard University

Yann Richard Sorbonne Nouvelle

Christoph Werner University of Marburg

VOLUME 4

Cecil Edmonds. From the collection of Hugh Edmonds

East and West of Zagros Travel, War and Politics in Persia and Iraq 1913–1921

By

C. J. Edmonds

Edited, and with an introduction by

Yann Richard

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2010

On the cover: Fixing a puncture on the Qazvin-Isfahan road; Asad as-Saltana, Governor of Qazvin, C. J. Edmonds. From Edmonds’s albums, Archives of the MEC, St. Antony’s College, Oxford. C. J. Edmonds, Nizam as-Sultan and TFH Graves hunting near Qazvin. From Edmonds’s albums, Archives of the MEC, St. Antony’s College, Oxford. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Edmonds, C. J. (Cecil John) East and west of Zagros : travel, war, and politics in Persia and Iraq, 1913-1921 / by C.J. Edmonds/edited by Yann Richard. p. cm. — (Iran studies, ISSN 1569-7401 ; v. 4) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-17344-6 (hbk. : alk. paper) 1. Iran—Description and travel. 2. Iraq—Description and travel. 3. Edmonds, C. J. (Cecil John)—Travel—Iran. 4. Edmonds, C. J. (Cecil John)—Travel—Iraq. 5. British—Iran—Biography. 6. Diplomatic and consular service, British—Iran—History—20th century. 7. Iran—Politics and government—1911-1925. 8. Iran—History—Jangali movement, 1914-1921. 9. Iran—History—Coup d‘état, 1921. 10. World War, 19141918—Campaigns—Iraq. I. Title. II. Series. DS258.E34 2009 940.3’2241092—dc22 [B] 2009033917

ISSN 1569-7401 ISBN 978 9004 17344 6 Copyright 2010 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Brill has made all reasonable efforts to trace all right holders to any copyrighted material used in this work. In cases where these efforts have not been successful the publisher welcomes communications from copyright holders, so that the appropriate acknowledgements can be made in future editions, and to settle other permission matters. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands

CONTENTS List of Illustrations and Maps ......................................................... Foreword by Yann Richard .............................................................. Preface .................................................................................................

vii xi xix

PART I

THE PERSIAN GULF Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six

Introduction ....................................................... Cambridge to Constantinople ......................... Constantinople to Bushire ............................... Life at Bushire .................................................... First Caravan Journey ....................................... Prelude to the Zimmermann Telegram .........

3 11 21 33 49 61

PART II

LOWER MESOPOTAMIA Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven

Basra .................................................................... The Tigris Front ................................................. Amara .................................................................. The Great Swamp .............................................. The Euphrates Line ...........................................

81 89 101 115 131

PART III

SOUTH-WEST PERSIA Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen

The Karun Front ........................................... Shushtar ......................................................... Dizful .............................................................. Luristan .......................................................... Among the Dirakvand ................................. Dizful to Burujird .........................................

143 157 171 185 195 205

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Chapter Eighteen The Russian Front .......................................... Chapter Nineteen Through Pish-i Kuh .......................................

213 223

PART IV

NORTH-WEST PERSIA Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-Three Chapter Twenty-Four Chapter Twenty-Five

Norperforce ........................................... Gilan and Khamsa ................................ Transcaucasian Interlude .................... Qazvin and Tabriz ................................ The Bolshevik Invasion ........................ Coup d’Etat in Tehran .........................

235 251 265 277 295 309

Appendices .......................................................................................... A. Supplementary pages .............................................................. 1. Ch. VIII: Mesopotamia, 1916 ........................................... 2. The Song of Qadam Khayr (see ch. XVI) ...................... 3. Dunsterville Mission (from ch. XX, Nonperforce) ....... B. Glossary .................................................................................... C. Bibliography—Author’s Bibliography (C. J. Edmonds) ....................................................................... D. Biographical Notes (Y. Richard) .......................................... E. Additional Bibliography (Y. Richard) .................................

321 323 323 326 327 331 335 339 369

Index ....................................................................................................

371

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS Illustrations C. J. Edmonds riding on ‘No Trumps’ at Bushire (on the right). From the collection of Hugh Edmonds .................................... The Turkish Consulate of Bushire, 1913. From Edmonds’s albums, Archives of the Middle East Centre, St Antony’s College, Oxford .............................................................................. Wassmuss. From Wipert von Blücher, Zeitenwende im Iran: Erlebnisse und Beobachtungen, Biberach an der Riss, 1949 ..... W. G. Neale. From the collection of Hugh Edmonds ................ C. J. Edmonds at Kut al-Amara. From the collection of Claud and Marion Rebbeck ..................................................................... S. L. Muhammara at Kut al-Amara, November 1915. From the collection of Claud and Marion Rebbeck ................................. G. Grahame, Percy Cox and C. J. Edmonds. From the collection of Claud and Marion Rebbeck ................................. A mashhuf. From the collection of Claud and Marion Rebbeck .... House of the A.P.O. Suq ash-Shuyukh, June-July 1916. From the collection of Hugh Edmonds ............................................... Visit of Gertrude Bell and Ibn Saud to Basra, 1916. At the right hand of Ibn Saud is Shaykh Khaz’al; on his left Sir Percy Cox and Gertrude Bell. From the collection of Hugh Edmonds .............................................................................. Nizam as-Saltana (in the middle) with his “Government in exile” in 1915: on his right Hasan Mudarris (Justice) and on his left Adib as-Saltana (Interior). From Wipert von Blücher, Zeitenwende im Iran: Erlebnisse und Beobachtungen, Biberach an der Riss, 1949 .............................. Document signed by Soane, 21 Nov. 1915, for the repartition of irrigation between landowners. (From Sd Md-ʿAli Imām Ahvāzī, Maqālātī dar bāra-yi tārīkh-i juqrafyāʾī-i Dizful, Dizful, Markaz-i Dizful-shināsī, 1373/1994). With thanks to Aladin Gushegir ............................................................................. Shushtar savars. From the collection of Hugh Edmonds ...........

37

42 44 47 87 90 96 116 132

135

144

153 161

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Ceremony of Dizful Bridge, 15 April 1917. From Edmonds’s albums, Archives of the MEC, St Antony’s College, Oxford ............................................................................................. Bridge of Dizful after repair, with head mason in foresight, 1918. From Edmonds’s albums, Archives of the MEC, St Antony’s College, Oxford .............................................................................. Present state of the carved stone with the end of the inscription. (From Sd Md-‘Ali Imām Ahvāzī, Maqālātī dar bāra-yi tārīkh-i juqrafyāʾī-i Dizful, Dizful, Markaz-i Dizful-shināsī, 1373/1994). With thanks to Aladin Gushegir ............................. Palace of Khurramabad, from the fort. From Edmonds’s albums, Archives of the Middle East Centre, St Antony’s College, Oxford .............................................................................. Major-Gen. L. C. Dunsterville, 1920. From L. C. Dunsterville, Stalky’s reminiscences, London, Jonathan Cape, 4th ed., 1928 ..... Transport of Dunsterforce troops near Hamadan. From M. H. Donohoe, With the Persian Expedition, London, Edw. Arnold, 1919 ................................................................................... Hospital ship in the Persian Gulf, 1916. From Edmonds’s albums, Archives of the Middle East Centre, St Antony’s College, Oxford .............................................................................. North Gate to Qazvin. From M. H. Donohoe, With the Persian expedition, London, Edw. Arnold, 1919, p. 90 ......................... My house in Qazvin. From Edmonds’s albums, Archives of the Middle East Centre, St Antony’s College, Oxford ............ Manjil Bridge. From Fr. Rosen, Persien in Wort und Bild, Berlin/ Leipzig/ Wien/ Bern, Franz Schneider, 1926 ............................... Hotel d’Europe at Rasht, 1918. From M. H. Donohoe, With the Persian expedition, London, Edw. Arnold, 1919, p. 64 ............ Amir Afshar. From Edmonds’s albums, Archives of the MEC, St Antony’s College, Oxford ........................................................ Amir Afshar with grandsons, dogs, hawks. From Edmonds’s albums, Archives of the MEC, St Antony’s College, Oxford ............................................................................................. C. B. Stokes. From M. Shuster, The Strangling of Persia, New York, The Century Co., 1912 ............................................. British Legation in Tehran. From Edmonds’s albums, Archives of the MEC, St Antony’s College, Oxford ................................

179

180

180

211 227

228

231 242 243 252 254 260

261 267 271

list of illustrations and maps Colonel Starosselsky, a few days before his dismissal. From Edmonds’s albums, Middle East Centre Archives, St Antony’s College, Oxford ........................................................ Edmonds, Nizam as-Sultan and Graves. From Edmonds’s lbums, Archives of the MEC, St Antony’s College, Oxford ..... Nizam as-Sultan and Amir Nusrat at Faizabad. From the Archives of the MEC, St Antony’s College, Oxford. ............... Tabriz manifesto, French and Persian. From Edmonds’s files box 6/5, Archives of the MEC, St Antony’s College, Oxford ......... Ark of Tabriz. From A. V. W. Jackson, Persia Past and Present. A Book of Travel and Research, New York, The Macmillan Company—London, Macmillan, 1906 ....................................... Blue Mosque of Tabriz. From A. V. W. Jackson, Persia Past and Present. A Book of Travel and Research, New York, The Macmillan Company—London, Macmillan, 1906 .......... RE8 aircraft flying over mountains in Kurdistan. From C. J. Edmonds, Kurds, Turks, and Arabs : politics, travel and research in North-Eastern Iraq, 1919–1925. London—New York, Oxford University Press, 1957 ......................................... Ahmad Shah meets British officers at Qazvin on his way back from Europe, 3 June 1920. From the collection of Hugh Edmonds ......................................................................................... Kāzim Khan, Col. H. Smyth, Major-General Sir George Cory, and H. C. Norman (British Minister in Tehran), 21 March 1921. From the collection of Hugh Edmonds ..........................

ix

273 278 280 286

291

292

296

302

311

Maps Western Persia at the beginning of the twentieth century. The name Anabistan was used by Qajars intead of Khuzistan and Luristan ................................................................ Bushire and surroundings ................................................................ Bushire 1910 ....................................................................................... Lower Mesopotamia .......................................................................... South-West Iran showing Khuzistan and Luristan........................

xxii 2 2 80 234

FOREWORD For many students of Iran, Edmonds is the name of an obscure British officer in Persia, appearing in bibliographies about Luristan or Kurdistan. Some scholars quote his interview with Khiabani.1 It took me some time to understand that the huge amount of documents held in the archives of the Middle East Centre of St Antony’s College, Oxford—diaries, correspondence, copies of official reports, photographs, maps and the manuscript of the present book—represents a treasury too long neglected by historians. Publishing this last book, which Edmonds himself edited, is the least that can be done to recognize his achievements. Who was C. J. Edmonds? Third son of a British missionary who died before he was born, Cecil John Edmonds (1889–1979) stayed in Japan until the age of eight. He was educated in England at Bedford and Christ’s Hospital public schools and finally studied oriental languages at Cambridge under the supervision of E. G. Browne for two years. As he tells us in this book, he entered Cambridge with a good knowledge of classical languages (Greek and Latin), French, German, Italian and Spanish. He received, in only two years, a high level training in Ottoman Turkish, Arabic and Persian before he went to the Middle East. His first appointment was originally to a consulate in the Ottoman Empire, but he was eventually sent to Bushire (Būshihr) in the Persian Gulf in his first job as Vice-Consul (December 1913–April 1915). Bushire was not only an important Iranian port but also the main historical centre of British presence in the region, with a Resident. Edmonds did not like the place, but he made some good friends (among them Chick), had close contact with the local population and learnt the duties of consular services in a quasi-colonial environment. With the outbreak of the First World War, Edmonds’s presence was soon requested in

1 See for example Homa Katouzian, State and society in Iran. The eclipse of the Qajars and the emergence of the Pahlavis, London—New York, I. B. Tauris, 2000.

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Mesopotamia where he served as a Political Officer, dealing principally with administrative relations and intelligence among the southern populations (Shi’a Arabs) of the marsh. His descriptions of the local life in this watery environment is reminiscent of Wilfred Thesiger’s The Marsh Arabs, which famously describes the same region thirty years later. In summer 1916 Edmonds was given three months leave to India after a bout of malaria. Back at the front, Edmonds was sent to Persia, and became involved in a new strategic prioritiy of British forces in the region, the protection of the oil fields of Khuzistan. He was appointed Assistant Political Officer in Shushtar (November 1916), then in Dizful (March 1917). “I have always looked back on my time at Shushtar as among the happiest three months of my early career. I was young enough to cherish illusions, and I really believed that several thousand victims of oppression had been made the happier for the presence of an A.P.O. Thanks entirely to British prestige, then at its highest, nothing had gone wrong, and there had been no time for reaction.” In Dizful, his local duties included administration, justice and public order. He was particularly concerned with relations with the tribes, the consolidation of the Bakhtiari alliance and curbing the infiltration of German agents in Luristan. The travels between Dizful and Hamadan were complicated and interesting. Edmonds describes the places he sees with precision and never forgets to furnish geographical settings, altitude, names of mountains and rivers, and to recall the memories of local populations, their internal relations, their toughness. Not only folklore but linguistic particularities, religious features and male and female dress are also always meticulously described. This was a hard time for Edmonds, who had to comply with local customs without forgetting his role of peacekeeper. Edmonds’s experiences in Shushtar and Dizful give insights into relations with local elites, whether tribal, administrative (Qajar governors) or religious. Astonishingly, he never encountered, according to his own memories, any large-scale xenophobic feelings. He was at home in these small towns without relinquishing his Britishness, happy to find occasionally, in Hamadan or Kirmanshah, later Baghdad, Qazvin or Tehran, people with whom he could socialize more freely. See, for example, what he says about his arrival in Kirmanshah on 31 January 1918 in chapter XVIII. His dealings with the local population provide an unexpected view of Iranian provincial life during the very difficult period of the war. Economic problems were constant, but, except at the end in the

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Hamadan-Kirmanshah region where Russian and Ottoman armies led disastrous campaigns for two years, Edmonds does not show the permanent misery that might have been expected. The discussion of such issues as women veiling or unveiling (and bathing naked in the river at Shushtar or Dizful) are as surprising as the private conversation he had with the sister of his host in a remote dwelling of the Dirakvand Lurs. In all these encounters, Edmonds takes notes: he writes for himself, for his official reports, for future books or articles, for the sake of learning. He hires a learned man to teach him the local language (Lurish); he wants to know everything, to understand affiliation and genealogy in tribal families; he writes down a local popular song about an extraordinary woman (Qadam Khayr). He is a model of curiosity not only for the intelligence officer on duty, but for the orientalist researcher. The two aspects were probably intertwined, which would meet with disapproval today, but Edmonds acted in a profound desire to understand the people around him. Back in Dizful, promoted to the rank of Political Officer, Edmonds was called to Ahwaz where he signed an agreement with the Bakhtiaris for the protection of oil fields and fell victim to typhoid fever. He was repatriated to England. Just recovering, he was driven back to hospital by the Spanish influenza which had affected so many in Persia before reaching Europe populations suffering from malnutrition at the end of a devastating war. Eventually, in April 1919, Edmonds returned to the Orient. At first appointed in Mesopotamia again, June 1919 he discovered the north of Iraq in, a region which he was to know better in later years, and was sent to Persia at the end of summer. There, at the Qazvin headquarters, he worked with Percy Cox whom he knew from Bushire and Basra and whom he later followed to Baghdad, when he was appointed adviser officially to the Ministry of the Interior, but in fact to King Faysal. Having acquired a unique expertise in Kurdish affairs, Edmonds continued to work after his retirement from the Foreign Office (1940) and taught Kurdish at the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London between 1951 and 1957. He is the author, with Taufiq Wahby, of a Kurdish dictionary. In 1957 Edmonds published Kurds, Turks, and Arabs: politics, travel and research in North-Eastern Iraq, 1919–1925, based on the diaries of his activities in Iraq after the war, but his Persian experience, which he carefully preserved in typescript, remained unpublished, despite his efforts, when he died in 1979. Many reasons might explain Edmonds’s belated decision to release useful material. It may have been so important to him that he did not want to publish it in

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haste. Some parts of the present book have been published as articles, for example the story about the Zimmermann telegram or the Luristan journey (see Edmonds’s bibliography). Unfortunately some of Edmonds’s notes, for the sensitive period 1920–21, went missing: “My private diary from 1 April 1920 onwards was lost just two years later in a tribal rising in Kurdistan. For the main outline of my story I have been able to refer to my official monthly reports and a few other letters of which I preserved copies. But from now onwards I have to rely, for my more personal experiences, on fading memories of long-past events jogged by these papers and a number of photographs that have survived.” This period is the time of the coup d’état of February 1921 in which Edmonds was indirectly involved. No publication, before 1972,2 had ever described precisely the role of the British in the seizing of power by Sayyid Ziya and Riza Shah, despite constant rumours that attributed the initiative behind the coup to them from the first. It can be assumed that, explicitly or implicitly, pressure was exerted on all British officials to remain discreet about a successful political change that in a way tied the Pahlavi regime to the United Kingdom. General Ironside’s memoirs, edited fifteen years after his death in 1957 by his son Lord Ironside, might have been an incentive for Edmonds, even though he does not focus exclusively on the period of the coup and does not give much information—at least in appearance—about its preparation. Ironside attributes the decision about the takeover and the choice of Riza Khan among other candidates to himself, and he does not mention Sayyid Ziya. Sayyid Ziya, however, in an unpublished book that was partly released after the Revolution of 1979, says that he was the first to plan the coup, and did it with the assistance of two officers from the Gendarmerie, Kayhan and Sayyah, who helped him to choose Riza Khan as the military executive. And the official version of the Pahlavis, up to 1979, had it that Riza was the only one behind the coup, taking Ziya into his plot as a political tool to fool the British.3 In short, Edmonds gives credibility to Ziya’s version without undermining the role of others.

2

Major-General Sir Edmund Ironside, High road to command, London, Leo Cooper, 1972. 3 See Yann Richard, “Le coup d’État de 1921 et les sources historiques”, Studia Iranica, 38 (2009).

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Why is this book important? The present book gives a vivid—should I say positive?—view of what the British were doing in Persia, whatever their role in staging the coup. Edmonds was not only talented, he was well educated and prepared to deal with very trying situations, both intellectually and physically. In the consular service as well as in his loosely defined duties as Political Officer, he had to solve practical questions, judicial, political, human, where no definite guidelines were given. In Shushtar and Dizful, he acted as if he were the real Governor, taking decisions which the Persian Governor merely approved afterwards. I had been so careful to respect the position and dignity of Prince Ayn al-Mulk [the Governor], while using all my influence to support his authority, that I was not a little chagrined when, even before the end of December [1916], he announced his intention of resigning. He assured me that his decision was in no way connected with my activities but was dictated by purely personal reasons. I have already mentioned that the monthly allotment for the Government of Khuzistan was being paid by the Persian Customs Administration under pressure from Sir Percy Cox, and that until November most of this had been going into the Governor’s pocket. From December however (I do not remember exactly how this came to be arranged) the funds had been placed under the A.P.O.’s personal control, leaving to the Governor only his scheduled share, the remainder being devoted to the Law Court (where for the first few weeks no fees had been charged), the police, the road-guards, the Bakhtiyari ‘escort’ and other institutions, any unspent balance being carried over to the next month; and I had little doubt that this was the real reason. He left for Basra on 25th January to take leave of Sir Percy Cox, and though he returned at the beginning of March, he left for Tehran shortly afterwards.

This episode shows clearly that, by controlling the finances, the British authorities had the upper hand over the whole region and its legal administration. The prince takes leave of the British authorities before going for good. British power did not care for more official recognition. Even with the cultural distance, Edmonds’s approach is not devoid of sympathy and confidence. He admires the ways of the Persians, their etiquette, their social manners, their hospitality, and, even when he says that he was scared by the violence that sometimes threatened him, he likes the experience of riding in remote places under extreme heat as well as in snow, hawking with various people and discovering beautiful landscapes and antique ruins. He goes to remote places facing many dangers, describing with amusement and interest all he sees.

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The Edmonds files in the Middle East Centre Archive of St Antony’s College provide a complete set of historical documents which can be evaluated in different forms: a. On-the-spot documents. These are the first casual notes written in pencil, generally in “Army Book 152, Field Service”, sometimes in difficult conditions (camping on a journey through the marsh or in the Luristan mountains). Some of these notebooks are kept in box 8 of the Edmonds collection in the Archive. Also in this category are personal letters, written without draft, dated and situated. Even when these letters have little to offer about the political settings, the information they do provide, however personal, is reliable as firsthand evidence. b. Photographs and maps. When Edmonds has written a date or legend in his album, pictures can be taken as historical documents. However many photographs lack date and legend and cannot be precisely situated. Maps where Edmonds has added some personal information (names) are another factual source. c. Diaries. Generally written at home, in ink, with some days’ delay, but with a fair degree of documentary evidence. They give much factual information, names, places and times. Sometimes they are a refinement of the notes taken on the spot. Finally, before putting the diaries into a book of memoirs, Edmonds had them typed, slightly amended (with research on correct names, writing of abbreviations in full, etc.). This shows the extreme care he took to preserve any detail, any factual information. d. Reports of all kinds, but mostly those written as Political Officer, either occasionally or monthly, aimed at transmitting intelligence of all kinds (economic, political, social, religious, etc., including information on personalities). These reports are rather formal, omitting subjective elements. They inform us of the kind of intelligence wanted by central authorities, their concern about security, trade and local administration. e. Written discourse for public use, either articles or books, where Edmonds has filtered his information in order to retain the attention of readers. Trivial details, such as dates or names of people who do not need to be specifically identified, may be omitted. This type of discourse is less reliable for historians who need to go

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back to closer evidence. For example, High Road to Command, the book produced from the diaries of General Ironside, does not have the same value as the actual diaries where Ironside wrote down, nearly every day, reflections or accounts of events that he thought were worth keeping on paper for himself. Extracts from the diaries released by the two historians who were able to read them show the distance between original and edited memoirs. The same is true for Edmonds. Fortunately, in this case, Edmonds wrote the text of his memoirs himself. And for most of the period covered by East and West of Zagros, the diaries are easily available, except, it is true, for the most sensitive period. This weakens his account of the coup d’Etat: written by a man in his eighties, about fifty years after the event, it brings original elements, it relies on the official reports which the author sent to London4 when on duty in Qazvin, but it gives a somewhat blurred impression, which requires caution. For example, it tells us that Edmonds has met Sayyid Ziya for the first time in Qazvin when the latter was on his way to Baku (November 1919). They met several times and became friends in the Caucasus (during the five or six days when Edmonds was there, in December); they met again in Qazvin on Ziya’s return in March 1920 and more often in Tehran afterwards. Thus the sentence “Sayyid Ziya, whom I had continued to see frequently in Qazvin or Tehran since his return from the Caucasus”, in the last chapter on the coup d’état, introduces a doubt. It is known that Riza Khan was not familiar with the Sayyid and that their first meeting occurred on the eve of the coup. They mistrusted each other from the beginning. For obvious reasons, Ziya had avoided being seen with Riza and did not see him in Qazvin before the coup. Other details on the coup, such as Riza Khan’s contacts with Dickson or his thinking that Edmonds was party to the plot, are original and enlightening. Even though Edmonds had a highly intelligent perception of Persian politics and society, and wrote these memoirs rather late in his life, he shared the ideas of his time. He was at the service of the British Crown. He cannot be expected to condemn British imperialism or to express revolutionary ideas. Nevertheless, he shows a fine insight into local

4 In fact, to Tehran, Baghdad, Bombay . . . and firstly to Qazvin, his function being to inform the military authorities.

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strategies and is well aware of the contrastive tendencies of Persian society, ten years after the Constitutional Revolution. Even if we do not share his persuasion of the rightness of the British order, we can understand how cleverly he was following his country’s strategy. This publication has tried to respect carefully Edmonds’s original writing. For the sake of not interfering with the text, the transcription used by Edmonds—who knew Persian perfectly, both spoken and written— has been left untouched and used in the additional footnotes and biographical sketches as well. Names, when wrongly spelled, are returned to their right form, e.g. Barrett (not Barret), Smyth (not Smythe), etc. A single case of a misspelled Iranian name has been corrected, Sa’d ad-Dawla being obviously Sā‘id ad-Dawla. New names which are identified in biographical notes (appendix) are marked with *. [ ] indicate minor changes or additional notes by the editor. Some passages that Edmonds deleted “in process of abridgement” have been kept when they give additional information useful for historians. I wish to thank warmly all colleagues and institutions who have helped me to achieve the publication. John Gurney deserves special mention: he was at the origin of my research in the Edmonds files at St Antony’s College and he has helped me throughout the process of this work, reading with much care the entire file and suggesting valuable corrections. Edmund Herzig, Soudavar Professor of Iranian Studies in Oxford found financial help from the Iran Heritage Foundation, Wadham College and St Antony’s College, Oxford. Debbie Usher, archivist of the Middle East Centre, demonstrated her great competence and helpfulness. The support and help of Trudy Kamperveen and Kathy van Vliet at Brill was always efficient and encouraging. I must thank particularly Hugh and Rosie Edmonds (Newenden) and Claud and Marion Rebbeck (Oxford) who gave me full confidence, authorized me to publish the work of their father and generously opened their private collections of photographs or written documents. I give them here as truthfully as I can the very book which C. J. Edmonds longed to see in print in his last days. Yann Richard Sorbonne nouvelle (Paris)—Joncy

PREFACE The four years of the First World War, 1914 to 1918, mark an important turning-point in the history of the countries of Western Asia. They saw territories which theretofore had perhaps been visited only by an occasional foreign traveller turned into a battle ground for modern armies or brought under direct European administration. They coincided with the development of the small, high-speed, light-oil, internal-combustion engine, that was to effect profound changes in the manner of men’s lives in every part of the world, nowhere more profound than in these Asiatic lands. They ushered in what a gifted author and authority on the region has called Britain’s Moment in the Middle East, 1914–1956 (Elizabeth Monroe, 1961).1 In this book I have sought to depict the political and social conditions, and the manners and customs of the people, as I saw them in parts of Persia and what is now known as Iraq, during the nine years, 1913 to 1921, that straddle the four years of the War. Most of this period was spent in three neglected provinces of the Persian and Ottoman empires, which were still barely touched by the veneer of European civilization discernable in the distant seats of their Central Governments, and where (except for the proliferation of the highvelocity rifle) the habits and ways of thought of the inhabitants could have changed but little for centuries. The last two years, 1919 to 1921, were rather different in that they brought me into contact with the highly sophisticated political élite of Northern Persia without, however, cutting me off from dealings with humbler folk no different from their brothers in the south. Since my study is based almost entirely on my own observations and experiences, it has not been possible to avoid the constant use of the pronoun of the first person singular. I trust that the reader will not find this jarring, and that the parallel account, which this method entails, of the kind of duties and situations, pleasant and unpleasant, that came the way of British Political officers working on the periphery

1 Elizabeth Monroe, Britain’s moment in the Middle East, 1914–1971, 2nd ed. with a foreword by Peter Mansfield.—Baltimore (Md.), Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981.

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of the military operations in perhaps the last major war to be fought before mechanically propelled vehicles had replaced the horse, the mule, and shanks’ mare, will have its own interest and, in places perhaps, a certain historical-documentary value. I am conscious that some of the descriptions of the topography of the country through which I passed, the routes I followed, and the tribes with which I had to deal may appear rather detailed; but, relating as these do to regions that are still unfrequented by foreigners and little known, my own experience leads me to believe that they, with the relevant sketch-maps, will add materially to the interest of the book for future travellers and for students of this part of the Middle East. There have been so many changes in Persia and Iraq since I last saw them that I must ask the reader’s indulgence for any inconsistencies he may detect in my use of the tenses. Religion looms so large in the daily life and the ways of thought of the people in both countries that I trust that any orientalists among my readers will bear with me for recalling in the first, introductory, chapter, for the benefit of the others, just so much of the early history of Islam as is relevant to my story. In the text, except for a few familiar conventional spellings, Persian and Arabic proper names have been transliterated in accordance with a well established system, but without diacritical marks. The same rules have generally been applied to Persian and Arabic words used frequently in the text; these are shown in italics with diacritical marks the first time they occur. Many kind friends have helped me in one way or another. My greatest debt is to Sir Reader Bullard, Professor A. K. S. Lambton and Lieut-Colonel G. E. Wheeler who have read through the whole of the typescript; their comments, corrections and advice have been invaluable and I am most grateful to them. Among others I also have to thank: the Royal Asiatic, the Royal Central Asian, and the Royal Geographical societies, in whose Journals some of the matter has already appeared; the Royal Greenwich Observatory for confirmation of the date and the exact time of the annular eclipse of the sun mentioned on p. 128; the Librarian of the Ministry of Defence for information regarding books and articles on British military operations in Persia during and after the First World War, and for the loan of some of them; Mr. Martin Gilbert, biographer of Sir Winston Churchill, and Miss Elizabeth Monroe for light on the Cabinet decision to withdraw our troops from Persia in 1921; the Assistant Commandant of the

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xxi

Royal Army Medical College, for the note (p. 318) on the North Persian Memorial Prize Fund; Mrs. N. Williams of Tunbridge Wells for rapid and accurate typing of my MS.; and, last but not least, my wife for constant encouragement and unfailing forbearance. Although for many years I held posts in Her Majesty’s Service any view expressed in this book, and the responsibility for them, are mine alone. C. J. E.

Alexandropol Kara Elizabetopol

TR ANSC

S AUCA

IA BAKU

Bayazid

Krasnovodsk

Shusha

Maku Julfa

Khoi

VAN

A

Z

Dilman

E

R

Urmia

Anzali

G

I

L

Sauj Bulag

Rasht

A E

Zanjan

Erbil

N

Ashurada

lb

Bijar

Sulaymaniya

M A Z A N D E R A N

Qasr-i Shirin Hamadan Pai Taq Asadabad Kangavar Karind Qizil Ribat Kermanshah Daulatabad

Khaniqin

Shahrud

Mt. Damavand

Yangi-Imam SULTAN BULAG P. Karaj

Mountains TEHRAN Shah Abdul Azim

Sanandaj

Kifri

ASTERABAD

u

rz Qazvin

Kirkuk

Ya m u t Countr y

Astara

Ardebil

TABRIZ

B A I J A N Miana

Rawanduz

C A S P I A N S E A

Lenkoran

i r a v i - K t h D a s

Qum

Baquba Mandali

t-i

S

O

P

IS

TA

Kut al Amara

T A

M

IA

a

C

o

Dizful

Amara

Kashan

Khur

B

N

P O

Sukanabad

Burujird

R

uh -K

E

U

sh

M

L

Pu

BAGHDAD

k u

h

E

n

i

t

t

R r

Shushtar

a

Anarak

S

I

A

Nain

ISFAHAN

r

Aghda

y

ARABISTAN

YEZD Arninabad

Nasiriya

Qurna

Ahvaz Abadeh

Basra

Anar

Muhammara

Behbehan

Dehbid

Marvas

F

Kuwait

A

P E

Lake Tasht Kazarun SHIRAZ Bandar Rig Dalaki Saidabad Dashtistan Lake Niriz Kharg I. Borazjan Niriz BUSHIRE Ahram Fasa Firuzabad Darab

R

D

S

as

I

Qir

R

h ti

A N

L A R I S T A N

REFERENCE Railway

G

S

Tarum

LAR

U

Road International Boundary

Bahrein I.

L

F

Bandar Abbas I. hm Qis Linga

Western Persia at the beginning of the twentienth Century. The name Arabistan was used by Qajars instead of Khuzistan.

PART ONE

THE PERSIAN GULF

N Ā

ST

TAN GIS TĀ N

Mubārak I Sangī Sabzābād

H

Rīshahr

Chāh Kūtah

E

BUSHIRE

Gīsakān P

Haft Mullā P Kalimeh

’Alī Changī

Malakun

Gūrak Bunneh Gaz Gargūr

Khūr Khuvain Rās Halīleh Dilbār

Ahram

Sūrakī

Halīleh

N SIA PER LF GU

Nanīzak

Sarmal

Ahmadī

L

’Abbāsak I

Sarkureh

DA

I

Shīf Shaikh Sad I

Mufqa’eh

Nūkāl-iMukhī

AN

H H

Bāgh-i-Tājo

TI

E S

Burāzjān

SH

L A

GAL

L

Kūhak

Mehmad Shāhī Jarrāfī Khūsh Āb

Ī

I

M

Lardeh

Askarī Michrazī

H

Khashm Hāj Hājīo Farākeh

Gāvairak Gulakī Nargie Zār

Madūmari Bāshī

Bāgh-i-Oboī (’Arūōī) Trārī Gondū

Dilārāmdī

Bushire and surroundings

Bushire 1910

Khūrmūj

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION A. The historical background The beginnings of British interests in Persia and Turkish Arabia (the modern Iraq) can be traced back to the days of the merchant adventurers of the Muscovy and Levant Companies, and we read of trade missions to Isfahan and of English Consuls at Baghdad and Basra in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. A fresh impetus was given to British commercial activity by the grant in the year 1600 to the Honourable East-India company of a monopoly of direct trade with the Orient and by the consequent development of a new line of approach up the Persian Gulf. A permanent factory (as trading stations were then called) was opened at Bandar Abbas, at the entrance to the Gulf on the Persian side, in 1643, and others followed at Basra and Bushire. By 1778 the ‘Residency’ at Bushire had become the headquarters of the Company’s activity in the region. In 1798 Basra was made subordinate to a new Residency established at Baghdad. A succession of able ‘Residents’, aided by the large establishments which, being based on India, they were able to maintain won for both Residencies great prestige and influence. The story, until the end of the eighteenth century, is very largely that of commercial rivalry with, in turn, the Portuguese, the Dutch and the French, a rivalry that often took the form of war at sea even when the home governments were nominally at peace. Thereafter, first the ambitions of Napoleon, then the expansion of Russia at the expense of both Turkey and Persia, and finally the Drang nach Osten of Germany, progressively added political to commercial preoccupations. What had started as trading stations of a commercial company developed into the Political Residencies in the Persian Gulf and in Turkish Arabia, and Great Britain’s policy in this region came to be largely based on considerations affecting her eastern communications and the defence of India. To show how sensitive the Government was to any encroachment on the special position that had been built up in the Gulf during the nineteenth century it is sufficient to recall Lord Lansdowne’s

4

chapter one

pronouncement in 1903 that the establishment of a naval base or a fortified post on its shores would be ‘resisted with all the means at our disposal’. Turning now more specifically to Persia, for my immediate purpose I need not go back further than the year 1906, towards the end of the reign of Muzaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar*, when general discontent with the extravagance of the royal court, the malpractices of the ruling clique, and the deplorable state of the administration gave rise to a series of popular demonstrations culminating, in the second half of July, in a mass taking of sanctuary (bast, the traditional form of popular demonstrations of protest) by some 14,000 persons in the grounds of the British Legation at Tehran. The crisis was solved for the time being, through the mediation of the Legation, by the issue of a royal rescript promising a representative National Consultative Assembly and other reforms. But renewed foreign and popular pressure was needed before the Assembly was convoked in October and a written Constitution was signed by the Shah. In this connexion I must mention at once a name that will appear again later in my story, that of Major C. B. Stokes*, the British Military Attaché, who won great popularity among the Persians by his manifest sympathy for their cause and by his friendly and tactful handling of the ‘Bastis’. In 1907 Muzaffar ad-Din died and was succeeded by his son Muhammad Ali, who in the following year suspended the Constitution and dissolved the Assembly. Although the Shah had triumphed in the capital popular opposition to the forces of reaction continued in the provinces. Tabriz, in the north-west, became the principal centre of the constitutionalist cause, and for eight months the people (actively assisted by Arthur Moore*, the Times correspondent, and an American missionary named Baskerville* who was killed in a gallant sortie) resisted the royalist forces sent against them. The siege was finally raised in April 1909 with the entry of 2,000 Russian troops sent to protect foreign life and property. In the meantime there had been risings in other provinces, and in July, after a successful march on Tehran by popular forces from Isfahan and Gilan, Muhammad Ali was deposed and took refuge in Russia. He was succeeded by his son Ahmad who was still a minor, and the Constitution was restored.1

1 [Crossed out: But many members of the Assembly were violent extremists with little education and no practical knowledge of central or local government, and the administration of the provinces was reduced to chaos.]

introduction

5

Although the arrival of Russian troops at Tabriz in April 1909 had in that particular case been very opportune, they were followed by other contingents which established themselves as near to the capital as Qazvin. Thereafter Russian influence, thus buttressed, was consistently used in favour of the forces of reaction, even to the extent of conniving at the surreptitious landing of the ex-Shah on the Caspian coast from ‘across the water’ in an attempt to regain the throne. Friction with the Assembly culminated (1911) in a Russian ultimatum, backed by the threat of military action, that demanded among other things the dismissal of Morgan Shuster*, an American engaged to reorganize the finances of the country, and the cancellation of the appointment of Stokes, whom Shuster had invited to raise and command a special Treasury Gendarmerie. There was nothing the Persian Government could do but comply, and the administration went from bad to worse. Throughout these years British policy had been to seek to restrain the encroachment of Russia on Persian sovereignty without, however, carrying opposition to the point of an open breach, which could have had results even more detrimental to Persia. A convention concluded in 1907 defining the zones of interest of the two Powers was conceived on the British side at least, in this spirit but was interpreted by the Persians as the prelude to partition. This, with among other things the subsequent British failure to secure the withdrawal of the Russian troops introduced ‘temporarily’ in 1909 or to protect Morgan Shuster, had already gone far to undermine the feelings of genuine gratitude and good will earned at the time of the great bast of 1906 when the German menace brought Great Britain into what had started as a European war as the unnatural ally of the feared and hated ‘northern neighbour’. On the Turkish side, as on the Persian, British interests were primarily commercial and strategic in contradistinction and opposition to Russian expansionism. Here they were best served by the policy of maintaining the integrity of the Ottoman Empire; but the resulting traditional policy of friendship with Turkey had been compromised by the ‘temporary’ occupation of Cyprus (1878) and Egypt (1882). It was thus hardly surprising when in 1914 the Constantinople Government decided to enter the war on the side of the expanding power of Germany against the Muscovite predator.

6

chapter one B. Religion

Very soon after the death of the Prophet Muhammad (A.D. 632) the world of Islam split into the two principal functions which still divide it today: the Sunni, the ‘People of the Tradition’, who held that the Caliph, that is to say his successor as its secular and religious head, should be chosen by the community; and the Shiʾa, the Legitimist Party, who maintained that the office should have gone first to his cousin Ali, the husband of his daughter Fatima, and after Ali, in succession, to a direct descendant of theirs in the male line. The Shiʾa broke out into a number of sects; but here we are concerned principally with one of these, the Ja‘fari, to which the great majority of the population of Persia and of Southern Iraq belong. The dominant theme of Ja‘fari Shi‘ism is the Imamate, a divine institution intended for the continuation of Muhammad’s mission and the guidance of mankind after him. The first Imam Ali,2 had indeed been generally recognized by the whole community as the Fourth Caliph after three elected ‘usurpers’; but, even before his assassination in 661, the head of a distant collateral branch of the Prophet’s family, Muʿawiya, had seized control of Syria to found the hereditary Umayyad Caliphate of Damascus. The status of Imam, however, passed in turn to Ali’s sons Hasan (who renounced his claim to the Caliphate without a struggle) and Husayn (who was killed in battle against the forces of Muʿawiya’s son, Yazid), and thereafter from father to son until the line came to an end with the mysterious disappearance or ‘occultation’ of the Twelfth, an infant, in the year 870. None of the Imams after Husayn appears to have offered any serious challenge to the established Caliphs. Even the Sixth, Jaʿfar (who gave his name to the sect and to whom are traced many of the traditions used by the later Shiʿa theologians to elaborate their doctrines) is said to have rejected the offer of the supreme office made to him by the victors who had overthrown the Umayyads, before it finally went to a descendant of the Prophet’s uncle Abbas, founder of the hereditary Caliphate of Baghdad (750–1258). We shall not be concerned very much in this book with the subsequent history of the

2 The word imam is also used for the person who leads any group of the faithful in ritual prayer. As a title it often denotes a stipendiary permanently attached to a mosque. In Persia most major cities have an official, styled Imam Jumʾa, appointed by the monarch to lead congregational prayer and preach the Friday sermon in the principal mosque.

introduction

7

institution of the Caliphate. Suffice to say that from the time of the conquest of Selim I (1512–20) and Sulayman I (1520–66) to its abolition by Mustafa Kamal in 1924 the claim of the Sultans of the Ottoman dynasty to the title was never seriously disputed. Before going further I must mention one other important branch of the Shiʿa, the Ismaʿilis, who preferred Ja‘far’s elder son Ismaʿil to his younger brother Musa, accepted by the majority, as the rightful successor as the Seventh (and in their view the last) Imam. One branch of this ‘Sect of the Seven’ which for a time had its headquarters in Alamut in North Persia became famous in history as the Assassins, that is to say ‘consumers of hashish (cannabis)’, after the use made of this drug by the Grand Master to induce young initiates to carry out dangerous missions on his behalf. The Head of another branch in Syria was known to the Crusaders as the Old man of the Mountain. The tombs of Ali at Najaf and Husayn at Karbala, both in Southern Iraq, are the most important shrines and places of pilgrimage for Shiʿas3 of all branches. There is at Karbala a second important shrine, that of Abbas, younger half-brother of Husayn. It is less ornate than the other but is remarkable for the fact that an oath sworn here, or indeed anywhere, ‘by Abbas’ has greater terrors for the potential perjurer than any other. The last wish of many pious votaries is to be buried within the precincts (if the heirs can afford it) of these shrines, or at least in one of the vast cemeteries outside the city walls. The anniversary of the martyrdom of Husayn is observed during the first ten days of Muharram, the first month of the Muslim lunar year, with meetings for the recitation of laments (rawżakhvāni), passion plays and the like, culminating on the tenth in processions through the streets with violent manifestations of grief. The odour of sanctity is not limited to Imams in the direct line of succession, and both in Persia and in Iraq lesser shrines known as imāmzāda (Imam’s progeny) are a common feature of the landscape. In Islam there is no such thing as a priesthood; but the need for some kind of moral direction for the community led to the emergence of the estate of ʿulamā (scholars), experts in theology and jurisprudence. The Shiʿas of Ottoman Iraq constituted only a small minority in the vast

3 Following the usual practice of Europeans in the country I use the word Shiʿa, which means Party, in its adjectival senses also, rather than what seems to me the ugly derivatives Shiʿi or Shi‘ite.

8

chapter one

Empire ruled by the Sunni Caliph himself, and their separatism took the passive form of non-co-operation in the machinery of Government. They concentrated on commerce and agriculture, and comparatively few entered the Civil Service or embraced the profession of arms. In Persia, where Jaʿfari Shiʿism had been the official state religion since the beginning of the sixteenth century, the position was very different. The ulama, the most learned and saintly of whom rank as mujtahid, entitled to pronounce opinions ex cathedra, had come to occupy a position of great influence and, indeed, power. Naturally conservative and vigilant custodians of the sacred law they were ever ready, when occasion arose, to lead popular agitation against ‘innovation’, religious or secular, whether it took the form of confessional deviation, autocratic abuse of power by the Monarch, or, more recently, foreign encroachment military, commercial and social, these last particularly in the realms of education and law. Finally, it would seem unwittingly, they were drawn into alliance with various secret societies of liberal thinkers inspired by European ideas and precedents and working like themselves to curb the autocratic power of the throne, so that it was the mujtahids who took the lead in organizing the great bast of 1906 in the grounds of the British Legation. But for some years the Assembly had a chequered history, and the role of the ulama continued much as before, if not in the capital at any rate in the provinces. C. Language Of the languages spoken in this part of Asia Persian belongs to the Aryan family. Once the strange Arabic script has been mastered the syntax, at any rate, has no terrors for the European student and he can soon begin to savour the delights of a rich and varied literature. The case of Arabic is very different. In addition to the script this will probably be his first experience of a language of the Semitic family, constructed on lines logical and systematic to a degree but none the less elaborate and, to the beginner at any rate, bewildering. There is almost no limit to what can be done with a root; you may study your subject academically for several years and follow up with a dozen in an Arabic-speaking country, yet you are liable at any moment to be floored by a strange word which, on investigation, may turn out to mean nothing more unordinary than ‘lady’ or ‘table’. A second complication results from what appears to us the deplorable canon of literary

introduction

9

excellence which has decreed that the rare is better than the familiar, the elaborate than the simple, the abstruse than the obvious; there are certain common words of unsullied classical antecedents which it is simply not done to write. Finally, to the mind used to Aryan languages the syntax seems halting and clumsy. The germ of most ideas is contained commonly in three, sometimes in four, root consonants in a fixed order. The various aspects of the idea are distinguished by means of inflexions, prefixes, suffices and variations in the vowels. Thus, for example, the consonants KTB, in that order, signify ‘writing’, so that KaTaBa (the form used for the head-word in dictionaries) means ‘he wrote’; the present participle and noun of occupation KāTiB means ‘writer, clerk’ (this is also a common formula for adjectives); the past participle ma-KTūB means ‘written, letter’; the noun of place ma-KTaB, means ‘office, elementary school’; and so on. A Grammar for beginners lists over seventy formulas for the formation of the plurals of nouns according to the shape of the singular. Word formation is thus largely mechanical. Every neologism has existed potentially in the exact form it will one day assume ever since the Arabic language took shape. Individual ingenuity is applied only to the selection of the appropriate root, measure and formula required to represent the object or convey the conception for which the new word is required. Ninety-nine journalists out of a hundred would have hit upon the noun of place formed from the simple root meaning ‘fly’, ‘bird’ and so on for ‘aerodrome’. On the other hand there is no obvious reason why the inspired word-maker of the not-too-distant past should have fixed on the noun of place from a verb which means ‘couch a camel’, to convey ‘climate’; but the idea is pleasant (‘where my caravan has rested’) and the word was soon well established. Standard written Arabic is much the same throughout the Arab world from Oman to Morocco, but everywhere the spoken language has its local peculiarities of pronunciation and dialect. Against this, even illiterate tribesmen and peasants have a remarkable gift for fitting borrowed foreign words into the mould of classical Arabic. The most amusing example I can remember is that of a cultivator who, describing the treatment meted out to him by a rather hot-tempered colleague of mine, complained ‘DaMFaLa—nī’ a perfectly formed quadriliteral verb meaning ‘he called me a damn fool’. Another anecdote from my own experience will serve to illustrate the second complication mentioned above. I was at the theatre in

10

chapter one

Baghdad watching a performance in Arabic of ‘La Dame aux Camélias’. During the interval I joined my friend the Egyptian Consul in the next box and asked about the to me strange word ghāda, used to translate ‘dame’. ‘Yes’, he said, ‘it means svelte young lady exactly; a very good word; nobody knows it.’

CHAPTER TWO

CAMBRIDGE TO CONSTANTINOPLE In the summer of 1910, I entered a competitive examination for a single vacancy in His Majesty’s Levant Consular Service, one of five branches into which the Foreign Service was then divided the others being: the Foreign Office, members of which generally spent the whole of their careers in Whitehall; the Diplomatic Service, which staffed British Embassies and Legations abroad; and two other Consular Services, the Far Eastern for China, Japan and Siam, and the General for the rest of the world. I was born in Japan and grew up to the age of nearly eight speaking English and Japanese with equal fluency. But for me the great attraction of the Levant branch was that successful candidates were sent to Cambridge, with the style of Student Interpreter, for two years of further study at Government expense, to get to Oxford or Cambridge somehow being then the summit of my ambition. The entrance examination, the age limits for which were eighteen to twenty-four, was described by one of the most eminent members of the service as having been devised by lunatics for lunatics. The subjects were: handwriting, English essay, elementary mathematics, Greek, Latin, French, German, Italian and Spanish; Greek and the last three were nominally optional; but, since the marks for all possible subjects were aggregated, it was prudent to offer them all however shaky one’s command of any of them might be. About this time the London cramming establishment of Scoones’ in Garrick Street, with a brilliant team of coaches in classical and modern languages, was enjoying a virtual monopoly of successes in the various Foreign-Service examinations. The director, the Rev. Mr. Dawson Clarke, advised me that to have any chance at all I ought to start by spending six months each in France and Germany. I was very fortunate in my French family at Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Every morning Monsieur, a retired protestant pastor, took me in translation and composition. In the afternoons, for bicycle expeditions in the forest or visits to Paris, I had the company of the daughter of the family or the twin sons of the Resident-General of Tunisia who were

12

chapter two

being coached for their ‘bachot’ (one memorable visit was to the aerodrome at Maisons Lafitte to see the maiden voyage of a new dirigible, La Ville de Paris).1 In the evenings Madame generally made me read aloud to her, dropping on me like a ton of bricks at any mispronunciation or omitted liaison. I returned several times for shorter periods before the examination and during the Cambridge vacations, and kept up the friendship for many years. My experience in Germany was very different. Herr B-, a teacher at the Volksschule in the Rheinland village of Lobberich near the Dutch frontier, was a coarse, bullet-headed, red-haired lout who constantly embarrassed me by shouting abuse at his wife and children (Schweinhund and the rest) and made no serious attempt to teach me the language; as often as not I had to take my books to him and demand a lesson. Luckily it was summer. A new tennis club had just been formed and, although I myself was no great player, the members were glad to have Herr Engländer to instruct them in the rudiments of the game. They were a very jolly crowd, and in the evenings we had frequent Bowle parties and expeditions to country inns for dancing. I continued to correspond with two or three of them until 1914. A few weeks after sitting the examination at Burlington House I received from the Civil service commissioners a curt intimation that I had “failed to satisfy the examiners”. This, however, was followed almost immediately by a telegram from Mr. Dawson Clarks to say that I was only one mark, out of a possible maximum of 3,000, behind J. M. Dawkins, a fellow-student from Scoones’ who was rather older than I was and had already taken a degree in Classics at Cambridge. When at last the Treasury sanction for the additional place came through the Michaelmas term was already far spent. On the advice of the Student Interpreters’ Director of Studies, Professor E. G. (Johnny) Browne* of Pembroke College, I went to Bedford to prepare myself to go up in January by starting on Persian with Dr. W. St. Clair Tisdall, the author of the then standard Elementary Persian Grammar. The Tisdalls were old family friends, and the eldest son, who had been in the same form with me at the School there, was destined to win a posthumous V.C.2 for gallantry during the first landing at Gallipoli. I also took the opportunity to have my first riding lessons.

1 2

[Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe launched the Ville de Paris in 1906. YR]. [Victoria Cross].

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Our course at Cambridge comprised Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Elementary Common and International Law, together with instruction in tropical hygiene and first aid at Addenbrooke’s Hospital. Unless they already had ties elsewhere most of the Student Interpreters used to go to Pembroke. Being rather older that the average undergraduate we dined with the B.A.’s in the dignified calm of the Old Library near the main gate, and in a comfortable lecture-room adjacent to Browne’s own rooms in Ivy court we had our spiritual home. To know Johnny Browne and to see as much of him as we did constituted in themselves a liberal education. He was a man of encyclopaedic erudition, wide interests, infectious enthusiasms and decided views, all salted with a sparkling sense of humour. Whether we were supposed to be reading the Thousand and One Nights or al-Fakhri’s History of the Caliphate (c. 1300) in the original Arabic, or expressing a twenty-line sentence about the war with Italy in a Turkish newspaper (still printed in very small Arabic character) made little difference. Before very long we would be listening to a disquisition on some other aspect of Islamic lore, the various manifestations of the Persian genius, a flood of reminiscence, or perhaps to eloquent eulogy or violent denunciation of something or somebody that was stirring his emotions or had tickled his fancy at the time: it might be the iniquities of Sir Edward Grey, the Foreign Secretary and architect of the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907 (I remember his saying once that one of the most miserable days of his life was when he heard that Grey had been appointed a Knight of the Garter), or the cussedness of the responsible authorities who had refused to add the University lectureship in Russian to the other functions of Professor E. H. Minns of Pembroke, or the theories of Gustave Le Bon as set out in La Psychologie de la Foule,3 or the whimsicalities of F. Anstey in The Brass Bottle and Stephen Leacock in his Nonsense Novels. On the social side too he was most kind. He invariably introduced us to any former Student Interpreters (among them James Elroy Flecker) who came to see him during their leaves in England. We were frequently invited to tea or dinner at his delightful home on the Trumpington Road to meet distinguished visitors from the countries where we might one day be serving as well as Cambridge scholars like

3 [Gustave Le Bon, (1841–1931) Psychologie des foules, 1st ed. Paris, F. Alcan, 1895.]

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chapter two

Minns or Guy le Strange, or on the occasion of a big party like the one he gave in honour of Morgan Shuster and C. B. Stokes after their dismissal by the Persian Government at the instance of the Russians. For classical Persian we started with the Gulistan of Sa‘di (1487) under R. A. Nicholson at Trinity. After the effervescent Browne he seemed very flat, but in academic circles I think he may have been considered the sounder scholar in the meticulous German tradition. It was only much later that I learnt to appreciate his penetrating studies of Islamic mysticism and his graceful translations from the Arab and Persian mystical poets. To help with Arabic there was an Egyptian shaykh from al-Azhar University in Cairo. For lack of funds there was no native Persian. The Turkish assistant, Khalil Khalid, the author of a book in English, The Diary of a Turk, had recently left to seek election to the Turkish Parliament and had been replaced by a friendly little relation-in-law from Smyrna, who then knew no English at all. Both Dawkins and I had been told that we were destined for Turkey and should specialize accordingly. When weather permitted, therefore, we spent a good deal of time with him in a punt on the Backs,4 reading a selection of modern rather sloppy Turkish plays. With three new languages to learn, two of them, the Semitic Arabic and the Ural-Altaic Turkish, entirely different in structure from those we had already had to study, it was with no great enthusiasm that at the beginning of my third term we made a start on the Slavonic Russian. But it was not very long before we were agreeing heartily with Browne that Minns had been wrongly passed over. The lecturer was an elusive character of no known address, letters for whom had to be left at a little stationer’s shop in Jesus Lane to be called for. His lectures were so uninspiring and the times and place so inconvenient that after a rather strained interview with the Head of the University Appointments Board, into whose sphere of responsibility this particular point for some reason fell, and who argued rather illogically that if we refused to go on with this optional subject we should find it being made compulsory, we got our way and dropped it. I often had occasion to regret that I knew no Russian, but looking back on the

4 [The Backs refers to the ‘backs’ of the colleges with the gardens along the river Cam.]

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circumstances, I cannot blame either my youthful self or Dawkins for our obstinacy. For law Dr Pearce Higgins liked us to go to his private house in the afternoon, so that we often combined lectures and tea with the family. We also paid occasional visits to the Assizes. My studies did not prevent me from playing tennis fairly regularly, and the Pembroke courts, being quite close to the University swimming-baths in the river, were conveniently situated for a quick bathe or the Royal Humane Society’s course in life-saving. For winter there was a scratch rugger club called Pembroke Third, which was recruited chiefly from comparative rabbits like myself just wanting exercise with no ambitions to go further, but which sometimes contrived to include a Blue or near-Blue at a loose end and to notch a victory which no College Third XV ought to have won. In my second term I took lessons in boxing at Fordham’s gymnasium with a former holder of the English amateur middle-weight championship named Child, who played with his pupils much as a cat plays with a mouse, tapping us gently on the nose if we dropped our guard, and a little harder if we forgot for a moment that we too were supposed to be only sparring. In many ways the short additional four-week terms we were required to “keep” during the long vacations were especially pleasant. In both years I had rooms in Ivy Court. The atmosphere was relaxed and, in the intimacy of a small community, I made many new friends, most of them, alas, destined to be killed in the First World War. Particularly memorable was my first summer, the glorious summer of 1911, when nearly everyone in residence brought his bedding down every night to sleep on the grass in Ivy Court. It was the year of the Agadir crisis and, after three weeks with my French family at Saint-Germain and a few days at Boulogne for the tennis tournament, I was in Rouen when the whole garrison left one night for the German frontier. We took our final examinations at the end of the long-vacation term of 1912. My last day at Pembroke came far too soon, and on 18 September I left home to take ship at Marseilles, little dreaming that six years would pass before I should see England again. Most of the passengers were French, many of them bound for Syria. The only other British passengers were a Mr. Elliott (Chief Engineer of the SmyrnaAidin Railway), with his wife and small daughter. Our first port of call was Naples where I must not linger, and the second Athens where my career as a member of the Levant Consular Service may be said to have begun.

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Between Naples and Athens, in the middle of the night, we ran into a violent storm, with fog, rain, thunder and lightning, and huge waves dashing against the port-holes. I had had a cabin to myself as far as Naples, and had not been too pleased when a stranger arrived to occupy the second bunk. But the storm was too much for both of us, our common sufferings forged a link of mutual sympathy, and we became good friends, Dr. Stücker, an Italian subject, proved to be the private secretary to King Tino of Greece and a former tutor to his two sons; he had his quarters in the royal Palace and promised to show me round Athens should time permit. The storm abated as rapidly as it had blown up and by evening we were gliding over a sea of cobalt as calm as a pond. The next day, after a bright moonlit night and again under a cloudless blue sky, we caught our first glimpse of the coast of Greece as we passed between the mainland and Cerigo. The S.S. Saghalien was one of the smaller and older ships of the Messageries Maritimes line, and as her progress became slower and slower rumours began to circulate that the engines had been badly damaged in the storm and that we might have to lie off Salamis for the night. However we chugged on, as we approached Piraeus a strangely sweet perfume was borne out to us on the breeze, and we finally berthed some time after dark. For me, comparatively fresh from my classical studies, the following day was, as I noted in my diary, décidément une journée à marquer d’une pierre blanche. I called for Stücker at the Palace at about ten as we had arranged. The state apartments had recently been damaged by fire and the royal family was not in residence, but the wing with his own suite had escaped. How, with only a horse-cab for transport, he managed to show or point out to me in so short a time first of all his own treasures, the palace grounds, and then so many places and things with magic associations I cannot now imagine: the stadium beautifully restored, an unmutilated example of the Hermae, the theatre of Dionysus (where I half expected to see the sycamore at the back, the gods as it were, with some penniless enthusiast perched in the branches to get a free view), the Acropolis, the lovely little temple of Nike, the Parthenon, the Erechtheum with its Caryatids, in the distance the blue waters of the bay and the gulf of Salamis, the rock of Xerxes, the sacred way to Eleusis winding into the hills, then nearer again the Areopagus with the entrance to the Erinyes’ cavern, and finally, away to the east, the outline of Hymettus.

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We were lunching at Averoff’s restaurant, and in an atmosphere tense with rumours of impending war with Turkey, Stücker was pointing out various personages prominent in Greek politics, society and the armed forces when I suddenly realized that it was getting on for three o’clock, the time fixed for the ship’s departure. I hurried back to Piraeus, but as I reached the quai and jumped into a boat the Saghalien was beginning to move. We were swept back by the wash of the screws and, in spite of the valiant efforts of the two boatmen, the ship gradually drew away. After paying the men as generously as I could, for they had done their best, I found myself on the quaiside of a strange port in the late afternoon with the equivalent of about one and threepence in my pocket. To apply for consular charity was not the most auspicious way in which to inaugurate my consular career, but there was no alternative. Luckily I was just in time to catch Mr Cooks as he was closing his office. I had no papers of any kind to prove my identity, for it was then still possible to visit most countries without a passport and I had left mine in my cabin. For some time the only words he seemed able to find were “Very awkward, very awkward”; and it was not until I had spent the half of my remaining substance at the bathing establishment at Phaleron Bay, for he was a keen swimmer and refused to be cheated of his regular evening dip, and more “very awkwards” both in the water as he came up from a dive and out of it as we dressed, that he decided to take me to his hotel in the delightful and fragrant suburb of Kephissia. Both Stücker in the morning and Cooke in the evening conducted me through parts of the old town, and here I had my first glimpse of the real Levant about which I had hitherto only read in books. There was still something very Turkish about Athens: here a mosque, there a perfect gem of a Byzantine church, further on a dingy prison with the occupants whining through the bars for alms or waiting for relatives to bring the evening meal, peasants in national costume driving asses loaded with great paniers of grapes or creaking country carts piled high with bulging wine-skins (the clearly outlined shape of the animal looking quite indecent to my untutored eyes), whole pigs turning on spits in narrow bazaars, and the population sitting out in open-air eating-houses and coffee-shops. With two whole days before the next ship for Constantinople was due to sail there was plenty of time for more sight-seeing. But the next

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morning even the Parthenon seemed to have lost much of its spell. In contrast to that glorious first day there was an unpleasantly high wind, sky and sea were veiled in cloud and mist, and my first reaction of bravado over an amusing adventure had given place to a feeling of annoyance with myself for having been so stupid. Mr. Cooke, however, could not have been kinder, lending me pyjamas and other necessaries, advancing the wherewithal to pay for the hotel, out-of-pocket expenses and my onward passage, and taking me after office hours to various British institutions, at all of which it was obvious that he was very popular with the British community. As I went aboard the Russian S.S. Emperor Nicholas II, I was greeted by a burly figure at the top of the gangway: “You’re English aren’t you? Thank God! I’ve been on this blasted packet for three days and haven’t spoken to a soul.” It was E. C. H. Alban, son of the Consul-General at Alexandria. We arranged to share a cabin, a very convenient arrangement for me for, to the great astonishment of the bowing steward who had received me on arrival, I had no luggage of any kind whatever apart from the clothes I stood up in, my stick and my gloves, so that if Alban was glad to talk English I was equally glad to share the resources of his wardrobe. The rest of the passengers were Russians or Greeks, none of whom seemed to know any French, and I found my Turkish useful for communicating with the domestic staff. Our first port of call was Smyrna. We had time to go up to the railway station to call on Mr. Elliott, who showed us over his workshops and told us, among other things, that as far as engineering was concerned he had made his company virtually self-supporting, building even his locomotives at about one third of the cost of the equivalent from England. We took care to row back to the ship in good time, passed among the islands during the night, and arrived off the Dardanelles at about dawn. But the channel was mined and we had to wait for several hours until a pilot boat arrived to lead a procession of about twenty craft of various sizes through to the Sea of Marmara, where the weather turned cloudy, blustery and very cold. It was still dark when we reached Constantinople the next morning (29 September), and I was disappointed to have missed that first view of Seraglio Point and Istanbul to which I had been looking forward. A consular cavass5 in resplendent uniform saw us through Customs, 5 [In the Ottoman Empire, although in the latter part of the 20th century many embassies in the Arab world still employed an interpreter-courier known as a kavass

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and at the Consulate I found all my luggage safe with nothing missing, not even my cake of soap. He then conducted me to a Bosphorus boat bound for Kandilli on the Asiatic shore, where I was welcomed into their summer mess by three junior members of the Service: R. W. Bullard, later Sir Reader*, H. M. Ambassador to the Court of Persia and author of The Camels must go (1961); A. E. Monck-Mason, who was destined to be murdered by a fanatical mob in his Consulate at Mosul in 1939; and W. L. C. Knight, later Consul-General at Salonika.

(Turkish kavas; Arabic qawwās), used largely for ceremonial purposes (Encyclopædia Britannica).]

CHAPTER THREE

CONSTANTINOPLE TO BUSHIRE Distressing news awaited me at the Embassy when I went to Pera the following morning to report to the Chief Dragoman, G. H. Fitzmaurice. The Political Resident in the Persian Gulf had been clamouring for more staff, and I had been chosen to go. The Ambassador, Sir Gerard Lowther, confirmed the decision when, after having fait antichambre for three or four days, I finally saw him; but of course he was not really concerned with small fry like the latest-joined Consular Assistant. It was indeed a grievous blow and depressed me not a little. At Cambridge, on the instructions of the Foreign Office, I had worked hard at the language to prepare myself for service in Turkey; to be pitchforked out of Constantinople, “the bride of the world”, into a God-forsaken hole with the reputation of Bushire seemed like a descent from paradise into hell. The Consul-General, when I called to pay my respects, did not even invite me to sit down. After a short lecture on the imperfections of the Turkish character he concluded the interview by saying that to have two people on the staff named Edmonds would only cause confusion and the sooner I left the better. My namesake “W.S.”, in contrast, was kindness itself; the most delightful of men, he remained a life-long friend until his death many years after we had both retired. Fitzmaurice too was most considerate. He advised and authorized me to wait for my heavy luggage which had been sent from England by long-sea route—in the event six weeks. During the whole of this time Turkey was at war. Hostilities with Italy were grinding to an end; but since August relations with the Balkan states, which were already linked by a series of secret bilateral “defensive” treaties or agreements, had (as I had already learnt at Athens) been becoming more and more strained. On 8 October the diminutive principality of Montenegro declared war and invaded Ottoman territory; on the 13th the other three addressed to the Porte identic notes demanding autonomy for the predominantly Christian European provinces; on the 17th Turkey declared war on Servia (as it was then generally spelt) and Bulgaria; on the 18th Greece declared war on Turkey and Turkey signed a treaty of peace with Italy. By the time I left on 8 November the first phase

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of the Balkan War was over: the Turkish armies had been routed, the Bulgarians were down on the shores of the Sea of Marmara and facing the Chatalja lines, poised, it seemed, for a final assault on the capital. Constantinople lies astride the southern end of the Bosphorus, the strait connecting the Marmara with the Black sea. On the western or European side the city is divided into two parts by “the bright blue pathway of the Golden Horn that can carry a thousand sail of the line” . . . and where “it is a hundred-and-twenty-gun ship that meets you in the street”.1 The native Christians (who then formed a large proportion of the population) and the foreign business communities occupied two districts on the northern side, Galata down by the water’s edge and Pera (or Beyoghlu) on the steep slope behind; a tunnel with a small funicular railway connected the two and served to obviate a wearisome climb. Istanbul proper, the old city to the south of the Horn, was, except for some shopkeepers in the bazaars, almost entirely Turkish and Muslim. On the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus lies Soutari, associated in our minds with Florence Nightingale and the hospitals of the Crimean War. Numerous villages lined both banks of the strait from end to end and, connected with the centre by a frequent service of steam-ferries, constituted the residential suburbs. The consular mess at Kandilli was a ramshackle old wooden Turkish house on the lower slopes of the eastern shore, not far from the Sweet Waters of Asia. The windows were ill-fitting, and a vine clambering through mine made sure that it would keep open. But that did not matter much since the morning and evening air was still balmy, and the branches of a fig-tree made a rustic frame for a superb view across the Bosphorus to the wooded slopes of the European side, with the gaunt, sprawling walls of the old fort of Rumeli Hisar just opposite. At sunset the cypresses along the crest stood out in sharp silhouette against a bright orange glow extending the whole way from Therapia near the Black Sea entrance away southwards to Istanbul, where the orange turned to crimson in the smoke from ships in the Golden Horn, until darkness fell and constellations of twinkling lamps lit up the villages among the trees. Breakfast and dinner (by candle-light), served by two faithful Greek servants, we generally had outside under a spreading spindle-tree. There were several European families living farther up the slope, among them those of Admiral Lipus command-

1

[Alexander William] Kinglake [1809–1891]: Eothen ([London,] 1844).

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ing the British Naval Mission and of his Flag-Captain, so there was a certain amount of entertaining, and regular tennis in the evenings. This pleasant existence was suddenly interrupted about ten days after my arrival. The sanitary arrangements in the house were of the most primitive oriental type. We had been noticing a rather unpleasant smell for a day or two when it suddenly became so overpowering that we decided that we must get out without a moment’s delay, and move into Pera a week or two earlier than would normally have been the case. A married colleague with five young daughters under fifteen already under his roof took two of us in for a couple of nights, and my namesake came to my rescue by finding me a room at a boardinghouse kept by an English lady, where he himself was lodging. I went in to the Dragomanate on most days to try to make myself useful by helping with translations from the Turkish newspapers or in other ways open to me. In view of my later dealings with the Kurds and the Kurdish question I recall with interest one morning when I accompanied Bullard to the Hippodrome to follow up (fruitlessly as it turned out) an announcement in the press inviting all Kurdish residents to an open-air meeting to discuss “matters pertaining to their religion and their country”. I was not impressed by my one visit to the government offices of the Sublime Porte where, while waiting for Knight to transact some business, I sat with a group of minor officials; they seemed to have nothing to do but to chain-smoke cigarettes, sip coffee, and interlard their gossip with as many French words as possible—çok eyi garçon dir (he’s a very good chap), çok toupet-si var (he has any amount of cheek), and so on. For exercise there were squash courts at the Embassy, and some of our American opposite numbers (for they had a system of training juniors for service in the Near East much like ours) were generally available for a game of tennis at the Club de Constantinople. After the outbreak of the Balkan war a host of newspaper correspondents descended on the city; but they were not allowed to go to the front and were generally to be found congregated before lunch at the Club, among them Seppings Wright of the Illustrated London News, Ward Price of the Daily Mail, and the younger Ashmead Bartlett, who had been for a time a fellow-student at Scoones’, for the Daily Telegraph. Another favourite place for meals was Tokatlian’s restaurant; here I made my first acquaintance with yoghurt, which was then not so well known in England as it has since become. Another Turkish dish which I had looked forward to sampling because of its name was ‘Imam

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bayildi’, although opinions seemed to vary as to whether “the reverend gentleman fainted” with delight or because his wife had been so prodigal of expensive olive oil. Cold fried egg-plant swimming in oil however costly was not my idea of gastronomic bliss when I tried it in a small eating-shop in Istanbul, and I came down on the side of the second interpretation. One of my earliest sight-seeing expeditions was to the top of the old Genoese tower in Galata with its splendid view down onto the Golden Horn swarming with craft of every kind, ancient and modern, and thence across to the Old Saray and the towering minarets of the great mosques, some of them former Byzantine churches, of Istanbul, silhouetted against a cloudless blue sky. The modernizing and laicizing reforms of Mustafa Kamal Ataturk, which imposed a drab uniformity on the civil population, were still many years away. It was an education simply to stand on the bridge connecting Galata with the old city and watch the crowds crossing in each direction; for here could be seen, and up to a point distinguished, people of every class and every race from every corner of the far-flung Empire, as well as from the neighbouring countries. The commonest male costume, that of the humbler classes, consisted of small clothes of dove-colour or butcher’s blue reaching to the knee with an unbelievably long baggy seat hanging down behind, dove-coloured woollen stockings, a bright sash round the waist, shirt also of some bright colour, short gaudily embroidered zouave jacket, and a narrow turban often of yellow tied round the base of a red fez. But here were also: Kurdish hammals bearing loads that would have broken the spinal column of any European porter, balancing them on a large triangular pad attached to the back and steadying them by means of woven straps passed across the forehead; tall Tatars with sparse beards and drooping moustaches; high-cheekboned, tough-looking soldiers from the Anatolian plateau in shabby uniforms (anything of leather looking particularly shoddy); some, but not very many, Arabs in kaffiyya and ʿaqāl, the typical headdress (head-cloth and band keeping the first in place); grave divines (hoca) and sour-faced theological students (softa) in close-fitting white turbans; Persians distinguishable by their little black pill-box hats and flowing dark coloured cloaks; and veiled women, like so many black phantoms, in horse-drawn victorias, some of them accompanied by negro, obviously eunuch, slaves. Once I saw a motor car, which looked terribly out of place.

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Most of my spare time I spent wandering through the miles of arcaded bazaars and the numerous mosques of old Istanbul, arguing with the shopkeepers or conversing with chance acquaintances (for almost anybody seemed ready to talk to a European who knew a little Turkish), absorbing the sights and sounds—and smells—of an eastern city. The object of my attention might be a venerable imam or hoca instructing a line of country bumpkins in the correct motions of ritual prayer (“to touch the ground with the forehead just in front of the knees is all very well for women, but males, erkekler, should bend over well forward, thus”); or it might be a quack dentist accompanying his operations or sales with an uninterrupted patter addressed to the circle of open-mouthed spectators as much as to the patient (“how do you feel now, my friend? Speak up so that all these gentlemen can hear”); or a barber shaving off a growth of greying stubble dry, with no soap to soften it; or again, in a shady mosque courtyard, worshippers performing the ablution before prayer and conscript soldiers dictating to professional letter-writers messages for the old folks at home. In a great city there are always, of course, rascally touts on the lookout for gullible strangers. I was told the story of one of these who, having ascertained from a party of a dozen or so Afghan pilgrims lodging in the precincts of a mosque that they were planning to take passage to Jidda by sea at four gold liras a head, deprecated such extravagance since it would be both cheaper and quicker to go the whole way to Mecca by train. Having collected one gold lire from each he took them to the Galata end of the tunnel, whence they emerged at the Pera end a few minutes later, looking first for the holy city and then for the tout. The Bosphorus boats were always interesting, especially during the morning and evening rush of the official or leisured classes. There was generally some passenger anxious to talk, and it was often possible to guess at each pier, especially on the Asiatic side, which villages were favoured by Muslims, Armenians or Jews. The younger Muslim women were still generally enveloped, like their elders, in black cloaks; but these were seldom long enough to hide a pair of shapely silk-stockinged ankles set off by fashionable high-heeled Parisian shoes, while the little diaphanous white veils hardly blurred the often pale and delicate features beneath. As political tension increased mobs began to parade the city shouting for war, sometimes stopping outside the Embassy to cheer for

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England, I do not know why. Martial law was proclaimed on 8 October; more and more troops appeared marching through the streets, and cab horses were being commandeered in public places. One night when I went out with two of the American Consular Assistants remains vividly in my memory. The moon was nearly full, and as we crossed the Galata Bridge the silhouette of Istanbul stood out—as if carved from mother of pearl. We made our way through nearly deserted streets to the station. On the Adrianople departure platform, as far as the eye could see in both directions, several ranks of troops were squatting with their kit. Some had slogans worked in white on their khaki fezzes: ‘Death of Sofia’, ‘For the safety of the fatherland’, and the like. A few were smoking, others were chatting, many had fallen asleep on their packs, but most were sitting grimly silent just gripping their rifles. An old man in the usual peasant costume, a woman wearing a white scarf over her head and a pair of enormous brown trousers gathered at the ankles (not a common sight in the capital), and a dainty little granddaughter in trousers of a lighter material and slippers with peaked toes walked down the whole length of the platform looking for a son and father. The standing train was already full; the guard shouted and blew his horn; the officers by the carriage doors exchanged pats on the shoulder and kisses, or shook hands, with comrades who were to follow later, and jumped in. As the train moved out a bugler sounded a call. The waiting ranks jumped to their feet to salute. There was some cheering and clapping, and then the bristling lines of khaki sank down again to await their turn. Outside in the station yard scores of women and children were squatting. Some had men in uniform with them, but for most the parting had already taken place and, having nowhere to go, they were evidently there for the night. Very soon rumours began to circulate in the city of disasters suffered by the Turkish arms. The numerous sites left vacant after fires, as well as the precincts of mosques where there was plenty of water for washing children and clothes, began to fill with refugees, their numbers constantly added to by the arrival of travel-stained and weary groups with their ox-carts, the old men leading, baby faces peeping out from under the awnings of rude matting, and the women trudging bare-foot behind. The rumours were, of course, true and, as I have already mentioned, by the time I was ready to leave for my new post nearly the whole of European Turkey (except Adrianople, Scutari, Gallipoli and the nar-

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row peninsula between the lines of Chatelja and the Bosphorus) was in enemy hands, the members of the German military mission, the military attachés and the war correspondents were all back in Constantinople, H.M.S. Weymouth and other naval vessels of the principal Powers had arrived to protect their nationals in case of need, and the Germans had sought to go one better than everybody else by sending their latest battle-cruiser Goeben. By a curious coincidence my ship as far as Beirut was again the Saghalien. Her engines were once more giving trouble, and when we left on 8 November at dusk she was already a day behind schedule. As we passed down the Marmara the flames of burning villages could be seen on the northern shore. At the mouth of the Dardanelles next morning more warships were waiting to go through the straits and others, four British and two French, were anchored round the corner in Besika Bay. At Smyrna I went ashore to call again on the Elliots and also on the Consul-general, H. D. Barnham, who after his retirement published a delightful translation of the Turkish folk-lore classic, Tales of Nasr-ed-Din Khoja (1923),2 part of which we read at Cambridge in the original. The next port of call was Samos, then a principality of uncertain international status; but a violent gale kept all the passengers on board. At dawn on the fifth day, now thirty-six hours late, we reached Beirut. There was considerable delay in getting my heavy luggage out of the hold, and the captain of the Austrian Lloyd ship to which I was to transfer evidently lost patience just as I was ready to row across. Once again I found myself stranded in a foreign port, but this time early in the morning, with all my belongings and funds sufficient for my immediate needs. So I took a room at a little German hotel on the sea-front before going up to report to the Consul-General, H. G. Cumberbatch. He told me that, in spite of the great pressure of work, he had just been obliged to send his Vice-consul, Flecker, away on sick leave, and, hearing what I felt about my posting to the Persian Gulf, telegraphed to the embassy for permission to keep me in Flecker’s place.

2 [Tales of Nasr-ed-Din Khoja, translated from the Turkish text by Henry D. Barnham; with a foreword by Valentine Chirol. London, Nisbet, 1923 (reprinted Bethesda, Ibex, 2006).]

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In any case the next ship bound for Port Said was not due to sail for another four days. So I settled down to the routine of working all morning and again in the evenings for the Consul-General. Mrs Cumberbatch and her daughter received me most kindly, inviting me to stay to lunch and dinner, except when I happened to be bidden to the ward-room of H. M. S. Barham, a small cruiser acting as telegraph office for the transmission of official messages to Constantinople while the land-line was interrupted. The afternoons, with some of the naval officers, I spent at an international club (to which we had been welcomed at once as honorary members), playing tennis or, as dusk fell, roller-skating under the tuition of “les jeunes Syriennes”. Those were the days of what Edward Atiyah, in his moving book An Arab tells his Story (1946),3 called “the hero worship of the West”, and particularly of Britain. The very first duty entrusted to me by Mr. Cumberbatch was to prepare for transmission a telegram reporting that a wave of anglophile sentiment in Beirut seemed to be causing grave concern to a highly sensitive French Consulate-General, which was attributing it to scheming by Lord Kitchener in Cairo. Certainly among the members of the club (most of whom, it is right to point out, belonged to one of the racial or religious minorities) the contrast between Turkish maladministration in Syria and the security and prosperity many of them had seen in Egypt and Cyprus under British tutelage was a constant subject of conversation. Only one or two of them knew a few words of English. One, a Maltese, after confessing that he was born in Ottoman territory, knew no English at all, and was employed as Head Dragoman at the Austrian Consulate, sturdily maintained: “Je n’en suis pas moins anglais”. I remember writing to my Mother to say how impressed I was, here away from the capital, by the consequence that seemed to attach to the person of even the latest-joined recruit of His Majesty’s Consular service. Her reply, as I recall it, hardly differed from the advice that Sir John Malcolm used to give to his young men just a hundred years before: “They (the Persians) are a very keen and observing people; . . . they will peruse us and, from what they hear and see, form their opinion of our country; take care therefore that nothing is found in the

3 [Atiyah, Edward Selim, (1903–1964). An Arab tells his story, a study in loyalties, by Edward Atiyah. London, J. Murray (1946)].

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page but what is for the honour of England; . . . with such people more depends upon personal impressions than treaties”. On the fourth day, no answer having come to the telegram about my staying to replace Flecker, I took leave of my kind hosts and the many friends I had made at the club, to embark in the Austrian Lloyd S.S. Elektra. I must not linger over the onward journey with calls of a full day each at Haifa and Jaffa and two days at Port Said, absorbingly interesting as I found it as I sought to observe and remember so much that was new, the sights and sounds of the Arab ports of the Levant, and the habits and behaviour of the people. Between Port Said and Bombay, on board the S.S. Semiramis of the same Company, I found myself in yet another new and different world, for most of the passengers were British members of the Indian Services, civil and military, or of the commercial and tea-planting communities, together with wives and daughters, these last generally known as ‘the fishing fleet’. I enjoyed the passage in the time-honoured way, entering for the daily sweep-stake on the day’s run, walking or running miles up and down the decks for exercise, dancing after dinner, going ashore at Aden to buy materials for a fancy dress, leaning over the side in the bright moonlight with a favourite partner, and reaching Bombay just in time to avoid falling head over heels in love. Bushire was at that time served from Bombay by two regular services of the British-India Company: the ‘fast mail’, small ships which called only at Kutch Mandavi, Karachi, Muscat and Linga; and the ‘slow mail’, larger ships discharging and loading cargo at the numerous minor ports on both the Persian and the Arab shores of the Gulf. The fast-mail S.S. Dumra must have been one of the oldest ships in the service. The first thing I saw on going to my cabin was a large cockroach, and my bunk was full of ants. The Captain told me that this was nothing: when a sister ship had been fumigated recently eighty-eight buckets full of dead cockroaches had been removed, each containing perhaps five thousand. Fortunately, to deal at least with the ants, I had brought a large tin of Keating’s powder. Of our ports of call the most interesting was Muscat, capital of the Sultanate of Oman, by reason of its picturesque situation and also of its importance as the local centre of the trade in fire-arms. The town, its white-plastered houses glistening in the brilliant sunlight, lay facing the shore in a little cove enclosed on three sides by walls of black granite rising sheer out of the sea. It was flanked by two ancient Portuguese forts built high on precipitous spurs, with the Sultan’s red flag

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standing out sharply from one of them against the gloomy wall of rock behind. On the left, as the ship entered the harbour, were two rocky islands, on which generations of British bluejackets had whiled away the time painting the names of their ships in bold white letters. The arms traffic was for the most part in French hands; it had long caused grave concern to the British Government, which maintained, based on Muscat, a number of armed launches for the purpose of intercepting dhows running rifles and ammunition across to India and Persia. For me the most interesting of the cabin passengers was Hamid Khan, a cousin of the Agha Khan, better known in England as a polished and genial patron of the turf than as the revered hereditary head of the Isma‘ili community of India and so, perhaps, the lineal successor of the Grand Master of the Assassin fraternity of Alamut. There was also a Parsee pearl merchant from Bombay. But most of them were Europeans: a German business man and a French military doctor, Major Marzin and his wife, bound for Bushire; two officers of the Royal Indian Marine, of whom one was going up to Baghdad to take command of the Resident’s steam-launch Comet; two naval officers on their way to join the gun-running patrol; and finally two Frenchmen named Gogouyet, who had come out—to study the effect on their business (for theirs was one of the biggest firms involved) of new regulations promulgated earlier that year by the Sultan, under British pressure, to control the arms traffic. I watched with interest as the Gogouyets were greeted on arrival by a cousin who had represented the firm in Muscat for fifteen years, had not (I was told) been home for ten, and spoke, dressed and looked (except for a beard thicker and browner than is usual for an Arab) like a Muscati. In the early hours of the following morning the Captain roused some of us from our bunks to see Ra’s Masandam, the promontory on the Arabian side of the Strait of Hurmuz which leads from the Gulf of Oman to the Persian Gulf. There was no moon, but it seemed quite light owing to the brilliance of the stars and the phosphorescent glow of the sea as we cut through it. The Captain told us that sometimes in these plankton-rich waters a blinding wheel of light seemed to be whirling round the ship, which the officer on the bridge found very trying. I thought he must be exaggerating but on a later voyage, further up the Gulf, I recorded in my diary an even more spectacular example of this phenomenon: As our bows cut through the oil-smooth water two great jets of greenish flame swept out to port and starboard, break-

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ing up into countless bars of fire as they receded wedge-wise from the ship, while the wake was churned up into myriads of twinkling lights like the “golden rain” of fireworks. Most of the deck passengers were Arabs. A shaykh with a following of about a dozen retainers invited me to share their midday meal of a fowl apiece on a pile of rice, with a bowl of a kind of tomato stew and a plate of vegetables. I joined the circle and had my first experience of Arab hospitality, carefully observing every detail of the etiquette from the first washing of hands and the host’s bi‘smi’llāh (in the name of God), which bade the company set to, down to the washing out of the mouth, the second washing of hands, and the serving of coffee afterwards. In conversation with Hamid Khan, who knew Persia well, I was interested to find that he too, like my friends at Beirut, quoted the British achievement in Egypt as having put into the minds of many Persians a vague hope that something of the same kind might help to rescue their country from its chronic misgovernment. In the months and years ahead, in the south and the north alike, I was to hear over and over again the complaint: “Irân ṣāḥeb nadārad, Persia has nobody competent to manage its affairs efficiently”. Off Bushire the ship anchored several miles from the shore, and very soon an Anglo-Indian assistant-surgeon (for the quarantine was administered by the Indian Medical Service on behalf of the Persian authorities) arrived in a native sailing-boat and took the Bushire passengers to a low sandy island where we were to be detained for two days. He brought me a letter from H. G. Chick*, the British ViceConsul, and a servant with stores for the Marzins. The small bungalow of pisé for first-class travellers was not uncomfortable, and there was an excellent cook. In spite of unexpectedly bitter cold (it was now the 11th of December), heavy rain, thunder and lightning the two days passed pleasantly enough, and we had no complaints.

CHAPTER FOUR

LIFE AT BUSHIRE The town of Bushire is situated at the northern point of a cigar-shaped peninsula, about twelve miles long and four broad, lying parallel to the mainland of Persia and joined to it in the middle by some nine miles of mud flat called Mashila. The successor of the more ancient Reshire six miles to the south, and the seat of the Persian Governor of the Gulf Ports, Bushire owed its rise to importance in the nineteenth century to its position at the terminus of the great caravan route running northwards from the sea through the middle of Persia by way of Shiraz and Isfahan to Tehran. There was, however, nothing resembling a harbour; ships used to lie at one of two anchorages according to the amount of cargo to be discharged or taken on board, the outer six or seven miles and the inner about three miles from the shore, in a open and unprotected roadstead. A special type of sailing-boat called māshuwa, smaller than a dhow, was used for communication and lightering. Only the British Residency and the British India agents, Messrs. Gray Paul and Co., maintained steam-launches. Rather nearer in, off Reshire, there was another anchorage which was favoured by visiting sloops of the royal Navy and vessels of the royal Indian Marine but was not used by mercantile shipping. The quite considerable bazaars had none of the attractiveness of those in other Persian cities. They were reached by narrow, tortuous and undrained passages winding in and out among overhanging houses of mud brick and revealing only a thread of blue sky to the bewildered pedestrian. Immemorial usage had sanctioned the throwing of every kind of garbage into these ill-ventilated thoroughfares. In addition to one considerable village called Sangi a mile or two to the south there were scattered about the peninsula various small settlements, some of them just collections of matting huts occupied by fishermen and shrimpers, for the dried shrimps of Bushire were esteemed a great delicacy in all parts of the Gulf. To describe the climate there is a Persian saying: Hell is the summer health resort of Bushire. According to the official records for 1915, of

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which I have preserved a note, the mean daily maximum temperature for the year was 81.9° F [27.7°C] (94.6° [34.8°C] for June, July and August) and the mean minimum 69.2° [20.6°C] (53.3° [11.8°C] for December, January and February); the highest maximum of 111.6° [44.2°C] was registered on 9 June, and the lowest minimum of 47.5° [8.6°C] on 25 December. Owing to the high rate of humidity the summers were particularly trying, but the winter climate was quite pleasant. Except for occasional freak showers rainfall was limited to the five months November to March; in the winter of 1913–14 the total measured was 11.55 inches [29.34 cm], rather above the average. At the beginning of 1913 the foreign official community consisted of the British Political Resident in the Persian Gulf (who for purposes of Persian protocol held the rank of Consul-General), with his staff, the Russian, German and Turkish Consuls, the Belgian Director of Customs, the British Residency Surgeon who was also Director of the Persian quarantine service, and the French military doctor who, for some reason, was attached to the Russian Consulate. There had been more consulates at one time or another; but those had disappeared, and the protection of French, Dutch, Norwegian and other foreign interests was now entrusted to the Resident, who punctiliously maintained their protocol files, inviting himself separately in each of his several capacities to pay himself calls of congratulation on the appropriate national days. The non-officials included the staffs of Gray Paul & Co. already mentioned, of the Imperial Bank of Persia (now British Bank of the Middle East), and of the cable station maintained by the Indo-European Telegraph Department at Reshire, the representatives of two or three other British business houses, a Russian merchant, and the German branch-manager of the firm of Wönckhaus, agents for the Hamburg-Amerika shipping line. Almost without exception the Europeans, like the Governor and the leading Persian officials and merchants, lived away from the town in country houses, riding on horseback or driving in carriage and pair, trap or dog-cart to their places of business or on their social occasions. A battalion of Indian infantry, the 2nd Rajputs, and a squadron of the Central India Horse (the rest of the regiment being at Shiraz) were billeted at a large mansion known as Malik’s House, about four miles out; and the presence of their officers added considerably to the general gaiety and to the success of gymkhanas and other similar functions.

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The resident, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Percy Cox*, and his Second Assistant, Captain A. T. Wilson*, lived and had their offices at Sabzabad about seven miles from the town. The First Assistant, Captain R. L. Birdwood, and the Vice-Consul, H. G. Chick* of the Levant Consular Service, worked at the old Residency on the sea-front in the town, with a Parsee chief accountant and a large staff, organized on Indian lines, of Anglo-Indian and Goanese clerks, Persian dragomans, translators, door-keepers and servants, high and low. There was no public telephone system but communications between the two establishments were assured by a private line and a regular service of mounted messengers from the Residents’s escort of Indian Cavalry. The major political questions connected with the British position in the Gulf were dealt with by the Resident and his Assistants of the Indian Political Department; but Chick had made a special study of the tribes of the hinterland and, in practice, much of the local political work of the Persian, as opposed to the Arab, side was left to the Vice-Consul in addition to his normal consular and commercial duties. Nobody could pretend that Chick, who took me to live with him until I could make other arrangements, was the ideal senior to initiate a novice fresh from Cambridge into the routine of a consular office desk. He was, I suppose, only a year or two over thirty, if that; but premature baldness, a greying beard, great solemnity of manner and a profound contempt for all the lighter forms of entertainment combined to belie his age. A late riser he would potter about his garden until the morning, by eastern standards, was well advanced, reach the office about eleven o’clock, and then work steadily on without a break of any kind for lunch or tea until seven or, if he had no dinner engagement, eight or even nine in the evening. Delicacy or loyalty made me loath to leave before my hard-working chief, and he never suggested that I should. The long hours over a kind of work in which I had not yet had time to develop an interest, with never a chance for even a game of tennis in the afternoon except on Mondays (the only weekly day of rest, Sunday being mail day and the busiest of all), made me more than ever resentful of my transfer from Constantinople. Nevertheless I learned from him many valuable lessons in the art of dealing with Persians, and in time, too, I came to recognize the real goodness of the heart under that bearish exterior. A pious Roman Catholic, Chick later devoted several years of his retirement to the compilation of a monumental work in

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two volumes, running in all to 1376 pages, entitled A Chronicle of the Carmelites in Persia, published anonymously in 1939. My salary, including a local allowance, amounted to £350 a year (less income-tax), paid quarterly in arrear and delayed yet another month until the requisite life-certificate could reach London. On this I found that I was expected to rent and furnish a house, provide myself with adequate means of transport, and maintain an establishment of at least four servants as Indian custom demanded. I had the good fortune to find a kindred spirit in Captain F. H. E. Townshend, R. E., who was in charge of all Indian-Government buildings in the Gulf, and so to share the rent of an immense barrack known as the Old Bank House about three miles from the town, as well as the pay of a cook and one other servant. From officers about to return to India I bought two ponies, ‘No Trumps’ and ‘Gunrunner’, together with a secondhand high-wheeled dogcart. I also engaged two personal servants, a Bushiri named Riza trained in the tradition of an Indian ‘bearer’, and a groom, Abdallah, who dated all his anecdotes as so many years after the sāl-i firangī, the year of the Franks, 1857, the date of the AngloPersian war, when an expeditionary force from India under General Sir James Outram occupied Bushire. By the most careful economy and the avoidance of all tobacco and alcohol except when we had guests I managed to exist on my pay. But, the post of Consular Assistant not being an ‘appointment’ for the purpose of the regulations, I had not been eligible for an outfit allowance, and my Cambridge tailor had to wait three years to be paid for my uniform which, in the event (like the square-cut frock coat de rigueur for calls on the Governor and other high Persian officials) I cannot have worn more than six times all told. Early in February we moved into the Old Bank House and, with the resulting greater independence, I was able to arrange my time-table in a manner more attuned to my early-rising habits. Every morning, at about sunrise, a bearded old gentleman named Haji Mulla Ali, in flowing robes and large white turban, would arrive on a diminutive donkey for a Persian lesson, the usual text-book being a collection of Shi‘a Muslim canonical forms relating to all aspects of personal status, both public and intimate. One day he told me, in a hushed voice lest any of the servants should hear, that he was a Shaykhi, that is an adherent of a splinter group which had been led by the Persian passion for metaphysical speculation to adopt certain doctrines frowned upon by orthodox Ja‘faris. For us in the west the Shaykhi school has a

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C. J. Edmonds riding on ‘No Trumps’ at Bushire (on the right). From the collection of Hugh Edmonds

special interest, since it was from its teachings that the Babi and thence the Baha’i faiths evolved.1 Before I leave the old Haji I should perhaps explain that the word ākhund denotes a lesser member of the ‘scholar’ class with religious pretensions, the bigger the turban the higher the pretensions. In many contexts it is virtually synonymous with the more familiar mullā; but this last is also applied to somebody whose studies in an elementary Koranic school may not have progressed very far beyond the three R’s. The clerk to an illiterate tribal chief, for instance, would generally be called Mulla so-and-so.

1 [See Denis MacEoin, The Messiah of Shiraz. Studies in Early and Middle Babism.— Leiden-Boston, Brill, 2009 (Iran Studies, 3)].

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Breakfast followed the lesson and then, by riding (or, as the hot weather came on, by driving in the dog-cart) to the office two hours or more ahead of Chick, I no longer felt any compunction about leaving in reasonable time to get some tennis or otherwise join in the active social life of the station. Social life, as we understand it, was almost completely confined to the European community. This was not due to any affectation of superiority over ‘the natives’. On the contrary the primary reason was the conviction held by Ja‘faris in general, before the impact of western civilization had begun to influence their ways of thought, that to eat or drink out of a receptacle that had been used by an unbeliever involved ceremonial contamination. Differences of language and the seclusion of women naturally constituted additional barriers to easy social intercourse, but they were secondary. Modern education was beginning to change the ideas of a younger generation, and there were three schoolboys’ or young men’s clubs whose teams we used to meet on the soccer field. Female education was limited to one small school where thirty little girls sat at the feet of a black lady from Tehran. But when it was proposed to hold an examination the mothers invaded the premises and threatened to withdraw their daughters, not for fear that they might disgrace themselves but lest their performance should attract admiration and with it the evil eye. The Vice-Consul’s work was, of course, largely connected with the commercial and personal interests of British subjects. British goods, in general, had a very high reputation for quality. Very soon after my arrival I was puzzled by the word rājiz which Riza frequently used, evidently with the meaning ‘very good’, ‘first class’ or the like. This, as I have already mentioned, is one of the commonest forms of Arabic adjectives used in Persian, but I had never encountered rājiz in my reading and could not find it in any dictionary. Eventually I discovered that the word was in fact Rogers, the name of a Sheffield cutler whose wares were particularly highly esteemed in Persia. This reputation was not confined to Persia alone. R. M. Bailey, in his book No Passport to Tibet (1957),2 records how at Tsela Dong in August 1913, among the treasures and curios shown to him by the Dzongpôn, the pièce de résistance was a knife with the mark Rogers, which he called ‘Rachi’. Bailey goes on to explain that throughout the country the Rogers knife was so

2

Bailey, Frederick M., No passport to Tibet. London, Hart-Davis, 1957.

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coveted because it would sharpen the tough bamboo pens used by the Tibetans; the Japanese were copying the trade mark but the ‘Japanese Rachi’ was quite useless. This did not mean that we had no trouble with importers. The native mercantile community of Bushire was regarded by the more sophisticated reprobates of Muhammara (later Khurramshahr) and Basra at the head of the Gulf as a dull, sour, money-grubbing crowd who, in their bigotry, had forsworn the pleasures of this world while leaving nothing undone to forfeit those of the next. They were certainly bad payers, and a very common cause of litigation was the practice of refusing to take delivery of a consignment ordered through a British firm if there had been an unfavourable change in the market since the date of the order. There was then no such thing as a properly constituted law-court, and cases involving foreigners were dealt with by the Foreign Office Agent styled Karguzar (who happened to be the Governor’s brother). The Vice-Consul would attend to act as interpreter counsel and assessor for the British claimant while the Karguzar combined the offices of assessor for the defendant and judge. The parties with the witnesses and any others interested sat round in a circle, with the Karguzar and the Vice-Consul in easy chairs. Any late arrival would greet the company with a salāmun ‘alaykum, and all present would then exchange the usual courtesies as in an ordinary social gathering. From time to time glasses of tea would be brought in, and a water-pipe would be passed round for all who wished to take a pull. The first time I accompanied Chick to one of these hearings I found it difficult to keep a straight face. As the argument became more and more heated the Karguzar’s little round Astrakhan cap gradually crept further and further to the back of his head until, with his protruding lips and glittring eyes, he assumed the appearance of a facetious parrot in particularly rakish mood; the cap would then be pushed well forward almost over his nose only to work back again as the wrangle proceeded. There was seldom a definite judgment; most cases ended, after several such sessions, in a ‘compromise’ (a word beloved of Bushiri litigants), the account of the claim being reduced in return for an undertaking to pay by a certain date, which as often as not did not prevent the debtor from defaulting again in the hope of getting a further reduction in the same way. The files showed that several cases had been going on thus for years. The Governor, Ali Muhammad Khan Muvaqqar ad-Dawla*, was a typical grandee of those times but, having been to school in England,

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spoke English unusually well. A jealous custodian of Persian rights and dignity, he was at the same time an eminently practical man and, in the somewhat anomalous circumstances, had established a good working relationship with Sir Percy Cox; the Residency private telephone had been extended to his office and to his private house. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, by an abuse of the extraterritorial privileges enjoyed by the foreigners since the nineteenth century (the ‘capitulations’) there had grown up in Persia a numerous class of ‘protected persons’, Persian subjects who had been granted diplomatic or consular protection by various European governments in return for some service real or imaginary. The Russians had broadcast this privilege in the north to an extent that enabled them seriously to obstruct normal administration. The British Government had long abandoned the practice, and there survived in Bushire under our ‘protection’ only two Armenian families, those of Goolzad, hereditary contractors to the Royal Navy, and of Malkam (or Malcolm as they liked to spell it), agents for the Strick line of steamers. The Governor not only refused to recognize their claim to British protection but also had a particular dislike for the blind head of the second family, Tigram Malkam, who for his part was rather inclined to trail his coat. The first case with which, in the absence of Chick on tour, I had to deal with myself involved these two inveterate enemies. One night a certain Abd al-Karim, employed by Malkam as a store-keeper, had thrown a party and, while in his cups, had gone up on the roof with his guests and started chanting animadversions on the character of the Governor’s wife. In the morning old Tigram came round to the office in a great state to complain that in the middle of the night some guests of his employé had been rounded up and severely bastinadoed by order of the Governor, who was intending to have the store-keeper punished in the same way as soon as he was caught. If Malkam’s right to protection was disputed, the claim of a Persian servant in respect of an incident not even connected with his duties was trebly flimsy. However, as a matter of principle was in question, I thought I ought to report the complaint to the Resident at Sabzabad. He told me to connect the Governor’s telephone extension and then to listen in. After a short chat about other things Sir Percy asked almost casually what this trouble was about Abd al-Karim’s tea-party. “Tea party!” spluttered Muvaqqar, “Tea party? Are you aware that he and his guests had in the room forty-eight bottles of beer, twelve bottles of whisky, seven of gin, and moreover two small boys for the purposes of sodomy, and you call

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that a tea party?” I heard a snort as of suppressed laughter from the Sabzabad end, and after some more argument they compromised for a substantial fine in lieu of the bastinado for Abd al-Karim. Some of the other foreign representatives, not unnaturally perhaps, were apt to be very jealous of the dominating British position and showed it in various ways. Marzin was evidently very hurt at not having been made French Consul in place of the Resident, but there was not much he could do about it. Since 1907 the Russians had retired from the competition to have the highest flagstaff and the brightest lights on the sea front. The Turkish Consul was a pathetic character who, while professing the greatest contempt for the Persians as bigoted fanatics, made no attempt to mix with the European colony. When I paid my first official call he seemed delighted to meet someone fresh from Constantinople; he asked me to look in occasionally to talk Turkish, adding that in his loneliness his only consolation was to get out a bottle of whisky in the evenings, call his secretaries, and hold forth to them, always about family and home. The German Consul, Dr. Helmuth Listemann, was a dapper little man with a small ‘Kaiser’ moustache. He seemed to be overwhelmed by the task of forwarding his country’s policy of Drang nach Osten in such unfavourable conditions and to be inclined, in consequence, to stand on his dignity and take offence very easily. On the other hand, as will be seen later, he was not entirely without a sense of humour. Early in 1914 he went on leave and was replaced by a colleague from Zanzibar named Wassmuss*, who had acted for Listemann before and so knew Bushire well. Hailfellow-well-met in manner, with a young looking, rubicund face set off by prematurely grey hair, Wassmuss was a keen horseman, and his afternoon polo parties that summer were quite a feature of the always lively social round. He was generally popular, though we of the Residency thought he was a little too fond of asking the younger British officers of the battalion seemingly innocent questions. He was, moreover, far more aggressive than Listemann in seeking pretexts for a political quarrel. Now a peculiarity of the Bushire peninsula was that even the water of the best wells (and these were some miles south of the town) contained in solution a strong proportion of Epsom salts; not only was it unpleasant and embarrassing to drink but it was disastrous to try to wash one’s hair in it with soap (for this we used a kind of fuller’s earth called Shiraz clay which gave results far superior to those of any

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The Turkish Consulate of Bushire, 1913. From Edmonds’s albums, Archives of the Middle East Centre, St Antony’s College, Oxford

expensive shampoo). After rain hundreds of women would sally forth from the town and hamlets with skins and bowls to collect the precious fresh water from the pools before it could drain away. Most of the Europeans provided themselves with casks, which we used to send out for filling to the bi-weekly British India mail-steamers on their way up and down the gulf. The German Consul, however, would only take his water from the Hamburg-Amerika ships, which visited the port only once a quarter; he therefore had more and bigger barrels than anybody else. The moment a ship was sighted approaching the anchorage it was, as I have already mentioned, the duty of the quarantine guards to sail out in a mashuwa to prevent any commerce with the shore until the doctor had been on board and completed the sanitary formalities. The arrival of the quarterly ship from home was, naturally, a major event in the annals of the German Consulate. On the occasion of which I am writing the Consulate mashuwa had a good start and was only just beaten at the post by a short length. The boatman with the first German barrel tried to force his way up the gangway only to be unceremoniously bundled down, barrel and all, by the sturdy quarantine guard who held the passage until the doctor had finished his work. Here was

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a splendid opportunity to attack the British-administered quarantine service, and Wassmuss lost no time in addressing to the Karguzar an official protest against the violence done to a servant of the Consulate and the highly-flavoured remarks about the Consul’s mother, wife and daughters (Wassmuss was in fact a bachelor) shouted by the guard in reply to the servant’s mild and polite expostulations; he demanded the condign punishment of the offender. Major Hunt, the Residency Surgeon, maintained that this was a matter for a departmental inquiry, not for the Karguzar; and very soon the telegraph wires to Tehran were humming with telegrams between Wassmuss and his Legation, the Karguzar and the Persian Foreign Office, Hunt and the central Conseil Sanitaire, and ourselves and the British Minister, whom it was considered advisable to keep informed because the President of the Conseil was an Austrian and might be sympathetic to the German point of view. In the meantime the Karguzar was acting as a passive post-office for violent exchanges in Persian between Wassmuss and Hunt, until Tehran finally came down on the side of Hunt. All of which constituted a resounding victory for British diplomacy, in which my share was the not very glorious one of having to translate the lengthy English and Persian proceedings into French for the Conseil Sanitaire. Another cause of friction was a mortgage held by Goolzad on the German Consulate, a large rented building about two miles from the town, which with its two square towers presented quite an imposing appearance to ships lying out in the roadstead. The owner having failed persistently to pay the interest, Goolzad wished to foreclose and, as a “protected person”, invoked our good offices in the normal way. Listemann, however, set to work, by every method open to him, to impede the proceedings, having persuaded himself (as we discovered later) that this was the opening move in a sinister plot to shatter German prestige by evicting him and installing Chick in his place. About three months after my arrival two tragedies in quick succession cast a temporary gloom over the European community. The first was the murder of Madame Constant, the wife of the Belgian Director of Customs,3 a charming and elegant young Frenchwoman. We had nearly all been to an evening entertainment at the Armenian school,

3 [See A. Destrée, Les Fonctionnaires belges au service de la Perse . . ., p. 332. A. Constant was first posted at Rasht (Browne, Persian Revolution, p. 293), then in 1911 in Bushire. He was the target of the attempt which killed his wife.]

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to which, in addition to the children, Madame Marzin, the sister-inlaw of the Russian Consul Dimitriev, and the accountant of the British Bank, who had a very good baritone voice, had contributed. As the Constants were driving home in the dark they were waylaid by gunmen led by a recently-dismissed Customs employé. The lady was killed outright and Constant himself was severely wounded in the groin. Ten days later Dimitriev, Dimay as we called him, a kind-hearted, gentle, dignified little man, committed suicide by shooting himself. Domestic troubles, private financial worries, and the Constant affair had, it seemed, been preying on his mind; but the immediate cause was the

Wassmuss. From Wipert von Blücher, Zeitenwende im Iran: Erlebnisse und Beobachtungen, Biberach an der Riss, 1949

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arrival without previous warning of a younger man to replace him, his supersession being due to general incompetence rather than any impropriety. For the Consular Corps the funeral was a full-dress occasion, the Central India Horse provided an imposing escort, and the Rajputs lined and kept the tortuous route through the bazaars to the Armenian church, where, prominent on the walls, were a number of tablets erected to the memory of British officers, casualties of the campaign of 1857. In the December of 1913 Sir Percy Cox left to take up the post of Secretary to the government of India in the Foreign and Political Department, and was succeeded by J. G. Lorimer* of the Indian Political Service. At about the same time the 2nd Rajputs were relieved by the 102nd Bombay Grenadiers, who brought with them a string orchestra and a pipe band; the Central India Horse had been withdrawn from both Shiraz and Bushire in June. Lorimer, who came direct to us from Baghdad, was the author of a comprehensive Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, which remained for many years a standard work of reference; he was thus exceptionally well qualified to fill the Bushire post. But his appointment ended in yet another tragedy, for just a month after his arrival he died as the result of a shooting accident. For the funeral the Consular Corps was joined by the Governor and the Karguzar, like us in uniform, representative officers from H.M.S. Fox and the Indian battalion, and the whole of the European civil community. A detachment from Fox supplied the bearers and a firing party, and the pipers of the 102nd playing ‘Ye Banks and Braes’ and other laments added poignancy to the burial service. Up to the time of my leaving England I had never yet had occasion to mourn the loss of a relative or a friend, and the tragic deaths in so short a space of time of three people whom, in different ways, I had come to like and admire constituted yet another new experience which moved me deeply. The Consular Corps suffered yet another casualty in the following July, when the Turk committed suicide in the same way as Dimitriev. His consulate was on the sea-front not far from the Town Residency, and it was to us that the head clerk came to report the tragedy and ask for advice. Other changes relevant to the story that follows took place in the first half of the new year. Lorimer was succeeded by Lieut-Colonel S. G. Knox* from Muscat. At the beginning of March Townshend left and

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I went to live with Birdwood4 until he was relieved by Captain W. G. Neale. About the same time Captain E. W. Noel* also arrived from India to fill the post of Second Assistant, which had changed hands two or three times since Wilson had left early in 1913 on long leave before taking up the appointment of Deputy British Commissioner on the Turko-Persian boundary Commission of 1914. In May Chick went on leave, and I took over charge of the Vice-Consulate for the rest of the year. Long before this I had got over my disappointments and despair of the first few months. On the one hand I had been enjoying to the full the gay social activities of the European community, with its entertaining and being entertained, and the opportunities for sport of various kinds at no great cost, riding, cricket and tennis all the year round, football (soccer) in the winter, and an occasional day’s hawking with Goolzad’s falconers. On the other hand increasing command of the language had added progressively to the interest of my official work. There was, of course, plenty of unexciting routine, but the duty of watching and encouraging British and Indian commerce involved social relations with the Persian merchants also, and the entertainment of untutored tribal chieftains from the hinterland, especially those in a position to affect the security of the trade routes. In the absence of Chick it fell to me to write the Trade Report for 1913–14, in which was recorded, it is perhaps interesting to recall, the first export of kerosene oil from the Anglo-Persian Oil Company’s refinery at Abadan. The hot weather, lasting from April to October, certainly had its drawbacks. Riding to the office in the morning necessitated a complete change of clothing on arrival. To avoid spoiling the paper on which one was writing it was advisable to put a pad of blotting-paper an inch thick to act as a sponge between the desk and one’s wrist. There was no electricity for fans, and we used the Indian system of overhead punkahs, mine being worked by a very brown, almost black, little boy of seven or eight, who lay on his back on a mat behind a screen and tied the cord to his big toe. Before very long the heat, the rhythmical movement of his leg, and the monotonous squeak of the pulley inevitably sent him off to sleep; but if I was concentrating on my work I would not be aware that it had stopped until I suddenly found myself

4

[Consul in Bushire, 1911–14.]

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bathed in sweat streaming from every pore. An exasperated shout would set the punkah swinging again, but only for a time. At night it was the universal practice to sleep on the roof, but protected from the dew by a canopy of matting, without which the bedding was liable to become sopping wet by morning. Against this, for much of the year the evenings were pleasant enough, so that to dine in the open air, perhaps in bright moonlight, at a table lit with rows of Persian ‘tulip’ spring-candlesticks, waited on by white-clad, highly trained Indian and Persian servants, and lulled by the liquid notes of Chopin’s ‘Impromptu fantastique’ or other soft music, and, if host and guests were bachelors, prepared to sleep where

W. G. Neale. From the collection of Hugh Edmonds

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we dined (servant and groom having been sent ahead with bedding, a change of clothes, and the second pony), was calculated to induce a feeling of sybaritic well-being rarely experienced at home, at any rate by a young man on £350 a year less income-tax.

CHAPTER FIVE

FIRST CARAVAN JOURNEY At the time about which I am writing the writ of the Central Government hardly ran in the Bushire hinterland, and the chiefs, or khans, of the various tribes were more or less a law unto themselves. Those on the main trade-route to Shiraz, notably the Khans of Burazjan and Kazarun, had long been accustomed to levy blackmail, called rāhdāri (road-protection money), on every animal in the caravans, and also to oppress the muleteers in other ways, forcing them, for instance, to bring goods from Bushire or Shiraz for their own use and then paying less than the cost price. On the coast to the south the Tangistanis were notorious brigands, gun-runners and pirates; indeed in June 1913 an expedition of two hundred bluejackets and two companies of the 2nd Rajputs landed at their principal village of Dilvar to punish them for a brutal act of piracy on a pearling dhow from Dubai on the “Trucial Coast” of the Arab side of the Gulf, when all eight members of the crew were murdered and the pearls stolen.1 On the other hand the Khan of Chahkutah to the east across the Mashila and the chiefs of Dashtistan along the coast northwards, that is the Khans of Angali, Shabankara, Rudhilla and Hayat Daud*, were on the whole law-abiding and well behaved. The most important of these was the last, Haydar Khan, who lived at the small port of Bandar Rig, about thirty-five miles from Bushire; shrewd and full of worldly wisdom, he not only wielded absolute authority in his own Hayat Daud and the historic off-shore island of Kharg, but was accepted as their leader and political mentor by the Khans of Rudhilla and Shabankara to his south and also by the chiefs of Liravi, with its port of Bandar Dilam to his north, 1 Reports of the operation appeared in The Times of 19 and 25 June 1913. The adjective “trucial” had long been in current use in the Gulf before it was finally admitted to English dictionaries; it is still used only in relation to the “Maritime Truce” concluded in 1835, and renewed by later treaties, under British auspices between certain shaykhs of the Oman peninsula. Since the discovery of oil in the region the names of these small shaykhdoms have become household words in the West. [The Tangistanis are described in Persian sources as nationalists who resisted British domination in the region, especially during the First World War; see, for example Md-Husayn Ruknzāda Ādamiyat, Dalīrān-i tangistânī, Tihrān, 1st ed. 1310/1931.]

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which made a zone of influence along the coast some eighty miles in length. He had co-operated in the suppression of piracy with the Residency, which, in return, was accustomed to give him such support as it properly could in the protection of his legitimate concerns. One of these concerns was that from the days of the East India Company the pilots for the approaches to the Shatt al-Arab had been drawn from a single family of Kharg, the Khan of Hayat Daud receiving a small royalty on each ship that crossed the bar. Among early travellers who recorded taking on pilots at Kharg are Pietro della Valle in 1625 and Captain Loch, R.N. of H.M.S. Eden (1818–1820). Loch also mentions the presence near the shore at Kharg of ‘a white limey clay which the inhabitants use as soap’ and which was ‘at one time . . . sold in the bazaar at Bahrayn as shampoo for the hair’.2 From 1753 to 1766 the Dutch had their principal trading ‘factory’ here. British forces from India occupied the island from 1838 to 1842 as a means of bringing pressure to bear on the Persians to abandon their aggression against Heart, and the Residency was moved there temporarily from Bushire. It was occupied a second time for a similar reason in 1856–57, Abdallah’s sāl-i firangī. During the eighteenth and the early years of the nineteenth centuries Bandar Rig and Kharg were in the hands of a line of Arab shaykhs. I do not know when exactly control passed to the Lurish Khans of Hayat Daud, but whenever it may have been Kharg continued to supply the pilots. Thanks to the good offices of Chick the Khan’s right to royalties continued to be recognized for some time after the British occupation of Basra in November 1914. The recently formed Persian Gendarmerie under Swedish officers had been steadily extending their occupation of the high road southwards from Shiraz, as far as Kazarun (about 100 miles from Bushire by road) in April 1913, and to Bushire in November, when for the first time caravans made the journey without paying a penny in rahdari. The new order was naturally unwelcome to the khans, who were thus deprived of an important source of income. But the muleteers, on their side, had occasion to complain of the indiscipline and highhandedness of the gendarmes, especially the commandeering of their animals even when loaded with merchandise.

2 Author’s footnote: Wilfred Blunt, Pietro’s Pilgrimage (1953, p. 289); Charles Belgrave, The Pirate Coast (1966, pp. 86 and 169). Cf. also above [p. ??].

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The Swedish officers, without previous experience as they were of the ways of the Islamic East, made many mistakes as, for instance, when a mass desertion of 180 men was caused by an order that a defaulter should have his trousers removed before he was flogged, a most un-Persian punishment. Between November and the following March there were several cases of isolated posts being overrun by tribesmen. The two most serious outbreaks occurred at Kazarun itself. At the end of November the garrison of 100 men was reduced to seeking bast in the telegraph office, the traditional inviolable sanctuary in the provinces, after loosing nearly 200 rifles, large quantities of ammunition, and other equipment. At the end of February the Swedish officer in command was shot dead in an attempt to arrest a local swashbuckler, whereupon the whole country round rose and besieged the barracks until relief columns arrived from Shiraz and Bushire. The gendarmes themselves then ran amok, looting indiscriminately and taking vengeance where they could. Caravan traffic was completely held up, mules were commandeered wholesale by these brigands in uniform to remove their loot to Shiraz, while more animals were carried off by tribesmen. There was even some sniping of the Swedish officers’ mess in Bushire itself. By April (1914) order had been restored and caravan traffic had been resumed. As the Swedes gained experience the discipline of the force improved, and the mercantile community gradually came to appreciate the value of its presence on the roads. For my first tour in the torrid maritime plain I could hardly have chosen a more unfavourable time of year than early August. But it corresponded that year with the second week of the fasting-month of Ramazan3 when in all Muslim countries work tended to come more or less to a standstill, and I dared not miss an opportunity that might not recur. I had certainly not realized into what an inferno I was about to plunge. The authorized commercial caravan route was by way of the Nashila but, in order to save a day and avoid an unpleasant stage, muleteers from Shiraz always preferred to come down to the little harbour of Shif about eight miles north-east of Bushire and then bring the loads across by sailing-boat. For some reason the use of this alternative route

3

[24 July–22 August 1914.]

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was forbidden for the regular main-road traffic; but whenever control was even slightly relaxed, back it would come into use again. In any case Shif had to be used for communication with the coastal districts to the north, and outward consignments really destined for Shiraz were frequently despatched that way under false declarations. In view of my inexperience I thought it wise to take with me a mentor and amanuensis in the person of the Consulate dragoman. Aqa Muhammad Muhsin and his brother Aqa Khalil, the Residency dragoman, belonged to a wealthy family and served for a small nominal salary in order to obtain British protection for themselves and their properties. Their social status enabled them to hold their own in any company from the Governor downwards. From Aqa Muhsin I learned many precious lessons in what the Persians call ‘standing up and sitting down’, that is their code of good manners and etiquette. My party was accordingly made up of: our two selves on horseback; my two servants Riza and Abdallah, a consular farrash or door-keeper who had accompanied Chick on all his travels and so knew the country well, and Aqa Muhsin’s private servant, all mounted on mules; two more mules for tents and baggage; and finally the chārvādār, or head muleteer, and his yatīm (literally orphan) or assistant, these two sharing a donkey. Long experience has taught the Persians that it is a mistake to try to cover a full stage on the first day of a journey. The mules are sure to arrive late; some packing always remains to be done at the last minute; loading the animals takes an age until the packages have become familiar and the best distribution fixed; halters will have been forgotten, and a thousand other delays will inevitably occur. He has therefore invented a procedure called naql-i makān, shifting of place, meaning that on the first day he moves out quite a short distance, perhaps only two or three miles, and makes his first serious day’s march on the second. This has the additional advantage that articles discovered to be missing only after arrival at the first camp can easily be fetched. Readers of the Arabian Nights will remember that we owe that collection of delectable tales to this sensible ancient custom. Adapting this procedure to a departure by sea I sent my pony and kit down in good time to the quay to be put aboard a hired sailingboat, and went down at my leisure expecting to push off at the time pre-arranged with Aqa Muhsin. But there was no sign of him or his baggage. It was not until two hours later that they arrived. Even then he discovered that the indispensable water-skin (for there was no fresh

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water at Shif or for several miles inland) was missing, which meant another half-hour’s delay. We were unable to make up for lost time owing to the dead calm and we only reached the little port long after the turn of the tide. We pushed the great iron bars used for ballast over to one side and sitting, all of us passengers and crew alike, on the gunwale heeled the boat over to lessen the draft and so pushed her inshore over the smooth clay as far as we could. The horses were then coaxed over into the sea, while we ourselves transferred to a smaller boat and finally reached dry land on the shoulders of the boatmen. Shif, which consisted of a fort and two or three mud hovels, was an appanage of the district of Angali, whose chief, Ahmad Khan, was first on my list of visits. His agent, Mulla Husayn, was bustling about the shore clad only in a tall black-felt brimless hat (kulâh), a thin vest, and baggy black Lur trousers. He had a rifle slung over his shoulder and carried a small note-book in which he was entering details of the dues he collected for his master on the trade passing through. He invited us into the upper room of his fort. It was evident from their conversation that the tribesmen were extremely suspicious of the Gendarmerie who, they said, had talked about occupying Shif. Ahmad Khan had reinforced the garrison by twenty riflemen and a reserve of ammunition, and was sending additional supplies of sweet water daily. They had orders to fire on any party of gendarmes exceeding ten who might wander so far from their ‘legitimate sphere’, the official caravan track over the Mashila; smaller parties might be regarded as travellers. “Last week,” said Mulla Husayn, “a Swedish officer with six men arrived a little after dark; in reply to my challenge he asked for the kadkhudā, the village headman; I answered that we knew no kadkhuda but God, and bade him board the boat awaiting him and be gone without delay.” We finally left half an hour before sunset, guided by a rifleman who walked before us at a rapid pace without a pause the whole seventeen miles northwards to Muhammad Shahi, the principal village of Angali, on the Rudhilla river. Once clear of the pot-holed mud flats around Shif the path broadened out over a sandy plain. Occasional wheat caravans of camels strode past us in the moonlight, making for the port. It must have been some time after ten when the silhouette of palm groves loomed up before us and we found ourselves at the gate of the Khan’s fort, where two handsome, clean-looking sons were waiting to greet us. Many of the tribesmen of this region (Dashtistan), especially the members of the ruling families, were fine physical specimens, often

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over six feet tall with aquiline noses and bright blue eyes. The hair was worn fairly long and parted in the middle; it was grown longer behind and brushed so as to curl up from under the brimless kulah into what they called a kākawl and to expose the nape of the neck; sometimes the front of the scalp was shaved. The kulah might be brown or black and varied in height. The most characteristic part of the costume was the trousers, made of a shiny black cotton material, cut very wide in the leg and hanging straight down. Over this there was a shirt, and then a loose robe of any colour folded across the front and held together by a waistband three yards or more long, into which would be stuck a revolver and a knife. Many of the khans carried in addition a large Mauser pistol slung over the shoulder. Buildings were for the most part constructed of pisé or unbaked brick. The quarters of a chief were generally disposed in two courtyards. The first, reached from the gate-house, would probably have the guest-rooms, a mosque, barrack-rooms for the retainers and stables forming three sides of the rectangle, with a large raised pisé sakaw, or platform, out in the open near the guest-rooms; the fourth side might be a plain blank wall pierced by a small door leading to the second courtyard, the women’s compound (andarûn), which would also have a postern to enable the occupants to go in and out without attracting the attention of outsiders. We were received by Ahmad Khan on the sakaw, carpeted and brightly lit with pressure oil-lamps, where, surrounded by male members of his family and retainers, all armed to the teeth, he had been listening to a reading from the Koran. It was fortunate that my tour, if it had to be in summer, fell in the second week of Ramazan, when the moon was waxing towards the full and the people, the more leisured classes at any rate, were accustomed to stay up all night and try to sleep off the discomfort of hunger and thirst during the day. It was thus possible to make a reasonable march of four or five hours in the cool after sunset and cause no inconvenience to our hosts on arrival. We were served in turn with tea, coffee prepared in the Arab way, water-melon and finally, at half past two in the morning, before I retired to my tent, a meal; this last our hosts did not share, for they would be having a large supper shortly before dawn to carry them through the day until they could break their fast again at sundown. I spent the next morning sitting on a carpet in the shade of a wall talking to Ahmad Khan and his sons until the narrowing shadow drove us indoors to the guest room. I could not but admire their self-

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control as they watched my party eat the mid-day meal, chaffing me for my inexpert attempts to roll the rice, with the fingers of my right hand only, into a proper morsel (luqma) to carry to my mouth. I then tried to sleep, but the heat radiated by the walls was like the blast from a furnace, the canvas of my bed and my clothes might have been hot embers, and I got not a wink. While we were sitting outside again, on chairs this time, in the late afternoon I noticed an ordinary-looking tribesman stroll up and squat down against the wall in a line with the many riflemen who seemed to have nothing to do but sit about in the courtyard, whereupon the Khan’s son, Abbas Quli, quietly left his chair and went to squat on the ground with the others. The new-comer, I learned, was the Khan’s brother. Although it frequently occurred that the less sophisticated members of a tribal ruling family were hardly distinguishable from ordinary retainers,the respect due from the younger members was not forgotten, and it would have been highly improper for Abbas Quli, next in succession though he was to his father, to remain seated on a chair while his uncle sat on the ground. In most parts of Persia the European traveller, with his servants and muleteers, could almost invariably count on being received and entertained with great hospitality. Any suggestion of payment would have been resented as an insult. On the other hand it was understood that the host’s servants would be handsomely tipped. Here, as elsewhere, it was not always easy to determine the appropriate sum, but a rough estimate of the expense incurred by the host on food and fodder was a very fair guide. Our next destination was to be Sa‘dabad, the headquarters of Isma‘il Khan of Shabankara, a village on the left bank of the Shapur, one of two major streams (the other being the Daliki) which come together to form the Rudhilla about nine miles up-stream of Muhammad Shahi. The Shapur takes its name from the site of the ancient capital of the Sasanian dynasty, which ruled Persia from A.D. 226 to the Arab conquest in the seventh century. The extensive ruins are situated about forty odd miles north-east of the confluence, but probably more than twice that distance up its tortuous course, and not far from the BushireShiraz road north of Kazarun. In a narrow gorge near the ruins are six large sculptured bas-reliefs celebrating the victories of Shapur I (reg. 241–272), whose most famous feat of arms was the defeat and capture of the Roman Emperor Valerian at Edessa in 260, and of three of his successors.

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About half an hour before sunset we judged that it was cool enough for us to resume our journey. As we rode down to the ford to cross to the sister village of Dashti on the north bank I was surprised to see that the young village-women going down with their skins to fetch water nearly all had their faces very much made up. From Dashti we marched north-eastwards. The country was now more interesting, with signs of cultivation on both sides of our route, and occasional villages. We had not been riding very long when Aqa Muhsin seemed to be sagging in his saddle; he complained of thirst and insisted on sending the guide off to try to find some water-melons. The heat had certainly been rather exhausting, but I found this exhibition of weakness and the consequent delays very annoying, especially as the first three missions produced no result. I was too inexperienced to know what degree of stamina I was entitled to expect from my older companion and judged it wiser to acquiesce. At the fourth attempt, however, three not very good specimens were obtained, and we broke them open with our hands and ate them sitting on the ground. When a proposal to send for water followed I lost all patience and, knowing that we could not now be very far from our destination, insisted on pushing on. Half an hour later, at Darvay, we forded the Shapur, here quite a broad river, and then crossed several small steams of irrigation ditches as we made our way through dense palm groves and between numbers of huts to the Khan’s enclosure. We were met at the gate-house by the steward, who conducted us to the carpeted sakaw in front of the guest-rooms, where the frail old Isma‘il Khan joined us for a short time. I then went up onto the guest-house roof and dropped off to sleep while waiting for supper, which arrived at two in the morning, oily and unappetizing. My tent had been pitched in the courtyard, which might have been that of a common caravanserai, very different from the beautifully swept and garnished enclosure at Angali. I tried to sleep, but the stuffy atmosphere, the buzz of conversation, the bubbling of water-pipes, the tinkling of bells, the stench of hot-mules, not to mention fouler emanations, soon forced me to carry my bed up on to the roof. Here the air was a little better, but all the dogs, donkey, domestic fowls and rawzakhvāns (elegy-reciters) of the village seemed to have conspired to make the most deafening noise possible. Nevertheless I fell asleep and woke, much refreshed, a little before sunrise. I then had a delightful swim in a deep pool just above the village ford, discovering from an involuntary mouthful that although the Shapur bore the alternative

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name of Rud-i Shirin, Sweetwater River (in contrast to the very salty Daliki), its water was decidedly brackish. I spent the whole morning talking business with Isma‘il Khan. He was accompanied by his youngest son, a delicate looking epileptic. A short time previously, I was told, the boy had had a particularly severe attack; the local medical practitioner had well-nigh exhausted all his remedies and arts until he finally tried a charm and so induced the jinni in possession of the young man to come out of him by way of the big toe of the left foot. After a most unappetizing mid-day meal I tried to sleep. But the sun beating down on the wooden doors of the guest-chamber rendered it so unbearably hot that I was fain to wrap a wet towel round my head in a not very successful attempt to keep at least that part of me cool. I finally renounced all idea of a rest and sat up, that being the position in which I came least in contact with my burning bed. I was not sorry to leave Isma‘il Khan’s. Our conversation had been almost confined to his troubles with the Government over arrears of revenue. His difficulties were due to bad management of his estates; his house was dirty, his food was not up to standard (my diary calls it “nauseating”), and the general atmosphere of decay surrounding the old man was pathetic. Our next stop was to be at Dih Kuhna, the seat of Isma‘il’s eldest son, only ten miles to the north-west. The track took us again over a sandy plain, where a plant which I cannot name grew in profusion and filled the air with a strangely unpleasant smell; it had flowers that looked rather like hollyhocks and was said to produce a coarse cottonlike fibre. It was not very dark when we arrived after the short march, and I could see that the buildings and courtyard were in good repair and clean, unlike those at Sa‘dabad. Of all the handsome figures of men I met on this journey Muhammad Ali Khan was perhaps the most striking. But for all his physical advantages his manner was shy and diffident, and he left most of the talking to his steward and secretary, Mirza Riza, whom I had already met once or twice on his master’s business in Bushire. We were anxious to reach Bandar Rig not too late the following evening, so we stayed only for a midnight supper and a short nap on the sakaw before setting out again for Chihil Gazi, some eleven miles to the west, where we planned to halt during the heat of the day. Mirza Riza, who accompanied us on a donkey proved to be a gifted raconteur of entertaining anecdotes adorned more Persico with profound philosophical reflections, just the companion to help

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while away the tedium of an uninteresting march over flat, featureless country. At Chihil Gazi there was no resident khan and we were entertained by the kadkhuda, another handsome blue-eyed giant. As was only to be expected his establishment was far more primitive than those of the khans. On each side of the passage through the gate-house there was a room at a higher level, into one of which he conducted Aqa Muhsin, Mirza Riza and myself. Villagers came along one after another and squatted in a line on the ground on the side of the passage from which they could look into the room, until the line became so long that the latest comers had to sit outside. A water-pipe was brought and went along the whole length of the parade, only one man refusing to smoke. I twitted them with not keeping the fast. They explained that, since they had to work in the fields during the day, this was quite impossible when Ramazan fell in high summer. However that might be, they stayed there till well after noon, went off to sleep in the compound, and came back again before we left. The afternoon was another gruelling experience. We were cooped up in the gate-house, where it was terribly hot. The tent would have [been] even hotter and had not been pitched, so I had not had the opportunity to get out of my riding things, nor had I my canvas campbed to lie on. The flies, which so far had been comparatively rare, were there in swarms, the scorching wind blew all the filth of a stable yard through the open doorway, and the dust lay thick everywhere. Ra‘is Khurshid, a very likeable fellow, did his best to make us as comfortable as his limited resources allowed. He wanted to give me a falcon and, when I declined it, begged me at least to come again in the winter and enjoy a week’s hawking in a pleasanter climate. There was no point in staying between those four walls longer than absolutely necessary and, with only fourteen miles to go, we reached Bandar Rig while the night was yet young. Haydar khan, then probably in his middle fifties as I picture him, proved to be a most delightful host. All Haydar Khan’s arrangements had a touch of not unwelcome polish and worldly-wise concern: a large tent had been pitched for me and furnished with tables and chairs, the food was appetizing, soap was brought with the ewer and basin for the washing of hands before and after meals, and the like. The day after our arrival, when I retired to the tent for a siesta after the mid-day meal, a rawzakhvani was in progress in the mosque nearby. I cannot say that I ever acquired an understanding of, or liking for, any

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kind of oriental music; but on that occasion, lest I should be disturbed, the Khan had given orders that the chanting was to be muted so that the soft and subdued antiphony of first a boy’s voice, then the unison of several voices, then a man’s voice solo, then the unison again, and so on was very pleasing and, incongruous as any comparison may sound, actually stirred memories of evensong in King’s College Chapel at Cambridge. The singers would not have been local villagers but a group of professionals, perhaps from Bihbahan, over eighty miles away. The eldest son, Ullah Karam Khan, also had two unusual accomplishments: he was a keen photographer, doing his own developing and printing; more important he was the local telegraph-master, a post which at that time carried considerable prestige, since, as I have already mentioned, telegraph-offices were customarily respected as sanctuaries for fugitives of all kinds and for political demonstrations of protest. I had a very refreshing bathe in the sea before sunrise, but, although I waded some way out, it was still too shallow for a real swim. The heat here was less intense than it had been inland and we left for Muhammadi on the Rudhilla river, seventeen miles away and about twelve miles down-stream of Muhammadshahi, in time enough to enjoy several good gallops before dark, once after four gazelle. Shooting gazelle from the saddle was a favourite pastime of most tribesmen, and our escort talked of little else. They always rode their horses on the curb. The reins were brought together to be plaited into a single thong, which was held in the hand, generally the right, grasping the stock of the rifle, or, if the quarry was feathered, the gun. When practising they liked to gallop past the target and then turn in the saddle to shoot backwards in the manner associated with their archer ancestors, the Parthians. We found Husayn Quli Khan of Rudhilla, as was to be expected, sitting on a carpet in the open, surrounded by his sons and armed retainers, and our reception followed the now familiar pattern. His character, however, was very different from the quiet dignity of most of the others and especially the gravitas of Haydar Khan. Broad, burly and rubicund, with a decidedly Rabelaisian sense of humour, he kept us amused the whole of the next morning with a constant flow of reminiscence, anecdote and political opinion. He had evidently had a good year, for he was busy with an extensive building programme; the new andarun was already finished and looked like a fortified prison; materials for the public rooms and offices were still lying about. I managed to make time for a bathe and was delighted to find a deep pool

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where I could dive in from the bank; but, owing to the admixture of the salty waters of the Daliki, the river was far more brackish here than at Sa‘dabad. We had calculated that the tide would be high at Shif, eighteen miles away, about two hours after sunset; it was therefore important that we should get away in good time so as to embark the horses while the boat could come close inshore. But attempts to galvanize the charvadar into activity earlier in the afternoon than usual met with little success and it wanted less than an hour to sundown by the time the mules were loaded. Leaving the servants to follow with the caravan, Agha Muhsin and I therefore pressed on, with occasional gallops while daylight lasted. The final six miles over salt marsh were very slow and tiring going, but we arrived in time to get our ponies on board without too much difficulty. Then followed a weary wait of two hours for the rest of the party. The moon was now well up in the sky and very bright. I amused myself for a time wandering about among the tethered mules and the piles of bales awaiting shipment, and listening to wayfarers driving bargains for a passage across to Bushire, or to boatmen, most of them Arabs, quarrelling over the division of their takings. I then tried to snatch forty winks in our boat; but the foreshore might have been a monkey-house and sleep was out of the question; at last the caravan arrived, the charvadar was paid, the kit was loaded and we pushed off. But there was not a breath of air and I reached the other side with only sleepy recollections of our crew tugging at primitive oars until providentially a breeze sprang up and carried us over the last half of the crossing at a spanking pace. Having dumped the luggage at the Residency we went our various ways. Those last three miles home to the Old Bank House were without doubt the most exhausting part of the whole expedition for man and beast. It was well past three o’clock in the morning by the time Abdallah had done everything he should for the pony and, after a cold bath, I tumbled into bed.

CHAPTER SIX

PRELUDE TO THE ZIMMERMANN TELEGRAM I returned from my first caravan journey to learn that our country, in alliance with France and Russia, had already been at war with the Central Powers of Europe for four days.1 By September it had become obvious that Turkey was about to come in on the German side, and a Brigade of the 6th Division of the Indian Army with the usual attached units and ancillary services, under the command of Brigadier-General W. S. Delamain, sailed from Bombay for Bahrayn, half way up the Persian Gulf, there to await developments. Sir Percy Cox accompanied the expedition as Chief Political Officer (C.P.O.). The Turks, encouraged by the arrival at Constantinople of the German battle-cruisers Goeben and Breslau, opened hostilities on 29 October by using them to bombard Russian ports on the Black Sea. On 5 November Britain and France declared war on Turkey. On the 6th Delamain landed at Faw at the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab, and by the middle of the month the rest of the Division, under Lieut-General Sir Arthur Barrett, had followed. After some heavy fighting (during which Dick Birdwood was killed by a burst of shrapnel at the C.P.O.’s side), and with the help of the Royal Navy, Basra was occupied on the 21st. Before the end of the year our advanced troops had pushed forward another fifty-six miles upstream to Qurna at the old junction of the Tigris and Euphrates. Once established at Basra Cox resumed the office of Political Resident, with Knox remaining at Bushire as his Deputy for the Gulf. The last documents of the Turko-Persian Boundary Commission having been signed near Mount Ararat two days before Turkey entered the war, A. T. Wilson hurried home by way of Archangel and reached Basra at the end of December to replace Birdwood and so relieve Cox (to use the C.P.O.’s own words) of ‘much of the donkey work’. The state of war naturally involved us at Bushire in a variety of new tasks. As the member of the Residency staff in closest day-today contact with the various classes of the local population I had

1

[Since 4th August 1914.]

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special responsibility for watching and reporting on their attitudes to the war and their feelings towards the belligerents. It did not take me long to appreciate that for the purposes of public relations the alliance with Russia was going to be a grave liability. For reasons which I have already touched upon in the first chapter the Muscovites were almost universally feared and detested, and now, as their allies, it was inevitable that we should share the odium. In the Gulf most of the leading merchants, by reason of their close trading relations with the United Kingdom and India, remained staunchly pro-British; but we were obviously going to be vulnerable to propaganda among the less sophisticated and more religiously fanatical elements. For the first few months my ordinary consular work was going on much as before, but as far as the national effort was concerned I could not help feeling that Bushire was a backwater and that my new additional duties were of a very negative character. It would be dangerous, after so many years, to try to recall and analyse my state of mind at that time, and I think that it will be safer to reproduce here the relevant parts of a letter I wrote to my Mother on 9 December 1914 (as it happens, the only letter home from that period that has survived).2 It is just possible that you may see me at home a good deal sooner than [either] you or I ever expected. A telegram came in this afternoon from the Minister in Tehran saying that there is a shortage of junior officers in the new army and that, if desired, he can recommend the recall of consular officers where feasible. I have not had time to see Colonel Knox about it yet, but I have arranged to see the doctor tomorrow. If he pronounces me fit I think I have an excellent chance, as Chick is due back [/in Bushire] the day after tomorrow, and there is no reason against my going. Pay and allowances are the same as in the Regular Army . . . I do not know how my consular pay would be affected and whether the F.O. would make up any difference. However, that is quite a minor point. The great thing is to get on the show. Last week I sent in an application for a fortnight’s leave with the intention of going up to Basra in the hope that my knowledge of Persian and Turkish [(which latter I had started to rub up till this telegram came)] would stand me in good stead and get me a job on the Mesopotamian expedition. But this chance eclipses everything else.

My hopes were doomed to disappointment. My application for leave crossed a telegram summoning Chick to Basra. On hearing of my 2 [Deposited in Edmonds papers at the archives of the MEC, St Antony’s College, Oxford. Text in brackets from the original.]

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chance of going home to volunteer the C.P.O. generously cancelled his orders to Chick; but as my hopes rose again a second telegram followed from the Minister to say that he had misunderstood the Foreign Office instructions, and that no consular officers were to be released. At about the same time Knox left for Basra to set up a judicial organization for the occupied territory, and the British staff of the Residency was reduced to three: Neale, Noel and myself. There being no immediate prospect of any favourable development I agreed with Noel (who was as anxious as I was at least to get up to Basra) that we should both apply for leave to make a short tour in the hinterland over Christmas. Our principal object would be to get some shooting in the country between the Shapur and Daliki rivers of which we had heard encouraging accounts, but we might incidentally pick up some useful information regarding the political atmosphere among the tribes immediately to the east of those I had visited in August. Our leave was to begin at noon on the 23rd after the morning’s work. Our time being limited,we sent off the servants with our horses and six baggage mules with orders to proceed by way of the Mashila to Ahmadi (24 miles) in Chahkutah territory; the following morning they were to leave the horses in the charge of the Khan to await our arrival later in the day and push on themselves another nine miles to pitch camp at Nawkal-i Mukhi. At the best of times the track across the Mashila was difficult going. After recent heavy rains we found that the slough had spread far beyond its usual limits and seemed to stretch for miles in front of us towards the great frowning mountains capped here and there with snow. At one moment it looked as if the struggle would prove too much for the walers we had borrowed from the Residency escort for the first part of the march as they ploughed their way wearily through the slimy bog, sinking in deep at every step. Towards sunset we reached Chughadak, fifteen miles out, where there was a Gendarmerie post; but even here the bog did not end, and it was only as we approached Ahmadi that the ground was firm enough for us to break into a trot. Shaykh Muhammad Khan, of the Chahkutah ruling family, came in from hawking shortly after our arrival and pressed us to stay the night, for it had now begun to rain heavily. However we insisted on mounting directly our own fresh horses [which] were saddled and set off in the darkness, accompanied by a guide, for Nawkal. Here we found the tents pitched on the wet mud and dinner ready. It was still raining, the air was cold, and inside the tents [it] felt extremely damp.

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We were woken at dawn by the lowing of oxen being driven out to plough and the bleating of innumerable sheep issuing from the village. The kadkhuda came out as we were striking camp. He said that he had been round two or three times during the night to make sure that all was well, for the Tangistanis were wont to pass this way on their forays against Shabankara with which they were at feud, just as Angali was with Chahkutah. He was followed by his brother, Mulla Husayn, who had been in charge at Shif when I passed through in August and now came forward to greet me as an old friend. They examined our guns critically, taking them out of their cases without so much as a ‘by your leave’, and wanted to have a shooting match there and then. Striking almost due north from Nawkal we reached the Rudhilla at Kulul, just below the confluence of the Shapur and the Daliki. It was too deep for us to ford without wetting the saddles, so we took the ferry while the grooms brought the horses across bareback. As we were waiting for the rest of our caravan an akhund wearing a large white turban crossed with the next boat-load. “Wither, please God, are you bound?” I inquired. The ice thus broken he began to ask about the war. After we had described the situation at Basra Noel, who had spent language leaves in Russia and was, then at any rate, an ardent Russophile, expatiated (rather rashly I thought) on the victorious progress of the Russians in Armenia. This set the akhund off on a violent diatribe against war in general and the behaviour of the Muskof, the Muscovites, in particular; their recent expulsion of the German Consuls from Tabriz and Mashhad and the failure of the English to restrain their ally showed that we were bent on involving Persia in the hostilities; he had constantly warned the district khans against having anything to do with Europeans. He concluded with a parting volley of Arabic about hell-fire, polytheists, infidels, Christians and Jews, which I subsequently traced to the fifth chapter of the Koran entitled ‘The Table’. Hitherto, ever since August, our contacts with the people of this region had been very friendly, but now this outburst of religious and xenophobic fanaticism sounded ominous. Leaving the servants to load up we cantered over sandy, undulating country, very different from the expanse of clay and mud south of the river. Our objective being Sa‘dabad we made for the ford at Darvai, where we stopped to call on Aqa Khan, a cousin of Isma‘il Khan’s, for I had passed through in August without halting and was unwilling to hurt his feelings. He proved to be a portly, cheerful type and was very friendly. Our reception followed the general pattern; first questions

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about the war and astonishment at the size of the casualty figures (for they were used to their tribal forays when one named man wounded in the hand would be reported as an important event), and then, for most of the time, discussions about hunting and shooting and the plentifulness or dearth of black-partridge (francolin), duck, snipe, gazelle or pig, accompanied by expert examination of our guns and exclamations of interest in Noel’s pig-sticking spear and fishing rod. At Sa‘dabad, where, of course, we were entertained by Isma‘il Khan, we had hoped to have an early meal and get to bed in good time in preparation for a long day’s shooting on the morrow, Christmas Day. But, although the mourning month of Muharram was now over, a rawzakhvani of inordinate length supervened. The men filled the mosque while the women flitted up in twos and threes in the pale moonlight to sit outside. Soon the air was filled with groans, wailing and convulsive sobs as the reader recited the story of the sufferings of the martyrs of the Prophet’s family at Karbala, until at last, by degrees, the female forms flitted away again, and the meeting inside broke up. Compared with the bleak scenery to which we were accustomed the land between the two rivers seemed an earthly paradise. A deep artificial canal fed a number of smaller channels to irrigate the extensive cotton plantations and palm groves. The mountains seemed very close, and the curious effects of light and shade, the undulating sandy country between the villages with parts of it covered with gorse like a common in England, the winding canal, the broad sheets of open water, villages, generally built on an eminence, among the groves, and the numerous watch towers dotting the landscape combined to present a scene of idyllic charm. We shot in a wide semicircle to the north-east of Sa‘dabad, ending up at Nazar Agha (whither the servants had preceded us) in the evening. There were black-partridge, duck and snipe in abundance and if, this being my first day ever with a 12-bore gun, my contribution to the bag was very modest, Noel had a splendid day. Several headmen had come out with villagers to beat and join in the sport. They told us that this region had been an important centre of the Gawrnishin, the pre-Islamic inhabitants, and that an immense treasure was believed to be buried at or near Zira. (Traditions of this kind have occasionally proved to have some foundation in fact and are not to be scorned by archaeologists.). The kadkhuda’s establishment was well appointed; he appeared to be a man of some importance, a warden of the Shabankara marches on the hostile Burazjan boundary.

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On Boxing Day3 we started back southwards, shooting on the way as far as the Daliki river at Kharragah, where we had a delightful, if rather cold, bathe before fording and pushing on through Burazjan territory to Khushab on the main Shiraz road, the scene of the only pitched battle on this front in the war of 1857.4 Here we halted in the shade of a tree for a bite of lunch and a drink of very muddy water brought by the villagers. The onward road to Ahmadi was excellent going and we were able to canter as often as we wished. Shaykh Muhammad Khan showed obvious gratification that this time we were going to be his guests, and entertained us with lively anecdotes of sport and various adventures of himself, his father and his grandfather, all told in the most graphic manner. Then, in a private room set apart for us, we were served with a most succulent Persian dinner which, though alone, we ate with our hands, sitting on the floor, and very good it was. The next morning the Khan accompanied us with his hawks for the first few miles; but time did not allow of our wandering too far afield, and though we saw some lesser bustard in the distance we did not get a flight. Fresh horses awaited us by arrangement at Chughadak, the Mashila was comparatively dry and, after galloping the last two miles in face of a biting north-west wind, I reached home quite early in the afternoon. The whole trip, including hire of mules, presents and tips, and the few stores we had taken for ourselves, had cost a total of just under ten pounds. It had been a very pleasant break, but it was not long before we had reason to recall our encounter with the akhund at the Kulul ferry. At the end of July Listemann had come back from leave and some time later we heard that Wassmuss was passing through Cairo on his way home when war was declared, but had evaded arrest.5 The Wönckhaus agent was now Karl Eisenhut, who had served at Bushire some years previously and had recently returned with a young bride; they had

3

[Saturday 26 or Monday 28 December 1914?] [Captain] G. H. Hunt, Outram and Havelock’s Persian Campaign ([to which is prefixed a summary of Persian history, an account of various differences between England and Persia, and an inquiry into the origin of the late war, by George Townsend, London – New York, G. Routledge] 1858) and Barbara English, John Company’s Last War ([London, Collins], 1971). 5 [This story has been published as “The Persian Gulf Prelude to Zimmermann Telegram”, Royal Central Asian Journal, XLVII, 1 (jan. 1960), pp. 60 sq.] 4

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taken the vacant Old Bank House, which was conveniently situated about half a mile from the German Consulate. From the fourth of August onwards all social contacts with the Germans had automatically ceased, but one incident must be mentioned for its bearing on what follows. One dark night a subaltern of the 102nd, Leslie Hastings, who was something of a madcap, climbed up on to the flat roof of the German Consulate tower with the flagstaff, and hoisted the Union Jack. When he went along again in the morning to review his handiwork he was horrified to find the Union Jack still there indeed, but the red, white and black flag of Germany, with its imperial eagle, flying above it. There was only one thing to be done, to climb up again and retrieve the emblem of British prestige. This was safely accomplished; but in the meantime Listemann had come out and was waiting for him at the bottom. They had quite a pleasant chat and parted with expressions of mutual personal esteem. When the Ottoman Empire entered the war on the side of the Central Powers it was the obvious cue for the German High Command to seek to stir up jihad, holy war, in the Muslim lands of Western Asia, with Afghanistan and the Indian frontier as the ultimate objectives. Before the end of January 1915 a special mission of experts from Berlin had assembled in Baghdad. Very soon afterwards printed copies of a fatwa, that is a decree sponsored by a high religious-judicial authority, preaching jihad were found circulating in the Bushire bazaar, and the systematic infiltration of small parties of agitators into Persia began. The most southerly of these, consisting of Wassmuss as leader, a doctor named Theodore Linders, and two Indian revolutionaries, reached Shushtar near the Anglo-Persian oil-fields about the middle of February and had some success in stirring up the population. On the 22nd they set out for Ram Hurmuz and Behbehan, making for Shiraz. A third German, Bohnstorff, seems to have left Shushtar a day or two earlier to visit Haviza before returning to Baghdad. On 6 March Neale received an urgent telegram from Basra saying that the party had left Behbahan on the 2nd, and instructing him to send Noel to Bandar Rig to ask Haydar Khan to arrest them as they passed through Hayat Daud and bring them down to the sea. The mission was successful, and the whole caravan was surrounded and captured some miles inland by a contingent of tribesmen under Haydar’s brother. Neale and I were now spending much of our time at Sabzabad, and on the morning of the 8th we sat down to decypher a telegram

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from Noel supplementing his first laconic message giving news of the capture. But our jubilation quickly turned to dismay, for it reported that, although the rest of the party were safely in custody, Wassmuss himself had slipped unobserved out of his tent and had “disappeared into the night”. What had happened, as we learned later, was this. The commander of the riflemen had sent a message asking whether the prisoners were to be put in irons. But the war was still in its early days and Noel, while emphasizing the need for the utmost vigilance, had hesitated to authorize so extreme an indignity. Wassmuss had not settled down when his companions had turned in for the night, but had kept going in and out of his tent on one pretext or another, until the guards ceased to pay much attention to the sound of his movements. Finally he had slid down into a small ravine behind the tent and set off, in his bare feet until he met a villager with a donkey, in the direction of Burazjan, where, for the reasons I have already mentioned, he could count on the protection of the Khan. Having made sure that there should be no hitch about the others or the safe custody of the baggage (which was found to contain a supply of gold sovereigns and several thousand violently inflammatory pamphlets in English and five or six Indian languages), Noel set off in pursuit. But Wassmuss already had too good a start, and Noel was lucky to get out of Burazjan territory without misadventure to himself. Wassmuss remained at large in Southern Persia throughout the war and was a constant source of embarrassment. As we finished decyphering Noel’s telegram the same thought occurred to us simultaneously: we must arrest both Listemann and Eisenhut before they could hear of the attempt on Wassmuss and escape to join him in the hinterland. We telegraphed clear-the-line to Basra for authority and then went down to Malik’s House to concert plans with the military. We were thus ready with our answers to Cox’s first reaction asking how we proposed to proceed, and to admonitions from the Government of India (to which copies of the telegrams were being repeated) that not a hair of a Persian head must be touched, there must be no opening for intervention by the Persian authorities, and the like, all points which we had had very much in mind from the beginning. We then kept ourselves awake with strong coffee brewed by Mrs. Neale (for these exchanges had taken the whole day awaiting the ‘carry on’. This arrived clear-the-line about eleven o’clock; so we turned in to try to snatch a little sleep, not very successfully. Shortly after 1 a.m. on the 9th, accordingly, we drove down to the pre-arranged rendezvous, Neale in the Resident’s carriage and I in

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another hired from the town, the driver, who was generously compensated afterwards, having been lodged with the Residency guard and replaced by Neale’s own coachman. We then separated to march to our respective objectives: Neale, who thought it would be more suitable for a married man to disturb the Eisenhuts, with a detachment of sepoys under Captain T. T. Oakes to surround the Old Bank House, and I with Lieutenant E. C. Withers (Royal Indian Marine, Intelligence Officer) and a similar detachment under Captain C. P. F. Warton and Hastings to the Consulate. Arrived within striking distance we gave Hastings a start of five minutes to get a party between the Consulate buildings and an adjacent fishing village of mat huts. But as he moved into position all the dogs of Asia began to bark, and the Persian watchmen, alarmed by the din and our flitting shadows, began to fire wildly in all directions. The clang of shattered glass on the stone verandah told us that he had decided, wisely, to go in himself without waiting; and when Warton and I arrived we found a rather dazed Listemann already out of bed, and Hastings with a broad grin on his face looking for all the world like a kitten showing off his first mouse. On the bedside-table I noticed several empty bottles of beer and a bottle of granadine syrup. For some years I continued to be puzzled by the seeming incongruity of this combination until I learned, on high academic authority, that granadine is an antidote for alcoholic remorse as effective as any prairie oyster. Listemann, whose first observation on being roused had been, “Oh! It’s you again, Hastings, is it?”, now turned stiffly to Warton, whom he did not know, and, bringing his bare heels together, introduced himself; rather self-consciously Warton returned the compliment. He then turned to me: “Mr. Edmonds, you are a member of the regular Consular Service and you must know that what you are doing this night is absolutely contrary to international law.” I replied that we were sorry to inconvenience him, I was not there to discuss international law but to carry out my orders, and I must ask him to come along quietly. In the meantime we had heard one of the Persian watchmen galloping away in the darkness. The carriage which was to have followed us after an interval to the Consulate had not arrived, so we could only give the prisoner time to put on his shoes and his dressing-gown before marching him off to join the others at the Old Bank House, leaving Withers to send his clothes after us. But first I asked him for his keys. “Keys! keys!” he shouted; “that (pulling a handkerchief and a box of matches out of the dressing-gown pocket and throwing them

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down on the floor), “that is all you are allowing me to take, and you ask me for keys!”. Most of the way we marched in silence, but there was one short conversation: Warton: Will you walk a little faster, Mr. Listemann? Listemann (nettled at being addressed as Mr. and not Dr.): No I will not. Warton: Then I’m afraid you’ll have to be pushed. Edmonds (hearing the padding feet of a running sepoy coming up from behind): Here are your clothes, Dr. Listemann; perhaps you would like to put your trousers on. Listemann: No, I will not put my trousers on. Edmonds: As you wish. But I must urge you to walk faster if we are to avoid unpleasantness. Listemann: Very well . . . And now, Gentlemen (this a few minutes later as we reached the Old Bank House), as I understand that there is a lady coming perhaps I had better put my trousers on.

While we were still at the Consulate we had heard the sounds of a brisk fusillade from across the plain; but now all was silent and hurricane lamps were moving about the verandahs upstairs. I went into the compound and hailed Neale, who asked if I had “got my man”, thanked God fervently, and promised to be down in a couple of minutes with his. It transpired later that he had had the narrowest of escapes, for one of the shots fired into the darkness by the watchmen had passed between the two flaps of his shirt, missing his throat by not more than a quarter of an inch. The Eisenhuts, fully dressed, now came down. Listemann was not amused by Neale’s cheerful “Sorry to disturb you, Dr. Listemann, but war is war you know” and turned his back; for the Germans made a point of refusing to recognize the international status of the Indian Political Service. We then got into the carriages and, with Oakes, Warton and their orderlies as mounted escort, drove to Dastak, a cove near Reshire, where the prisoners were to be put on board R.I.M.S. Nearchus. Listemann had manifested considerable annoyance at the attentions of the sepoys who had kept a close watch on him as he turned discreetly away to pull on his trousers, and again when one took his place on the box beside the coachman. But as we drove along he soon calmed down, I gave him a cigarette, and we had a friendly conversation. A few days earlier he had seen me take a heavy fall when galloping over the plain in front of the Consulate, had watched through his

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telescope for a few moments as I lay stunned, and had been on the point of coming out when I had risen and staggered away; he hoped that I was none the worse. (I had been passing a flock of goats when one of them darted back and got entangled in my pony’s fore-legs.) In reply to my enquiries (he, like Eisenhut, was newly married but had not brought his wife out with him) he said that he had indeed been very lonely, but the company of the Eisenhuts had been a comfort and he had been filled with admiration for the young bride’s pluck. He then asked me to see that his horses and dogs were cared for, to send him some clothes, and to take special care of two rings to which he attached great sentimental value. When we reached Dastak the sea was shrouded in thick mist, visibility was down to a few feet, and there was no sign of any boat from Nearchus. We sat on the rocks to wait, racked by anxiety lest the Governor, alerted by the escaped watchmen, might even now come down and make a scene. But before very long we heard the welcome rattle of oars in row-locks and had hardly distinguished the shape of the cutter before she ran up on to the sand and Lieutenant Taylor jumped ashore. Having seen the prisoners safely off we returned to the Consulate and were met on the verandah by an exultant Withers. In a chest of drawers in Listemann’s bedroom, kept here no doubt to be handier for hurried destruction in case of emergency at night than they would have been away in the office safe, and wrapped up in several pairs of long woollen under-pants, he had found two ‘dictionary’ cyphers. We each appropriated one of the Consulate flags (I still have mine among my most treasured possessions) and then, after a quick look round, Neale went back for what was bound to be a most embarrassing and painful interview with the Governor, leaving me to pack Listemann’s clothes, photographs and other personal effects (to my great distress there was no trace of the two rings), to seal most of the rooms, and to search the archives. The next morning I left with Listemann’s effects in a sea-going steam tender of the British India Company to rendezvous with Nearchus off Kharg and arrived in time for dinner on board with the officers, the Bushire prisoners, Linders, and the inevitable Hastings appropriately dressed in his ‘blues’ and looking quite the policeman. After dinner Nearchus sailed, and the tender anchored where she was for the night. I do not know how long I had been asleep when I found myself suddenly rolled out of my camp bed on to the deck; the tide having

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gone out we had touched bottom and heeled over to a sharp angle. We left at dawn for Bandar Rig to put ashore three of Haydar Khan’s men who had accompanied Noel on his chase, and then returned to Bushire. It did not take long for unfriendly religious leaders to work up excitement among the more fanatical elements of the population. On the 12th a demonstration was organised in the principal mosque at which the proceedings included a harrowing description of how an eighteenyear-old bride had been dragged naked from her bed, and denunciations of all employees of British firms and private persons as unclean. Telegrams of protest were then despatched to prominent divines in various parts of the country, and one to the Khan of Burazjan, who bore the grandiose title of Ghazanfar as-Saltana*, Lion of the Monarchy, thanking him for his friendly reception of Wassmuss. Letters were received in Bushire from Ghazanfar, the two principal kadkhudas of Tangistan and, to our surprise, Shaykh Husayn, the senior khan of Chahkutah*, announcing their intention of attacking the town and reinstating the German Consul. The Swedish officers on the main road also came out openly on the German side, and one of them took it upon himself to address an impertinent telegram to the Resident. It became my task to arrange for the translation into Persian and the distribution of appropriate extracts from the German archives exposing the intrigues of their consuls designed to involve Persia in the war. These included ample corroboration of the reports we had received of plans to sabotage the submarine cable at Reshire, to bring in Tangistani tribesmen to attack the houses of the British and allied communities scattered about the peninsula, and details of how a large consignment of arms and ammunition had arrived at the port and had been fetched away by a Swedish officer ‘for our secret object’. As for the appeal to all in British employ to leave their posts the aptest comment I heard came from my own groom Abdallah: “Ma‘lūm nīst kih in shakhṣ-i jarman sayyid bāshad”, I am not aware that this German person is a descendant of the Prophet (scil. and therefore too holy for hands to be laid upon him). Our discoveries, but not the source, were given publicity at home in a long India-Office communiqué beginning: “documentary evidence has reached His Majesty’s Government proving conclusively that German consular officers in Persia and agents of the German firm of Wönckhaus have been engaged in intrigues with the object of facilitating the Turkish invasion of Persia and of rais-

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ing the tribes against Great Britain, thus flagrantly violating Persian neutrality”. As I have just mentioned, our one surprise was that Shaykh Husayn of Chahkutah should have made common cause with Ghazanfar of Burazjan and the Tangistanis. I had not had much to do with him myself, but he and his sons had been great favourites of Chick’s, and his kinsman’s reception of Noel and myself at Ahmadi in December had been friendly enough. In my inexperience it had not then occurred to me to wonder how members of an ordinary tribal ruling family in the Bushire hinterland came to style themselves ‘shaykh’, and now I can only guess that an ancestor had reached a high degree of initiation in a dervish order, that the odour of sanctity still clung to his descendants, and that this made them particularly susceptible to religious propaganda. In reply to a letter of pained reproof (no doubt drafted by Chick) from the C.P.O. at Basra Husayn complained that we had not consulted him before taking action; if we had, he would have given us better advice; the incident had created a most painful impression on all Muslims, male and female; in any case, he did not live near the sea like Haydar Khan. At one moment the situation seemed sufficiently menacing for a troopship bound for Basra to be diverted to Bushire. But whether owing to our efforts at publicity, or because the hostile khans could not agree among themselves, the excitement died down. The improvement was, however, only temporary. Wassmuss, whose appointment as Consul at Shiraz had not been recognized by the Persian Government, established himself at Chahkutah and was so successful in raising the tribes that a whole brigade was landed early in August to occupy the peninsula. But by this time I was far away. In the middle of April Chick returned to resume charge of the Vice-Consulate, and a few days later the summons I had been hoping for arrived. On the 29th I reported to the Chief Political Officer, Mesopotamia Expeditionary Force (Force ‘D’ for short) at Basra and was gazetted Temporary Captain on the General List. The story of the Zimmerman Telegram,6 first recorded in The Life and Letters of Walter Hines Page (edited by B. J. Hendrick, New York, 6

[Zimmermann’s message (16 January 1917) was “On the first of February, we intend to begin unrestricted submarine warfare. In spite of this, it is our intention to endeavour to keep the United States of America neutral. In the event of this not succeeding, we propose an alliance on the following basis with Mexico: That we shall

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1923–6) and there called “a document that in its influence on American policy proved to be the most sensational that the European was had so far brought forth”, has been retold many times, and the main facts are familiar. Towards the end of 1916 the war seemed to have reached a condition of stalemate. In the United States, in spite of mounting indignation at German ‘frightfulness’, of which American citizens had been the victims, and evidence of wide-spread sabotage carried out by German agents, President Wilson was still ‘too proud to fight’ and wedded to the idea of bringing the belligerents together for a negotiated peace. The German High Command, for their part, had decided that their best hope of victory lay in unrestricted submarine warfare directed against allied and neutral shipping alike, and had fixed 1 February 1917 for the inauguration of this policy. They realized, of course, that this might bring the United States into the war, but banked on being able to beat the Allies to their knees, before American intervention could become effective, by the speed and thoroughness of their operations supported by political steps to divert the American effort. It was in these circumstances that Zimmermann, the German Minister for Foreign Affairs, sent his historic telegram instructing the German Minister in Mexico to invite President Caranza to enter the War on the side of the Central Powers, the reward to be recovery of the former Mexican states of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, lost after the war of 1846; it was also suggested that the Mexican Government might prevail upon Japan to change sides. The message was intercepted and decyphered by Admiral Sir Reginald Hall’s Famous ‘Room 40 O.B.’ at the Admiralty. It was communicated to the United States Government and, it is generally agreed, contributed powerfully to ‘induce President Wilson into declaring war’ that April.

make war together and make peace together. We shall give generous financial support, and an understanding on our part that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona. The details of settlement are left to you. You are instructed to inform the President [of Mexico] of the above in the greatest confidence as soon as it is certain that there will be an outbreak of war with the United States and suggest that the President, on his own initiative, invite Japan to immediate adherence with this plan; at the same time, offer to mediate between Japan and ourselves. Please call to the attention of the President that the ruthless employment of our submarines now offers the prospect of compelling England to make peace in a few months”.]

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The authoritative history of ‘Room 40’ in Admiral Sir William James’s The Eyes of the Navy (1955).7 Admiral Hall’s primary concern was of course with naval intelligence, but “in April (1915) . . . there came into Hall’s hands a copy of the German diplomatic code-book—treasuretrove from Persia,” the code-book used for messages between Berlin and Madrid (whence they were sent on to the German diplomatic representatives in North and South America) and between Berlin and Constantinople (for the Middle East). He thereupon created a separate political department inside his organization and was thus able to keep touch with German subversive activities in all parts of the world. The generally accepted story was that the cypher book was found almost by accident when Hall, ‘prompted by some sixth sense’, caused a search to be made in Wassmuss’s baggage, which had been sent home and which the India Office ‘with characteristic ineptitude’ had left unexamined in its cellars. I think there can be little doubt that the book, the capture of which had such far-reaching consequences, must have been one of those discovered in Listemann’s long woolly underpants in the circumstances described in this chapter, and not anything found in Wassmuss’s baggage. Apart from any positive authority that may be considered to attach to this, I think the only first-hand record hitherto made public of the capture of a German diplomatic cypher in the Persian Gulf in early 1915, several other considerations of a more negative kind seem to point in the same direction. 1. The interception of Wassmuss and the raid on Listemann were, as my story shows, for all practical purpose a single operation in two parts; the first was given publicity, the second, for obvious reasons, was not; it is thus not surprising that some confusion between the two parts should have arisen in the minds of persons not directly involved. (In The Eyes of the Navy, the name is given as Wassmann, but otherwise it is the Wassmuss story.) 2. It is most unlikely that the very secret cypher used for communications between Berlin and the principal capitals of the world would have been entrusted to Wassmuss on his hazardous mission; on the other hand there was almost bound to be a copy at the important Consulate at Bushire.

7 [William M. James, The eyes of the Navy; a biographical study of Admiral Sir Reginald Hall, K.C.M.G., C.B., LL.D., D.C.L. London, Methuen, 1955.]

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3. Wassmuss, who escaped, was in a position to report the loss of any cypher he might have been carrying, whereas Listemann never had the opportunity. Christopher Sykes in his Wassmuss: The German Lawrence (1936) describes his hero’s distress and anger at the seizure of his subversive literature but nowhere suggests that he lost a cypher. The first attribution of its ownership to Wassmuss which I have traced occurs in Landau’s The Enemy Within (New York, 1937), a book devoted to American post-war efforts, for which Hall’s help was invoked, to fix responsibility for sabotage in the United States; according to Landau his British captors (the escape is not mentioned) “were delighted and surprised to discover an important German code in the possession of Wassmuss; . . . the code was promptly forwarded to Admiral Sir Reginald Hall”. 4. There were at this time no aircraft in those parts and communication between the Gulf and the United Kingdom was by long sea. With shipping space restricted it seems unlikely that anything but specially selected articles from Wassmuss’s captured caravan would have been sent home at all. On the other hand we at Bushire were all very cypher-minded and fully appreciated the value of our find, though we never dreamt that the Germans would continue to use it after learning of the raid and the possibility of its having been compromised; nor would it have been lost on the keen intelligences of Cox and Wilson at Basra. As a very junior person I was not myself concerned with its onward transmission and cannot speak on this point from my own knowledge; but since the cypher was in Admiral Hall’s hands by April there was clearly no undue delay in getting it home by safe means. The story of the chain of events that eventually brought the United States into the war, including the previously accepted version of the Persian-Gulf link, is told in The Zimmermann Telegram by Barbara W. Tuchmann (London, [Constable] 1959). I have to thank Mrs Tuchmann for permission to quote from her very kind and generous letter acknowledging receipt of an off-print I had sent her of an article of mine which appeared under the title ‘The Persian Gulf Prelude to the Zimmermann Telegram’ in the Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society of January 1960. After mentioning her “pleasure in finding a first-hand primary source she had tried so vainly to track down” she goes on: There were a number of matters in connection with the decoding of the telegram at Room 40 which left unanswered questions in my mind and

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which I never satisfactorily resolved, coming up against certain curtains of silence which seem rather superfluous at this date. The question of the Wassmuss code book (I still, from habit, call it the Wassmuss book though I expect it should now be called the Listemann code book) was one of these, and I never felt absolutely certain of my facts. It is indeed most gratifying to have the matter cleared up now by a person with personal knowledge, and if my book had anything to do with deciding you to publish your account of the affair (it had, C.J.E.), then at least, in spite of or because of its error, it performed a useful function.

If my supposition, thus reinforced, is correct, then the India-Officecellar part of the story must be a piece of “corroborative detail” that, at some stage in the course of frequent oral repetition, attached itself to the record of an achievement by ‘Room 40’ already sufficiently momentous and spectacular to need no such embellishment.

PART II

LOWER MESOPOTAMIA

R. A dha im

Qasr-i-Shirin Khaniqin Qizil Robat Delli Abbas Shahraban Dattawa Baquba Mandali Balad Ruz

Samarra

Diyal a R.

Istabulat (ruins) Balad

Kermanshah Burujird

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Mushahidiya Khurramabad Sakhlawiya Kadhimain Mu’adhdham Ka Fall BAGHDAD rk uja Diyala i BAKHTIARI Badra R. Ctesiphon K u Zor h TI Aziziya Bagh-i-Shahi LURISTAN Musaiyib GR IS Babylon R. Karbala Sannaiyat Shaikh Sa’ad (ruins) Bughaila Kut al Amara Hilla Hindiya Ali Gharbi Dizful Ka Fulaifila run NOR Shush Kifl THE Kut al Hai Ali Sharqi RN Shushtar AR Najaf AB Qala Sikar Kumait Diwaniya IST ris Amara Maidan-i-Naftun R. A Umm Chir (Oil Springs) N Bisaitin Band-i-qir Hor al Shinafiya Shatrat al Qala Salih Hawiza Rumaitha Muntafik Illa Ram Hormuz Hawiza Ahwaz Samawa EZRA’S TOMB Hor Bandar Nasiri Al Khidhr EUPH Husainiya Braika RAT Nasiriya Qurna ES Kubaish R. Akaika Hammar Old Channel Saba D Lake Suq ash Shuyukh New Euphrat SOU THERN AR ABISTAN Khamisiya e Cha es R nne . Kurmat Ghabishiya s e FallahiyaMashur l Ali Maqil Allawi Nukhaila Marid r t Ashar BASRA Muhammara r Mash Shaiba Khora Ho Sahil

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s

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KUWAIT

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30

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Lower Mesopotamia

Ba hm an

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Persian Gulf

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LOWER MESOPOTAMIA

M Hor

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ur

Pipe

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i y

att Sh

m

Umm Qasr

CHAPTER SEVEN

BASRA Since the capture of Qurna in early December 1914, recorded at the beginning of the last chapter, there had been important developments in the military situation. By early March it had been becoming increasingly clear that the enemy were preparing a powerful counter-offensive down the Euphrates with their right in the desert. To the east a Turkish force which had invaded the Persian province of Khuzistan had been joined by large numbers of Arab tribesmen and was threatening not only General Barrett’s communications with Qurna but also the Anglo-Persian oil fields and pipe-line, and perhaps even Basra itself. To meet this serious situation Force ‘D’ had been progressively reinforced, until by the beginning of April it had reached the dimensions of an Army Corps comprising two Divisions, a Cavalry Brigade and Corps Troops. On the 7th a full General, Sir John Nixon, had arrived with a new Staff to take over command. After four days of heavy fighting, from the 11th to the 14th, at Shu‘ayba (Shaiba) on the edge of the desert only twelve miles from Basra, the Turkish offensive from the west had been decisively repulsed; but at the end of the month the operations of the 12 Indian Division under Major-General W. A. Gorringe on the Persian side had not yet been brought to a successful conclusion. In the meantime General Nixon had been instructed to prepare plans for the effective occupation of the whole of the Basra vilayat by advancing to Amara on the Tigris and to Nasiriyya on the Euphrates.1

1 For purposes of administration the Ottoman Empire was divided and sub-divided into vilayets under Valis, liwas under Mutasarrifs, qadas under Qaimmaqams, and nahas under Mudirs. Turkish Arabia, then popularly known as Mesopotamia, the modern Iraq, comprised the vilayets of Basra, Baghdad and Mosul. The Basra vilayet, with which we are for the moment chiefly concerned, was divided into the three liwas of Basra on the Shatt al-Arab, Amara on the Tigris, and Muntafik on the Euphrates. In the early days the ‘district’ in the occupied territory administered by an Assistant Political Officer (A.P.O.) generally corresponded with a qada, and the A.P.O. worked under the direct orders of the C.P.O. Later on, the ‘districts’ were grouped into ‘divisions’, corresponding generally with the liwas, under the superintendence of a Political Officer (P.O.).

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Both banks of the Shatt al-Arab, from the east at Faw to Qurna, a distance of about 110 miles, are lined with dense palm-groves of varying depth inland from the river. The groves are intersected by numerous creeks and canals, broad and narrow, which, taking off from the Shatt and rising and falling twice a day with the tide, provide a perfect system of irrigation. The conurbation of Basra, on the right bank where the palm belt was about two miles deep, straddled one of the wider creeks and consisted of three principal ports: the port area on the river bank, the suburb of Ashar a short distance inland to the north of the creek (to which it gave its name and the city proper two miles inland to its mouth. When our troops arrived, except for one ramshackle bridge near the mouth of the Ashar creek, there was no through communication along the river bank and, except for the ‘Strand’ on the north side of the creek, virtually no road fit for wheels. The ordinary means of transport was the balam, a kind of gondola, privately owned or plying for hire like a cab. Nothing could have been more different from the drab sepia of mud and sand to which, notwithstanding the proximity of the sea, I had been so long accustomed than the sight of this magnificent waterway as we steamed slowly up-stream from Persian Muhammara (later renamed Khurramshahr), where we had anchored at dawn to discharge cargo. As we approached Basra, country houses in the Turkish style began to appear in the greenest of gardens and orchards against the long background of date-palms, and oleanders in full bloom could be seen lining many of the creeks with a brilliant pink. More and more tents and depots, tethered horses and mules, khaki-clad figures and other signs of military occupation filled the gardens. The chug-chugchug of numerous water-pumps proclaimed the seriousness of the problem of keeping the camp-sites dry, for in most years the Shatt al-Arab, combining the flood waters of Tigris and Euphrates, reached its maximum level about the end of April. The river became alive with motor-launches speeding port-officers, quarantine guards, police and

For many years the name of the Persian province adjacent to the Basra vilayet, Khuzistan, had fallen into disuse and had been replaced by the name, Arabistan, reflecting the race of the majority of the inhabitants. This was innocuous enough when the authority to the west was Turkish, but dangerously suggestive after the Arab parts of the Ottoman Empire had achieved their independence. [Using ‘Arabistan’ was a means, for the Qajars, to show their imperial domination over various peoples; in 1924 the defeat of Shaykh Khaz’al was the beginning of a policy of persianization, implying renaming it Khuzistan.]

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red-tabled staff officers on their official occasions in and out between countless balams loaded with civilian passengers of piled high with merchandise. Finally, close to a flat-bottomed river-steamer from the Irawaddy and four cargo ships (two of them German prizes), we came to anchor out in mid stream opposite the line of well-built brick offices and mansions of the port area, among them the British and German Consulates and the offices of the principal shipping lines, British-India (Gray, Mackenzie and Co.), and Hamburg-Amerika (Wönkhaus), this last, like the German Consulate, now taken over for a military headquarters. The C.P.O.’s office was established in a little house, which had previously been the private residence of the Turkish Naval Imam or Chaplain, situated in palm-grove not far from the Shatt on the Ashar side. Here I found Sir Percy Cox, G. E. Leachman and Noel submerged in a sea of papers. The C.P.O.’s bedroom, the mess and the offices were in the house itself. In a lateral compound there was a large, very old, and very tattered marquee, divided into three compartments to accommodate us three A.P.O.’s. The other, and senior, member of the C.P.O.’s personal staff, A. T. Wilson*, occupied a small house close by; but at that moment he was away with General Gorringe in Khuzistan. In the second of his two books on the campaign, Mesopotamia 1917–19202 (p. 31), Wilson wrote, “Of the hundred or so political officers, in the proper sense of the term, attached to the force Leachman was the most outstanding character in the eyes of the Arabs, Soane* of the Kurds and Noel of the Persians”. The names of all three will appear frequently in the pages that follow. Already before the war Captain G. E. Leachman of the Royal Sussex Regiment had achieved fame for the journey he made disguised as an Arab in the Arabian peninsula, as well as for other travels in Kurdistan and Tibet; they are recorded in a biography A Paladin of Arabia by N. N. Bray (1936). E. B. Soane is best known for his own pre-war book To Mesopotamia and Kurdistan in disguise (1912); a biographical sketch by Wilson is prefixed to the second edition (1926). Of Noel, Wilson adds: “This is perhaps the proper place to testify to the amazing courage, vitality and resource which he displayed during his six years of close association with the Mesopotamia Expeditionary Force; his adventures would fill a goodsized volume which will, I hope, one day see the light”. His adventures

2

[Mesopotamia, 1917–1920; a clash of loyalties; a personal and historical record, by Lt.-Col. Sir Arnold T. Wilson. London, Oxford University Press, H. Milford, 1931.]

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were not limited to those six years, but unfortunately he never put together a connected account of his varied experiences. Wilson himself too was a man of tremendous energy and resource with, already, an established reputation as an intrepid explorer. His own account of his early travels is given in his South-West Persia: A Political Officer’s diary, 1907–1914 (1941), and of the Khuzistan and Lower Euphrates operations in the earlier of his two books on the campaign, Loyalties: Mesopotamia, 1914–1917 (1930). A biography, Late Victorian, by John Marlowe, was published in 1967. Leachman had recently returned from the Shu‘ayba operation and was generally away on special missions among the surrounding tribes. Most of the ‘donkey-work’ was being done by Noel, but as soon as the Khuzistan flank was cleared of the enemy he was to go to Ahvaz as A.P.O. and Vice-Consul. Wilson would be staying with the 12th Division for the advance to Nasiriyya, and Leachman was ear-marked to join the 6th Division, now commanded by Major-General C. V. F. Townshend*, for the offensive up the Tigris. To these projected postings I owed my sudden summons from Bushire. Even to one trained in the hard school of the Bushire Residency the amount of paper passing through the C.P.O.’s office was quite astonishing. From 3 May to 13 September the diary, which I had kept up from the day I left England in 1912 whenever there was anything of interest to record, is a complete blank; but a short entry under 14 September and a few letters that have survived have helped to stimulate my memory. Most of the A.P.O.’s time was taken up with preparing inward communications for submission in proper form to the C.P.O., encyphering and decyphering telegrams, typing confidential letters and memoranda and, where possible, preparing drafts. This routine was constantly interrupted by visitors varying from V.I.P.s like Colonel W. H. Beach, the G.S.O.I. Intelligence (an almost daily caller), or some important Arab notable, who had to be entertained until the Chief was ready to receive them, down to others who could be dealt with at a lower level, for instance the deputation of local prostitutes bringing a petition to complain of the action of the Deputy Military Governor of Ashar in ordering them to leave their houses and congregate in a central brothel area, a quite unexpected violation of that justice for which the Glorious British Government was famous throughout the world. One occasional and always welcome visitor was Hasan Dabbah, a corpse contractor, who, after taking his grisly caravans of departed faithful for

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burial at the holy shrines of Najaf and Karbala, would look in to bring us useful intelligence of Turkish dispositions on the Middle Euphrates, and of public opinion in those centres of religious fanaticism.3 One case reported by the Mudir of Garmat Ali just north of Basra was the only one of the kind on which I myself had to pronounce during the whole of my thirty-two years in Western Asia and may be of interest to professional Arabists and perhaps sociologists. An Arab was detected pilfering from a military dump. In the chase that followed he made his escape, but left behind his head-cloth (kaffiyya) and skullcap. Sewn to the skull-cap were two small silk envelopes containing four charms or incantations (copies of which I have preserved) in very illiterate Arabic, and almost illegible handwriting, each an abracadabra made up of the common pious Islamic formulae of invocation of the Prophet, Ali, Fatima, Hasan and Husayn, quotations from the Koran, the names of strange angels or hobgoblins, numbers, single letters of the alphabet and meaningless words, all mixed uptogether in an extraordinary hotchpotch. The longest is headed “In the name of Allah, the compassionate, the merciful” but seems to be addressed to Tanghashtu, zang, Hunn, ‘a‘a‘a, ‘Atrūq, Ma‘a, Sarkat, Waslat, 403kfh, 3y, 51171, Mūsā and 241. It goes on to say that the various incorporeal beings named have, on the invitation of Salih (evidently the writer of the charm) and by virtue of the verse “There is no might and no power save in Allah, the high, the great”, bound the heart of Anzira daughter of Fayz in love and affection to Ajbara son of Mu‘allaya, and shackled the mother of Daud and other persons (presumably expected to be hostile to the match) represented by more letters and numbers. The second is headed with the names of Arbush, Dashbush, Beshghūsh and Masfalrush and is cast in much the same mould, being, in the main an appeal to Allah to render dumb the mouth and stop up the ears of Anzira (whether the object was to ensure that the poor girl should be discreet or that after marriage she should be meek and obedient I cannot guess) and to guide the lover to her house. The last two are shorter and declare that by virtue of the words of the profession of faith, “There is no god but God, Muhammad is the Prophet of God, Ali is the vice-regent

3 [A Shi’a tradition attributes merits to people buried near the Mausoleum of an Imam or a close relative to an Imam. The transportation of corpse from Iran to the holy cities of Iraq was abolished in the 1920s.]

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of God”, the mouths of Khalaf (perhaps the girl’s cousin who would have had the first claim) and the other ill-disposed persons have been closed. The pilferer, a bearded man of about thirty, was betrayed beyond dispute by his name in the charm and received the appropriate sentence. But the Mudir was much more concerned quite rightly lest Anzira’s brother (who happened to be a door-keeper in his own office) might get wind of the case and feel impelled to vindicate the family honour by murdering not the love-lorn Ajbara but more probably the girl, whether she knew anything about Ajbara’s infatuation or not. But to return to the C.P.O.’s office, there was no limit to the hours of work which, as usual in that climate, started early in the morning but now continued, with only short breaks for meals and sometimes for a quick visit to the Club before dinner, until late at night. As the summer progressed the heat became more and more trying. I had moved from the marquee into what had been a store-room, a dark little cubby-hole lit only by the doorway and a small opening passing for a window high in the wall; but as I slept on the roof and was in the office all day that was of little consequence. The office, however, was like an oven with the sun streaming through the unshuttered glass most of the day. It was little less uncomfortable after dark when the lamps were lit, and the mosquitos, midges and sand-flies began to pile themselves up on the oily burners round the glass chimneys in an ever mounting glutinous ring until the light could no longer penetrate the barrier. Several times, when important developments were impending, I had to see the clock round twice at a stretch while Cox worked all day and all night to clear his table before leaving for one of the fronts. These absences might last several weeks, and it was then my duty to decide what communications I should send on to him and what questions I should try to dispose of myself. For most of those four-and-a-half months I was single handed. Only rarely did I get out during daylight hours, and I remember one occasion when I was quite startled by the animation in the streets, feeling much as an owl must feel when it emerges suddenly from its accustomed shadows into the glare of bright sunshine. During the summer, in spite of the appalling heat, Amara had been occupied on 3 June after a remarkable amphibious operation known as Townshend’s Regatta, and Nasiriyya, after some hard fighting, on 25 July. General Nixon had then raised with the home and the Indian

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Governments the question of a further advance up the Tigris to Kut al-Imara, where a large waterway, the Shatt al-Gharraf, takes off in a southerly direction towards Nasiriyya. This was just beyond the limits of the Basra vilayet, but an enemy concentration here could threaten either Amara or Nasiriyya and so enforce an uneconomical dispersal of the British forces available; the advance would also contribute to the protection of the Anglo-Persian oil-fields and other installations in Khuzistan. Sanction was received on 22 August, and on 1 September Townshend begun to move his troops for their forward concentration at Ali al-Gharbi.

C. J. Edmonds at Kut al-Amara. From the collection of Claud and Marion Rebbeck

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE TIGRIS FRONT Wilson, having performed prodigies of valour and earned the D.S.O.,1 returned from Nasiriyya at the beginning of September. Within a few days the piles of arrears in the office had been worked off, and on the evening of the 19th I left with Sir Percy Cox for the front in the steam launch Muhammara, which was to be our office, mess and dormitory for the next eleven weeks. Besides ourselves and our personal servants, Gulam Riza and Sadiq, both Bushiris, our party consisted of: Colonel Sir Mark Sykes*, M.P., who had come out from home by way of Egypt for political consultations, and his British batman; a Goanese cook, Caetan; and finally the crew of four, the Arab skipper, a stoker, and two gondoliers in charge of a balam in tow. During the night we narrowly escaped being sunk by a large native craft of the type called mahayla that came bearing down upon us in full sail and without lights. Mahaylas, the freighters of the Shatt alArab and Tigris and a valuable addition to our means of transport, varied in length from thirty to eighty feet with a beam about one third of the length, and in cargo capacity from ten to seventy-five tons. They carried a lateen sail, were often poled in shallow water, and were generally towed up-stream with a rope tied to the top of the mast as well as to the bows. At dawn we reached Qurna at the old junction of the Euphrates and the Tigris—‘old’ because since the middle of the eighteenth century the actual confluence had been at Garmat Ali—and tied up just long enough to coal and to confer with the A.P.O., Captain A. J. H. Grey. Of Qurna, the traditional site of the Garden of Eden where the tree of knowledge of good and evil, enclosed in iron railings, could still be inspected by the credulous, I need not say more than recall the famous observation of the private soldier of the Norfolks that once he got away from the place there would be no need of any blinking angel with a flaming sword to keep him from coming back again.

1 [Distinguished Service Order—a British military decoration for special service in action.]

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We were now in Marsh-Arab country. As we steamed northwards the palm-groves gradually dropped away to give place to fields of ripening Indian corn. Our skipper at the wheel expressed grave disapproval as a stark-naked figure in the most primitive canoe imaginable paddled rapidly past, and other naked men and boys came into sight on the banks. Male attire, when worn at all, appeared to consist of a single thin cloak (bishit) suspended from the head, with a string round the bare waist into which the cloak could be hitched at the wearer’s discretion, though most of them did not seem to worry about that even when standing talking to women; no loin-cloth, drawers, or similar superfluity. The outer garments of the women, as they sat in front of their own huts, looked simple enough, probably a black turban with perhaps the ends brought down to muffle the throat, and a long shirt, also black or dark blue, hanging loosely to the ankles. It was alleged that when the Turkish steam-launch Marmaris was sunk during the advance women too had rushed naked into the water to take a hand in the looting; but in my experience they always kept themselves decently covered even when wading through waist-high water. In the maize fields near the river there were shaded platforms about a hundred yards apart occupied by little naked boys throwing missiles

S.L. Muhammara at Kut al-Amara, November 1915. From the collection of Claud and Marion Rebbeck

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to scare away the birds, or, here and there, where there were mounds giving a wider field of fire, wild-looking men using slings, apparently with considerable precision. Buffaloes were present in large numbers wallowing near the banks. Twice we had to slow down to avoid herds swimming across with their muzzles only just showing above the surface. From time to time we passed a mahayla sailing or drifting down-stream or being towed up-stream by a crew chanting in rhythm, with whole families accommodated in shelters of boards or matting in the stern. More often than not the smaller craft were being paddled by women, rather more voluminously clad than their sisters on the shore. About midday the monotony of the landscape on the west bank was relieved by the glistening blue dome of Uzayr, Ezra’s tomb, and a neat, clean little complex of buildings surrounded by date-palms, with accommodation for the Jewish guardians. Between Uzayr and Qal‘at Salih we passed up the Narrows, where the river was only some sixty or seventy yards wide and in autumn might be as little as three to four feet deep, with shoals in the inside curves of the numerous sharp bends. The Muhammara, however, was small enough to go through without difficulty. Above Qal‘at Salih, where we tied up for the night, the river narrowed again for several miles before broadening out at Amara into a fine stream, two-hundred yards wide at least, and spanned by a bridge of boats. On the way there had been fewer collections of huts on the banks than before, but large villages with mud-walled forts and towers could be seen in the distance on the canals; and normal Arab clothing now seemed to be the rule. The river front looked quite imposing with its row of solid, burnt-brick houses in the Turkish style facing a broad “Strand”, interrupted by a tall, arched, decorated entrance to the covered bazaar. Thick palm-groves lined the opposite (right) bank, where the paddle-steamer Malamir with the Army Commander and most of G.H.Q. on board was moored near a large mansion taken over for the Officers’ Club. The climate offered a pleasant change from the damp and stifling heat to which we had been accustomed, and the place was very popular with the troops. We spent thirty-six hours at Amara dealing with a mass of inward and outward telegrams and conferring with the A.P.O., Captain C. F. Macpherson (in civil life resident director of Gray, Mackenzie and Co.), who had organized a useful force of river police between Qurna and the front. At sunrise on the 22nd we cast off again to follow the

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C.-in-C. up-stream; but almost immediately, on rounding the first bend, we came upon the Malamir stuck fast on a shoal, quite a common occurrence for the larger craft at this time of year. We waited at anchor until noon, when she was at last kedged off; but there were more delays when she fouled the banks, first one and then the other, before we tied up for the night at Filayfila. By now the sights and sounds of the marshes had been left far behind, giving place to the flocks and herds and the brown and black tents of the Bani Lam, a large confederation of tribes, of which I shall have more so say in a later chapter. Two more easy stages, and we came up with the advanced troops of the 6th Division assembled for the attack on the Turkish position astride the river seven miles north-east of Kut. There was something of the flamboyant showman about Townshend that did not exactly endear him to his contemporaries. The colour of his uniform, as I remember it, was quite different from anybody else’s, a sort of mauvish grey, and he was said to have elected to go off on leave to Simla, just when the advance to Kut was under discussion, in order to act in some amateur theatricals, in which he rather fancied himself. Very hard things were said about him afterwards, but I believe it is generally agreed that he was a brilliant tactician and that the battle for Kut ranked as a text-book operation. The C.P.C. and I, like General Nixon himself and his G.H.Q. Staff, could of course be no more than interested observers of the battle as Townshend directed it from an observation tower of scaffolding put together by the Sappers. After two days of stiff fighting in exhausting heat the Turks abandoned their whole position during the night of the 28–29 September and by ten o’clock in the morning the cavalry had occupied Kut. We stopped for a time, as we moved up river, to inspect the enemy position. The trenches were extremely well constructed, with overhead cover of brushwood. Well traversed and well concealed, they commanded a perfect field of fire. At short intervals, in little dug-outs connected with the trenches, were large porous earthenware jars of water, each on a solid wooden stand and protected by a well-fitting wooden lid, the water for which was lifted from the river by pumps and conducted to the trenches in shallow channels. The front of the position was protected by barbed-wire entanglements and by sharpened wooden stakes hidden in pits. On the right bank, where there had been little fighting, the lay-out was even more elaborate than on the left, with some of the trenches faced with brick, little cubicles for officers, and communication trenches leading to roomy ‘coffee-houses’. In one cubicle

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with a boarded floor I found a large pile of documents; but my hopes of having made a valuable haul were dashed when they proved to be nothing more than private letters from the soldiers, many of them in the same hand of a professional letter-writer, evidently collected here for censorship or posting. From Kut the bulk of Townshend’s force pushed on in pursuit as far as Aziziyya, about fifty miles from Baghdad by road, but very much more by river. We ourselves, still living and working in S.L. Muhammara, were there for six whole weeks while telegrams went to and fro between G.H.Q., Simla and London weighing the pros and cons, military and political, of a further advance, this time to Baghdad. In contrast to Amara Kut was a dirty, unhealthy place, frequent sandstorms smothered our cabin-office in dust and grime, and any slight cut or abrasion was almost certain to fester. Mark Sykes, still with us, proved a most entertaining companion, a gifted mimic and caricaturist. He had travelled extensively in the Ottoman Empire and had brought with him the proofs of his latest book, The Caliph’s Last Heritage. He had a smattering of Arabic but of the Egyptian variety, and was now finding some difficulty in understanding and making himself understood. A day or two after our departure from Basra the stoker happened to burn his arm on a hot pipe and Sykes, as an expert in first aid also, went below to treat him. When ten, and then twenty minutes passed with no sign from the cabin I went down to investigate and found the stoker with his arm still bare to the shoulder, the amateur physician with his sleeves tucked up and a grim never-say-die expression on his face, and Ghulam Riza, an alert, efficient, polyglot little man with the most terrible squint, gibbering like a nervous wreck in the corner. The facts were quickly established, and praise and blame apportioned as tact rather than justice demanded. But, like Galileo, Ghulam Riza had the last word (in Persian): “He knows not Hindustani, with Persian he is not familiar, Arabic and even English he doesn’t speak properly; he doesn’t say garum pānī, he doesn’t say āb-i garm, he doesn’t say moy ḥ ārr or even hāt wāter; we can’t make head or tail of it”. Sykes was an incurable romantic, and I remember how once, when he was reading out the draft of a telegram he proposed to send home, Cox was obliged to intervene: “You know, Sykes, what you say there is not based on anything you have seen or heard here; those are the ideas you came with”. For some years I preserved a cartoon he had dashed off one evening after he and I had gone ashore to investigate the cause

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of blood-curdling screams coming from the darkness not far away. We had found a skinny little Arab dressed only in a shirt (dishdāsha), with his slippers and headdress of kaffiyya and aqal on the ground a foot or two away, writhing in the grasp of a sturdy, six-foot lance-corporal of the Dorsets, who explained: “I found this badoo prowling about ‘ere in the dark, Sir, and I’m taking him to the A.P.M.; but I can’t get ‘im along no ‘ow”. It made a most amusing picture. I had it framed and was very sorry to lose it, with other belongings, in a tribal rising at Ranya in Kurdistan. After Sykes had left for home we had two more guests to stay on board: George Grahame*, the British Consul-General at Isfahan, a courtly, scholarly, senior member of the Levant Service, who had been severely wounded when out riding by a would-be assassin hired by his German colleague, together with his Vice-Consul, Ernest Bristow*. The situation in Persia was giving cause for grave anxiety at that time, and in this connexion I had a striking example of Cox’s magnanimity. In his capacity as Political Resident in the Persian Gulf he had drafted a series of, I think, five monumental telegrams setting out proposals for action in southern and western Persia, which took me several hours to encypher. The last of the series dealt with the Shi‘a Holy Places in Iraq and included suggestions for associating our allies with ourselves in some kind of guarantee concerning their future. Just as I was getting it ready for dispatch he came in and, for some unexplained reason, asked me what I thought of it. Greatly daring, I replied that I didn’t like it at all and tried to explain my reasons for deprecating any such international complication as premature and asking for trouble. He thought for a moment and then said: “Have you sent it off yet? No? Well just tear it up will you, and I’m sorry you’ve had the trouble of encyphering it”. It was at Kut, too, that I had my first real experience of the duties of a Political Officer with troops in the field. The underlying principle is that he shall, as far as possible, relieve the military command of problems connected with their peaceable contacts with the civil population. The essential qualification is, therefore, that he must know the language well enough for all ordinary practical purposes, and be familiar with their manner of life, customs and prejudices; this is especially important in countries where Islam is not only a religion but also a social code, going so far as to lay down how one should pick one’s teeth. (Additional desirable qualifications are previous first-hand knowledge of the geography, tribal organization if any, and important personali-

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ties of the actual area of operations; but in most cases he will have to make up for the deficiency by diligent local inquiries as he goes along. It will therefore fall to him to interview local chiefs coming in to make submission after an advance, to pass on to the Intelligence Branch such valuable information of a kind which he is in a unique position to obtain, to help Local Purchase and Transport Officers in obtaining their requirements (even, as Leachman once reported, to producing vast numbers of camels and mules out of a hat at a moment’s notice), assessing the compensation to be paid for animals or crops destroyed accidentally or by design, and generally acting as a velvet glove to soften the impact of the hard knuckles of the soldiery on the sensitive bodies of innocent civilians. Here most of these duties were being performed by Leachman or, in the case of very important interviews, by the C.P.O. himself. The first task of this kind that fell to me was to intervene on behalf of a leading citizen who had been round to give the C.P.O. some valuable information and had returned to find the billeting authorities taking possession of his house. I hurried to the scene to find the ladies’ wing invaded by a horde of sepoys throwing out the furniture to make room for a military mess, while distracted, half-veiled women were shrieking and wailing in every corner and their even more distracted lord was tearing his hair in the middle. Fortunately I knew the officer in charge and had no difficulty in obtaining a respite for the harem until noon the next day. Then a shaykh of the local Magasis tribe brought a tale of three guns abandoned by the Turks. So I took him down in a motor boat to the Sinn position, to report to Brigadier-General Hoghton, whose brigade had been left to clear the battlefield. The guns were duly found, but proved to be three old muzzle-loaders. What possessed the Turks to take them there I cannot imagine. The General gave me dinner, I slept on the ground in a couple of blankets with my boots and a waterbottle for pillow, and returned to Kut at dawn. At last, towards the end of October, sanction was received for the advance on Baghdad, and on 10 November we rejoined the 6th Division at Aziziyya. We went forward by slow stages, following more or less in the wake of Force Headquarters. It was no secret that Townshend very much disliked having the Force Commander breathing down his neck again, but General Nixon was alleged to be anxious to lead any triumphal entry into the city where his father had been Resident and Consul-General, and even to have arranged for a band to be on hand

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for the occasion. On the other hand I recall how, on the night before the advance began, Cox had sent me round to Delamain with a binding medicine of some kind for a temporary stomach upset, and how the General had added to his message of thanks: “If you want to know what I think of this decision to go on, I think it very wrong”. It is not in the province of a non-combatant camp-follower to seek to give a connected account of the battle of Ctesiphon (19–24 November). I should have liked to try to convey something of what was for me an unforgettable experience, but considerations of space forbed.2 Suffice then to say that by the 24th it was clear that the Turks had been

G. Grahame, Percy Cox and C. J. Edmonds. From the collection of Claud and Marion Rebbeck

2 [The manuscript includes pages which Edmonds had decided to drop out. They are given as appendix.]

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heavily reinforced and that there was no hope of our getting to Baghdad. The Army Commander decided to return at once to Basra, and this meant that there was nothing for the C.P.O. to do so far forward. We therefore struck camp before dawn and marched to Lajj, where we reembarked in S.L. Muhammara. We reached Kut four days later, on the 28th. On the first day we stuck on a sand-bank for several hours and were sniped by Arabs; on the second we had trouble with the engine, ran out of coal, and burnt up such bits of wood as we had on board to try to keep up steam until we came up with the Malamir aground in shallow water and were able to borrow some coal; the third night we spent stuck fast on a shoal near Bughayla. G.H.Q. in Malamir went on without stopping at Kut, but the tribes round Shaykh Sa‘d were up and she was obliged to return; she only got through on 2 December escorted by troops on the bank. The next day Townshend arrived, and began to prepare for a siege. The C.P.O. had decided to stay in Kut, siege or no siege, I think for reasons of prestige, for to the Arab population the Army Commander’s immediate departure could hardly fail to look like flight. So I found a very suitable house in the middle of the town (the one, I believe, that Townshend himself occupied during the siege). It seemed to me very wrong that the C.P.O., who in Arab eyes was a more important person that the Army Commander himself, should tempt fortune in this way; but obviously, in the circumstances, I could not say so without risk of being misunderstood. However Leachman, who arrived on the 3rd, was quite definite about it and, with all the weight of his greater seniority and experience, persuaded our Chief, although with great difficulty, at least to telegraph to the Army Commander to ascertain his wishes. On the morning of the 4th, no answer having come, we sent the Muhammara away with the other shipping. The answer “Come down at once” arrived in the afternoon (I learned later that our telegram had been over-looked for several hours in the ‘inward’ tray of the G.H.Q. cypher office), but Cox’s only reaction was to say that it was now too late to do anything about it. However, I went down to the river front and found a solitary paddle-steamer, Salimi, just getting up steam to leave. I told the Arab skipper that ‘Kokus’ himself would be his passenger, instructed him on no account to cast off before the great man came, and hurried back to report. Leaving the horses and our stores with Leachman we took down as much light kit as we could

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and embarked just as the sun was setting. Apart from the satisfaction of having got my Chief safely on board I confess that I was very glad to be there myself, for those two bitterly cold nights at Ctesiphon had brought on a severe attack of jaundice with frequent interruptions of the business on hand to vomit, and I was feeling far from well. (The following day, the last day before the siege began, Leachman came out with the Cavalry Brigade, and in due course No Trumps and the other horses, with their grooms, reached Basra safely by road.) Salimi, with her two paddles, one on each side amidships, was the ideal craft for navigating the winding, shallow river. We travelled fast all that night without trouble from Arabs or sandbanks, and reached Basra in three days. After this absence of nearly three months I returned to a C.P.O.’s office very different from the one I had left. In anticipation of the occupation of Baghdad several officers had been sent from India to reinforce the Political Department, but they had not yet been distributed to stations up country. So, in addition to Wilson (now styled Deputy C.P.O.) we had Captains C. C. J. Barrett and T. C. W. Fowle* of the Indian Political Department (both destined to occupy the post of Political Resident in the Persian Gulf in later years) doing the cyphering, H. St.J. Philby* of the Indian Civil Service (a brilliant linguist who was later to achieve fame for his explorations in Arabia) coping with matters involving finance, and a special A.P.O. seconded from the Army for the Basra district. A little later we were further reinforced by Major D. L. R. Lorimer, younger brother of J. G. and like him of the Indian Political Department, who was posted to Amara in place of Macpherson, while his wife, who accompanied him, remained at base as Editor of the Basrah Times.3 My own duties were in consequence comparatively light, and I took the opportunity to put in as much time as possible improving my Arabic. Dinner in the mess, with frequent guest-nights was always a lively occasion, with Philby ever to the fore stoking the fires of controversy in arguments on every conceivable subject.

3 Fowle was already the author of a light-hearted book, Travels in the Middle East then on the point of publication. Mrs Lorimer had taken a first in Modern Languages at Oxford; in 1947 she and her husband, both with a number of scholarly publications, philological and other, separate and in collaboration, to their credit, were jointly awarded the Burton Memorial Medal of the Royal Asiatic Society.

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After two months of this comparatively comfortable existence I was delighted to be ordered to Amara to relieve Lorimer, who was to go on a special mission to the Vali of Pusht-i Kuh*, a semi-independent baron on the Persian side of the frontier. The military situation on the Tigris front, as it had developed since the retreat from Ctesiphon, was not a very happy one. Two Turkish Divisions had followed close on Townshend’s heels as he withdrew to Kut, and shells were fired into the town on 5 and 6 December. On the 7th the Turkish Commander-in-Chief sent in a letter demanding the surrender of the garrison and received the only possible reply. In the course of the next three weeks several furious efforts to carry the defences by assault were beaten off with great gallantry. Thereafter the enemy began to show less enterprise at Kut itself, while concentrating on fortifying three covering positions downstream, the most advanced at Shaykh Sa‘d, about 36 miles away by road. British and Indian reinforcements began to reach Basra early in January. But a succession of alarmist reports from Townshend regarding his supplies of food and ammunition prevented the methodical concentration of the relieving force under Lieutenant-General Sir F. Aylmer. As the troops arrived they were hurried up river and thrown into the battle. In the first half of January (1916), after heavy fighting, the enemy were driven out of the first two of their forward positions; but then from the 17th to the 20th a desperate attempt to break through the third had been repulsed with heavy loss, and for the moment the relieving force was in no state to resume the offensive. At about the same time Nixon handed over his command to Lieutenant General Sir Percy Lake, who had been Chief of the General Staff in India.

CHAPTER NINE

AMARA The liwa of Amara lies astride the Tigris and measures about 150 miles from north-west to south-east and 75 miles across at its broadest part. It is bounded on the north and north-west by the liwa of Kut, on the south-west by the liwa of Muntafik, on the south by the liwa of Basra, and on the east by the Persian frontier. Topographically it falls into two distinct regions, with the dividing line at approximately the latitude of Amara town itself: the northern, where the livelihood of the inhabitants was derived chiefly from the cultivation of winter cereals (wheat and barley) and the breeding of horses, camels and sheep; and the southern, largely marsh, which I shall be describing in the next chapter. In Ottoman times the whole of the liwa, except a few small properties near the river, was the personal domain of the Sultan and was administered by a special department. It was divided into a number of estates, some of them very large, which (unlike most other parts of Iraq where the tax on agriculture was assessed as a proportion of the crop actually grown, and was collected sometimes in kind and sometimes at a cash valuation) were let out on short lease, for a fixed rental, to the Shayks of the principal tribes. These shaykh-lessees were responsible for the preservation of law and order within their boundaries, the construction of dams and dykes, and the distribution of water for irrigation. The system of short leases made the individual lessee vulnerable to government displeasure (although any change would have to be within the ruling family of the tribe concerned) and militated against all planned improvement. Very soon after the occupation the Revenue Commissioner H. R. C. (later Sir Henry) Dobbs of the Indian Civil Service had made a masterly survey of the revenue arrangements and, among other reforms, had initiated a policy of giving long leases and, very cautiously, dividing the estates where considerations of watercontrol permitted. This time the journey upstream differed in many ways from the trip in the little S.L. Muhammara five months earlier. In the cooler weather there were no grown men to be seen standing stark naked

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on the banks. The river-side crops, not yet visible above the plough, were being diligently irrigated by a most primitive arrangement: two men would stand, one on each side of a cut dug a few yards into the bank and each holding the ends of two rope fastened to each side of a circular wicker-work tray or shallow basket; they would then let the tray down into the cut, whisk up a quantity of water with a deft movement of the strings, and tip it into a runnel at ground level. The art of navigating the larger river steamers round the sharp bends of the Narrows seemed to consist of cannoning from bank to bank. The Julnar was packed with troops. As we passed the villages (if lines of mat huts along the shore can be so described) men, women and children, now alive to the opportunities for making a few rupees from the British and Indian soldiery constantly passing up and down by river and road, sallied forth to chase us and chaffer ducks, fowls and eggs, completing the bargains as soon as the ship grazed the shore. At Amara the plans for Lorimer’s mission to Pusht-i Kuh were hanging fire, but in the meantime he seemed quite glad to leave to a younger man much of the district work, whether the ordinary routine of civil administration or co-operation with the military. In addition to Lorimer and myself at Amara there were four more A.P.O.s now on the Tigris above Qurna: Fowle at Qal‘at Salih, Barrett at Ali alGharbi, Macpherson at Shaykh Sa‘d, and Leachman here, there and everywhere, always in the forefront of the battle. At this time two steamers a day, on an average, were passing up the river with troops, and Amara was an important staging post for the succession of echelons marching up by road. Among our principal tasks was arranging with the riparian shaykhs, or their sub-lessees called sarkals, to supply labour required by the Sappers for work on the road up the left bank, and to ensure that the dykes were kept in good repair against flooding, for the season of high water was again upon us. A duty of a different kind was helping in the recovery of stolen military property, from rifles down to latrine screens, and ensuring the punishment of the offenders individually or communally as the case required. Even regulars from India with experience of the NorthWest Frontier had not been immune from rifle-thieving; but when formations of the new army from home began to arrive this nuisance reached epidemic proportions. Shaykhs and sarkals were warned that, in case of lack of co-operation, not only would they be liable to imprisonment, fine or even the cancellation of the leases under which they

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held their lands, but that military commanders had been authorized to raid and search the Arab camp or habitation nearest to the scene of such thefts. Although by the middle of March it was obvious that Lorimer was not going to get away to Pusht-i Kuh, the mounting pressure of this kind of work eventually kept me in the district until the fall of Kut, over three months in all. I was constantly on the move, taking with me two or three of our mounted orderlies recruited from the principal tribes, travelling light with only a tooth-brush in my pocket and, strapped to the saddle, a mackintosh, a blanket, and a change of shirt. In the intervals between these absences a day or two among the fleshpots of Amara always made a very pleasant change. As I have already mentioned, the climate was reckoned, justly, to be the best in the occupied territory; it was, moreover, far enough from the scene of the fighting to have many of the civilized amenities of the base—an Officers’ Club, a large hospital with its complement of nursing sisters, sufficient talent in the departments for the formation of a concert party, the “Tigris Tigers”, and plentiful rations. My first tribal contacts were with the Bani Lam, who occupied nearly the whole of the northern region (the only exception being the Al Bu Darraj at the southern end on the west bank), and this far-flung tribe must have a few more words of introduction. Family history has always loomed large in the thinking of the Arabs and is often a guide to their behaviour. I have in my possession, acquired in 1916, a most ingeniously arranged genealogical table of the ruling family showing up to twenty-eight generations. Each name, written in small Arabic handwriting inside a circle about the size of a new ha’penny piece, is joined by a line to that of the male parent. It might be a chart of the Milky Way and has defied my efforts to count the names without marking it; but the number cannot be less than six hundred and may be much more. Even so it does not include full details of collateral branches which I have met in Khuzistan and further north on the Persian frontier between Mandali and Badra. The story of the family, surnamed Al Nusayri, as told to me by Shaykh Abu Risha, begins with a certain Birkat (of the twelfth generation shown in the chart), from the Fudul section of the great tribe of Tayy, who came from Najd to Haviza in Khuzistan and there married a daughter of Ibn Tinan, a shaykh of the Bani Tamim. Birkat returned to Najd, leaving behind his pregnant wife, who in due course gave

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chapter nine Shaykhs of the Bani Lam Extract from family tree showing over six-hundred names Mish‘al Abd al-Ali

Jindil I Muhammad

Madhkur

Ni‘ma

Jindil II

Mizban

Ghadban

Bunayya

Hasan

Shabib

Fulayyih

Muftin

Ghadban

Alwan

Mutashar

Hatim

Falih Sikar

Kharaybit

Lazim

Fahad

Abu Risha

Juwi

Qumandar

Shakir

Abd al-Karim

Kawchan

birth to Hafid and then went to live among the tribes near the Tigris. When Hafid grew up he organized these tribes into the confederation known as Bani Lam, drove out the previously dominant Rabi‘a, and extended his domain to the Euphrates. The Al Nusayri do not give their daughters in marriage to outsiders. The ramifications of the family, as shown in the chart, begin with the three sons of Furay (the great-grandson of Hafid) named Balasim, Abd al-Khan and Abd ash-Shah; but only the progeny of the first is given. His line divides again with the three sons of Mish‘al (twentieth generation), of whom only two concern us here, Abd al-Ali and Jindil the Elder. The table on the opposite page shows the relationship of the leading shaykhs with whom we had dealings at this time. In a society with no surnames it was customary, when mentioning any individual, to couple his personal name with that of his father, and sometimes, for even greater precision, that of his grandfather also. The most important, or notorious, of these was Ghadban al-Bunayya, whose name appears many times in the Official History and other accounts of the Mesopotamia campaign, almost always with some unflattering animadversion on his activities and character. Influenced perhaps to some extent by his feud with the strongly pro-British Shaykh Kaz‘al of Muhammara, he had provided the largest contingent of Arab auxiliaries for the Turkish invasion of Khuzistan and was said to have offered a reward in gold coin for every British or Indian head brought in to him. Thereafter he played fast and loose with both sides,

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making submission to each in turn with every change in the tide of military victory and defeat. If before the war he had held the lease of one of the estates to the east of the Tigris, he had been deprived of it after our occupation of Amara.1 For our business with the Bani Lam on that side we now relied chiefly on his cousin, Juwi al-Lazim, whose domain comprised the vast area between the Persian frontier and the river most of the way from Amara to Shaykh Sa‘d. To give some idea of the manner of life of these still rather primitive Arab tribesmen I think I cannot do better than reproduce some extracts from my diary for twelve days that spring 1916, interpolating such explanations and comments as seem to be called for in order to put the picture into focus. March 30. Echelons marching up to the front have been complaining bitterly about the state of the road. In response to an urgent message from Leachman I set out this morning, accompanied as usual by orderlies Husayn and Ma‘ayfi. In Shaykh Shabib’s estate, between Amara and the Nahr Sa‘d Canal, parties of fallahs were already out filling up ditches and draining swampy patches. The Arab spade has a long handle with a wooden cross-bar, on which he can press with his bare feet, a few inches above the blade. Before noon we reached the tents of a R. E. Field Troop. The officer in charge told me that two nights ago two rifles had been stolen from the camp and that he had retaliated by raiding the nearest settlement and confiscating eight rifles; he was glad to be reassured that this was in order. Soon after leaving the Sappers, we saw a Basra-type balam with an awning, which denoted the presence of passengers of consequence, tied to the far bank. Our hails established that they were Shaykh Najam, mayor of the little market-village of Kumayt, and Shaykh Mutashar, chief of the Al Bu Durraj and lessee of the adjoining estate. They came across and Najam, who considers himself a townsman and therefore more civilized than an ordinary tribal shaykh, pressed me to stay the night as his guest, promising to send over a tent and a watchman for my escort and the horses. We sat on a cushioned bench facing the river, while retainers and visitors sat round on a circle of mats, joining 1

[On the ‘vacillating attitude’ of Shaykh Ghazban / Ghadban of the Bani Lam, see F. J. Moberly, The Campaign in Mesopotamia 1914–1918, I, 299; La vie de l’ayatollah Mahdî al-Khâlisî par son fils.—Texte traduit de l’arabe, introduit et annoté par P.-J. Luizard.—Paris, Éditions de la Martinière, 2005, pp. 139 & 156.]

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in the conversation. A servant brought a pair of slippers, a bowl of water, towel and soap, so that I could have a good wash before the assembled company. Dinner, quite an appetizing meal, was served on a table! At bedtime Najam mentioned casually that Macpherson had complained that the padded bench on which I was to sleep was full of fleas; and so indeed it proved. The day’s march about 28 miles. March 31. Left Kumayt at 7.30, Najam coming across to see us off. Soon after mounting, at Tannaz, where Juwi has a fort, we came upon a party of young men dancing round a green banner, some twirling their rifles above their heads, others firing into the air, to the accompaniment of a rhythmic chant; it appeared that they were about to march up to Shaykh Sa‘d to take their turn with a contingent which Juwi keeps there on a war footing to do Leachman’s bidding. The “wardance”, called ḥ awsa (verb ḥ awwasa, to dance thus), is a very usual concomitant of the communal activities of Arab tribesmen, whether bellicose or peaceable. As we approached the imamzada of Ali ashSharqi (Ali of the East Bank in contradistinction to Ali al-Gharbi, Ali of the West Bank farther upstream), a shrine with a lovely little blue dome, rather like Ezra’s tomb but smaller, we were caught in a heavy rain storm. At a nose-shaped bend in the river the road left the bank for about four miles and we warmed ourselves with a canter over a delightful stretch of country covered with luxuriant grass and dotted with fragrant shrubs, putting up a hare and a number of black-partridge. Back near the river we came up with the 13th Echelon, picking their way over the rain sodden ground; the O.C., a funny old Irish Major, was full of the awful time they had had the first day out of Amara, evidently before Shabib’s men had got busy. Opposite Filayfila, my destination (day’s march about 26 miles), I entrusted the horses with Husayn and Ma‘ayfi to an uncle of Juwi’s who happens to be camped there, and then crossed to the post with the O.C., Captain McCleverty of the 20th Punjabis, who had come over in response to our signals, in his ferry-boat manned by sepoys. The river is in flood and running very fast; with the wind against us the return crossing was very hard work. McCleverty tells me that a few nights ago an Arab swam the river, landed inside his barbed-wire perimeter, stole two rifles from the tent of his European signallers, and escaped through the gate-way of the entanglements, where he was missed by the sentry at five yards range.

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The camp stands on and around the mound which evidently hides the ruins of an ancient building. The Arabs say that Filayfila is the name of a beautiful princess, the beloved of Prince Surud, whose palace, on the other side of the river, is similarly buried under the mound of that name, and who used to swim the river to visit her every night; that was four thousand years ago, and his physical prowess would put to shame even the robustest lover of modern times. Similar Hero-and-Leander stories are not uncommon in the neighbouring Zagros regions of Luristan and Kurdistan. They are generally associated with the ruin of an ancient bridge; the story then goes that the lady built the bridge hoping thereby to ease the lover’s journey and have him arrive fresher and robuster, but, finding the result the opposite of what she had intended, quickly had it demolished again. April 1. Slept last night on the floor of McCleverty’s 40–lb. tent pitched inside a larger single-fly tent. Heavy rain during the night. This morning I passed the 13th Echelon again. The going was very unpleasant and slow. The fourteen or fifteen miles to Ali al-Gharbi took about four hours. The stream was far too choppy to think about swimming the horses across, so I arranged with Juwi’s uncle, who had come with us, to pitch a tent for the rest of my party inside a ruined enclosure. After some considerable delay I found a boat about to cross with a load of fire-wood and a motley collection of passengers, Arabs and Lurs, men and women, these last with large bowls of curds to sell to the troops. It was now raining, and the wind, blowing hard against the current, was lifting the waves to unaccustomed heights. For some time the two oarsmen were quite unable to get the craft away from the bank, until several passengers held up their cloaks to serve as sails. But as we moved out into the stream the waves seemed to be rising higher and higher, and the women began wailing and clamouring to turn back. The ferrymen were about to give way, and I had to use all my authority of a British officer in uniform to make them go on. The little lady sitting next to me grasped me firmly round the knee for safety, wailing in a high-pitched voice, her teeth all a-chatter. I tried to reassure her: “Lā t’khāfī, Fear not, we have nearly arrived”.—“Yay, yay yay: let us return.”—“But why art thou afraid? Look round; see, no one else is afraid.”—“Yes, but you are men (zilim) and we are women (niswān), and we are afraid of the water”. A little later I saw her quite

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recovered, squatting outside the barbed wire, happily selling her curds to the Punjabis. Ali-al-Gharbi is only about seventeen miles from the Persian boundary and, there being no frontier control, the little town serves as the market for the trans-frontier Lurs as well as the local Arabs. Got drenched again in heavy rain while looking round with Barrett. April 2. Last night Barrett and the Intelligence Officer lent me bedding and pyjamas, so I was able to undress. Spent the whole day in borrowed clothes while mine were drying. April 3. Left at 8 a.m. for Shaykh Sa‘d, Leachman having telegraphed to ask me to go on to see if the road was at all passable. The whole place was a quagmire. Several times “No Trumps” seemed to be sinking almost to his belly in the soft mire. We crossed several lines of trenches. In places the track was littered with carcasses of camels and mules, and the stench was most unpleasant. Arrived opposite Shaykh Sa‘d and hailed the ferry. Leachman and Macpherson came across in a quffa (the Babylonian circular coracle made of plaited withes and rendered watertight with bitumen). After a hurried exchange of information Leachman rode off to join the troops camped on the Wadi (the Arab name for the river known on the Persian side as the Changula), six miles farther on, assembling for the forthcoming offensive. Shaykh Sa‘d is almost devoid of troops. The 13th Division has moved up to the trenches, but their tents and even the Divisional flag have been left in position with a view to deceiving the German airmen (known as Fritz), whose two or three Fokkers have given the enemy effective command of the air. Day’s march about 28 miles. Leaving the horses and my two Arabs in Juwi’s fort we crossed to the village. Macpherson is living in a small, malodorous hovel without even a window to relieve the gloom. Here he works, sleeps and eats, except for dinner which he has with the medical mess. He is just recovering from a bout of malaria and seems far from well. Borrowed a bed from H.M.S. Firefly (the first of a flotilla of small gunboats, the Fly class, that were being sent out in parts from England) and some blankets from my host. Heavy rain again in the evening. April 4. All day at Shaykh Sa‘d. Rode out some distance on east bank with Macpherson. The Army Commander (Sir P. Lake) arrived.

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April 5. Heavy bombardment of the Turkish positions all night, followed by attack at dawn. Very trying to have to start back down river at this moment. Surprised to meet 13th Echelon in view of terrible state of road, and warned them of a very treacherous stretch ahead; but as I pushed on found the ground much drier than two days ago. Reached Ali al-Gharbi at about 1 p.m. after five hours riding. More rain in the evening. (This was the action described in the Official History, ii. 371–394. It started well but ‘adverse weather conditions’, that is to say constant rain and flooding from the Tigris, which reached its highest level of the year on that very day, had the last word, and by the night of the 9th it was clear that the third attempt to relieve Kut had failed). April 6. Leachman had sent instructions to Juwi to meet me here, but he only arrived about midday. His face was almost completely muffled in his kaffiyya, a sure sign that he was not feeling well. In addition to this he is a trifle corpulent for hard riding, and the task of trying to establish whether damage to the road is caused by rain or by breaches in river and canal dykes, and if by breaches to arrange for their repair, is not one calculated to arouse any great enthusiasm. However, we managed to get away without undue delay. As we approached Filayfila the mound of Surud stood out clearly away to our left. Just opposite Filayfila a large tent had been pitched and the interior spread with carpets, and we halted for lunch and a rest. As we dismounted numbers of tribesmen came forward to greet the Shaykh and kiss his hand. With some of them he exchanged an embrace, each holding the other’s right hand and leaning over his right shoulder as if to kiss it. We were then ushered into the tent, and disposed ourselves on thick quilts, with tightly padded holsters to serve as arm-rests. Tea served in the Persian fashion was followed by the inevitable coffee. Every shaykh of consequence has his own qahwachī, coffee-man, a trusted servant, often a negro slave or of slave origin. The fire is made in a shallow quadrilateral hole inside and towards one end of the tent. By it are ranged five, six or more metal coffee-pots of which the largest is the “store”. Each time the occasion for a fresh brew arises the qahwachi roasts the appropriate quantity of beans on a flat, round, shallow, iron ladle; they are then ground in a brass mortar, the pestle being manipulated so as to give a cheerful, rhythmical ring. The fresh brew is made in one of the smaller pots but with water from the “store”, in

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which the remains of previous brews have been collected, grounds and all. Arab coffee is served very strong, and only a few drops are poured into a small handleless cup to be offered to each guest in turn. Other rounds follow. The guest accepts the second in any case and may properly accept a third; it is “not done” to take more than three, but the guest indicates that he does not wish to be offered any more by giving the cup a little shake as he hands it back to the qahwachi. The coffee was followed by a substantial meal of fowl and rice. When we had finished and our hands had been duly rinsed Juwi announced that he was going to say his prayers, moved to the middle of the tent, and performed the ablution including the washing of his feet. While he was so occupied the general conversation continued, and more than once Juwi interrupted his orisons to comment on some remark by one of the company. Just as we were mounting to move on another five miles before dark a violent thunderstorm broke over us with torrents of rain that continued for an hour, so that by the time we reached our destination for the night, a large camp surrounded by floods and herds of sheep, goats and cattle, we were all very wet. The tent supposed to be reserved for the Shaykh and myself with our immediate attendants was rather smaller than the others and was pitched some distance away. A pile of brushwood was brought in, and very soon bright flames were leaping up to the top of the tent and seemed as if they must set it on fire. Juwi took off his wet garments one by one down to his shirt. A menial started to massage his legs, and very soon the old chap was fast asleep, snoring loudly. I myself was drenched to the skin from the waist downwards. It would have been difficult to peel off my Jodhpurs, so I took up my position near the fire, constantly changing my posture to try to get them dry, and being blinded by the smoke each time I knelt or stood up and so brought my head near the top of the tent. I must have continued thus for two hours or more. The light was constantly changing as the fire died down or blazed up again with a fresh armful of brushwood to reveal a circle of dusky faces under kaffiya and aqal; opposite me the shining bare thighs and shins of the qahwachi squatting to feed the fire, his aba draped over his head; to my right Mulla Jasim, the Shaykh’s clerk, holding his shirt out to dry; beyond the tent-pole another figure pushing a wet waistcoat on a stick towards the blaze; Ma‘ayfi helping himself to coffee from one of the row of pots ranged up against the embers. The sounds of bleating and

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barking from outside were added to the crescendo of snores issuing from the huddled bundle under the shaykhly aba to my left. From time to time a new arrival stepped into the tent and exchanged greetings with the company: As-salāmu ‘alay-kum, peace be upon you—wa ‘alay-kum as-salām, and on you be peace—ṣabbāḥ -kumu’llāh bi’lkhayr, God give you good morning (a greeting commonly used hereabouts without regard to the time of day). It must have been after eight o’clock when the evening meal was brought: fowl and rice as before with the addition of savoury rissoles; but curds poured over the rice, though giving it quite a pleasant tart tang, complicated the task or rolling it into cohesive balls to carry with the fingers to the mouth. At Ali al-Gharbi I had borrowed a water-proof ground-sheet; so, spreading this on the carpet to serve as a bed, I wrapped myself in my blanket and slept soundly till morning. April 7. This morning the whole country seemed to be under water. It was seldom possible to be absolutely certain whether the flooding at any particular place was due to act of God —moy maṭar, rain water, as Juwi always started by maintaining, or whether human carelessness or malice was responsible as I insisted when this seemed to me the probable explanation. But, once convinced, he could not have been more co-operative, ensuring that all available labour was mustered to strengthen or repair the dykes and canal banks. Having inspected about 28 miles of road we halted not far from Huwi’s fort at Tannaz. We had hardly taken our seats in the tent when a messenger arrived complaining that soldiers were looting the near-by village. After being assured that they had only just arrived so that this could not be a case of reprisal for a theft of rifles or similar misdemeanour I agreed to go and investigate. As I reached the village a party of sepoys was just emerging from the huts with a haul of fowls, eggs and other comestibles. After hearing the statements of the complainants and the British subaltern in command I arranged for the sarkal to go with the latter to count the spoil and receive payment at the current rates. Since it is we, political officers, who are administering the occupied territories it is always difficult, in spite of all our efforts, to dispel the illusion harboured by most Arabs here that the military are under our orders; and I am afraid that the sulky demeanour of the subaltern as he marched his men off this afternoon will not have helped. Here on

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the Tigris the two names to conjure with are Cox and Leachman, and the mention of any other apparently very important person is apt to cause some puzzlement, well illustrated by a conversation in the tent this evening: ARAB. Is Kokus Vali of Basra? A.P.O. He is Political Governor-General of all the territories occupied by the British troops. No, he is not Commander-in-Chief of the soldiers; that is General Lake. ARAB. Where is he? A.P.O. At the front, with the army. ARAB. And where is Lijman? A.P.O. He too is at the front, with the army. ARAB. Who then is commanding the army—Lijman or Leek? Chorus of better informed Arabs. Lijman, of course, Lijman.

I suppose that the prevalence of nepotism in the Ottoman ruling classes accounts for Juwi’s conviction—I met him first when I was the C.P.O.’s personal assistant on board S.L. Muhammara before Ctesiphon—that I must be Cox’s nephew, sister’s son to be precise. Others up here have assumed that I am Leachman’s younger brother. Juwi finds it difficult to understand how my name comes to be the same as my father’s. This discussion of families has led to his giving me a geneological tree of the Bani Lam shaykhs going back a long way. Although the shaykh has almost unlimited authority over his tribesmen and fallahs, even the humblest of them are free to stroll into his guest-tent and, perhaps after kissing his hand, sit down in the circle, join in the general conversation, and, if they have a grievance, upbraid him for the injustice of some decision he has given. April 8. Opposite Kumayt the river was overflowing the dykes beyond all dispute, so orders were sent out for a mass levy of labour. At one point it was obvious that the dyke had been deliberately opened and closed again, so I told Juwi that his sarkal would have to come on with me to be imprisoned in Amara. Juwi begged me not to insist, but to stay there the night and see the work completed to my satisfaction. Orders were sent out for the fallahs of the neighbourhood to assemble, and an immediate start was made with those already on the spot. Juwi himself trussed up his flowing garments and waded out to supervise. I crossed to Kumayt intending to pay Najam a short visit; but Juwi followed unexpectedly towards sunset, so we stayed the night. The fleas

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in the padded bench were more numerous and more voracious than ever. April 9. After a breakfast of eggs and hot milk we crossed over to continue our journey and inspect progress; Juwi in rampaging form. Wherever he was not entirely satisfied he would shout at the offenders and hurl his maqwar, a knobkerrie with a hard head of bitumen, at the group. One of them would obediently pick it up and bring it back, only for it to be hurled again a minute later. As we moved from one location to another the workers would fall in, shoulder their spades, and set off at a slow but springy trot, chanting over and over again a refrain of three syllables, doh-ray-doh, doh-ray-doh, doh-ray-doh, changing from time to time from one phrase to another at a word from the Shaykh. We came to a place where the repairs were unsatisfactory, and Juwi’s knobkerrie began to fly about again until finally, thrown once too often, it ricochetted off the target into the swirling waters of the Tigris and was seen no more. It is not always easy to distinguish what he is saying, for he has a cleft palate or some such malformation. The pronunciation of the guttural transliterated Q is almost universally G, but here it often becomes J or even Y; and in many words the ordinary K becomes CH. April 10. Last night the ever solicitous Ma‘ayfi decided that I should be more comfortable sleeping on a bench in a mat hut than on the ground in the tent with hoi polloi.2 Luckily I agreed, for during the night a gale-force thunderstorm blew down the tent, drenching the party to the skin and forcing them to come and seek shelter in the hut. This was far from waterproof, but we made the best of it. Said good-bye to Juwi at the boundary of his estate, and rode back across country to Amara. Towards the end of the month I had to go out again over much the same ground, this time with a party of the 4th Sappers and Miners, which had come up to bridge and consolidate the road from Amara to Shaykh Sa‘d. This involved taking my own 40-lb. tent, other impedimenta and a personal servant. Although the company of British officers offered a pleasant change, as an experience this could not compare in 2

[Greek ῾οι πολλοι, “the numerous ones”.]

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interest with the primitive routine of the earlier expedition. On 1 May we received confirmation that Kut had fallen, and a few days later the Sappers were transferred to Nasiriyya. On the 11th I took over charge of Amara from Lorimer, who left for Kirman in South-East Persia, but only for a few days. The fall of Kut had necessitated a general post of A.P.O.s on the Tigris, and I received orders to hand over to Macpherson and replace Grey at Qurna.

CHAPTER TEN

THE GREAT SWAMP1 The great swamp of Lower Mesopotamia is formed: by the flood waters drawn off from the Tigris about and below the latitude of Amara town by six principal canals, Musharrah, Chahala and Michariyya on the left bank (eastern marsh)—Butayra, Majarr as-Saghir and Majarr al-Kabir on the right bank (central marsh); and to the east of Suq ash-Shuyukh by the overflow from the Euphrates (southern marsh). The eastern and central marshes are situated for the most part in the liwa of Amara, the southern in Muntafik; all three overlap into Basra; the eastern marsh extends over the border into Persia and receives, in addition, the flood waters of the Tib, Duwayrij and Karkha (Saymarra) rivers of Luristan. At the time of our occupation it was reckoned that the Musharrah, Chahala and Butayra were drawing off at least three-fifths of the Tigris water, so leaving less than two-fifths for the other three, a number of smaller canals, and the main navigable stream through the Narrows. On the banks of the river and of the great canals near their heads there are belts of terra firma suitable for palm-groves and gardens, or for the winter crops of wheat and barley. The lower lands towards the tails are submerged by the spring floods, and it is here that rice, giant millet and other summer crops are cultivated as the waters recede. Beyond these is the area of permanent inundation (hawr), where the economy is based on the buffalo, the giant reed (qasab) which may grow to a height of twenty feet out of the water, and the bulrush (bardī). There is also a sedge called gawlān which has certain uses but is said to give sores to anyone bathing in the water where it grows. The rice-growers and the marshmen proper, the Ma‘dan, live on the whole very much the same kind of life. Internal communication is

1 In this chapter I have spelt many proper names and other local words as pronounced by the marshmen, and not necessarily according to the rules for classical Arabic. Since my journeys through the marshes were at that time in the nature of original exploration through unknown country I have recorded them in greater detail than might be thought necessary for the general reader. But all place names mentioned are shown in the sketch map, and I hope that the detail will add to the interest of my narrative for later travellers.

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almost entirely by mashhūf, the generic term for various types of canoe coated with bitumen, ranging from the superb, graceful, high-prowed, strongly built tarrāda or war-canoe to the tiny one-man contraption of reeds called challabiyya; for transport on the larger waterways there is a heavier bitumen-coated craft called danak, capable of carrying a load up to about ten tons. The reeds, and mats woven from split reeds, constitute the principal building materials. The reeds too, supplemented by rushes and sedge, provide the means of holding the materials together and securing them in position for their various functions, whether pillars, arches, beams, roofs, walls, floors or fences, and for the different types of domestic architecture, some tunnel-shaped, some ridge-roofed with caves, from the great, imposing barrel-vaulted guest-house (maḍīf ) of a rich rice-shaykh to the primitive cabin of the humblest Ma‘dan with its adjoining buffalo-byre (sitra). The same materials, combined with earth, are fused for the construction of dams and dykes. Reeds, rushes and sedge also provide fodder and fuel. In spring women collect the flowers of the reeds to make with the yellow pollen called kharayt, a kind of friable fudge, which is esteemed a great delicacy but is said to cause constipation.

A mashhuf. From the collection of Claud and Marion Rebbeck

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The first operation in the construction of a tunnel-shaped house (except the flimsiest) is to erect in two parallel lines a number of pillars of reeds, embedded in the ground and sloping outwards at an angle of perhaps thirty degrees from the vertical. The tops are then pulled inwards and fastened together to form a series of parallel arches (shabba pl. shibāb), always an odd number. Cross-beams (hatar pl. uhtur) of reeds are then fixed in length on the arches, and the frame-work so formed is covered with mats; these may be so arranged as to allow the lower part of the side walls to be lifted to let in the breeze. In a small hut the end walls may be constructed simply of upright reeds, but in large madif they may be made of mats held in place by pillars of reeds, or of a combination of mats and elegant lattice-work (mushabbach), also, of course, made of reeds. Such lattice-work takes the place of windows alike in the façade (‘aṭfa) above and on each side of the doorway, in the back wall (kawsar), and sometimes in the lower part of the side walls. The rice-lands are a maze of silt-laden canals and clear-water drains (ṣuffa), both often attaining the dimensions of broad rivers. Villages (salaf ) tend to be sited in no great depth along the banks of canals with scores of mashhufs moored alongside, and so give the passing traveller the impression of a country swarming with an immense population made up largely of naked children, boys and girls, living cheek by jowl with buffaloes, stunted cattle, domestic fowls and barking dogs. In addition to the traditional madif where he holds court, transacts tribal business, and entertains guests, and to which all and sundry have unrestricted access, a rich rice-shaykh may have at his headquarters a fort or one or more brick houses to accommodate his women-folk, and also perhaps, to serve as a general utility or service room, a large tent of the kind used by the shepherd nomads; either of these may be used on occasion for the reception of guests. Sometimes there is a smaller ridge-roofed ‘summer-house’ with walls of lattice-work to which a distinguished visitor can retire for privacy. The permanent marsh varies between great stretches of open water at one extreme and impenetrable jungles of giant reeds at the other. Almost the only landmarks are islands called sishan or ishan (pl. ishin), emerging perhaps two, three or four feet out of the water, some only a few yards square in extent, others large enough to accommodate a village of some size. Even so, a large proportion of the huts, whether of rice-growers or Ma‘dan, may be erected on foundations of reeds, rushes and mats piled up in the water (chibāsha pl. chibāyish). The overall level

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of the water may not vary very greatly with the seasons owing to the vast area to be covered, but a drop or rise of only a few inches will add appreciably to the extent of dry land or, conversely, bring water oozing up through or over the floors of the ramshackle habitations. In the region of giant reeds an ishan is generally surrounded by a circle of open water (barga). Clearly defined water-ways called gahan (pl. gawāhīn), and smaller channels called ibra, lead through the reeds from ishan to ishan. In the gahans the water is clear and deep, and the real bottom is hidden by a carpet of submerged weeds like hornwort and horned pondweed; but if for any reason a gahan ceases to be used it soon fills up again with reeds. Routes through rushes of sedge are less clearly defined and the surface may be covered with floating colonies of water-weeds of various kinds. Among local names I noted were: ga‘ayba, a water-lily with white flower and large flat leaves; gat, a kind of polyganum with purple flower and long narrow leaves; kawbānī, a pond-weed with white flower and brown leaves floating on the surface. In spite of their exposure to all sorts of debilitating maladies by reason of the climate and the cramped and insanitary conditions in which they lived, and notwithstanding the complete absence of medical facilities, fine physical types were not rare among these fenmen of both groups. In the days of the Mandate the 1st (Marsh Arab) Battalion of the Iraq Levies under British officers served with distinction in all parts of the country, even in the highlands of Kurdistan, and won a deserved reputation for smartness and efficiency; in one company at least there was not a man measuring under six feet [182 cm] in height. As in the rest of the liwa the rice lands, with the adjoining areas of permanent marsh, were let out on short lease, with the same responsibilities, to shaykhs of the principal tribes: Suwa‘id on the Musharrah; Al Bu Muhammad on the Chahala, Michariyya and Majarr al Kabir; Azayrij on the upper Butayra and Majarr as-Saghir. The Ma‘dan thus held no direct leases and, for the purposes of the administration, were subordinate to the big rice-shaykhs, some of whom were very rich. Many of the sub-tenant occupants of the palm-groves and gardens on the major canals were sayyids or mullas of some kind (locally styled mu’minīn, that is ‘believers’) who, being more or less secure by reason of their religious status from arbitrary eviction, could incur expense on developing their holdings more confidently than their more vulnerable tribal principals.

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Ever since that first journey up the river to Ctesiphon I had been anxious to take an early opportunity to make the further acquaintance of the rice-growers and marshmen. This did not come until my return from the spell of duty with Juwi on the Shaykh Sa‘d road recorded in the last chapter, when I arranged with Shaykh Tahir al-Hatim, lessee of Jurayt, the nearest of the Al Bu Muhammad estates, to accompany me on a short tour in the Chahala region. On the very day fixed for my departure, however, we received the report of a boundary dispute between him and the lessees of the neighbouring Bahatha estate, three shaykhs of a small tribe called Sudan. Although I was committed to spending the first night as Tahir’s guest, Lorimer thought it would be useful if, with the help of a competent assessor in the person of Shaykh Badday of the Suwa‘id, I could make at least a preliminary inquiry. The Sudan shaykhs already had with us the reputation of being the most uncivilized, quarrelsome and generally troublesome people in the whole liwa, with none of that dignity which one associates with the generality of Arab shaykhs. This did not prevent them from being as knowledgeable about their ancestry as most other ruling families. The table (see appendix) showing the relationship to each other of the individuals mentioned in this story is extracted from a fuller family tree, which I recorded at that time, showing the same five generations but a total of forty-five names. Apart from being always in arrear with their rent each of the three lessees had been in prison for other offences. The name of the senior was already especially familiar to me from the stream of petitions that had been coming into the office every few days over the signature ‘Al-mahbus (the man in prison) Haji Salih’. Although he had signed in court an unconditional undertaking to pay a private debt on a certain date, when the time came he had refused to honour his bond unless the complainant would swear at the shrine of Abbas in Karbala that his claim was correct, and it had taken a whole month in the debtors’ gaol to induce him to pay.2

2 At this point I must explain that for many years (even up to 1945 when I finally left Iraq) disputes involving tribesmen continued to be dealt with under a code, originally drafted by Dobbs, entitled The Tribal Civil and Criminal Disputes Regulations, which provided for their settlement in accordance with tribal custom, together with an element of punitive sanctions when required by more advanced ideas of criminal justice. The accepted way of establishing the truth was to call upon the respondent or accused to deny the correctness of the claim or charge on oath. I have already explained that an oath ‘by Abbas’ held the greatest terrors for the potential perjurer. Among the Arabs

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The other two Sudan lessees, Amir al-Faris and Gati‘ ath-Thajil, had also been in prison, each for failing to surrender for trial dependants accused in one case of looting a small caravan, in the other of the murder of a Sabaean canoe-builder. But neither had been as obstinate as the older man, and both had been released after producing the culprits and settling the cases by tribal custom, restoring the goods in the first and paying blood-money (which was what the bereaved complainant really wanted) in the second. As far as the rendez-vous with Shaykh Badday at Tahir’s headquarters I was escorted by our prospective host himself. But there was no danger of my being pre-disposed in favour of Tahir who, corrupted perhaps by the proximity of the town and its opportunities for dissipation, was by no means a likeable young man. We had not gone far when we were joined by a couple of ragamuffins riding scraggy ponies bare-back, with halters serving for bridles, and their naked legs dangling. They proved to be the Shaykhs Sa‘d and Nasir, brother and uncle respectively of the two junior Sudan lessees, who had come in to lodge the complaint. After dismounting at Tahir’s brick-built private house, where we were to be lodged, we were conducted to the madif, where the litigants were assembled. Coffee having been served, I turned to Badday to discuss procedure. Before he could get out a word in reply the air was rent with shouts, oaths, insults and vociferations of every kind as the parties and their supporters tried to drown each other’s representations. Having secured a moment’s silence I impressed on them that discussion would be quite useless until after we had inspected the site. These words of wisdom were acclaimed with shouts of approval, but within half a minute the monkey-house was again in full uproar. The land in dispute was at that time unmapped, well beyond the limits of the latest field-survey, which hereabouts had been carried only four miles to the east of Amara and the river. The inspection took two days, most of it by mashhuf, although once or twice, where there was a ribbon of dry land, I found a pony useful in spite of the discomfort of a Arab saddle with its short stirrup-leathers and menacing pommel. At every stage the problem was much the same, to get away from the crowd of frenzied litigants for a few moments of quiet consultation with

further north I have seen the most obstinate liar crumple up when required to stand and swear inside a circle traced with a pair of tongs in the sand and designated ‘the circle of Abbas’.

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Badday. Once we paddled out into a stretch of deepish open water, but Haji Salih, tucking his shirt up above the waist, at once followed in pursuit. Catching up with us when we ran aground he helped to pull us into deep water; but when he tried to jump into the mashhuf the boatmen threw him out neck and crop, shaykh or no shaykh. I should have liked to avoid returning to Tahir’s for the night, but there was no alternative. We were received in the smaller of two communicating guest-rooms in the brick building. At one end stood a large European-style four-poster bed, with dirty isabelline canopy and curtains, which I gathered with dismay. [This] was to be my couch for the night; and in due course I spent several restless hours in the company of a host of fleas even more voracious than Najam’s at Kumayt. The most important area in dispute was well away to the east towards the tails of the canals, so we started out at dawn next morning, taking only Tahir and Amir, the Sudan partner concerned. But as, punted by two sturdy boatmen, one in the bows and one at the stern, we sped down a waterway called the Mu‘awin I could see through the sparse growth of rushes, across the now inundated rice-lands, two mashhufs paddling along on a parallel course, in one of them the unmistakable silhouette of Haji Salih and his wagging, pointed beard. And sure enough, when we arrived at our destination, behold the whole of the Sudan shaykhly family lined up for the fray. I forget now the exact nature of the dispute and the decision we came to; but the usual cause of such cases was an attempt by one party, by means of a cunningly contrived dam at a strategic point, to divert a silt-laden canal to his own side of the boundary and the clear-water drain to his rival’s. This part of the inspection finished, we poled or paddled on through a maze of broad, deep canals and smaller channels until we emerged into a vast expanse of open water stretching north, east and south as far as the eye could see. The surface was flecked with myriads of the small white flowers of water-crowfoot called is-hayrbat, slim rushes were dancing in a gentle breeze, and the clear morning air was filled with a scent so deliciously intoxicating that for a moment I forgot the presence of my companions and the business on which I was engaged. They told me that the is-hayrbat flower, if squeezed and pressed on the skin for half an hour, would cause the place to swell up into a wound and leave a scar. I started to put this to the test, but desisted in response to Badday’s earnest entreaties. We returned as we had come. At Tahir’s I picked up ‘No Trumps’ and then rode on with Badday across country towards the Musharrah, passing

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on the way what had evidently been the bed of an enormous canal— “at least five hundred years ago, in the days of the Prophets Moses and Jesus”. After a hurried meal in his madif, a black tent with side-walls of matting, I rode hard for Amara, hoping to catch Sir Percy Cox as he passed through on his way up to the front, only to find that his launch had left half an hour before my arrival. The Al Bu Muhammad admit that they are comparative newcomers in the region, which, until they developed as a tribe, had been dominated by the Muntafik to the west and the Bani Lam to the east of the Tigris. They all claim descent from the same eponymous ancestor, Muhammad, a man of the Azra clan of the great Zubayd stock, who married a girl of the Furayjat (a section of the Bawi of Haviza), in three principal lines, Al Bu Abbud (including the Bayt Khalifa, the family with which we are principally concerned here), Al Waylu, and Shedda. The Furayjat, who accepted Muhammad as their chief, and the Shadda are today reckoned as Ma‘dan. Important sections of the Shadda are Al Bu Ghannam and Nawafil east of the river, and Al Bu Bakhit to the west. Other Ma‘dan tribes not claimed to be Al Bu Muhammad, even if subject to their authority, are Bayt Nasrallah (both banks), Fartus (west side) and Shaghaniba (near Kurna). For the reasons recorded at the end of the last chapter it was not until fifteen years later that another opportunity came my way of carrying further my exploration of the eastern marsh as I had originally intended. I trust that I shall not be ruled out of order if, to fill in the picture, I interpolate here a note on a short tour I made in February 1931 in company with Captain R. F. Jardine, the Administrative Inspector for Amara.3 There was now a track passable for the original Ford ‘Tin Lizzie’ cars along the Chahala to a point about seventeen miles from Amara, just beyond the market-village of Masay‘ida with its palms and orchards, where the main canal forked to form the Zubayr and the Umm at-Tus. Here Muhammad al-Araybi, the senior Al Bu Muhammad shaykh on the east bank of the Tigris, an attractive, pleasantly-spoken man with a slight impediment in his speech, was awaiting us with a flotilla of splen-

3 Soon after the formation of the Arab Government of Iraq the British Political Officers administering the liwas handed over executive authority to Arab Mutasarrifa, but remained with the styles at first of ‘Divisional Advisers’ and later of ‘Administrative Inspectors’.

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did tarradas moored to the bank in front of several brick-built houses; and a few minutes later we were speeding down the Zubayr. For a peaceful occasion like this the normal strength of a tarrada crew seemed to be five, two in the bows and three in the stern, leaving room for two passengers to sit comfortably with legs outstretched amidships. In shallow water they stood and poled, generally all on the same side. When paddling in deep water N°5 sat very close to the stem of the stern (which is pointed like the prow but lower), his buttocks (probably bare) bulging over the gunwales, his legs pushed well forward; Nos 4 and 3, seated in the stern sheets, also had their legs well forward, with knees bent; N°2 and bow sometimes sat in the same way and sometimes knelt (I noticed one bow paddler sitting well forward on the gunwales with his legs dangling over the side, but he was evidently not pulling his weight). They paddled fast, changing frequently from side to side after anything from five to fifteen strokes; bow and N°2 paddled together, as did Nos 3, 4 and 5, but not invariably, N°5 who seemed to initiate the change, Nos 4 and 3 following in a fraction of a second. Shortly before the Zubayr forked to form the ‘Little Twister’ and the Adil (Straight ’un) we passed the house of Muhammad’s cousin Falih as-Sayhud, the lessee of the adjoining estate to the north, with whom he was not on the best of terms. Both the Zubayr and the Adil, which we now followed, were still in the rice country, with their banks lined with long villages of tunnel-shaped mat houses. We had been paddling for about an hour and three quarters when we passed a few last straggling palms and were held up by a dam, constructed here presumably to hold back the precious silt. So we pushed our way through rushes into another canal called Mu‘ayyil or Mu‘ajjil (Hustler), and very soon we were drifting along at quite a good speed down a broad waterway, with only an occasional stroke of the paddle to keep us on course, until we reached the shallower edge of the permanent marsh. Another halfhour’s polling and paddling through the reeds and rushes brought us to the ishan of Dibin, the usufruct of which was in dispute between our host and Falih. The island boasted about seventy primitive huts of Al Bu Ghannam Ma‘dan. The spring rise in the level of the Tigris was still several weeks away and there was a considerable expanse of dry ground to be seen. Indeed Dibin seemed to be part of a long shoal called Khayt or Thread, perhaps a bank of the great canal I had crossed on my way to Badday’s, which was said to run through the marsh southwards from Halfaya on the Musharrah to the latitude of Qurna and beyond, and much of which showed above the surface in the season of low water.

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After a short halt for the midday meal and a talk with the headman we paddled on in a direction rather east of south, past the ishan of Abu Khussaf and across a stretch of open water into the gahan Mufsil. Here we entered the region of high reeds, where young shoots were showing about three feet above the water among the old. The sky was blue and cloudless. From now on, for the best part of the next two days, at one moment we would be paddling through the curious twilight of a not very wide gahan, at the next pushing our way through a narrow ibra, now crashing through a ticket of reeds and disturbing perhaps a moorhen or a great clumsy water-goat as they call the pelican, now coming out into a clearing like a little lake enclosed in a wall of green, now narrowly avoiding wreck on a reef of submerged buffaloes which, with the voices of invisible Ma‘dan cutting their daily stint of reeds and rushes, betrayed the proximity of some small ishan. And then suddenly we would emerge into a broad waterway, where we could cast our eyes back down a long open vista, flanked by rows of giant tufted reeds fluttering in the breeze, that might have been a beflagged regatta course, with our escort of slim tarradas racing along in line ahead or perhaps three or even four abreast, their wet paddles flashing in the sun and every few seconds twinkling across from port to starboard and then back again to port. From time to time we would meet a mashhuf, loaded high with piles of reeds and mats, and paddled more often than not by young women with coppery faces and gleaming white teeth. In just under three hours paddling from Dibin, during which we passed the ishan Hurud (ten huts of Al Bu Ghannam, all chiba’ish) and crossed a great, broad, east-to-west waterway called Dawb, we reached Abu Sukhayr, our destination for the night, in a large barga where several gahans met. Of the numerous dwellings some were on the ishan itself and some erected on chiba‘ish. The only patch of dry ground not already occupied by a hut of some kind was quickly cleared of buffaloes and covered with a layer first of reeds and then of mats. Our host had brought a fine double-fly tent, and when rugs had been spread over the mats we could not have been more comfortable. There were, moreover, no gnats or mosquitoes, so we had a very good night. Abu Sukhayr was the most easterly point of our tour, perhaps only seven or eight miles from the Persian frontier, here an imaginary line between two trigonometrical points across the uncharted marsh; it was also considered to mark the dividing line between the hawr of Haviza to the north and the hawr of Uwaysich to the south.

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We cast off early next morning and almost immediately disturbed thousands of duck of various species, and other kinds of wild fowl. They rose in the air with a mighty, clattering whir-r-r rather like the roar of an express train, and continued for some time to circle round at a great height in the cloudless blue sky. Paddling due west we passed the two small ishans of Salimin and Khirr and, in just an hour an a quarter from Abu Sukhayr, reached the large island of Tarraba. We had now passed out of the domain of Muhammad into that of his kinsman Challub, a name I would translate ‘dear little puppy’. Homely names of this kind were common among tribal Arabs: Hedgehog, Jackal, Rebel, Mischiefmaker, Fishing-spear, and even Counter-foil (kawchân), this last chosen because the tax-assessor happened to be in the village or camp when the child was born. On a later tour of the eastern marsh in 1944 I was here in the second half of April. Many of the mashhufs we passed on the way were loaded with the kharayt harvest, on the island quantities of it were spread out to dry in clean, shallow trays of matting, and the moored mashhufs were bright with the yellow stains left by their recent cargoes; there were also large rafts of reeds ready for floating to markets on the river. From Tarraba we turned almost due south down a broad gahan to Abu Layla, where we stopped to take bearings, and then followed a winding course south-westwards. The high reeds gave place to rushes and, in just five hours of actual paddling from Abu Sukhayr we reached the Tigris a mile below Kasmara, sixteen miles as the crow flies southeast of Qal‘at Salih.4 But to return to May 1916. With the fall of Kut my days at Amara were clearly numbered, and there was no time to loose if I was to see something of the marshes, which were then, of course, unsurveyed and

4

The positions of the ishans and gahans shown on the sketch map [—missing—] are approximations based on estimated speeds, the general direction followed and, where possible, compass bearings, as recorded in my logs for this journey and another made in 1944 over a rather different route. On the second occasion I started at the northern Baydha and, after crossing a large area of open water named Umm Tuffar (which I had skirted after passing Abu Khussaf in 1931), followed the Dawb waterway (to the west of my earlier route), which eventually swung eastwards to the point where I crossed it in 1931 to enter the gahan Mughayzil leading to Abu Sukhayr. In 1944 I was unable to get into the gahan Abu Tayla directly from Tarraba and was forced to take a roundabout route through Hamira. If parts of the eastern marsh have been surveyed since 1945 by the Iraqi Irrigation Department or the oil companies the results do not appear to have been published for general use.

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largely unexplored to the west of the Tigris as to the east. On the day after taking over charge from Lorimer, accordingly, I set out with my usual mounted escort to visit the two senior shaykhs of the Azayrij, Shawway al-Fahad and Salman al-Minshad, joint lessees of the estate officially called Majarr as-Saghir, although the canal was locally known as Tabar near the head, where it takes off from the right bank of the Tigris, and Umm Ayn lower down. We crossed the Tabar by mashhuf, swimming the horses, and rode down the left bank of the canal through typical, thickly populated, rice country. In spite of numerous obstacles in the shape of deep distributaries, fording some of which involved a good wetting, we made good time to the market-village of Umm Ayn, where Salman was waiting to conduct us to his great, vaulted, eleven-arched madif, which I guessed at first sight of the interior to be the length of two cricket-pitches, but which was in fact just about the length of one. (Some years later, shortly after Salman’s death, his son Mutlaq told me that, although some of the shaykhs of the Suwa‘id were building madifs of thirteen or even fifteen arches, out of respect for his father’s memory he had no intention of trying to emulate them). The meal which Salman felt bound in honour to set before us was long in coming, and it was not until afternoon that we set out, Salman and I in his tarrada, for Shawway’s. We paddled rapidly westwards for two hours across a vast expanse of open water where, two years before, the bursting of a dam in the Butayra region had flooded what had previously been productive paddy-fields. Shawway’s village was a complex of inlands, most of them below the level of the marsh at that season of high water but protected by dykes. The few huts and buffalo-pens on each were so closely packed that it was virtually impossible to walk anywhere without brushing against their sides, and visits to anybody but a nextdoor neighbour could only be by mashhuf. The two cousins were both attractive characters in their different ways. Shawway, the elder, walked with a stick and a pronounced limp, the result of a severe wound received in some tribal fracas, and wore his beard short and dyed a reddish brown with henna; a simple, straightforward way of speaking could not fail to inspire confidence. Salman, who preferred his beard long and dyed pitch black, was something of a comedian and had regaled me in the tarrada with anecdotes and a selection of love songs. The atmosphere that evening in Shawway’s madif was unusually relaxed, and dinner was in the best traditions of classical Arab hospitality; I counted well over a hundred dishes laid out on the cloth (spread on the floor of course) before we were invited to set to.

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There were, however, in the otherwise congenial company three unpleasant characters whom I will mention here because they were each typical of a class I frequently met elsewhere, but fortunately not often together: the first an aggressive Persian dervish who, that morning at Salman’s, had tried to monopolize the conversation, talking to me in Persian (which our hosts did not understand), quoting profusely from the poets Sa‘di and Hafiz, and professing disappointment that I could not cap his sallies in kind; the second the Shaykh’s agent from Amara, an oily townee, who produced a supply of tinned milk, tinned fruit, biscuits, chocolates and other imported atrocities, explained that he could not exist without them, and assumed that I was in like case; the third a sanctimonious sayyid looking down his nose, to whose presence I attributed the fact that the coffee-man was less discreet than usual in the common practice among the Shi‘a tribes of deftly palming the coffee-cup used by the Frankish infidel so as not to use it again as he went the round of the other guests. The following morning we returned to Umm Ayn as we had come, Salman in cheerful mood as before with his anecdotes and ditties. Five days later I started out from Amara again, this time to travel to my new post in two stages: the first by balam down the Tigris and the Tabar to Salman’s, and thence eastwards by any navigable distributaries and drains to the Majarr al-Kabir, where I would spend two days with Majid al-Khalifa, the senior Al Bu Muhammad shaykh on that side of the river; the second stage by mashhuf southwards across the permanent marsh to Qurna. After consultation with the Field Survey party based on Amara it seemed that I might be able to add something to the map as it then was by keeping awake the whole time, taking a forward bearing every ten minutes with other bearings where appropriate and possible, and noting the names of waterways, ishans and other topographical features. There is not very much that I need say about the first stage through typical rice country with its network of canals and drains, broad and narrow, the long villages of tunnel-shaped houses with here and there a pepper-pot watch-tower (maftūl), a fort or an unmistakable shaykh’s madif. We left Amara at eight o’clock in the morning, took just over an hour to reach the mouth of the Tabar and another two and three quarters to reach Salman’s, where we halted for three hours for lunch and a rest during the heat of the day. The onward journey, which involved disembarking two or three times to drag the balam a few yards overland from one waterway to another, took just under four hours to the Majarr al-Kabir, and another hour down the canal to Majid’s, which we

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reached at eight, after dark, to make a total of nearly nine hours paddling, punting and pulling out of the twelve. Majid entertained me royally that night in his great madif, and took me the next morning to see an exhibition of fishing with net and fāliḥ (a spear resembling a trident but furnished with two additional short prongs between the main three) by Ma‘dan, who stood in their mashhufs as they speared their fish with astonishing dexterity. Just downstream of the madif the Majarr forked to form two large canals, Adayl and Wadiyya, and after lunch we paddled down the latter for nearly two hours to the Bayt Araymish, a collection of huts that was to be my starting point for the final stage, through the area of glast reeds and permanent marsh, on the morrow. For this my host lent me his own tarrada, crewed by men of a family called Bayt Abu Dharwa, each of them an ‘ajīd, that is a true marshman familiar with every nook and cranny and every highway and byway among the reeds, and of course an expert waterman. He also insisted on sending an escort of five more war-canoes of armed retainers, for the Fartus Ma‘dan had a bad reputation for piracy. We left at half past three the next morning before it was light. The whole journey from Bayt Araymish to Qurna took fourteen hours: ten of actual paddling, with three short breathers during the forenoon and a long halt of three hours for food and a siesta during the heat of the day. The general description of the Great Swamp at the beginning of this chapter is based on my experience on this occasion. If, therefore, the reader will refer to the sketch map [unfortunately missing] for the place names, my account of this last stage can be quite short. Just over an hour from the start, after crossing the rush-grown Hawr Umm Subayta and passing the last collection of huts of Ubayyil with the last watch-tower, we plunged into the jungle of giant reeds. For the next six hours (not counting the breathers at the ishans of Zawra, Great Abu Hamura and Madayna) we paddled down the gahans Mal Khudhayyir, Sajayriyya and Abu Hayra, until at eleven o’clock we emerged near Ikray. I made several journeys through various parts of the Great Swamp in later years, but none quite like this. Most of the time, between the swaying walls of the gahans, we were gliding along in a curious gloom, rather like the twilight of the annular eclipse of the sun which I had the rare privilege of witnessing from the Terrasse of Saint-Germain-en-Laye at midday on 17 April 1912; but relieved from time to time by the glare of a barga round an ishan. It was also in almost complete silence except for the plash of our own paddles and the occasional question and answer

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I exchanged with the crew, for there seemed to be almost no bird life (we disturbed only one moor-hen, one cock and two waders) and there was no croaking of frogs. Between Ikray and Gabiba, a large island measuring some two hundred yards by fifty and holding about forty huts, which we reached at noon and where we halted for our three-hour rest, the reeds had given way progressively to rushes and sedge, frogs had begun to croak again and bird life to reappear. Although we met no other craft of any kind that day my companions said that this was a regular route capable of taking danaks of five tons burden, and that the Turks had sent troops down this way to oppose ‘Townshend’s Regatta’. They added that more or less parallel with ours there was another succession of gahans coming down from Suq at-Tuwayyil by way of Gubab (they had pointed out the gahan that led to it from the barga of Dawb as we passed) and Zichri by which Shaykh Shawwai was accustomed to ship his rice in ten-ton danaks to Madina on the old Euphrates channel west of Qurna. I had hoped to come out somewhere between these two places. But an hour and a quarter after leaving Gabiba we emerged at Abu Aran on the Tigris, and paddling the last three miles down this busy and familiar thoroughfare was something of an anticlimax. I managed to keep awake throughout the whole of my travelling time, taking forward bearings every ten minutes and other observations as planned. As far as plotting my route on the first two days was concerned, this had been a waste of effort owing to the varying speeds of the current in the canals and the open water, and the constant changes of direction. But for the last and most important stage on the third day my persistence had its reward, and in due course the Survey Department to which I sent my log, reported: “From the route as plotted (blue) from your notes, and as adjusted in length and azimuth and made to close as it should (red), this journey proves most satisfactory and affords a check on the mapping”.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE EUPHRATES LINE At Qurna a message was awaiting me to the effect that my posting had been changed: after reporting at Basra I was to go to Suq ash-Shuyukh in the liwa of Muntafik on the Euphrates to relieve Grey*, who was being invalided to India, pending the return from leave of the substantive A.P.O., Captain H. R. P. Dickson*. A regular officer seconded from an Indian Cavalry Regiment, Dickson was another colourful member of the ‘Mespot political’, who deserves a short paragraph of introduction to himself. He had spent his early boyhood at Damascus, where his father was British Consul. Like many children in similar case he had passed almost as much time with the servants as with parents, and up to preparatory-school age had grown up bilingual, only to forget his Arabic completely within a few months of coming home, as I and my brother did Japanese. At Suq, his first appointment in the Political Department, he had started by being dependent on an interpreter until one day (according to the story) he lost his temper, something snapped, and a deluge of highly flavoured, back-stairs Arabic completely submerged the unfortunate object of his wrath. As a fluent speaker of the colloquial language he surpassed us all; but for some reason he seems never to have taken the trouble to learn to read and write, which was a pity. A year later he was appointed superintending P.O. of the whole Muntafik division and (to quote A. T. Wilson again) “endowed with exceptional gifts of sympathy and insight into the psychology of Arabs, he succeeded where perhaps no other member of the Civil Administration would have succeeded, in bringing the division under some measure of control”. He later spent away years at Kuwayt, first as Political Agent and then, after his retirement, as adviser to the Oil Company. He later published two books: The Arab of the Desert (1949), and Kuwait and her Neighbours (1956). My week at Basra was enlivened by two memorable guest-nights organized by the Political mess in honour of the officers, two Russians and a Persian, from a Cossack patrol of a hundred sabres which, travelling light and living on the country, had made a remarkable march of a hundred and fifty miles from Karind through Luristan to Ali al-Gharbi (20 May). They belonged to a column under the command of General

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House of the A.P.O. Suq ash-Shuyukh, June–July 1916. From the collection of Hugh Edmonds

Baratov, one of two prongs of the Caucasus Army which, after many vicissitudes, was once again advancing southwards through Turkish and Persian territory, and about which I shall have more to say in later chapters. To welcome our guests all the Russian-speaking officers within reach, including Noel specially summoned from Ahvaz, were scraped together, and supplies of vodka were procured from Konov, the Russian merchant formerly at Bushire, who was of course invited. At the first dinner Brigadier-General Offley-Shore made a speech in very creditable Russian, and Noel entertained us with his rich collection of Russian records. After the second we all trooped off to a local theatre, where nine dancing-girls had been retained instead of the usual complement of three. As each lady finished her turn she joined the party in the ‘dress circle’, so that as the evening wore on diminishing interest in the music and dancing on the stage was matched by mounting liveliness in the auditorium. My new district comprised the thickly populated country on both banks of the Euphrates around Suq ash-Shuyukh together with the Hawr al-Hammar, a vast expanse of open, shallow water, seventy miles long and averaging about ten miles wide in the low-water season. The northern shore was, however, ill defined, being adjacent to the marshes west of the Tigris and liable to inundation from that direction also.

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Suq itself was a walled town with a population of about 12,000, the centre of the Bani Malich tribal confederation and, as its name implied, an important market for the rice trade. The Hammar Lake dated back only some forty years, to the middle 1870’s, when the right-bank dykes of the Euphrates were breached by exceptional floods, and now extended from a point about ten miles east of the town to within three miles of the Shatt al-Arab. The waters of the ‘great river’ thus reached the Shatt from the Hammar, through a narrow channel hardly three miles long, at Garmat Ali only six miles up-stream of Basra, leaving the old channel west of Qurna as a quiet backwater fed from the Tigris. Near both shores there were numerous small islands, some of them picturesque with palm groves and watch towers. There were two channels, navigable by shallow-draft streamers, connecting the Euphrates near Suq with the Hawr: the Mazlaq, the more direct, on which our dredgers had been working since the occupation, and the Akayka, in fact the old bed of the river, running more north-eastwards. About eight miles due south, across the marshy country and on the edge of the desert, was the market-village of Khamisiyya. It was a squalid little place, with a population made up largely of traders from Najd, and was a supply centre for the Dhafir and other bedouin tribes. For military purposes the district was in the sphere of the 15th Division (Major-General H. T. Brooking), with Headquarters and the main body at Nasiriyya and a Brigade at Khamisiyya. At Suq a company of the 31st Punjabis under Captain Deedes occupied the old Turkish fort-like government-office (sarāy), while the bulk of the battalion was stationed about seven miles away near the lake end of the Akayka channel. I had hardly taken over charge when I received orders from General Brooking to proceed in H.M.S. Snakefly (Lieut. R. A.Webster), one of the two Fly-class gunboats on the Euphrates, to inquire into the cutting of the telegraph-wire on the north shore of the lake. We had little difficulty in establishing that the culprits, not for the first time, were the Al Bu Salih, a semi-nomadic shepherd tribe occupying the grazing lands in the angle between the western and the southern marshes, whose chief, Badr ar-Rumayyid, was also recognized as paramount Shaykh of the Bani Malik confederation. We were then joined by H.M.S. Greenfly (Lieut.-Commander A. E. Seymour), to which I transferred, and the stern-wheeler Muzaffari, with Deedes and a hundred Punjabis on board, with orders to give Badr a sharp lesson without getting too deeply involved ourselves. With occasional pauses when one or other of the ships ran aground, we steamed up a broad drain known as Shatt al-Hammar, across a large

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lake (Qattaniyya), up another channel (Ghalawayn), and finally into a larger lake (Taliyya) with Badr’s village of huts and tents on the eastern shore. Badr’s men, several hundred of them, were waiting for us among the hillocks and opened fire long before we were within effective range. The ships then came into action with all guns and rifles. Greenfly’s 4-inch gun seemed to be making excellent practice at the more distant targets. As we closed in it became evident that the thin armour-plating of the bulwarks gave little protection from riffle fire at fairly close range. I was standing with Seymour just outside the wheel-house when a bullet whizzed past us and went through the armour as if it were brown paper. I heard the Chief Petty Officer coxswain exclaim “Thank you for that” and laugh; fortunately it was only a slight wound in the arm. Considering the heavy fire under which all three ships had come it was little short of a miracle that we in Greenfly had only one other casualty, a stoker also slightly wounded, and the other two ships none at all. When the tribesmen had scattered and all firing had ceased we made our way back by the way we had come. In the light of subsequent reports I put the enemy casualties at twenty-three killed, including one member of the shaykhly family, and about a hundred wounded. But the casualty that seemed to have made the greatest impact on the imagination of my informants was the destruction, by the direct hit of a shell from one of the gun-boats, of the big ‘store-house’ coffee pot in Badr’s guesttent. A brief account of this operation from the naval point of view will be found in Vice-Admiral Wilfred Nunn’s Tigris Gunboats (1937)1 on pages 237–38. This was only one of many expeditions sent against this stormy petrel. He remained defiant and unrepentant, and it was not until 1919, after the end of the War, that he finally bowed to the inevitable and made submission. Bertram Thomas who later achieved fame as the first European explorer to cross the ‘Empty Quarter’ of Arabia, has much to say about Badr in the first part of his book Alarms and Excursions in Arabia (1931),2 and among other things records that his very first duty on taking over the post of A.P.O. Suq in 1918, like mine in 1916, was to go on

1 [Nunn, Wilfrid. Tigris gunboats; a narrative of the Royal navy’s co-operation with the military forces in Mesopotamia from the beginning of the war to the capture of Baghdad (1914–17), London, A. Melrose Ltd. [1932]; new edition: Tigris gunboats: the forgotten war in Iraq 1914–1917. London, Chatham, 2007.] 2 [Thomas, Bertram, Alarms and excursions in Arabia, with a preface by Sir Arnold T. Wilson. London, G. Allen & Unwin, (1931).]

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an almost precisely similar operation. But by that time the Navy had learnt that they must reinforce the armour with walls of sandbags. I got back to Suq just in time to welcome two distinguished visitors, Miss Gertrude Bell*, whom I had already met at Basra on my way through, and Lieut.-Colonel R. E. A. Hamilton (later Lord Belhaven and Stenton), A.P.O. Nasiriyya, who was escorting her back from a visit to General Brooking’s Headquarters.3 It must have been the next day that I went down with a violent attack of malaria, which became so persistent that the battalion doctor at Akayla advised that I should be sent away on sick leave to India as soon as possible. That summer of 1916 was unusually hot, even for southern Iraq, with maximum temperatures varying between 110 and 120°F [43°

Visit of Gertrude Bell and Ibn Saud to Basra, 1916. At the right hand of Ibn Saud is Shaykh Khaz’al; on his left Sir Percy Cox and Gertrude Bell. From the collection of Hugh Edmonds

3 For an appreciation of the work in Iraq of this remarkable woman both during and after the war, and of her earlier travels in various parts of the Middle East, considerations of space oblige me to refer my readers to a tribute which they will find in Wilson’s Loyalties, pp. 157–159, and to my paper “Gertrude Bell in the Near and Middle East” published in JRCAS, vol. LVI/3 of October 1969.

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and 49°C] in the shade. My office and living quarters were in a little Turkish house on the edge of the town, with no amenities of any kind. My most vivid memory of those last four weeks at Suq is of lying on a mattress during the heat of the day under my office table in the hope that it might afford some protection against the scorching reverberations from the ceiling and the walls, and of stifling nights, under a mosquito net on the roof, which brought little relief. My diary for the three weeks after the first onset of fever is a complete blank; but a few entries that follow remind me that the General himself, on his way back from a visit to Khamisiyya, took me with him to Nasiriyya for a short change of air under the ministrations of his medical officer in the comparative comfort of his mess. The bouts of fever diminished in frequency and violence, so that during my last ten days I was able to make three short tours in my District, one with Seymour in Greenfly, one in the office motor-launch, and one by mashhuf to Khamisiyya. Between Suq and Khamisiyya there were no high reeds, only rushes. My crew, drawn from the locally recruited river-police, seemed very clumsy watermen as compared with the ajids of Amara, and progress was slow. As we approached the town British and Indian troops were busy deepening a channel leading to the camp, for the level of the marshes was now falling rapidly, and it was important that the transport of their stores by water should not be interrupted. I found the A.P.O., Captain R. Marrs, living and working in a mat hut. But that was no hardship, for in contrast to the muggy and oppressive atmosphere of Suq, the climate here on the edge of the desert, even in the middle of the day, was dry and refreshing, and cool enough at night to make one pull up a blanket towards dawn. Khamisiyya was an important listening-post for intelligences from the desert, especially at that moment when the Amir Muhammad ibn Rashid, the paramount chief of the great confederation of Shammar bedouin, who was hovering on our flank not far away, seemed to be about to throw in his lot with the Turks. To me it was another new and interesting experience to meet a lesser but nevertheless, important bedouin shaykh, Hamud asSuwayt, of the Dhafir, “finding him most attractive in his manners, and his Arabic delightful, both in marked contrast to those of the abrutis of the Suq region”. By a fortunate coincidence my replacement, F. W. Gerrard of the Indian Police, was coming from Khamisiyya; so we travelled back together. My only regret on leaving Suq was that my illness had prevented me from following up an exchange of calls with the head of the Subbi com-

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munity on the other side of the river. Quite apart from the sympathy I always felt for racial and religious minorities, the Subbis, or Sabaeans as Europeans generally called them, constituted a most interesting and economically important element in the population of the Great Swamp, the largest settlements being at Suq and Qal‘at Salih. In dress they more or less resembled their Arab neighbours, with a preference for the kaffiyya in red and white check, but they were easily distinguishable by their different physical type. They were the mashhuf builders par excellence and also plied the craft of silversmiths, their wares, generally known as Amara work, being distinguished by delicate pictures in antinomy inlay of river craft of every type, date palms, camels, domed mosques and tombs, as well as conventional geometrical patterns. During and after the war many of the silversmiths set up shop and carried on a brisk trade with troops and tourists in towns outside their own area as far afield as Baghdad, Mosul and even Damascus, Beirut and Alexandria. The name Subbi (pl. Subba), which may or may not have some etymological connexion with the Arabic word for ‘pouring water’, is a popular appellation for the people properly described as Mandaean. In the Koran the ‘Sabians’ are mentioned in conjunction with the Christians and the Jews as believers in God who shall have their reward at the last. Whether the Subba of today are to be identified with those ‘Sabians’ or not, they have been accepted by most Muslim commentators as ‘People of the Book’, and in consequence entitled to toleration. Total immersion in water plays an important part in their religious rites, and after the occupation of their country by a Christian Power more than one silversmith thought to attract custom by describing himself on the board above the shop as ‘St. John the Baptist Christian’, unaware no doubt that in the 17th century the Portuguese missionaries, in the same order of ideas, had regarded his people as amenable to the attentions of the Inquisition. They are mentioned in the narratives of many travellers from the time of Pietro della Valle onwards, but the researches of very few penetrated much below the surface. It remained for the wife of a colleague of later years in Iraq, Lady Drower, to compile the standard work, The Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran (1937), as well as a dictionary of their language.4 Having handed over to Gerrard I left at dawn the next morning in the office launch with my British mechanic. I had come up in May by way of 4 [E. S. Drower, The Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran: their cults, customs, magic, legends, and folklore, Leiden, Brill, 1962; E. S. Drower & R. Macuch, A Mandaic dictionary, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1963.]

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Garmat Ali so decided this time to skirt the northern shore of the lake and make for Qurna. This meant taking an Arab pilot supposed to know the channels and a guard of four sepoys with two machine-guns, for this route was not immune from the attentions of snipers. But soon after emerging from the Akayka channel into open water our troubles began. Twice we ran hard aground and each time only managed to refloat the launch after interminable delays and with the help of labour summoned by mashhuf-messenger from the nearest island. Then the engine broke down and we spent the night helplessly marooned in mid Hammar. The mechanic worked like a trojan for hours and finally, at about nine o’clock the next morning, got the motor to run on five cylinders, but knocking most alarmingly. Eventually, not without further mishaps, we limped into Chibā‘ish, a considerable village so named because all the dwellings, some of them two-storeyed, were erected on chibasha foundations. Here we were relieved and delighted to find, at anchor in mid stream (for we were now well within the deeper water of the old Euphrates channel), H.M.S. Mantis (Commander B. Buxton), a monitor mounting in the stern a gun much heavier than the 4–inch weapon of the Flyclass gunboats. Buxton and his officers, whom I had known at Amara, received us with great kindness, and the next day towed us to Qurna, whither Mantis had been summoned to deal with a raid by 400 mashhufs reported to be making for the Tigris. At Qurna the stern-wheeler Shushan was about to leave for Basra, so I was lucky to complete in three days a trip that should have taken only one, but had looked like taking five. My absence from duty, including journey, lasted exactly three months. After a wearisome nine days of red tape at Bombay I spent a month at the small hill-station of Kasauli and then, after visits to Delhi, Agra and Calcutta, went on to Darjeeling. By great good fortune it was the time of the Hindu autumn festival, when the social round of the British community on holiday there was especially gay. Everybody seemed to go out of the way to give young officers on leave from the various fronts a good time, and I was enjoying life to the full when, on 28 September, I received a telegram intimating that my return to Basra “in the first week of October would be convenient”. Cutting short my leave, which still had four weeks of the recommended period to run, I hurried back only to find that nobody seemed to be expecting me so soon. It appeared that I had been recalled in order

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to accompany Sir Percy Cox again when he went up the river to the Advanced General Headquarters which General Maude (who had succeeded General Lake at the end of August) was planning to establish upstream of Shaykh Sa‘d. But for various reasons the move was hanging fire. Feeling doubly frustrated I spent the next seven exasperating weeks acting in turn for the Military Governor of Basra and the A.P.O. Basra District while absent ill, spending several days on two large islands in the Shatt al-Arab looking into various aspects of the date-growing industry for the Revenue Department, and working on other similar stop-gap, and therefore uncongenial, tasks. But, as will be recorded in the chapters that follow, it all turned out for the best in the end.

PART III

SOUTH-WEST PERSIA

CHAPTER TWELVE

THE KARUN FRONT At the end of September 1916 His Majesty’s Government redefined the mission of the Mesopotamia Expeditionary Force as being “to protect the oil fields and pipe-lines in the vicinity of the Karun river, to maintain our occupation and control of the Basra vilayet, and to deny hostile access to the Persian Gulf and Southern Persia”. The instructions attached to the definition also stated: “. . . Military and political considerations connected with Nasiriyya, the Muntafik and Bani Lam tribes and the Pusht-i-Kuh—Bakhtiyari country suggest retention of our present positions, if this can be achieved without undue sacrifices. Further, the Mesopotamia Expeditionary force should ensure that hostile parties do not work down south across the line Shustar-Isfahan”.1 At this point I must pause to summarize, as briefly as I can, the military situation in Western Persia as it had developed since the entry of Turkey into the war. The presence of Russian troops on Persian soil was pretext enough for a Turkish force to occupy Tabriz at the beginning of January (1915). Another Turkish column later advanced up the high road from Baghdad to Kirmanshah and Hamadan, where it was joined and welcomed by the Persian Governor-General of Burujird, Luristan and Kuzistan (a grandee entitled Nizam as-Saltana*, who had been heavily bribed and subsidized by the German holy-war missions to raise large numbers of irregulars), by gendarmes under their Swedish officers, and by groups of rabidly anti-Russian members of the ‘democratic’ party. Russian reinforcements under General Baratov had indeed landed at Anzali, but by October they had advanced only as far as Qazvin, just far enough to ward off the immediate threat to the capital, Tehran. In December Baratov, with a column 11,000 strong, resumed his advance, feeling his way very slowly forward through Hamadan, Kangavar and Kirmanshah to Karind, which he occupied in March (1916). Here he was bogged down by snow and supply difficulties till the early

1

Official History, III, 47–48.

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Nizam as-Saltana (in the middle) with his “Government in exile” in 1915: on his right Hasan Mudarris (Justice) and on his left Adib as-Saltana (Interior). From Wipert von Blücher, Zeitenwende im Iran: Erlebnisse und Beobachtungen, Biberach an der Riss, 1949

summer. An attack on the Turkish frontier town of Khanaqin was unsuccessful and, threatened by superior Turkish forces released by the fall of Kut, he was obliged to beat a precipitate retreat back to the vicinity of Qazvin (August). Much of Central-Western Persia, including Kirmanshah, Hamadan and Burujird, was thus again under the control of Nizam as-Saltana’s dissident ‘Government of the West’. Further to the south-east, also, in the Isfahan-Shiraz region, the German agents (including Wassmuss) were still having things much their own way. The province of Khuzistan at the head of the Gulf on the Persian side comprises the alluvial plain formed by the river Karun and its affluents, the Diz and Karkha. It corresponds roughly with the ancient Elam and the Susiana of the classical geographers. The Karun is probably to be identified with the Pasitigris, the Diz with the Coprates, and the Karkha with the Choaspes; the Eulaeus, the Ulai of the book of Daniel, must be the modern Shawur, a small but deep river rising in the plain itself a few miles north of Shush (Queen Esther’s Shushan the Palace), and losing itself through a marsh into the Diz near its junction with the Karun. The province is bounded on the west by the Iraqi frontier, and on the north

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and north-east by the foothills of Luristan and Bakhtiyari; in the southeast, on the sea, it abuts upon the Governorship of the Gulf Ports near Bandar Dilam. Until the development of the oil industry its principal towns, from south to north, were Muhammara, Ahvaz, Shushtar (the seat of the Governor) and Dizful. The geographical position of Khuzistan gave it special importance from the point of view of British commercial and strategic interests. It is traversed by the only navigable river in the country. Goods coming from Europe through the Suez Canal or from India could be carried by water in vessels of five-foot draught to Ahvaz, 75 miles north of Muhammara, and in light-draught steamers another 50 miles to Darra Khazina near Shushtar, before incurring the heavy charges for pack transport, and were so enabled to compete with Russian imports in the markets of Central Persia in spite of the tariff highly favourable to Russian goods which the Russians agreed on with Persia secretly in 1902. To facilitate this trade still further a British company, Lynch Brothers, had at the turn of the century constructed a special caravan road with bridges through the Bakhtiyari mountains to Isfahan. Thirty miles south-east of Shushtar, at Masjid-i Sulayman, lay the principal oil-field of the AngloPersian Oil Company. This was situated just inside Bakhtiyari territory, but a hundred and twenty miles of pipe-line and the refinery on Abadan island in the Shatt al-Arab were in Khuzistan. Of Luristan proper to the north I shall have much to say in later chapters. The Bakhtiyaris are also of the Lur race. They were partly sedentary and partly nomadic, and occupied the sector of the Zagros mountain system bounded approximately on the north by a line from Burujird to Isfahan, to the west by the upper waters of the Diz, and on the southwest by Khuzistan. In winter several of the nomadic clans were accustomed to camp in the Khuzistan plain as far west as the Diz. The tribe fell into two main divisions: Chahar Lang, whose khans were supreme in Layard*’s time (1841);2 and Haft Lang, to whose khans the hegemony passed soon after. The administration of the region was vested in two representatives, styled Il-khani (the senior) and Il-begi, chosen by their peers from collateral branches of the ruling family, and officially appointed by the Central Government. Several of the Haft Lang khans had taken a prominent part in the constitutional movement

2 Sir Henry Layard, Early Adventures in Persia, Susiana and Babylonia ([2 vol., London, 1887–] 1889).

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of 1909; they had for a time supplied a Prime Minister and held one or more portfolios in successive cabinets; they had moreover begun to secure an almost prescriptive right to certain other provincial governorships. Many of them had travelled abroad and had sent their sons to be educated in Europe. Several owned villages in or on the edge of the plain. Each cold weather the joint Governors or their agents and the other owners of property, with their minions, would visit the district to supervise their charges, to collect rents, taxes and various impositions of doubtful legality, and to make their influence felt in such other ways as were open to them. Among other things they had taken advantage of their ascendancy in the capital to impose on the provincial budget, as a permanent charge, the maintenance of a number of mounted riflemen (savār) attached to the administrations of both Shushtar and Dizful, as well as another body of Qarasūrān or mounted road-guards, each commanded by a junior relative or nominee of the Il-khani or the Il-begi. For administrative and tribal purposes Khuzistan fell naturally into two zones, divided by an east to west line about seventeen miles south of Shushtar. The population of the southern zone, including Ahvaz and Muhammara, was almost entirely Arab. That of the northern zone was also mostly Arab to the west of the Shushtar-Dizful road as far north as the neighbourhood of Shush; outside these limits the people were Lurs. The townsfolk of Shushtar and Dizful, although obviously of very mixed origin, were for all practical purposes Persianized Lurs, speaking peculiar nasal dialects differing equally from Persian, from each other, and from the Lurish of the surrounding rustics. When the Central Government was weak, as it was during the war years, the southern zone was subject to the almost untrammelled authority of Shaykh Khaz’al of Muhammara, chief of the Arab tribe of Muhaysin and owner of extensive and profitable estates and date gardens, while the northern zone became a cockpit for the contending interests and ambitions of Khaz’al and the similarly semi-independent Bakhtiyari khans, each side supporting and being supported by rival factions in the two towns. After the repulse of the early Turkish incursion, our garrison in Khuzistan was reduced to one regiment of Indian cavalry (the 23rd) and a half battalion of Indian infantry. But, owing to the antics further north of the nominal Governor-General, Nizam as-Saltana, Khuzistan remained for several months without any representative of the Central Government. In the south the Shaykh of Muhammara automatically assumed control. In the north, however, a Deputy who did turn up after some delay was effectively prevented by the Bakhtiyari khans

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commanding the ‘escorts’ at Dizful and Shushtar from exercising any authority. Nizam as-Saltana was dismissed in April. The new Governor General nominated to Khuzistan his son, Prince Ayn al-Mulk*, who, after visiting Sir Percy Cox at Basra to seek his support, took up his appointment at Shushtar in August (1916). In the meantime the province was assuming more and more importance as a source of supplies, especially mules, for the army on the Tigris. From the moment of his appointment to Ahvaz in June of the previous year Noel had set to work to establish contacts with all the tribes, Arab and Lur, as far north as Dizful, in particular with the notoriously lawless Lur tribe of Sagvand, which he hoped to use in opening a supply route across to Amara, and also, if need be, as a counter to the Bakhtiyaris, some of whom had defied their seniors and had already thrown in their lot with the enemy in the north. But when, in January (1916), the first caravan of 400 mules was looted by Sagvand, and Noel himself was relieved of a considerable sum of money, direct action became necessary. Two squadrons of the 23rd Cavalry were moved up to Shush, and, with the help of a section of the Sagvand under a well-disposed chief named Sartip, the delinquents were punished and the route to Amara was successfully opened. The position was further consolidated in April, and again in May, when the cavalry intercepted several hundred Bakhtiyaris (remnants of a large force of holy-war volunteers which had been broken up by Baratov during his advance) as they attempted to cross the Karkha near Shush on their way home, those who escaped drowning or capture being looted and stripped by their enemies, the Sagvand. At the beginning of July Captain E. B. Soane (who had been posted to Ahvaz to assist Noel and leave him free to devote more attention to the Bakhtiyari side) was transferred to Shush. In the absence of even a nominal Deputy Governor at Dizful the people began to appeal to him for justice and protection, and very soon invited him to move his headquarters from Shush to the town. This he did in August and, by an almost inevitable process, became the undisguised ruler of the district. Sartip Khan was already firmly in the saddle as chief of all the south-country Sagvand. The usurping Bakhtiyari ‘escort’ commander at Dizful, and several Arab shaykhs whose behaviour had been unsatisfactory, were now replaced by more amenable rivals. But, just as the local situation was stabilized by these military and political operations, Baratov’s unfortunate reverse and retirement to Qazvin had come to open once more the possibility of a serious threat

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to Khuzistan through Pusht-i Kuh (the route taken by the fugitives intercepted on the Karkha) or through Bakhtiyari. In pursuance of the directive of 30 September quoted at the beginning of this chapter, the strength of our garrison was raised to two battalions of Indian infantry (8th Rajputs and the 97th Deccan), the regiment of cavalry, and two 15-pounder guns, with ancillary wireless, mechanical-transport and medical units; its status was raised to ‘The Karun Front’ under the command of Brigadier-General L. N. Younghusband, with Headquarters and the main body at Ahvaz. It did not matter very much, rather the contrary, that Prince Ayn al-Mulk, on arrival at Shushtar, did not attempt to send to Dizful the Deputy he had brought with him, or to impose his authority on Shaykh Khaz‘al* in the south. The governor himself was the weak link in the chain. The feuding khans or bosses of the ten quarters of the town had long been a law unto themselves, the almost daily street fighting continued unchecked, there was no security in the country round, and commerce was at a standstill. But it is an ill wind that blows nobody good. In the last week of November I was suddenly ordered to go at once to Shushtar and open a new Political Agency. I was given no written instructions, and the C.P.O.’s parting verbal injunctions were encouragingly elastic: “Good luck to you, my boy; do your best to maintain British prestige and keep the place quiet”. Delighted with this charge in my posting and the prospect of returning to Persia in a independent command with a fairly free hand, I hurried on my preparations, neglecting even to attend the ceremonies in honour of Abd al-Aziz ibn Sa‘ud, Amir of Najd, who was visiting Basra. With Fowle, who had been appointed at the same time to fill the vacancy left by Soane at Ahvaz, I travelled by launch to Muhammara and thence on up the Karun by river steamer, a two-days journey. The decks of the S.S. Nusrat were congested with a motley crowd of passengers, Arab and Persian, with several of whom we entered into conversation. Of these I need recall only two as being both typical and significant. The first was with a sour-visaged sayyid who, hearing that I was bound for Shushtar, asked what I thought I was going to do there and why Soane was at Dizful interfering in the administration; he had an aggressive manner and talked of ‘I’ and ‘you’ and ‘go’ instead of ‘your servant’, ‘your Excellency’ and ‘take your honouring presence’ as the courtesies of the time between equals demanded; so I answered in the same manner, curtly. The other was with an ordinary citizen of Shushtar, at once

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distinguishable by his peculiar headdress, who took me aside and gave me a long account of the character and behaviour of the quarter-bosses of his native city, adding as we parted: “Please God, under your Honour’s shadow, the people will at last receive relief from their sufferings”. After a couple of days at Ahvaz I left by convoy of eight motor-lorries taking supplies to the squadron at Shush about 70 miles away. The first part of the road traversed flat desert without habitation of any kind, and we passed only a few miserably-clad travellers on foot, on donkeys, or on scraggy camels. The only encampment we encountered was that of Shaykh Darchal, chief of the Abd al-Khan branch of the Bani Lam, a descendant in the sixth generation from the eponymous Abd al-Khan, the great-great-grandson of Hafid, mentioned in an earlier chapter. A young man of about twenty-four years old, he had earned our gratitude by capturing and disarming groups of stragglers from the Bakhtiyari holy-war party who had fled in his direction after the cavalry action the previous April. He was now receiving a small subsidy for keeping order in that section of the road, and was on familiar terms with the British lorry drivers, who were accustomed to use his camp as a half-way resthouse as they passed up and down. Hereabouts the road approached the Karkha, the celebrated river of which Herodotus records: “Water from the river Choaspes is the only water which the Kings of Persia taste . . . Wherever he travels the Great King (Cyrus) is attended by a number of four-wheeled carts, drawn by mules, in which the Choaspes water, ready boiled for use and stored in flagons of silver, is moved with him from place to place”. The far bank was thick with tamarisk jungle, where the Persian lion was still believed to lurk. A. T. Wilson, in his South-west Persia (p. 77), states categorically that he saw a lion on Christmas Day 1908 near the Diz south-east of Shush. Noel assured me that he had once heard the roar of lions and seen their tracks in the same vicinity. About the time of which I am writing an officer reported that when ascending the Diz in a motor-boat he had seen a lion and lioness stalk out of the thicket, but that the rifle he snatched from his Arab companion misfired; unfortunately he belonged to the Royal Indian Marine, and nobody believed him. An engineer of the Oil Company, C. E. Capito, told me how, when riding near Dihluran in Pusht-i Kuh (and so some seventy miles northwest of Shush) he suddenly saw what he took to be a lioness with several cubs cross the track in front of him; his horse shied violently, and before he could take a good look the animals had disappeared; the other horses in his party also continued to show manifest symptoms of terror as long

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as they were in the vicinity. Capito himself hesitated to claim that the animals were lions beyond all shadow of doubt, but I believe that Captain R. E. Cheeseman, a distinguished naturalist and explorer and later a Gold Medallist of the Royal Geographical Society (1936) examined the spoor and confirmed the correctness of Capito’s identification. Soon after we had left Darchal’s camp the great mound of Shush loomed up in the distance, surmounted by the castle built for their accommodation and protection by the French archaeological mission to the design of a château in Touraine. We crossed the Shawur by a wooden bridge barely wide enough to take the lorries and then approached the main gate on foot by a steep cobbled ascent, to be hospitably received by the officers of the squadron. There was little to interest the casual lay visitor in the abandoned excavations of Shush, the capital of successive dynasties that ruled Elam,3 and the winter palace of the Achaemenian court, of whose wealth and brilliance we get a glimpse in the book of Esther. I cannot forbear, however, to record here an incident of my visit to the Susa gallery in the Louvre museum three years later. I had taken on one of the authorised guides, but I had already found him singularly stupid as compared with the monuments of learning I had been used to engage at a franc a morning in my student days at Saint-Germain, when we stopped in front of a large model of the site and the surrounding country I knew so well. I asked him, rather maliciously perhaps, to tell me all about it. I bore patiently with his astonishing narrative until, pointing to the trenches dug by the archaeologists, he said: “Voici les maisons des troglodytes; je ne voudrais pas être troglodyte, moi”. After a night at Shush I left on horseback to cover the last twenty miles to Dizful. On the road a half-naked Arab astraddle on a donkey hailed me. ‘Amniyyat Kokus’ he volunteered with a sweep of the arm, “Cox’s security; a few months ago nobody dared to come here but now you see me alone and without fear, amniyyat Kokus”.

3

[Shush, or Susa, was a human dwelling already in prehistoric times, but became capital under the Achaemenids. The city is mentioned in the Bible for the story of the Prophet Daniel whose mausoleum is a center of pilgrimage for Jews as well as for Muslims. In the late nineteenth century the French archaeologist mission established its main place of excavations in Susa, where their work lasted until the 1979 revolution. The castle, still in place, was built by the French on the model of a medieval fortress. See Nader Nasiri-Moghaddam, L’archéologie française en Perse et les antiquités nationales (1884–1914), Paris, Connaissances et Savoirs, 2004. On the construction of the ‘château’ (with pictures), see Gustave Jéquier, En Perse 1897–1902. Journal et lettres, ed. Michel Jéquier, Neuchâtel, La Baconnière, 1968.]

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It was afternoon when I reached the Diz and had my first view of the extraordinary town, rising in ascending tiers on a high ridge of conglomerate on the far bank. The brick-built houses were pierced with countless openings, rectangular or arched, looking out onto the broad stony bed of the river. Towards the north they descended to the bottom of the cliff, but at the southern end the face was sheer precipice, scored with the unsightly smudge of sewage that poured down from the buildings above, some of it disappearing into the caves that honeycombed the base. The green of two or three trees near the stream or showing over the lower house-tops, the bright red of female garments hung out to dry, the blue-green enamel of a cupola, stood out vividly against the expanse of pale sepia. At the water’s edge hundreds of women, some with skirts tucked boldly up their thighs, others completely naked, belaboured their washing, donkeys and horses came down to drink, clumsy kalaks (rafts supported by inflated skins) spun across the chocolate stream, a naked form supported on a single inflated skin urged a herd of buffaloes across with shrill cries. From the middle of the town a line of mills, very dilapidated and so having a fictitious appearance of antiquity, jutted out into the river. To the south an army of men and boys was busy at work on the great bridge of twenty-two arches, which was badly breached in two places where the main channel flowed. I crossed by kalak and made my way to the Political Agency. Passing through groups of riflemen in black Persian sardaris (pleated frockcoats) and the high, ballooning felt-hats then worn in Luristan, I was greeted at the gate by an extraordinary figure clad in pointed slippers, pyjamas, a brown Persian cloak (aba) and a dirty, dark-red, Turkish fez. This was Soane, the third of Wilson’s ‘outstanding characters among political officers’.4 At Shiraz, soon after he first came out to Persia as an accountant in the Imperial Bank, he had embraced Islam as a Shi‘a, and was reputed to have married a mujtahid’s daughter. Here at Dizful he had set up his authority on the lines of an ordinary Persian Governor of those days, never appeared in public bare headed or in a European hat, and was generally accepted as a Muslim. At many seats of government various functions were virtually hereditary, passing almost as of right from father to son. Among these was that of senior farrash, but he was styled nā’ib-i farrāshkhāna (deputy of the farrashes’ room), just na’ib for short, because the lucrative appointment

4

For a brief account of the career of this extraordinary man I must refer the interested reader to my Kurds, Turks and Arabs (pp. 43–44).

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of farrāshbāshī was normally reserved for some personal adherent brought with him by the Governor, perhaps a man of superior class who might even be left in charge of the establishment during his master’s temporary absence. Following precedent, Soane had engaged the hereditary na’ib, an oldish little man distinguished by whiskers dyed a bright orange, and a complement of farrashes with previous experience. For escort and general police duties in the town and district he had a personal body-guard of six Persian Kurds and a force of sixty savars, the Sagvand Levy, supplied by Sartip Khan. If he went into the town on a tour of inspection, or down to the river to examine progress on his pet project of repairing the bridge, Soane would wear the strange outfit in which I first saw him. Preceded by half a dozen farrashes on foot, clearing the way like so many lictors and bidding the public to stand, and followed by all available riflemen not on duty elsewhere, perhaps as many as thirty, he would progress through the narrow streets, manifesting a lofty disdain for the bowing populace. When he rode out into the district he sometimes affected the flowing robes of a chief of the Kurdish tribe of Jaf. The Political Agency was built high up on the ridge, round a courtyard in the traditional style but open to the north except for a low parapet, and so giving a view over the river rushing down through the line of mills a short distance up-stream. The A.P.O.’s office and private quarters occupied the upper floor. A judgment-hall below, carpeted in Persian style but otherwise devoid of furniture, where visitors were received and complaints investigated, was presided over by a curious triumvirate: Aziz Khan, an illiterate but forceful Azarbayjani Turk who had been Soane’s body-servant for many years; Shaykh Abu ’l-Hasan Majd al-Islam (Majd for short) of a local religious family; and Hasan Khan Mustawfi, who had been imprisoned on Soane’s arrival on a charge of embezzlement but had then been released to take his place on the panel, where his knowledge of the arcana of the governmental financial system could be put to good use. Until the control of state revenues was centralized under the Ministry of finance in Tehran, the office of Mustawfî, or collector of taxes in each revenue circumscription, had also tended to be hereditary in a local family, members of which continued to use the title as a surname after the function had been abolished. Soane himself received few visitors and never returned a call. He communicated with the office below by means of a home-made tin speaking-tube; but every night he scrupulously examined the written records of cases which he had not dealt with summarily when referred

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to him up the tube. To criminals he was severe to the point of savagery. He delighted in humiliating the pompous or the oppressor, and in protecting the poor and weak. His methods were often not much as would have commended themselves to the Reverend Dr. Thomas Arnold of Rugby.5 On the other hand, in the eyes of the merchants, shop-keepers and other peaceable folk of that turbulent region they were the hallmalk of a strong Governor and appreciated accordingly; which seems to show that the standards of one country or time do not necessarily apply to another. Indeed the first thing I learnt on arrival was that there were waiting to see me several members of a leading commercial family with the curious surname of Papahn (Broadfoot), who had fled from Shushtar to seek his protection from the persecution and rapacity of the khan of their quarter.

Document signed by Soane, 21 Nov. 1915, for the repartition of irrigation between landowners. (From Sd Md-‘Ali Imām Ahvāzī, Maqālātī dar bāra-yi tārīkh-i juqrafyā’ī-i Dizful, Dizful, Markaz-i Dizful-shināsī, 1373/1994). With thanks to Aladin Gushegir

5 [Thomas Arnold (1795–1842) is well-known for his reform of education in the school of Rugby.]

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I did not have long to wait to witness a sample of Soane’s administration. It was a brilliant moonlight night, and after dinner we were leaning over the balustrade of the upper floor, enjoying the view up the sparkling river northwards to the shadowy outline of the distant Luristan mountains. There was a bustle at the gate giving access to the courtyard below. A rifleman hauled in a prisoner, whose absurdly wide, straightcut black trousers and little rounded, brimless felt hat proclaimed him to be a Bakhtiyari. He proved to be a badly wanted brigand who in the last few weeks had waylaid several travellers. Sentence of bastinado, to be followed by imprisonment, was passed immediately. Four farrashes in sombre black stepped forward to perform their traditional function, while the na’ib, leaning on his silver-knobbed staff of office, directed the proceedings, enlivening the intervals between the strokes with the familiar term of abuse: ‘son of a dog!, catamite! Pimp! son of a burnt father!’6 and the like. The brigand took the first few strokes stoically enough. But it was an eerie scene, lit only by the uncertain silvery sheen of the moon, and when he started to moan and cry out ‘dakhīl, ya dakhīl, mercy, mercy’ I begged Soane to call a halt—without avail until the prescribed number had been administered. After three days at Dizful I left in a misty drizzle, accompanied by the eight Papahns and escorted by half a dozen Bakhtiyaris of the Shustar establishment commanded by a pleasant young khan, Shuja an-Nizam. It was a stony, unpleasant road; but, on the few occasions when we were able to canter, the turbaned civilians of the party on their milk-white asses did their best to keep up with us, their legs asplay, their flowing robes streaming in the wind, and their little white socks slipping down over their ankles and slippers. We spent the night at Kahunak, where Dizful jurisdiction ended and where the escort was reinforced by a posse of Qarasuran. We mounted betimes the next morning (13 December) to cover the last 22 miles to Shushtar. About seven miles from the city we were met by an istiqbal, or ceremonial reception party, consisting of the Governor’s representative, officials and leading townsmen, about seventy horsemen in all. The procession led us down to the kamand, an interesting word meaning ‘noose’ or ‘tethering-rope’ but here applied to a patch of beach under the cliff, where caravans were wont to unload; for, as at Dizful, there was a large gap in the middle of the ancient bridge. We were about to cross

6

Scil. Son of a father who is suffering the torments of hell for his sins.

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by kalak when I learnt that the larger part of the istiqbal, including the khan-bosses of the various quarters, had crossed by a ford three miles down-stream and, following another road, had missed us. To avoid causing any disappointment I rode back to meet them, and then accompanied them homewards round by the ford, and so added my seven or eight miles to the day’s march.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

SHUSHTAR The ancient city of Shushtar is situated at the northern end of an island, called Minaw or Mesopotamia, formed by two branches of the river Karun: Shutayt, the main stream, and Gargar, a man-made diversion led away near its head through a deep gorge hewn out of the solid rock. It was dominated by the citadel, the Qal‘a-yi Salasil, overlooking the Shutayt, which was spanned a short distance down-stream by a bridge of forty odd arches built on top of a massive sluiced dam constructed of huge blocks of granite held together by iron cramps. Following a somewhat erratic alignment, dictated presumably by the quality of the bed below the foundations, the bridge must have been at least 500 yards in length, perhaps more; but, as I had found on my first arrival, it was seriously breached in mid stream and had not been in use for some years. According to local legend, both the dam and the bridge were originally built by the Emperor Valerian and the Roman prisoners captured in A.D. 260 by Shapur I at Edessa. At the bifurcation of the two branches of the river there was another monument to Sasanian engineering skill in the shape of a second great sluiced dam, built perhaps to divert the main stream during the building of Valerian’s bridge; it was known by the name of Muhammad Ali Mirza, eldest son of Fath Ali Shah Qajar (1797–1834), who, while Governor-General of Kirmanshah, Luristan and Khuzistan, sought to restore them both. But, for the ordinary sightseer at least, the most striking and picturesque example of hydraulic ingenuity offered by Shushtar was the Bulayti mills of the Gargar, about half a mile lower down. Across the deep gorge a massive dam of uncertain date rose to a height estimated at some sixty-five feet [20 m], with a road on top leading to the suburb on the left bank that gave the mills their name. From the up-stream side several tunnels had been excavated through the rock, both to right and to left; the banked-up water, so diverted, emerged on the down-stream side through a series of openings (made at different levels so as to utilise the power to the greatest advantage), turning a large number of mills, perhaps thirty, on the way, before cascading with a deafening roar from pool to pool into the river-bed below.

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At that time the population of the city, if such it could still be called, was about 16,000; but the empty spaces and mounds of rubble within its limits indicated that the figure had once been much higher. Most of the houses were wretchedly dilapidated. Dwellings of the better class were built of stone and were provided with underground apartments, called shabistan, two or even three ‘storeys’ deep, ventilated and dimly lighted by vertical shafts, for use as refuges from the heat of summer.1 The town was filthy beyond description, for all domestic sewage was discharged down the outer walls of the houses into the streets, or rather lanes, without so much as ‘gardy-loo’ convention to warn the unsuspecting pedestrian against the horrors about to descend upon him. There were about 650 booths and workshops in the bazaar. The most characteristic industries were the manufacture of porous earthenware jars, for which the local clay is especially suitable, and the weaving of a sort of pile-less carpet called ihrami, generally in red and brown. No trace remained of the sugar-canes for which the district had once been famous. An unusually high proportion of all classes of the population claimed to be sayyids, and Shushtari muleteers distinguishable by their black turbans were a common sight on the roads. The ladies shared with their sisters of Dizful the amiable custom of bathing naked and unashamed in the river on washing day. The ten quarters2 were ruled by autocratic khans belonging to one or other of two main factions, Haydarkhana or Ni‘matkhana, according as they were pro-Muhammara or pro-Bakhtiyari.3 Each terrorized his own quarter with his gang of roughs, and at the same time prosecuted a feud with one or more of his neighbours. Street fighting was of almost daily occurrence, when house-tops would be manned, barricades would be erected, and shopkeepers were liable to be plundered by either side. The most redoubtable of these bosses was Baqir Khan of a family surnamed Kalantar, leader of the Ni‘matkhana faction. A plausible manner concealed a really foul monster. Rotten with alcohol, opium and syphilis, he was reputed to have committed

1 I happen to have preserved a note of temperatures (degrees F.) recorded at Shushtar in August and September 1919 (those for the latter shown in brackets) as follows: highest maximum 112 [44,4°C] (107 [41,6°C]); lowest maximum 110 [43,3°C] (98 [36,6°C]); highest minimum 109 [42,8°C] (88 [31,1°C]); lowest minimum 99 [37,2°C] (80 [26,7°C]). But July is even hotter than August. 2 Mugahi, Dukan Sayyid, Kahvaz, Ishkafti, Shah Zayd, Qabili, Dukan Shamei, Tarrahi, Abdallah Banu, Bulayti. 3 [See A. Kasravī, Tārīkh-I pānsad sāla-yi Khūzistān, 4th ed., Tihrān, Gām, 2536/1977, p. 207; John R. Perry, ‘Haydari and Ne‘mati’, Encyclopaedia Iranica.]

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ten or more cold-blooded murders with his own hand in his own courtyard, and more than once to have raided the public bath during the women’s hours seeking some comely bather to rape. Like most of the other ruling families the Kalantars were sayyids; those who set up as worldly headmen tended to substitute the title khan or aqa for sayyid, while the other members of the family continued to use it and to wear the black turban, the green waistband or other distinguishing emblem of the lineage they claimed. In October (1916), two months after Prince Ayn al-Mulk had taken up his appointment, there had been particularly violent inter-quarter street fighting, in the course of which the main bazaar had been plundered and, among others, an employé of the Oil Company had been killed. Under pressure from the Vice-Consulate at Ahvaz, and after long delay, the Governor had summoned the khans to his private office at the top of the castle and informed them that they would be detained until all claims arising from the affair had been settled. Led by Baqir Khan they had stalked out of the room, down several flights of steps, through more than one courtyard, and out of the main gate, leaving the unfortunate representative of the Central Government petrified in his chair, while not one of the sixty odd riflemen on duty had dared to lift a hand to stop them. That was at the beginning of December, about ten days before my arrival. I was hospitably received in his charming house on the Shutayt near the castle by Abdallah Khan, head of the provincial Mustawfi family, who had been acting here as agent for the Vice-Consulate. He was a dapper, well-educated young man of about thirty, and affected European clothes, with the usual brown Persian aba and the small, flat, pill-box hat as worn in Tehran. He must have been unique in Southern Persia at that time as the owner of a dinner-jacket, for use when dining with his European friends at Ahvaz or Muhammara. In local politics his sympathies were perhaps pro-Khaz‘al, but he was not identified with either of the warring factions. He had sown his wild oats somewhat lavishly since his father’s death, and was constantly in financial trouble. He was therefore not sorry to rent the outer court of his house to me for my office until I could make other arrangements. At first my staff consisted of a solitary secretary, Mirza Ahmad Dara of Bushire, who knew English well, wrote the most delightful Persian, composed tolerably good poetry, and had a happy manner with callers. But, a Baha’i by religion, he was rather a dreamer, had become involved

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in theosophy, and was always pining to revisit his ‘spiritual home’ at Karachi. Before I had even had time to change out of my travel-stained clothes callers, led by Baqir Khan, began to arrive: the other khans, heads of departments, merchants, ulama, sayyids, all except the first category professing, I think sincerely, undisguised delight at the arrival of an A.P.O. who, they assumed, would do for Shushtar what Soane had done for Dizful. I lost no time the next morning in calling on the Governor to thank him for the handsome arrangements he had made for my istiqbāl, and to discuss the situation. For a time we saw each other almost every day in the castle or in my house. Prince Ayn al-Mulk was as gentle and pleasant a man as one could wish to meet, but far too weak to be Governor of Khuzistan, or even of the comparatively small area left in practice for him to administer at Shushtar. He never showed any sign of resenting the influence which I, as a British officer with troops behind him, could not help acquiring. For my part I took great pains always to put my proposals to him with great respect and all the tact I could command. As long as he remained we worked together in complete harmony. For about two years there had been no effective Persian administration in Northern Khuzistan and no revenue had been collected. At the instance of Sir Percy Cox the Central Government had instructed the Belgian Director of Customs at Muhammara to pay to Ayn al-Mulk a monthly budget allotment under various heads: Governor and staff, Governor’s stable allowance, Shushtar police, Dizful police, provincial savars, and the like. No provision was made for subordinate personnel such as farrashes or gaolers, who were expected to live on their perquisites, the gaoler, for instance, being entitled to charge each prisoner a fee officially called ‘chain right’ for the trouble of putting him in fetters. There was however no police force at Shushtar, no remittances had been made to Dizful, the castle stable housed only one cow to work the waterlift, and one donkey. The only current outgoings other than under the elastic rubric ‘Governor and staff ’ were the salaries of Shuja an-Nizam’s small Baktiyari ‘escort’, now two months in arrear, and of the sixty men at the castle, most of them Gunduzlu tribesmen from the suburb of Bulayti, had been given no specific duties and were underpaid. It was evident that to “do my best to keep the place quiet” I should have to pursue simultaneously two principal objectives, always, of course, working through the Governor: one to build up some kind of

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effective administrative machinery; the other to take every opportunity, the sooner the better, of reducing the khans to size. For the first the origin of the funds of which he disposed put me in a strong position, and at our very first business interview he agreed to raise the pay of the Gunduzlu savars by a quarter, and to set them to patrol the town, in two shifts of six during the day and two of twenty-five during the night. At the same time a proclamation was issued forbidding the discharge of fire-arms within the town (among the chief habitual offenders being the Governor’s own riflemen, who were accustomed to relieve the tedium of idleness by shooting at crows and even fish in the river from the castle walls), and requiring the population to carry lamps in the streets between sunset and curfew at nine o’clock. The following day the prohibition was extended to the carrying of arms within town limits by anybody except government servants. I duly returned the calls of my principal visitors, but not those of the khans, intimating, in response to discreet feelers as to the reason when the omission became noticeable, that I was waiting to see how each would behave in connexion with the various matters outstanding.

Shushtar savars. From the collection of Hugh Edmonds

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In the meantime information had been coming in that one of the khans, Aqa Muhammad Zaman, leader of the pro-Muhammara faction, was extorting money from the people of his quarter in anticipation of being required to pay a large sum in compensation for the looting of the bazaar, in which he had taken the principal part, two months earlier. The informants, respectable merchants and sayyids, were so terrified that they all looked apprehensively over their shoulders as they whispered their allegations, although my office was quite safe from curious ears. Not one of them was prepared to give evidence in public. On the third day, therefore, I moved Ayn al-Mulk to have Zaman arrested. This caused great consternations among the khans; every day some fresh blow had been struck at their licence to do as they liked, and now, within seventytwo hours of the British officer’s arrival, one of their leaders had been taken into custody. They decided that they must sink their differences and combine to resist the new order, and we received reports of plans to rush the castle with their gangs of roughs. So I took it upon myself to send warnings to the leading spirits and, through Mustawfi, to tamper with two of the most notorious desperadoes in their employ, who might be expected to be in the forefront of any such attack. On the third night after the arrest, however, the Prince begun to lose his nerve, and I had some difficulty in restraining him from giving in to the khans’ demands for the prisoner’s release. But he finally agreed to put Shuja an-Nizam and his Bakhtiyaris in charge of the castle guard, and the night passed without incident. Zaman’s agents, however, continued their exactions; and when it was still found impossible to persuade any complainant to come forward, or even to get an estimate of the amount of the extortions, we decided to deport him. It was, of course, of paramount importance that there should be no hitch in the operation. No word of our intention was to reach a soul until midnight, when the Governor himself would rouse Shuja and would have Zaman manacled and placed on a led mule; two riflemen would walk on each side while a third would mount behind and keep his arms round the prisoner until they were half a mile from the city and no danger remained of him escaping into some dark alley. The instructions were carried out to the last detail and Aqa Muhammad Zaman, khan of the Kahvaz quarter, was safely handed over to the British officer in charge of a small local-purchase post at the Oil Company’s depot at Darra Khazina, for onward despatch to be the guest of his patron, Shaykh Khaz‘al. During that first tense week one of my stoutest allies was Mustawfi’s mother, whom, of course, I never saw. She sent me, not only frequent

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messages of encouragement, but the most practical assistance in the form of inside information collected in the andaruns of the khans by her professional maquilleuse (mashshāta), as she went the round of their ladies. Zaman’s deportation finally did the trick. Complainants no longer hesitated to come forward. The claims against him for cash exacted and shops looted were settled first, the restitution being made in the Friday mosque in the presence of a large congregation. The others, including Baqir, were given three days in which to meet their similar obligations, and did so. Among other settlements Quli Khan of Shah Zayd was required to pay four hundred tumans blood-money outstanding for the murder of the eldest son of Mirza Abd ar-Rasul of Qabili who, for his part, duly paid the blood money due for the death of the Oil Company’s employé. But Abd ar-Rasul’s second son, who had sought to waylay Quli as he was leaving my office, was expelled to Ahvaz, as well as Quli’s servants whose taunts had provoked the incident. The final vindication of the Governor’s newly established authority came with the bastinadoing of the khan of Shah Zayd for venturing to resume his exactions even after Zaman’s deportation. In the meantime the first contingent of my own escort had reported for duty. They had been recruited for me by Soane from the colony of Rumiyanis, members of a small Lur tribe which had been broken up by a series of blood feuds and had scattered to Khurramabad, Dizful and other towns. The head savar was named Aghay, and I could never wish to have a stouter heart beside me. In his youth his left hand had been amputated, the usual punishment for theft; but he remained nevertheless a crack shot from the saddle, supporting the rifle in the bend of his elbow as he cantered. The opium he smoked seemed to have very little effect on him physically, but his temper could be very violent under its influence. The second-in-command was his brother Muhammad Taqi, or Matuq in the Lurish abbreviation, a tall, thin, sandy-haired scamp of great courage and tireless energy. A second contingent raised their number to fifteen, and it was a great comfort to have these stout fellows not only to ride out with me on tour in the district, but also to accompany the Governor’s men on patrols or important errands such as the removal of Zaman. Several of their horses, which they had to provide themselves, were of poor quality; but by taking them for long canters and scoffing at the stragglers I gradually shamed them into finding better animals. Very soon after my arrival I had begun to cast about for a house suitable for the A.P.O.’s office and dwelling, partly to put an end to any

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obligation to Mustawfi, and partly in order to carry the war into what at first was enemy-controlled territory. It so happened that Mirza Abd ar-Rasul was anxious to let. Broken by age and the murder of his eldest son, he was glad to make sure of a fixed lawful income and also no doubt, in the changed circumstances, to be associated as landlord with an influential tenant. As is so often the case in Islamic lands, the house belonged in law, if not in de-facto enjoyment, to a host of heirs of the original owner. The other khans, anxious to keep the A.P.O. out of the town, began to intrigue with several of the heirs, but the difficulties were overcome without undue delay. Both the Governor and I soon found it impossible to deal administratively with the piles of petitions, presenting claims old and new, that were pouring into our offices. We therefore set up, in a small house close to Mirza Abd ar-Rasul’s, a law court, with the Imam Jum‘a as President and a character surnamed Nazim as assistant. Less than two years earlier, when Wassmuss was passing through Shushtar, this Nazim had led the anti-ally, holy-war demonstration, galloping through the streets with drawn sword and shouting death to the infidels. Now, at the opening ceremony, he was entrusted with the speech of welcome to the British A.P.O., which he duly delivered in that extraordinary succession of jerky barks then affected in Persia by court poets when intoning their panegyrics. The judgment hall was thronged from morning till night. The khans frequently appeared as defendants and submitted meekly to the decrees. The President had set to work with commendable fearlessness and energy but, as was the way of many officials who found themselves in positions of unaccustomed authority, he gradually became more and more overbearing and amenable to bribery. Ultimately he was murdered; but that was about a year later, long after I had left Shushtar. Another department we created was a police force, eighty strong. The Chief Constable, as the former proprietor of the most frequented liquor shop, was well acquainted with the shady characters of the town, many of whom hastened to enroll and who, under such expert control, were as likely to be as effective as anybody else. But the Governor agreed that one or two of my own Rumiyanis should accompany the night patrols; not that they were necessarily models of virtue either, but the presence of outsiders was likely to make collusion more difficult. Indeed, on one occasion the most uncouth member of my escort, a little man with a long crinkly beard named Abbas, was found to have appropriated the loose cash of a prowler he had arrested in the street after curfew. I sen-

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tenced him to a dozen lashes, and fearing a feud between the Rumiyanis and the farrashes (of whom I had engaged three), directed that the sentence was to be executed by a couple of his senior colleagues. I was quite wrong. Aghay came up to represent that Abbas would be bound to harbour a grievance against any colleague or relation who beat him, but not against a farrash whose historic function it was to inflict corporal punishment. I was to learn by experience that a Persian or an Arab, who knows in his heart that the punishment is merited, will seldom retain feelings of resentment against the judge who promulgates a just sentence or the man who carries it out, provided that they are the proper office-holders in the establishment, but that this does not apply to the complainant or to the witnesses, or the informers who have got him into trouble. If, however, he firmly believes that he has been the victim of a grave injustice, there are no lengths to which he may not go to get his revenge. Living alone at Shushtar, talking nothing but Persian, and doing much of my office work in that language, I acquired a certain proficiency which otherwise might not have come my way. Ayn al-Mulk’s secretary wrote a beautiful hand and undertook to make me a khush-navīs, or calligraphist. But I had only taken two lessons, learning to cut a reed pen and to write seated on the floor with the paper held in the left hand, when, unfortunately, he quarrelled with his master over a game of chess and was dismissed. To the old-fashioned Persian mind two of the most reprehensible human weaknesses were the to us innocent pastimes of chess and pigeon-fancying: the first was a form of gambling (for there was generally a stake on the game) particularly likely to involve a waste of time, while the second furnished a plausible excuse for going up onto the roof and peeping at the ladies in the neighbouring andarun courtyards, or even for invading them in search of stray birds.4 The principal field of the Oil Company, the protection of which, as I have mentioned, was now the major function of the Mesopotamia Force, was then at Masjid-i Sulayman (Solomon’s Mosque, so named after an ancient terrace now considered to be Parthian) about thirtythree miles by road to the east-south-east. I was anxious to visit them as soon as possible, and especially to make the acquaintance of Dr. M. Y. Young*, the Company’s principal medical officer, who was at the same

4 [See Aladin Goushegir, Le combat du colombophile. Jeu aux pigeons et stigmatisation sociale, Téhéran/Paris, Institut d’études iraniennes, 1997 (Bibliothèque iranienne, 47)].

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time its chief political adviser, for in the course of his practice he had acquired both a command of the language and an unrivalled knowledge of the Bakhtiyaris and other neighbouring tribes. By the end of December I felt that I could safely leave Shushtar for a couple of nights. Mounting in the afternoon, we crossed the Gargar by the Bulayti bridge and made good time, first by a path through low hills and then by the Company’s cart track, until, at a sharp bend, we suddenly came upon a lone Englishman. A former trooper named Wiggins, who was in charge of several hundred mules at the transport station of Abgah, half way between the Darra Khazina depot and the fields, he led me to the rest house, gave me tea and a hot bath, and arranged for the comfort of my Rumiyanis. Used as I had been for the last two years to field-service conditions and the roughest of fare, the yielding Persian carpets, the gleaming white bath-towels and, later, a gramophone, an appetizing dinner with the most varied assortment of pickles I have ever seen on a sideboard, the blazing fire of oil mixed with sand, and finally the soft linen of the bed, were luxury indeed. The next morning, after inspecting Wiggins’s sick-mule lines (a rite no guest of his was allowed to neglect), we pushed on to the fields. It had poured with rain during the night, and we had not ridden many miles before we came to a stream in spate. So, like Horace’s country bumpkin (who was not quite such a fool as one had been led to believe), we sat down to wait for the stream to flow past, which in due course it did. The track then followed the Tambih valley, crossing the stream at least twenty times from one side to the other. At one point we came upon the carcasses of several mules. Mules, I learnt, were particularly sensitive to the gas given off by oil, and when the wind blow from a certain direction such fatalities were not uncommon. At the fields Young received me with the greatest cordiality. Indeed it was fortunate that I had come at that moment, for he diagnosed a swelling in the nape of my neck as a carbuncle, showed me some horrific pictures of what could happen if it was neglected, and kept me there a week for treatment. After five days back in Shushtar, however, it was giving trouble again, so I rode over (in a single day this time) for another week. But the time was not wasted, for I received no little entertainment and acquired much worldly wisdom from the animated ‘little doctor’ (so affectionately known to his friends) as, in his broad Scots accent, he expounded his views, now shaking a minatory forefinger, now waggling his open hands on each side of his face almost in one of the positions of Muslim prayer, and shouting as he made his points: “Do you get

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me? Do you follow? Am I r-r-right or am I wr-r-rong? Remember that in this country there’s no such thing as delegation of authority— you’ve got to do every d-a-a-mned thing yourself. Am I r-r-right or am I wr-r-rong?”. During January and February I took every opportunity to make other tours in the district: through the Gunduzlu villages to the east of the Gargar, down the Minab to Band-i-Qir5 at the confluence of Gargar, Shutayt and Diz; and among the Arab tribes, Al Kathir (Bayt Sa‘d section) and Anafija (Numays and Nays sections) between the Shutayt and the Diz. Unfortunately I never found time to visit Aqili, a district rich in ancient remains, of which Layard (op. cit., II, 25–27 and 265) gives such a glowing account. Nominally it belonged to Khuzistan; but it was now the property of a senior Bakhtiyari khan who refused to pay taxes to Shushtar or to hand over wanted fugitives from justice, so leading the Shushtar courts to retaliate by refusing to hear claims filed by petitioners from that region. Elsewhere the system of holding the road-guards collectively responsible for compensating the victims of highway robbery on the main roads, and the tribal chiefs similarly responsible in their areas, worked well. The military Local Purchase Officers were not slow to take advantage of the improved security, and increasing quantities of barley and chopped straw (the standard fodder for horses and mules), ghi (clarified butter for the Indian troops) and flour, as well as thousands of sheep and cattle were procured, to be transported, or swum across the rivers and walked, across country to Amara. From the very first it had been obvious that sooner or later I should have to cross swords with Baqir Khan. Towards the end of January evidence begun to accumulate that he was becoming restive under the restraints placed upon him and his likes, and one night, long after curfew, at a point where three quarters met, there was a short burst of rifle fire, the first time such a thing had happened since the issue of the early proclamations regarding fire-arms. The place had evidently been chosen to make it difficult to fix the responsibility, but reports from various independent sources indicated that one of the leaders of Baqir’s gang of roughs was the culprit. The Governor was away on a visit to Basra, so I thought it best to depart from my usual practice and write myself to Baqir to say that he would be held responsible if another shot

5 ‘Bitumen Dam’; the site of Askar Mukram, an important garrison town under the Ummayyad Caliphate of Damascus (661–750).

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were fired anywhere in the town. He hurried round to protest that my letter put him in an impossible position, and he felt that he had better leave Shushtar. I agreed that this would probably be the best solution but added that, the decision having been taken, I must ask him to leave without delay: he would have two hours in which to pack and bid his family farewell; at one o’clock two of my Rumiyanis would call at his house to ride with him to Band-i Qir and Ahvaz. At the appointed time Matuq found him surrounded by wailing women but ready for the road, and they rode off in broad daylight quietly and hardly attracting any attention. I confess that I could not suppress a glow of satisfaction at the contrast with the elaborate precautions with which Zaman had been smuggled out of the town thirty-eight days before. I had been so careful to respect the position and dignity of Prince Ayn al-Mulk, while using all my influence to support his authority, that I was not a little chagrined when, even before the end of December [1916], he announced his intention of resigning. He assured me that his decision was in no way connected with my activities but was dictated by purely personal reasons. I have already mentioned that the monthly allotment for the Government of Khuzistan was being paid by the Persian Customs Administration under pressure from Sir Percy Cox, and that until November most of this had been going into the Governor’s pocket. From December however (I do not remember exactly how this came to be arranged) the funds had been placed under the A.P.O.’s personal control, leaving to the Governor only his scheduled share, the remainder being devoted to the Law Court (where for the first few weeks no fees had been charged), the police, the road-guards, the Bakhtiyari ‘escort’ and other institutions, any unspent balance being carried over to the next month; and I had little doubt that this was the real reason. He left for Basra on 25th January to take leave of Sir Percy Cox, and though he returned at the beginning of March, he left for Tehran shortly afterwards. Fath Ali Shah, the second Qajar monarch, if not exactly ‘the Father of his People’, had been the father of a good many of them, and by the fifth and sixth generations his male descendants, all styled ‘Prince’, were numbered in hundreds. The Assistant Governor, Asad ad-Dawla, also a prince of the blood royal, was a futile shrill-voiced, vulgar little man, with none of the other’s dignity and charm. He now proceeded to make a show of feverish activity over trivial matters in order to prove his superiority over Ayn al-Mulk and so secure his retention in a post which, though now shorn of much of its glamour, was still not without

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its attractions for indigent royalty. I had been greatly embarrassed when, a day or two before the change over, Asad had come to me to complain that the departing Governor was proposing to sell the cow and the donkey which, he said, were official property. My tact was again put to the test, a couple of days later, when Asad’s major domo actually took bast in my house as a protest against his master’s failure to pay his wages. On both occasions the Prince accepted my mediation with good grace. From the beginning of March (1917) news had been coming in daily of General Maude’s victorious advance up the Tigris and had been given due publicity. Baghdad was occupied on the 11th. I had been asked several times if it was true that I was about to replace Soane at Dizful. This was a good example of the gift of intelligent anticipation of probabilities with which bazaar gossips often seem to be endowed; and my denials made me feel rather foolish when, on that same day, a telegram arrived ordering me to do exactly that and hand over my charge to Captain F. S. Greenhouse, at once. In contrast to the war-time austerities at home there was no shortage in the bazaar of sweetmeats and other delicacies for a Persian party, and a celebration of the victory was quickly organized for the next day. The guests were grouped into four classes, to be entertained in the four courts of the house and presided over by myself, Mirza Ahmad, the farrashbashi and Aghay. The speeches in the senior gathering were drawing to a close when the plaintive notes of a pipe began to penetrate from court-yard N°4, where Aghay and the Rumiyanis were entertaining their peers. Now to the sanctimonious Muslim divine (and the ulama were present in force with me in court-yard N°1) instrumental music of any kind was a manifestation of the most degraded depravity; so much as to hear it was the direct torment. I sent hurried orders to the gay and worldly revellers to desist until the Aqayan, the reverend gentlemen, had departed, which they did almost immediately. The next day I rode to Dizful. I have always looked back on my time at Shushtar as among the happiest three months of my early career. I was young enough to cherish illusions, and I really believed that several thousand victims of oppression had been made the happier for the presence of an A.P.O. Thanks entirely to British prestige, then at its highest, nothing had gone wrong, and there had been no time for reaction. With the Shi‘a ulama, that traditionally xenophobe class, I had maintained the most cordial relations. In Shi‘a countries any non-Muslim

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was forbidden to enter a mosque, and one attempting to do so ran great risks; but before I had been in the place a month I had been conducted over all parts of the great Friday mosque, to discuss a project for putting it in good repair. But I think that the experience that touched and pleased me more than any other was the occasion when, during a tour of inspection some time after curfew, I entered the little work-room of a felt-maker plying his craft by candle-light, and the tone in which he asked my companions: khudishūn-u, is it he himself ?

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

DIZFUL In contrast to Shushtar in its backwater, Dizful was a thriving town of, I estimated, some 50,000 inhabitants, a bustling market for the tribes of Luristan and Bakhtiyari, and, when considerations of security permitted, the starting point for caravan traffic with Amara on the Tigris to the west and Burujird, Kirmanshah, Sultanabad (Arak) and Hamadan to the north. The bazaar was a hive of industry in which, in contrast to those of the Gulf ports, everybody seemed to be making something and not simply selling imported goods: hatters kneading their felt with soap, shoe-smiths at their forges, artists in papier mâché busied on their lacquered pen-boxes for which the town was famous, hubble-bubble makers, saddlers, potters, artisans of every kind working at their trades in the thronged alleys, while grave merchants and transport agents conducted their business in the comparative calm of numerous well-built caravansarais. But two once-important industries associated with Dizful were now moribund: indigo under the impact of imported aniline dyes; and the export of high-quality reeds for pens, badly hit by the newfangled steel nibs. The population was out of proportion to the number of houses, which were for the most part shockingly overcrowded. Unlike those of Shushtar, these were mainly of brick and not inartistic in appearance, with their varied arches, round, pointed or Tudor, the fanciful patterns of relief, herring-bone or open-work introduced into the walls, and the frequent use of enamelled tiles of blue, green and yellow. The explanation given for the unpleasant domestic-sewage system was that, the ridge on which the town was built being honeycombed with the underground shabadāns (as they were called here), and the conglomerate of the ridge being porous, if cess-pits were also dug the filth would percolate through and render uninhabitable those indispensable refuges from the torrid heat of summer. At Shushtar there was a natural line of drainage which, at any rate, flushed the streets after rain in winter. Dizful was less fortunate and, although Soane had introduced regulations to mitigate the nuisance as far as possible, nothing but a drastic change in long-term planning by a properly organized municipality could have effected a cure.

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I have already alluded to a remarkable feature of life at Dizful, the practice among the women of bathing nearly or completely nude in the open. Every morning hundreds of them would flock down to the river with their washing and their children and spend the whole morning, or even the whole day, either half submerged in the stream or taking a sunbath, while the air resounded with the thud, thud, thud of the beating of wet garments. The proximity of men, who wore a loin-cloth if they had occasion to enter the water to fill their skins or wash their horses, hardly disturbed them, though the passage of a fully dressed stranger might induce the more coy to squat down with legs chastely together. Many were not uncomely, with fair skins. The day’s work done, they would resume the forms of shapeless bundles under cloak and veil, and shuffle home up the ridge. The ordinary indoor costume of the women consisted of a short skirt reaching to the knees (generally red with perhaps a white stripe round the bottom hem) the legs remaining bare, a short shirt of any colour (white, or rather dove, and green being the commonest), and a small skull-cap; in the very hot weather a closely fitting vest of some diaphanous material replaced the shirt. For walking abroad baggy trousers, with the legs separate, would be drawn on to cover the legs from the feet upwards and enclose the skirt. Over all would then be thrown the cloak, cotton in blue and white check for the poorer classes, silk in green and purple check for the richer. A long white veil with lacework at the eyes concealed the face. Soane was not an easy man to succeed. He had come to Dizful on the wave of prestige set in motion by the destruction of the holy-war bands, the humiliation of the recalcitrant Sagvand, and the other operations which had enabled him and Noel to place their own nominees in control of all the tribes of the district. In the town itself many elements had accepted his assumption of executive power the more easily for his open profession of Islam. When he moved across from Shush he had already acquired a knowledge of the town and district sufficient to enable him to adopt from the first that policy of seclusion and inaccessibility which, in suitable circumstances, helps to create an impressive legend of mysterious power. Finally his savage manner and severity of action had inspired the townsmen and tribes alike with a very wholesome fear. For my part I had a knowledge of Persian custom and idiom not equal to his it is true, but sufficient not to make my conduct of the administration on more or less Persian lines grotesque, and perhaps a certain prestige from events at Shushtar. Uncongenial as were some of Soane’s methods, I decided that I could not afford, in the peculiar circumstances,

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to make a too rapid or radical alteration. I abandoned uniform for civilian, but orthodox, clothes, and, while losing no opportunity of touring the district, maintained in the town, as far as my temperament would allow, something of his aloofness, returning no visits however eminent the callers. The bastinado was in fact one of the milder punishments in the repertory of the ordinary Persian governor, and less shocking to public opinion than certain forms of corporal chastisement in vogue in England. But I disliked it, and progressively substituted for it, over and above a term of imprisonment, a form of community service. One case I remember well was that of a notorious gang of about a dozen Chahar Lang Bakhtiyari brigands who had descended upon a village not very far from the town and, after stripping some young women, had assaulted the most beautiful in turn until she lost consciousness. They were successfully rounded up by the Levy; and the good citizens of Dizful showed undisguised delight at the sight of these scourges of the country-side in chains, working to rectify the deficiencies of the town’s sewage system. We were duly rewarded when, with the Levy, I rode on tour through the villages east of the Diz, and the female populations thronged the house-tops and greeted us with the shrill qill of welcome. Nevertheless, although I now had greater responsibilities and wider scope for action, I never grew really fond of Dizful as I had of Shushtar. Like Shushtar, Dizful had its quarters, thirteen of them, and its factions. The bosses, here generally known as the āghāvāt, differed from those of Shushtar in that they were mostly men of some substance and education, not mere hooligans. They had by now acquiesced in the new order of things, and in May I was able to agree to the return of Imad ad-Daftar, Pillar of the Ledger, the leader of the Muhammara partisans, whom Soane had removed in the early days. He was the head of the local Mustawfi family, and I found him most useful and helpful owing to his wide local knowledge. His principal rival was the Qutb as-Sadat, Pole Star of the Sayyids. A big, corpulent man of not unimposing appearance, he wore the black turban and flowing robes of his class, with his beard always brightly dyed with henna. Though resenting the curtailment of his previous powers, he was shrewd enough not to push his intrigues too far, and I found him not unpleasant company when he called. Dizful was fortunate in its two principal ulama, Aqa Shaykh Muhammad Riza and Aqa Shaykh Muhammad Baqir, who jointly exercised authority over the Qal‘a quarter, in which the shaykhs, distinguished by their white turbans, mostly resided. Although I never met the former

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in the town, he being unwilling to pay the first call and I to call at all, we always maintained the most cordial relations by proxy, and two or three times arranged a tryst outside. The second, whose son, before the war, had accepted the post of news-writer1 for the Vice-Consulate at Ahvaz, made no difficulty about calling and frequently gave me most valuable information and advice. Litigation involving interpretation of the religious law was often referred to one or other of them, and their opinions could always be accepted without hesitation. Both were rich, it being a common practice for wealthy testators to leave one tenth of their properties for religious or charitable purposes, appointing one of these divines (and their fathers before them) as administrators. Such estates, not unnaturally in a country where there was no official department to control pious bequests, hardly differed in practice from the personal property of the administrators who, to do them justice, performed their religious duties conscientiously and were not ungenerous to the poor. I have already mentioned the principal members of Soane’s office staff, for some of whom he had invented whimsically affectionate nicknames. Aziz Khan, head of the office, had left with his master. Much as I liked Majd (‘Uncle Willy’), whose literary accomplishments, fund of anecdotes and local knowledge made him a most agreeable companion, and confident as I was that Hasan Mustawfi (‘Pudding-face’—it was podgy and pock-marked) was disarmed for evil, it seemed unwise to have only local men in charge of so much magisterial and administrative business. I therefore secured the services of a certain Mirza Mahmud, whom I had known at Bushire; his previous experience had been mainly commercial, but he proved energetic, business-like and a good organizer. I continued Soane’s practice of having Mustawfi up each evening with the files of all petitions and court cases dealt with during the day, as well as to read the daily diary, which he compiled entertainingly and well. There was also an ancient clerk, Mirza Nabi (‘the Dormouse’), spectacled, henna-dyed and exasperatingly slow. But he wrote a good hand and had all the stock formulas of the old-fashioned Persian letterwriting at his finger-tips. Important letters had to be dictated to him

1 [On the rôle of these informers (khufiya-nivīs) and the type of information they provided, see the collection of “news” sent by a such agent in Shiraz in the 1870s: ‘Ali-Akbar Sa‘īdī-Sīrjānī, ed., Vaqāyi‘-i ittifāqīya: majmū‘a-yi guzārish-hā-yi khūfiyanivīsān-i Inglīs dar vilāyāt-i junūb-i Īrān az sāl-i 1291 tā sāl-i 1322-i qamarī, Tihrān, Nashr-i naw, 1361/1982.]

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almost word by word, but there was also a large volume of perfunctory correspondence which the old man could cope with reasonably well. The office servants were under the supervision of the na’ib-i farrashkhana (‘Tin-whiskers’), who was responsible for the ceremonial reception and dismissal of visitors. A miscellaneous collection of grooms (under the mīr-ākhur, master of the manger), muleteers, water-carriers, store-keepers, jailors and cooks completed the establishment—cooks because, the administration having been set up on quasi baronial line, tradition required the maintenance of a guest house in which tribal chiefs and other visitors of consequence could be entertained with food, water-pipes and, if necessary, a bed (in the shape of a couple of quilts), until they had completed their business. In addition to the Sagvand Levy there were the six Kurds, who received higher pay, and were available for duties involving personal responsibilities such as superintending the execution of a judgment on disputed water-rights out in the district. There was also attached to the Agency a young man, Ruhullah Khan, representing a leading family at Khurramabad, whose presence with three or four mounted retainers was useful for up-country liaison. It had been the custom for a part of the Levy to patrol the streets at night. This seemed to be an extravagant use of mounted men whose district work was already exacting, and a small police force was formed for watch and ward duties in the town. At the same time I obtained from Shush the loan of a young officer, Lieut. W. J. Warren, to take charge of the Levy. The volatile Lurs were a very different kettle of fish from the highly disciplined Indians of a crack cavalry regiment, and at first reforming zeal tended to outrun discretion. With Sartip’s help the immediate trouble was sorted out. Warren learnt the wisdom ‘hasten slowly’, and both men and horses soon bore witness to his keenness and hard work. Our control of the district between the Diz and the Karkha was based on the system of subsidies to the half dozen tribal chiefs, three Lur and three Arab, most of whom also owed to us their appointments with their material benefits and prestige. In return each was held personally responsible for the good behaviour of his own tribesmen and the general security of this tribal area, for arresting absconders from justice, for sending in for interrogation any suspicious strangers, and for preventing the passage of unauthorized caravans which might be taking supplies to the Turks. Any failure to carry out their side of the bargain might involve payment of compensation, a fine, or, in extreme cases of

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unsatisfactory behaviour, supersession by another member of the ruling family. The key position in the system was occupied by Sartip Khan, who supplied the men for the Levy. For himself he received a monthly salary of six hundred tumans, about £110, in return for which, in addition to co-operating in the ways mentioned, he was required, if called upon in an emergency, to turn out with his whole tribal strength of about a thousand rifles. The place of the others was much humbler, their salaries ranging between sixty and two hundred tumans a month. Each deserves a few words of introduction. Around Shush itself Ghulam Riza Khan, head of the small Lur tribe called Amla, was a typical Lur of the better class, tall, heavily built with dark eyes and a thick black moustache, a rather shifty character who required frequent calling to order. I found him far less attractive than his young cousin Sayfallah, Sayf for short, who shared the chieftainship with him. Sayf, who was only about eighteen years old, was constantly quarrelling with his senior partner and was generally considered to be a little mad, was quite amenable to influence after a fatherly talking-to. He was great friends with his near Arab neighbours, young Shaykh Makanzi of the Surkha Bani Lam, whose sister he had married, and of Darchal; and the three used to come in to Dizful from time to time together, for all the world like school-boys on the spree, admiring the new street-lighting (in the shape of ordinary, rather dingy oil lamps), or spending their salaries on abdarkhanas2 and other status symbols. Makanzi (so named after the Mackenzie rifle, which had been the latest thing in small arms about the time he was born) was typical, handsome young Arab with an incipient beard and hair hanging down each side of his face in thin plaits. He was inclined to be overcome by his responsibilities and, his tribe being comparatively weak, to find difficulty in holding his own in water disputes without constant recourse to the Agency. In response to his solicitous representations I agreed to allow his father, Mushattat, back from exile without, however, making any change in the nominal chieftainship. Between the Surkha on the north and the Abd al-Khan to the south were two more Arab Shaykhs: On the Karkha Mizayyil of the Cha‘b (Dubays section) was a miserable creature, always whining under the exactions of his landlord, Shaykh

2 A sort of camp tea-and-dinner picnic basket made to fit into a pair of saddle-bags for loading on a fast mule able to keep up with the horsemen on a journey.

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Khaz‘al, and chasing his fallahs who were constantly absconding in consequence. On the Diz side Kharaybit of Al Kathir (Bayt Karis), the ungainly corpulent, bovine lessee of the well-watered estate of Husaynabad, was rich enough not to require a subsidy, but was kept in order by fear of his rival, Haydar al-Ali, the natural head of the Bayt Kariz, who had been suspended by Soane for lack of co-operation, but whom Khaz‘al was anxious to reinstate. East of the Diz the task was rather different. The zone near the river was thickly populated with settled villages, for which the owners or the resident headmen were held generally responsible. To the east of the Shushtar road, however, the Bakhtiyari nomads camped in the foothills and presented a problem. Our general influence over this great tribe was exercised by the Vice-Consulate at Ahvaz through the khans of the ruling Haft Lang family, but unless these happened to be in the immediate vicinity they had little control over their wayward tribesmen in matters of highway robbery, petty pilfering cutting and stealing telegraph wires, and the like. The nuisance was dealt with either by holding the commanders of the Bakhtiyari ‘escort’ and Qarasuran responsible, or by direct action in rounding up accessible camps with the Levy, or through the traditional device of girawkashī, ‘pulling a mortgage’,3 that is to say the seizure of the person or property of any member of a tribe against any other member of which there was a complaint or a claim outstanding. The system was not as unreasonable as might appear at first sight; indeed it filled a gap in the so-to-speak international machinery for the execution of judgments: in the case of a personal hostage the chief of the clan would be bound to take the necessary steps to secure the release of his innocent clansman; in the case of property the victim would recover his loss by prosecuting a claim against the original debtor before the chief to whom they both owed allegiance. The direct control we exercised from Dizful was not entirely to the liking of our war-time allies, the Il-khani and Il-begi of the Bakhtiyaris and Shaykh Khaz‘al of Muhammara, accustomed as they were to virtual independence of the Persian Government. The Bakhtiyaris were rather sore that spring at their inability to make the usual good thing out of the towns and country-side, by extortions, imaginary claims, and ‘trusteeships’. The senior khans were camped at Ab Bid, twenty miles to the south-east, near the great Karun bend, and we exchanged

3

The Arabic equivalent is wasqa from the triliteral root meaning ‘put into store’!

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voluminous correspondence. We had planned to meet when they moved in another fifteen miles to Shahabad, near the ruins of Jund-i Shapur, famous in early Muslim times for a great school of medicine. Unfortunately the camp broke up the night before the projected meeting owing to a quarrel between Sardar-i Muhtasham*, the Il-khani, and some of the younger khans who had intercepted a herd of gazelle as it was being driven down to the great man’s rifle. Although the meeting never took place I think that the ruling khans, though realizing that the restrictions on their freedom to do exactly as they liked would remain for ‘the duration’, were relieved to find that the new A.P.O. did not share his predecessor’s violent antipathy to the whole genus Bakhtiyari. Shaykh Khaz‘al, who claimed to be the overlord as well as the landlord of all the Arab tribes, had not been a party to the changes in the chieftainships made by Noel and Soane. He resented in particular the appointment of Darchal. Before I had been in Dizful a month signs began to accumulate that some influence was at work to disturb the subsidized shaykhs, and very soon the intrigues were traced to Khaz‘al’s agent in the north, Mara‘i (Quail). I therefore made a circular tour, with as large a force as I could muster, as a demonstration of our authority and of support for the loyal chiefs, singling out Darchal for a special mark of favour by presenting him publicly in his guest-tent with a robe of honour (khal‘at) in the traditionally accepted form of a Cashmere shawl. I also asked Noel to intimate to the Deputy-Governor of Ahvaz, a son of Khaz‘al’s, that Mara‘i’s activities were unwelcome. One important factor that greatly simplified our task of preserving order in Northern Khuzistan, once it had been established, was that there was no obligation on us to collect taxes. Persian revenue officials, it is true, lost no time in following up our success, and we gave them a measure of support in requiring payment of lawful imposts as a useful exercise for the public in obedience to constituted authority, but without carrying this co-operation to the length of making our regime unpopular. Interesting evidences of the extent to which our position in Dizful had come to be accepted were a request I received from the Governor at Shushtar to put up notices of a general election for the Constituent Assembly, and another from Tehran, transmitted through H. M. Minister, for assistance in enforcing a new tax on opium. A good opportunity to associate Aqa Shaykh Muhammad Riza with our reforms presented itself in April. The bridge, though less invested with picturesque legend than the other at Shushtar, was nevertheless an imposing construction, over a quarter of a mile long. The arched superstructure was of modern workmanship but the piers, faced with

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dressed stone, were Sasanian and extremely solid. A company had been formed for its repair, and Messrs. Capito and Wheldon had been lent in turn by the Oil Company to superintend the work. The smaller of the two branches was closed by two new arches and the main gap spanned by a suspension bridge. I had invited the senior divine in good time to compose the inscription for the foundation-stone, and he duly submitted the following elegant quatrain: Guz̠ar z’īn pul to bā andīsha-yi rāst, Khush ānku dil bi-yâd-i Īzad ārāst, Dar ān pul k’ān Ṣirāṭ-i mustaqīm ast Nalaghzad ānkih īn pul-rā biyārāst. Pass thou over this bridge with rightful thoughts, ’Tis well with him who has decked his heart with remembrance of God, On that bridge, which is the straight and narrow way,4 May he not slip who has restored this bridge.

Ceremony of Dizful Bridge, 15 April 1917. From Edmonds’s albums, Archives of the MEC, St Antony’s College, Oxford 4 Ṣirāṭ: the bridge, sharper than a sword and finer than a hair, leading over hell to Paradise. [On the repair of the bridge in Dizful, see A. Kasravī, Tārīkh-i pānsad sāla-yi Khūzistān, 4th ed., Tihrān, Gām, 2536/1977, p. 220; a book recently published in Dizful attributes the poem to a cousin of Shaykh Muhammad Riza (1302–1360 h.l.), called Muhammad Bāqir Mu’izzī (1280–1356 h.l.): see Muhammad ‘Ali Imām (Ahvāzī), Maqālātī dar bāra-yi tārīkh-i juqrafyā’ī-i Dizfūl, Dizful, Markaz-i Dizful-shināsī, 1373/1994, p. 52 sq.]

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Bridge of Dizful after repair, with head mason in foresight, 1918. From Edmonds’s albums, Archives of the MEC, St Antony’s College, Oxford

Present state of the carved stone with the end of the inscription. (From Sd Md-‘Ali Imām Ahvāzī, Maqālātī dar bāra-yi tārīkh-i juqrafyā’ī-i Dizful, Dizful, Markaz-i Dizful-shināsī, 1373/1994). With thanks to Aladin Gushegir

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By the 15th the work was completed and the stone was ready with the inscription cut by the leading craftsman of Shushtar. At the appointed time Wheldon and I escorted the guest of honour ceremoniously across followed in procession by the leading citizens, most of them shareholders. Carpets had been spread and tea prepared. The author recited his quatrain, a clerk read out the rules of the road, and an exceptionally ugly man in white turban and gold-rimmed spectacles pronounced an address, starting with a chanted doxology, continuing with a lavish encomium of the engineer and the A.P.O., and concluding with exhortation to the public to observe as a sacred duty the rules they had just heard. It was some time, however, before women from the far bank and tribesmen from further afield learned to bring their wares to market ready armed with cash to pay the toll. All sorts of articles, cloaks, shoes, sticks, bridles, pack-saddles, encumbered the ticket-office until redeemed by the owner on the way back. The restoration of the bridge, besides facilitating our own task of administration, was a great boon to all classes and contributed to a remarkable, though unfortunately short-lived, development of a new trade-route. I met Shaykh Muhammad Riza by arrangement a few weeks later, again near the ruins of an ancient bridge, Pa-y Pul-i Karkha, about fifteen miles due west of Dizful, to discuss the possibility of an irrigation project for land of which he was an administrator. Of the bridge only the massive piers remained, but I think that they too were Sasanian. Not very far away, on the far side of the river, we could see a lofty ruin, once perhaps a great arch like that of Ctesiphon, known as Ayvan-i Karkha. Unfortunately there was no raft immediately available, and I never found time to visit the site again. It had been my good fortune to be at Shushtar just when the climate was at its delightful best. Being nearer to the mountains it was probably hotter there in summer than at Dizful; indeed one evening when Greenhouse and I arranged to meet at Kahunak, whereas the air seemed to me to be getting stuffier and stuffier as I approached the rendez-vous, he said that he had been finding it pleasanter and pleasanter. A little later he had an actual experience of the real simoon, the poison wind, of which he wrote me the following description: Previous accounts of this phenomenon are confirmed by my personal experience on 21 July, when on tour between Kuhzar and Haft Shahidan north-east of Shushtar. About 3 p.m. a fiery wind from the south-east drove everyone to the shelter of the rocks overhanging the Khuzar springs, and parched our throats. A Lur arrived at that moment and staggered

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chapter fourteen headlong into the water where he remained for some time with his mouth just above the water level so as to inhale the cool air. He was at his last gasp from parching of the throat, which overtook him suddenly when the wind sprang up. After half an hour or more, though still fiery, the wind veered round and improved . . . Starting at 5 p.m. we had not travelled for more than an hour when we found two Lurs lying dead, close together near the salt and oily stream flowing from Tambih to Aqili. I examined one man closely . . . He was lying on his back but had evidently lain on his stomach previously, scratching the ground for water. The insides of his wrists and shins had numerous scratches and abrasions from the stony ground on which he had died. He had been dead about three hours, but his face was burnt almost black. We overtook their caravan some hours later and gave the news. They said these two men had stayed behind, promising to overtake it later. When the hot wind occurred the caravan had crossed the gypsum hills and reached shade and shelter. They carried skins of water on their asses and were consequently all right. Three other men were said to have been killed in the same neighbourhood at about the same time. But for the fact that I carried water-skins on my mules I believe I should have lost one of my escort from thirst, though his collapse occurred later in the evening when there was no wind.5

At Dizful, built as it was on a ridge, the sun beat down all day with indescribable intensity on to the brick walls and mud roofs of the houses, while the heat and glare were reverberated from the broad, shingly bed of the now scanty river. As early as 20 April I noted that the heat was already very trying; but I resisted the urge to make use of the shabadan until June, when I was forced to go down in the afternoons from two to four o’clock. From mid April onwards the panorama of the town had been enlivened by countless storks nesting on every suitable projection among the house-tops, and looking solemnly absurd as every now and then they threw their heads right back onto their spines and filled the air with the resonant clacking of their yellow bills. On my roof the young brood hatched out on the first day of May. In the first week in July, having fledged their young, the whole colony decided unanimously that they could stand the heat no longer and left for cooler climes. By the end of that month I was going down into the shabadan as early as nine in the morning, taking my office work with me. But the refuge was a poor one by Dizful standards, hardly more than a cave gouged out of the conglomerate, admitting a little light by the stairway and by a narrow air-shaft about two feet in diameter. Since the place seemed unhealth5 I have been told by Arabs that the most deadly simoon is often hardly perceptible as a wind. C.J.E.

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ily musty, I had a door-way opened through the cliff side, a small terrace built outside overlooking the river and the mills, and a flight of steps carried down to the foreshore. This, while sacrificing two or three degrees of temperature, made the cave more habitable. But the work was far from being all sedentary. I got plenty of exercise riding out with Warren and the Levy on business in the early mornings two or three times a week. Occasionally I took the Kurds and the Khurramabadis in the late afternoons to some village orchard for a picnic, or perhaps went with a group of men who trained a savage breed of dogs for the chase (sagpā), to beat the brakes for pig. One interesting route was that leading to Ab Bid, which crossed several of the finest qanats I have seen anywhere in Persia, underground channels bringing water ten miles or so from a band in the Diz above the town. On the surface they looked like long barrows with stumpy shafts protruding at intervals (rather like a railway-tunnel at home); down by the waist-deep water, which could be reached by a precipitous path inside most of the shafts, it was deliciously cool. By August Warren and I were finding it more refreshing to wait for our evening exercise till nearly sunset, when we would walk up to the tomb of Ruband above the town to bathe, and then float down on a kalak, hardly causing a flutter among the shiftless Nausicaas as we passed, back to the foot of the new steps. But sunset did not necessarily bring much relief, for very often a scorching wind blew from the west over the parched plain until well after midnight, forbidding sleep. And then, only too soon, from my bed on the roof, I could see the dawn break and the sun rise over the horizon like a ball of molten lead, menacing and implacable.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

LURISTAN It will be remembered that part of the task prescribed for the Mesopotamia Expeditionary Force was “to ensure that hostile parties do not work down south of the line Shushtar—Isfahan”, that is to say through Luristan and north-west Bakhtiyari. For this our most northerly military and political observation and listening posts were Shush and Dizful. The modern province of Luristan was then, and according to a recent authority, Sir Roger Stevens in The Land of the Great Sophy,1 still is, the least known and the least visited by European and even educated Persian travellers of any part of Persia. It is bounded on the north by the provinces of Burujird and Kirmanshah and is for the most part a highland country, a formation of parallel ranges running from north-west to south-east with fertile valleys between them, each more elevated than the last, from the Mesopotamian plain up to the plateau. These ranges are pierced by three large rivers: the Saymarra (Karkha after reaching the plain) which comes down from Kirmanshah as the Qara-su, its affluent the Kashghan, and the Diz. There are smaller rivers like the Zal and the Bila Rud which, rising in Luristan itself, have cut through part of the system. By the Lurs themselves Luristan is considered to fall into three parts: Pusht-i Kuh (transmontane) between the Iraqi frontier and the Saymarra; Pish-i Kuh (cismontane), between the Saymarra on the south-west and the Kashgan to the south-east; and Bala Gariva (high cliffs) eastwards from Pish-i Kuh to the Diz. Of the origin of the Lurs suffice to say here that they represent the Iranian and the iranicized earlier stocks that have inhabited these mountains since the irruption of the Medes and Persians some three thousand years ago. They themselves claim descent from King Solomon who, as is well known, ruled all the supernatural world, the Divs, the Jinn, the Fairies and the rest. One day, the story goes, he called together five

1 1962, 2nd ed. 1971. [R. Stevens, The Land of the great Sophy (London): Eyre Methuen, 1979 (3rd ed.).]

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hundred of his trustiest Divs, and bade them fly to Europe and bring him back five hundred of the fairest virgins of Firangistan. By the time they returned, however, the Merry Monarch, their master, was dead; so they kept the damsels for themselves, and from this horrible union the Lurs are sprung. The Kurds tell the same story about themselves, and Kurdish nationalists like to claim that the Lurs are Kurds. However that may be, in my experience the character of the Lur, of which I shall have more to say in a moment, and that of the Kurd were, when I knew them, as like as chalk and cheese. The population of the province was then almost entirely nomadic, living in black tents and moving with all their belongings between their winter camping grounds and their summer pastures, where they built themselves the cooler bowers of branches called kula. Two distinct but related dialects are spoken, Luri at Khurramabad and southwards, Lakki which has much in common with Kurdish, elsewhere. Physically the Lakki-speaking men of Pish-i Kuh, with their clear-out features, aquiline noses, and pale skins, are in general taller and handsomer than their Bala Gariva brethren, who are on average fairer and taller than the Bakhtiyaris. The women of Bala Gariva did not seem to be well favoured; those of Pish-i Kuh were reputed to be handsome and to take a pride in their personal appearance. The costume of the men was simple, and consisted of a pair of loose black trousers, a shirt open at the neck, a collarless jacket, often of bright colours, reaching nearly to the knee, and a voluminous waistband round the middle. A short felt overcoat, a tall felt hat, broad and slightly rounded at the top, with or without a kerchief tied round it, short country socks of knitted wool, and woven cotton shoes with soles of compressed rugs called gīva, completed the outfit. Some of the younger generation preferred to the tall hat a close-fitting cap of soft felt, or an embroidered skull-cap, with a kerchief to make a turban. The fashion of the tall hat was a comparatively modern one and had been imitated from their neighbours to the east at the time of a Bakhtiyari governor. That tribe had abandoned the tall hat soon afterwards in favour of a much smaller article, but the tall hat had remained the fashion in Luristan, appearing in its most exaggerated form in Pusht-i Kuh. The more pretentious khans or ryot headmen on occasion affected the pleated sardari and the aba. The Lurs always went armed to the teeth, sometimes with as many as four bandoliers round the waist and another slung over the shoulder. The hair was usually parted in the middle, ‘bobbed’ at the level

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of the neck, but not brushed up in a curl behind in the manner of the young bloods of Southern Fars. The dress of the majority of the women, except on festive occasions, was very ugly, the principal garments being a long, faded black shirt hanging from the neck to well down the calf, open about eighteen inches down the front but kept together at the ankles with a black fringe. A black kerchief or turban allowed the side-locks to fall to the shoulder but hid the hair behind. The more elegant young ladies preferred red shirts to black, tied a large number of kerchiefs round the head, and wore a pleated coat of red or green velvet, sometimes with gold embroidery. Here as elsewhere there was in every tribe the ruling family of khans on the one hand and the ryots or common tribesmen on the other. The ryots were again divided into sections, each under its kadkhuda (the older term of tushmal was dying out), and these in turn tended to split up as strong men arose to dispute the authority of the ageing headman, or, more often, when the headman’s sons set up as rivals on their father’s retirement or death. A similar process tended to take place among the khans. It frequently appeared that three or four generations back one powerful khan had ruled the whole tribe, but that after his death it had been divided up among his sons by his various wives. In a society so constituted, and in which life was held cheap and the vendetta was an essential part of the tribal code, it was inevitable that there should be among ambitious men of both high and low degree a constant forming of alliances among themselves to preserve a sort of balance of power, with its corollary of perpetual intrigue to undermine the position of the rival group by detaching its doubtful adherents. Diplomatic activities of this kind, called dastabandī or group-tying, took up a large proportion of the time of the chiefs. A favourite method of cementing such a pact was to contract a matrimonial alliance, called vaslat in Persian and payvanī in Lurish. Often children were betrothed in infancy but kept at home until they reached marriageable age; the betrothal nevertheless served all the purposes of a payvanī. Sometimes a parent would give an immature daughter in marriage to a grown-up man; the husband would go through the formality of taking the girl to his bed for a night and then return her intact to her parents until she grew up. It was also usual for a woman to be given in settlement of a blood-feud, the idea being that when she bore a male child the blood-debtors gave a man to replace the one killed; even if

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no boy was born of the marriage the settlement was not thereby invalidated; “but if there is a boy it is better”. In the ordinary way a man who wished to marry was required to pay the bride’s father a sum commensurate with that father’s position; polygamy was thus limited by the question of means. It was usual for a man to marry his deceased brother’s wives to prevent their being lost to the tribe. Women as a rule had no right of inheritance. Although she was thus practically bought, the Lur wife was by no means invariably a mere chattel, particularly if her father or brother was a man of consequence. Many would not allow their husband to take a second wife. One acquaintance of mine was so henpecked that I once saw him too frightened to go home. The story was told of another similarly circumstanced that he had been known to start beating the churning-skin hung up outside the tent to the accompaniment of volleys of abuse, making believe that it was his wife and so trying to restore his self-respect, only to throw the stick hastily on the fire when he saw her approaching. Lur women did not veil. While it cannot be said that they were allowed to mix freely with strange men, they were not absolutely secluded; they just kept themselves in the background, doing most of the work—collecting fuel, fetching water, milking the sheep and goats, making curds, butter or cream and taking them to market when near a town, cooking, sewing, weaving carpets or strips of goat-hair tent-cloth; in addition they had to help to pitch and strike the tents, and carry some of the loads when the tribe was migrating. A khan or kadkhuda who was liable to have to entertain strangers would have a portion of his tent screened off, where his ladies could carry on their domestic duties undisturbed. As regards religion, my experience was that Islam, at any rate in its outward forms if not in its moral precepts, had a strong hold over the Lurs as a whole, although their conception of most of its tenets was evidently vague and crude, and local tombs and holy places attracted most of their devotions. Many of them said their ritual prayers regularly and observed the fast of Ramazan. An agreement intended to be binding was generally written out and sealed (and perhaps signed by any who could read and write) in the margins of a Koran; such agreements were seldom kept, it is true, but that is a different matter. Conditions in Pusht-i Kuh were different from those in the rest of the province. It was under the rule of a hereditary Vali, Ghulam Riza Khan*, who was more independent of the Central Government than even Shaykh Khaz‘al and the Haft Lang khans of Bakhtiyari. His authority had long remained unquestioned and, while not welcoming

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strangers, European or Persian, he maintained in his realm a high degree of law and order. From the 12th to the 16th centuries Luristan (then known as the Lesser Lur, the Greater Lur being Bakhtiyari) was governed by a native dynasty of Atabegs. In 1597 Shahverdi Khan, last of the Atabegs, was killed in battle by Shah Abbas Safavi and was replaced by a certain Husayn Beg (said variously to have been a son of Shahverdi’s daughter, or his Master of Horse), of whom Ghulam Riza claimed to be a descendant of the tenth generation and the tenth successor in the direct male line.2 Pish-i Kuh and Bala Gariva, in contrast, had been in a chronic state of anarchy, certainly during the past century, and probably throughout their history, with only brief intervals of comparative order under an occasional strong governor. According to local tradition certain extensive ruins not far from Khurramabad were those of a city destroyed by Hulaku (c. 1257) in reprisal for treacherous attacks in his rear, and Tamerlane (c. 1392) ravaged the country for a similar reason. Shah Abbas had sent three expeditions against the Atabegs before finally destroying them. In more recent times the Lurs had set at naught the authority of the Qajars, and for some years no Persian Governor had been able to penetrate from Burujird to Khurramabad. The powerful Nizam as-Saltana (whom we have already met) had actually been captured by the Lurs in 1907, and his forces which (it will be remembered) included a large contingent of the Swedish-trained Gendarmerie, had again met with disaster at their hands in 1915. The last Governor really to establish his authority south of Khurramabad to Dizful had been Prince Ayn ad-Dawla* in 1899. The character of the Lur, as depicted by almost every one of the few Europeans who had travelled in Luristan, fully accorded with their own legend regarding their demonic origin. The love of gain and appetite for pillage were so deeply implanted that there was no room for any of the more primitive human virtues to flourish beside them. His attitude towards the stranger was one of ‘your money or your life’, he meant to have one or both. He was treacherous, and no oath was sacred enough to bind him. The child of the moment with no memory and no foresight, he would act on a sudden whim without regard to past experience 2

An interesting contemporary account of the fall of the Atabegs, which differs in a few details from the story as told to me by the Lurs, is to be found in Don Juan of Persia: a Shi‘a Catholic, 1560–1604, translated by G. Le Strange, the Broadway Travellers Series (London, Routledge) 1926.

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or probable consequence. It was this absence of any logic in his behaviour, the absolute uncertainty of what he would do, that added so much to the strain of travel in Luristan when there was no strong constituted authority to keep him in awe. He had only two states of mind. The first was that of being umīdvār, hope-ful, that is he was hoping to get your money either by what he called hospitality or by performing some service such as escorting you through his country (otherwise, blackmail). The second state was that of being ma’yūs, hope-less, meaning that he had failed to get your money or as much as he thought he ought, or alternatively when he had got your money and so had nothing more to hope for in that particular direction. And it was then that he would turn from designs on your money to designs on your other property and your life. In my experience the Lurs had no illusions as to their own depravity, and when taxed with some enormity would often reply, “well, what can you expect? We are Lurs. Luristān divistān-a, Lurland is Demonland”. West of the Kashghan conditions had improved somewhat in the last few years since a certain Nazar Ali Khan, chief of the Azra’i tribe, had won for himself at the point of the sword the hegemony of Pish-i Kuh, of which, much to the chagrin of his neighbour, Ghulam Riza Khan, he had been officially appointed Vali by the Persian Government in 1910. But in Bala Gariva south of Khurramabad the breakdown of internal cohesion and discipline had gone further than in the rest of the province and, with the sole exception of the Sagvand, there was hardly a man, whether khan or kadkhuda, who could really answer for half a dozen others. Of the eleven Europeans who travelled in Bala Gariva south of Khurramabad during the nineteenth century and whose published narratives I have traced, few escaped molestation in one form or another.3 One

3

1) Baron C. A. de Bode, 1835, Travels in Arabistan and Luristan [= Travels in Luristan and Arabistan, London, J. Madden], 1845; 2) Major (later Sir Henry) [Henry Creswicke] Rawlinson, “Notes on a march from Zoháb, at the foot of Zagros, along the mountains to Khúzistán (Susiana), and from thence trough the province of Luristan to Kirmánsháh, in the year 1836”, The Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, IX (1839) [pp. 26–116]; 3) W. K. Loftus, 1849, Travels and Researches in Chaldaea and Susiana [London, J. Nisbet, 1857]. 4) Colonel Čirikov, 1849, Putevoi Journal, 1875; 5) A. MacMurrough Kavanagh, 1849, Diaries quoted in the Biography by Sarah Steele, 1891 [= Sarah L. Steele, The Right Honourable Arthur MacMurrough Kavanagh, a biography, comp. by his cousin Sarah L. Steele from papers chiefly unpublished, London, New York, Macmillan, 1891]; 6) General Sir A. Houtum-Schindler, “Reisen in südwestlichen Persien”, Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Erdkunde, XIV (1879), [pp. 38–67; 81–112]; 7)

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of the few was Lady Durand who accompanied her husband, Sir Mortimer, the British Minister, during the governorship of Prince Ayn adDawla. De Bode tries to put in a good word for the Lur, but confesses that he was prevented from taking the route he had chosen. Rawlinson, although marching through the country at the head of his Persian regiment, was interfered with when he turned aside to examine an ancient site. Bell travelled under the protection of the Sagvand but complains that his cicerone, Haji Ali Khan, chief of the tribe, was plotting to rob him or worse the whole time. The narrative of de Morgan, who was accompanied by his wife, is a jeremiad of complaints of plans thwarted and anxieties for the safety of his party. The intrepid Mrs Bishop says that she found her three days’ march in Luristan more of a strain than the whole of her previous journey, and this although there was a relatively successful Governor and a Persian regiment in Khurramabad. Schindler was erecting a telegraph line but it did not last very long. Lady Durand accompanied her husband, Sir Mortimer, the British Minister, during the governorship of Prince Ayn ad-Dawla. Of Čirikov, Loftus and Kavanagh I shall have more to say in the next chapter. Since the turn of the century D. L. R. Lorimer and Major J. A. Douglas, the British Military Attaché, had been looted of all they possessed and hustled out of the country both severely wounded (1904). In 1911 and 1913 A. T. Wilson had travelled extensively in Bala Gariva and Pish-i Kuh on a railway reconnaissance; but he too tells how on one occasion near Khurramabad he was waylaid and severely beaten about the face and arms, and how his task was complicated by constant quarrels among the tribes on his routes, quarrels which more than once led to fighting and casualties in dead and wounded, over the distribution of the blackmail to be paid to his escorts, and by other threats to the security of his party. Eventually, in spite of the most elaborate arrangements and precautions, including undertakings written out and sealed on pages of the Koran, the caravan of the survey party which followed

D. A. Rivadaneyra, 1875, Viaje al interior de Persia, Madrid, 1880 [= Lily Litvak, Viaje al interior de Persia: el itinerario de Rivadeneyra (1874–75), Barcelona: Ediciones del Serbal, 1987]; 8) Colonel M. S. Bell, V.C., 1884, “A visit to the Karun River” in Blackwood’s Magazine, April 1889; 9) J. de Morgan, 1889, Mission scientifique en Perse, 1894–96; 10) Mrs. Bishop (Isabella Bird), 1890, Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan [1st ed. London, John Murray] 1891 [new ed. with introduction by Pat Barr, London, Virago, 1988–1989, 2 vols., see D. Wright, The English amongst the Persians, pp. 216 sq.;] 11) Lady Durand, 1899, An Autumn Tour in Western Persia [Westminster, A. Constable,] 1902.

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in early 1914 had been looted the very first day out from Dizful, and the whole project for a railway had been abandoned. Dizful was the natural winter market-town for the tribes, not only of Bala Gariva but also of lower Pusht-i Kuh. After Soane had established himself as de-facto governor the chiefs gradually plucked up courage to call at the Agency where, in pursuance of the policy of establishing an outer sphere of influence, they were generally entertained for a few days and received a small cash present on departure. One of my earliest, and certainly the most frequent, of my visitors was Mulla Ma Taqi (Ma short for Muhammad), a grey-beard who claimed, probably with truth, to be ninety years old, and of whom Wilson records that he had an accurate recollection of Rawlinson’s journey of 1844. Since he was that rare bird, a man who could read and write, his services were in constant demand as an intermediary for the tribesmen in their dealings with outsiders; indeed just ten years later, in 1927, I was shown by a Persian military officer some photographs taken during Riza Shah’s operations against the Lurs, and in several of these I recognized the old Mulla, evidently enjoying the same role which he had filled with me and my predecessors. For a time I employed him to teach me the Lurish dialect, to his great delight. The notables of Khurramabad and leaders of the more distant tribes, desirous of standing well with the powerful and not ungenerous authority newly established in Northern Khuzistan and doubtless about to expand into Luristan itself, opened a prolific correspondence. Even Nazar Ali Khan, Vali of Pish-i Kuh, wrote in to ask that a son of his might be employed in the Agency with a few savars. At the other end of the scale many Lurs who hitherto had never dared to set foot in a town were encouraged by the security, and by the knowledge that they would be free from molestation by Bakhtiyari or other interests, to come into Dizful. One party, the kadkhudas of a small clan named Mirzavand, created a mild sensation by their astonishing appearance and their terror at finding themselves amid the clang of hammers and the roaring of furnaces in the blacksmith’s bazaar, with its unpleasant suggestion of jahannam, hell. Sartip was therefore being constantly called in, not only to advise on Luristan affairs in general but also to arbitrate, according to tribal custom, on the numerous disputes which were being referred more and more to the Agency, so that he became virtually a permanent member of the staff. Tipa (the diminutive or pet-form of Sartip) was a most attractive person, quite different from any other Lur I ever met, and for

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him, I confess, I felt a real affection. He was about the middle height, rather swarthy, with the heavy black moustache characteristic of the ruling Sagvand family. I can see him now, in his black kulah, loose sacklike sardari, and trousers rather less baggy than the ordinary, coming up to my little upper room, slipping off his shoes at the door, and then bowing deep over his folded hands, a formality he never dreamed of omitting or skimping in spite of his privileged position. After he had sat down his high hat had a way of working its way gradually forward over a twinkling eye and a rebellious strand of henna-dyed hair, as he related the story of his daily martyrdom among his mulish compatriots. His advice was invariably good and, for a Lur, remarkably disinterested. It was his misfortune to be addicted to opium, which he smoked in evening seances with his wife; he frequently assured me that he was trying to overcome the addiction, but I do not think that he was trying very hard. For historical reasons the employment of Sartip in the way described was accepted by the Lurs as natural and proper. The Sagvand khans claimed descent from a certain Haji Khudadad, who came to Luristan early in the nineteenth century in the service of a governor. According to the story, the chief of the Saqi tribe captured the Haji and boiled him alive in a large cauldron. In retaliation, the victim’s relations first wiped out the Saqi khans, and then absorbed their ryots together with four other minor clans to form the Sagvand; since when the family had maintained a kind of prescriptive right to be the pīshkārs, the executive force, of Governors of Luristan. But the family was now rent by a bitter internal blood-feud, and for some years past one half, the RahimKhani, had remained throughout the year in the winter quarters west of the Karkha, and the other half, the Ali-Khani, in the traditional summer camping grounds near Khurramabad. So it was to Tipa that would-be visitors went for an introduction to the A.P.O. And Tipa would send them to the hammam to have a bath and put on clean clothes or, if they were very uncouth and had never been in Dizful before, direct them to a tailor to get reach-me-downs of orthodox Lur cut. Then, having told them how to behave, he would bring them in, and each would slip off his shoes and, hand on breast, bow low in obeisance (ta‘zim) till I could see almost nothing but his feet and the enormous circular crown of his high felt hat. Seated on the floor they would protest, in their rough dialect, their earnest desire to serve the glorious British Government which, of course, never failed to reward all faithful servants.

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Sartip was awarded the high Indian decoration of Khan Bahadur in recognition of his valuable work, and maintained this special position for a number of years under a succession of Political Officers of varying experience and temperament. But in the end he fell from grace, whether through some serious fault, or because some unfairly high standard was set for him by a new arrival unmindful of the history of our early operations or not yet acclimatized to the workings of the Lurish mind, I do not know. From the trusted confidant he became a fugitive and, in typical Lur fashion, was murdered while a guest in the tent of the chief of another branch of the Rahim-Khani family, for whose pardon from outlawry after Noel’s early troubles Sartip himself had mediated successfully. But to return to 1917. By midsummer the policy of encouraging the Lurs to look to Dizful for their material needs and political guidance was beginning to bear fruit. With the fall of Baghdad the necessity for the blockade of Pusht-i Kuh and the strict surveillance of the routes leading northwards from Khuzistan had ceased. The Bushire-Shiraz, Ahvaz-Isfahan (Lynch), and Baghdad-Kirmanshah roads to the Persian plateau were closed by military operations or local disorders. There were therefore good profits to be made on goods despatched to Burujird even after the merchants had paid the tribes heavy blackmail (bāj) for escorting the merchandize through. The Bala Gariva tribesmen began themselves to take up caravans for Khurramabad merchants, every section and subsection being represented and sharing in the good things going. Nearly ten thousand animals, mules, ponies and donkeys, left Dizful in the last twenty days of June, even the Sagvand Rahim-Khani, who had not ventured up country for many years, taking twelve hundred loads. Before very long professional muleteers from the Lynch road were taking part in the traffic. The tolls payable by outsiders to the various sections on each route were more or less established by ancient custom, and these tended to be collected in advance. Inevitably there was a good deal of bickering over the distribution both between the sections, and even within each; but on reference to the Agency such disputes were generally settled without undue difficulty by Sartip’s arbitration.4

4 For a fuller account of Luristan the interested reader may refer to my Notes on Luristan (Baghdad, 1917) and articles in Geographical Journal vol. 59/5 & 6, 1922, Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society, vol. 16/3, 1929 and 36/3, 1949.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

AMONG THE DIRAKVAND The Dirakvand, whose winter camping grounds were in the plain north of Dizful known as Sahra-i Lūr (with a long u), were perhaps the most interesting tribe of Bala Gariva, both for historical reasons and because the process of disintegration had gone further and, if I may use the expression, more neatly than in the others. The members of the former ruling family claimed descent from Shahverdi Khan and were in consequence styled ‘Mir’. At some stage the two largest ryot clans had been divided between two brothers, Mir Abbas and Mir Ali, the Baharvand going to the former and the Qalavand to the latter. But in course of time the ryots had succeeded in completely ousting their Mirs, who now formed two quite separate clans apart. In typical Lur fashion the MirAli-Khanis were further divided into four collateral branches, or hūz, according to their descent from the four wives (Nisa, Qadam Khayr, Rahziya and Shahzaman) of the eponymous ancestor, each branch being known by the name of the lady. The family also claimed to be sayyids by reason of their descent, not indeed from the Prophet himself, but from his cousin Aqil. Towards the end of June the heat together with stories of a beautiful, secluded valley called Mungara, only about forty miles to the north and so less than two days march away, a veritable second paradise blessed with icy springs, running streams, trees and fruits of every kind, combined to stimulate the urge to start feeling my way into Luristan. The first step was to send for the principal Mirs of the Ali-Khani branch, in whose territory Mungara lay, to make the necessary arrangements: each huz to give one hostage to be detained in the Agency pending my safe return, while the senior Mirs came with me, entertained me there, and escorted me back, when they would be suitably rewarded. Sartip’s brother, Mihr Ali Khan, would also come, while Sartip himself stayed behind to supervise the hostages and to be ready to act in case of treachery. My hosts-to-be did not in any way resent these customary precautions. My own party was to consist of Abbud, my gondolierservant from Basra, Qurban Ali, the muleteers under Mashhadi Riza who always kept his animals in splendid condition, and four savars, two Kurds and two Sagvands.

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Travel in the plain during the heat of the day being out of the question, we crossed the bridge towards sunset (3 July) to make a first short march of seven miles to a Sagvand camp at Salihabad (later the site of the railway-station of Andimishk!), where all were to assemble. We were received by Darab Khan in a large kula with a channel of water cunningly conducted all round it. As each traveller arrived our host would greet him by pronouncing first his name and then the formula Khuda hafiz, which corresponds exactly in literal meaning and in normal Persian, but not in Lurish, usage with our ‘Good-bye’. Most of the Mirs were trudging it on foot. The only one to have a horse was Mir Muhammad Shah, a sombre figure dressed entirely in black except for the green sayyid’s waistband, and looking as if he had just stepped out of an Assyrian rock-relief as he bowed so as to bring his long crinkly black beard down over two hands held stiffly at the waist, palms upward. The last to arrive was Mihr Ali: at the last moment the hostages had quite innocently disappeared into the Bazaar, and he had been obliged to round them up, see them securely but honourably confined in the guest-rooms at the Agency, and then gallop out the whole way to catch us up. We set out again at half past one in bright moonlight, following here and there through the foothills traces of an ancient paved road, attributed by the Lurs to Shah Abbas but probably much older. At about seven we reached the Ab-i Anaraki, a stream coming down from the valley of that name to the east of Mungara, and halted for the day. We sat on a carpet in the shade of some reeds, and Mihr Ali’s men in charge of the abdarkhana soon brought us some very welcome tea. Old Mulla Ma Taqi, who had managed to borrow a nag in Dizful, was in his element, constantly mopping his forehead or blowing his nose on the end of the turban hanging down from his hat—a duty it had probably fulfilled for months without being washed—as he held forth and quoted verses on such themes as contentment with a bowl of curds and flap of acorn bread (a common but very constipating diet), or asked questions about the English: were we nomadic tribes or settled villagers? How much did we have to pay for a wife? And so on. Mir Muhammad Shah, in his turn, expatiated on the past glories of his family. As we talked I began to sense that a curious political significance was being attached to my visit and that, the wish being father to the thought, the Mirs had jumped to the conclusion that order was to be restored in Luristan and that the first step would of course be the reinstatement of the ruling family in authority over the upstart ryot kadkhudas.

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About ten o’clock I left them to try to get some sleep, but the heat in my small 40-lb. tent, at an altitude of only 925 feet [282 m] compared with the 500 feet [152 m] of Dizful, made this impossible. I explored a short distance up stream and found a splendid pool beneath sheer rocks, nine feet deep and wide enough for a dive and a good swim, with a shingly beach where I could sit on a low rock with my feet in the water and lazily watch myriads of tiny fish nibbling at my white toes. By half past four the heat had abated sufficiently to allow of a start. For two hours we ascended gradually, still seeing occasional traces of the paved causeway, until we reached a plateau and looked down on the broad Qilab plain with the Ab-i Mungara winding through it, to join the Anaraki some miles below the point where we had crossed, and so to form the Bila Rud. It was dark by the time we reached the stream and bivouacked near the imamzada of Amir-i Sayf. Mir Muhammad Shah now announced that, owing to the blood-feud with his brothers (as the Mirs called all their relations), he must find his way home by a devious route. By a curious convention the vendetta had been allowed to lie dormant, even to the extent of letting the parties sit on the same carpet, during the journey on public business; but, now that they were again in their own country, it was liable to be prosecuted with full rigour. We mounted again at dawn and almost immediately entered a magnificent gorge, deep down between perpendicular walls of rock. The water, of that pale greenish hue typical of streams in Luristan and Bakhtiyari, came leaping down through tangles of oleander in bloom and willow, and over great white boulders, giving an almost phosphor[esc]ent effect in the permanent gloom. The path led us first along one side, dipped to cross the stream, and then up the other, ascending gradually; in some places it was so narrow that the mule had to be unloaded, in others it had crumbled so badly that it had to be mended with logs and brushwood before we could pass. Finally we emerged into an open glade where a large group of Mirs, all armed to the teeth but many of them dressed in little more than rags, was waiting. They bowed low together in respectful salutation and then came forward with protestations of devotion: “We are renderers of service, we are scatterers of our lives”, and the like, as Ma Taqi introduced them one by one. They then escorted us to a well built kula, measuring some thirty feet by ten [9 m by 3 m], with three rows of tree trunks for pillars and branches and reeds laid across the connecting beams. Carpets had been spread over a thick layer of myrtle and wild mint, offering a seat no less comfortable than fragrant. They then crowded in, bringing large baskets of figs and grapes and apologizing

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for the poor quality of the shelter due to their having received news of our coming only the previous night. We were now in Mungara, a roughly pear-shaped valley measuring ten or twelve miles from south to north and enclosed by three mountains: Kharapusht at the northern or broader end, Chawni on the west and Barikaw on the east. The entrance at the southern end is commanded by the Diz, a natural fort famous in the history of Luristan, and the broader end is divided by a detached hill called Asfalun (4915 feet [1 500 m]), whence a view can be had past Tuk-i Mani (the most prominent peak in the neighbourhood and so a valuable landmark for compass observations) into the Khuzistan plain. Dwarf oak grows in profusion on the hills; walnut, plane, wild cherry, oleander, myrtle, and other trees and shrubs adorn the valley. Barikaw and Asfalun are waterless; Kharapusht and Chawni are blessed with abundant springs, so that vineyards and orchards were planted on the lower slopes. The altitude here, down in the floor of the valley, was still only 2125 feet [648 m]. By ten o’clock it was very hot, and we all lay down to sleep. Since many of the Mirs had never yet seen a European I had decided to wear Lur costume and so encourage them to be as natural as possible. Accordingly, after my afternoon bathe, I changed into a collarless shirt of local silk, broad straight-cut black trousers, grey alpaca ‘Murad-Begi’ jacket, cashmere waistband, dark-brown cloak, short woollen socks, and rag-soled givas; at first I wore the high, hard felt hat with turban but, finding it uncomfortably heavy, substituted the lighter headgear affected by the younger men. The Mirs watched my toilet with undissembled pleasure and then, perceiving that the garments were new, came forward to wish me joy of them. The sun disappeared behind the hills, and it soon became much cooler. We then moved on through thick orchards for about a mile to the girdab, a large cistern, faced and paved with dressed stone and fed by a number of copious springs. It was attributed to the great Mir Ali Khan and was still in fairly good repair though choked with weeds. Streams were said to flow right down the valley in winter and spring; but in July the water was all being used for irrigation, and the perennial Ab-i Mungara can be said to rise in the girdab, whence it flows round the Diz and down into the gorge by which we had come. We then moved on to the kula of Mir Taqi of the huz Qadam Khayr, where we were to spend the night. In his orchard I noticed a number of fig-trees lying felled: the owner’s son had been responsible for the death of two Mir-Abbas-Khanis about a year earlier, and this damage had been done in a recent retaliatory raid.

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I now found not only that the four families were extremely jealous of each other, but also that the members of each were at loggerheads among themselves, and that the greatest tact and impartiality would be required if bloodshed was to be avoided. I therefore drew up a programme to spend two days, not necessarily consecutive, as the guest of each huz, although this would be likely to curtail my liberty of movement. I was anxious, if possible, to ascend Chawni the next day and descend by another road to our second camp at Mir Asadallah’s, of the huz Nisa. At first all seemed to be agreed that this was impracticable; but a little later Taqi’s brother Mir Salar, an old chap with a long white beard, sent a message to say that he knew quite a good track and would conduct me. Innocently I agreed. But the next morning at dawn, just as I called for my pony to ride towards Chawni, I saw Mir Luft Ali,1 their cousin, who was to be our second host of the huz Qadam Khayr that night, and was the least boorish of all the Mirs, marching off in dudgeon with his brothers. It transpired, after much questioning, that Luft Ali had made preparations for a large ceremonial reception and luncheon party at his kula up the valley, all which plans Mir Salar had defeated by his manoeuvre. I therefore cancelled the expedition to Chawai, and it was Salar’s turn to be furious. He tore at his white beard asking whose dog Luft Ali was, that ‘the Consur’ should put himself out for him. He seized my ‘Army Book 152, Field Service’ on the squared pages of which I had been writing my notes, and swore ‘by this God’s Word, this Koran’, he would have his revenge. Finally I managed to calm the old man and his accomplices by promising to get them to escort me up the Diz another day if they were good, and trying to explain my compass and aneroid barometer. Swearing ‘by this God’s Word’ was a favourite oath of the Lurs, whether there was a copy of the Koran at hand or not. Mir Salar’s usual method was to thrust his hand into the folds of Mulla Ma Taqi’s coat and swear ‘by this God’s Word that is in the Mirza’s bosom’. It made no difference that there was no Koran there; the mulla could read, so it was quite legitimate to make believe that there was. I left at dawn the next morning with my own four savars and an escort of twenty Mirs on foot to climb Asfalun. The track was steep and unpleasant over loose stones and soft earth, but not too difficult for the sure-footed mules we were riding until we reached the base of what 1 The Lurs have a curious trick of reversing the order of the second and third radical letters of Arabic words; the correct word in this case is luṭf, and the meaning of the name ‘favour of Ali’.

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looked like a great cube of bare rock with precipitous sides. There was a momentary alarm when we descried high above us the diminutive silhouettes of two riflemen in possession of the summit; but an exchange of hails soon established that they were two young enthusiasts of our own party who had pushed on ahead. The last part of the ascent was a stiff scramble up the cube, one ledge being a few inches wide and overhanging a sheer drop. It was pleasantly cool at the top, and I spent an hour and a half mapping before going down again to the waiting mules, to enjoy a delicious meal of goat’s liver and kidneys spitted and roasted over a wood fire. As we mounted, the young Mirs, in high spirits, struck up the song of Qadam Khayr and continued to sing nearly the whole way to the orchards of our new hosts, the huz Rahziya.2 We were joined here by four strangers in red turbans, who came along with us for the rest of our time in Mungara, taking advantage of the daily hospitality on offer. The red turban was unique in westcentral Persia, being worn only by the guardians of the tomb of Shahzada Ahmad, the most sacred shrine of Bala Gariva, situated on the slopes of the mountain north of Kharrapusht with the crude three-letter name (which figures in the song of Qadam Khayr) of Kus. They were known as Papi, but seemed to have no connexion with the tribe of that name on the upper waters of the Diz west of Khurramabad. They enjoyed much the same freedom from molestation as sayyids. Having spent a second night with Aqa Mir of the huz Rahziya so as to give men and animals one day’s complete rest, we moved on to Mir Asadallah’s for our second visit to the huz Nisa. At each camp there were extensive vineyards and orchards of walnut, fig, pomegranate, lime and other fruits, stretching down the slopes on each side of copi-

2 Qadam Khayr daughter of Kadkhuda Qandi of the Qalavand (not to be confused with the eponym of the Huz) was famous for her beauty, intelligence and strength of character, and was the heroine of a ballad then all the rage in Bala Gariva. It had started with the visit to her father’s camp of an admirer who composed some verses in her honour. Other rhymed couplets were progressively added, and every event of tribal importance found a place in the song, rather in the manner of a West Indian calypso. The name means ‘Auspicious Steps’ and many of the first lines say where she is walking; thus the couplet celebrating my visit to Qandi’s camp that April went: “Qadam Khayr walks at Do Kuh (Two Mounds) in the Lur: the Consul is her guest with a troop of brown-hats (kulāh-būr, the Sagvand Levy)”. In 1927, stories reached me at Baghdad that the most desperate resistance to Riza Shah’s military operation to reduce the Lurs was being led by an Amazon named Qadam Khayr; inquiries confirmed that this was indeed Qandi’s daughter, whose qualities had inspired the ballad-mongers of Bala Gariva ten years before. [Complete translation of the poem is given in appendix]

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ous streams to the stony valley bottom. They were so dense that only patches of brown, the withered leaves of the kula roofs, and a babel of voices betrayed the presence of habitations. On arrival at each new camp I would sit for a time in the guest-kula and then perhaps walk through the gardens, or join the Mirs in a shooting competition at some distant target, until lunch time. It was still very hot on the hillsides and, unless there was some expedition afoot, my servants saw to it that part of the kula was screened off to allow me to enjoy a siesta, or write up my notes, undisturbed. I would then go off to find a pool or a cascade for a bathe before rejoining the Mirs in the cool of the late afternoon by a spring in the shade of a giant plane. I had just finished an appetizing breakfast at Mir Asadullah’s when I was surprised to learn that a lady named Shakar, a sister of Luft Ali’s, wished to see me. A handsome woman of about thirty-five in the usual costume, she was very nervous as she came in and bade me welcome to Mungara; this was a festival for all the Mirs, a day that would ever be remembered with pride. “I too,” I replied, “have the perfection of pleasure and gratitude for the hospitality which all the Mirs have shown, and especially am I glad to have met a noble lady of the Mirs, for we too have mother and sister and wife (this last not strictly accurate at the time) and when, if Allah wills, I return to my home they will ask if I spoke with the women and children of Mungara; if I answer ‘No’ they will be astonished beyond measure, but now they will be glad”. I would fain have prolonged the interview, but the caravan was waiting and Mulla Ma Taqi, whom I had retained in case Shakar’s Lurish was beyond me, cut it short (meaning well no doubt) saying, “She has attained to the service of your presence, and now by your order she will be dismissed.” So with the customary formulae she departed. Each move took us only a short distance up the valley, our hosts of the night before always escorting us to the new camp, except when we were to be the guests of Mir Muhammad Shah of the huz Shahzaman for two nights at Durak on the slopes of Kharrapusht: owing to the feud the escort halted as soon as the reception party came into view lining a ridge in front, and we crossed the no-man’s-land between them unescorted. The feud had been the subject of constant discussion throughout my visit, and Mihr Ali Khan, Sartip’s brother, had been working hard trying to compose it. It had arisen from the death of one of the huz Shahzaman while trying to rob; although the victim was the aggressor a claim for blood held good whatever the circumstances. The case had been settled once for an orchard. But the huz Shahzaman had reopened

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hostilities by carrying off a flock of sheep and in consequence the blooddebtors were now refusing to hand over the garden. From Durak I went up to Kaila Takal (4,535 feet [1 382 m]), a precipitous col, barely two yards wide at the top, between Barikaw and Kharapusht, where there was still to be seen a bench-mark cut by the surveyors of the Turko-Persian Boundary Commission of 1849. From here there was a magnificent view over the Amaraki valley, where the tents of the Mirzavand could be clearly seen, across to an enormous 7,525—foot [2 294 m] ridge with another crude three-letter name, Rid Kuh. It was at Fardivan, two or three miles west of Durak, that the commission aestivated for three months, and the Mirs never tired of relating stories of the ‘four governments’ as they called it, although in fact there were only three delegations, the Turks having preferred to go to Baghdad when work was suspended for the summer. The outstanding personality according to Mulla Ma Taqi, who claimed to remember them, was undoubtedly the ‘Colonel Sahib’, the British Commissioner, Colonel Fenwick Williams, who six years later was to win fame for the gallant defence of Kars during the Crimean War. Many of their tales concerned one of the British party who had no arms and no legs and was ‘carried about in a basket’. This was Arthur MacMurrough Kavanagh*, the famous Irish Member of Parliament, who was born with only the rudiments of arms and legs but triumphed over the handicap so as to do many things as well as, or better than, most men, whether shooting, riding to hounds, driving a four-in-hand, or as a yachtsman. In the course of a grand tour to the East with his brother he had ridden from Khurramabad through perhaps the wildest part of Bala Gariva to Mungara, where he camped with the Commission for two months. The Mirs also told how one member had died as the result of bathing in the icy water of the Fardivan spring. This was Algernon Wood, First Attaché of the British Embassy at Constantinople and Secretary of the Commission. Kavanagh, not surprisingly, found time hanging heavily on his hands and has nothing good to say about Mungara: “The heat and glare . . . nearly roasted us alive . . .; it certainly was the most stupid summer I ever spent”. Čirikov, the Russian Commissioner, in his diary, also complains that it was “an uncivilized hole where it was impossible to obtain any of the necessaries of life” but grants that “the air was splendid on these rocks 5,000 feet above the level of Muhammara”, whence they had come. Loftus, the naturalist and geologist of the party, is much kinder: “In a few days we were luxuriating amid the oak-groves of Mungara . . . at an elevation of 5000 feet above the sea; but even at that altitude the ther-

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mometer frequently rose to 107° [41°C] in the shade”. Both Čirikov and Loftus mention the death of Wood exactly as related by the Lurs. I can testify to the coldness of the springs of Kharapusht in the middle of July during a wave of exceptional heat when, at Durak, I was unable to stand in the water up to my ankles even for a minute. The scheduled two days with each family were now completed. Disregarding stories of impossible roads with which Mir Muhammad Shah tried to dissuade us, we started out at dawn for Fardivan. At about half way there was a bustle with telescopes when we espied a line of riflemen squatting on an eminence, and the reason for our host’s apparent solicitude for our comfort became evident. They were Luft Ali and his friends. The Durak escort turned back, we crossed the neutral zone up to the ridge, and looked down on the orchards of Fardivan. After being shown the site of the British Commissioner’s kula and the giant plane under which he liked to have his afternoon siesta we followed a steep track down to Mawa, the prettiest of all the gardens we had seen. Here we rested during the heat of the day in a delightful kula carpeted with mint before pushing on to Mir Taqi’s, our camp of the first day, which we reached after sunset. As he was the senior Mir and this moreover was a legitimate stage on the return journey, there was no jealousy and no blood was shed. The next morning I still had to redeem my promise to go up the Diz. The ascent was steep and very hot work. We reached an old log and brushwood stair built round the cliff. I ventured along it a few feet, but the trembling and ominous cracking, and the sight of rotten timber, took away any wish to go further. I scratched my initials on the rock and we came down the way we had gone. We bivouacked that night at Amir-i Sayf and mounted again two hours before dawn. By nine o’clock the heat was already appalling. Our efforts to find patches of shade under rocks or reeds, or in a cave, were not very successful, and we started out again at four. But I quickly had cause to regret that I had not waited another hour. After the higher altitudes of Mungara I had failed to reckon with the inferno that the Sahra-i Lur could be in the middle of July. A parching wind dried up our throats, and at one moment I felt as if my inside was on fire (it was the same day that Greenhouse was having his experience of the simoon near Shushtar). Luckily the waterskin was handy and a long draught put me right again. I stained my eyes to catch sight of Darab Khan’s camp, but the plain seemed limitless. On and on we went, and only reached camp after sunset. Men and animals were absolutely played out, and I was just thanking Heaven for

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a merciful deliverance when a messenger rode in with a note to say that A. T. Wilson had arrived in Dizful but was obliged to leave betimes the next morning. The caravan and most of the party were not in a condition to move. But, after a meal that gave us and our horses an hour’s rest, I mounted with the two Kurds and the two Sagvands and rode in the remaining seven miles in pitch darkness, reaching Dizful about ten o’clock, all five of us very tired.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

DIZFUL TO BURUJIRD At the end of August I set out again, this time to travel up to Khurramabad by the route taken by most of the caravan traffic and then, if circumstances allowed, go on to Tehran in order to report to H.M. Minister at first hand on the situation in Khuzistan. The tribes established astride the route, with which the usual arrangements for escorts, hostages and eventual remuneration and rewards had to be made, were Dirakvand of the Mir-Abbas-Khani branch, and the Judaki. On this occasion, however, there was no question of the escorting chiefs being responsible for our entertainment. My self-sufficient party consisted of Ruhullah Khan with his savars, the four Kurds, Qurban Ali, Mashhadi Riza with two ‘orphans’ in charge of the mules, and a venerable Indian cook named Muhammad Vali, of whose previous history I never learned anything and who seldom opened his mouth except to say ‘All right, Sahib’. Abbud, my faithful Arab gondolier, very understandably, did not wish to venture again among a foreign and barbarous people, so in his place I promoted a young Shushtari named Yahya, who was anxious to see the world and begged to be allowed to come. In all the six and a half months that elapsed before we saw Dizful again, however trying the circumstances, I never heard a word of complaint nor saw a look of dissatisfaction from any one of them. Both the tribes named had grown rich on the profits, legitimate and illegitimate, of the caravan business. They were, in consequence, better mounted and better armed with modern rifles (a large proportion of these captured from Nizam as-Saltana and the gendarmes) than the Mirs of Mungara. But that did not prevent them from being equally quarrelsome and far more avaricious, paying little heed, once we were on the road, to the terms of the agreement solemnly entered into. Of the chiefs who accompanied us I need introduce only two by name. Mir Haji, one of my earliest Lur visitors in Dizful, had accompanied the Durands and never tired of telling stories of the British Minister and his Lady. Among other things he described, exactly as Lady Durand has recorded in her book, the method she devised for carrying her little Yorkshire terrier while in the saddle, and was delighted at

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recognizing himself in one of the photographs.1 Mir Rustam, the head of a rival branch, was a cheerful little rogue with a not unpleasant voice, who generally took the lead in beguiling the tedium of the earlier night marches with the song of Qadam Khayr and other ditties. As in the case of the Dirakvand, the Judaki Khans had been repudiated by their ryots and were divided into two groups at enmity with each other. Too weak to stand on their own in the hurly-burly of Bala Gariva politics, each group had attached itself to a faction of the Mirs. I have described elsewhere2 the geography of the country we traversed, and I need not repeat here the details of the eight marches in nine days (including the first short ‘shifting of place’, again to Darab Khan’s, and one day of rest) to Khurramabad. For the first four days we were in the plain or among the foot-hills, and my routine was much the same as it had been on the Mungara tour, marching in the late evening and after sunset and again in the early morning, with a siesta and a bathe in the afternoon. In the evening of the fourth day Mir Rustam and his party came with their Judaki allies to ask permission to go on by another route owing to their feud with Mir Haji, through whose territory we were about to pass. The feud, they said in reply to my question, was “nothing much, just the usual sulks between brothers”; I gathered, however, that Mir Haji was the creditor in the account of mutual homicide and robbery, but that the initiative in seeking a settlement would have to come from the blood-debtors. After leaving the foothills we had four major passes to cross on the way to Khurramabad: Kiyalan, Dalich, Chimishk and Na‘lshikan. As we reached the top of each I climbed to an eminence on the shoulder in order to take bearings, to add as much as I could to the maps, and to enjoy the views of the magnificent mountain scenery. From the top of the first pass, I took Mir Haji, Ruhullah and one of the Kurds to climb to the summit of Kiyalan. The ascent took about an hour and though steep was not difficult, there being good rock footholds everywhere, and the rag soles of my givas giving an excellent grip on the smooth limestone. A delightful cool breeze from the north came to cheer us with the assurance that the heat of Khuzistan had now been left behind. It was a particular joy to pick out from this new angle old friends of the Mungara region to the east. To the west and south there 1 [The journey was in 1899. See E. R. Durand, An Autumn Tour in Western Persia, Westminster, Archibald Constable, 1902.] 2 See C. J. Edmonds, “Luristan: Pish-i-Kuh and Bala Gariveh”, Geographical Journal, 59 (1922), pp. 335–356, 437–453.

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was the long line of the Kabar Kuh, with peaks rising to 8,000 feet [2 438 m] or more (at which I had often gazed with longing eyes from the other side at Ali al-Gharbi), with the blue-green Saymarra flowing along its north-eastern base and then, after receiving the waters of the Zal, round its south-eastern extremity and, now as the Karkha, through the foothills, out into the vast expanse of the Khuzistan plain. From the other passes, as we came to them and as the familiar features fell back, there were innumerable new ranges and peaks ahead to identify, and new names to record. On the far side of the Kiyalan we halted at Mukhbirabad, the site of one of the several ruined caravanserais and telegraph-offices that commemorated the worthy but unsuccessful efforts to establish communications through Luristan some forty years earlier. I was still sleeping à la belle étoile, but that night for the first time I was glad of a blanket. We nevertheless thought it wise to be in the saddle by four the next morning. On the far side of the Dalich pass we were met by a dozen mounted Mirs, and the eldest began to introduce them, not by their names but by their relationship to Mir Haji: “These are his two sons, this the son of his paternal uncle, this is his own brother, this his grandson’s; and then, tiring of the recital, he lumped the rest together with a wave of the hand as ‘brothers of Mir Haji’. We dismounted near the copious spring of Ab-i Sard (cold water) where they were camped, or rather bivouacked, for there were no tents or kulas, and they had simply set up screens under any large, spreading oak. Like his ‘brothers’ of Mungara, Mir Haji had evidently been wondering in his own mind what my movements might portend. As I was taking bearings above the Dalich pass he had volunteered: “Perhaps the army will not come after all, and your trouble will have been wasted”. And now, when all had dispersed to their various shelters and I was sitting alone, he brought a tattered rescript issued by Prince Salar ad-Dawla* showing his name at the top of a list of all the Mirs of the Baharvand, and asked for an assurance that his pre-eminence would be accepted in any new dispensation. The document evidently dated from the time (1911–1912) of Muhammad Ali Shah’s surreptitious return from exile in Russia; the Prince had risen in support of his brother, had continued his rebellion after the ex-Shah’s withdrawal, and had established himself as head of an illegal Government of Western Persia, with his capital at Kirmanshah. By arrangement with the two rival groups we halted the next day at Ab-i Sard, and I took the opportunity to ride about three miles to another ruined caravansarai and telegraph-office, Nasirabad, near

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which the Judaki were camped, and where the valley was green with maize cultivation watered from a copious stream. The young khans were a pleasant, clean-faced lot, contrasting favourably, I thought, with the Mirs. We sat under a spreading plane, a sheep was slaughtered, and we had a meal of succulent kebab of kidneys with roasted corn-cobs; but these last were not rendered more appetizing by being rubbed in the grimy hands and blows with the doubtful breath of my hosts to remove the blacks. I also sampled their acorn bread, made in the usual flaps; it was blackish tinged with green in colour, musty and unpleasant to the taste. The next day, as we neared the top of the Chimishk pass, Mir Haji, in his turn, left us to make his way by a devious route to Khurramabad. A long, easy descent brought us to the Ab-i Chimishk, a pretty stream overhung with willows, which we had already seen on the other side of the ridge at the point where it issued from a magnificent impassable gorge. Great preparations had been made for our reception. As we reached the open valley some sixty horsemen, ‘brothers’ of Mir Rustam, were drawn up; and beyond, every hundred yards or so, were more contingents, mounted and on foot, each representing a different section. They fell in behind as we progressed, until the whole valley was filled with these high-hatted cavaliers and cragsmen, each with three or four bandoliers round his waist and a rifle slung over his shoulder, among them a small boy, dressed and equipped exactly like the others. A drummer, two pipers and two dancers hopped about in front of my horse, the dancers turning somersaults and pointing sticks at each other in mimic duel. The mounted men then galloped forward in line ahead to give an exhibition of their skill, turning in their saddles and, regardless of ricochet, firing at stones at most dangerous angles for us behind. So, jostling and hustling, we went on up the valley to Mir Rustam’s camp, where a kula had been carpeted and snow, brought from the neighbouring heights, was ready to cool our drinks. I then took a nap to get a respite from the Lurs; but no sooner was I up than the musicians, called lútis, now reinforced by a boy with a small, long kettle-drum and two more dancers, came and asked permission to perform. The luti dancers were joined by several bystanders. Forming a line they clasped hands with their arms held stiffly down their sides so as to bring their shoulders closely together. Those at each end of the line waved scarves with the free hand. For most of the time the dance consisted of slow movements from foot to foot in time to the music, but there were several figures and variations.

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Finally two of the professionals came forward and, crouched over their haunches, hopped about as before, pointing sticks at each other and going through mimic movements of a duel on horseback until one fell over as if shot, to the great delight of the spectators. All in all Mir Rustam evidently felt that he had scored a resounding victory over his parsimonious rival Mir Haji, who had not so much as offered a bowl of milk to any of my party during our two days at Ab-i Sard. On the last day the Na‘lshikan pass hardly seemed to deserve its name of ‘horse-shoe breaker’. As we approached Khurramabad we were met by a succession of large ceremonial-reception parties of townsmen and ryot clans of Baharvand and Bayranvand, the first of them eight miles out at the shrine of Shahanshah, again with lutis blowing pipes, banging drums and performing acrobatic feats. Knowing of the bitter rivalry between the two leading families of the town, the Valizadas (a collateral branch of the family of the Valis of Pusht-i Kuh) and the Chaqarvand, which were allied with one or other of the tribal factions of Bala Gariva and Pish-i Kuh, I had announced well in advance my intention of occupying the Governor’s palace, which was vacant. But they were still intriguing, by one device or another, each to get me into their own house and so to score off the other. But at the last moment the head of the Chaqarvand, a cunning old scoundrel entitled Mu‘in as-Saltana, realizing that the greater victory was out of the question, astutely stepped in and carpeted the only part of the palace in reasonable repair, and so got partial credit for acting as my host. Khurramabad is situated at an altitude of 4,200 feet [1 280 m] at the south-eastern end of a high ridge rising in places to over 10,000 feet [3 048 m]. It was dominated by a ruinous castle called Falak al-Aflak, Firmament of the Firmaments, built on a rocky eminence to the north. The town itself ran from north to south, from a bridge over the Khurramabad river, in a crescent round the walls of the governor’s palace, and back to the river downstream. The houses appeared to be well built of brick, with tall trees, cypress, plane and others, showing over the garden walls. I estimated the population to be about four thousand, including two hundred Jews and a few non-Lur Persians. The bazaars were well stocked and evidently prospering. The streets were deep in filth and litter, but since domestic sewage was not discharged into them as at Shushtar and Dizful, it would have been a simple matter to keep them clean, had there been any kind of municipal organization. To the north, and across the river to the east and south, were extensive groves and orchards, beautifully green and dense with giant

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planes, walnuts and fruit trees of various kinds. It was now September [1917] and many of the roofs were yellow with maize spread out to dry; owing to the general insecurity the owners were obliged to harvest it at the earliest possible moment, leaving the final separating and drying processes to the security of their houses. The palace complex and the grounds, which had once been laid out in the best traditions of Persian landscape gardening, were in a sorry state of decay. The stables, barracks and arsenal were in ruins. The Governor’s audience hall was approached through an outer courtyard with a large square pond in the middle, the bottom now overgrown with weeds. Formerly, they told me, there was here a fountain rising to a considerable height, but the conduit had fallen into disrepair and water was just trickling over the brick-work. From the pond the water was led under the floor of a large audience-hall to fall by a chute into another room of some size, where it fed a tiled tank. From here the water passed into a private garden (out of which a postern door gave access to the secluded andarun and private hammam, like the rest in ruins), and fed another decorative tank, this one polygonal. It then flowed on down a long tiled channel flanked by cypresses and willows to the small house of comparatively modern construction, backing on to the river, which Mu‘in as-Saltana had prepared for the reception of myself and my party. A short distance to the south, near the ruins said to be those of the earlier town destroyed by Tamerlaine,3 three ancient monuments were still to be seen: a bridge, breached but with eight arches still standing; a Saljuq minaret of exceptionally solid construction in fairly good condition; and a large cubic twelfth-century monolith with a Kufic inscription on each of the four sides (each, I should guess, about eight feet square), one of which had been partially defaced to make room for a modern inscription by some vandal seeker after notoriety. I was soon to learn that my coming had roused the wildest expectations. Up to the very day of our arrival rumours had been current that the ‘Consur’ was accompanied by a large force of Indian cavalry with contingents of the Sagvand Levy and even of Arab tribal savars, and was going to set up in Khurramabad on Dizful lines. Now the

3 [Timur the Lame (Timur-Lang), 1336–1405, Mongol conqueror, massacred populations of many cities, and made Samarkand a centre of scholarship and architecture.]

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Palace of Khurramabad, from the fort. From Edmonds’s albums, Archives of the Middle East Centre, St Antony’s College, Oxford

Valizadas and Chaqarvand were assiduous in introducing tribal chiefs belonging to their respective factions, and pressing their claims to presents or salaries as fixed at the time of the railway survey. The northern Sagvand khans came in demanding to be engaged here on the same basis as Sartip in the south, and the last Governor’s farrashes ‘reported for duty’ under the fourteen-year-old son of the former na’ib, recently deceased. My efforts to persuade all and sundry that their assumptions were quite wrong, and that I was only bound for Tehran, made little impression. For the last stage of my journey through Luristan the principal tribe to be squared was the Bayranvand, whose khans claimed to be descended from a certain Mirza Ahmad Khan who had married a niece of Karim Khan Zand (reg. 1750–1779) while in that monarch’s service at Shiraz. They had taken advantage of the weakness of the administration to squat on most of the prosperous villages in the broad and fertile valley of Silakhur in which Burujird is situated, and so had grown powerful and rich at the expense of the lawful owners and the peasantry. Several of them maintained large houses in the town. I realized the importance of moving on without delay; but every possible difficulty was put in my way, not least by our own Consular Agent from

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Burujird, whom I had asked to make the necessary arrangements with the Bayranvand, and to meet us himself at Khurramabad. He proved to be a plausible charlatan, whose outward veneer of a civilized and educated Persian concealed the mentality of a Lur, and who himself had come with inflated ideas of the role he was going to play in the new dispensation. It transpired later that he had contracted a vaslat with one of the Bayranvand khans and so was already compromised in the factional politics of Bala Gariva. Finally, after a trying delay of ‘today and tomorrow’ as the Persians put it, I refused to wait any longer and, collecting some Bayranvand ryot kadkhudas with promises of presents, I took my party in a day of eleven and a half hours by the shortest but most difficult way over the Puna pass to the village of Kayvara, where we spent the night. The next morning Ali Mardan, the leading khan, who was in Russian employ, called with an escort of about eighty horsemen preceded by a Russian imperial flag. He himself was wearing a Russian tunic of bright blue under an aba, Russian trousers and top boots, but a high Lur felt hat with a black and white kerchief tied round it. He had prepared lunch for us at his camp not far away in response to an entirely unauthorized message from the Valizadas, but I had no reason to refuse. In his guest-tent there were evident signs of wealth. The carpets were of the highest quality, the tea-glass holders were of silver as were the trays, the rice was beautifully white and perfectly cooked, the dishes were succulent, and great lumps of ice, fetched from a considerable distance, were floating in the drinking water. The servants wore Russian badges on their high felt hats, and several of the younger khans present also betrayed Russian influence in their dress. We mounted again at about noon and, preceded by the flag and two caparisoned yadaks and followed by a large cavalcade marshalled by a macebearer in a sardari with gold and green frogging on the breast, made for the city. As we approached we were met by a small mounted guard of honour sent out by the Deputy Governor and, in deference to the Persian superstition, we entered Burujird by the south gate for luck.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

THE RUSSIAN FRONT I must now return to General Baratov, whom we left at Qazvin in August 1916 after his precipitate retreat from Khanaqin.1 By January 1917 he had felt strong enough to resume the offensive, and by the middle of March he had reoccupied Hamadan, Kangavar and Kirmanshah. This advance had coincided almost exactly with General Maude’s capture of Baghdad and the outbreak of the Russian Revolution. On 2 April contact was made with a small British detachment at Qizil Rubat, eighty miles north-east of Baghdad. But in May, owing to sickness, the total lack of local supplies, the depredations of the Kurds on his lines of communications, and the lowered morale of his troops, Baratov had been obliged to withdraw the bulk of his force to Hamadan, leaving detachments of varying importance at Kirmanshah, Kangavar, Daulatabad and Burujird. By June the Turks were again astride the high road between Qizil Rubat and Qasr-i Shirin. Now, in October, although seven months had passed since the Revolution, and although the republic had been proclaimed, Russia was still in the war, and General Maude was still hoping that Baratov would be able to co-operate in the operations he was planning against the Turks, who, on their part, were preparing to make a serious attempt to recapture Baghdad. But the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks on 7 November (N.S.) (the ‘October Revolution’) supervened and ruled out any such possibility. At Burujird I should have preferred not to lodge at the house of the Consular Agent (whom I will call Mirza Ali), but in view of his official appointment I could hardly do otherwise.2 The morning after our arrival my first visitor was the Acting Governor, Nusrat as-Sultan*, a charming and cultivated old gentleman, not an official from Tehran but 1

[See ch. XII.] [The diaries, under the entry for 5 September 1917 reads “Mirza Ali Akbar, the British Agent, dressed in white and shading himself with an umbrella”; the 7th: “Held a Majlis in the garden and told everyone they must go to Ali Akbar first and discuss matters and he would get my orders”.] 2

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the chief of the Gudarzi tribe, chosen for his local prestige and influence. He was followed by the heads of the departments of Revenue, Justice and Telegraphs, a prominent divine, the leading merchants, and finally representatives of the Jewish community, who surprised me, as they were about to leave, by standing in a line and reciting a long prayer in which the only word I could catch was my own name. All were unanimous that the development of the caravan traffic had come just in time to save Burujird from economic ruin. Indeed, when I came to go round the extensive bazaars the piles of goods stacked high in the caravansarais and shops, and the general bustle, were very striking. Anti-Russian feeling was evidently strong. One of the grievances being that the Muscovites were forcing people to accept devalued rouble notes for their purchases, another that they were buying wheat to transport to Russia, another (voiced by the Telegraph Master) that they monopolized the telegraph lines at their pleasure, causing great inconvenience to the public generally and the merchants in particular. And I found the animadversions on the behaviour of our allies, openly expressed in public guest-rooms, most embarrassing, coming as they did on the top of the widespread assumption, indeed hope, that my journey portended the replacement of the Russian by a British presence. The assumption seemed to be confirmed when the Acting Governor circulated copies (including one to me) of a telegram he had received from Tehran announcing that arrangements had been made for the Russian garrison to withdraw from Burujird. I had made a point of calling on the Russian Officer Commanding, by appointment between the visits of the officials and the merchants, on the first day. At the gate-house of his headquarters soldiers were lounging about, talking or reading papers. Although I was in fieldservice uniform for the occasion they made no attempt to rise, still less to salute. By good fortune the director of Revenue, who like many Persians in the north knew some Russian, happened to be with the Colonel when I was announced, and the interview passed off well. He recalled that when he was at Qasr-i Shirin before the retreat some British officers had motored out from Khanaqin and brought a welcome gift of food for his men. He made no attempt to return my call, but this did not prevent him from sending round his Supply Officer on the day before I was due to leave, to ask for my help. This time communication was a little more complicated: he spoke in Russian to one of his soldiers, who translated

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in Azarbayjani Turkish to Mirza Ali, who in turn translated to me in Persian. It transpired that, after the receipt of the telegram from Tehran, the Acting Governor had forbidden the townsfolk to sell any more provisions to the Russians and had even bastinadoed the sayyid employed by Ali Mardan to procure their wheat. This, the officer said, put him in a very embarrassing position, since he had already reported to Baratov in Hamadan that he had concluded a contract for a certain quantity. Would I help him to put this contract through while he telegraphed to ask for orders regarding the future. I had planned to leave at dawn the next day for Nihavand. So I agreed to try to see the Acting Governor that evening, do what I could, and let him know the result in the morning. Nusrat as-Sultan was good enough to come round himself, and agreed to release the amount specified in the contract, provided that it was loaded by night, for fear of hostile reactions. The Russian seemed duly grateful when he came again in the morning; but that was not the end of his troubles, and I asked Mirza Ali to help Ali Mardan’s agent to buy any outstanding amounts in limited quantities, unobtrusively, in as many different villages as practicable. It was also nearly at the last minute that letters arrived to say that two large caravans had been looted near Khurramabad. I could only instruct Mirza Ali to ascertain the facts, going himself to Khurramabad if necessary, and telegraph the result of his investigations to me at Kirmanshah or Hamadan. Before I leave Burujird I cannot refrain from recording the most astonishing piece of sophistry that came to my notice during the whole of my time in the Middle East. One evening Mirza Ali produced a bottle of araq, a kind of Schnaps, poured a quantity into a small teapot, and drank it through the spout. In reply to my expressions of surprise he solemnly assured me that, provided the forbidden alcohol did not touch the teeth on the way to the throat, there was no breach of the sacred law. It was nearly noon by the time the Russian Supply Officer’s troubles had been sorted out. With a small escort provided by Nusrat as-Sultan we rode in glorious weather northwards through pleasant country dotted with prosperous-looking villages. But, wherever we stopped to talk to the people, they were loud in their complaints of the commandeering of grain by the Russians at derisory prices. There being no prospect of reaching Nihavand before dark we decided to halt at Ja‘farabad which, we were assured, was the last suitable village on the way. I think

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I can best give some idea of the charm of Persian rustic hospitality, after the grasping avarice of the Lurs, by reproducing a few lines from my diary [5 October 1917, written up that evening. On the outskirts, as we came in, the villagers were threshing the maize with a neat contrivance drawn by oxen; it consisted of a little chariot with a raised seat for the driver; in place of wheels there were two rollers bristling with large chisel-blades, these serving as wheels, and also to separate the grain. On hearing of our arrival Haji Muttalib, the owner or his agent, hurried forward and ushered me into his upper room. His womenfolk, among them one radiantly pretty girl, made no attempt to veil. I am now sitting on a rough but quite attractive rug of pale red, blue and white, spread on the ground-floor roof, just outside the room— before me a small glass of tea on a tray; beside me a pile of sticks and dried-dung fuel pancakes. On the neighbouring roofs women, most of them here in the shirt and short knee-length skirt but some of them still in the long trousers, long shirt and pleated coat of their Lur sisters, are busy with their domestic duties. In the court-yard below, the rest of our party are being cared for, and barley for the horses and mules is being sifted out, beneath the eye of the portly old Haji himself. To the west, behind a veil of blueish pink left by the sunset, looms the great ridge of Garru, and above sparkles a solitary evening star. The feeling that pervades me is one of thankfulness at being rid of the hateful Lur. He was still with me yesterday, he may waylay me on the road tomorrow, but for the moment he is shaken off.

With a long march in front of us we were in the saddle at half past four the next morning (6 October), when it was still dark and cold. The commander of the escort from Burujird, a talkative and entertaining companion of the road, had his own way of putting the complaint about the decadence of his country I had heard, and was to hear, so often. “We Persians,” he said, “have three bad qualities: avarice, impatience and ignorance; you English are just the opposite; Persia will never recover its prosperity because all Persians are sons of burnt fathers, if not now then in ten hours’ time, or in ten days’ time, or in ten weeks’ time, or in ten months’ time, or in ten years’ time; sooner or later they are all sons of burnt fathers.” At Nihavand we halted for an hour to rest the animals while I called on the leading local notable, Samsam an-Nizam, who was also the Acting Governor. I found him in a charming house looking out onto a court-yard bright with flowers. He had a bluff, hearty manner and welcomed us with true Persian courtesy. He said that he had heard that a British Consul was on his way north from Khuzistan, and was surprised to learn that he himself was already entertaining him. We

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had not been there more than ten minutes before a number of officials came to call, apologizing for not having heard of our approach in time to go out to meet us. The principal topic of conversation was the devastation the whole country had suffered from the successive waves of Turkish and Russian armies, German holy-war missions with their levies, and the Gendarmerie. After occupying Samsam’s house for several months as a mess and carrying off most of his carpets and furniture as they left, the Swedish officers had even tried to arrest him; as I could see, he was now busy repairing the house. Nihavand was then a straggling little town built round a hill or large mound surmounted by the walls of a ruined castle. This was said to have been destroyed by order of a Shah who, in the course of his travels, had been shocked to find that it commanded an unrestricted view of most of the andarun courtyards below. It is famous in history as the site of the decisive battle in which the Arab invaders administered the death-blow to the Persian Sasanian Empire (AD 642). More recently it had been in the news for the magnificent treasure of gold and jewels unearthed by my host’s late brother Zafar as-Sultan when digging for the foundations of a water cistern. Although the State had taken the greater part of the hoard the family had grown rich on the proceeds of what they had been allowed to keep. Samsam’s son and several of the callers insisted on escorting me for some distance on our way (badraqa, the converse of istiqbāl), until I persuaded them to come no further. As we approached Firuzabad Fathollah Khan of the Qizil tribe (to whom Samsam had sent a messenger in advance) rode out with a number of horsemen to meet us, and a mile or two beyond the village we met a Cossack patrol bound for Nihavand, where there was still a small Russian detachment. Finally, after dark, we reached Kangavar on the high road, having covered just under fifty miles in the day. As far as I could see in the gloom it was a squalid little place. The Russian soldiers lolling in the lighted coffee shops looked slovenly and without discipline. My first visit was to the telegraph office, but the operator excused himself from accepting my telegram because the Russians were monopolizing the line. I had letters of introduction to the Acting Governor, again the leading local notable, Farajallah Khan. The Russian officers had commandeered his house, leaving him and his brother only two rooms for themselves; but they seemed to be on excellent terms nevertheless. The Commandant and a subaltern were invited to join us for dinner, and we spent a pleasant evening. They told me that our forces had just

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mopped up a Turkish Division on the Euphrates. This was General Brooking’s operation for the capture of Ramadi on 28 and 29 September (1917). As we left Kangavar the next morning it was at once evident that we were now on one of the main communication routes of Persia. Long lines of heavily laden mules, donkeys and camels were passing up and down; skeletons of pack-animals of all kinds littered the roadside; and every now and then we met or passed Russian cart-convoys (in some of which I noticed hospital nurses roughing it with the troops) or small caravans of travellers, their women huddled and half hidden in the clumsy mule-litters called kajāva, or perhaps a party of gypsies, their identity indicated by the numerous sieves, finished or unfinished, which they were carrying. At Sahna small red-cross flags marked a Russian field-hospital and the rest-house of the Sovski Soyuz, a civil welfare organization attached to the armies. Here I was able to dispense with the last of our special escorts. The onward road offered excellent going over sandy soil, and we made Bisitun well before sunset. The great ridge of rock, so familiar in shape from the many pictures I had seen, had loomed up before us nearly all day, and now I looked anxiously for the famous relief depicting the triumph of Darius the Achaemenian over his enemies, and the cuneiform record of his glorious reign. It was with some surprise that I finally descried high up on the face of the rock what looked like a rusty-coloured patch with a small panel carved in the middle. It was not until I had climbed up as far as I could without a ladder or other aids that I was able to distinguish the figure of the King of Kings with two armed attendants behind him, and before him a line of nine captives roped together with their hands tied behind their backs, and the cuneiform inscriptions in panels above and on each side. Lower down there was a modern inscription in Arabic character, cut in the middle of an ancient relief now nearly obliterated. The caravanserai was occupied by the Red Cross, and a Russian cart-convoy was parked beside it. The local inhabitants were managing as best they could in the ruins of the village. After some difficulty we traced the headman in a courtyard with three small rooms in fairly good repair. At first I had my camp-bed pitched on a sakaw outside. But the litter blown about my ears by constant violent puffs of wind made life so unpleasant that I moved into one of the rooms and, in spite of visits from sundry stray cats, managed to sleep well enough till morning.

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The next day I reached Kirmanshah and received the warmest of welcomes from the Consul (Colonel R. L. Kennion*, a keen sportsman well known in India for his prowess with gun and rifle, the author of By mountain, lake and plain, 1911) and his wife.3 They were occupying one of the staff-houses of the Imperial Bank, the Consulate having been burnt down by the Turks before their withdrawal. Anglo-Russian relations were very cordial. Serving with the Russians was an Anzac wireless squadron under Lieut. White, and a Survey of India party under Captain Perry and Lieut. Renwick, which had retreated with them from Khanaqin; Captain Durie, Manager of the Bank but now in uniform as assistant to Colonel Rowlandson the British Liaison Officer attached to Baratov at Hamadan, had made himself indispensable to them for their supply and transport arrangements; and they were equally dependent on Kennion himself for their tribal and other public relations. Among social occasions during my week in Kirmanshah I recall several dinner parties (at which I met the Consul Baron Cherkassov, General Zagev and other officers, and also the Belgian Director of Customs, Monsieur Hunin*), a concert at one of the hospitals with some wonderful Cossack singing and dancing, and a picnic at the pool by the famous Sasanian rock-sculptures of Taq-i Bustan, where we were joined by the General, several staff officers and doctors, together with a number of nurses, these, as it seemed to me, astonishingly young. The morale and discipline of the troops, with the exception of one unit, was however very low. I gathered that the Soldiers’ Committees had imposed a limit on the number of parades they would tolerate in any one week. The night before my arrival there had been an alarm that a large raiding party of tribesmen was approaching the town. At the Kennions’ dinner party the next evening it was quite pathetic to hear the General describing how he had sent a detachment to the east gate to investigate, and adding ruefully that he had been glad of this opportunity to try to stiffen the morale of his men by giving them some soldiering to do.

3 [“On January 31 [1918] I reached Kermanshah and the hospitable atmosphere of the British Consulate. I remember how I was filled with a sentiment of unutterable relief at having shaken the dust of Luristan from off my feet, feeling with de Morgan on a similar occasion, happy indeed to have made this journey but gladder to have finished it.” Writes Edmonds elsewhere: “Luristan: Pish-i-Kuh and Bala Gariveh” The Geographical Journal, Vol. 59, No. 6. (Jun., 1922), p. 451.]

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The exception was a formation called the Partizans, under a Lieut.Colonel Bicharakov,4 volunteers who, it seemed, were allowed to apply to join without first obtaining the consent of their regular unit commanders. It did not belong to any Division, but operated independently under the direct orders of Baratov himself. Bicharakov, the number of whose wounds was said to be already in double figures, seemed to be young for his rank (I met him at the hospital concert) and was evidently a man of vigorous personality. The adjutant was a Scotsman with a broad Scots accent named Gowans who had been in business in Russia when war broke out and had volunteered for service in the Russian army. There was at Kirmanshah another officer of Scottish descent, Colonel Leslie, who knew not a word of English but was immensely proud of his ancestry; the Leslies, he told me, had been devoted adherents of Mary Queen of Scots; when her cause collapsed one of them had sought refuge in Russia, since when every Leslie had been in the army; his own two cadet sons at the Military College had deserted at the time of the Revolution and were now serving in the ranks of the Partizans. By far the most memorable function of the week was a parade of the first echelon of the Partizans, who were to march down the road towards Qasr-i Shirin, partly, I understood, as a morale-raising demonstration to encourage the others, and partly with the idea of again establishing some sort of contact with the British forces north-east of Baghdad. I accompanied Kennion, both of us mounted and in uniform, to the parade, and we were given places at the saluting base on the fourth side of a square. The chaplain in vestments of the Orthodox Church, standing at an improvised altar-table, intoned a long litany with a choir of four Cossacks with really beautiful voices to sing the responses; he delivered a longish homily and then, preceded by a crucifix, passed along the ranks sprinkling officers and men, and finally the group at the saluting base, with holy water from an ordinary enamel bowl. The religious ceremony over, the General addressed the parade; he was followed by Bicharakov who called for cheers for the Republic, the General and the British Consul. Then there was much saluting and

4 [According to P. Luft, “End of Czarist Rule in Iran” (Pembroke Papers. 1 Persian and Islamic Studies In honour of P. W. Avery, Ch. Melville, ed., Cambridge (UK), University of Cambridge, 1990), p. 104, L. Bicharakov was the head of a Cossack unit in Azerbaidjan in 1917.]

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shaking of hands, the General kissed the Colonel, and finally, headed by a standard of white skull and cross-bones on a blue ground, the squadrons wheeled away in column of route, breaking into song as they went. It was all like a mediaeval pageant, far removed from the grim realities of modern war. The sequel is recorded in the Official History of the War, IV, 85 and 95a. “A Russian detachment about 1,000 strong (1,077 combatants; also 173 non combatants including a lady doctor and two nursing sisters) under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Bicherakoff had been sent forward by Baratoff to intercept the disbanded Persian gendarmerie. This it accomplished successfully at Qasr-i Shirin and then, being isolated from Baratoff ’s main force and unable to obtain sufficient food, Colonel Bicherakoff asked if he and his detachment might come under General Maude’s orders. Generals Maude and Baratoff agreed to this as a temporary arrangement.” They fought gallantly alongside our men in the Jabal Hamrin operation of November and December but were not present on the last day “owing to Bicherakoff being ill; though sick he had commanded his men from a stretcher on the two previous days, but he could do so no longer and there was no one to replace him”. [10 October 1917] I was just preparing to leave Kirmanshah when I received a letter from Mirza Ali reporting on the circumstances of the attack on the caravans near Khurramabad, and the prospects of recovering much of the looted merchandize if I could return at once. I therefore decided, reluctantly, that it was my duty to postpone my onward journey to Tehran and pay only a flying visit to Hamadan in order to make contact with Rowlandson and to see the merchants, many of them Baghdad Jews, to whom much of the merchandise had been consigned. The Zemski Soyuz kindly gave me a seat in one of their motor cars (a rare sight in those days), and I sent my party off by the direct route back to Burujird. At Hamadan I spent two days under the hospitable roof of Mr. and Mrs. McMurray* of the Imperial Bank. The opening of the Luristan road had aroused great interest and hope in this important commercial centre, and the possibility that this profitable traffic might be interrupted had come as a great blow. On the second day Rowlandson drove me out to call on Baratov. It was rather galling to be kept waiting in the ante-room a long time while he received a private soldier, the president of the corps Committee of Workmen and Soldiers,

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who had arrived after us and, as the A.D.C. told us, without previous appointment. But when at last the General, an alert little Caucasian, received us he gave us a very hearty welcome, expressed great interest in my travels, and invited me to dine with him when I returned, as I still hoped to do.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

THROUGH PISH-I KUH I have already had so much to say about the unlovable characteristics of the Lur and the strains of travel in his country that I will not weary the reader with any account of the intrigues and prevarications that awaited me at Khurramabad. Suffice to say that after a fairly encouraging start I failed dismally in the task I had set myself and, moreover, was held up there virtually besieged for three whole months until 23 January (1918), when we were able to leave with Nazar Ali Khan and a large escort of his Tarhan and Dilfan tribesmen. It was only now, at the last moment, when Mashhadi Riza reported that the mules were ready loaded up, and that his ‘orphans’ had given their sīghas the discharge certificates to which they were entitled, that I learnt that they, and for all I knew other members of my party, had been consoling themselves during our long and wearisome wait with these, for Shi‘as, perfectly lawful temporary wives. Shots were fired at us from the town as we left. Having passed the winter camps of the northern Sagvand, we halted near some Chigini tents about twenty-three miles west of Khurramabad. Soon after dark shouts, screams and volleys of abuse issued from the tent next to mine. Nazar Ali Khan, Vali of Pish-i Kuh, was a confirmed drunkard and opium smoker, and indulged his weaknesses according to a regular time-table. By day he was a quiet, unassuming man. Every night, after the evening meal, he would sit down to consume quantities of neat araq and under its influence begin to abuse all and sundry for any incidents that might have displeased him during the day, although passed over apparently unnoticed at the time. That evening he threw all his bedding on the fire and rose several times to beat his servants, who fled precipitately. Then he settled down to mumble abuse at his second son, who had been thrown from his horse earlier in the day, with a monotonous cycle of epithets, quite oblivious of the fact that most of them implied aspersions on his own character, doubts about the chastity of his own wife, and pessimism regarding his own prospects, as a ‘burnt father’, of eternal bliss in the life to come. Early in the morning he would smoke a small quantity of opium to calm his aching head,

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after which he could transact any necessary business. Towards evening he would settle down again to smoke opium, a large quantity at this session, till dinner and drinking time. He made no bones about his habits and once, when I suggested seeing him about something after the evening meal, he replied: “I am sorry; that is my time for getting drunk and I shall not be in a fit state for serious discussion”. Many of the Dilfan tribesmen in his force were adherents of the unorthodox sect of Ahl-i Haqq, People of the Divine Truth, popularly but incorrectly known in Western Persia as Ali Ilahi, Deifiers of Ali. Their holiest shrine in Pish-i Kuh was that of Bawa Buzurg who, Rawlinson was told, was a brother of Shahzada Ahmad, the redturbaned guardians of whose tomb I had met in Mungara, and of the Shahzada Muhammad of Hulaylan, in whose precincts we were glad to spend the fifth night out from Khurramabad. All I knew at that time about this most interesting mystical order was that, like so many secret sects, not excluding the early Christians, they were commonly alleged to indulge in mixed orgies after the ceremonial extinguishing of lights and in other excesses, accusations which I later satisfied myself had no truth in them whatever.1 Our three days march with Nazar was a leisurely affair, with a programme arranged to fit in with his habits. Mounting comparatively late in the forenoon we would halt at least once on the way for him to have a pipe of opium, and then make sure of reaching our destination not too late in the afternoon. This gave me time to climb suitable eminences or to stop on passes to do some mapping and to enjoy the glorious views in all directions to the mountains, some old friends, some new, but now with mantles of fresh snow sparkling in the sunlight, among them again the long line of the Kabar Kuh. Soon after mounting on the second day we reached the Kashghan a short distance above the right angle bend where it changes direction from south-east to south-west. We then followed the left bank north-westwards to halt, after a march of only nine miles or so, at a Shiravand (Tarhan) camp near the ruins of yet another ancient bridge. At this time of year the tents were protected at the sides by hurdles

1

For an account of this interesting sect see my Kurds, Turks and Arabs, pp. 182– 201, and article “The Beliefs and Practices of the Ahl-I Haqq of Iraq” in Iran, vol. VII, 1969. [More about the Ahl-i Haqq in recent publications by Mohammad Mokri, Jean During and Ziba Mir-Hosseini.]

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of branches and, in some cases, had prolongations built of boughs and mud. Before leaving the next morning I had time to examine the bridge. It was very like those as Shushtar and Dizful except that the massive piers of dressed stone were rounded, not pointed, on the up-stream side. The upper structure was mostly of artificial conglomerate, a favourite building material in that part of Persia. The river was flowing on our side (left bank) of the broad shingly bed. The piers were standing high out of the water, but the first two arches had fallen in; the third was in place, but not the roadway; the next two were completely broken. The last eight arches still stood, becoming progressively smaller as they approached the far side, and the last two of them changing direction south-westwards to reach the bank. Scrub oak was growing out of what was left of the roadway. We forded the river about two hundred yards down-stream, where the water was only two feet deep, and rode on through park like, oakgrown country till we reached the foot of the double chain of Ghuraz. The track was now narrow and steep, and we soon came to snow lying two or three inches deep on the shady side. In the valley between the two ridges we halted at a Musivand (Dilfan) camp, for Nazar to smoke what seemed to me an inordinate quantity of opium, before pushing on to emerge eventually into the Kuh-i Dasht. This was a vast plain dotted with numerous mounds, which seemed to indicate that the region had once had a large settled population and which, it was discovered some years later, concealed quantities of the now famous Luristan bronzes. It was the customary winter camping ground of many sections of the Dilfan, whose tents could be seen in every direction. We halted here for two nights with some Musivand so as to spend a day hunting gazelle, not very successfully, with salukis (tāzī in Persian, a word that, in fact, means ‘Arabian’). Having said good-bye to Nazar before he had begun his potations on the second evening, we were up betimes the next morning for a long and bitterly cold march of nine hours, much of it in a driving blizzard, over the Viyun pass (5,000 ft. [1 524 m]) in to the Hulaylan valley. Here we sought shelter in the precincts of Shahzada Muhammad, about one mile from the Saymarra river. Notwithstanding its pretentious outward appearance, with various embellishments such as the golden ball over the cupola and the decorative tile-work at the entrance, and notwithstanding the miraculous properties ascribed to the shrine, there was no suitable accommodation for travellers, and we

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were lucky to find two rooms where, at least, we could thaw our aching limbs by a blazing fire of oak logs. Two more very cold marches, the second of which took us over the Tuviran pass (6,000 ft. [1 830 m]) now under six inches of snow, brought us at last into the great plain of Mahidasht. The day was far spent and Kirmanshah still sixteen miles away when we reached the foot of the pass, so we made for the large Kurdish village of Sarvanaw. Heavy rifle-fire broke out as we approached, but ceased when I sent forward one of my Kurds, waving his long white sleeves as a flag of truce, to explain who we were. We had been mistaken for a raiding party, for it was the misfortune of the villagers to be at feud with all their neighbours, and so to be living in a perpetual state of apprehension. Among other things this had prevented them from laying in a stock of fire-wood for the winter from the oak-forests to the south, and I was obliged to send out two of my own men to buy a load. The headmen welcomed me into their upper-room, where I had my first experience of the Persian institution of the kursī: a charcoal fire in a brazier is set under a low table; a large quilt is then thrown over it and over the legs of the assembled company (seated on the floor, of course), so keeping them cosy and warm. The following day we reached the high road a few miles west of Kirmanshah, and I was astonished to see a group in British uniform, with two or three Ford cars, halted on the road. They turned out to be General L. C. Dunsterville*, his staff-officer Colonel Duncan, and a tall young Flying Corps officer named Fanshawe, the advanced party of a special military mission, of which I shall have more to say in the next chapter. They were reconnoitring ahead of their convoy of forty vehicles, which was having a bad time in the snow. The mission reached Kirmanshah three days later, 3 February. It was known as the ‘Hush-hush Push’ and, although I have preserved a photograph, my diary only records discreetly under the 4th: “Dunsterville passed through”. At Kirmanshah I learned that much had happened in the three and a half months during which I had been cut off from all news of the outside world. After the British victories of December in the Jabal Hamrin area the Turks were no longer in a position to threaten the Khanaqin end of the high road to Kirmanshah, but they still had garrisons at Sanandaj and Sauj Bulaq (later Mahabad) to the north-west of Hamadan. The seizure of power by the Bolsheviks in November, their armistice arranged in January with Germany and Turkey, and the current

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negotiations for a separate peace had hastened the disintegration of the Russian armies. In January Bicherakov, who had been operating with our forces in the Jabal Hamrin, had been recalled by Baratov to help in trying to rally any loyal elements that might remain in his command. But he had had no success, and Baratov was now in process of withdrawing from Persia altogether. In the meantime a British column under Colonel C. L. Matthews had pushed forward up the road through Qasr-i Shirin to Surkhadiza at the top of the Taq-i Gira pass, the gateway to the Persian plateau. At Kirmanshah I was surprised to find Greenhouse, who had just been transferred from Dizful.

Major-Gen. L. C. Dunsterville, 1920. From L. C. Dunsterville, Stalky’s reminiscences, London, Jonathan Cape, 4th ed., 1928

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Transport of Dunsterforce troops near Hamadan. From M. H. Donohoe, With the Persian Expedition, London, Edw. Arnold, 1919

There was nothing to keep me in Kirmanshah. Our five days march to Surkhadiza (6–10 February) was a veritable nightmare, through glutinous slush on the low ground and snow as much as eighteen inches [46 cm] deep on the high, in blinding blizzards and equally blinding spells of sunshine reflected into our eyes by the snow. On all sides were scenes of indescribable devastation and starvation, the legacy left by the Turks and the Russians after fighting each other backwards and forwards, up and down the road, for over two years. If the Russians had left every building in ruins by destroying the doors and roofs for firewood, the Turks, in their last retreat, had carried off every animal they could lay hands on, whether horses, mules, donkeys, sheep or cattle. At Karind I met an American missionary, Dr. Stead*, who, with British money, was nobly directing a relief operation in the form of employing labour to work on the road. On the fifth day it took us six and a half hours to cover the sixteen miles on to Surkhadiza, where the 1st/4th Hampshires were camped in a sea of mud. Having seen to the comfort of my party in these alien surroundings I was welcomed into his tent by the adjutant, Captain Andrews, who had been at school with me twelve years before. The next day, at the bottom of the pass, I found a motor convoy about to depart for Qasr-i Shirin. Leaving my caravan to follow at

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leisure I pushed on by mechanical transport, car and rail, a journey of two days and three nights, to reach Baghdad only one day ahead of the rest of my party. Sir Percy Cox very kindly took me to stay with him for the first few days. From the Residency the vista across the Tigris of blue-tiled domes and minarets, two-storeyed Turkish houses build round three sides of court-yards with the fourth open side overhanging the water, two bridges of boats, and busy coracle ferries carrying passengers and animals of all kinds and sizes from bank to bank was picturesque enough, especially towards sunset. But away from the river squalor reigned supreme in this fabled city of Harun ar-Rashid and the Arabian Nights. There was therefore little inducement to stay longer than the fortnight necessary for the preparation of my reports and for such limited sight-seeing as there was. Having sent my caravan ahead by road, I followed down river by launch—three days to Amara and one more down the Musharrah canal to Halfaya—calling at various places on the way to renew old friendships with shaykhs of the Bani Lam, Suwa‘id, and Al Bu Muhammad, old Najam at Kumayt,2 and last but not least, the faithful staff of the A.P.O.C.’s office at Amara. From Halfaya, where the caravan was waiting, we rode across country in two days, to reach the west bank of the Karkha, opposite Shush. Trying as some of our experiences had been during the past six months, we had not had a day’s sickness between us. All the party were in high spirits; very soon Mashhadi Riza and his ‘orphans’ were driving their mules to the river with shrill cries of ‘pshaw, br-r-r-r, hee, hee, pshaw’; Qurban Ali and the Kurds were leading the horses down more sedately; Yahya was hurrying back with water for tea none the worse for being carried in a tin kettle rather than a silver flagon; and Muhammad Vali was collecting sticks to cook an especially ambitious supper. An istiqbal of some kind to greet returning travellers was a normal courtesy consecrated by Persian usage, but the welcome we received the next morning was quite overwhelming. Warren with the whole of the Sagvand Levy, and all the subsidized chiefs, each with his group of mounted retainers, were down at the ferry; as we approached Dizful we were met by a large cavalcade of notables, officials, merchants and other townsmen; even the small shop keepers, it seemed, had closed

2

See p. 112, ch. IX.

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the bazaar and sallied forth to join in a general holiday. It was all very heart-warming. I had not been back three weeks before I received orders to proceed at once to Ahvaz to take over the Vice-Consulate in place of Noel, who had contrived to get himself sent to Tiflis on a mission for General Dunsterville, and had been captured on the way back by the Bolshevik-inspired Jangali insurgents in Gilan on the Caspian Sea. I could not have asked for a more congenial appointment, including, as it did a roving commission in the Bakhtiyari country between Isfahan at one end and the head of the Persian Gulf at the other, with an A.P.O. (Captain E. G. B. Peel) at headquarters to hold the fort during the Vice-Consul’s absences however long. It also carried with it the newly-created rank of Political Officer (P.O.), superintending the A.P.O.s at Dizful (Captain D. de M. Fraser of the Central India Horse) and Shushtar (Warren). My immediate task was to conduct negotiations with the ruling Bakhtiyari khans to ensure the safety of the oil fields for the duration of the war. Thanks largely to the expert and sage advice of Dr. Young, these were brought to a successful conclusion on 22 April. I had been feeling far from well during the last few days, and it was only by taking a large dose of aspirin beforehand, and a good deal of some excellent champagne in the course of it, that I managed to last out the dinner which I gave that night to celebrate the agreement. Two days later I was lying in hospital dangerously ill with typhoid. And so to this day I have never seen Isfahan: non cuivis homini contingit adire Corinthus.3 When, thanks to the skilful and devoted care of the two Military Nursing Sisters sent up from Basra as ‘specials’, I was pronounced fit to travel, the journey home from hospital to hospital (Ahvaz, Basra, Bombay, Alexandria, Marseilles) by hospital ship, ambulance transport, and train across France, took only a day or two under four months. On arrival I was discharged as convalescent; but on Armistice Day of all days I went down with Spanish influenza and found myself again for a time in hospital, at Millbank. I had seven months in England all told, my first leave home after six years service, and when I finally reported at Baghdad at the end of May (1919) I had been off the active list for thirteen whole months. I was supposed to have been passed fit

3

[It is not every body’s lot to go to Corinth. Latin proverb.]

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Hospital ship in the Persian Gulf, 1916. From Edmonds’s albums, Archives of the Middle East Centre, St Antony’s College, Oxford

for light work only; but before very long, now with the rank of Major, I was out again in the field with troops, a punitive column in Kurdistan. This lasted until the end of August, when I was tranferred to Qazvin to take over the duties of P.O. with the British Forces in North-West Persia (Norperforce) from Major E. T. R. Wickham*, who was to bearlead the Shah on a visit to England.

PART IV

NORTH-WEST PERSIA

Nūhārān

Khurwar

Sora Agheich

Rūān

Subashi Maran

Girda Kānupāin

Hamadān

Al 6280 va

F ā

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r

Daulatābād

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lā Si

P

5420

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k

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ū r

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H

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Ab-i-Sard Tang-i-Panāvur

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b-

Bāznūi

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Duma Khail Tabiran Sar i Dasht

Tappeh Mistan

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nd g wa

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13850

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nd rba Azna Da

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to

AkBulāgh

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Gutwand

Kā rūn

R.

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Gil-i-Shāh Sū-sān K. Bāxuft

SHUSHTAR

eh rk Ke

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R

Ab -i-G argar

Kūt Baridar

Ab-i-Diz

Dawairy

Ab-i-Shataic

410

South-West Iran showing Khuzistan and Luristan

CHAPTER TWENTY

NORPERFORCE In the preceding chapters I have had occasions to refer several times to the disintegration of the Russian armies at the Persian end of the Caucasus Front which, with periodic advances and retreats, had run roughly in a line from Trebizond (Trabzon) on the Black Sea southeast-wards past Lake Van to Kirmanshah. In the centre and northwest a similar process had been taking place, and the way was now open for a Turko-German thrust towards Transcaucasia, the Caspian Sea and, eventually perhaps, through Persia and Afghanistan, on to the frontiers of India. Already, too, there were indications of a revival of Pan-Islamic propaganda transcending sectarian differences, and of Turkish ambitions for an eastern extension of a Pan-Turanian Empire to embrace the Turkish-speaking peoples of Transcaspia. The British Government was, of course, not concerned with the form or composition of the new administration of Russia, but only with its attitude towards the prosecution of the war against the Germans and the Turks. There were still in the Russian armies elements (among them, as we have seen, parts of Baratov’s command) in no way inclined to make peace with the enemy. There were also parts of Russia, among them the Transcaucasian territories of Armenia, Georgia and Azarbayjan,1 which had not acknowledged the new Bolshevik authority and, in May 1917, had each proclaimed its independence as a separate State. It was in these circumstances that at the end of the year the decision had been taken to send out the Dunsterville Mission with the sole task of organizing the local populations to defend their homes against the expected enemy advance. It had not been intended that the Mission should assume any commitments in Persia. But by the middle of March 1918 all Russian troops except Bicherakov’s Partizans had left the country, and the vacuum was being progressively filled by British

1 Not to be confused with the Persian province of the same name; the religion of the majority of the inhabitants, unlike that of the Armenians and Georgians, is Muslim.

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units from Iraq. They were joined at the end of July by a party of naval officers under Commodore D. T. Norris, who secured control of the Caspian by taking over a number of ships at Baku; these were commanded by British officers but otherwise manned by anti-Bolshevik Russians and flew the Imperial Russian flag. The full story of the Dunsterville Mission has been told by its leader and by one of his officers (L. C. Dunsterville, The Adventures of Dunsterforce, 1920; M. H. Donohoe, With the Persian Expedition, 1919). It was dissolved in the middle of September when, in the absence of any real determination on the part of the heterogeneous local army2 to resist the Turkish offensive against Baku, a small British contingent between 1,000 and 1,500 strong, which had been sent to stiffen the defence, was withdrawn. As regards the Persian people at this time apart from the members for the time being of the frequently changing Ministries, the most vocal and influential political element was the ‘democrats’, an all-embracing term that covered at one extreme genuine patriotic liberals (a few but by no means the majority of whom still retained, in spite of the disillusionments of 1907 to 1911, something of their early good will to Great Britain) through every shade of opinion to the most bigoted xenophobes, irresponsible malcontents and unprincipled agitators at the other. The one article of faith common to them all had been hostility to Imperial Russia. The most important of the ‘democratic’ movements at this time was the Jangali rebellion in Gilan, the province adjoining the Caspian Sea on the south-west. The leader, Mirza Kuchik Khan*, had taken a small part in the constitutional agitations of 1906 to 1911, and had first achieved prominence in 1915, when he started in the forests (jangal) of Gilan a campaign of active opposition to the Russians. He was, of course, glad to accept the help in men, arms and money offered by the Turks and the Germans; and it was perhaps under Turkish influence that he gave his organization the title of Ittihad al-Islam, the Islamic

2 The population of Baku, the principal city and port of Azarbayjan, with its great oil industry and general commercial activity, was very mixed. There were Russians, Poles, Georgians and Armenians as well as the native Muslims, each group split into innumerable political factions, Bolshevik, Menshevik, Socialist, Nationalist, PanIslamic, pro-Turk in every conceivable permutation and combination. Control of the city had changed hands several times; at the end of March the Bolshevik element had seized power and repudiated the authority of the State Government at Ganja (Elizavetpol, later Kirovabad).

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Alliance, although he himself, far from being an orthodox Muslim, was reputed to belong to an extreme heterodox sect called Kallabuni, Goat-skulls, from the object of its peculiar cult. At first he won great popularity as a kind of Robin Hood, expelling or kidnapping oppressive landowners and redressing the grievances of the peasantry in his own courts. He fought off a succession of expeditions, Russian and Persian, sent against him, and, with popular support, soon became the de-facto ruler of Gilan and beyond; he also had many influential friends in Tehran itself. After the Bolshevik revolution the traditional democrat attitudes towards the two Powers that loomed largest on the Persian horizon were startlingly reversed: hopes ran high of help and sympathy from the new Russian ‘democracy’ (hopes that in due course seemed to have found their justification in a Soviet declaration renouncing a large number of concessions and privileges extorted by the late Tsarist regime), while Britain, the war-time ally of that regime, was left to bear the odium. Not surprisingly Kuchik was influenced accordingly. And in July he raided Rasht. The attack was repulsed by the newly-arrived small British garrison, but three weeks of punitive operations followed before he was willing to sue for peace. On 12 August he signed an agreement with Colonel Matthews whereby, among other things, he undertook not to have armed parties on or in the vicinity of the Qazvin-Anzali road, to get rid of any Germans and Turks in his employ, and to arrange (and so to become a contractor!) for the delivery of local supplies required by our forces. In return he was assured that the British had no intention of interfering in the internal affairs of Persia or with the political aims of the Ittihad al-Islam. There was also to be an exchange of prisoners; among them was Noel, who had been very harshly treated during his five months of captivity. On 3 October hostilities with Turkey came to an end, and in the middle of November a combined force of British (39th Infantry Brigade) and Russians (Bicherakov’s Partizans) re-occupied Baku to supervise the evacuation of the Turkish armies. The remainder of the North Persia Force came under the command of Brigadier-General H. B. Champain*. Four years as the battle-ground of foreign armies had left the whole country in a deplorable condition. Many provinces were completely out of control, brigands infested the roads, Wassmuss and other enemy agents were still at large in the south, prices were high, starvation was widespread, and the treasury was empty. There was at that time no

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international machinery for bringing prompt aid to ‘underprivileged’ countries in distress. Britain, alone of the Western Powers, was sufficiently interested, willing or indeed in a position, to offer economic and military help. In anticipation of the tasks that lay ahead Sir Percy Cox had been transferred from Baghdad to Tehran in September, as the person best qualified by temperament and experience to deal with the situation. He lost no time in opening negotiations with the Prime Minister, Vusuq ad-Dawla*, for the conclusion of an agreement to define the form in which such help could best be given. Although it was only a monthly ‘advance’ from the British Treasury that was keeping some semblance of a central administration in being, and although British troops already in the country were co-operating with Britishpaid Persian forces3 in imposing some kind of order in the provinces, it was not until August 1919 that a formal Agreement was signed. Under this London agreed to supply advisers for certain departments of the civil administration, together with a military mission to help to organize a single uniform force, and also to arrange a substantial loan to finance these reforms. At the same time an assurance was given by letter of co-operation, when practicable, for the realization of certain desiderata of the Persian Government including the revision of unequal treaties and justifiable rectifications of the frontier. The Governments of the United States and France, each for its own reasons, did not conceal their disapproval of the Agreement. In Persia itself It met with a mixed reception: it was unpopular with the merchants of the north interested in the import and export trade with Russia, and it was bitterly attacked by the extreme democrats, many of whom had been in league with the Germans, Turks or Bolsheviks; on the other hand it was received with relief and hope by our old friends and by a substantial proportion of the general public. In the last week of September 1919, after a short visit to Tehran to pay my respects to Sir Percy Cox, I reported at Qazvin to take over my duties as P.O. Norperforce. 3 These were: in the north the long-established Persian Cossacks still under White Russian officers; in the provinces of Fars and Kirman the British-officered South Persia Rifles raised by General Sir Percy Sykes in [1916] to counter German subversive activities in the south; and a reconstituted Gendarmerie with a new group of uncompromised Swedish officers. Each of these, about 8,000 strong, was normally recruited by voluntary enlistment, but the first and the third were brought up to strength, where necessary, by transfers of conscripts from the ‘regular army’, which had little military value.

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The British forces in North-Western Persia were divided between two independent commands: Percoms, with H.Q. at Kirmanshah, in charge of communications from rail-head at the frontier to Hamadan; and Norperforce, now a large mixed brigade of four infantry battalions (1st Bn. Royal Irish Fusiliers, 1/42nd Deoli regiment, 122nd (Rajputana) Infantry, 1/2nd Gurkha Rifles), the Guides Cavalry F.F., A. Battery (The Chestnut Troop) R.H.A., an Indian Pack Battery, a Light Armoured Motor Battery, one Flight of 30 Squadron R.A.F., and other ancillary units requisite for a quasi-independent command of this size. There was now a good metalled road in the Percoms sector (235 miles). The onward road to Anzali (290 miles) had been built for cart traffic by a Russian company, which maintained toll-gates at intervals of about 40 miles; but the Royal Engineers had taken over responsibility for its upkeep with some of the Russian personnel, and British military vehicles paid no tolls. A year after the official end of the war the status of these troops was no longer that of a foreign belligerent trespassing on neutral territory in order to fight its own similarly trespassing enemy, but, as I have already indicated, that of a friend helping and supporting a weak and distracted Central Government to ward off dangers still threatening from without, and to suppress the subversion and disorder rampant within. The position of the P.O. and his assistants was in consequence primarily that of liaison officers between the military command and the troops generally on the one hand and, on the other, the local administrations of the provinces of Qazvin, Gilan, Khamsa and Azarbayjan, and indeed all classes of their populations. In addition to the routine duties of dealing with the manifold day-to-day problems as they arose, they were thus in a strong position to gather accurate intelligence of military and political interest throughout the sphere of Norperforce: to the west as far as the Turkish frontier, northwards to the Transcaucasian border and the Caspian; eastwards to the meridian of Tehran; and south to Hamadan.4

4 This meant that we were serving three masters. Administratively we were all on the establishment of the Civil Commissioner in Baghdad. My immediate responsibilities were to the G.O.C., but at the same time the nature of the work required that I should be in close touch with the Legation at Tehran, and keep H.M. Minister informed regarding political developments and the general political atmosphere in the four provinces. My communications were accordingly addressed to the one most directly concerned, with copies to the others.

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I still look back on this tour of duty as P.O. Norperforce as a very happy one, and perhaps the most interesting of my whole career. Both the Generals under whom I served, Champain* and Ironside*, as well as Colonel E. S. Wintle, who was acting for General Champain on leave when I first reported and whom I got to know well on General Nixon’s staff at the time of the battle of Ctesiphon, were very appreciative of the political point of view, and were always most patient, cordial and kind. My relations with the staff and the many other military officers with whom duty or social occasions brought me into constant contact could not have been more harmonious; and it was the same with the Legation. Out of many I must mention three who became life-long family friends: the G.S.O.I., Major Ian Burn Murdoch; the padre attached to the Royal Irish Fusiliers, Rupert Newman, later a Canon of Salisbury; and the Third Secretary at Tehran, V. A. L. Mallet* (later Sir Victor, H.M. Ambassador in Madrid and Rome), with whom I generally stayed on my visits and who, in addition to the rumbustious welcome that characterized his hospitality, always arranged a lively round of social engagements, however short or long my stay. I was very fortunate alike in my predecessor and in the office staff he had left behind. Tom Wickham, later Member of Parliament for Taunton, a gay extrovert who spoke the most elegant and idiomatic Persian, was popular with the officials and leading citizens. From him I inherited a valuable legacy of good will and co-operation. The A.P.O. at Qazvin, Capt. L. S. Fortescue, a keen fisherman and botanist who later became French master at Eton, was a tower of strength, especially for local liaison duties such as serving on the joint Municipal Council of which a British medical officer had been elected chairman, joint measures for keeping down prices, and the like. In January 1920 I was obliged to release him to collect material for a masterly Military Report on Tehran and the adjacent Provinces of North-West Persia (Calcutta, 1922);5 his place was taken by a young subaltern seconded from the Royal Irish Fusiliers, Lieut. T. F. H. Graves, who quickly adapted himself to his new role. At Anzali from the middle of November I had Captain R. C. Geard, who had served at Khanaqin, earning a mention, but not by name, in the Official History (vol. iv. 152n.), and also, since 5

[Captain L. S. Fortescue, Military Report on Tehrān and Adjacent Provinces of North-West Persia (including the Caspian Littoral). (General Staff MEF Mesopotamia 1921), Calcutta, Superintendent Government Printing, India. 1922; id. “The Western Elburz and Persian Azerbaijan”, The Geographical Journal, 63, 4 (Apr. 1924).]

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my time, at Shushtar and Dizful. At Rasht the functions of A.P.O. were being performed by the Manager of the Imperial Bank, Mr. O. A. Butters, an expert judge of horse flesh and a hard-headed man of business with several years of experience in various parts of the country. In my own office the head of the Persian section was a courtly old gentleman named Sayfullah Khan Valizada, Sarim as-Sultan, of the former Kurdish princely family of Ardalan, a poet of merit, an expert calligraphist, and a master of the Persian epistolary art, who, owing to his distinguished origins and his own personal accomplishments, was qualified to hold his own in any company however eminent. Among other things he used to take a delight in bringing me from time to time, with the compliments of his ladies, the most appetizing examples of Kurdish culinary skill. The city of Qazvin (elevation 4,400 feet [1 341 m]) owed its importance to its situation in the plain some five miles from the foothills to the north, and at the junction of the high roads from Anzali (145 miles), Tehran (95 miles), Hamadan (150 miles) and Tabriz (280 miles). According to ancient legend it was founded by Shapur I in the middle of the third century AD. For about fifty years in the second half of the sixteenth century it had been the capital of the Safavi monarchs, before Shah Abbas I (reg. 1587–1629) transferred his court to Isfahan; but only a few monuments of historical or architectural interest have survived. In 1919 it was on the whole a squalid town of some 40,000 inhabitants. There was one broad boulevard connecting the Rasht and Tehran roads, but the other streets were for the most part insanitary narrow lanes, deep in dust or slush according to the season. There were also many mounds of abandoned ruins within the crumbling walls pierced by nine gates. Government House, called Chihil Sutun or Forty Pillars from the architectural plan very commonly adopted for such buildings, was situated in a large garden outside the walls, as were the residences of the more affluent citizens. Here, at last, it was possible to enjoy some of the creature comforts of peace time. My predecessor had rented from a local notable a pleasant one-storeyed house in a large, walled, well-tended garden where, with a first-class cook and neatly-clad servants, I could entertain in the ordinary way and even accommodate European travellers and their families, there being at that time no hotels worthy of the name. The office was in an adjacent enclosure, and before long I was able to hire a near-by plot, also enclosed, to make a mud tennis-court. The town was surrounded by extensive vineyards and orchards criss-crossed by

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North Gate to Qazvin. From M. H. Donohoe, With the Persian expedition, London, Edw. Arnold, 1919, p. 90

irrigation ditches wide enough, when dry, to allow of a good canter over their sandy floors. For the winter there was, among the ‘comforts for the troops’, a supply of skis, with nursery slopes suitable for beginners near the aerodrome at Sharifabad, four miles down the Hamadan road. Mrs. Champain, with two delightful little daughters, and the decorative and lively wife of the Russian Consul, Kadloubovsky, kept almost open house, and there was no restriction on civilian wives and families. Tehran, where there was always a gay, cosmopolitan social round was within easy reach, and it was never very difficult to find a good reason for a short visit. In the summer, when the Legations moved out of the hot and dusty city (elevation 3,800 feet [1 160 m]) to the villages of Qulhak and Tajrish only a short distance to the north on the wooded and well-watered slopes of the Alburz range, the change was especially invigorating and refreshing. I had my official Ford car, at first a vanette and later a tourer, for journeys on the main roads, and my own two ponies, with two Indian and half a dozen Persian mounted orderlies (one of the Indians a trained surveyor) for crosscountry travel. Perhaps the principal difference between the duties of my new post and those of my previous appointments was that they brought me into close contact with the highly sophisticated political elite of the country without, however, cutting me off from dealings with the simpler minds

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My house in Qazvin. From Edmonds’s albums, Archives of the Middle East Centre, St Antony’s College, Oxford

of peasants and tribesmen. For the first few days after my arrival I was fully occupied exchanging visits with the Governor, and receiving and returning the calls of the heads of departments and notables of the city. The Governor, Midhat as-Saltana*, was, as I noted in my diary, ‘a supine, flabby old thing’ with a reputation for avarice and timidity. I was very glad, therefore, when he was replaced in November by a younger man, Nizam as-Sultan*.6 The new Governor had a chequered political record, and was described in the office ‘Personalities’ file as ‘very clever, energetic, charming and thoroughly unreliable’; but with British prestige high his good qualities seemed likely to outweigh the bad. In accordance with Persian custom he was met a mile outside the town by Fortescue and two squadrons of the Guides Cavalry, and an hour later I accompanied Colonel Wintle to call officially at the Chihil Sutun. He was flattered and gratified by these attentions from the military, and we soon established a good working understanding. Of the other officials, I had most to do with Major Mahmud Khan, [the] Chief of Police, and the O.C. Gendarmerie, another Major

6

Not to be confused with Nizam as-Saltana.

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Mahmud Khan, surnamed Puladin* (who, I believe, was condemned to death some years later for complicity in a plot to assassinate Riza Shah). The Manager of the Imperial Bank was in charge of the British Vice-Consulate, so my official dealings with the Karguzar were limited to complaints—in practice very few—against individual members of the British forces. He was a friendly person who enjoyed the company of Europeans and, within a week of my arrival invited me to the last two of that year’s cycle of Muharram passion plays, a description of which I must defer to the end of this chapter. Before I leave the officials this is perhaps the place to mention an exasperating feature of Persian society at this level: nearly everybody was the basta, that is client or dependant, of somebody else higher up the ladder, so that even a provincial governor could never feel secure in his post for very long unless his patron was himself in power or in a position to bring influence to bear on those who were. In the same way a country landlord or tribal chieftain with no particular pull in the capital might find himself at one moment the Acting Governor of a district, large or small, and at the next in exile, in prison, or otherwise restricted according to the direction of the political wind, it being remembered that politics were a matter of personalities not principles. As time went by, receiving and, where appropriate, returning calls came to occupy quite a lot of my time, and gave me the opportunity to enlarge my circle of acquaintances to include not only local personalities but others from the remotest districts, officials of every grade passing through Qazvin on their way to Tehran, land-owners, merchants, tribal chiefs, divines and, most unexpected and perhaps most rewarding of all, extreme democrats critical of British policy, including one who had just been released from prison after serving a term for subversion. One call which protocol required me to make in my first week was upon an eccentric grandee, Sipah Salar*, then said to be about sixty years of age although to my youthful eyes he seemed to be quite an old man. He had just resigned, or been dismissed, from the premier provincial governorship of all Persia, that of Azarbayjan, traditionally reserved whenever possible, for the heir to the throne. He was on his way back to Tehran with his personal retinue (by horse-drawn carriage, of course, for at that time the only motor transport on the roads belonged to the military) and had halted at one of the many villages he owned in the neighbourhood about seven miles from Qazvin. His

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career and behaviour were not untypical of his class under the later Qajars, and a brief summary will serve to illustrate some of the factors that were militating against all efficient administration. He came of a family that owned, and had long exercised a kind of baronial authority over, the district of Tunukabun situated at the western end of the Caspian province of Mazandaran and so adjacent to Eastern Gilan and also to Qazvin. Like so many of the élite of the period he had taken an active part in the constitutional upheavals between 1906 and 1911, and a series of provincial governorships, cabinet appointments, and three short spells as Prime Minister in 1909, 1911 and 1916, had enabled him to add to his landed properties and to his wealth. Now it was being whispered that before leaving his post he had been using his position to foment disorders in the province he was supposed to be governing in order to embarrass the Prime Minister, Vusuq ad-Dawla, with whom he was on bad terms. Among other things his ne’er-dowell youngest son, Sa’id ad-Dawla*, Deputy Governor under his father of the district of Sarab, was reliably reported to have met a certain Nariman Narimanov (who later emerged as Chairman of the Council of Commissars of the Soviet Republic of Azarbayjan in Baku) and to have undertaken to procure the assassination of Vusuq ad-Dawla and the Russian commander of the Persian Cossack Division, Colonel Starosselsky. The Passion Play I have already, in the first chapter, referred briefly to the origins of the great schism that has ever since divided the world of Islam into the two major factions of Sunni and Shi‘a. Of the protagonists in the struggle for the office of successor to the Prophet, Ali was murdered in the mosque at Kufa on the Lower Euphrates in the year 661, his elder son Hasan died in 669, and Mu‘awiya died in 680 to be succeeded by his son Yazid. The Sunni and Shi‘a versions of the events that followed differ profoundly, but here we are concerned only with the Shi‘a tradition. Immediately on his accession Yazid called upon Husayn to acknowledge him as Caliph. Husayn however, encouraged by messages and assurances he had been receiving from Iraq that the people were ready to rise against Umayyad rule as soon as he appeared among them, set out from Mecca for Kufa, a march of 800 miles [1 300 km] as the crow

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flies across the desert, taking with him his three sons, his half-brother Abbas and a number of other relations, most of them accompanied by their women and children, together with a few devoted adherents. As, at the end of the long and arduous journey, they approached the Euphrates, as far from being joined and welcomed by the people they were intercepted at Karbala, a few miles north of Kufa, by a large force sent out by the Governor and effectively cut off from access to the water. After a whole week of fruitless negotiations battle was joined at dawn on the tenth day of Muharram. By noon all the able-bodied men of the little party had been killed, the last to fall being Husayn himself, killed by one of the leaders of the Umayyad host named Shimr. The only male member of the family to survive was Husayn’s second son, Zayn al-Abidin, who had been confined to his bed by sickness and had been forbidden by his father to go out and fight as he had wished. The severed heads of the dead were sent with the prisoners, most of them women and children, to Yazid at Damascus. The episodes, or scenes, of the traditional Persian Passion Play represent for the most part the sufferings of the members of this ill-fated expedition in the days leading up to, and immediately following, the supreme tragedy of the martyrdom of the Imam Husayn on the field of Karbala in that year, 680. At Qazvin they were staged in a large takya, or oratory, consisting of quadrangular court enclosed by buildings two storeys high. A large platform was erected over the tank in the middle, with a smaller platform to one side. The ground space was roped off into squares to ensure the separation of the sexes. A corridor about three yards wide was kept free round the platform for the entrances and exits of the players and the passage of processions. When I joined my host in the reserved enclosure all the roof-space and most of the rooms (or perhaps one should say ‘boxes’) were already crowded with women, a sea of black cloaks and white veils, with their small children; but men occupied the boxes on one side and most of the roped-off ‘pit’. From our coign of vantage in the ‘orchestra stalls’ we could see a number of caparisoned horses near the far left-hand corner of the stage, matched by camels on the far right. Nearer to us on the left was the band, consisting of a trumpeter, a cymbalist and a drummer but supported by more drummers in a second-storey box, their duty being to blare out blasts of cacophonous discords at appropriate moments, especially entrances and exits. The episode chosen for that day, the ninth of Muharram, was the arrival at Damascus of the prisoners; but first there was to be a prologue and a curtain-raiser.

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Punctually at ten o’clock the producer, a dignified figure resplendent with henna-dyed beard, tall barrel-shaped Astrakhan cap, flowing aba and silver-knobbed staff of office, steps on the boards, where he remains for most of the performance, marshalling the actors and generally directing the proceedings. He waves his staff, the band strikes up its obligato, and a procession of small boys dressed as Arab women in sombre cloaks and headdresses marches round the stage several times before they range themselves, two on the smaller platform and the rest on the main stage, to intone in antiphon the threnody that sets the scene. The curtain-raiser shows Yazid in his palace at Damascus with an old courtier named Amr ibn al-Asi (a wily politician who had contributed to the outwitting of Ali by Mu‘awiya at a critical moment early in the struggle for the Caliphate), and a clerk wearing a helmet and a coat of mail of the kind familiar to collectors. He calls for a copy of the Koran and proceeds to consult it by a chance selection of a passage (istikhāra), in the manner of the sortes Virgilianae, as to whether he should send orders to his army to attack Husayn and his party. The divination is unfavourable, but despite the entreaties of Amr he is about to try again when he suddenly feels faint. Having substituted a skull-cap for the out-size turban, he takes to his bed and sends for the doctor. The physician duly arrives on horseback, carrying a large umbrella. He introduces himself in a series of lines, each of which provokes roars of laughter from the assembled multitude, giving details of his training and how he took his ‘deeploom’ at Siyahdihan, a village on the Hamadan road about twenty miles south-west of Qazvin. He then goes up on to the stage and, starting by feeling the patient’s pulse with his two thumbs, examines him all over. Amid continued outbursts of delighted merriment he diagnoses the trouble as one that attacks only brute beasts, never human beings, and prescribes remedies made up of enormous quantities of extraordinary ingredients, not flinching from anachronisms such as the inclusion of potatoes. A small boy is sent to buy them from a grocer’s stall in the corner piled with parcels of various sizes and colours, among them a cone of sugar wrapped in the familiar blue paper of imports from Belgium. The comic relief is now over. Yazid is seated on a dais representing his palace. To the usual fanfare by the band Shimr arrives on horseback. He is wearing a coat of mail over a red shirt and, under the helmet, his face is made up to look particularly brutish and repugnant.

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Brandishing a lance surmounted by an ill-proportioned representation in wood of a human head, he declaims a boastful description of the battle and how he himself hacked the body of Husayn to pieces. The lamentations which had accompanied the prologue are now resumed in a heart-rending crescendo of sobbing and wailing of thousands of voices. The report concluded, Yazid gives orders for Zayn al-Abidin and the other prisoners to be brought to Damascus. In the meantime at Karbala, in the confusion that follows the battle, Husayn’s young daughter, Rukayya, becomes separated from the others and, worn out by wandering to and fro in the featureless desert, lies down to sleep. The wraith of Husayn, wearing a green turban but otherwise enveloped in a wrapping of pink gauze (the conventional indication of incorporeality), enters. He bends over the sleeping child, feels her arms and her feet as if to make sure that she has received no hurt, seems to comfort her in response to her tearful cries of despair and longing for her father, and embraces her time and time again, each embrace stirring the audience to fresh manifestations of distress until, just as her anxious relations stumble upon her, she wakes to find it has all been a dream. At that moment a galaxy of angels wearing golden crowns and draped in pink gauze, appears in a gallery behind us, among them the archangel Gabriel, similarly but more elaborately attired. He is rested in a small car and is let down a few feet on wires stretched from the gallery to the stage. Supernatural aid is offered to the travellers but is refused, for the fate that awaits them, whatever it may be, has been foreordained. It is now time to return to Yazid’s palace at Damascus. The prisoners, mounted on camels, are brought in by a posse of mail-clad soldiers on horseback, each carrying a severed human head on his lance. As they are led forward on feet, Zayn al-Abidin in chains, the women manacled with ropes, Shimr lashes them one and all savagely with his whip. Zayn al-Abidin, now the rightful Fourth Imam, is condemned to death, and Shimr is about to cut his throat when a deus ex machina arrives in the form of a Frankish Ambassador. He is wearing an oldfashioned Austrian peaked uniform-cap of blue and gold, a sardari with large epaulettes, and Russian top-boots; he is accompanied by an adjutant in a less elaborate uniform with a high sun-helmet of the French colonial type, worn back to front. The Ambassador, clearly a professional actor, has a magnificent voice and, like Yazid, knows his

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part by heart (the others generally recite their roles from the script). He takes his place on the palace-dais with Yazid. The head of Husayn is brought in on a brass charger, and the story of this death is retold. The Ambassador pleads for the reprieve of Zayn al-Abidin, at first without success, until finally he concludes a long and harrowing apostrophe addressed to the lifeless head by reciting the Muslim confession of faith in token of his conversion to Islam. Throughout this scene the onlookers have been working themselves up into an agony of frantic grief, until their lamentations now reach their climax in a swelling diapason of wailing and sobbing led by the producer himself, bent over his staff in the middle of the stage, beating his breast, pouring dust over his head and wiping the tears from his eyes, his whole frame shaken by paroxysms of uncontrollable emotion. That was the last play of the series, for the tenth day was reserved for those wild displays of popular mourning which were frowned upon by the better educated classes but which few had dared to denounce in public. From an early hour the processions, organized by the merchants and other richer residents of the different quarters of the town, converged on the takya. Each was led by groups of boys carrying poles with banners of various kinds, some of them of elaborate tapestry work and said to be valuable, stretched on triangular frames, and surmounted by the shape of a human hand cut out in flat metal, this representing the hand lost by Abbas early in the battle at Karbala. The banners were followed by the various persons and properties seen in the plays: horsemen leading caparisoned yadaks, women and children perched on camels or carried in kajavas on mules, biers showing the bloody neck and shoulders of headless corpses, mounted soldiers each with a severed human head held aloft on his lance, and a lion (looking more like a teddy-bear) throwing dust over his head and kissing a corpse which, according to the legend, it had saved from the supreme atrocity of being burnt. Bringing up the rear marched columns of men and boys, some in white shirts stained with blood and going through the motions of gashing their shaven heads with swords (and indeed, in some cases, actually doing so severely enough in their excitement for watchful policemen to intervene and disarm them before they could do themselves irreparable harm), others, with large parts of their

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shirts cut away, lashing their bare backs with chains. These exercises were accompanied by the monotonous chanting of the names Hasan, Husayn, Hasan, Husayn, Hasan, because, although he died eleven years earlier, he is said to have been poisoned at the instigation of Mu‘awiya and so ranks as second only to Husayn in the list of martyrs of the legitimist struggle against the usurping Umayyads.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

GILAN AND KHAMSA The Caspian coastlands differ from all other parts of Persia by reason of the abundance of the rainfall (an annual average of 56 inches [142 cm] at Rasht as compared with about 9 [22 cm] at Tehran and 11 [28 cm] at Bushire), the extent of fresh surface water, and the humidity of the air. The province of Gilan extends around the south-west corner of this great inland sea, first southwards from the frontier of Transcaucasian Azarbayjan, and then eastwards to about the meridian of Tehran. The country falls into three distinct zones: first, the coastal plain of varying width, sometimes thickly wooded, sometimes a patchwork of jungle alternating with villages, rice-fields and orchards, and ordinarily called by the local people ‘Gilan’ in a restricted, topographical sense; second, the forest-covered spurs runninng down eastwards and northwards from the Talish and Alburz watersheds on the west and south, in the local idiom the kulhāt; and thirdly the bare mountains above the forest line, snow-clad in winter and known simply as yaylaq, summer quarters. In the Gilan province the watershed is pierced only by the Safid Rud (the White River, the ancient Amidus) formed by the Qizil Uzun (the Red River) from the north-west and the Shah Rud (the King’s River) from the south-east. At the confluence the combined waters turn sharply north-eastwards to break through the barrier by a narrow rocky gorge before flowing on to the sea. It was in the wooded coastal plain to the west of the river that the redoubtable Kuchik Khan and his Janglis had their principal bases, but the forests to the east were also within the range of their operations. It did not take me long to decide that my first priority must be to make myself familiar with the situation in Gilan; and after eight days in Qazvin I left by car for Rasht to confer with Butters* and the A.P.O. Anzali, M. C. Warren, who, however, was due to leave for home very shortly. The road ran for the first sixty miles over bare, uninteresting hills to the Shah Rud, which it crossed by a brick bridge near the village of Lawshan. It then followed the right bank of that river for about twelve miles to the Qizil Uzun confluence near the village of Manjil. Here it was carried over the Safid Rud by a girder bridge of four spans,

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Manjil Bridge. From Fr. Rosen, Persien in Wort und Bild, Berlin/Leipzig/Wien/ Bern, Franz Schneider, 1926

and followed the left bank for another 25 miles before debouching into the coastal plain and turning away north-westwards to Rasht. Manjil, where there was a much-used marching post, had a very bad reputation with the troops. Owing to its position at the mouth of the gorge it was exposed to a violent wind blowing continuously through the funnel, so that the surrounding trees were growing bent over to an angle of 45 degrees. According to one regimental historian, L. R. Missen,1 “Ford vans were overturned, men were blown over, the air was always full of flying stones and dust, and the whole village swarmed with a vigorously offensive species of flea”. It was at Manjil, on another occasion, that I first encountered a curious superstition. I had stopped, by previous arrangement with the owner of the marching-post, to renew the rent agreement. He was just about to sign the new lease when one of the witnesses sneezed. The owner drew back his hand as if stung and looked round helplessly, wondering what to say or do. Fortunately the witness sneezed again, and all was well. I 1 [Leslie-Robert Missen, The History of the 7th Ser. Bn., Prince of Wales’s North Staffordshire Regiment, 1914–1919, Cambridge, W. Heffer & Sons, 1920.]

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met the same superstition again in Kurdistan, where they have a special word for the second sneeze that cancels the ominous implications of the first. We had followed the Safid Rud (ill named, for it was running a rich chocolate brown) for twelve miles or more through a treeless landscape when we came in sight of thickly wooded hills. Before very long we plunged into a very different type of country; and it will be only fair to allow the regimental historian take up his narrative again: “The country of Kuchik Khan was a veritable paradise. The road ran for miles through a most delightful forest. Oaks and elms, beech and poplar, willow and acacia grew in profusion. Gorgeous creepers hung from the branches and met overhead, so that we passed through a long tunnel of vegetation. The air was heavy with the scent of honeysuckle, poppies, wild roses and many other blossoms, while birds of wonderful hues flitted about in all directions”. Emerging from the forest zone we came to a region of rice-fields, blackberry hedges, green meadows with grazing cattle, thatched cottages and, here and there, corners that might almost have been an English countryside; there were also, as I was to learn later, coverts that concealed a species of pheasant not very different from our own. My first impressions of the town of Rasht, however, were not very favourable: “muddy and unattractive, with narrow cobbled streets; the air damp and sticky”. Indeed, when I came to leave eight days later, I found that any shoes that I had not worn during my stay were already covered with a greenish mildew, and whenever I had occasion to spend a few days there I was racked with rheumatic pains which, strange as it may sound, left me immediately I was back on the plateau. As regards the Jangali question, the end of the War, and the new climate of active British co-operation with the Persian Government in the work of restoring law and order throughout the country, had rendered the attitude of self-interested neutrality implicit in our bilateral “peace treaty” with Kuchik Khan of 12 August 1918 no longer tenable. In March 1919 he and his principal lieutenants had been notified accordingly, but had been offered asylum in Iraq if they were unwilling to accept the very generous terms being put to them by the Government. Two of them, Haji Ahmad and Dr. Hishmat*, had accepted the offer and surrendered with a total of 700 rifles, but Kuchik and the others had refused. In the military operations that followed British troops had co-operated by holding the main road and the town of Rasht, while the Cossacks under their Russian officers had pursued the rebels

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Hotel d’Europe at Rasht, 1918. From M. H. Donohoe, With the Persian expedition, London, Edw. Arnold, 1919, p. 64

into their forest hide-outs and succeeded in dispersing them. On the civil side a new Governor, Sardar Mu‘azzam* (who later adopted the surname of Taymurtash), had been appointed to re-establish normal administration. My discussions with the Governor, senior officials, local notables and the Russian officers left no room for doubt that, as Butters had already reported, Gilan generally was again in a bad way and that the Jangali movement had been allowed to gather strength once more. The overbearing behaviour of Sardar Mu‘azzam had alienated all classes, the execution of Dr. Hishmat by hanging had destroyed faith in Government promises, and the jungle ryots had come to prefer the mild rule of Kuchik to the oppression of the Cossacks with their regular programme of pillage and rape. The military operations, hampered by the mutual jealousies of the two senior Russian officers, one (Slavitsky) at Rasht and the other commanding in the jungle, seemed to be being conducted without any definite plan to bring them to a successful conclusion. The situation was being further complicated by a number of subversive influences from outside: Bolshevik propaganda, intrigues aiming at an Anschluss of the two Azarbayjans, a recrudescence of the pan-Islamic movement, this last now with an undercurrent of hostility to Persia itself, fostered by the Turkish missions at Ganja. These, as well as internal rebellious movements in the neighbouring provinces,

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all seemed to be finding their focus in the jungle. For every reason it seemed important to concentrate on administering the coup de grâce to Kuchik’s Jangali rebellion by every practicable means and as soon as possible. But Sardar Mu‘azzam, when pressed for his proposals, could only wring his hands and opine that the situation was beyond repair. It was therefore a great relief when on the fifth day a telegram arrived from Tehran dismissing him, and instructing him to hand over temporary charge to the Head of the Provincial Finance Department. Mirza Ahmad Khan Azari immediately set to work with all the energy and enthusiasm of a new broom, pointedly reversing the policies of his predecessor and setting out to gain the sympathy and support of the people of Rasht by a number of popular reforms. Towards the end of the month (October), in response to an urgent telegraphic request from Azari, I returned from Qazvin to attend a conference at Anzali. The proceedings opened with a luncheon party. In addition to Colonel Lyon commanding the Deoli Regiment, Butters, and myself, the guests included Slavitsky, Monsieur Hunin the Belgian director of Customs, whom I had met at Kirmanshah, and an important tribal chief from Talish, Amir Muqtadir*. At the end of the meal Muqtadir was presented with a valuable manuscript copy of the Koran, on which he swore to co-operate loyally with the Government forces. In the exchange of cordial speeches which followed, both he and Azari paid warm tribute to British support in the work of restoring order in Persia. I need not record here details of the plan of campaign as finally drawn up, much of it based on the suggestions of the tribesman, who had nothing to learn about the tactics appropriate to jungle warfare. It was not the first time that his co-operation had been invoked, but both Sardar Mu‘azzam and Starosselski*, each for his own reasons, had been unenthusiastic, with the result that only a small part of the promised arms and money had reached him. At the end of the conference I had a private talk with him and was quite favourably impressed. He seemed to appreciate that it was very much in his own interest to see the Jangali power liquidated before ‘the danger from the north’ (of which he had started by warning me) became more serious.2

2 Tribally Amir Muqtadir was chief of only one, the third, of the Khamsa-i Tavalish, the Five Ridings of Talish (Karganrud, Asalim, Talish Dulab, Shandarmin, Masal); but at times when, here as elsewhere, the Central Government found it expedient to have a ‘bullet-proof’ local man in charge, he had been recognized as Deputy Governor of the whole.

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Unfortunately I never had time to visit the district, but during my first stay in Rasht I received a call from the Khan of Asalim, a talkative little man, and recorded a good deal of information about it. Topographically, although very narrow, it resembled the rest of the Caspian provinces: the shore, a steamy belt of villages and rice fields backing on to thick jungle, the less thickly wooded slopes, and finally the yaylaq, a land of cool air and flowing streams. The religion of the population was mixed Sunni and Shi‘a but, my informant assured me, there was no sectarian bitterness; mixed marriages were common and there was no rule as to which parent children were to follow; he himself was Shi‘a, his sister was Sunni but her husband was Shi‘a. Amir Muqtadir was a Sunni and some of the Sunnis belonged to the mystical Qadiri order of dervishes. Contiguous to Gilan on the south-west lay the small province of Khamsa, so called, like the Punjab, after its five rivers. The administrative centre was Zanjan, on the Azarbayjan road, 105 miles from Qazvin and 180 from Tabriz. The Governor was sometimes subordinate to the governor-General of Azarbayjan and sometimes independent, but in practice this made little difference. Khamsa was dominated by an important tribal chieftain, Jahanshah Khan Amir Afshar*, head of the largest section of the widespread tribe from which he took his title. The Afshar, a Turki-speaking stock, had formerly been nomadic; but they were now settled in their traditional winter quarters in the extreme south-west of the province towards Bijar, where their day-today affairs were administered by an agent styled Il-begi. The Amir’s prestige and power, however, derived chiefly from his ownership or control of some ninety of its villages, about two-thirds of the total, a large proportion of the inhabitants of these being Tat, speaking not Turki but a dialect of Persian. More than once, to cope with a crisis, he had been officially appointed Acting Governor. Before our time the old man (who claimed to be ninety-years-old but was probably nearer eighty) had fallen foul of the Russians and had been exiled to Baghdad. When our troops took over the main road he had been allowed to return and, after a period of quite understandable hesitation, had decided that the British horse was the safest one to back. He had been on good terms with my predecessor, indeed it was he that supplied the half dozen Persian mounted orderlies on the P.O.’s establishment, and since my arrival he had not ceased to bombard me with letters urging me to visit Khamsa at the earliest possible

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moment, since there were many important matters which he wished to report and discuss. The Norperforce detachment had been withdrawn from Zanjan in June. The Persian forces in the region consisted for the most part of raw conscripts from the ‘regular’ army recently absorbed into the Cossack Division, and security on the main roads was being maintained by Qarasuran supplied by Amir Afshar. But for some weeks past intelligence reports had been coming in of disorders on the northern and north-eastern borders of the province as well as in Azarbayjan, and of all manner of conspiracies ascribed to emissaries from the Caucasus, Sā‘id ad-Dawla*, and collaborators with Kuchik Khan. General Champain, accordingly, arranged for two aircraft (Major Robinson and Lieut. Jacks pilots, and Burn-Murdoch as one passenger) to make a demonstration-reconnaissance over the troubled areas, landing at Zanjan, Tabriz and Urmiya to pay courtesy calls on the Governors. The requisite supplies of petrol and oil were sent forward by land in advance and, since the aerodromes were not in regular use, the Governors were requested to ensure that they were put in a fit state to allow the aircraft to land. At the same time it was agreed that I should travel by road to Zanjan, stopping on the way to visit Amir Afshar at his village of Karasf some 45 miles to the south.3 Midhat as-Saltana had just received his telegram of dismissal, and I had lent him my Ford touring car to take him back in dignity and comfort to Tehran; so I set out in a wireless lorry borrowed from the military. The Tabriz track, unmetalled but fit for wheels, branched off from the main highway at the large village of Siyahdihan. At the first considerable village after crossing into Khamsa I was greeted and entertained to lunch by a representative of the Amir, who had arranged for me to lodge that night at Sultaniyya as the guest of his chief of Qarasuran. We were still several miles from our destination when the great blue-tiled dome of the huge mosque, the Gumbad-i Shah Khudabanda, for which the place is famous, loomed up over the horizon, and I was glad to arrive long enough before sunset to have time to examine it. The Mongol city of Sultaniyya was founded by Arghun Khan, grandson of Hulaku, and was completed by Arghun’s son, Uljaytu surnamed

3 [This visit lasted from 6th to 11th Nov. (Kazvin division, report for November 1919, archives of the MEC, St Antony’s College Oxford).]

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Khudabanda (reg. 1304–1316), who made it the capital of the Il-Khan dynasty of Persia and, among other things, exchanged letters with King Edward II of England. But of the once magnificent city only the mosque now remained. According to a local tradition Khudabanda built it to be the mausoleum for the remains of the Imam Ali, which he planned to bring from Najaf; but he died before he could accomplish his object. Another version adds that he was buried there himself, but there was now no sign of the tomb. It would take a professional architect to do justice to this remarkable monument; in any case I believe that it has been restored in recent years and the rough notes I made of its condition at that time can now have no value. On the morrow, accompanied by Asif-i Akram, the Amir’s steward who had been sent with a phaeton to meet me, I left for Karasf. The afternoon was well advanced when we arrived. On the outskirts I was welcomed by the Amir’s grandson, and bowing villagers lined both sides of the road. A sheep was slaughtered in my path before I had time to stop it. The Amir’s only surviving son, Sardar Fatih, who was waiting at the entrance of the guest-house to do the honours, explained that his father’s custom was to sleep the whole afternoon (I presumed after the daily pipe of opium) and to get up only at midnight, after which he would be alert and active until noon the next day. I was ushered into a room furnished with a number of chairs and a table loaded with plates of various delicacies: pomegranates, manna from Isfahan, cakes and sweets of several kinds, together with a vast array of drinks including two bottles of champagne, two of brandy, one of whisky, two of claret, and three or four of local wines. Sardar Fatih being a dull creature with little to say for himself, Asif-i Akram took charge. A lively and knowledgeable talker, I was evidently not the first British officer to form this opinion, for before very long he proudly produced for inspection a certificate addressed (apparently by a wit of a Dunsterforce party) to him as ‘Very good Cheerio Esq., C.M.G., D.S.O., M.C. LL.D., B.A. etc.’. Dinner when it came was a gargantuan meal, and I was fain to cry ‘enough’ after the eighth course, although there was more to come. The guest-house had its own small Turkish bath, a welcome refinement. Karasf was a typical village of those parts, well-built, prosperous, with extensive walled vineyards on two sides. Several streams flowed through the village and adjoining orchards southwards to a pretty glen thick with trees of all kinds. There were several waterfalls supplying

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power for a number of mills, where there always seemed to be groups of villagers with their mules delivering grain or loading flour. Beyond these were the usual lines of the tall, graceful poplars that supply timber for building. I spent five nights at Karasf, and so saw quite a lot of my host. He complained that his period of exile in Baghdad and anxiety about the damage done to his properties by the Russians during his absence had ruined his health, but this did not appear to have prejudiced his alertness of mind or indeed his physical energy. I had my longest business talk with him the first morning when he came in early to bid me welcome, for on the next three days we were out riding before sunrise, twice for a day’s hawking and once shooting pig. It was not immediately clear exactly why he had been pressing so hard for my visit; but he was worried by a campaign against him in the Tehran press, and uneasy about the Government’s intentions. He alleged that the Crown Prince,4 when he was recalled in August from the GovernorGeneralship of Azarbayjan to act for the Shah during the royal visit to Europe, had done his best to stir up trouble for his successor, and that Sipah Salar in his turn, as I doubtless knew, had now been doing exactly the same. The old man’s anxiety had not been diminished by the hearty invitation, extended to him by Sipah Salar when he passed through Zanjan, to visit him in Tehran; for it was not unknown for powerful tribal chieftains on holiday in the capital to die unexpectedly of a surfeit of ‘Qajar broth’. In spite of his years and of his manifold responsibilities and preoccupations, the old gentleman seemed to live for hawking, hunting and shooting. Hounds of various kinds and hawks on their stands were always in evidence on the verandahs. Hawks, he explained, are of two kinds, yellow-eyed (short-winged) and black-eyed (long-winged). Of the former there are three varieties: qizil (goshawk) which breeds in Persia; tarlan (goshawk) which breeds in Russia north of the Caspian, migrates to Persia and Iraq, and is considered the ‘nobler’ (najībtar) of the two; and qirqi (sparrow-hawk). Immediately after capture the eyelids of the yellow-eyed hawk are sewn together for twenty-four hours, during which time it is stroked and fondled continuously so that it shall become accustomed to human beings. The stitches are 4 [Muhammad-Hasan Mirzā, 1899–1943, brother of Ahmad Shāh. The royal journey to London took place in October 1919.]

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then removed, and it is gradually trained to come to the falconer when called to the lure, at first secured by a string but then quite free. When it will come from almost any distance in response to the call, it is ready for the chase; this kind is never hooded; its usual quarry is pigeon, hillpartridge, quail, duck or hare; the qizil will bring back a duck that has fallen into the water after the swoop. He also mentioned three varieties of the black-eyed falcon, which is normally kept hooded: lāchīn (peregrine), utalgī (saker) and charkh (eyass of saker); the usual quarry of both is the lesser bustard; the saker is also trained to hunt gazelle.

Amir Afshar. From Edmonds’s albums, Archives of the MEC, St Antony’s College, Oxford

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Amir Afshar with grandsons, dogs, hawks. From Edmonds’s albums, Archives of the MEC, St Antony’s College, Oxford

On the second morning we rode out in state, well before sunrise, with a number of horsemen in front and behind, the falconer, also mounted, with a goshawk on his gauntleted wrist, several servants on foot with the dogs, a crowd of villagers armed with sticks and staves to beat, and made for a ridge some way from the village, where we dismounted. It was a lovely morning in glorious rolling country. At first the landscape seemed to be wrapped in a diaphanous veil of pink, until the sun rose over the eastern horizon, the shimmering hay of the hillsides lit up as with a yellow flame, and the jagged crests of more distant ranges stood out in sharp silhouette against the cloudless sky. We had not been waiting long before the beaters put up a partridge. But the falconer committed the cardinal error of jerking his arm to try to set the hawk off before she had picked up the quarry. Eventually she flew, but fruitlessly, and the falconer had to run down the mountain side and some distance up the slope opposite before retrieving her. The old Amir stood leaning on his stick shouting instructions across the echoing valley. Before the falconer had come very far on his return journey another bird got up, and this time the hawk, following it along a line of willows, made no mistake. The falconer, when he reached us, was roundly abused for his ineptitude over the first flight, and the

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Amir himself took over the hawk. The third flight was also successful, but the partridge had wheeled round the spur and we did not see the kill. The fourth and last was the most spectacular of the day. This time the dogs at the bottom of the slope put up the quarry, which flew across our front. The hawk was off like a flash, swooping first low to the ground and then up again; a ding-dong chase followed until the hawk again took the upper position and ‘trussed’ its victim at about the level of a line of poplars. We spent the next two mornings in much the same exhilarating way, riding out to a pretty village called Qarakush, where the Amir had built himself a fine hunting-box in park-like surroundings, and, on the last day, hawking again. These lovely autumn days the old man called bahār-i ‘urafā, which I will venture to translate ‘Epicureans’ spring’: “for”, said he, “in what is generally called spring the weather, if no good, is no better; it is a close season for sport and the fruits of the earth are not yet ripe for our enjoyment, whereas at this time of year we have everything to delight the heart”. Our second day’s hawking had been a long one in higher country (on the way out we had seen a magnificent herd of moufflon), and, as though to excuse his own weariness, he suggested that I must be tired. When I denied this hotly he dropped into the familiar second person singular: “No, of course not; thou can’st not be much over thirty (I had in fact celebrated my thirtieth birthday on the road to Rasht just a fortnight earlier); know the value of youth; when, if God wills, thou has grown as old as I have, thou wilt understand what I mean; there is in old age that which makes one regret one’s youth; avoid two things, wine and tobacco; all my ills I ascribe to those two things in which I indulged over freely in my youth; thou sayest that I am unusually hale and hearty for my ninety years; perhaps, but I abandoned those two things many years ago”. From Karasf I went on to Zanjan, a two days journey by carriage. The Governor had spared no pains to organize an impressive istiqbal. Two or three miles out I was met by his Deputy, a number of notables in carriages, others on horseback, a mounted police escort, and two led chargers caparisoned in scarlet, and we entered by the Qazvin gate in clouds of choking dust. Situated at an altitude of 5,400 feet [1 646 m], on the right bank of a tributary of the Qizil Uzun, Zanjan was an attractive town of some 20,000 inhabitants, with a number of blue tiles domes and minarets standing out above the flat roofs and,

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inside the walls, several handsome mosques and caravansarais, wellstocked bazaars, many of the larger houses set in gardens, and extensive orchards down by the river. I spent two days at the Chihil Sutun as the Governor’s guest, receiving and returning calls in the usual way and, of course, finding out as much as I could about the local situation and problems. Ziya ad-Dawla was an elderly man of the old school and obviously not very efficient, but he was friendly and anxious to oblige. I took the opportunity to try to improve his relations with Amir Afshar, impressing upon him that, for all the old man’s annoying foibles, he was an important factor in the preservation of law and order, the prime consideration at the moment, and so a condition of his own success as Governor. The visit of the two aircraft had gone off well, and the effects of the reconnaissance were already beginning to make themselves felt. It was only later that I learned from Burn-Murdoch how embarrassed the pilots had been, as they circled over the town, to find the air-field thronged with spectators and, close beside the centre circle, His Excellency the Governor, senior officials, a row of chairs, several tables laden with tea and sweetmeats, and, close by, a pile of seven drums of petrol. Robinson had managed to land somehow and to get the field cleared sufficiently for Jacks to follow in a more normal manner. At Tabriz, also they received a royal welcome, and I cannot forbear to quote a short extract from his detailed report on the exercise. A large gathering had assembled at the aerodrome including Mr. Bristow, British Consul, the Acting Governor-General Sardar Mu‘tazid, Prince Muhammad Vali Provincial Director of Finance, and Captain Hayne commanding detachment of 67th Punjabis. A guard of the Punjabis, helped by local gendarmes, was keeping the aerodrome clear. After the usual compliments the Sardar said he wished to honour us with a march past of the Persian forces in Tabriz . . . First came a section of guns which I should not have liked to be near when they were fired, then six bodies of infantry and some cavalry, altogether some three hundred and fifty men, led by a large brass band. The troops marched quite well, and were decently clothed in a grey or brown uniform of rough cloth. After the ceremony we left for the Consul’s house in the Sardar’s phaeton. We did not, however, arrive in the same carriage in which we started, for on the way we overtook the returning troops and the band, which the Sardar’s two horses did not like at all. The coachman protested to the bandmaster, who paid no attention, and the frightened horses suddenly leaped off the road with the carriage into a nice large ditch. We all jumped out just in time and neither we nor the horses were hurt, but even now the

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CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

TRANSCAUCASIAN INTERLUDE It was evident that the whole political situation in North-West Persia was being profoundly affected by events in the new Transcaucasian republics and the policies of their governments. There were also several questions of an administrative nature requiring urgent attention, among them the threat of Georgia and Azarbayjan, where there was a serious shortage of food, to expel all aliens not employed on productive labour. The Persian Government was prepared to admit its own subjects, but not foreigners; in any case the measures, sanitary and other, required to deal with a flood of refugees would be a heavy and costly burden. It would also be of direct concern to Norperforce. Towards the end of November (1919), Vusuq ad-Dawla appointed a special Mission to visit the republics, report on the situation, and prepare the way for the establishment of diplomatic relations. It passed through Qazvin on the 28th, and its leader, Sayyid Ziya ad-Din Tabataba’i (Sayyid Ziya* for short), whom I knew by reputation as the courageous and outspoken proprietor and editor of a Tehran newspaper, Ra‘d (Thunder),1 called with a letter of introduction from Walter Smart, the Oriental Secretary of the Legation. The Mission included two representatives of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, one each from the Ministries of Posts and of Education, and also two military members, Captain Kazim* Khan, a graduate of the Military Staff College at Constantinople, and a Major Mas‘ud*. From Baku, whither the seat of the Azarbayjan Government had been transferred after the Turkish capture of the city in September 1918, it was to go on to Tiflis, Erevan and Nakhichevan; and expected to be absent about three months. The Sayyid told me a good deal about his hopes and plans, adding that he was anxious to have British support in his task, and that he was looking forward to working closely with his old friend, Colonel Stokes, now Political Officer at Baku. I took an immediate liking to him, and

1 More than once, when Ra‘d was suspended for publishing matter distasteful to the government of the day, the editor got round the ban by issuing his paper on the morrow under some cognate name such as Lightning or Storm.

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I think the feeling was reciprocated. The actual collection of information from Transcaucasia was the business of the Military Intelligence Officer at Anzali, Captain G. C. Crutchley, a very competent Russian scholar with a Russian wife. But, now that diplomatic relations were to be established between Persia and the republics, it seemed to me desirable to make contact with my opposite number at Baku; and I promised to seek authority to come over as soon as possible. Eleven days later, accordingly, I left Qazvin intending to spend two nights in Rasht on the way in order to bring myself up to date with the Jangali situation. I was, however, held up at Anzali for four days. General Denikin’s White Army had been defeated in South Russia and had retreated to the Caucasus. It appeared that he, or his local commander at Petrovsk, had declared a blockade of Azarbayjan and had seized one of the Baku ships; the Azarbayjan authorities, in consequence, were afraid to send their finest vessel, the Kurs, to sea, and I should have to await the arrival of the much smaller S.S. Tamara. The delay enabled me to meet a distinguished Persian citizen, Arfa ad-Dawla*, father of the General Arfa who, after a distinguished military career, settled down in England and published two interesting books of memoirs in English: Under five Shahs, and The Kurds. A highly cultivated and polished dilettante, Arfa ad-Dawla had served his country as Ambassador in Constantinople and, after retiring to Monte Carlo, had built himself and furnished in the oriental style a mansion which in later years housed a museum of Persian arts and crafts. He gave me a great deal of valuable information about what I must expect to find in Azarbayjan, and spoke appreciatively of the help he had received on his way through the Caucasus from Oliver Wardrop, our High Commissioner at Tiflis, and from Stokes at Baku. I had asked the Embarkation Staff Officer to make sure that I should be alone for the crossing, reserving both bunks of a two-berth cabin if necessary. When I went on board I found that two bunks had indeed been booked in my name, but in a four-berth cabin, and that the other two bunks had been allotted to a Russian lady and her teen-aged daughter. When, having undressed discreetly in the dark, we had all settled between the sheets, the party was completed by the night-duty stewardess, who proceeded to make herself comfortable in the fourth bunk. At Baku Stokes had arranged accommodation for me at the guesthouse, kept by an Englishwoman, where he was staying. Here I met Edmund Monson, the new First Secretary, and Brigadier-General

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Hubert Huddleston*, of the British Military Mission, on their way to Tehran, as well as the newly-arrived Military Intelligence Officer, Major G. Connal Rowan. I had five whole days in Baku and found it rather difficult to adapt myself to the hours kept by the Russian element, and Stokes with them; everything seemed to be four hours late. One evening when I went to keep an appointment for 11 p.m. at a restaurant, I arrived to find the lights still dimmed, the chairs piled on each other, and no waiters yet on duty. Circumstances were not favourable for sight-seeing even if there had been time, but one night we enjoyed a performance of Boris Goudunov at the opera with an impressive bass in the name part. The Government of Azarbayjan was headed by the Minister-President, Nasir Yusufbegov, leader of the Musavat party, which had the largest representation in the Assembly, twenty-seven out of ninety-five

C. B. Stokes. From M. Shuster, The Strangling of Persia, New York, The Century Co., 1912

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occupied seats. The name, meaning Equality, was purely conventional and had no particular significance; its politics could be described as moderate nationalist, standing for independence and orderly administration. Even with the assured support of eleven independents there was no overall majority, and the Cabinet was an incoherent coalition. The Bolsheviks and various Turkish organizations were in unholy and unnatural alliance, and it would have taken only a slight shifting of the balance in the Assembly to upset the Government. Denikin was regarded as the greatest menace to independence, and Yusufbegov realized that in case of aggression from that quarter he would be obliged to appeal to both Turks and Bolsheviks for help against the common enemy. The Turks, in particular, were very active and enjoyed the support of the pan-Islamic Ittihad party, the second largest in the Assembly; Turkish officers were training two separate armies, the volunteers and the conscripts, of which only the second was controlled by the Ministry of War. The situation in the small sister Muslim republic of Daghistan on the Caspian immediately to the north, which was resisting the encroachments of Denikin’s Volunteer Army from Petrovsk, and where a highranking Turkish General, Nuri Pasha, with a number of officers was firmly established, was much the same. Both governments were on the horns of a cruel dilemma. Commodore Norris’s Caspian Navy had been handed over to Denikin some months previously, before his collapse. The defection of the Volunteer Fleet, which now seemed only too probable, would give the Bolsheviks control of the sea, with unimpeded access to both Daghistan and Baku, where their local supporters would already be poised to overthrow the respective nationalist administrations in anticipation of the arrival of the Red Army. During my five days stay I spent many hours all told with Sayyid Ziya, for he was keeping in close and constant touch with Stokes, often over lunch or dinner. On arrival he had been received by the government with great ceremony. The banquet of welcome happened to fall on the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad and, in the speeches, the coincidence had inspired warm references to the religious ties between the two countries, and to the illustrious ancestry of the Persian envoy. As he told us of his negotiations with Yusufbegov, I could not help likening his approach to that of a possessive mother, conscious of her superior resources, demanding nothing directly of her grown-up daughter (for Azarbayjan had been part of Persia until annexed by

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Russia in 1805), but expecting her dutifully to accept the advice, and meet the wishes of her parent. Among the first questions to be broached had been the Persian desire for a rectification of the frontier with the Caucasian republics by the transfer of Nakhichevan and the Lankuran enclave, the first on religious and the second on strategic grounds. The MinisterPresident had raised no objection to the first (not surprisingly, for, though predominantly Muslim and occupied at the moment by the Turks, it was in the province of Armenia), but had been less tractable about Lankuran, which was on the Arzarbayjan side of the boundary between the two republics; again not surprisingly. In the longer term the Persian Government was hoping to see a friendly confederation of the three republics, linked by ties of sentiment, interest and gratitude to their southern neighbour, rather than a possible alternative that had been canvassed, namely that Tatar Azarbayjan should be united with Persian in a customs and postal union while retaining its autonomy for local affairs. In this connexion Sayyid Ziya told me that he was now satisfied that the propaganda for the annexation of Persian Azarbayjan to its Caucasian namesake that had been circulating in Gilan and Khamsa emanated, not from the Musavat Government but from Turkish and Bolshevik sources. It was also hoped that the various Khanates of Transcaspia might be united in a similar friendly confederation; but that, of course, was not the business of the Envoy to Transcaucasia at the moment. At the less exalted administrative level, agreement was being sought to the opening of schools for the benefit of the large Persian colonies in the republic, and also, pending its admission as an independent state to the Universal Postal Union, of Persian post-offices in certain towns. But the Persian negotiators complained that ministers and civil servants were so inexperienced, and so unused to taking decisions, that it was quite impossible to discuss seriously the practical steps required for the realization of any project however simple. I had seen an example of this myself on the first day when I went with Stokes down to the quai to see off Monson and Huddleston on their way to Tehran: nobody was prepared to authorize the ship to sail, and it was only after Stokes had telephoned from the harbour-master’s office to the Minister-President himself that permission was given. After any particularly interesting development I generally ran up to Tehran for a day or two, in order to report personally to the Minister.

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This time my visit coincided with the New Year, and lasted eight days. I was naturally drawn into many of the usual seasonal festivities, and my outstanding memory of these is of the ovation accorded at the International Cub’s New Year’s Eve Ball to Sir Percy Cox when (like all the other Heads of Diplomatic Missions) he was called upon to speak. His imposing presence and manifest authority, his dignity and invariably quiet and courteous manner, as well as his standing with the Persian Government, all combined to make him, if not technically Doyen of the Diplomatic Corps, the outstanding personality of the foreign community to whom all looked up for leadership and counsel. But it was not untypical of such occasions, and perhaps some unedited notes from my diary and a letter home will serve as well as anything to convey an idea of what they entailed. Dec. 30.

Motored to Tehran without mishap; put up with Mallet* and Baxter*. Dec. 31. Discussed Transcaucasia with Sir P. Cox, and lunched with him. Jan. 1, 1920. A big dinner at the Club last night. N., B. and I were guests of Batterine of the Russian Legation. Plenty of alcohol flowing. I hardly missed a single dance. At midnight more champagne and Auld Lang Syne; then supper and more champagne. The American Minister, who had evidently dined very well, constituted himself Master of Ceremonies. All the Heads of Diplomatic Missions were called upon to make speeches. Cox had a great ovation. The party broke up between 2 and 3 a.m. . . . Paid series of calls, dropping cards, in accordance with local custom; found the French Minister at home.

On the business side I saw Azari and Starosselsky several times to discuss the operations against the Jangalis, and one evening I accompanied Cox to report my news and views about Transcaucasia to the Prime Minister, who was worried by the recent successes of the Bolsheviks and the collapse of Denikin. I was also amused to learn from Huddleston that his first inspection of the arsenal had revealed many cases of machinery which had been lying unopened for years, and that the only section functioning was the fireworks department. On 14 January the de-facto independence of Georgia and Azarbayjan was recognized by the Supreme Allied Council in Paris. A diplomatic representative of Azarbayjan, Adil Khan, had already been appointed to Tehran, and had reached Qazvin on the 13th. There was a slight

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British Legation in Tehran. From Edmonds’s albums, Archives of the MEC, St Antony’s College, Oxford

contretemps when, owing to some misunderstanding, the womenfolk of the Caucasian Tajirbashi (chief merchant), at whose house he was to lodge, received him and his suite with screams of abuse and even stones, and refused to admit them. After the necessary explanations the matter was smoothed over and, on the earnest intercession of the envoy, the sons of the Tajirbashi, who were to have been bastinadoed for their part in the demonstration, were pardoned. I happened to be with the Governor when news was brought that the party was safely installed, and he suggested that we should go together to call. After an exchange of civilities in the open guest-room we retired with Adil Khan and his Counsellor to a private apartment. Nizam as-Sultan made a long speech on Anglo-Persian co-operation and the advantage to Azarbayjan of a policy of friendship with our two countries. The Envoy replied that his people prized above everything their newlyacquired treasure of freedom; they were enemies of those who tried to rob them of it, and the friends of all who might help them to preserve it; historically they regarded Persia as their own mother, and England as the mother of the free; they were grateful to the British Government for having laid down a line south of which Denikin would not

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be allowed to come. The arrival of the Azarbayjan representative was greeted with great enthusiasm by the Tehran press. On 23 January the Armenian Committee in Erevan was recognized as a de-facto Government, without reference to territorial boundaries. The possibility was then under consideration of an American mandate for a Greater Armenia, to comprise not only former Russian territory but also a large part of northern Anatolia (ideas later set out in the abortive Treaty of Sèvres signed in August 1920, but rejected by the United States Senate and rendered unpracticable in any case by the rise of the Bolshevik power and the Turkish revolution under Mustafa Kemal. Since my return from Baku I had been keeping in close touch with Stokes, and towards the end of January I was startled to receive from him a letter dated the 22nd, from which I must quote the following extract: I hope you will forgive me if a suggestion I made is accepted and you find yourself taking on my job at Baku. I have been telegraphed for urgently from home, as both my parents are seriously ill. I have accordingly asked for leave . . . Wardrop has supported my application, and telegraphed to Tehran asking for you to be sent to replace me. I shall be very sorry if this idea does not appeal to you, but I think you could do great work here, assisted, as I am, by Sayyid Ziya. . . . Tomorrow I am giving the Government a banquet to celebrate recognition. Mr. Wardrop is, I am glad to say, coming over for it, so I shall get out of speech-making. Recognition has given great satisfaction here, although the Socialists and Bolsheviks are grateful not to us but to Lenin, arguing that the latter’s defeat of Denikin compelled the Allies to grant recognition.2

I lost no time in reassuring Stokes as to my feelings. I was overjoyed by the prospect of moving still further forward from base, and of the greater responsibility of dealing direct with the Government of an independent country, small perhaps but at the moment fairly important by reason of its geographical position. Both the General and Sir Percy Cox agreed to Wardrop’s request, but to my bitter annoyance my third master, A. T. Wilson, Acting Civil Commissioner in Baghdad,

2 [Edmonds’ diaries reads on the 17th January 1920: “. . . Appears Stokes has gone or is going home on urgent private affairs. Wardrop has asked for me to replace him.” The same day he mentions Hoppenot’s arrival in Qazvin, on his way to Tehran, with “a nice little wife”: on Hélène Hoppenot, see Y. Richard, “Le coup d’Etat de 1921: nouvelles sources européennes”, Iran und iranisch geprägte Kulturen. Studien zum 65. Geburstag von Bert G. Fragner, M. Ritter, R. Kauz & B. Hoffmann, Hrsg., Wiesbaden, Dr Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 2008 (Beiträge zur Iranistik, 27), pp. 114 sq.]

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refused to release me. I was extremely angry with him, little dreaming that before very long I should have occasion to change my tune from cursing to blessing. By this time, in accordance with the decision of H.M. Government to end all intervention in the Russian civil war, the evacuation of the Army of the Black Sea from Transcaucasia was under way. In February Odessa and Krasnovadsk fell to the Bolsheviks and the days of Denikin were clearly numbered. In March there was talk of the evacuation to Persia of the wives and families of officers and men of his Volunteer Army, and eventually of the remnants of the fighting troops from

Colonel Starosselsky, a few days before his dismissal. From Edmonds’s albums, Middle East Centre Archives, St Antony’s College, Oxford

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Petrovsk; there was also a marked increase of Bolshevik propaganda in Gilan, and of visits by agents from across the border. On 8 April the Volunteer Fleet sought asylum at Anzali and was interned. In Persia, since the revolution, members of the Russian Imperial diplomatic and consular services had continued to function, latterly taking their orders and receiving their funds from the Embassy in Paris, until (it was said) the Chinese Government suddenly woke up to the fact that, under a long-standing arrangement, the Russian share of the Boxer indemnity was still being paid into the account of that Embassy. However that may have been, in March a beginning was made with the reduction of commitments, and with effect from 1 April Kadloubovsky was (to use his own expression) ‘demobbed’. Socially this left a sad gap in Qazvin society, and incidentally meant an end to my attempts to learn Russian, for I had come back from Baku determined to fill this vacuum in my linguistic armoury and had already had two or three lessons from his charming lady. Cherkassov of Kirmanshah and others were ‘demobbed’ at the same time, only the Consulates at Tabriz and Rasht being reprieved for the moment. Late in the evening of 19 April I received an urgent message from Sayyid Ziya, saying that he had just arrived in Qazvin on the way back from Transcaucasia and was anxious to see me. I went round at once to the Chihil Sutun. His news was that Nariman Narimanov, Director of the Middle East Department of the Bolshevik Foreign Office, was now in Petrovsk, and that twelve Bolshevik ships were on their way there from Astrakhan; he had also received information that Moscow had notified the Bolshevik Committee in Baku that, according to reliable information in its possession, the British troops would not stand on the frontier in the event of a Bolshevik move into Persia, but would fall back towards India. He himself did not think that the Russians were contemplating such a move at the moment, but he knew that the Bolshevik Committee in Baku, where the Cabinet was in its normal state of crisis, was preparing for a coup d’État. He was nevertheless worried about the situation at Anzali; the White Russian internees were resentful of the treatment they were receiving and might be tempted to ‘go Bolshevik’; in any case it would be wise to move them without delay, and also to exercise any indispensable British control of the port behind a Persian façade, and so lessen the temptation to the Russians to make this an excuse for violating Persian territory. While advocating a certain discretion in matters of this kind, he considered

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it essential to proclaim the benefits of the Anglo-Persian Agreement, and before leaving Baku he had published and distributed a manifesto to this effect—40,000 copies in Russian, 5,000 in Turkish and a smaller number in Persian, and also, with translations, the text of a speech by Lord Curzon. By the time we had finished our talk it was nearly midnight. I was due to leave for Tabriz at dawn, so I sat down there and then to write my report, for Graves to transmit to Force H.Q. and the Legation the next morning. Just ten days later the Bolshevik Committee in Baku seized power and proclaimed a Soviet Government of Azarbayjan; on the following day units of the Russian Red Army entered the city. Connal Rowan, who owed his appointment to a proficiency in Russian acquired by many months of study while a prisoner of war in Germany, and who was acting for Stokes, now suffered another period of captivity, and treatment far harsher than anything he had experienced on the previous occasion. With the overthrow of the nearest of the independent Transcaucasian republics a new chapter opened in the history of Norperforce. But first I must bring up to date my story of developments on the Persian side of the border during the first five months of 1920.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

QAZVIN AND TABRIZ On the whole the winter of 1919–1920 was milder than normal for this part of Persia. The first snow did not fall until 11 January, but February came in with a severe blizzard. A high wind prevented the snow from settling round Qazvin itself but elsewhere the fall was phenomenal, exceptionally so at Rasht where it measured eight feet but thawed fairly quickly. A bitterly cold spell followed, with more snow falling almost continuously to the end of the month. By mid March spring was clearly on the way, and the climate was once more delightful. Relations between the British forces and the local authorities continued excellent, alike in the administrative and the social spheres. Every opportunity was taken to show respect to the Governor. Our welcome to him on his first arrival had been followed soon afterwards by a flight in an aircraft, making him perhaps the first high-ranking Persian to have the experience, and so adding greatly to his prestige with the people. The metalling and surfacing of the most important thoroughfare in the city having been completed in January with the help of the Sappers, the opening ceremony was performed jointly by him and the G.O.C. A few days later General Champain entertained the leading officials, and himself made a short speech in Persian. Parties of British officers were regularly invited to functions such as the opening of a new school or the banquet given in honour of the new Governor-General of Azarbayjan, Prince Ayn ad-Dawla*, when he passed through on his way to Tabriz. On New Year’s Day (21 March) the Acting G.O.C. and a dozen officers called ceremoniously on the Governor to offer their congratulations. Thereafter, the weather now being pleasantly balmy, the band of the Royal Irish Fusiliers played every Friday evening in the gardens of the Chihil Sutun, which became a favourite weekly rendez-vous for scores of townsmen, while Nizam as-Sultan was at home to local notables and British officers. In addition to participating in most of these military occasions I was in constant personal touch with the Governor. We became good friends, and he did not hesitate to discuss his personal problems with me whether they were with his superiors in Tehran or with senior

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Edmonds, Nizam as-Sultan and Graves near Qazvin. From Edmonds’s albums, Archives of the MEC, St Antony’s College, Oxford

provincial departmental officials. More than once, when there was an intrigue in the capital to have him replaced, I felt justified in invoking the good offices of the Legation with the Prime Minister to prevent anything of the kind. On the other hand he never took it amiss if I mediated with him on behalf of a Commandant of Police or other official whom I thought to be efficient and honest, when the occasion arose. He generally let me know when he had some distinguished traveller to stay on his way to or from Tehran, so as to give me an opportunity to call. One of these was the Governor-General of Burujird and Luristan, Qavam as-Saltana*, brother of the Prime Minister, and I was naturally very interested in all he had to say about his efforts to discipline the wayward Lurs. It so happened that Nizam as-Sultan was about to go away on short leave and so, when I got up to go, he fell upon my neck and, as was the Persian custom, went through the motions of exchanging kisses on both cheeks. His guest, not to be outdone (and why should I remain deprived?) proceeded to do the same. It was this same Qavam who as Prime Minister twenty-six years later, after the Second World War, by his astute diplomacy, succeeded in inducing the Russians to withdraw their troops from Persian Azarbayjan, where

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they had sought to set up an independent, or at least autonomous, Soviet Republic, and also to secure an oil concession. As I had a car and he had not, Nizam as-Sultan often asked me to accompany him on tours of inspection in the immediate vicinity of the city, or to call on some important traveller who had preferred to lodge in a near-by village rather than stop in Qazvin. Among these was poor old Amir Afshar, who had been summoned to Tehran in February although the whole country was under several feet of snow. He had arrived in a state of physical collapse and suffering from frostbite. He embraced me warmly but, with the Governor and others in the room, he was obliged to stifle his feelings until the next day, when I went out again alone. He was burning with resentment against the Prime Minister and said that he had only obeyed the summons out of respect for the British who were supporting him. He told me that, during Ayn ad-Dawla’s stay in Zanjan on his way to Tabriz, he had given His Royal Highness a present of 800 tumans for himself and had distributed 1200 tumans among his retinue, but had drawn the line at the 10,000 tumans demanded in return for a promise to secure the appointment of a friendly Governor of Khamsa in place of Ziya ad-Dawla, who was a protégé of Sipah Salar’s. Although our principal preoccupation was with events to the north and the west, it was also necessary to keep an eye on our communications with Hamadan to the south-west and Tehran to the south-east. In the angle between these two roads the most important person was Zafar an-Nizam (later styled Amir Nusrat*, though how he came to be granted a higher title while in a state of unrepentant contumacy I do not know), chief of the turki-speaking Inanlu,1 a self-made man who had raised himself from the status of a minor sectional headman to the chieftainship, and was said to be able to muster up to 2,000 horsemen. He had a long record of resistance to Government, and in January he had refused to obey a summons to Qazvin to answer a number of charges of brigandage and raiding. The Prime Minister having vetoed a proposal to send a column of Gendarmerie against him, Nizam as-Sultan was obliged to fall back on diplomacy to put an end to an intolerable situation. At the beginning of April I gladly

1 One of a coalition of tribes called Shahseven (Kinglovers, King’s men) reported to have been formed by Shah Abbas the Great as a counterpoise to the seven tribes of Qizilbash to which his predecessors of the Safavi dynasty owed their power.

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Nizam as-Sultan and Amir Nusrat at Faizabad. From the Archives of the MEC, St Antony’s College, Oxford

accepted an invitation from the Governor to accompany him on a visit to the village of Fayzabad, about 30 miles south of Qazvin on the caravan track to Sava and Isfahan, where the rebel had his winter and spring headquarters.2 There was no route-report on this track, which was quite unmade. We negotiated the first eight miles without undue difficulty before reaching the salty plain (kavīr), which becomes boggy and treacherous after rain. The car sank to its axles several times and had to be man-handled out; to add to our troubles we had a puncture, which meant changing the inner tube in the mud. Beyond the kavir recognizable watercourses and ditches had been bridged with planks or filled in with earth and brushwood for the occasion by our host to be. The principal obstacle, at about mile 20, was the Khar Rud; but this, fortunately, was spanned by one of those humped bridges always attributed

2 My private diary from 1 April 1920 onwards was lost just two years later in a tribal rising in Kurdistan. For the main outline of my story I have been able to refer to my official monthly reports and a few other letters of which I preserved copies. But from now onwards I have to rely, for my more personal experiences, on fading memories of long-past events jogged by these papers and a number of photographs that have survived.

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to Shah Abbas, which was in good repair. Hereabouts we were met by a large istiqbal of some two hundred savars, all of course armed, and about four miles out from Fayzabad Zafar himself was waiting with another posse of about fifty. I had never seen a body of tribal horsemen better mounted. On arrival we were conducted to the upper room of the gate-house, for all villages in the region were walled. It had been furnished with everything necessary for our comfort: thick carpets, quilts, cushions, a fire of oak logs blazing on the hearth, and bandoliered orderlies to wait upon us. We spent three nights at Fayzabad. This gave us two whole days in which to join our hosts in their favourite sport of coursing gazelles with salukis. Most of the riders had long forked rests attached to their rifles. Their method was to follow the hounds until the fleeing quarry was clearly drawing away, dismount, and then swing down the rest to steady the rifle for firing. On the second evening we had returned to our upper room feeling virtuously tired by our long, strenuous day’s coursing. After dinner, to my great surprise (for until then I had had no idea that he was an addict), Nizam as-Sultan called for his opium outfit of tray, brazier and tongs, all of silver, and two pipes in a case. The Persian opiumpipe consists of a straight, perhaps carved, wooden tube with a hollow china ball (the bowl), pierced by a small hole, at one end. The opium is made up into sticks rather thicker than an ordinary pencil. The smoker breaks or cuts off the length he proposes to smoke (so that one might describe the addict as a one-inch man or a two-inch man, much as our forbears measured their addiction to port by the number of bottles they consumed each evening). He then warms the bowl over the brazier so that the end of the ‘pencil’, when pressed onto it, will become soft and sticky enough to adhere, care being taken to ensure that it will cover only half the hole. Finally, with the tongs, he applies an ember to the top of the ‘pencil’ and draws the smoke by the hole, through the bowl and the wooden tube, to his mouth, while the melted, sizzling residuum trickles through the hole and collects inside the bowl. This shīra, or syrup, is removed by a larger opening with a tight-fitting lid, and is said to have a narcotic quality exceeding that of the opium itself. My companion had not been smoking two minutes when he began to press me to follow his example. I had long felt that my understanding of Persia and the Persians would be incomplete until I had tried opium at least once, but the pipes I had hitherto been offered had

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always looked so loathsome that I had never plucked up enough courage to accept. But now the spare pipe in the case was spotlessly clean, and the whole outfit so neat and attractive, that I seized the opportunity, gladly indeed but rather timidly. I smoked quite a small piece of the pencil, not more than an inch, but as I finished it I was disappointed to find that I was feeling no particular effect at all. I resisted the temptation to smoke a second pipe, but as we talked I suddenly realized that all my muscular fatigue had completely gone; I felt that the Governor of Qazvin was a very pleasant fellow, and that our host must be a sadly misunderstood man, indeed that all was for the best in the best of all possible worlds. I composed myself to sleep under my quilt and woke the next morning feeling just my normal self. The next evening, after a similar day in the saddle, my companion pressed me to smoke again; but I remained adamant in my determination to limit my experiments with papaver somniferum to one. I did not participate in any private discussions which the Governor may have had with the bandit chieftain, but the latter did tell me that nothing would induce him to come in to Qazvin without a British guarantee of immunity from arrest. I cannot remember now if our visit produced any specific result; all I can say is that, whereas in the first six of my monthly reports the name of Zafar an-Nizam occurs regularly in the section devoted to law and order in the Qazvin province, he is never again mentioned in the last twelve, from April 1920 onwards, as a disturber of the peace. In Gilan no progress was made that spring towards a settlement of the Jangali question, one way or the other. The military operation planned in early October had started reasonably well. The rebels having come off second best in three or four minor encounters, Kuchik wrote to the Acting Governor at the end of November stating the conditions under which he was willing to call off the rebellion. After an interview between the two he despatched a telegram of submission to the Prime Minister, who replied in generous terms. The Government had several times made it clear that, provided the Jangalis surrendered their arms, it was prepared to proclaim a general amnesty and to recruit the fighting men to serve in the Gendarmerie. Negotiations, however, dragged on into March. At one point a first party of one hundred men reported in Rasht for enlistment. They received an ovation from the townsmen, but nothing was done and they soon drifted back to the

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jungle. It seemed that without the authority of the Government, Azari had promised a number of far-reaching concessions, promises which he was not in a position to implement, and that now he was bent on provoking a clash for which he could blame the other side and so cover up his own ineptitude and bad faith. Indeed, when I visited Rasht in the middle of March [1920], he virtually admitted to me that he had had no intention of carrying out his undertakings, but had hoped by this means to get the Jangalis to scatter to their homes. The result, however, had been just the opposite: Kuchik had tided over the unfavourable winter months when the leaves wore off the trees, redoubled his strength, and re-equipped and reclothed his men. In view of the recent successes of the Red Army it was more desirable than ever to get a settlement of the Jangali revolt as soon as possible. Butters, who early in March had seen Kuchik in the jungle and received a warm and courteous welcome, was tireless in his efforts to help the two sides to overcome their mutual suspicions. I had hoped to see Kuchik myself during my mid-month stay in Rasht. Unfortunately, when he opened his Rasht agent’s letter proposing a date, he was entertaining a mischief-making visitor from Tehran, who persuaded him to avoid seeing us. A fortnight later, however, better counsels prevailed and at a second interview, Butters got the impression that Kuchik and those of his lieutenants who were present would be glad of our help in reaching an accommodation. He emphasised that, although he had his grievances against the Government, its agents and the Cossacks, he was an enemy of the Turks and anti-Bolshevik by conviction; and indeed we knew from independent sources that he had refused to receive two important Bolshevik emissaries. We realized, of course, that Kuchik might be just playing for time. The Prime Minister, however, with so many other problems on his hands, was anxious to continue his efforts to overcome the impasse in Gilan. Azari was dismissed, but no substantive Governor was appointed until May, too late to be of any use. His Royal Highness Prince Ayn ad-Dawla*, now probably nearer eighty than seventy years old, was a very different person from the forceful Governor-General who had imposed his will on the unruly Lurs thirty years earlier. In the interval this avaricious, old-fashioned grandee, a grandson of Fath Ali Shah and son-in-law of Muzaffar ad-din, had held a number of other provincial governorships, had been Minister of

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the Interior three times and Prime Minister twice (in 1915 and 1917). He passed through Qazvin early in January but did not reach Tabriz until 20 May, having dawdled at each of Zanjan and Miyana, undermining the already weak authority of the Governors by talking openly of their dismissal and generally leaving behind him a trail of unrest and disorder. On the face of it this was a curious appointment, not only by reason of the personal antipathy subsisting between the Prince and the Prime Minister which augured ill for any fruitful collaboration between the central administration and the man on the spot, but also because bitter memories of the siege of their city by the royalist forces commanded by Ayn ad-Dawla in the constitutional struggle of 1908–9 were still fresh in the minds of the citizens. The democrats of Tabriz were now split into four groups. Of these the strongest and best organized was the Tajaddud (Renewal, Modernist) led by Shaykh Muhammad Khiyabani, one of nine members of Parliament recently elected for Azarbayjan. Of the other three groups one, the Tanqidiyyun (the Critics) had broken away after the elections, the second (the People’s Party, led by the editor of the newspaper Tabriz, also as M.P. but not a very respectable character) had come out in support of Vusuq ad-Dawla the Prime Minister, while the third (Social Democrats of the extreme left) was pro-Bolshevik; they tended, each for its own reasons, to combine against the dominant Tajaddud. The dilatory progress of the new Governor-General was partly due to the despatch in advance of emissaries carrying messages of good will and other assurances intended to allay the anxieties professed by the democratic parties at the unconstitutional way in which the country was being governed, and so to ensure a friendly reception. In the long interregnum since the departure of Sipah Salar the condition of the province had been going from bad to worse. On the Turkish border the Kurdish tribes led by the redoubtable Isma‘il Agha Simko, chief of the Shiqaq, were on the rampage and had defeated a Cossack force 5,000 strong, if ‘defeated’ is the right word for an operation from which the Russian officer in command was reliably reported to have returned to base five thousand pounds richer than when he had left. The Shahsevens were raiding and plundering unhindered down to the Miyana-Tabriz road. Nearer home, in December, the garrison of ‘regular’ troops had mutinied and arrested their commanding officer, Sardar Mu‘tazid, who, it will be remembered, had been Acting Governor-General at the time of Burn-Murdoch’s visit. He had been succeeded in both offices by Sardar Intisar, a son-in-law of the Prime

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Minister,3 who had instigated the mutiny, until at the end of March, Amin al-Mulk, the assistant brought by Ayn ad-Dawla, arrived to take over the civil function. At the beginning of April [1920] the uneasy situation came to a head. In February two Swedes with a group of Persian officers and N.C.O.’s had been sent from Tehran to take charge of the police. From the outset the Swedes had behaved in a highly tactless manner, letting it be generally known that they intended to suppress the Tajaddud. The Party however proved one too many for them, and after scuffles at police stations and popular demonstrations they were obliged to leave hurriedly at 3 a.m. on the morning of the 9th. Later the same day the Party circulated in Persian and French a manifesto, of which I have preserved an original copy. Its exact terms have a certain documentary importance and are therefore reproduced here in the French version.4 MANIFESTE Les libéraux de la ville de Tauris, émus par les tendances réactionnaires qui se manifestaient dans une série d’actes anticonstitutionnels commis par les autorités locales et qui venaient de se préciser d’une façon inquiétante dans le chef-lieu de l’Azerbaidjan, se sont soulevés dans un but de vive et énergique protestation. Les libéraux de Tabriz déclarent que leur programme tout entier consiste dans l’obtention d’une satisfaction pleine et entière quant au respect par le gouverment du régime libéral du pays et la loyale observation de sa part des lois constitutionnelles qui en définissent le caractère. Les libéraux, appréciant la nature exceptionnellement délicate de la situation présente, sont décidés à maintenir à tout prix l’ordre et la paix publics. En deux mots, voici le programme des libéraux : – Maintien de l’ordre ; – Réalisation du régime constitutionnel. Tauris, le 9 avril 1920—Commission directrice des réunions.

3 [There might be a confusion between Amir Asadullâh A‘lam ‘Amir A‘lam’, born in 1876 or 77, d. 1961 or 62, who was a physician, son-in-law of Vusūq, and his brother Muzaffar ‘Sardār Intisār’ born in 1885, an officer of the Gendarmerie. As the head of the Azarbayjan army, Muzaffar A‘lam is said to have boosted Khiyabani’s revolt, see H. Katouzian, State and society in Iran, 151, based on Ahmad Kasravi’s (Md-‘A. H. Kātūziān, ed.,) Qīyām-e Shaykh Muhammad Khiyābānī, Tihrān, Nashr-i Markaz, 1376/1997.] 4 [Same text with Persian version in ‘Ali Āzari, Qīyām-i Shaykh Muhammad Khiyābānī dar Tabrīz, Tihrān, 1329/1950, p. 344.]

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Tabriz manifesto, French and Persian. From Edmonds’s files box 6/5, Archives of the MEC, St Antony’s College, Oxford

The Tajaddud followed up the expulsion of the Swedes by taking over complete control of the town, placing their own nominees, as supervisors, in all the departmental offices. It could not be denied that they had a very plausible case: the law courts were a sink of corruption; the pay of the army and police was weeks, even months, in arrear; the cost of the ‘phoney’ war against Simko had been enormous; the Provincial Director of Revenue, a prince of the blood royal, was credibly reported to have amassed a fortune of £50,000 and to have granted remissions of taxation amounting to a similar figure in order to ensure his election to Parliament. In addition to these internal troubles, recent fighting between Muslims and Armenians in the Nakhichivan region, with mutual accusations of atrocities on the civil populations, was having repercussions on the Persian side where, especially to the west of Lake Urmiya, there were considerable numbers of Armenian and Nestorian Christians. In the extreme north-west corner Turkish troops from Van or Bayazid were constantly passing across Persian territory on their way to and from Nakhichivan (where, at the end of April, the Turkish commander ejected the Azarbayjani Governor and proclaimed a Soviet regime). Agents of subversion from across the border were stepping up their

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activities, and some minds were beginning to wonder whether the aim of the Tajaddud was eventual union with the other Azarbayjan. Finally, there was still in Tabriz a German Consul, named Wustrow*, who had refused to leave with his Turkish colleague at the time of the Turkish military evacuation. In April 1919, when two platoons of the 67th Punjabis were sent from Tiflis to act as a British consular guard, he had barricaded himself in his Consulate and threatened to blow it up if any attempt were made to arrest him. He had been allowed to remain under surveillance; but now, with machine-guns and a mortar ostentatiously displayed on the roof, he was printing and surreptitiously distributing Bolshevik propaganda, and giving asylum to absconders from justice and other undesirable characters. Two attempts to assassinate Lieutenant Murray of the Punjabis were traced to his hired gunmen; and, on the night of the popular rising against the Swedes, he had approached the Tajaddud, unsuccessfully, with proposals for a joint attack on the British Consulate-General, and the adjacent sepoy barracks. I had hardly been back a week from the excursion to the Inanlu when Robinson, who had been up to Tabriz on one of his now periodical flights, brought me a long letter from Geard giving his appreciation of the complicated situation there. He was evidently very worried, for the letter ended: “This is all very long-winded and reads very badly, but I am awfully tired; if you or B.-M. [Burn-Murdoch] could come here by the next lot of planes it would be excellent; Robinson said that the General might possibly come up; if he comes he should return the same day.” I decided to go up at once, but by road in order to pick up as much information as possible on the way. Unfortunately the car broke down far from any facilities for mechanical repairs, and I was obliged to transfer to a springless cart of the Persian postal service. Being thrown about on the hard piles of sacks and parcels as we lurched over the unmade track was not an experience I should like to repeat, and any rest I got was more in the nature of a stunned coma than of sleep. Not far from Miyana we met a large caravan of mounted travellers of the better class, some of them in police uniform. They explained that they were all Tehrani officials who had just been expelled from Tabriz by the democrats. With halts, voluntary and involuntary, the 285-mile journey took seven days. On 30 April Geard and I attended a garden party given by the Tajaddud to honour the memory of the ‘martyrs’ who fell in the defence of

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Tabriz in the fight for the Constitution. The entrance fees and other takings were to be devoted to the maintenance of their graves, but the principal object was no doubt to endow the present movement with the halo of that heroic episode. In one of the side-shows, the ‘museum’, were exhibited paintings and photographs of Baskerville and other ‘martyrs’, and also of the leaders of the defence. Music was supplied by the Cossack band. Towards sunset Shaykh Muhammad Khiyabani* ascended the platform to speak, and there was a general rush to hear him. A man about forty years of age, slight of build, with black beard thin below the corners of the mouth, pallid complexion, slightly discoloured front teeth, wearing gold-rimmed spectacles, a small white turban (as one would expect from one calling himself Shaykh), a neat grey frock-coat with stand-up neck and an aba, he spoke with restraint, deliberately but with no hesitation, as one who knew exactly what he wanted. The speech was punctuated with vociferous applause as he made his points. He spoke in Turki, but the speech was reported in Persian in the Party’s newspaper Tajaddud the next day. Among other things I was able to follow a feeling reference to Baskerville’s death and the announcement that during the coming month of Ramazan,5 when the people would be constantly meeting together, no political discussions would be allowed without the Party’s permission. The following day, 1 May, I met the Shaykh by arrangement at the house of a prominent non-party citizen. On closer acquaintance he did not give the impression of the hard revolutionary I had got at the garden party. Indeed his manner was almost shy, but for all that he spoke with an evident conviction that he held Tabriz in the hollow of his hand, and that his decisions could admit of no discussion. At first the interview was inevitably rather ‘sticky’, but after some fencing he agreed to answer any questions I might wish to put to him. The programme of the Party, he said, was set out in the manifesto of 9 April, nothing more and nothing less. They demanded honest administration and constitutional government according to the fundamental law, that was all. The Constitution had been in abeyance for some time, and the people did not know under what law they were being governed. The Swedish police officers had been expelled because they had come as tools of others who wished to suppress freedom. They had been tactless in their dealings with the public. The manifest

5

[19 May to 17 June 1920.]

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incompetence of one of them and his already notorious proclivity to sodomy made him especially unsuitable. Their methods were likely to provoke rather than to calm disorders. At the end of March it had been only his own intervention that had stifled a movement to massacre the Armenians of Tabriz in retaliation for the massacre by Armenians of Muslims at Urdubad in Nakhichivan. Asked how long he thought it would be necessary for an unofficial body to exercise supervision over government departments, he replied that he could not admit that his Committee, representing as it did the people, was unofficial; police officers and government officials were servants of the public, and the public had every right to control their actions and would continue to do so. He quoted the dishonesty of successive chiefs of the Revenue department and the wicked waste over the Simko expedition. His Committee would continue to exercise supervision till they were convinced that the country was being governed constitutionally, and were confident that the Governor-General could ensure honest administration. In answer to my question why, in a movement described as a struggle for freedom, he had, in his speech at the garden party, forbidden political meetings except with the permission of the Tajaddud, he said that Persia was not like England where a law passed by the majority was enforced on all although the minority might raise their voices against it. Here they had Bolshevik and Turkish propagandists, reactionaries, and other parties ready to seize any opportunity to create disorder. Unrestricted freedom of meeting would lead to turmoil. His first duty was to preserve order and he was determined to do it. Expression of opinion would be allowed, but not in meetings and provided there was no incitement to disorder. As to the German consul, Khiyabani said that his Party regarded him to be a menace to law and order and had no relations with him. He was grateful to me for telling him that people were going to see him in spite of the presence of a police guard; he would make inquiries; it was certainly not by order of the Committee if supervision was lax. As for the Turks employed in various branches of the armed forces, he said that they had been taken on by Sardar Intisar (he mentioned the name with a sniff ), who had the idea of forming a praetorian guard (garde muẓaffariyya) for himself. By now I felt that I could safely ask the delicate question whether he and his Party objected to Tehrani officials as such. He denied categorically the accusations made against them in this connexion. He

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could assure me in the most positive terms that there was nothing of a separatist nature in their movement. They considered Azarbayjan as an integral part of Iran. If I asked him if he was Turk or Furs (of Persia) he would reply Turk; but if I asked if he was Usmani (Ottoman) or Irani he would reply Irani. He had made this clear to the Turks when they had launched a campaign of annexationist propaganda. He admitted that on 7 April there had been cheers for a republic and cries of ‘death to the English’ and ‘death to Vusuq ad-Dawla’; at time of popular uprising there were always uncomprehending elements that indulged in this kind of thing; we would have noticed that such cries had not been repeated since. We then came to foreign relations. He said his Party could only regard with a hostile eye Germany and Turkey, which had brought calamity on Persia. During the Turkish occupation he had strenuously opposed any pan-Islamic movement, and had himself been arrested by the Turks. Russia had collapsed; Holland, Belgium and the rest did not concern them; they wished to derive all the benefit they could from European civilisation and recognized that Persia needed foreign advisers; they welcomed cordial relations with any power ready to help them. His Party had at bottom a great affection for England, which had helped them to win the Constitution, and knew that they had many sincere friends in England such as Professor Browne. Though it was primarily a matter for Parliament to accept or reject the AngloPersian Agreement, the Party did not oppose it in principle; but it should be between the peoples, not between two or three individuals, and the people should have some voice in controlling its implementation, in order to provide against blunders such as the appointment of quite unsuitable men like the Swedes to Azarbayjan. He spoke not unkindly of the Prime Minister: “Poor Vusuq! He has handicapped himself by electing to play a lone hand. He is distracted from the administration of the State by the intrigues that surround him, and he is obliged to keep his supporters together by jobs and money. I think you may tell your Government that its relations with Persia would be on a much firmer basis if he would take the country into his confidence”. Just as Shaykh Muhammad was beginning to expand a little without waiting for my questions I was obliged to cut short the interview in order to keep an appointment to receive the Acting Governor-General’s return call. He expressed the hope that our meeting would have served to remove misunderstandings and that in future, if we heard stories

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Ark of Tabriz. From A. V. W. Jackson, Persia Past and Present. A Book of Travel and Research, New York, The Macmillan Company—London, Macmillan, 1906

against his Party, we would ask him personally what truth there was in the allegations. I stayed in Tabriz nine days and of course took the opportunity to examine the famous but now ruinous fifteenth-century Blue Mosque, so called from its beautiful tile-work, and to visit the Arg or citadel, which housed the government offices and commanded a magnificent view of the sprawling city. I spent most of my time meeting Persians of all classes and political persuasions, collecting all the information I could. I also called on members of the small European colony, the Russian and French Consuls, the British Stevens family which had been established in Tabriz for three generations or more (the head of the firm, Charlie Stevens,6 was acting Consul-General in the absence of Bristow*), and the American missionaries, all of them well informed and interesting. But, without the help of a diary to remind me, almost

6 [Named by Rabino (Diplomatic and Consular officers, 50–51): Alexander Condie (1850–1908), Charles (dates unknown), George Alexander (†1890) and Richard Whyte (†1865).]

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Blue Mosque of Tabriz. From A. V. W. Jackson, Persia Past and Present. A Book of Travel and Research, New York, The Macmillan Company—London, Macmillan, 1906

the only detail I recall about the colony was that each of the married ladies was ‘at home’ on a particular day of every week, and was inclined to take it amiss if all the others did not turn up on her Wednesday or Thursday or whichever it was. I left much happier than I had come, satisfied in my own mind that Khiyabani, for all his contumacy, was neither separatist nor pro-Bolshevik, but that he saw himself as carrying on the struggle for constitutional government with which Tabriz had been so closely identified since 1906. My parting injunction to Geard was, therefore, that he should take the dictator at his word and seek a personal interview whenever this seemed desirable. In Tehran, although the Anglo-Persian Agreement had not yet been ratified, a good start had been made with the implementation of some of its provisions. The Military Mission under Major-General W. E. R. Dickson* (with Wickham attached as Political Officer) had started work early in January, and had presented its report with recommendations at the end of March. A Joint commission for the revision of

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the Customs tariff, under the energetic chairmanship of Sir Hubert Llewellyn-Smith* and with Bullard* as a member, had finished its work and obtained approval in time for a revised scale of duties to come into force on 2 April; the new duties corrected the previous bias in favour of Russian goods and were calculated to produce in a normal year more than double the highest revenue ever collected in any one year under the old tariff. In May Mr. S. Armitage Smith* of the British Treasury arrived with a small team to take up the appointment of Adviser to the Ministry of Finances.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

THE BOLSHEVIK INVASION A few days after my return from Tabriz I went on to Tehran, as was my wont, to report to the Minister. On the morning of 18 May I was in the Chancery when a series of telegrams began to come in, most of them very corrupt, apparently reporting that a Bolshevik fleet of thirteen ships was bombarding Anzali, that enemy troops were landing on the spit east of Qaziyan, and finally that an armistice had been arranged and that our garrison was being withdrawn.1 And indeed this proved to be the case. From the point of view of our local commanders, it was perhaps unfortunate that General Champain himself happened to be in Anzali. The standing War-Office instructions were clear and definite: the role of our troops was to be that of an outpost which, if attacked, would fall back to ‘the main line of resistance’. The General thus had no alternative but to send out a motor-boat with a flag of truce and to recall the Gurkhas who were already in action against the first boat-loads. An armistice had been arranged whereby the British troops were to withdraw to Rasht, leaving the Bolsheviks free to remove the interned Russian ships, which according to the commander was the sole object of the expedition. On the 21st I received a telegram from Norperforce Headquarters instructing me to return at once to Qazvin and proceed by air the next morning to join the General at Rasht. It was a thrilling experience (I had been up only once before, on a short ‘flip’) to fly over the majestic Alburz in a little two-seater cockle-shell like the RE8, in which the passenger sat on a revolving piano-stool with the sides of the craft barely reaching his waist. We were just coming down to land with the engine already switched off when my pilot decided that he was likely

1 The port of Anzali is situated at the entrance to a large lagoon (murdāb) formed by the waters of several streams banked up by two spits of sandhills jutting out from the mainland. The last nine miles of the road ran along the eastern spit to the Russian settlement of Qaziyan with the buildings of the port authority and the fisheries concession.

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RE8 aircraft flying over mountains in Kurdistan. From C. J. Edmonds, Kurds, Turks, and Arabs: politics, travel and research in North-Eastern Iraq, 1919–1925. London—New York, Oxford University Press, 1957

to overrun the small field that was doing duty as an aerodrome, and switched on again. Fortunately the engine fired immediately, and we landed beautifully at the second attempt. I reported at once to the General and, with Burn-Murdoch, accompanied him to Anzali to discuss with the enemy commander2 (as I must now call him) several outstanding points of the armistice agreement. The staff officer who ushered us in might have been a comic stage Bolshevik from the English theatre with his black bushy beard, bright red shirt or blouse, and trousers tucked into Russian top boots. The most prickly question for discussion concerned the personnel of the interned Volunteer Fleet, who had been told to shift for themselves across the lagoon, but whose bodies the enemy now claimed as part of the fleet which was to be handed over under the terms of the agreement. General Champain, however, was quite firm in maintaining that 2 I cannot now say whether the officer we saw was Raskolnikov, the Senior Naval Officer in over-all command of the operations who was described in documents that later fell into our hands as “Commander of the Special Expeditionary Corps”; but thereafter it was always the name of Kajanov that appeared in our reports from the territory in Russian occupation, until he was superseded in July.

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it would have been impossible for him ever to include the crews in the definition of the ships, and that in any case it would be out of the question to try to round them up now. Although it occurred some six years later this is perhaps an appropriate place to recall an interesting incident. After the collapse of the White Russian armies numbers of refugees collected in several large cities of Asia, among them Shanghai, Constantinople and Baghdad. After the arrival of the first waves, stragglers continued to drift down in ones and twos through Persia and Turkey to Baghdad, where the Russians, among them several high-ranking officers of the Imperial Army, had a social centre called Russian House. It must have been some time in 1926 that the Iraqi police picked up a young man who gave his name as Alexei Romanov and, in reply to questioning, ‘admitted’ that he was the ‘Tsarevich’. Two or three leading members of Russian House were called in by the British Director of the C.I.D. to assist in the investigation. They were all impressed by the story because the age was right, medical examination showed that he had a ‘long blood-coagulation time’, and he himself was not trying to make capital out of the status: he had been asked his name and age and had given them; he had been asked if he was the Tsarevich and had answered ‘yes’ because he was; all he wanted was to be left alone and to be allowed to earn his own living. Moreover intensive cross-questioning by the Russians about his movements and doings during the last nine years failed to trip him up or induce him to go back on his story. Considering that he might possibly prove to be in fact a relation of our own Royal Family I and some other members of the British community subscribed to send him to England for further investigation. We later understood that the case had eventually been referred to King George V himself, but that His Majesty had rejected all possibility of his being the Tsarevich. Three days after the landing at Anzali Kajanov was reinforced by a column which had marched down the coast from Astara through Talish. So far from withdrawing after achieving his proclaimed object of recovering the ships of the Volunteer Fleet, he proceeded to seize large stocks of cotton and rice, which he shipped to Baku, and to ‘nationalize’ British and other Russian private property. Kuchik Khan lost no time in presenting himself in Anzali and saw Kajanov several times during the week of his stay. On his way back he met the Acting

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Governor and promised to co-operate with him in preserving order in Gilan. If there was to be a confrontation with the Bolsheviks, Rasht, at the end of a long and vulnerable line of communications, was no place to try to hold, and on 2 June our troops were withdrawn to Manjil. Two days later a Bolshevik column entered Rasht. The same afternoon Kuchik also arrived, but, to the Acting Governor’s surprise, accompanied by a detachment of two hundred Russians headed by a brass band. On the 6th he finally came out into the open and proclaimed the abolition of the monarchy, the equality of mankind, and the formation of a Soviet republican government, with himself as Chief Commissar and Commissar for War, and his leading henchmen as Commissars for Interior, Foreign Affairs, and other ministries. At the same time he announced the cancellation of all Persian treaties and agreements with foreign Powers. The Acting Governor and senior officials were placed under arrest. The attitude of the Russian officers of the Persian Cossack garrison of Rasht was, to say the least, equivocal. After making hurried preparations to withdraw at the end of May, the commander suddenly changed his mind but took no precautions whatever after the arrival of Kuchik and the Bolsheviks. On the night of 15 June the officers were arrested in their houses, and the barracks, where no officer was on duty, were surrounded. For a time the Persian other ranks put up a stout resistance, but when guns were brought up they were obliged to surrender. The whole of the Gendarmerie then went over to Kuchik. Hitherto the operations against the Jangalis had taken place in the forests to the west of the road, but there had been almost continuous disorders, Jangali and other, in Eastern Gilan and in Tunukabun, where the restless sons of Sipah Salar were a permanent focus of disaffection. Up to the time of the Bolshevik landing these had had little or no bearing on the military situation. There was, however, a comparatively easy track leading from Rasht to Lahijan 25 miles to the south-east, and thence southwards over the main Alburz watershed (here 8,000 feet [2 400 m]) to the village of Kalishum, where it forked, one branch leading to Lawahan while the other, the main track, continued southwards to cross the Shah Rud by a brick bridge near Anbuh, and then another high pass, the Kamasar (7,000 feet [2,130 m]), fifteen miles north of Qazvin. To keep an eye on this line of approach a troop of Guides Cavalry was sent to the Anbuh bridge in the middle of June, and two

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platoons of the Royal Irish Fusiliers were posted on the north side of the Kamasar at the beginning of July. In June a grandson of Sipah Salar and other local malcontents, styling themselves ‘Representatives of the Red Revolutionary Army’, had disarmed, expelled or frightened out all the gendarmes in Tunukabun and Alamut. To watch this side, our north-eastern approaches, we were therefore obliged to rely on a line of Gendarmerie posts nearer to Qazvin. These precautionary measures were matched on our western approaches by the despatch of an Indian battalion, the Deolis, to Zanjan; but in the changed circumstances the two platoons at Tabriz had become a liability rather than an asset, and were withdrawn. There were also several changes in my Political establishment. Butters had left Rasht with the troops and ceased to work for us as an A.P.O. A new recruit, Captain A. J. Chapman, was sent up from Baghdad and opened an office in Zanjan in June, to coincide with the arrival of the Deolis. In the middle of July Geard, who was due for leave, handed over his duties at Tabriz to the Military Intelligence Officer, Captain Iliff. About the same time a second new A.P.O, Captain E. W. Geidt of the 107th Pioneers, reported for duty and was posted to accompany our advanced troops facing the Bolsheviks. Our evacuation of Rasht had been followed by the establishment of hostile posts on the road as far as a point about twenty miles from Manjil. Occasional patrol encounters and sniping of our armoured cars from the far side of the river continued until the end of July, when an enemy raiding party, estimated at about 1,500 men, shelled and made a half-hearted attack on Manjil before establishing itself in the hills overlooking the Lawshan bridge. Early in the morning of the 31st the main (5-foot) span of the Manjil bridge was blown down by our Sappers, and our troops retired to Qazvin leaving only a small mixed covering detachment about twenty miles out. Although Lawshan was in the rear of our Manjil position, neither the numbers nor the quality of the raiding party appeared to justify this further withdrawal. From the telegrams printed as Nos 528 and 530 in the relevant volume of Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919–1939 (First Series vol. XIII) it would seem that General Haldane, Commander-in-chief at Baghdad, who was having his own difficulties with the Arab rising in Iraq, had just notified Champain (without authority from home) that he was about to reduce Norperforce by two battalions. I can only guess that this consideration must have lain behind what to us was, at the time, a very strange decision.

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In the meantime at Tabriz Khiyabani was being as good as his word. Immediately after the Bolshevik landing he took stricter measures than before to suppress Bolshevik and pro-Jangali activities and to prevent Wustrow*, who was seeking to profit by the situation, from communication with the outside world. At noon on 3rd June fire was opened from the Consulate on the police surrounding the premises, but shortly afterwards the German flag was lowered to half mast, and it was announced that Wustrow was dead. He was said to have committed suicide, but whether this was really so, or whether he had been killed by a bullet from the police, or had been shot by one of his own party, who regarded him as a madman, remained in doubt. Dr. Schultz, who took over charge, gave no trouble, handed over a formidable stock of arms and ammunition, and was eventually evacuated with the other European members of the staff via Qazvin. Poor old Ayn ad-Dawla threw in his hand towards the end of June and left Tabriz. Khiyabani thereupon moved into the Governor-General’s quarters in the Citadel and behaved accordingly, sending at will for the Deputy left in charge, and treating him like a subordinate. In the town the Tajaddud was supreme, but its writ ran hardly a mile beyond its walls, and the state of the province as a whole was deplorable. The revolutionary movements in Persia, especially those in Azarbayjan and Gilan have given rise to a vast literature in Soviet Russia. I have to thank my fried Colonel Geoffrey Wheeler for drawing my attention to a work in which my visit to Tabriz is duly chronicled,3 and which is a good example of the lengths to which some (but, to be fair, not all) Soviet writers are prepared to go in twisting facts and falsifying history in order to make them fit in with their theses and philosophies. “To quell the movement which had swept over Persia and Persian Azarbayjan”, she begins, “the British intensified their subversive activities and, in an attempt to raise counter-revolutionary elements in Tabriz, they sent their most experienced intelligence officers from Qazvin to Tabriz—Major Edmond Micher and Major Curt”. So anxious is the authoress to demonstrate that the ideology of the Taqaddum movement was inspired by the Russian revolutions of October 1917 and February 1918 and that Khiyabani welcomed the Bolshevik invasion that, from her extraordinary account of events at Tabriz at

3 The National Liberation Movement in Persian Azarbayjan, 1917–1920, by Sh. A. Tagieva, Baku, 1956; Abridged translation in Central Asian Review, VI/4, 1956.

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this time, we get the topsy-turvy spectacle of the British, in league with the Critics and the Peoples’s Party, combining with the German Consulate to provide the pro-Bolshevik Social Democrats with arms in order to procure Khiyabani’s downfall. Among other things she inserts into her version of the Tajaddud manifesto of 9 April a denunciation of the activities of foreign imperialists of which there is no sign in the original. She goes on to allege that Khiyabani pressed Edmond Micher, successfully, to withdraw the Indian sepoys (elsewhere referred to as a British Army of Occupation) from Tabriz (they were not mentioned in my talk with Khiyabani), after which Micher left the town. Although not immediately connected with the Bolshevik landing, several important changes took place in Tehran during June. On the 2nd the Shah returned from his visit to Europe. A fortnight later Sir Percy Cox returned to Iraq as High Commissioner charged with the task of setting up an Arab administration and guiding that country towards ultimate independence. He was succeeded at Tehran by Mr. Herman Norman*, a career member of the Diplomatic Service. At the end of the same month Vusuq ad-Dawla, no longer persona grata with the Shah, deserted by two of his most influential colleagues, overworked and in poor health, resigned. After a short delay he was replaced by Mushir ad-Dawla, a ‘moderate nationalist’, who had held a number of diplomatic and ministerial posts (Prime Minister for two months in 1915) and was well regarded by reason of his work for the Constitution in 1906. His Cabinet included other democrats less moderate than himself. They insisted that, pending ratification of the Agreement of 1919, Huddleston and his officers should be withdrawn from the Central Brigade, a mixed formation of the ‘regular’ conscript army stationed in Tehran which they had begun to reorganize and train, and also that Armitage-Smith with his staff should leave the Ministry of Finance. In other respects however British assistance, financial and practical, continued much as before. The appointment of Mr. Norman to succeed Sir Percy Cox was, on the face of it, a curious choice, for he had had no previous experience of the Near or Middle East and showed none of the robustness of character and outlook called for in the British representative at that troubled moment of Persian history. A dapper little bachelor, he gave the impression of being precious, fastidious and almost foppish in every department of official and social life. When he was sitting and talking a favourite gesture was to moisten the thumb and forefinger of his right

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Ahmad Shah meets British officers at Qazvin on his way back from Europe, 3 June 1920. From the collection of Hugh Edmonds

hand and draw them down the immaculate creases of his trousers as if to improve on the work of his English valet; he had brought a French chef and entertained lavishly, but would not sit down to luncheon with his guests for fear of putting on weight; in the evening he would wear dinner jackets of in-those-days unusual colours; and so on. Another curious thing about the choice was that he was moreover quite out of sympathy with British policy in Persia, and seldom referred to Lord Curzon without calling him ‘the imperial bounder’. It must, however, be said at once that he was in no way responsible for failure to secure ratification of the Anglo-Persian Agreement; that had been out of the question not only since the Bolshevik landing at Anzali but indeed from the day when Norris’s Caspian Navy had been handed over to Denikin. Qazvin, as the city now nearest to the Bolshevik menace, not unnaturally took the lead in seeking to stir up the nation against the intruders. Stories of high-handed Russian behaviour in Rasht including the levy of forced ‘loans’ from the merchants, the commandeering of houses of notables and ulama (involving the ejection of their ladies) as well as the brutal treatment of humbler individuals, filtered through to add fuel to the fire. Indignation meetings were held in the mosques and telegrams were sent first to the Shah and the Prime Minister, and

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then to Governors and leading divines of the twenty more important provinces, denouncing the violation of the sacred soil of Persia by the Bolsheviks and their attempts to foist their antinomian tenets on the God-fearing Persian people. Replies were received from all the cities addressed, and were printed in leaflet form for distribution. With the exception of the city of Tabriz itself the whole of Azarbayjan had long been in a state of complete chaos. Some of the Deputy Governors were local men with feuds and alliances of their own. Now such considerations were influencing the behaviour of landowners and tribal chiefs just as much as ideologies. It became an important part of the work of the P.O. and the A.P.O.s to encourage and support those who had come down on the side of their own government, especially any prominent ulama. We could ask our own command to supply them with ammunition or to drop letters upon them from aircraft. We would also press the Government through the Legation, or the local authorities directly, to send money or to support them militarily on the ground. Geard, in particular, had been doing splendid work in this field. He had been largely responsible for the elimination of the German Consulate as a source of subversion,4 and a series of plucky journeys throughout the border regions from Maku to Ardabil and Astara earned him further ‘honourable mentions’ from Tagieva for successful ‘counter-revolutionary activities’. It was especially sad that he should have met his death (26 July) on the first stage of his journey home on leave. A fortnight earlier Consul-General Bristow and Iliff had been attacked near Tabriz by Shahsevens, but their escort of 25 Cossacks “had succeeded in keeping them off by means of a large expenditure of ammunition”. Geard was less fortunate. About 46 miles out from Tabriz he was attacked by a large raiding party of the same tribe, his escort of seven Cossacks fled and, after defending himself gallantly for two hours, he was finally killed. August was a trying month for us in Qazvin. The withdrawal from Anzali and Rasht had been bad enough for our prestige. Now the news 4 From a private letter to me dated 9 June: “A few details of the German Consulate business. I am sorry W. came to such a rotten end. He was a swob right enough, but he was a man all the same; however, it is just as well he is out of the way. From the day you left I continually urged the Shaykh to give definite proof that he had no dealings with W. as, not only was I not convinced but there were also many of the better people of the town who had suspicions. On 18 May the Shaykh sent a messge to W. . . .” and there follows a long and detailed account of the whole episode.

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of the evacuation of Manjil was received at first with incredulity and then with blank dismay. All who could afford it sent their wives and families away to Tehran or Hamadan. It was widely believed that some deep Machiavellian plot underlay this otherwise inexplicable move, and that the British, with no intention of opposing the invaders, were only egging Persia on to destruction. Even Nizam as-Sultan, who had taken much an active part in the protest campaign of June and July, was a changed man. This time, therefore, I made no effort to intervene on his behalf when the new Cabinet recalled him to make room for a protégé of their own. Whatever the exact reasons for the precipitate evacuation of Manjil, it soon became apparent that the Jangali-Bolshevik adventure had lost much of its original momentum. At Rasht there had been differences of opinion within the Russian camp, and also between Kuchik and his two principal lieutenants, Khalu Qurban and Ihsanallah, regarding the policy to be followed. In the middle of July Kuchik, after removing the larger part of the Jangali store of arms and ammunition, had himself left Rasht. About the same time Kajanov, who had been inclined to work with Kuchik in following a moderate line, was superseded by two aggressive communists, Midivani and Karagatelli, who supported and were supported by the other two. On the last day of July these extremists seized the government departments and ejected the commissars loyal to Kuchik. On the night of 5 August, presumably to punish the population for its growing hostility, the Russians deliberately set fire to the bazaar, over five hundred shops, two mosques, a church, several caravansarais and a number of private houses being destroyed. In the meantime many of the scattered Cossack detachments had been concentrated at Qazvin, and early in August a British column began to move forward again up the road, with the Cossacks operating on the flanks. Amir Afshar (for whose arrest and imprisonment orders had been issued in June but countermanded on the intervention of the Legation) had just been appointed Governor of Khamsa in place of the feeble Ziya ad-Dawla. Order succeeded chaos in the province as if by magic and two hundred Afshar horsemen were sent to join the Cossacks west of Manjil. On 15 August an enemy force marching down the road was surprised by our troops and severely mauled, losing 15 killed, 40 prisoners and 6 machine guns. Manjil was reoccupied on the 18th without opposition, and the destroyed span of the bridge was replaced by a temporary structure to take a maximum load of one field-gun at a time. The Cossacks, who had also had a suc-

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cess to the east of the road, reached Manjil the same day and, meeting with little opposition, raced on to capture Rasht with 500 prisoners, guns and quantities of ammunition. Until then they had behaved with commendable dash; but unfortunately they pushed on without a pause towards Anzali, bumped into Russian reinforcements, and came within range of the ships off shore and in the lagoon. Demoralized by the shell fire, they fell back until they were once more behind our lines at Manjil. The Bolsheviks signalized their return to Rasht by breaking open and looting warehouses, shops, caravanserais and private houses that had survived the great fire. There was a general exodus of the people, and it was estimated that the civilian population dropped from the normal 30,000 to about one fifth of that number. The ruling junta now changed its name to ‘The Persian Revolutionary Committee’ and proclaimed a national war of liberation. Although he nominally held no particular office, the real leader of the revolutionary movement was now Sardar Muhi*, head of a leading Rasht family, who had taken an active part in the early constitutional struggles and had joined the Germans in 1915; a brother became Commissar for the Interior. As soon as the Cossacks had regrouped the joint advance was resumed, and again there was little resistance. The main body of the British column established itself at Jubin, ten miles north of Manjil, just outside the rainy zone, with an advanced detachment at Imamzada Hashim twenty miles from Rasht. On 22 September the Cossacks, thus supported, once more occupied the town. This time there was no attempt to push on to Anzali, but two of our aircraft (DH9s had by now replaced the RE8s) dropped bombs and engaged three enemy machines, which made their first appearance at this time, over the port. A day or two later one of these forced landed and was captured. The split in the Jangali ranks helped to stabilize the situation. A party of 450 men actually came in to co-operate with the Cossacks, after their leader, Sayyid Jalal, had been in touch with Geidt. Amir Muqtadir of Talish also was creating a useful diversion by worrying enemy outposts at the western end of the lagoon. Apart from occasional skirmishes there were no major moves by either side for the next four weeks. In the meantime the Government had decided to restore its authority in Azarbayjan. On 1 September a new Governor-General, Mukhbir as-Saltana*, entered Tabriz without incident, but no istiqbal was permitted by the Tajaddud Committee, which refused him access to

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the Palace and the government offices. Khiyabani declined to call or have any dealings with him, and himself actually took the salute at a march past of police and gendarmes at an official festival parade the following day. Attempts at mediation by Bristow and the other Consuls having failed, the Governor-General retired on the 12th to the Cossack barracks outside the town, where a very efficient Russian officer, Colonel Mechetitch, was in command. At dawn the next morning the Cossacks attacked the Palace, the offices and the police barracks. After some four hours fighting, in which the democrats lost fifty killed and perhaps twice that number wounded, government authority was restored. The following day Khiyabani was shot dead while attempting to defend himself in a cellar. The fall of the Tajaddud dictatorship was universally welcomed, and it was with difficulty that the mob was restrained from tearing in pieces the body of their late hero. His movement had started as a genuine one for the restoration of constitutional government. He had deserved well of his country by stifling the Bolshevik menace in Tabriz at a critical moment. But, as is the way with dictators, his head had been turned by success and power. He was prepared to go to any length to preserve his position and, in the absence of regular income from the normal sources, he had resorted to illegal exactions. Ahead of his time in many ways, he had incurred unpopularity with the masses by forbidding the customary popular observances of Muharram, which, as I have already mentioned, most educated Persians condemned as grossly superstitious and contrary to the sacred law, but which nobody in authority had ever before ventured to try to stop. During the four months that followed the Bolshevik landing I was tied to my headquarters at Qazvin much more than I liked, and I was only able to get away for short trips of two or three days at most to Tehran or Zanjan, or Anbuh and Alamut to the east, where there were chronic agrarian troubles ready for exploitation, or to the Rasht-road front wherever it was. On one of these occasions I remember a midday meal with Starosselsky at which fresh caviare was served with the parent sturgeon itself, a refinement I have never seen or heard of elsewhere. By the end of September, with the situation once more well under control, British prestige was nearly back to normal, helped partly, it must be admitted, by the disorderly retreat of the Cossacks from Rasht in August but also by the arrival of scores of refugees with harrowing first-hand stories of their sufferings under the oppressive and

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irreligious Bolshevik regime. Muharram had come round again and I made a point of attending the passion-play every day in the special enclosure reserved for high officials by a very friendly Commandant of Police. As compared with Nizam as-Sultan the new Governor, Muwaffaq ad-Dawla* was rather dull, but I was getting on well with him as with most of the other senior officials; indeed my services seemed to be in constant demand, in the capacity of honest broker, making peace between them when they quarrelled. There was now attached to the police a Swedish instructor whom I will call Petersen, a stolid, unimaginative, humourless man, who was soon in trouble with his senior Persian colleague. He came to me in a state of great dejection, and in the course of trying to cheer him up I told him that he must remember that he was in Persia, that everything in Persia was comic opera, and that he himself was the funny man; he must beware of taking life too seriously. And, of course, I took an early opportunity to have a word with my friend the Commandant. A few days later I was sitting in my garden when the gate swung open and Petersen strode in, twirling his cane and whistling a jaunty air. “Edmons,” he said as I offered him a chair and a drink, “I never forget what you say to me last week; Persia is ze comedie and I am ze clown”. And indeed from that day on all went well.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

COUP D’ETAT IN TEHRAN At the beginning of October Major-General Sir Edmund Ironside (tall, broad in proportion, and known to us as ‘Tiny’) took over command of Norperforce from General Champain. It was his habit to ride out every morning to visit the cantonment or the various establishments in the town, and quite frequently, on his way back, he would drop in at my office for a chat. The conversation was not necessarily confined to Norperforce affairs, and it was evident that he was very proud of being or having been the youngest Major-General in the Army. Among other things, I remember him telling me the story of how when a subaltern he had enlisted as a Boer driver with the Germans during their campaign against the Hereros in South-West Africa. Before leaving for the frontier with his ox-cart he had gone to a small hotel and, to guard against any possible oversight, stripped himself of every stitch of clothing before putting on the outfit appropriate to the part. One night, a whole week after he had joined the German column, he was sitting with the other drivers by the camp fire, stroking his pet terrier, when he suddenly noticed, engraved in bold capitals on the little brass plate of the collar which he had quite forgotten to take off, the name LIEUT. W. E. IRONSIDE, R.A. Only after two or three agonizing hours was he able to get away from his companions and destroy this incriminating piece of evidence. Ever since my first short visits to Anbuh and Alamut in July, I had been anxious to improve my knowledge of the country east of the Rasht road. With the approval of the G.O.C. I left Qazvin on 13 October, in company with Padre Newman, for an extended tour which was to last three weeks, due north over the watershed to Lahijan, 80 miles along the Caspian shore south-eastwards to the mouth of the Chalus river, and then back over the watershed due south to Tehran. Padre Newman, who was anxious to sample the joys of caravan travel in Persia, proved to be the most delightful of companions, with a shrewd sense of humour and a great capacity for enjoyment. I should have liked to tell the story of this journey here, but for reasons of space I must refer any reader who may be interested to an article entitled “An

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Autumn Tour in Daylam”, written while I was on leave and before I had lost my diary, which was published in the Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society of 1924. We reached Tehran on 29 October to learn with surprise that the Cossacks had once more evacuated Rasht in a hurry on the 22nd, and had retired to safety behind our lines at Jubin on the 26th. At Lahijan, where we had spent the nights of the 16th and 17th, we had heard gunfire from the direction of Anzali, some 30 miles away, but Cossack H.Q. had replied to my inquiry by telephone that all was well. It subsequently transpired that the retreat had not been dictated by the military situation, but that Starosselsky, having learnt from friends in Tehran that his dismissal was under consideration, had engineered the débâcle as part of a scheme to defeat any such intention. As the whole force, now a disorganized rabble, was streaming back towards Qazvin it had been rounded up by units of Norperforce and concentrated in a camp some 14 miles out, while the Russian officers and N.C.O.’s had been placed under guard in the town. At the instance of General Ironside Mr Norman now pressed the Prime Minister to get rid of all the Russian officers of the Division, many of whom had for some time past been suspected, not unnaturally perhaps, of being in collusion with the Bolsheviks. Rather than take such a drastic decision Mushir ad-Dawla resigned, and was replaced by another veteran politician, Sipahdar-i A‘zam. On 1 October, pending the formation of a new Cabinet, Starosselsky was dismissed by the Shah, and the formal dismissal of the others followed a few days later. The Government appointed a Persian officer, Sardar Humayun*, to succeed Starosselsky at headquarters in Tehran. A group of officers from the British Military Mission headed by Colonel [H. Smyth]1 took over the reorganization, administration and training of the main body at Qazvin, and the most obviously efficient of the Persian officers, one Riza Khan, was selected by Ironside and Smyth for the executive commands. After inflicting some forty casualties on the Bolsheviks who had pursued the Cossacks towards Jubin, our troops continued an active policy of harrying the enemy on the main road, inflicting more casualties in a series of successful actions, and pushed forward to within a

1

[In the original: R. C. Smythe.]

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Kāzim Khan, Col. H. Smyth, Major-General Sir George Cory, and H. C. Norman (British Minister in Tehran), 21 March 1921. From the collection of Hugh Edmonds

few miles of Rasht before returning at the end of November to Jubin for the winter. In Western Gilan a Cossack detachment under a Russian officer, assisted by friendly Jangalis under Sayyid Jalal, continued to engage the enemy for several days after the collapse of Starosselsky’s column, before falling back to Zanjan. Although Kuchik now sent a contingent to support Jalal, and although he had been exchanging communications with the Government, I remained convinced that the apparent alteration in his attitude was attributable to his personal hostility to Sardar Muhi and that he still nourished the ambition to become one day President of a Persian Soviet Republic, a conviction that was soon confirmed by correspondence between him and Ihsanallah which we intercepted. In Eastern Gilan events at Rasht were the signal for a general panic. Cossacks and Gendarmerie alike abandoned their posts and leaving the field open for the communist Jangali faction to move in and install their own governors. This time the exodus from Rasht was far larger than before. Men, women and children streamed along the roads in wild panic and in

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every direction. British military transport and all available civilian vehicles were sent out to bring in the eight thousand who actually reached Qazvin. Of these rather over two thousand were found to be friendless and destitute, but of the moneys provided by the Central Government and subscribed locally very little got as far as the deserving cases, and it was only with difficulty that a large crowd was dissuaded from taking bast in my office compound. What was the severest winter for many years started exceptionally early. After a fortnight of continuous rain in the first half of November snow fell to a depth of four inches on the 18th, to be followed by further regular and severe snowstorms, interspersed with periods of bright and very cold weather, until the middle of March. Although the enemy had been reinforced to a total of about 5,000, during November and December there was no major change in the general military situation. A photograph taken in the snow of a small group, which includes Robinson of the R.A.F. and Major W. A. van Straubenzee of the Chestnut-Troop back from commanding at Jubin, reminds me that we in Qazvin at any rate were now able to relax, and that I had my first experience of ski-ing on the slopes near the aerodrome, at Sharifabad four miles to the south. On the Rasht road, on the other hand, our forward troops kept up their vigorous and successful patrol activity. But the new Prime Minister, Sipahdar, was the uncle of Sardar Muhi, the leading spirit of the junta that now styled itself ‘Central Soviet Revolutionary Committee of the Workers of Persia’ and, not untypically of the political élite of that time, even in his present position the petty local friendships and enmities of Gilan seemed to count for more with him than the interests of his country. He steadily refused to do anything for the resistance movements we had been trying to encourage; on the contrary, he sent back insulting telegrams to more than one of the leaders in reply to their messages of loyalty and appeals for assistance. Even more reprehensible was the appointment of another brother of Sardar Muhi as President of the Commission appointed to examine the cases of Persian rebel prisoners taken in arms, and the consequent immediate release of the first hundred accused brought before it, including two of the very ‘commissars’ who had proclaimed the abolition of the monarchy. Before the end of November it was generally known that Norperforce was to be withdrawn by the coming spring at the latest. The War Office at home was anxious to reduce its commitments in the region,

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and towards the end of the year, after the suppression of the Arab rising in Iraq, there was serious talk of a withdrawal from Mosul and Baghdad to a line covering Basra and the South-Persian oil fields, a move that presupposed the prior evacuation of North Persia. General Haldane when “asked to advise on the practical possibility of a withdrawal before the spring” seems to have taken this as full discretionary power to go ahead, for General Ironside suddenly received orders on 1 January (1921), to have his troops clear of Qazvin by 7 February, and the whole force including Percoms over the frontier by the end of the month. As the result of Lord Curzon’s protests, and Ironside’s reply that owing to the climatic conditions no such operation should be contemplated except in a military crisis, the orders were countermanded. On 4 January the Cabinet decided that “the combatant troops in North Persia should be in a position to begin their actual withdrawal on 1st April”. The Cossacks now being reorganized at Qazvin under the superintendence of Smyth numbered about 4,000 combatants. Among the Persian officers working at headquarters were Starosselsky’s former A.D.C.2 (destined to rise in later years to high command as General Nakhichevani), and the two gendarme officers, Major Mas‘ud [Keyhân] and Captain Kazim [Sayyâh], who had accompanied Sayyid Ziya to the Caucasus, all three of whom I knew well. The new Commanding Officer, Riza Khan, also came to my office from time to time asking to use our private telephone to speak to General Dickson in Tehran. It must have been early in January that Sayyid Ziya, whom I had continued to see frequently in Qazvin3 or Tehran since his return from the Caucasus, came to me (the first time of several) to ask when exactly the troops were to be withdrawn from the Rasht-road front, and to urge that the move should be postponed for a few weeks. To this I could only reply that the decision had been taken in London, and that neither the General nor Mr. Norman could hope to get it changed. Then one day early in February Riza Khan called again, this time to

2 [Aide-de-camp. Most likely Gen. Md Nakhchivān, Sardār Muvassaq, born 1882. Not to be mistaken with Ahmad Nakhchivan b. 1893, he too a Cossack. Sardār Muvassaq refused to participate in the coup.] 3 [It seems unlikely that Edmonds met Ziya in Qazvin except on the way to and from Baku. Sources describe the meeting of Sayyid Ziya and Riza Khan in Mihrabad, the 18th February as the first occasion where they swore to remain faithful to each other (cf. Āsiya Āl-i Aḥmad, “Ḥ ākim-i niẓāmī-i Tihrān dar ṣubḥ-i kūdītā”, Tārīkh-i mu‘āṣir-i Īrān, IV, 15–16 (1379/2001), p. 219).]

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ask me to tell Smyth not to talk so much. Neither Ziya, nor Riza, nor any of the staff officers, ever told me in so many words what they were planning, but they seemed to assume that I knew.4 Early in February, with the end of Norperforce in sight, I received orders to proceed to Baghdad at once to take up an advisory post in the new Arab administration of Iraq. On the 10th, therefore, I went up to Tehran to take leave of the Minister and say good-bye to my friends. On the morning of my last day at Tehran, the 15th, I learned definitely (but not with great surprise) from a confidant of Sayyid Ziya and under seal of absolute secrecy, that Riza and his Cossacks would be leaving Qazvin that same day after sunset to march on the Capital and install Ziya as Prime Minister. Among several invitations to farewell parties was a charming letter from Ziya saying what a pleasure it would be to see me at dinner on the 15th, with three or four of my British friends whom he was inviting, ‘groupés autour de ma table’. It was an unforgettable evening. Quite apart from the black turban he looked every inch what he claimed to be, a son of the Prophet of Islam. The sloping, intellectual forehead, the dark clear eye, the delicately chiselled nose, sparse beard, and skin swarthy for a man of the plateau, all proclaimed his undoubted Arab origin; but the subtle mind, fertile imagination and human understanding were essentially Persian. A brilliant talker, he had a slight stammer and the suspicion of a lisp that tempered a manner inclined to be didactic. The dinner was excellent and our host was 4 What was happening at Cossack headquarters was no business of mine. General Ironside was in general control of the rehabilitation of the force and says in his Memoirs High Road to Command (published [in 1972] since this chapter was drafted), that he extracted from Riza, who had made no secret of his dislike of the self-seeking politicians, a solemn promise that when released from this British tutelage, he would not take, or allow to be taken, any violent measures to depose the Shah (p. 161). In the middle of February Ironside received an urgent summons to attend the conference convened in Cairo (1921) to decide future British policy in the Middle East. He left by air on the 17th, having suggested to Mr Norman that a suitable date for ‘Riza’s release’ would be a month before our evacuation of Qazvin (p. 166), (which would have been towards the end of March at the earliest). He mentions, incidentally in another connexion (p. 187), receipt in Baghdad of the news of Riza’s coup (which was directed against Sipahdar’s cabinet and not against the Shah) ‘after his release from Qazvin’. My conclusion is that Smyth himself, whom I too had heard talking rather wildly about a march on Tehran, did not realize that Riza and his staff were in earnest, but thought he was just helping them with a theoretical paper exercise. The Editor of the Ironside Memoirs records in his foreword that Riza’s promise ‘was faithfully kept until, as a point of honour, he sought release from it in 1925 through his personal envoy who presented himself at the Staff College, Camberley’.

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in high spirits, as gay as a boy on holiday. He rather fancied himself at draughts, the fast continental game in which kings can move the whole length of the board like castles or bishops at chess, and beat us each in turn. He then took us on in consultation together and lost. He seemed a little crestfallen, but only for a moment. Pulling out of his pocket a beautiful Mongol-period manuscript he had recently acquired of the Supplications of the celebrated mystic Abdallah Ansari, and mouthing out with relish the rolling cadences of this master of rhymed prose, he invited us to enjoy with him the impertinences aimed by the author at his omnipotent Maker and the nonsense of holding man responsible for what He Himself had ordained: O God, you said “do this” and didn’t let me. You said “don’t” and made me do it. O God, if Satan led Adam astray, Who was it made wheat5 the staff of life for Adam?

and so on through a catalogue of paradoxes presented by the doctrines of predestination and man’s responsibility for his own actions. It was about midnight when we got up to go. By now the force that was to install him as head of the Government was on the march, but nobody not in the know would have guessed that he had a care in the world. The next day, on my way back, I passed the leading echelon of the column of all arms halted about fifteen miles out of Qazvin. Riza, prominent in the spectacular Cossack cloak, and Kazim, both mounted, were near the road, and I gave them a wave as I passed. During my absence more urgent telegrams had arrived from Baghdad asking when I intended to leave. Except for the first eight miles out of Qazvin the whole of the 170 miles to Asadabad (40 miles beyond Hamadan) had been under deep snow throughout the winter, and one convoy of Ford vans had taken fifty-two days to get through from Hamadan to Qazvin. Although the road was still closed I felt that I must make the effort to get through and, having handed over to Geidt, left on the 21st, tantalizingly the day on which Riza’s column was due to enter Tehran. The Sappers had been performing miracles trying to keep the road open with several thousand labourers shovelling the snow. As a precaution against snow-blindness they all daubed the upper side of their cheek bones with mud to protect their eyes

5

Referring to an Islamic tradition that the forbidden fruit was an ear of wheat.

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from the glare of sunlight reflected from their shiny skins. In places there were cuttings several hundred yards long and sixteen or more feet [4,9 m] deep, just wide enough to let one-way traffic through a sort of perpetual twilight; but only too often a stretch so cleared one day was completely blocked the next by more snow. The Ava pass (7730 ft. [2 350 m]) about half way between Hamadan and Qazvin, was still closed, so to complete the journey I hired two camels from a caravan going in the same direction and reached Hamadan in the evening of the 24th, the 140-mile journey [225 km] having taken four days. Here orders were awaiting me to return at once to Qazvin. This I did, again in four days, but with even more varied forms of transport, and reported to the new G.O.C., Major-General Sir George Cory, an Australian. The coup had gone off almost exactly as planned. The Shah was induced to believe that the Cossacks in Tehran were disloyal and to telegraph orders for others from Qazvin to take their place. The unexpected size of the contingent, over two thousand men with horse artillery, caused alarm in the capital; but fresh orders countermanding the first were disregarded, and on the 21st before dawn the column entered the city. There was virtually no resistance. Sayyid Ziya, now wearing a lambskin cap in place of the black turban, emerged as Prime Minister, while Riza became Commander-in-Chief, Mas‘ud Minister for War, and Kazim Military Governor of Tehran. To the general gratification a number of the corrupt old grandees were rounded up for impeachment, but Sipahdar himself succeeded in taking bast in the British Legation. I was considerably embarrassed when the notorious Sā‘id ad-Dawla took bast in my office at Qazvin. I have forgotten how I managed to get rid of him; but, not knowing how soon it might be closed for good, he was no doubt glad to accept any terms that I was able to arrange. Changes in provincial governorships included the appointment of new brooms to both Qazvin and Zanjan. The first was a medical colonel from the Gendarmerie, who proceeded to arrest his predecessor and seemed to think that the first duty of a Governor was to be rude and threatening to everybody, even the most harmless townsman. However, the wholesome state of fear to which all the officials were reduced by his fireworks seemed likely to facilitate the task of reform and, as with more experience he began to settle down, I had hopes that he should make quite a good administrator. At Zanjan the

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methods of my own landlord were different, by suasion rather than threats, with no immediate arrests. To emphasize his modern outlook he issued a series of proclamations: the first announcing that he had abjured his title of Salar Mansur, and that official communications were to be addressed simply to ‘The Governor of Zanjan’ and private letters simply to Mirza Abd al-Ghaffar Khan with none of the usual flowery epithets; the second announcing that gambling, prostitution and the sale of alcoholic liquor were thereby abolished; and the third forbidding the carrying of arms on public roads. Like me Chapman was optimistic that his man, as he gained experience, should do well. Throughout my period of service in the Middle East it was a neverending cause of astonishment to me that Persians and Arabs alike could never believe that a compatriot was capable of taking an independent initiative of his own; he must have been prompted, with or without the lubrication of a bribe, by a foreigner. At Qazvin, as indeed I think throughout Persia, it was generally assumed that the coup had been engineered by us6 and that the British forces would now stay, the wish being father to the thought, for the behaviour of the Bolsheviks at Rasht had left the people under no illusions as to how they would fare if the invaders penetrated farther inland. I spent the second week of March in Tehran and saw Sayyid Ziya and Kazim, both of whom had tackled their new duties with great dash. The former told me that he saw no alternative to formally denouncing the Anglo-Persian Agreement, which had been the subject of so much controversy, but that he proposed to keep British advisers in the key Ministries of War and Finance while looking elsewhere for help in the less important branches of the administration. He urged me to stay and accept a post in the Department of Revenue; but I replied that finance was not my métier, and in any case I had to go home to be demobilized. Severe snowstorms in the third week of March curtailed the usual festivities that marked Nawruz, New Year’s Day, on the 21st, but proved to be the last of the year. Owing to the long interruption of

6 Such allegations are prone to die hard. I have seen this canard repeated and apparently endorsed in a serious American study of Persian society published as recently as 1972. [Most probably H. Algar in N. R. Keddie (ed.), Scholars, Saints, and Sufis. Muslims Religious Institutions in the Middle East since 1500, Berkeley-Los AngelesLondon, University of California Press, 1972.]

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communications essential commodities were scarce, prices were high, and the short time left for spring ploughing boded ill for the next harvest. The road was finally declared open on the 29th. Surplus military stores had been steadily sent down by hired Persian transport during the winter. With the resumption of motor traffic the evacuation of Norperforce proceeded apace but, April being the season of heavy rains and thawing snow, the Sappers were kept busier than ever dealing with devastation by floods such as none of the inhabitants could remember. For some reason no written records, official or private, of my last six weeks as P.O. Norperforce have survived in my possession, and for the rest of my story I must rely on one or two dates culled from other sources, half a dozen photographs, and a few hazy memories. When the decision to withdraw became definite we, P.O. and A.P.O.s alike, had a good many loose ends to tie up, and the G.O.C. kindly lent us the services of the junior subaltern of the Royal Irish Fusiliers, 2nd Lieut. Gerald Templer,7 to help Graves in the Qazvin office; I could not know that there was a Field Marshal’s baton in his knapsack, and I do not know whether he found this first experience of political work in Asia interesting or an unmitigated bore. In the second week of April the Cossacks, with fourteen of Smyth’s British officers, took over our positions at Jubin. I had gone up to be there at the take-over, and on the way back my car suddenly stalled in the middle of a stream in flood. The scouring action of the water caused it to start sinking in the sand and after a few minutes only the top of the hood could be seen in the rushing torrent. It was salved the following day. The evacuation from Qazvin was completed by 30 April. After a last visit to Tehran with Graves for a second round of farewells, and having said good-bye to dear old Sarim as-Sultan (who gave me a parting present in the form of the Supplications of Ansari copied out in his own beautiful handwriting), and to the faithful Persian servants and office staff, we left Qazvin soon after dawn on 9 May, the very last details of Norperforce, to take the familiar road back through Hamadan and Kirmanshah to Baghdad and home.8

7

[1898–1979. Promoted Field-Marshal in 1955.] When the whole force was over the border eighteen officers of the Royal Army Medical Corps and the Indian Medical Service “who had taken part in the withdrawal from Persia in 1921” met at Qurau and decided to establish a “Fund to commemorate the operations in which the subscribers had participated and to encourage the study 8

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Postscript On 26 February, in Moscow, the Russians had signed a treaty with Persia renouncing all the concessions (other than the lease of the Caspian fisheries) extorted from that country by the Tsarist regime, but reserving the right to send in troops if any third party ‘established a base’ in the territory. After the British evacuation they did not withdraw the Red contingent from Gilan at once, but they did not themselves march on Qazvin or Tehran. The Jangalis, who had composed their differences for a time, and other Gilan revolutionaries, took over their positions with the benefit of Russian arms, equipment and money; but the reorganized Cossacks were able to prevent any advance beyond Manjil. In the capital reactions to the evacuation of Norperforce were not long in making themselves felt. Early in May Riza Khan, who had arranged the transfer of the control of the Gendarmerie from the Ministry of Interior to the Ministry of War (the Central Brigade of the old ‘regular’ army had already been absorbed in the Cossack Division), took over the latter Ministry from Mas‘ud while retaining the post of Commander-in-Chief, and so secured for himself complete and unfettered control of all the armed forces of the State. Sayyid Ziya, whose position had thus become impossible, fled to Baghdad, and his courageous attempt at reform under the Constitution came to an end. The engagements of the British officers attached to the Cossacks were terminated in July. But the event was to show that the only cure for Persia’s ills at this time was a period of ruthless military dictatorship. The story of the progressive reduction of revolutionaries and recalcitrant tribesmen such as the Jangalis, the Sahsevens and the Lurs, and of the advance of Riza Khan to the office of Prime Minister (1923) and then to the throne of the King of Kings (1925), does not come within the scope of this book. At home in England the Anglo-Persian Agreement of 1919 had been savagely attacked in several quarters as a vain and extravagant imperialistic dream of Lord Curzon’s, doomed from the start to ignominious

of Tropical Medicine and Tropical Hygiene amongst the junior officers of the various Services”. A silver medal together with a money prize is awarded annually for the best paper on one of these subjects published in any journal during the preceding twelve months. It is believed that this Prize Fund is sui generis, the only one founded as the result of a particular campaign.

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failure. But, although in fact it was never ratified by the non-existent Persian parliament, I think that my narrative will have gone some way to show that it was the continuing help provided not only under its terms but also in its spirit that tided the country over a critical period, and made possible the developments of 1921, the inauguration of a new regime that was to set it on its feet, and so eventually the consummation of the secular British policy of securing on the borders of India and at the head of the Gulf a stable, peaceful, friendly and really independent Persia.

APPENDICES

A. SUPPLEMENTARY PAGES [In the typescript of East and West of Zagros, in the Archives of the Middle East Centre, St Antony’s College, some pages which for the sake of abridgement E. J. Edmonds had taken out of the planned publication comprise interesting developments. I avoided the attempt to integrate them back to the text and bring them here as such. YR] 1. Ch. VIII: Mesopotamia, 1916 Nov. 19th Exchanged the launch for our horses (which had been following up by road) and marched from Kutuniyya to Sor, which the enemy covering force evacuated after only slight resistance. Bivouacked out in the open. We had understood that there were to be no tents, but Force H.Q. had brought theirs! It was pretty cold by morning. Nov. 20th Marched to Lajj. From a high mound got a fine view of the arch of Ctesiphon looming up about tenmiles away. Inside a perimeter camp made ourselves small enclosures of brushwood and a comfortable base for our bedding with hay from a near-by stack. Nov. 21st A trying morning sitting about in the sun with nothing to do. Soon after noon the river craft came up to Lajj, and I got a hurried bath. The force made a stirring picture as it marched over a widely extended front across completely flat country, towards Bustan (about a mile from the nearest point of the Turkish line and nearly three miles from V.P.). Reached the river about sunset and watered the horses. There followed an interminable and tedious wait, with the G.H.Q. Staff as ignorant as ourselves as to what was happening, except that H.M.S. Firefly, (the first to arrive of a flotilla of small gun boats, the Fly class, that was being sent out in parts from England) was firing at something. It was cold and very dark, we had no overcoats, and had had nothing to eat since breakfast. I found our transport-cart in a park about half a mile away and recovered my ‘British Warm’,1 but the Colonel (Cox) had left his in Nixon’s car (the only wheeled motor vehicle in the force), so I brought him a blanket, which he wore like a cape, fastening it in front with the brooch of his row of medal ribbons. 1

British Warm: n. army officer’s overcoat.

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At last we moved off, on a compass bearing, marching in dead silence, very slowly with frequent halts—it felt all very eery. Finally, at about midnight, we reached the point of assembly for Delamain’s column. We found our cart, and after a scratch meal lay down beside it to try to snatch a few hours’ sleep. Nov. 22nd Up before dawn. Bitterly cold. Some good-humoured chaff flying round over the grotesque devices for keeping warm resorted to by nearly everybody from Brigadier-General Kemball, Nixon’s Chief General Staff Officer, downwards. The troops near us moved off and were soon lost in the mirage. Firefly opened up with her 4-inch gun away on our left, but there was no other sound for some time and General Cowper (nicknamed the ‘Oont’, the Hindi word for ‘camel’ was offering generous odds that the Turks had abandoned their position, when a H.E. shell exploded about 300 yards away. V.P. was captured soon after 10 a.m. We then followed Townshend towards V.P. and came under heavy rifle fire. Beach was hit in the left arm and ribs (he was the only officer casualty suffered by the G.H.Q. party throughout the two days of battle, so we were very lucky). After reaching V.P. and jumping two lines of trenches we went forward again and halted behind a mound where a Field Battery was in action, covering the attack on the Turkish second line of defence beyond the arch. Bullets were flying all around; one whizzed past my ear and wounded a sergeant just behind me; I heard the bone crack, but he simply said “I’m hit”, and laughed. We could see the Turks counter-attacking and our men giving a little. We then went on again to look for Townshend and came under heavy shell fire; Nixon himself had the closest shave. To my great relief ‘No Trumps’, usually the nerviest of creatures, seemed to be quite unshaken by the crump and blast of shells. The first prisoner I saw came past, a great hulking Anatolian being brought in by a little Gurkha with rifle slung over his shoulder and strolling unconcernedly behind him. Very soon several hundreds came by, all obviously Anatolians, being marched to the rear. A private of the Dorsets in charge of one party told us that his battalion had had a very hard time, chiefly from enfilade fire after a section of trench had surrendered. And so the battle continued throughout the day. At sunset the fighting ceased as if by mutual consent, and the task of collecting the wounded began. All night long the creaking mule-carts were coming in, bringing hundreds and hundreds (the day’s casualties were later returned as 4,500); they were collected behind a mound at V.P.; but, with no blankets and no water, many were dead by morning.

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The cart with our kit was a long way away, so we made a scratch meal on an emergency ration of tinned mutton and chocolate. The Staff had their mess gear on mules and from them I got half a cup of tea. Fortunately we managed to water the horses in an irrigation ditch. Quite by chance I happened upon Nixon’s car and recovered Cox’s ‘British Warm’; so, when we lay down to try to get some sleep he insisted on sharing the blanket I had found for him the night before. That meant no tucking in to get snug for either of us, it was very cold, and the ground was very hard; but I think that what really kept me awake was the stench of three dead Turks, who must have been killed quite early in the day, in the trench not far from my head. Nov. 23rd Very early in the morning a supply of blankets arrived and we helped to distribute them to the wounded. Abdallah, who had managed to find us somehow, turned up during the night, so I sent him to water ‘No Trumps’ at the irrigation cut and to fill my water bottle (before noon I and others were very glad of the muddy mixture he brought back). For some time there was only a desultory exchange of shell fire, both sides evidently being too exhausted to do more. A long stream of mule-carts began to jolt back with the wounded over the rough ground to Lajj; those who would walk had to find their own way. Now, as we rode over the battlefield in broad daylight, one realized more poignantly than ever how severe the fighting had been; dead were lying everywhere. After dodging shells most of the day we came back at sunset to a high mound, much nearer the arch than we had been at V.P., to rejoin Nixon and his Staff. Here we found ourselves near our transport, and our three heroic servants, Castan, Ghulam Riza and Sadiq, had pitched two tents and had prepared a meal as appetizing as anyone could wish for anywhere, our first for two days. As soon as it was dark we took our horses and as many buckets as we could raise down to the river about a mile and a half away (I suppose it must have been at Bustan) and got some fairly clean water at last. We had been under desultory but not very accurate shell fire all the time, but as we got back a violent Turkish attack developed, the air was lit up with star shells, and bullets were flying round thick and fast. Cox’s horse was hit and Dobbs2 had a bullet in his saddle, but ‘No Trumps’ and I were unscathed.

2 Mr H. C. Dobbs, later Sir Henry, a senior Member of the Indian Civil Services, Revenue Commissioner for the Occupied Territory, who had joined us at Kut.

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Nov. 24th By now it was clear that the Turks had been heavily reinforced and that there was no hope of our getting to Baghdad. The Army Commander decided to return at once to Basra, and this meant that there was nothing for the C.P.O. to do so far forward. We therefore struck camp before dawn and marched to Lajj, where we reembarked in S.L. Muhammara. 2. The Song of Qadam Khayr (see ch. XVI) (Translated from the Lurish) Qadam Khayr walks by the water-tank: Murad Beg of the green doublet is in love with her. Qadam Khayr walks past the guest-tent: A lusty youth, rifle on shoulder, is in love with her. Qadam Khayr walks to and fro within her tent: A bulbul has nested in the folds of her turban. Her tresses are long and hang down one by one: The women’s bower behind the screen is the place for the young men. Qadam Khayr, you are both pink and white and full of wit: I will saddle my wife for you to ride, and myself be led before you. All bala gariva is in love with the girl: Her breasts are like two juicy limes. Qadam Khayr is fair of skin and soft as velvet: Alas for you to have this strip of horse-hide in your lap. Qadam Khayr walks through the streets and bazaars: She is the most beautiful of all the Maravand. Qadam Khayr’s father’s tent is pitched in Kus and Kava: Her eyes sparkle like a flagon full of wine. Qadam Khayr’s father’s tent has gone away to Kishvar: Her fingers, all beringed, flash like lightning.

The heroine’s name means ‘Auspicious Steps’. Three or four allusions perhaps require some explanation: in l. 10 it is to the custom of leading a riderless caparisoned horse before an important personage; in l. 14 it is to the unfortunate husband; in l. 16 Matavand or Mahtabvand, a subsection of Qalavand; in lines 17, 19, 22 and 23 the names are those of well known camping grounds in various parts of Luristan; in the last line the ‘brown-hats’ are the Levy. In 1926 and 1927 stories reached me through Fayli sources in Baghdad that the most desperate resis-

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tance to Riza Shah’s military operation to reduce the Lurs was being led by an Amazon named Qadam Khayr; inquiries confirmed that this was indeed Qandi’s daughter, whose qualities had inspired the balladmongers of Bala Gariva ten years before. 3. Dunsterville Mission (from ch. XX, Norperforce) The full story of the Dunsterville Mission has been told by its leader and also by one of his officers (L. C. Dunsterville, The Adventures of Dunsterforce, 1920; M. E. Donohoe, With the Persian Expedition, 1919), and for my present purpose the barest outline will suffice. The General, who it will be remembered passed through Kirmanshah on 4 February 1918, reached Anzali on the 17th. The last sector of the road passed through the forest region controlled by Kuchik, whose forces were now commanded by a German officer, von Paschen, supported by a score of Austrian E.C.C., and who was co-operating with the Boshevik Revolutionary Committee at Anzali in facilitating the Russian withdrawal. The Committee was in control of the port with all the shipping, and flatly refused to allow the British party to proceed. Dunsterville thus had no choice but to return to Hamadan, where Baratov still had his headquarters. The armistice arranged by the Bolsheviks with Turkey in November 1917 was followed on 3 March 1918 by the signature at Brestlitovsk of a treaty with the Central Powers providing among other things for the evacuation of all Russian troops from Turkey. Further confusion was now added to the already chaotic situation in Transcaucasia. Efforts to find common ground for a federation of the three territories proved abortive, and at the end of May each proclaimed its independence as a separate State. By the middle of March, too, all Russian troops except Bicherakov’s Partisans had left Persia. The vacuum was progressively filled by British units from Iraq: Qasr-i Shirin in January; Kirmanshah, early March; Hamadan, end of March; Qazvin, now Bicherakov’s headquarters, early May; and finally, after the Partizans supported by a squadron of the 14th Hussars had swept aside Jangali opposition, Rasht and Anzali in June. At the beginning of July Bicherakov, who for tactical reasons had ‘gone Bolshevik’, sailed from Anzali with his Partizans, a handful of British officers, and four British armoured cars, hoping to obtain the co-operation of the Russian Bolsheviks in warding off the

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Turkish threat to Baku. His hopes were disappointed, and he moved farther up the coast to make his base of operations at Derbent and Petrovsk in the province of Daghistan. Judging this to be his opportunity Kuchik Khan made a sudden attack on Rasht and its small British detachment (about 450 rifles of the 1/4th Hampshires and 1/2nd Gurkhas, with two mountain-guns and two armoured cars). The attack was repulsed, but three weeks of positive operations followed before he was willing to sue for peace. On 12 August an agreement was signed whereby the Ittihad al-Islam undertook not to have armed parties on or in the vicinity of the Qazvin-Anzali road, to get rid of all officers from countries at war with Great Britain, and to arrange (and so become contractors!) for the delivery of all local supplies required by the British forces. In return the Ittihad was assured that the British had no intention of interfering in the internal affairs of Persia or with the political aims of the Ittihad, provided that their activities were not directed towards furthering the interest of the enemies of Britain. Finally there was to be an exchange of prisoners; among these was Noel, who had been very harshly treated during his five months of captivity. In the meantime, at Baku, opposition to the Bolshevik regime had been gathering strength, and on 26 July a new Armenian-dominated body calling itself the Central Caspian Dictatorship seized power, expelled the Bolsheviks, and invited British assistance. A small token party under Colonel Stokes was followed by reinforcements from the 39th Infantry Brigade, which had been rushed up from Baghdad, so that by the time the Turkish assault developed a force of between 1000 and 1500 rifles had assembled to stiffen the local troops. But in the event the brunt of the fighting, and the casualties, fell upon the British contingent, so that, in the absence of any real determination to fight on the part of the heterogeneous Baku army, Dunsterville decided that he had no alternative but to withdraw again to Anzali. The assault on Baku had been only one of several prongs of the Turkish offensive. In the early summer, just when British detachments were establishing themselves on the high road to the Caspian, other divisions were known to be poised to advance into Persia, the 11th towards Tabriz and Qazvin, the 5th by way of Urmiya west of the lake of that name towards Sauj Bulaq and Hamadan; there was in addition the threat of a thrust by the 6th Division of the Iraq Command from Sulaymani through Saqqiz, also towards Hamadan. British troops were still very thin on the ground, but nevertheless, simultaneously

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with Dunsterville’s move in May from Hamadan to Qazvin, two small groups of officers and N.C.O.s were sent out north-westwards, the first under Major Wagstaff to Zanjan on the Qazvin-Tabriz road, and the second under Major Starnes to Bijar in the direction of Sauj Bulaq. The task of both was to gather information of enemy movements, to establish contacts with the tribes, to recruit local levies, and so, perhaps, to anticipate subversive action by the enemy. Wagstaff’s party reached Zanjan on 31 May, pushed on 80 miles to Miyana, and established a small forward post at Tikmadash only about 50 miles from Tabriz. On 16 June the Turks occupied Tabriz, but it was not until the end of August that they advanced in force down the road. Wagstaff, now reinforced to a total strength of 300 riflles, 50 sabres, two armoured cars and six guns, made a fighting withdrawal as far as Zanjan where, in the middle of September, the enemy effort petered out. The Bijar party was also reinforced, but was never seriously engaged by the enemy; it was withdrawn in November. A small detachment remained at Zanjan until June 1919. With the evacuation of Baku in the middle of September the Dunsterville Mission was dissolved, and Major-General W. M. Thompson took over command of all British troops in North Persia. On 31 October hostilities with Turkey came to an end. In the middle of November Thompson was joined at Anzali by Bicherakov from Petrovsk, and a combined force of British and Russians reoccupied Baku to supervise the withdrawal of the Turkish armies. The British contingent (39th Infantry Brigade with attached units) remained in the Caucasus and became part of the Army of the Black Sea. The remainder of the North Persia force (36th Infantry Brigade with attached units) came under the command of Brigadier-General H. Bateman Champain. Commodore D. T. Norris, with a party of British naval officers and ratings drawn from H.M. ships in the Persian Gulf and the river gunboats in Iraq, was sent to Anzali charged with securing control of the Caspian; this they did by taking over a number of ships at Baku. These ships, commanded by British officers but otherwise manned by Russians, flew the Imperial Russian flag.

B. GLOSSARY A = Arabic, MA = Marsh Arabic, L = Lurish, P = Persian, T = Turkish A MA A A A MA A P T P A P T A P A MA MA P P P P P MA MA P L A A A

‘abā ‘ajīd, (Ar. ‘aqīd) ‘ālim ‘aqāl

square-cut cloak expert navigator of fens scholar gen. theological camel-hobble, head-rope (Arab male head-dress) ‘araq a kind of spirituous liquor ‘ibra narrow water-way in fens ‘ulamā pl. of ‘ālim q.v. ābdārkhāna picnic-pannier āghā (pl. āghāvāt) title of respect, chief ākhund ‘ālim of minor grade āl family, dynasty andarūn women’s part of dwelling, harem āqā title of respect, master badraqa ceremonious farewell bāj toll, tax balam, a kind of boat bardī rushes barga small lake surrounding ishan q.v. bast sanctuary, asylum basta dependant, client bastī person taking sanctuary bāzār, bazaar permanent covered market chārvādār muleteer chibāshā (pl. chibā’ish) matting foundation for hut in fens, hut erected thereon dānak kind of inland cargo-boat darvīsh “poor”, muslim religious man living as a poor dastabandī forming of alliances fāliḥ fishing-spear fallāḥ agricultural labourer farrāsh office-servant

332 AT A MA MA P A A MA MA L AP MA P A P A P L P P P P T L P A P P MA A MA A

appendices farrāshbāshī fatwā,

major domo pronouncement on a point of religious jurisprudence gahan, broad waterway in fens gawlān sedge giva shoe with cotton upper, generally with rag sole ḥ ammāl porter, carrier ḥ ammām bath hamul dam hawr large expanse of open water in fens hūz family (descendants of same ancestress) imāmzāda, shrine, tomb of saint ishan (pl. ishin) small islands in fens istiqbāl ceremonial reception of traveller jihād, holy war kadkhudā headman of village or group of nomads kaffiyya head-cloth (male attire) kajāva mule-litter kākawl curl of hair brushed up from nape of neck kalak raft of inflated skins karbalā’ī title denoting one who has made the pilgrimage to Karbala kārguzār agent of Persian Foreign Office kavīr salt desert of marsh khān title of respect, member of tribal ruling family kūlā hut of boughs kulāh hat, generally of hard felt liwā province luqma morsel, mouthful lūtī strolling player ma‘dān (sing. ma‘aydī) marshmen, fenmen maḍīf, guest-house, guest-tent magwar (maqwar) knobkerrie mahayla, a large river-craft

appendices P

MA P P

A A A A A A L P A AT P P A P A P AP

P P P P A MA

Mash-hadī

333

title denoting one who has made the pilgrimage to the tomb of the Eighth Imam at Mashhad in N.E. Persia mash-hūf (mašhūf ) generic term for various types of canoe coated with bitumen māshuwa lighter mīrzā clerck; (before the name) title of respect, Mr.; (after the name) title of Prince mudīr administrative official in charge of nāhiya (q.v.) mujtahid an ‘ālim of the highest rank mullā clerk, theological scholar mustawfī collector of taxes, high revenue official nā’ib deputy, assistant, often head farrash (q.v.) nāḥ iya subdivision of qaḍā (q.v.) payvanī (= P payvandī) matrimonial alliance pīshkār manager, executive agent of governor qaḍā administrative district, sub-division of liwā (q.v.) qahwachī servant in charge of coffee qanāt underground water-channel qarasūrān corps of road-guards qaṣab reeds qill prolonged, shrill, trilling cry of joy quffa round bitumen-coated coracle rahdārī road-toll rawzakḥ ān reciter of laments for the Shi’a martyrs; ~ī meeting for such recitation sakaw, platform in open air sardarī pleated frock-coat savār, suwār horseman shabadān; shabistān deep basement (to get cooler temperature in summer) ṣīgha temporary wife (lit. “contract”) sitra buffalo-pen

334 A MA A P A T

appendices takya tarrāda vaṣlat yadak yatīm yaylāq

oratory, dervish hospice war canoe see payvanī caparisoned led horse orphan, muleteers lad summer pastures, the hills

C. BIBLIOGRAPHY—AUTHOR’S BIBLIOGRAPHY (C. J. EDMONDS) Select Bibliography [More recent references are given in the biographical notes] i- Books of Reference 1. Official History of the War: The Campaign in Mesopotamia 1914– 1918, 4 vols. H.M.S.O., [London], 1924–1927. 2. Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919–1939. First Series, vol. XIII. The Near and Middle East, January 1920–March 1921. H.M.S.O., [London], 1963. 3. Naval Intelligence Division, Geographical Hand-book Series: Iraq and the Persian Gulf. H.M.S.O., [London], 1944; Persia, H.M.S.O., [London], 1945. 4. Shorter encyclopaedia of Islam. Leiden, 1953. 5. Flora of Iraq. Ministry of Agriculture, Baghdad, vol. ii, 1966, vol. ix, 1968. ii- Various 6. Browne, E. G. A Literary History of Persia, 4 vols. Cambridge, 1926; A Year amongst the Persians. Cambridge, 1926. 7. Bullard, Sir Reader. Britain and the Middle East, London, 1951. 8. Curzon, Hon. G. N. Persia and the Persian Question. London, 1892. 9. Haldane, Lieut.-General Sir A. L. The Insurrection in Mesopotamia 1920. London, 1922. 10. Lassy, Ivar. The Muharram Mysteries. Helsingfors, 1916. 11. Lenckowski, G. Russia and the West in Iran 1918–1948. Cornell, 1949. 12. Matheson, Sylvia. Persia: An Archaeological Guide. London, 1972. 13. Minorsky, V. Articles “Lur” and “Luristan” in Encyclopaedia of Islam. 14. Pelly, Col. Sir Lewis. The Miracle Play of Hasan and Husein. London, 1879.

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15. Stoehr, Capt. C. F. Articles in Royal Engineers’ Journal: “Snow and Flood in North-West Persia” (1922) and “Engineer work with Norperforce in 1919–1920” (1924). 16. Thesiger, Wilfred. The Marsh Arabs. London, 1964. 17. Wilson, Lieut.-Col. Sir Arnold. Loyalties: Mesopotamia 1914– 1917. Oxford, 1930; Mesopotamia 1917–1920: A Clash of loyalties. Oxford, 1931; South-West Persia: A Political Officer’s diary 1907–1914. Oxford, 1941. Author’s Bibliography A. Books • Kurds, Turks, and Arabs: politics, travel and research in North-Eastern Iraq, 1919–1925, London—New York, Oxford University Press, 1957 (Persian transl. by Ibrahim Yunusi, Kurd-hā, Turk-hā ‘Arab-hā, 2nd ed. Tihrān, Rūzbihān, 1382/2003) • A pilgrimage to Lalish, London, Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland; Luzac, 1967 • A Kurdish-English Dictionary (with T. Wahby, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1966, reprint 1996) B. Articles and monographs BSOAS = Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies Geogr.J = Geographical Journal JRAS = Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society JRCAS = Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society • “Luristan: Pish-i-Kuh and Bala Gariveh”, Geogr.J, 59 (1922), 335– 356, pp. 437–453 • “An Autumn tour in Daylam”, JRCAS, 1924 • “A Kurdish newspaper: Rozh-i Kurdistan”, JRCAS, 12 (1925), pp. 83–90 • “Two ancient monuments in Southern Kurdistan”, Geogr.J, 65 (1925), pp. 63–64 • “Two more ancient monuments in Southern Kurdistan”, Geogr.J, 72 (1928), pp. 162–163 • “A noble Persian author: ‘The traveller’s companion’ of Ghulam Risa Khan Wali of Pusht-i Kuh (Anis al-mosâfer az ašraf Amir Jang Reżâ Qoli b. Ḥ oseyn-‘Ali Vâli-e Pošt-e Kuh)”, JRCAS, 16 (1929), pp. 350– 358

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• “Addendum to ‘The Kumzari Dialect of the Shibuh Tribe, Arabia’ by Bertram Thomas”, JRAS, (1930) • “Suggestions for the use of Latin character in the writing of Kurdish”, JRAS, 1931, pp. 27–46 • “A visit to Alamut in 1920”, Geogr.J, 76/6 (1931), pp. 555–558 • “A third note on rock monuments in Southern Kurdistan”, Geogr.J, 77/4 (1931), pp. 350–355 • “An Abbasid site on the Little Zab”, Geogr.J, 80/4 (1932), pp. 332– 333 • “Some developments in the use of Latin character for the writing of Kurdish”, JRAS, 1933, pp. 629–642 • Review art. “The Valleys of the Assassins” by Freya Stark, Geogr.J, 74/2 (1934) • “A Tomb in Kurdistan”, Iraq (British School of Archaeology), 1/2 (1934) • “A Kurdish lampoonist: Shaikh Riza Talabani (includes the genealogy of the Baban rulers in Sharazor and Ardalan)”, JRCAS, 22 (1935), pp. 111–123 • “(Ely B.) Soane at Halabja: an echo”, JRCAS, 23 (1936), pp. 622– 625 • Review art. “The Spoken Arabic of Iraq” by J. Van Ess, JRCAS, 25 /3 (1938) • “The travels of Arthur MacMurrough Kavanagh in Kurdistan and Luristan in 1850”, JRCAS, 36 (1949), pp. 267–273 • “The place names of the Avroman parchments”, BSOAS, 14/3 (1952), pp. 478–482 • “Prepositions and Personal Affixes in Southern Kurdish”, BSOAS, 17/3 (1955) • “The Ahl-i Haqq of ‘Irāq’ ” in Denis Sinor, ed., Proceedings of the 23rd Congress of Orientalists (Cambridge, 21st–28th August 1954), London, The Royal Asiatic Society [1956] • “Shar Bashêr and the basin of the Qalachuwalan”, Geogr.J, 123 (1957), pp. 318–328 • “The Kurds of Iraq” The Middle East Journal (Washington), Winter 1957 • “The place of the Kurds in the Middle Eastern scene”, JRCAS, 45 (1958), pp. 141–153 • Review art. “The Marshmen of Southern Iraq—A Reed shaken by the Wind” by Gavin Maxwell, Geogr.J, 124/1 (1958)

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• “The Kurds and the revolution in Iraq”, Middle East Journal, 13 (1959), pp. 1–10 • “The Persian Gulf Prelude to Zimmerman Telegram”, JRCAS, XLVII, 1 (Jan. 1960), pp. 58–67 • “Some ancient Monuments on the Iraqi-Persian Boundary”, Iraq (British School of Archaeology), 28/2 (1966) • “The Kurdish war in Iraq: a plan for peace”, JRCAS, 54/1 (1967), pp. 10–23 [• “The Kurdish war in Iraq: the constitutional background”, World today, 24 (December 1968), pp. 512–520] • “Gertrude Bell in the Near and Middle East”, JRCAS, 56 (1969), pp. 229–244 • “The beliefs and practices of the Ahl-i Ḥ aqq of Iraq”, Iran (British Institute of Persian Studies), 7 (1969), pp. 89–101 • Review art. “The Kurdish National Struggle in Iraq—Le Kurdistan irakien: entité nationale” by Ismet Vanli, JRCAS, 58/2 (1971) • Review art. “The Iraqi-Persian Frontier: 1639–1938”, JRCAS, 62/2 (1975)

D. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES (Y. RICHARD) When a person has more than one honorific (laqab), the most current form appears in bold. Full bibliographical references are in the bibliography that follows. My thanks to J. Gurney, W. Floor and N. Nasiri for their valuable help and suggestions. Qajar kings Muzaffar ad-Din Shah (1853–8 January 1907, r. 1896–1907), a weak ruler in poor health, he was compelled to convene the Parliament in August 1906 when he was already paralyzed. Went three times to Europe, as had his father, Nasir ud-Din Shah (r. 1848–96). Muhammad-‘Ali Shah (1872–1925, r. 1907–09), a strong character, leaning towards autocracy, protected by Tsarist Russia. After accepting the Constitution he later cancelled it and staged a coup d’état to dissolve the Parliament in June 1908. After one year of struggle against the Constitutionalists, he was eventually defeated and resigned, living the rest of his life in exile. Ahmad Shah (1898–1930, r. 1909–25). Much impressed by his father’s resignation he inherited the throne at the age of 13 but was only crowned in 1914. A weak personality, he was above all fearful of losing his throne and always eager to protect his personal interests, investing his money in the Paris stock exchange. He tried to keep the Russian officers of the Cossack Brigade even after the collapse of Tsarist Russia but soon accepted British pressure to remove them against securing a comfortable pension for himself. He eventually preferred to stay in France when Riza Khan rose to power, and lost his throne, putting an end to the Qajar dynasty. Short biographies of personalities Amir Afshar—Jahānshāh Khān Amir Afshār (1841–1928), tribal chieftain of the Shāhsavan. Bāmdād reports two versions of a violent altercation in 1882 between Amir Afshar, who had killed his wife whom

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he had suspected of adultery, and the Governor of Zanjan: he kept the Governor prisoner in his own stables in Karafs, and fled to Tabriz, taking bast in the house of a Mojtahed. Appointed Governor of Khamsa (August 1920). See Bamdād, Rijāl, 1, pp. 281 ff.; Mahdī Mujtahidī, Rijāl-i Āẕarbāyjān dar ‘aṣr-i Mašruṭiyat, (Tabrīz ?), 1327/1948, pp. 185 ff. Amir Muqtadir—see Sardār Muqtadir Amir Nusrat—Muḥammad-Ḥ asan Ẓ afar-Niẓām, Amir Nuṣrat (?– 1922), described as a ferocious Shahsavan chieftain who fought actively against the Constitutionalists. In August 1915, in a fight against the Gendarmerie, a Swedish officer, P. F. P. de Hierta, was killed. Amir Nusrat lived thereafter in fear of being arrested. He was eventually executed in a public square in Tehran, together with one of his relatives. See Bamdād, Rijāl, 3, pp. 362–63. Arfa ad Dawla—Rizā Arfa‘ Dānish, “Prince” Arfa‘ ad-Dawla (1846– 1937). See A. A. Sa’idi-Sirjani, “Dāneš”, Encyclopaedia Iranica. He was a diplomat in Sweden and Norway, then in Istanbul. His memoirs were published as Mémoires de Mirza-Riza-Khan Daniche, ArfaudDovleh, St. Peterburg, Boraganskij, 1900 (1901). G. Ducrocq, French military attaché in Tehran, notes in his diaries (2 November 1920): “Les Persans sont si polis que Arfa ed Doulah n’a jamais osé demander à sa femme (Suèdoise) son âge.” See Fragner, Memoirenliteratur, pp. 53 ff.; H. Carnoy, ed. Dictionnaire biographique international des écrivains, 1st ed., Paris 1902–09, repr. Hildesheim; and New York, G. Olms, 1987, II, pp. 146 ff. Armitage-Smith—Sir Sydney A. Armitage-Smith (1876–1932). Financial adviser to the government of Mushir ad-Dawla, who had been selected in October 1919 by Nusrat ad-Dawla (Prince Firuz), Foreign Minister, when he was in London. See Ferrier, “The Iranian Oil Industry”; Ferrier, History of the BP Co, pp. 366 ff., 688; M. Musaddiq, Khātirāt va ta’allumāt-i Dr Md Musaddiq, ed. Ī. Afshār, Tehran, ‘Ilmī, 1365/1986, pp. 136, 140; Zürrer, Persien zwischen England und Rußland, pp. 333 ffq.; Sabahi, British Policy in Persia, p. 19. Ayn ad-Dawla—‘Abd al-Majīd ‘Ayn ad-Dawla, Atā-Bak-i A‘zam (1845–1927). Qajar prince. Efficient Governor of Luristan (1899).

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Prime Minister in 1904–06, then 1915 and 1917–18 for short periods. As Governor of Azarbayjan in 1908 led the besieging forces against Tabriz resistance. Arrested by Sayyid Ziya’s government in February 1921. See J. Calmard, “ ‘Ayn al-Dawla”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, III, pp. 137 ff.; M. Dāvudī, ‘Ayn ad-Dawla va rižīm-i Mashrūta, 2nd ed., Tehran, Jibi, 1357/1978; Ā. Laqā’ī (ed.), “Asnād-i hukūmat-i ‘Ayn adDawla dar Āzarbāyjān (1298–1299)”, Tārīkh-i mu‘āsir-i Īrān, X (collected articles) (tābistān 1375/1996); Bāmdād, Rijāl, 2, pp. 93 ff.; R. Ra’īs Tūsī, “Istirātiži-i sarzamīn-hā-yi sūkhta. ‘Ayn ad-Dawla, Ingilīsī-hā va ‘umrān-i Khūzistān”, Tārīkh-i mu‘āsir-i Īrān, I, 1 (bahār 1376/1997), pp. 107–27. Ayn al-Mulk—Mahmud Mirza ‘Ayn al-Mulk II was appointed Governor-General of Arabistan in 1916 by his brother ‘Ali-Naqi Mirza Rukn ad-Dawla II (b. 1860), Governor-General of Arabistan, Burujird and Luristan (after similar positions in Kirman and Khurasan), residing in Burujird; in June 1916 ‘Ayn ul-Mulk went to Muhammara to see Shaykh Khaz‘al, ruler of Arabistan, and then remained in Shustar (Government of India, Administration of the Persian Gulf Political Residency for the Year 1916, p. 50 apparently gives our ‘Ayn al-Mulk as the son of Rukn ad-Dawla II, which explains Edmonds’s confusion). Rukn ad-Dawla II took the title of his own father Muhammad-Taqi Mirza at the latter’s death in 1901 (see Bāmdād, Rijāl, 3, pp. 312 ff.; Husayn Sa‘ādat-Nuri, Rijāl-i dawra-yi Qājār, Tihrān, Vahīd, 1364/1985, p. 285 ff. Rukn ud-Dawla I was the son of Muhammad Shah) and left his former title ‘Ayn al-Mulk to his brother Mahmud Mirza.1 Baskerville—Howard C. Baskerville, American born in Minnesota, served at the Presbyterian mission at Tabriz. Sided with the Constitu-

1 My gratitude to John Gurney for this identification. Further on Rukn ad-Dawla II: Husayn Sa‘ādat-Nuri, Rijāl-i dawra-yi Qājār, Tihrān, Vaḥīd, 1364/1985, p. 285 sq.; N. Nasiri, Nasiri-Moghaddam, L’archéologie française en Perse et les antiquités nationales (1884–1914), Paris, Connaissances et Savoirs, 2004, pp. 269 sq., 283 n. 139. This title turnover is a typical case of Persian prosopography. Another person, Habibullāh, son of Mirzā Rizā Qannād-i Shirāzī, b. 1877, was given the title ‘Ayn al-Mulk by Ahmad Shah in 1919. He later translated the title to a Persian patronymic, Huvaydā (evident), which became famous through his son Amir-‘Abbās, Prime Minister 1965–77. See A. Milani, The Persian Sphinx: Amir Abbas Hoveyda and the riddle of the Iranian Revolution, Washington, D.C., Mage Publishers, 2000.

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tionalists and died in defending Tabriz against Muhammad Ali Shah’s troops. See Browne, Persian Revolution, p. 440. Baxter—Charles William Baxter (1895–1969). Third, then second secretary at the British Legation in Tehran where he stayed from 1919 to 1922. He was a close friend to Sayyid Ziya, as his correspondance shows; see Y. Richard, “Le coup d’Etat de 1921: nouvelles sources européennes”, in M. Ritter, R. Kauz and B. Hoffmann (eds.), Iran und iranisch geprägte Kulturen. Studien zum 65. Geburstag von Bert G. Fragner, Wiesbaden, Dr Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 2008 (Beiträge zur Iranistik, 27), pp. 115 ff. Bell—Gertrude Bell (1868–1926). A famous personality, she first came to Iran in 1892 where her uncle Sir Frank Lascelles was British Minister in Tehran, stayed six months and learned Persian (see her Persian Pictures, pref. Sir E. Denison Ross, London, E. Benn, 1928); after learning Arabic and Turkish, she travelled extensively in the Near East and participated in archaelogical excavations. As a liaison officer and oriental secretary to the British army, she was back in Egypt and Mesopotamia in 1915. Commissioned to write a report on Mesopotamia in 1919, she was influential in the creation of the state of Iraq, advising Churchill, together with T. E. Lawrence, to endorse Faisal I as king in Baghdad. She became a political advisor of the king and died in Baghdad. See her translation, Poems from the Divan of Hafiz, London, Heinemann, 1897, new ed. 1928 with preface by E. Denison Ross; The Hafez poems of Gertrude Bell: With the original Persian on the facing page, intro. E. Denison Ross, Bethesda, Md., Iranbooks, 1999; R. Bodley and L. Hearst, Gertrude Bell, New York, MacMillan, 1940; The Letters of Gertrude Bell, selected and edited by Lady Bell, 2 vols., London, Ernest Benn, 1927. Bristow—Ernest Bristow (1873–1968). Consul at Rasht, 1912, Isfahan (Dec. 1913–Dec. 1914), Tehran (1915–16), Shiraz (1916–17), Tabriz (1918), Isfahan (March 1923–1933). See Rabino, Diplomatic and Consular Officers, p. 15. Browne—Edward G. Browne (1862–1926), a universal scholar, first trained as a physician and proficient in Arabic, Turkish and Persian, specialised in Persian literature. He went to Persia in 1887 and

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remained familiar with many correspondents there (A Year amongst the Persians. Impressions as to the life, character, & thought of the people of Persia Received during Twelve Month’s Residence in that Country in the Years 1887–1888, London, 1893). He committed himself to support the Constitutionalists and wrote the first scholarly book on the question: The Persian Revolution of 1905–1909, Cambridge, 1910. He devoted the last part of his life to teaching Persian in Cambridge and publishing a masterly Literary history of Persia, 4 vols., Cambridge, 1910. Bullard—Sir Reader Bullard (1885–1976) was born in Walthamstow, the son of a labourer at the London docks. At the age of 21, he gained a place in the Levant Consular Service. After postings in Constantinople, Basra, Baghdad, Jeddah, Athens, Addis Ababa, Moscow, Leningrad, French Morocco, and again in Saudi Arabia, he was sent to Tehran, initially acting as Minister, then as Ambassador from 1943 when the Legation was raised to an Embassy. He retired in 1946. See his Britain and the Middle East (London and New York, Hutchinson’s University Library, 1951), The Camels Must Go: An autobiography (London, Faber and Faber, 1961), Letters from Tehran: A British Ambassador in World War II Persia, ed. E. C. Hodgkin, London, I.B. Tauris, 1991. Butters—Ord A. Butters (1881–?). Served at the Imperial Bank from 1909 in Muhammara, Shiraz, Rasht, Nasratabad, Mashad, Tabriz and Baghdad. Served under General Sykes (1916–18). Acting Vice-Consul at Rasht in 1919 and 1920 (Rabino, Diplomatic and consular officers, p. 15). Manager of the local branch of the Imperial Branch. Appointed Chief Inspector (1930), Acting Chief Manager (1934–39) of Imperial Bank. Described as a “robust and ruddy Scot” (D. Lunn); see G. Jones, Banking and Empire in Iran, pp. 209–10, 363. Chahkutahi—Ḥ usayn Chāhkūtāhī (1854–1919), the son of Shaykh Ahmad Khan (a friend of Bāqir Khan Tangistānī with whom he fought against the English in 1857; see Bāmdād, Rijāl, 1, p. 389). Fifty years later, he fought the British during First World War and was eventually killed by the South Persia Rifles in 1919 (Bāmdād, Rijāl, 6, p. 90). See further Dr Sd Ja‘far Ḥ amīdī, Būshihr dar maṭbū‘āt-i ‘aṣr-i Qājār (Junūb, Ḥ abl ul-Matīn, Muẓaffarī), Tehran, Mu’assisa-yi Mut ̣āli‘āt-i tārīkh-i mu‘āṣir, bahār 1378/1999, pp. 242 ff.

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Champain—Major Gen. H. B. Champain, in charge of Norperforce in 1918, replacing Dunsterville. Resigned August 1920 after setback against the Bolsheviks in Anzali, postponing the decision to fire Starosselsky. See Ghani, Iran and the Rise of Reza Shah, pp. 65 ff; 106. Chick—Herbert George Chick (1882–1951) Commercial Adviser to the Resident in the Persian Gulf (1915). Consul in Bushire, Basra, Shiraz (1921–29), Salonica. Awarded knighthood in the Order of the British Empire in 1934. See Anon., A Chronicle of the Carmelites in Persia and the Papal Mission of the XVIIth and XVIIIth Centuries, London, 1939 (“Responsibility for the selections made . . . or deductions drawn rests solely with the lay compiler of this work”; vol. 1, p. xxxi). Cox—Percy Zachariah Cox (1854–1937), British diplomat, served in India (1884–89), then in the Persian Gulf as Consul-General, Assistant Political Resident and Resident in Bushire, with authority over all the Persian Gulf from 1904 to 1914 (in fact 1920). During this period he was responsible for the relations with local tribes, the British alliance with Shaykh Khaz’al that enabled the establishment of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company and the construction of a huge refinery in Abadan. His “commanding appearance”, and personal skills “invited trust and admiration” (Safiri). In 1914 he was appointed in Bombay as secretary to the Indian government. As his successor died shortly after, Cox kept his function in Bushire even though, during the war, he was sent to Mesopotamia. British minister in Tehran 1918–20; High Commissioner in Baghdad October 1920–January 1923). An Iraqi Shi’a leader wrote about Cox’s arrival: “Il remplaça par la souplesse et la diplomatie la brutalité de [Sir Arnold] Wilson*” (Luizard, ed., Ayatollah Mahdî al-Khâlisi, p. 222). See P. Graves, The Life of Sir Percy Cox, London and Melbourne, 1941; F. Safiri, “Cox”, Encyclopaedia Iranica. Dickson—Major-General William Edmund Ritchie Dickson (1871– 1957). Son of William John Dickson (d. 1900), who served the British Legation in Tehran between 1852 and 1885. In November 1920, W. E. R. Dickson, inspector of the East Persia Cordon, was appointed head of the Military Commission. See D. Wright, English among the Persians, p. 124 ; Sabahi, British Policy in Persia, p. 44; Moberly, Operations in Persia, pp. 403 ff.; Dickson was a friend of Rizā Khān when the latter was put aside by Starosselsky after the eviction of Clergé from the Cossack Brigade in 1917; see Arfa, Under Five Shahs, p. 91. On his political

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ideas, see Ducrocq, Journal de Perse, 29 February 1920, 2 April 1920. Dickson might have been preparing a coup when the events of 21 February came out; he was not on good terms with Sayyid Ziya. He was compelled to leave Persia on 3 March 1921; see Ducrocq, report, 1st April 1921, MAE, Perse-Iran 5. For correspondence between Dickson and Engert (American chargé d’affaires) about the coup d’état, see Majd, GB and Reza Shah, 68. Dickson could speak Persian, French and Russian, and is the author of East Persia: A backwater of the Great War, London, E. Arnold, 1924, where he avoids any mention of the 1921 coup. On 9 October 1920 Ironside writes: “The Military Commission has temporarily dissolved itself, leaving Brig.-Genl. Dickson alone in Teheran. This officer has, I understand, mixed himself actively in local politics, so much so that H.M.’s Minister in Teheran has expressed to me the opinion that, in the event of the present Govt. being forced out, Brig-Genl. Dickson would not be of much value for the construction of an Army. I consider that all officers on the Military Commission should abstain from participation in local politics . . . I have informed H.M.’s Minister that, with his Military Attache, I become his military adviser and that the position of Brig.-Genl. Dickson is thus affected. This officer must either act under my orders, or he must abstain from taking part in Persian affairs . . . If he is really much mixed up in political affairs I think he should withdraw temporarily from Teheran” (British National Archives, WO 158/687). Dickson—Major Harold Richard Patrick Dickson (1881–1959). Born in Beirut, raised in Damascus in Lady Jane Digby’s house and fed by an Arab wet-nurse. Political agent in Bahrain (1919–20), later Consul in Bushire (1928–29), see Rabino, Diplomats and consular officers, p. 20. He published The Arab of the Desert: A glimpse into Badawin life in Kuwait and Sau’di Arabia, 2nd ed., London, George Allen and Unwin, 1951; Kuwait and her neighbours, ed. Clifford Witting, London, Allen and Unwin [1956]. Dunsterville—Gen. Lionel C. Dunsterville (1865–1946) arrived in Persia in January 1918. He was leading the “Dunsterforce” across Iran to prevent an invasion of India by a combined Germano-Turkish force. He duly led his force of under 1,000 elite troops (drawn from the Mesopotamian and Western Fronts and accompanied by armoured cars) from Hamadan some 350 kilometres across Persia before they were turned back by 3,000 Russian revolutionary troops at Anzali.

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Dunsterville was next tasked with the occupation of Baku, a key oil port. This expedition too was ultimately abandoned on 14 September 1918 in the face of overwhelming Turkish opposition (amounting to 14,000 Turkish troops, although the port fell to the Allies within two months as a consequence of the Turkish armistice). Promoted to Major-General in 1918. See L. C. Dunsterville, The Adventures of Dunsterforce, London, Edward Arnold, 1920; Stalky’s reminiscences, London, Jonathan Cape, 1927; Major M. H. Donohoe, With the Persian Expedition, London, Edw. Arnold, 1919; A. Rawlinson, Adventures in the Near East 1918–1922, London, 1923. Fowle—Trenchard Craven William Fowle (1884–1940). Political Agent Bahrain, 1916. Consul Mashhad, 1919–20. Acting Consul Seistan 1921. Acting Consul at Kerman, 1924. Consul at Bushire, 1929–32. Chief political resident of the Persian Gulf, (for Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and the Trucial States) 1932–39 (see Rabino, Diplomatic and Consular Officers, 23s); by him: Travels in the Middle East: Being impressions by the way in Turkish Arabia, Syria, and Persia, London, Smith, Elder, 1916. Ghazanfar—Muḥammad Ghazanfar as-Salṭana, a local chief in Burazjan, and a poet (under the pen-name Ghazanfar), he sided with the Tangistanis against the British during the First World War and was compelled to hide in Shiraz. Later, having resumed his position in Burazjan, he was killed in a local rebellion against Riza Shah in 1929. Ghulām-Rizā, Vālī of Pusht-i Kūh, see Vali Grahame—Thomas George Grahame (1861–1922). Temporary ViceConsul, Tehran, June 1899. Vice-Consul Tehran, 2 May 1900. Consul Shiraz, June 1903, Isfahan (February 1908). Left Iran 12 May 1917. See Rabino, Diplomatic and Consular officers, p. 26. Grey—W. G. Grey, British agent in Bandar ‘Abbas (1902), General Consul in Mashhad (1916). He published “Recent Persian History”, Journal of Central Asian History, 13 (1926). Hayat-Dawudi—Ḥ aydar Khan, head of the Ḥ ayāt-Dāvud (or Dawud), a Luri tribe dominating the northern shore of the Persian Gulf including the isle of Khārg, which was on friendly terms with the British.

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See P. Oberling, “Ḥ ayāt-Dāwudī”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, who quotes H. G. Chick, “Notes . . . on a Visit to the Khan of Hayat Daoud”, F.O. 37, 1/946, 1910. In his 1960 article “Persian Gulf Prelude to Zimmermann Telegram”, p. 59, Edmonds had already used terms similar to those found here to praise Haydar Khan. Hishmat—Dr. Ibrāhim Hishmat (1890–1919), was executed 13 May 1919 after Rasht was taken over by British troops. See Sabahi, British Policy, p. 43. A popular physician, from a modest family, he was a follower of Mirzā Kuchik Khān and his envoy to Tehran to negotiate with Mustawfi. See Chaqueri, Soviet Socialist Republic of Iran, p. 464. Further: Mirzā Muhammad Tamimi Tāliqānī, Duktur Hishmat ki būda Jangal-i Gīlān chi būda, s. l., 1324; M. Pāyanda, Dr Hishmat-i jangalī, Tehran, (1989). Huddleston—Sir Hubert Jervoise Huddleston (1880–1950). British officer, back from campaigns in Sudan and Egypt, became military attaché at Tehran in 1920. He was apparently sent to stop the insurgent Cossacks on 20 February 1921 but soon worked in confidence with Sayyid Ziya’s government, which proposed that he should head a regiment of 5,000 in Qazvin. See Zürrer, Persien zwischen England und Rußland, pp. 242 ff. G. Ducrocq, the French military attaché at the time, notes in his diaries (23 January 1920): “Profondément antifrançais”, “Le général Huddleston est l’Africain aux longues dents, aux membres vigoureux.” See further Cronin, Army and the Creation of the Pahlavi state, p. 82; Katouzian, State and Society, pp. 197 ff. Hunin—A. Hunin, in Persia since 1904 ; see A. Destrée, Les fonctionnaires belges au service de la Perse, 1898–1915, Leiden and Tehran, 1976, p. 338. Was head of customs in Anzali in 1918, and gave shelter to Noel*, back from Baku, when he was arrested by the Jangalis. Ironside—Field-Marshal the Lord Edmund Ironside (1880–1959). British General, arrived in Qazvin 4 October 1920 to replace Champain as head of Norperforce and left Iran just before the 21 February 1921 coup d’état. “. . . commanded Allied Forces, N. Russia 1918–19 and Norperforce 1920–1: Commandant, Staff College, Camberley 1922–6; held various high commands in India and in UK before becoming Governor of Gibraltar 1938–9 and GIGS 1939–40.” Wright, English amongst the Persians, pp. 180 sq. See Cronin, Army and the Creation

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of the Pahlavi State, p. 79; Ghani, Iran and the Rise of Reza Shah, p. 107n; Katouzian, State and Society, pp. 195 ff. E. Ironside, High Road to Command. The Diaries of Major-General Sir Edmund Ironside 1920–22, ed. Lord Ironside, London, Leo Cooper, 1972: this book, edited by his son, is based on the diaries left by Ironside, from which some quotations are available through publications by R. Ullmann and D. Wright, the only two researchers who had access to the original. See Richard H. Ullman, Anglo Soviet Relations, 1917–21: The Anglo-Soviet Accord, Princeton, Princeton U.P., 1972 (1st ed. 1966), vol. 3. Jahanshah Khan—see Amir Afshar Kavanagh—Arthur MacMurrough Kavanagh (1830–89). This Irish nobleman, born with rudiments of arms and legs, learned not only to read and write but also to ride, fish and shoot, had a tremendous life of travels throughout the Middle East and became member of Parliament for 13 years. See Sarah L. Steele, The Right Honourable Arthur Macmurrough Kavanagh, a biography, comp. by his cousin Sarah L. Steele from papers chiefly unpublished, London and New York, Macmillan and Co., 1891; Wright, English amongst the Persians, p. 141; and C. J. Edmonds, “The travels of Arthur MacMurrough Kavanagh in Kurdistan and Luristan in 1850”, Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society, 36 (1949), pp. 267–73. Kayhan—Mas‘ūd Khān Kayhān (1893–1967). Military education in the French St Cyr academy, hired in the Persian Gendarmerie from 1913. In Paris, he became friends with Sayyid Ziya who took him to Transcaucasia in 1919. Together with Kazim Sayyah, he was associated with the preparation of the 1921 coup. Minister of War in Ziya’s government. Later professor at teachers training college. Wrote a comprehensive geography of Iran: Juqrāfyā-yi mufassal-i Īrān, 3 vols., Tehran, 1310–11/1931–32. See F. Mu’izzī, “Nigāhī bi zindagī-i Māžur Mas‘ud Kayhān”, Tārīkh-i mu‘āsir-i Īrān (Vīža-nāma-yi Kūditā-yi 1299), IV, 15–16 (pā’iz—zimistān 1379/2001), pp. 201–10. Kazim Khan—see Sayyah Kennion—Major Roger Lloyd Kennion (1866–1942). Consul-General, Mashhad, 1906; Consul, Sistan, 1907–09. Acting Consul, then Consul at Mohammara, 1915–16; in charge of the Consulate at Kirmanshah

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from August 1917 to September 1918. Political Officer, North Persia Force, 1918. See Rabino, Diplomatic and Consular Officers, p. 33. R. L. Kennion, By Mountain, Lake, and Plain: Being sketches of sport in Eastern Persia . . . With photographs by the author, Edinburgh and London, William Blackwood and Sons, 1911. Khaz‘al—Shaykh Khaz‘al, Sardār-i Aqdas, Nusrat al-Mulk, Mu’izz as-Salt ̣ana, Sardār-Arfa‘ (1863–1936). Head of the Bani Ka‘b Arab tribe and Shaykh of Muhammara (today Khurramshahr). He succeeded his brother, who was assassinated in 1897. One of his wives was the daughter of Husayn-Quli Māfī (Sa‘d al-Mulk). Ducrocq, Journal de Perse, 10 June 1920, says that he had his two daughters educated in French culture through two sisters of the Sœurs de la Charité. Was pro-British during the First World War and lost British protection when Riza Shah took control over the Khuzistan province in 1924. He was arrested, and kept in custody until his death (execution?). See FO371/17908 (Person. 1934); Kasravī, Tārikh-i pānsad sāla-yi Khūzistān, pp. 207 ff.; Bāmdād, Rijāl, 1, p. 476; Taqizāda, Zindagi-i tūfānī, pp. 343 ff.; M. Zirinsky, “Imperial Power and Dictatorship: Britain and the Rise of Reza Shah, 1921–1926”, IJMES, 24, 4 (November 1992), pp. 653 ff.; Ferrier, History of the BP Co, pp. 121 ff. See further Mustawfī, Zindagānī-i man, 3, pp. 636 ff.; Ghani, Iran and the Rise of Reza Shah, pp. 334 ff., quotes W.Th. Strunk, “The Reign of Shaykh Khaz’al Ibn Jābir and the Suppression of the Principality of ‘Arabistān: A study in British imperialism in southwestern Iran. 1897–1925”, Indiana University, Ph.D. thesis, 1977. Khiyabani—Shaykh Muhammad Khīyābānī (or Khīābānī, 1880–1920) was born near Tabriz, but his father was established as a merchant in the Russian Caucasus, where he began his early education. He became a cleric in two mosques and teacher of mathematics in Tabriz. Leader of the Tajaddud (Modernists) of Tabriz, combining commitment to Islam and patriotic feelings, both Iranian and Azari. Leader of a nationalist upsurge, Spring 1920, and killed in its suppression. See Mujtahidī, Rijāl-i Āzarbāyjān, p. 73; Taqīzāda, Zindagī-i Tūfānī, p. 358; R. Ra’īs-Nīā and ‘A.-H. Nāhīd, Du mubāriz-i junbish-i Mashrūta, Sattār Khān, Shaykh Muhammad Khīyābānī, Tehran, n. d. [1980]; ‘A. Āzarī, Qīyām-i Shaykh Muhammad Khīyābānī dar Tabrīz, Tehran, 1329/1950; A. Kasravī and Md-‘A. Humāyūn Kātūzyān (eds.), Qīyām-i Shaykh Muhammad Khīyābānī, Tehran, Nashr-i Markaz, 1376/1997.

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Khiyabani’s speeches have been published by B. Khīābānī as Nutq-hā-yi Shaykh Muhammad Khīābānī, Tehran, Ihsān, 2537/1978; see further Homa Katouzian, “Ahmad Kasravi on the revolt of Sheikh Mohammad Khiyabani” in Iran and the First World War: Battleground of the great powers, ed. T. Atabaki, London and New York, I.B. Tauris, 2006. Knox—Lieut.-Colonel Stuart George Knox (1869–1956). Educated at Elizabeth College (Guernsey), Repton School, then Royal Military College, Sandhurst. Political and Consular Officer in the Persian Gulf, Muscat and Bushire, 1894–1915. Senior Judicial Officer, Basra, 1915–18, and President of the Court of Appeal, Mesopotamia, 1918–19. Co-author (with P. Z. Cox) of Humphrey Gilbert-Carter, Some Plants of the Zor Hills, Koweit, Arabia, Calcutta, Superintendent Government Printing, India, 1917. See Behn, Concise Biographical Companion, II, 277. Layard—Sir Austen Henry Layard (1817–94) travelled alone, disguised as a dervish among the Bakhtiyari tribe (1841–42), visited the ruins of the Ancient Susa searching for antiquities. He thought that a fragment of the Black Stone of the Ka‘ba was in the tomb of Daniel, but he could not enter the sanctuary, prevented by the suspicion of local people. See Sir A. Henry Layard, “A Description of the Province of Khūzistān”, Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, 16 (1846); A. H. Layard, Autobiography and Letters from His Childhood until His Appointment as H.M. Ambassador at Madrid, New York, C. Scribner’s sons, 1903. Llewellyn-Smith—Sir Hubert Llewellyn Smith (1864–1945). In his autobiography (The Camels Must Go, London, Faber and Faber, 1961, p. 107), Sir Reader Bullard speaks of the customs commission in which he worked with Llewellyn Smith in Tehran, in January 1920: “The commission was headed by a distinguished civil servant, Sir Hubert Llewellyn-Smith, who had been Economic Adviser to the Government during the war . . . [He] had a remarkable record, beginning with the time when he assisted Booth with his survey of the people of London; and although he was exhausted with overwork during the war he still had enough energy for two or three ordinary men. He was rather sombre as a rule, but he could sometimes be provoked into a smile, stiff with disuse, as when we were dealing, in the tariff on textiles, with items such as ‘silk material with or without gold thread, ditto with or without silver thread’, and I suggested that an important item had been omitted: ‘sackcloth with or without ashes’.”

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Lorimer—John Gordon Lorimer (1870–1914), educated at Edinburgh University and Christ Church College, Oxford, entered the Indian Civil Service in 1891 and held different missions at the Afghan border. Companion of the Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire (C.I.E.); Indian Civil Service. “Brother of my friend Capt. Lorimer, on his way to Baghdad as Political Resident and Consul-General, a very fine man, as much a soldier as a civilian, with a most pleasant wife,” Wilson, SW Persia, pp. 107, 173, 265. Brother of David Lockhart Robertson (Lt. Col.) Lorimer. Author of Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, ‘Omān and Central Arabia, 6 vols., Calcutta, Superintendent Government Printing, India, 1908–15, and Grammar and Vocabulary of Waziri Pashto, Calcutta, 1901. The accident which caused his death (here, ch. IV) took place on 8 February 1914, see Diaries, St Antony’s MEC Archives, Edmonds 26/1, 140. Māfi (Rizā-Quli)—see Niẓām as-Saltana Mallet—Victor Alexander Louis Mallet (1893–1969) served with the Cambridgeshire Regiment in France and Ireland, 1914–18. He joined the Diplomatic Service and held various posts in Tehran, 1919–22 and 1933–5; Buenos Aires, 1926–28; Brussels, 1929–32; Washington, 1936–39; and in the Foreign Office, 1922–26 and 1932. He was Minister in Stockholm, Sweden, 1940–45, and Ambassador to Spain, 1945–46, and Italy, 1947–53. Died 18 May 1969. He was awarded the CMG, 1934; KCMG, 1944; and GCMG, 1952. Published Life with Queen Victoria: Marie Mallet’s letters from court 1887–1901, London, John Murray, 1968. See further Sabahi, British Policy in Persia, p. 161; Zürrer, Persien zwischen England und Rußland, index s.v. Mas‘ud Khan—see Kayhan McMurray—James H. McMurray (1877–1950). Appointed to Imperial Bank of Persia’s London staff 1897; overseas staff 1900. Served at Tehran Bazaar, Nusratabad and Hamadan branches, opening the latter in 1909. Head of Commission of Control of Expenditure which financed Russian forces in Persia 1917–18. Awarded OBE for services 1918, and CBE 1921. Appointed Chief Manager of Bank 1919. Head of the Imperial Bank of Persia, December 1920; see Ironside, High Road to Command, p. 157, Ducrocq, Journal, 27 March 1921. Resigned 1925 because of ill health. Elected to Board 1928. Director 1928–50. Mission to Persia 1929; see G. Jones, Banking and Empire in Iran, p. 366.

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Midhat as-Saltana—Midḥat as-Salṭana (1865–?). Karguzar in Bandar ‘Abbas, 1912; Assistant-Governor of Bushire, 1913; Karguzar of Bandar ‘Abbas 1914; Karguzar of Shiraz 1916. Governor of Qazvin, 1916–19. Of him ‘Ayn as-Saltana says: “Tuesday, 10th Safar 1338 [4th November 1919], Midḥat as-Saltana has been summoned to Tehran. Nizām as-Sultan becomes Governor of Qazvin. It is four years that Midhat as-Saltana was Governor, and this long time was due to two factors. First, his son is at the service of the Shah and accompanies him presently [in Europe] and he gives a monthly sum to the Shah on behalf of his father [as a bribe]; second, through Mushir ad-Dawla, he drew good benefice from Qazvin. But he was not a good Governor . . .” (‘Ayn as-Saltana, Rūznāma-yi khāṭirāt, vol. 7, p. 5 606) Further, ‘Ayn as-Saltana mentions that Midhat as-Saltana returned to Tehran with Edmonds’s own automobile. Edmonds writes in his first official report from Qazvin: “Friendly but incompetent and is afraid of his heads of departments.” Mirza Kuchik Khan—Mullā Yunis, Mirzā Kūchik Khān, (1878–1921), born in Rasht, the son of a Mirza Buzurg who was at the service of a rich Mustawfi family. Religious studies in Rasht and Tehran. Early militancy in favour of constitutional reforms, elected to the Second Majles, wounded in fights against Muhammad-‘Ali Shah. Leader of the Jangal revolt in Gilan against imperial encroachments on Iranian politics (1915–21). Portrait by Taqizāda, Zindagī-i tūfānī, p. 357. See Chaqueri, Soviet Socialist Republic of Iran, p. 464 and passim. Moore—Arthur Moore, British journalist, in Iran during the Constitutional Revolution. Author of The Orient Express. Sketches of travel in Persia and the Balkans, London, Constable, 1914. Mukhbir as-Saltana—Mahdī-Qulī Hidāyat, Mukhbir as-Salṭana (1864– 1955). Born into a wealthy modern educated family. Educated in Germany. Travelled around the world in 1903–04 with Atābak. Held several ministries between 1907 and 1918: Public Education, Justice (in several cabinets), Interior (1918). Appointed three times Governor of Azarbayjan: 1907–8, 1909–11 and 1920–21 (suppression of Khiyabani’s autonomist Democrat movement). As a governor of Fars in 1913–15, he sided with the Germans against the Russians. The British had him replaced with Farmanfarma. Under Riza Khan again held portfolio of Public Works (1923, 1926) and became Prime Minister

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(1927–33). See FO371/ 17908 (Person. 1934), FO371/ 24582 (Person. 1940); Bāmdād, Rijāl, 4, pp. 184 ff.; ‘Alavi, Rijāl-i Mashrūtīyat, p. 99; Taqizāda, Zindagī-i tūfānī, p. 247 (on his resignation from premiership in 1933); Mustashār ud-Dawla, Yād-dāsht-hā-yi tārikhī, I, pp. 47 ff.; his nephew, the writer Sadiq Hidayat, took him as model for his Hājjī Āqā. Wrote useful technical works on Persian traditional music. See M. Kashefi and A. Yousefzadeh, “Hedayat, Mokber al-Saltane”, Encyclopaedia Iranica; autobiography: Khātirāt va khatarāt, tusha’i az tārīkh-i shish pādishāh va gusha’i az dawra-yi zindagī-i man, 2nd ed., Tehran, Zuvvār, 1344/1965; and his book of travels around the world is published as Safar-nāma-yi tasharruf bi Makka-yi mu‘azzama az tariq-i Chin, Žāpun, Āmerikā, Tehran, n.d. Muqtadir—see Sardar Muqtadir Muvaffaq ad-Dawla—Appointed Governor of Qazvin in August 1920, replacing Nizam us-Sultan. Gen. Ironside writes in his diaries (October 1920): “Visited the Governor of Kasvin, a fat podgy man of 35, who had only lately come. I explained how badly the Russians had done. The [wily] Persian was very polite and I could see that he knew I was propaganding”; in Ironside, Khātirāt-i sirrī, p. 380. Muvaqqar ad-Dawla—Mirzā ‘Ali-Muhammad Bālyuzī Muvaqqar adDawla (1865–1921), was educated at Shiraz, Bombay and London; he made his career as Karguzar in the ports of the Persian Gulf and Shiraz, was appointed Consul in Calcutta and Governor of Bushire 1911–15; see Rijāl-i vizārat-i khārija, p. 188. Deported to India during the war because of his pro-German inclinations. He is said to have been Minister of Public Works in Sayyid Ziya’s cabinet (March 1921) despite the fact that secondary sources give the name of this minister as Mahmud Muvaqqar ad-Dawla (f. ex. J. Zarqām Burūjinī, Dawlathā-yi ‘asr-i Mashrūtiyat, Tehran 1350/1971). He was related to the Bāb’s family, a Baha’i himself and the father of a prominent British Baha’i, Hasan Balyuzi; see M. Momen, Encyclopaedia Iranica, “Afnan”. Not Mahmud Muvaqqar ad-Dawla (1865–1932), son of ‘Abbas-Quli Qazvini; see ‘A. Sharh-i zindigānī-i man, Tehran, 1341/1962, I, p. 447, repeated by Bāmdād, Rijāl, 4, p. 50. Nizam as-Saltana—Rizā-Quli (Nizām-)Māfi (1867–1924), bore successively the titles Mujīr as-Saltana, Sālār-i Mu‘aẓzạ m, Sardār-i Mukram,

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Niẓām as-Saltana II. See Bāmdād, Rijāl, 2, pp. 31 ff.; ‘Alavī, Rijāl-i Mashrūṭiyat, pp. 120 ff. Regional leader in Kirmanshah, seen as Turcophile and Germanophile; Fortescue, Military Report, p. 351. As Governor of Luristan, with German and Turkish help, tried to organize a national government of liberation in Kirmanshah and Qasr-i Shirin. “[F]ound himself in strange circumstances, for by inclination he was Anglophile”, writes Avery, Modern Iran, p. 195. Exiled in Istanbul at the end of the war, he went to Paris and was back in Iran in 1923, to become Governor of Khurasan. See Rizā-Quli Khān NizāmMāfī and Mansura Ittihādīya (eds.), Surat-i jalasāt-i hiy’at-i dawlat-i muhājirat, Tehran, Kitāb-i Sīāmak/Nashr-i Tārīkh-i Irān, 1379/2000 and Mukātibāt va murāsilāt (1332–1334), Tehran, Kitāb-i Sīāmak, 1379/2001. Nizam as-Sultan—Amir-Aṣlān Khāja-Nūri Niẓām as-Sult ̣ān was Member of the Second Majles (1909–11), and married a daughter of Nasir ad-Din Shah. He is still mentioned in the “list of personalities” in 1940 (FO371/24582). He migrated to Kirmanshah in 1915 with anti-Allied nationalists. On his return to Tehran, was made Governor of Kurdistan, Burujird (1917) and Hamadan. See Bāmdād, Rijāl, 1, pp. 172 ff.; ‘Alavi, Rijāl-i Mashrūtiyat, 119 ff. Governor of Qazvin, November 1919–August 1920. Edmonds writes in his 1919 administrative report: “a social democrat and an energetic worker. He promises well”. Noel—Major Edward William Charles Noel (1886–1974), graduate of the Royal Military College, Woolwich. Edmonds describes him as an “ardent Russophile.” Vice-consul in Ahwaz, 1915; as officer of the Indian Political Department had been entrusted in April 1915 with the task of capturing the redoubtable German agent, Wassmuss, and it was no fault of his that Wassmuss escaped the trap to be a thorn in the side of the Allies for two years. Noel was “A man who combined boundless energy and great physical endurance with a thorough knowledge of the Persian language and of tribal ways” (A. Wilson, Loyalties Mesopotamia 1914–1917, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1930, p. 36). See Bullard, Letters from T., p. 262. Just arrived from Baku, was taken hostage by the Jangalis in March 1918 for five months in trying conditions, as he was bringing intelligence from Tiflis to Dunsterville; see Gehrke, Persien in der deutschen Orientpolitik, II, p. 307 (n. 548); report on his captivity: C. Chaqueri (ed.), The Revolutionary Movement in Iran (Florence 1979), pp. 882 ff. Was in Baghdad, October 1921 to

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speak on Kurdistan with Percy Cox; see MAE, PA, Papiers Ducrocq 21, “Lettre au gén. Gouraud”. Political Agent at Kurram, 1924 and Consul for Kirman and Persian Baluchistan, 1929. Commissioner for Agriculture, North West Frontier Province, India 1933–38 (see Behn, Concise Biographical Companion, III, 31). Norman—Herman Cameron Norman (1872–1955). British diplomat. “1st Secretary, HM Diplomatic Service, 1907. Counsellor, 1914. Secretary to the British delegation to the Peace Conference, 1919.” (Ferrier, History of BP, I, p. 694). British Minister in Tehran (June 1920–October 1921. “[A]n indeterminate little man, a charming host, but not what the Canadians call a hustler,” according to Ironside (Sabahi, British policy in Persia, p. 50); “A lui seul il télégraphie plus que trois postes réunis. Norman en somme apparaît comme un homme de la vieille école, sans contact avec la réalité qui l’entoure, distingué, distant, incompréhensif. Ce petit maître n’était pas à la hauteur des circonstances. Il prétend que la situation a été perdue du jour où l’Angleterre a déclaré qu’en cas d’invasion bolchevik elle ne pouvait assurer la défense de la Perse”; Ducrocq, Journal de Perse, 9 January 1921. Norman lost the confidence of Curzon as a result of his ties with Sayyid Ziya, which displeased Curzon and the Persian elites arrested after the coup. See Ghani, Iran and the Rise of R. Shah, passim, especially p. 218. Norman left Tehran at the beginning of October 1921 without notice; see H. Hoppenot, Journal, 3 October 1921. Nusrat as-Sultan—Muḥammad-‘Ali Nuṣrat as-Sulṭān (1871–?), the son of Mirzā Husayn Khān Mas‘ūd Ansāri Misbāh as-Saltana, Consul in Bombay, whose father was minister of foreign affairs of Muhammad Shah. A well-known family of diplomats up to the Pahlavi period. Nusrat as-Sultan was Vice-Consul in Bombay (1888), member of a diplomatic mission to the United States of America (1896). He was elected to First Parliament (1906). Vice-Governor of Kirman. Governor of Burujird (1917). See Mumtahin ad-Dawla, Rijāl-i vizārat-i khārija, pp. 202 ff. Petersen—Carl Petersen (1883–1963). Swedish instructor of Gendarmerie; see Markus Ineichen, Die schwedischen Offiziere in Persien (1911–1916): Friedensengel, Weltgendarmen oder Handelsagenten einer Kleinmacht im ausgehenden Zeitalter des Imperialismus?, Bern, Peter Lang, 2002.

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Philby—St-John Philby (1895–1960), the father of Kim Philby (1912– 1988, British agent who worked for USSR for many years and eventually deserted to Moscow where he died), was an orientalist and diplomat, trained in Cambridge, who became a Muslim and was appointed as an adviser to Ibn Saud, the founder of Saudi Arabia. Puladin—Mahmūd Pūlādin (?–1928). A nationalist Gendarmerie officer, he was pro-Ottoman in the war. Later, Puladin, who was favorable to the 1921 coup, was sent by Sayyid Ziya to Tabriz, became a friend of Lahuti. He was arrested in 1927 and executed the following year. See Md Dihnavī, “Barg-hā’i az tārīkh”, Tārikh-i mu’asir-i Irān, III, 141 ff.; Bihbudī, Khatịrāt (ed. Mirzā Sālih, 1372) pp. 246f, Cronin, Army, 147. Pusht-i Kuh, Vali of—see Vali. Qavam as-Saltana—Ahmad Qavam, Dabīr-i Huzūr, Vazīr-i Rasā’il, Qavām as-Saltạ na (1873–1955). He was the younger brother of Vusuq ad-Dawla. Was secretary of Nasir ad-Din Shah and Muzaffar ad-Din Shah (he wrote the constitutional firman, August 1906). Held different ministerial functions from 1910 (War, Interior, Finances). Governor of Khurasan (1918–21). After arrest by Sayyid Ziya’s government, he came out of prison to become Prime Minister (1921–22). Became Minister of Foreign Affairs (1922–23) and was arrested by Riza Khan but saved by intervention of Ahmad Shah and went into exile in France for a while. “Friendly to H.M.’s Legation” (FO371/17908 (Person. 1934); “[H]is duplicity and resourcefulness are unusual even for a Persian . . . in all of his doublings and turnings and intrigues there is remarkable streak of tenacity and . . . it is this tenacity which has raised him to his high position” (Loraine to Curzon, 21/09/1922, quoted by Ghani, Iran and the Rise, p. 261). Became Prime Minister again after the war in 1946 and cleverly headed direct negotiations with Stalin in Moscow for the evacuation of Azarbayjan (1946–47). See Bāmdād, Rijāl, 1, pp. 94 ff.; ‘Alavī, Rijāl-i Mashrūtīyat, pp. 85 and 135; Taqizāda, Zindagī-i tūfānī, p. 358 (on his cupidity and lavish habits); R. Kauz, Politische Parteien und Bevölkerung in Iran: Die Ḥ ezb-e Demūkrāt-e Irān und ihr Führer Qavāmo s-Salṭanä, Berlin, Klaus Schwarz, 1995; J. Mahdī-Nīā, Zindagī-i siyāsī-i Qavām as-Saltana, 2nd ed., Tehran, Pāsārgād-Pānūs, 1366/1987.

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Sā‘id ad-Dawla—‘Ali-Asqar Tunakābunī Sā‘id ad-Dawla (?–1925). The youngest son of Muhammad-Vali Sipahsalar. (Edmonds writes wrongly Sa‘d ad-Dawla, Saad al-Dauleh in an FO report, but identification is obvious). “Some excitement was caused in October by the discovery of a plot to assassinate the Prime Minister and others. Saadal-Dauleh, who once ventilated his idea for an independent Mazandaran, is even reported contemplated deposing the Shah and making himself dictator. Machine-guns, rifles and quantities of ammunition were subsequently unearthed in Sipah Salar’s estates”. Administrative report for the Kazvin division for the year 1919, Archives of the MEC, St Antony’s College. Led a revolt in Mazandaran, 1921; see I. Safā’ī, Kūditā-yi 1299 va āsār-i ān, n.p., 1353/1974, pp. 45 ff. Later reintegrated in Riza Shah’s army; see Chaqueri, Soviet Socialist Republic of Iran, p. 471; Bāmdād, Rijāl 1, p. 306. Died in unclear circumstances. Salar ad-Dawla—Abu’l-Fath Sālār ad-Dawla (1881–1959), third son of Muzaffar ad-Din Shah, appointed Governor of Kermanshah (1897), Arabistan (i.e. Khuzistan, 1901), Kurdistan (1905). Expelled from Iran in 1908, he was back in 1911 and again exiled in 1914. “Probably mad,” says a British report in 1934. During the First World War, from Switzerland he tried to draw the Germans into a coalition with Persia against Russia and Great Britain. Sardar Ashraf—see Vali, Ghulam-Riza Sardar Humayun—Qāsim Khān Vālī, Sardār Humāyūn (1875–1933). Born in Tehran, the son of ‘Ali Khan Vālī, to an old family boasting descent from Bayazid Bastami. Educated in Paris (1889), St Cyr (1896). Opened one of the first typographic presses in Iran (Tabriz, 1900; see Taqīzāda, Kāva, II, 5, p. 14—reprint p. 530). Appointed as military adjutant to the Crown Prince in Tabriz, where he introduced electricity and the telephone (1902). Governor of Tehran (1918). Appointed head of Cossack Brigade (despite his not being a Cossack) to replace Starosselsky in October 1920. See H. Yakrangīān, Gulgūnkafanān. Gūsha’i az tārīkh-i nizāmī-i Īrān, I Tihrān, ‘Ilmī, 1336/1957; “Ancien élève de St. Cyr, officier fatigué et sans autorité” writes Ducrocq, 1 March 1921, MAE 17, F°94). Died from cancer in Riza’iya (Urmiya). See Morselvand, Rijāl va mashāhīr, II, p. 178. Had an indirect role in the 1921 coup by requesting 2,000 troops from Qazvin, his cancelling the order

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being disobeyed; Cronin, Army and the Creation of the Pahlavi State, pp. 86 ff.; Bāmdād, Rijāl, 5, p. 178. “The commander of the Cossacks is a useless little creature and the real life and soul of the show is Reza Khan, a Colonel, the man that I liked so much before. Smyth says he is a good man and I have told him to give Humayun leave to visit his estate. The latter is pleased to go because he has not been allowed to handle the money and has a grievance” writes Ironside in his diaries (14 January 1921, in Ironside, Khātirāt-i sirrī, p. 383.) Sardar Intisar—Muẓaffar A‘lam Sardār Intiṣār (1885–?). Educated at St Cyr military academy (France). As a military Governor of Azarbayjan, he is said to have opened the way to Khiyabani’s upsurge in 1920 (Katouzian, State and Society in Iran, p. 151). Governor of Persian Gulf Ports (1928), Fars (1931), West-Azarbayjan (1933). Minister in Baghdad (1936), League of Nations (1938). Minister of Foreign Affairs (1940–41). See FO371/24582 (Person. 1940); Mustawfī, Zindagānī-i man, 2, p. 380. Sardar Mu‘azzam—‘Abd al-Ḥ usayn Sardār Mu‘aẓzạ m, later called Taymurtāsh (1879–1933), a Russian educated officer, was to become a major ally of the rise to power of Rizā Pahlavi and became his Minister of Court, in fact running his foreign policy up to his dismissal in 1932. He was later murdered in prison, being accused of betraying his country for the USSR. See Miron Rezun, The Soviet Union and Iran: Soviet policy in Iran from the beginnings of the Pahlavi dynasty until the Soviet invasion in 1941, Alphen aan den Rijn, Sijthoff & Noordhoff intern; Geneva, Institut Universitaire de Hautes Études Internationales, 1981. Sardar Muhi—‘Abd al-Husayn Rashtī Mu‘izz as-Sultān, Sardār Muḥīy (1865–1920). One of the leaders of the constitutionalist struggle against Muhammad-‘Ali Shah in Gilan (1909). Friend of Sipahsālār. “He was very hard working,” writes Taqizada (Zindagī-i tūfānī, pp. 132, 151, 326); broke with Mirza Kuchik Khan after 1909; see E. Fakhrā’ī, Sardār-i Jangal, p. 34; Governor of Kirman (1910); head of the military expedition against the return of Muhammad-‘Ali Mirzā (Shah). During the war, joined the pro-German forces. Governor of Kurdistan (1918). In Gilan, sided with the government against the Jangal. Eventually joined the Bolsheviks, but was arrested by them and died in Baku. His brother Hasan ‘Amid us-Sultān (1860–?), who had joined the Jangal,

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became Governor of Rasht for Mirza (1918), then appointed by the Bolsheviks (1920). See Bāmdād, Rijāl, 6, pp. 131 ff.; Chaqueri, Soviet Socialist Republic of Iran, pp. 473 ff. Sardar Muhtasham—Qulām-Husayn Bakhtyārī, Shihāb as-Saltana, Sardār Muḥtasham (1866–1950). Ilkhani of the Bakhtyari tribe. “Did us well in summer of 1916, but since then has become soured by general repressive measure undertaken against tribe”; FO371/3269, p. 277, 1916. Governor of Isfahan in 1921, friend of Musaddiq as-Saltana; see Musaddiq, Khātirāt, pp. 137 ff. Twice Īl-bigī and twice Īl-khānī of the Bakhtyari tribe between 1905 and 1921, occupied government positions 1911–13. “One of the few members of his family who was not arrested and executed in 1933”; Digard, “Baktiari, Golam-Hosayn Khan,” Enc. Iranica III, p. 548. “He is cowardly and his stinginess has diminished his influence with the tribes. Is very rich”; Fortescue, Military Report (1922), p. 367. Sardar Muqtadir—Nasrullāh Sardār Muqtadir (1870–?), Żarqām asSaltana, Amir Muqtadir, a Tālishī Sunni leader who played an ambiguous role in the Jangal struggle. See Chaqueri, Soviet Socialist Republic of Iran, 474 and index, s.v. Sayyāh—Kāẓim Khān Sayyāḥ (1896–1970). Through his family, Sayyāh was a close friend to Sayyid Ziya. He studied in a military academy in Istanbul and fought against the British in Mesopotamia, was made prisoner and deported to India. Accompanied Sayyid Ziya to Caucasus in 1919–20. Then participated with some other gendarmes in the reorganization of the Cossack Brigade under Col. Smyth and was probably one of the few intermediaries between Ziya and Riza Khan (later Pahlavi) in staging the seizing of power. Sayyah became military commandant of Tehran after the coup of 21t February 1921. Went into exile with Sayyid Ziya and stayed in Germany. Back in Iran after Riza Shah’s abdication, held various official functions and opposed Musaddiq’s oil policies. See Safā’ī, Kūditā-yi 1299, pp. 10, 15; D. N. Wilber, Riza Shah Pahlavi: The resurrection and reconstruction of Iran, New York, Exposition Press, 1975, pp. 40 ff.; Ā. Āl-i Ahmad, “Hākim-i Nizāmī-i Tihrān dar subh-i Kūditā”, Tārīkh-i mu‘āsir-i Īrān (Vīžanāma-yi Kūditā-yi 1299), IV, 15–16 (pā’īz—zimistān 1379/2000), pp. 211–27. Sayyid Ziya—see Ziya ad-Din Tabataba’i

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Shuster—William Morgan Shuster (1877–1960), an American, was hired to reform the financial system by the Second Iranian Parliament in 1911 and dismissed only some months later, after a harsh confrontation with the Russian Legation. See M. Shuster, The Strangling of Persia: Story of the European diplomacy and oriental intrigue that resulted in the denationalization of twelve million Mohammedans, a personal narrative, New York, Century Co., 1912. Sipahdar-i A’zam—Fatḥullāh Akbar Rashtī, Sālār-i A‘ẓ̣am, Sālār Afkham, Bīglirbaygī, Sardār Manṣūr, Sipahdār-i A‘ẓam (1860–1921). Born to a modest family in Gilan, worked with the Customs. Active in the struggle for the Constitution, friend of Taqizada (Zindagi-i tufāni, p. 151). Had several ministerial posts since 1915 (Justice, Posts, Interior, War in Vusuq’s Cabinet) see FO371/17908 (Person. 1934). On the origins of his fortune, see Bāmdād, Rijal, 1, p. 145; 3, 51. On him Mustashār ad-Dawla, Khātirāt va asnād, I, Yāddāshthā-yi tārikhi, I. Afshar ed., pp. 133 sq. “He is a pleasant man of the country gentleman type, talks no language except Persian and a few words of French. He has a reputation for integrity and is personally popular with the people” Fortescue, Military Report, p. 368. His short government, November 1920 to February 1921, was a period of weakness, disorder, and permanent crisis. The night of the coup, he took bast in the British Legation. One of his advisors was Ziyā Humāyūn, who had studied arts in Paris. See further Ducrocq, Papiers d’Agent, vol. 19; Chaqueri, Soviet Socialist Republic of Iran, p. 475. Sipahsalar—Muhammad-Vali Tunkābuni, Sipahsālār-i A‘zam (1848– 1926). Commanded the besieging forces against Tabriz in 1908, but eventually turned to the side of the Constitutionalists (Browne, Persian Revolution, p. 267). See Bāmdād, Rijāl, pp. 4, 17; Dawlatābādī, Hayāt-e Yahyā, II, p. 82, ‘Abd al-Samad Khal’at-bari, Sipahsālār Tunikābunī, ed. by M. Tafażżuli, Tehrān 1362/1983; Fortescue, Military Report, pp. 369 ff.; F. Mu’tamid, Sipahsālār-e A’zam, Tehran, ‘Ilmi, 1325/1946. Millspaugh obliged him to pay his taxes in the 1920s and he eventually committed suicide; A. C. Millspaugh, The American Task in Persia, New York, Century Co., 1925, p. 186. His lands had been confiscated by the Jangalis; see Chaqueri, Soviet Socialist Republic of Iran, pp. 474 ff. His suicide might have been motivated by the death of his son in dubious circumstances (see above under Sa’id ad-Dawla).

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Smith—see Armitage Smith Smyth—Colonel Henry Smyth (1866–1943). Cheshire Regiment. Served Chin Lushai Expedition, 1889–90 (medal and clasp); Tirah Expedition, 1897–98 (despatches, medal and two clasps); European War, 1914–1918 (DSO, despatches, Greek medal for military merit, French and Greek Croix de Guerre); NW Persia (medal and clasp). His name is often (for example in Ironside’s High Road to Command, in the present book’s typescript and even in archive sources) written wrongly Smythe or even Smith, a source of confusion (a Colonel R[upert] C[aesar] Smythe, 1879–1943, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers did exist). Smyth was Intelligence Officer in Quetta 1899–1902, Political Officer in Mashhad (1904–09). Appointed to the training of Persian Cossacks (1920) as he was nominally serving under Dickson for the Anglo-Persian military commission as in the 1919 Agreement. “Diner à la maison avec Smith (colonel),” writes Ducrocq, “Il est ulcéré de la manière de Dickson, qui traite les Persans sans égards. Lui, vieil officier des Indes, 20 ans de service, sait comment on prend les Orientaux”; (Journal de Perse, 28 June 1920). “It was also Ironside who selected Lt. Colonel Reza Khan as Starosselsky’s successor. This he did on the advice of Lt. Colonel Henry Smyth of the Cheshire Regiment, a British officer temporarily attached to the Cossacks, and after several visits to their camp at Aqa Baba near Qazvin where he was much impressed by the contingent (atriyad) from Hamadan under Reza Khan ‘the most manly Persian I have yet struck’ (MS. Diary 29.1.1921)”, Denis Wright, “Ironside”, Encyclopaedia Iranica. Had a major rôle in the 1921 coup by making the link between Sayyāh and Kayhān, the two Gendarmerie officers, and Riza Khan; see Cronin, The Army and the Creation of the Pahlavi State, p. 86; Sabahi, British Policy in Persia, pp. 52 ff. In Qazvin, he met regularly with ‘Ayn as-Saltana who mentions that he spoke some Persian and that he could deal between Sardar Humayun and British officers; see Rūznāma-yi khātirāt-i ‘Ayn as-Saltana, 7, pp. 5722, 5738. Soane—Ely Bannister Soane (1881–1923). Vice-Consul of Qasr-i Shirin, 1911–21 (see Rabino, Diplomatic and Consular Officers, p. 50). Sent to Ahvaz in 1916 to help Noel with the Bakhtyaris, then Susa. Converted to Islam. By him: To Mesopotamia and Kurdistan in Disguise: Narrative of a journey from Constantinople through Kurdistan to Baghdad, 1907–1909, with historical and ethnographical notices of

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the various Kurdish tribes and of the Chaldaeans of Kurdistan, 2nd ed., with a memoir on the author by A. T. Wilson.- St. Helier, Jersey, Armorica Book; Amsterdam, APA-Philo Press, 1979 [1st ed. 1912]. Soane is also the author of Elementary Kurmanji Grammar, Baghdad, Government Press, 1919. Starosselsky—Vsevolod Dmitrievitch Starosselsky. For this Russian (in fact, Georgian) Cossack officer, who played a leading role in Persia between 1917 and October 1920, no dates for birth or death are known; even the first name is unknown in historical sources. His father, Gen. Dimitri Starosselsky, was at the service of the “vice-roy of Tsar Alexander II” and his mother a Georgian princess (see Princess Nilufer de Turquie, Pour l’amour de Tatiana: la sultane des enfants malades, Paris, Presses de la Renaissance, 2006). He became head of the Persian Cossack Brigade as the outcome of a sort of internal coup inside the Brigade, where he was acting with Riza Khan (later Pahavi). On that occasion Riza Khan proved to be able to betray his superiors and even to seek the help of a foreign power (in that case, Germany) when national issues were at stake. From spring 1920 with growing intensity, the British sought to get rid of Starosselsky whom they suspected of taking for himself a part of the soldiers’ pay (bribing the Shah in order to strengthen his own position) and to be ready to betray Iran for the Bolsheviks. Sir Percy Cox wanted to dissolve the Cossacks into units under British command (MAE, Papiers Bonin, 21, F°314; 26, F°155, report of Georges Ducrocq, 2 April 1920); on his dismissal in October, see Sabahi, British Policy in Persia, p. 51; Arfa, Under Five Shahs, pp. 89 ff.; G. Ducrocq, Journal de Perse, 18 November 1920; on the two campaigns in Gilan of summer 1920 see Ducrocq, “La Politique du gouvernement des Soviets en Perse : le Bolchevisme et l’Islam”, Revue du Monde Musulman, 52 (1922) pp. 97 ff. See S. Cronin, The Army and the Creation of the Pahlavi State in Iran, 1910–1926, London and New York, Tauris Academic Studies, 1997, index, passim and pp. 73 ff., 266 n50; Ironside, Highroad to Command, pp. 143 ff.; Katouzian, State and Society, pp. 198 ff. A good study of his dismissal based on British documents is Brian Pearce, The Staroselsky Problem 1918–20: An episode in British-Russian relations in Persia, intro. Ali Granmayeh, London, SOAS, 1994 (SOAS, Centre of Near and Middle Eastern Studies, Occasional Papers, 14).

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Stead—(Dr) F. M. Stead. American missionary established in Kirmanshah, 1905–25. Mrs Stead, a physician, established a dispensary. They worked for relief of all kinds of victims during the war and established an industrial farm for orphans in Faraman, 17 miles from Kirmanshah. See R. E. Waterfield, Christians in Persia. Assyrians, Armenians, Roman Catholics and Protestants, London, Allen and Unwin, 1973, pp. 139 ff.; F. M. Stead, “Missionary News”, The Muslim World, 3 (1913), 3, pp. 330–34; “The Ali Ilahi Sect in Persia”, Moslem World, 22 (1932), 139 ff. Stokes—Claude Bayfield Stokes (1875–1948), was appointed military attaché to the British Legation in 1907 (and thus arrived in Tehran one year after the 1906 demonstrations). In 1911, Morgan Shuster invited him to organize the Treasury Gendarmerie, provoking a diplomatic crisis (see Shuster, Strangling of Persia, pp. 69–80). In 1918 he took part in negotiations with the Jangalis and was sent to Baku the same year as political officer. “Les temps avaient changé . . . On lui fit grise mine et Stokes, obligé de renoncer au rôle messianique qu’avait rêvé son illuminisme, dut se contenter des médiocres besognes d’informateur d’ailleurs tenu en suspicion de toutes parts,” writes Lecomte (French Minister), 8–15 June 1918, MAE Perse 32, F°15). He was Chief Commissioner in Transcaucasia in 1920 and left his post for family reasons, Stokes’s return was hoped for by Smyth; see Ducrocq, Journal de Perse, 22 December 1920; Rabino, Diplomatic and Consular Officers, p. 52. Sykes—Sir Mark Sykes (1879–1919), was an intrepid traveller and diplomatic adviser about the Near East. His name is linked to the Sykes–Picot Agreement concerning the repartition of the remains of the Ottoman Empire between France, Russia and Britain. LieutenantColonel in the British army during the Great War, he was consulted on Kurdistan where he had been twice in 1908 and 1913. MP in 1912. He died from the Spanish flu in Paris where he contributed to the Peace Conference. See Shane Leslie, Mark Sykes: his life and letters, intro. Winston Churchill, thirty cartoons by M. Sykes, London and New York, Cassell, 1923. Author of The Caliphs’ Last Heritage; a short history of the Turkish empire, London, Macmillan, 1915; Whitefriars, Pelikan Books, 1918.

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Sykes—Sir Percy Molesworth Sykes (1867–1945) was educated at Rugby School and at the Royal Millitary College, Sandhurst. Soon interested in Persia, he followed his regiment in Punjab, visited Samarqand on a “spying trip” (1892), explored Baluchistan and travelled in Persia where he became Consul at Kirman (1895), later in Mashhad (1905–13). Was shortly Consul in Kashgar, capital of Chinese Turkistan. Organized and commanded the South Persia Rifles (1916–20) which brought south Persian towns (Kirman, Yazd, Isfahan, Chiraz) under British control, away from German influence. Wrote extensively about Persia and his travels, for example The Glory of the Shia World, London, MacMillan, 1910; A History of Persia, 2nd ed., London, MacMillan, 1921. On him, see Antony Wynn, Persia in the Great Game. Sir Percy Sykes, explorer, consul, soldier, spy, London, John Murray, 2003; Behn, Concise biogaphical companion, III, 478. Townshend—Major General Charles Vere Ferrers Townshend (1861– 1924), KCB, received his education at Sandhurst, served in the Sudan Expedition in 1884 and became a British Indian Army officer, Major General (1911), in command of the 6th Indian Division at the outbreak of the First World War. He was sent to Mesopotamia in early 1915. After a disastrous campaign where he went short of supplies, he surrendered to the Ottomans during the siege of Kut on 29 April 1916 and spent two years under arrest near Istanbul. After the war he resigned from the army and was elected to Parliament. He published My Campaign in Mesopotamia, London, Thornton Butterworth Ltd, 1920. See A. J. Barker, Townshend of Kut, a biography of Major-General Sir Charles Townshend, London, Cassell, 1967. Vali—Ghulām-Rizā, Vālī of Pusht-i Kūh, Fath as-Sultān, Sardār Ashraf, Sārim as-Saltana (1864–?, still living in 1940). Lur chieftain, son of Sarim as-Saltana Sardār Ashraf. Allied to Shaykh Khaz‘al, Nizam us-Saltana and Sawlat ud-Dawla against the Bakhtyari supremacy (1909). Pro-Ottoman inclinations during the Great War. Exiled in Iraq in 1929 after having failed to gain Riza Shah’s confidence. See FO 371/24582 (Person. 1940); Bāmdād, Rijāl, 3, pp. 12 (quoting Hidāyat, Khātirāt va khatarāt, p. 493) 5, 89 and 169f. Vusuq ad-Dawla—Hasan Vusūq (1872–1951), bore the titles Vusūq ulMulk, Vusūq ad-Dawla. Brother of Qavam as-Saltana. Vice-President of the 1st Parliament (before June 1908), Minister of Justice, Finances,

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Foreign Affairs and Interior in various governments. Prime Minister in 1916–17 and 1918–1920. Signed the 1919 Anglo-Persian Agreement which has been criticized by French and American diplomats and rejected by Iranian politicians. Exiled in Europe 1920–26. Elected to the 7th Parliament (1928–30), President of the Iranian Academy (1935). See FO 371/17908 (Person. 1934); FO371/ 24582 (Person. 1940); Bāmdād, Rijāl, 1, pp. 348 ff.; ‘Alavī, Rijāl-i Mashrūtīyat, p. 126; Sadīq, Yādigār-i ‘umr, I, pp. 188 ff. On the “bribe” he took to sign the 1919 Agreement, on his education, Taqizāda, Zindagī-i tūfānī, pp. 194, 301; Vusuq’s response to Sitāra, in Rūznāma-yi khātirāt-i ‘Ayn as-Saltana, VI, pp. 4831 f; O. Bast has shown how the infamous reputation of Vusuq was largely exaggerated and stresses his political cleverness and national awareness: Bast, “Die persische Außenpolitik und der Erste Weltkrieg”. Wassmuss—Wilhelm Waßmuß (1880–1931), “the German Lawrence”. A member of the German Foreign Office, Waßmuß was first sent to Madagascar and posted in Bushire in 1909 only for some months. He was back in the Persian Gulf in 1913. During the war, going through British lines, he managed to mobilize southern Tangsir and tribal (Qashqa’i and Bakhtyari) populations of Persia against the British, in the plans of Germany to destabilize Afghanistan and India through Persia. Eventually arrested, he succeeded in escaping in extraordinary circumstances. Back in Iran after the war, he was again arrested and released in 1920. He eventually tried to settle in southern Persia as a farmer but failed and died in Berlin, forgotten and poor. On him see Christopher Sykes, Wassmuss, “the German Lawrence”, London, New York [etc.] Longmans, Green and Co. [1936]. Documents in K. Bayāt (ed.), Īrān va Jang-i jahānī-i avval: Asnād-i vizārat-i dākhila, Tehran, Sāzimān-i asnād-i millī-i Īrān, 1369/1990, pp. 111 ff. Wickham—Lt-Col. Edward Thomas Ruscombe Wickham (1890– 1957). See Ducrocq, Journal, 7, 20 January 1921. Military attaché at the British Legation in Tehran, 1919–20; Ghani, Iran and the Rise of Reza Shah, p. 311. He was elected as conservative Member of Parliament for Taunton (1935–45). Wilson—Arnold T. Wilson (1884–1940). “He served in British consulates at Ahwaz and Khorramshahr 1907–1914. He also served as the General Manager of the Anglo Persian Oil Company and later

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became a member of its Board of Directors. W. had always advocated a weak central government for Persia and in the dispute between Reza Khan and Sheikh Khaz’al, he supported autonomy for ‘Arabestan’ (Khuzestan)”; Ghani, Iran and the West, p. 400. In March 1917, he replacesd Sir Percy Cox as British High-Commissionner in Mesopotamia. “Un des officiers les plus en vue du service politique anglais de Perse . . . l’indomptable énergie de cet homme mise au service d’une large intelligence et d’un grand esprit colonisateur” ; Poidebard, Voyages au carrefour des routes de Perse (Paris 1923) p. 68 ff. He organised the 1919 referendum in Iraq, cf. Nakash, The Shi’is of Iraq, pp. 61 ff.; P.-J. Luizard, La formation de l’Irak contemporain: Le rôle politique des ulémas chiites à la fin de la domination ottomane et au moment de la création de l’État irakien, Paris, CNRS, 1991, pp. 365 ff.; Luizard (ed.), Ayatollah Mahdî al-Khâlisi, p. 222. “Acting Civil Commissioner and Political Resident, Persian Gulf, 1918–20. Joint general manager Muhammara, Strick Scott & Co, 1921 and for APOC, 1923–24. Managing director, D’Arcy Exploration Company, 1926–32”; Ferrier, History of BP, I, p. 696. See A. T. Wilson, The Persian Gulf: An historical sketch from the earliest times to the beginning of the twentieth century, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1928; Loyalties: Mesopotamia 1914–1917, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1930; Persia, London, Ernest Bent, 1932; SW. Persia, a political officer’s diary, 1907–1914, London, Oxford, Toronto, Oxford University Press, 1941. Killed in a war mission of the RAF. See John Marlowe, Late Victorian: The life of Sir Arnold Talbot Wilson, London, Cresset Press, 1967. Wustrow—Kurt Wustrow (1878–1920). German diplomat with Marxist sympathies, born in Riga. Consul in Shiraz at the height of antiBritish agitation (1915). Consul in Tabriz (1918–20). Committed suicide (3 June 1920) after confrontation with Tajaddud forces headed by Khiabani. See Kasravī, Tārīkh-i hījdah sāla-yi Āzarbāyjān, pp. 884 ff.; on his suicide, Ducrocq, Journal de Perse, 20 November 1920. Young—M. Y. Young, (d. 1950). “Medical officer in Persia, 1907. Chief Medical Officer, Persia, 1909–26. Deputy director and Company Chief Medical Officer, 1926–36”; Ferrier, History of BP, I, p. 697. “Within a few years he was the trusted medical adviser of the principal tribal leaders and Persian gentlemen. He overcame the distrust of the tribesmen and their women and their just fears of surgical operations . . . He became exceedingly competent in the Persian language and sufficiently

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familiar with local dialects. . . . To him more than to any other single man the Company and the British and Persian governments owed the complete absence of trouble on the oilfields in the autumn of 1914 when communication with the coast was cut off by bands of insurgent Arabs under Turkish leadership”; Wilson, SW. Persia, p. 28. Ziya—Sayyid Zīyā ad-Din Tabātabā’i (1889–1969). He was the son of a cleric from Yazd. He studied two years in Paris (1909–11) and began writing and publishing newspapers, Ra‘d (1915–16). He was known as an Anglophile and was one of the few journalists of his time to praise the 1919 Anglo-Persian Agreement. He made many friends among the British diplomats. In October 1919 Vusuq ad-Dawla, Prime Minister, sent him to Baku to negotiate with the nationalist government of Transcaucasia. When he returned from an apparently successful mission, the Bolsheviks broke in and destroyed any hope of Iranian alliance with the new Caucasian republics. During this period, with two Gendarme officers, personal friends who accompanied him, Ziya conceived the project of a coup to seize power and restore authority in Tehran. He became the head of government after Riza Khan (later Pahlavi) took military control of Tehran the night of 21 February 1921. Ziya undertook strong measures to curb corruption and to reform and modernize the state, apparently cancelling the 1919 Agreement and in fact enforcing its main lines. Neither Riza Khan nor Ahmad Shah were pleased with the invitation of British officers to reform the new national army, nor with the imprisonment of many Qajar grandees requested to pay high bails to settle their fiscal accounts. He was compelled to resign after only three months (24 May) and went to Switzerland into exile. He could only return to Tehran after the fall of Riza Shah (Pahlavi) in 1941 and tried, without success to play a role again in politics. While in exile in Switzerland Ziya wrote his memoirs, which were lost, but some notes which Muhammad-‘Ali Jamalzada, a famous novelist, had taken for himself were published after the revolution as “Taqrirāt-i Sayyid Ziyā’ va ‘Kitāb-i sīyāh’-i ū”, Āyanda, VI (1359/1981) 9–12, pp. 736–745; VII (1360/1981) 3, pp. 207–213; VII (1360/1981) 4, pp. 291–294. On Ziya’s mission to Caucasus, see Bast, “Die persische Außenpolitik und der Erste Weltkrieg”; Riżā Āẕarī-Šahreżā’ī, ed, Hiy’at-e fawq al-‘ādda-yi qafqāzīya: Asnād-i muẕākirāt va qarārdād-hā-yi hiy’at-i i‘zāmī-i Īrān bi Qafqāz taḥ t-i sarparastī-i Sayyid Żīyā’uddīn Ṭ abāṭabā’ī (1337–1338q/1919–1920m). Tehrān, Daftar-i muṭāli’āt-i sīāsī va bayn al-milalī, Markaz-i asnād va

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tārīkh-i dīplumāsī, 1379/2000. From him: Sd Żīā’uddīn Ṭ abāṭabā’ī, Ša’ā’ir-i millī. Tarāviš-i andīša va khāma-yi Sd Żīyā’uddīn Ṭ abāṭabā’ī. Zamīma-yi Ra‘d-i imrūz, Tihrān, 1362/1322/1943. On him, see Ja’far Mahdī-Nīyā, Nakhust-vazīrān-i Īrān. IV: Zindagī-i sīyāsī-i Sayyid Żīyā’uddīn Ṭ abāṭabā’ī, Tihrān, Pānūs, 1369/1990; Khusraw Mu‘tażidd, Sd Żīyā’uddīn Ṭ abāṭabā’ī, sīyāsat-madār-i du-čihra. I Az jumbiš-i Mašrūṭa tā kūditā-yi Sivvum isfand. II Jarīyān-hā-yi sīyāsī, pārlimānī va ḥ izbī pas az šahrīvar 1320, 2 vol. Tihrān, Zarrīn/Āvīža,1376/1997; Md-Riżā Tabrīzī-Šīrāzī, Zindagī-i sīāsī, ijtimā’ī-i Sayyid Żīyā’ud-Dīn Ṭ abāṭabā’ī, Tihrān, Mu’assisa-yi muṭāli’āt-i tārīx-i mu’āṣir-i Īrān, 1379/2000.

E. ADDITIONAL BIBLIOGRAPHY (Y. RICHARD) ‘Alavī, Rijāl-i ‘Asr Mashrūṭiyat = Abu’l-Hasan ‘Alavi (with H. Taqizāda), Rijāl-i Mashrūṭīyat, ed. Habīb Yaghmā’ī and Īraj Afshār, Tehran, Asāṭīr, 1363/1984. Arfa, Under Five Shahs, = Hassan Arfa, Under Five Shahs, London, John Murray, 1964. Avery, Modern Iran, = Peter Avery, Modern Iran, London, Ernest Benn, 1965. ‘Ayn as-Saltana, Rūznāma-yi khāṭirāt = M. Sālūr and I. Afshār (eds.), Rūznāma-yi khāṭirāt-i ‘Ayn as-Salṭana (Qahrimān Mirzā Sālūr), 10 vols., Tehran, Asāṭir, 1374/1995. Bamdād, Rijāl = Mahdī Bamdād, Tārīkh rijāl-i Īrān. Qurūn 12, 13, 14, 6 vols., Tihran, Zuvvār, 1347–51/1968–72. Bast, “Die persische Außenpolitik und der Erste Weltkrieg” = O. Bast “La politique étrangère de la Perse et la Première Guerre mondiale (1917–1921)—Die persische Außenpolitik und der Erste Weltkrieg (1917–1921)”, unpublished diss. (in German), Paris (Sorbonne nouvelle), Bamberg (Universität Bamberg), 2003. Behn, Concise Biographical Companion, = Wolfgang Behn, Concise Biographical Companion to Index Islamicus: An international who’s who in Islamic studies from its beginnings down to the twentieth century, 3 vols., Leiden and Boston, Brill, 2004, 3 vol. Browne, Persian Revolution = E. G. Browne, The Persian Revolution of 1905–1909, Cambridge, 1910 (reissued London, Frank Cass, 1966). Bullard, Letters from T = Sir Reader Bullard, Letters from Tehran: A British Ambassador in World War II Persia, ed. E. C. Hodgkin, foreword by Fitzroy Maclean, London, I. B. Tauris, 1991. Chaqueri, Soviet Socialist Republic of Iran = Cosroe Chaquèri (pref. R. W. Cottam), The Soviet Socialist Republic of Iran 1920–1921: Birth of the trauma, Pittsburg and London, University of Pittsburg Press, 1995. Cronin, Army and the Creation of the Pahlavi State = Stephanie Cronin, The Army and the Creation of the Pahlavi State in Iran, 1910–1926, London and New York, Tauris Academic Studies, 1997. Ducrocq, Journal de Perse = G. Ducrocq, Journal de Perse. Impressions, Ms. Archives du MAE, Dossiers d’agents, 52 (1921) (publication in progress). L. C. Dunsterville, The Adventures of Dunsterforce, London, Edward Arnold, 1920. Encyclopaedia Iranica, publication currently in progress, New York, Encyclopaedia Iranica Foundation, distr. Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake, Ind. (also available through the internet, http://www.iranica.com). Ferrier, “The Iranian Oil Industry” = Ronald W. Ferrier, “The Iranian Oil Industry”, in The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 7, P. Avery, G. Hambly and C. Melville (eds.), From Nadir Shah to the Islamic Republic, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991, pp. 639–701. Ferrier, History of the BP Co = Ronald W. Ferrier, The History of the British Petroleum Company, vol. 1, The Developing Years 1901–1932, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1982. Fortescue, Military Report (1922) = Captain L. S. Fortescue, Military Report on Tehrān and Adjacent Provinces of North-West Persia (including the Caspian Littoral), (General Staff MEF Mesopotamia 1921), Calcutta, Superintendent Government Printing, India, 1922. Fragner, Memoirenliteratur = Bert G. Fragner, Persische Memoirenliteratur als Quelle zur neueren Geschichte Irans, Wiesbaden, Franz Steiner, 1979. Gehrke, Persien in der deutschen Orientpolitik, = Ulrich Gehrke, Persien und die deutsche Orientpolitik während des ersten Weltkrieges, Stuttgart, Kohlhammer, 1960.

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Ghani, Iran and the Rise of Reza Shah, = Cyrus Ghani, Iran and the Rise of Reza Shah: From Qajar collapse to Pahlavi rule, London and New York, I.B. Tauris, 1998. IJMES = International Journal of Middle East Studies. Ironside, High Road to Command = Edmund Ironside, High Road to Command: The diaries of Major-General Sir Edmund Ironside 1920–22, ed. Lord Ironside, London, Leo Cooper, 1972. Ironside, Khātirāt-i sirrī = Muhammad Turkamān ed., Khātirāt-i sirrī-i Āyrunsāyd bi inżimām-i tarjuma-yi matn-i kāmil-i “Shāh-rāh-i farmāndihī”, Tihrān, Mu’assisa-yi pažūhish va muṭāli’āt-i farhangī-i Risā, 1373/1994. G. Jones, Banking and Empire in Iran = Geoffrey Jones, Banking and Empire in Iran, vol. 1, The History of the British Bank of the Middle East, Cambridge and New York, Cambridge University Press, 1986. Kasravī, Tārikh-i pānsad sāla-yi Khūzistān = Ahmad Kasravī, Tārīkh-i pānsad sāla-yi Khūzistān, Tehran, 1312/1933 (repr. Gām, 2536/1977). Katouzian, State and Society = Homa Katouzian, State and Society in Iran: The eclipse of the Qajars and the emergence of the Pahlavis, London and New York, I.B. Tauris, 2000. Luizard, ed., Mahdî al-Khâlisi = La vie de l’ayatollah Mahdî al-Khâlisî par son fils, trans. from Arabic with introduction and notes by P.-J. Luizard, Paris, Éditions de la Martinière, 2005. Majd, GB and Reza Shah, = Mohammad Gholi Majd, Great Britain and Reza Shah: The plunder of Iran, 1921–1941, Gainesville, Fla., University Press of Florida, 2001. Moberly, Operations in Persia = F. J. Moberly, Operations in Persia 1914–1919, London, Imperial War Museum/ Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1987. Mumtahin ad-Dawla, Rijāl-i vizārat-i khārija = Mīrzā Mahdī Khān Mumtaḥin adDawla Shaqqāqī and Mirzā Hāshim Khān, Rijāl-i vizārat-i khārija dar ‘aṣr-i nāṣirī va muẓaffarī, ed. I. Afshār, Tehran, Asāṭīr, 1365/1986. Musaddiq, Khātirāt, = Khāṭirāt va ta’allumāt-i Dr Muḥammad Muṣaddiq, ed. I. Afshār, Tehran, ‘Ilmī, 1365/1986. Rabino, Diplomatic and Consular officers = H. L. Rabino di Borgomale, Great Britain and Iran: Diplomatic and consular officers, [London], 1946. Sabahi, British Policy in Persia, = Houshang Sabahi, British Policy in Persia 1918–1925, London, Frank Cass, 1990. Safa’ī, Kūditā-yi 1299 = Ibrāhim Safā’ī, Kūditā-yi 1299 va āsār-i ān, n.p., 1353/1974. [Sayyid Ziya / Md-‘A. Jamālzāda] “Taqrirāt-i Sayyid Ziyā’ va ‘Kitāb-i sīyāh’-i ū”, Āyanda, VI (1359/1981) 9–12, pp. 736–45; VII (1360/1981) 3, pp. 207–13; VII (1360/1981) 4, pp. 291–4. Shuster, Strangling of Persia = Morgan Shuster, The Strangling of Persia: Story of the European diplomacy and oriental intrigue that resulted in the denationalization of twelve million Mohammedans: A personal narrative, New York, Century Co., 1912. Taqizāda, Zindagi-i tūfānī, = Ḥasan Taqizāda, Zindagī-i ṭūfānī: khāṭirāt-i Sayyid Ḥasan Taqizāda (bar afzūda-shuda bar ān bakhsh-i payvast), ed. Īraj Afshār, Tehran, 2nd ed., ‘Ilmī, 1372/1994. Wilson, SW Persia, = Arnold T. Wilson, SW. Persia, a political officer’s diary, 1907– 1914, London, New York (etc.), Oxford University Press, 1941. Wright, English amongst the Persians = Denis Wright, The English amongst the Persians during the Qajar Period 1787–1921, London, Heinemann, 1977. Zürrer, Persien zwischen England und Rußland = Werner Zürrer, Persien zwischen England und Rußland 1918–1925: Großmachteinflüsse und nationaler Wiederaufstieg am Beispiel des Iran, Bern, Peter Lang, 1978.

INDEX “. . .” indicates that the topics continues on the next page(s); “*” shows that this person has a biographical notice (pp. 335 sq). Bold numbers indicate a major reference. Abadan 46, 145 ‘Abd ul-‘Aziz ibn Sa’ud 148 administrative and consular work 164, 173. . ., 177, 178, 193, 243, 244, 277 Afshar, tribe 256 Ahl-i Haqq 224 Ahmad Shah 231, 259, 301, 316 Ahvaz 84, 132, 145. . ., 147. . ., 148, 178, 230 aircraft 257, 263, 277, 287, 295, 303; —bombing in Anzali (1920) 305 Alamut 7, 30, 299, 309 alcohol 40, 158, 164, 215, 223, 224, 258, 262 Alexei Romanov the “Tsarevitch” 297 Ali al-Gharbi 108. . . Ali-Khani, branch of Dirakvand Lurs 195 Amara 86, 91, 99, 101, 114, 127, 229; liwa of—, see liwa Amin al-Mulk 285 Amir Afshar, Jahanshah Khan 256, 263, 279, 304 Amir Muqtadir* (Talishi leader) 255, 256, 305 Amir Nusrat* (former Zafar Nizam, Shahsavan chieftain) 279, 282 Amla, Lur Tribe 176 Anbuh bridge (over Shah Rud) 298, 309 Andimishk, see Salihabad Andrews, Captain 228 Angali 49, 53, 56, 64 Anglo-Persian Agreement (1919) 238, 275, 292, 301, 302, 317, 319 Anglo-Persian war (1857) 36 Anzali 239, 240, 266, 274, 275, 295, 296, 305, 309, 327; Conference of— (October 1919) 255 Arabistan see Khuzistan Arfa ad-Dawla, Prince Riza 266 Armenia 235, 272 Armenians 40, 328; —confronted with Muslims in Nakhichivan 286, 289; see Goolzad

Armitage-Smith*, S. 293, 301 arms traffic 30, 205, 236 Asad ad-Dawla 168 Asfalun, hill in Luristan 198, 199 Atiyah, Edward Selim 28 Aylmer, Lieut.-Gen. Sir F. 99 Ayn al-Mulk* 147, 148, 159, 160, 162, 167. . . Ayn ud-Dawla*, Prince 191, 277, 279, 283. . ., 285, 300 Azarbayjan (Iranian province) 239, 244, 256, 287 Azarbayjan (State of—, cap. Baku) 235, 239, 245, 254, 265, 266, 268, 269, 270, 271. . .; Soviet Government of— 275 Azari, Mirza Ahmad Khan 255, 270; —’s talks with Jangali leaders 283 badraqa, see istiqbal Baghdad 98, 229 baha’i religion 37, 159 Baharvand, tribal group in Khurramabad 195, 207, 209 Bakhtiyari tribes 143, 145, 177, 178, 230 Baku 236, 237, 265, 266, 328, 329 Bala Gariva 186, 189, 190; see Dirakvand balam 82 Bandar Dilam 49 Bandar Giz 57 Bandar Rig 49, 50, 72 Bani Lam 92, 103, 105, 143; Shaykhs of the— 104, 112, 122, 143, 149, 176, 229; see Darchal, Ghadban Baratov, General 132, 143, 147, 213, 219, 220, 221, 227, 235, 327 Barnham H.D., Consul-General (Smyrna) 27 Barrett, C.C.J. 98, 102, 108 Barrett, Lieut.-Gen. Sir Arthur 61 Baskerville, H.C. 4, 288 Basra 50, 61, 62, 81, 131, 148 Bawa Buzurg, holy place for Ahl-i Haqq believers 224 Baxter, C.W. 270

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index

Bayranvand, Lurish tribe 209, 211 Bell, Gertrude 131 Bicherakov, Lieut.-Colonel 220, 221, 227, 235, 237, 327, 329 Birdwood, Captain R.L. Consul in Bushire 35, 46, 61 Bishop, Mrs 191 Bisutun, Achaemenid inscription 218 Bolshevik 230, 237, 238, 268; — bombarding Anzali 295, 297; pro—tendency in Tabriz 284; — propaganda 254, 269, 274, 275, 287, 289; fear of—s 317 Brestlitovsk Treaty between Bolsheviks and Turkey 327 Bristow, Ernest (British Consul) 263. . ., 291, 303 Brooking, Major-General H.T. 133, 218 Browne, E.G. 12, 13, 14, 43, 290 Bullard*, Sir Reader 293 Burazjan 65, 68, 73 Burn Murdoch, Major Ian 240, 257, 263, 287, 296 Burujird 212, 213 Bushire 29. . ., 33. . .; Bushire, climate 33. . .; social life in— 38 Butters, O.A. (Manager of the Imperial Bank, Rasht) 241, 251, 253, 255, 283, 299 Cambridge 13 capitulations 40 caravanserai 56 Caspian Coastland 251, 256; —sea 236 Chahkutah 49, 63, 73 Champain*, Brigadier-General H.B. 237, 240, 257, 277, 295, 296, 299, 329; Mrs— 242 Chapman, Captain A.J. 299 Chaqarvand, tribal faction in Khurramabad 209 Cherkassov, Baron, Russian Consul in Kirmanshah 219, 274 Chick H.G., British Vice-Consul Bushire 31, 35, 38, 40, 50, 52, 62, 73 Chimishk pass, Luristan 208 climate, see Bushire, Caspian coastland, Dizful, Luristan, Shushtar, simoon, snow clothing (description of traditional—) 24, 53, 54, 90, 159, 172, 186; men’s clothing 186; naked women bathing 151, 172

Constant, Belgian Director of Customs 43. . . constructions (description of local—) 53, 58; Dizful 151, 182; Khurramabad 210; Qazvin 241 Cory, Major-General Sir George (GOC Qazvin 1921) 316 Cossacks (Persian—) 131, 217, 238, 253, 284; —upon arrival of Bolsheviks in Rasht (1920) 298; oppression of— 254; reorganised in Qazvin 304, 310, 313; —‘campaigns against the Bolsheviks (1920) 305, 309, 310 Cox*, Sir Percy 34, 40, 45, 61, 83, 86, 89, 94, 98, 112, 139, 150, 160, 168, 229, 323; —transferred to Tehran (1918) 238, 270, 272; —back to Baghdad (1920) 301 Crown Prince, see Muhammad-Hasan Mirza Crutchley, Captain G.C. (military intelligence, Anzali) 266 Ctesiphon 98, 112, 181; battle of— 96. . . Curzon, Lord 302, 313, 319 Daghistan, republic of— 268 Dalich pass 207 Daliki river 60, 63 Darchal, Shaykh of the Bani Lam 149, 178 Dashti 56 Dashtistan 49, 53 Dastak 70 democrats of Tabriz 284 Denikin, General 266, 268; defeat of— 270. . ., 273 Deoli Regiment 239, 255, 299 Dickson*, Major General Dickson W.E.R. 292. . ., 313 Dickson*, Major H.R.P. 131 Dihluran 149 Dilfan (Lurish tribe) 223, 224, 225 Dimitriev (Russian Consul, Bushire) 45 Dirakvand 195. . . Diz river 151, 185 Dizful 146, 147, 151. . ., 171. . ., 185, 241; Dizful bridge 179. . .; Dizful climate 181, 182; see constructions, Dizful Dobbs, H.R.C. (Sir Henry) 101 Duncan, Colonel 226

index Dunsterville, General L.C. 226, 230, 235, 327, 328, 329 Durak, Luristan 201 Durand, Lady—and Sir Mortimer 191, 205 Durie, Captain (Manager of the Bank in Kirmanshah) 219 East India Company 50 education 38 Eisenhut (German agent) Erevan 265, 272

66, 69. . .

falconry, see hawking Fanshawe (Flying Corps officer) 226 Fardivan, Luristan 202, 203 Fayzabad (village south of Qazvin) 280 Flecker (Vice-consul, Beirut) 27 food 31, 57, 109. . ., 208, 257 football (soccer) 46 Force D, see Mesopotamia Expeditionary Force Fortescue, Capt. L.S. 240, 243 Fowle*, T.C.W. 98, 102, 148 Fraser, Captain D. de M. 230 French Archaelogist Mission 150 French policies 41, 61, 238 gahan 118, 125 Gargar river 157, 166 Geard, Captain R.C. 240, 287, 292, 299, 303 Geidt, Captain E.W. (APO Qazvin 1921) 299, 315 Gendarmerie 50. . ., 217, 298; Swedish officers of— 50, 51, 53, 72, 143, 189, 217, 238, 285. . ., 288. . . Georgia 235, 265, 270 German policies 41, 61, 67. . ., 72, 75, 217, 236, 303 Ghadban, Shaykh—of the Bani Lam 105 Ghulam-Riza Vali of Pusht-i Kuh, see Vali of Pusht-i Kuh Gilan 230, 239, 251. . . Gogouyet, French arms dealer 30 Goolzad (Armenians in Bushire) 40, 43 Gorringe (Major-Gen W.A.) 82. . . Grahame, George, Consul in Isfahan 94 Graves, Lieut. T.F.H. 240, 275, 318 Gray Paul & Co 33. . . Greenhouse, Captain F.S. 169, 181, 203, 227 Grey*, Captain A.J.H. 89, 114, 131 Gurkha Rifles 239, 295

373

Haji Ahmad (Jangali) 253 Haldane, General 299, 313 Hamadan 143, 213 hawking 46, 58, 63, 66, 259 . . .; see hunting Hayat Daud 49. . . Haydarkhana / Ni’matkhana 158 Hayne, Captain 263 Hishmat, Dr Ibrahim (Jangali) 253 Hoghton, Brigadier-General 95 Hoppenot, Henry & Hélène 272 hospitality 55, 216 Huddleston*, Brigadier-General Hubert 267, 269 . . ., 301 Hunin*, A. (Belgian Director of Customs Kirmanshah) 219, 255 Hunt (residency surgeon, Bushire) 43 hunting 65, 183, 225, 259. . ., 281; see hawking Hurmuz, straight of— 30 Husayn Chakutahi, Shaykh, see Chahkutah ibn Sa’ud, see ‘Abd ul-‘Aziz Ihsanallah Khan 304 Imamzada Hashim 305 Imperial Bank of Persia 34, 151, 219, 221, 241, 244 Inanlu 279, 287 Indo-European Telegraph 34 Ironside*, Major-General Edmund 240, 309, 310, 313, 314 ishan (see also sishan) 125 Isma’il Agha, see Simko Ismailis 30 istiqbal – badraqa 154, 160, 212, 217, 229, 258, 262, 305 Ittihad al-Islam 236, 237 Jacks, Lieut. (pilot) 257 Jahanshah Khan, see Amir Afshar Jangal (Jangali movement) 230, 236, 251, 253, 255, 266, 282. . ., 298, 319; agreement of—with the British forces 236, 253, 283; —relations with Bolsheviks (1920) 304; split in— 305; see Kuchik Khan Jewish community 214, 221 Jubin (N of Qazvin) 305, 310, 311, 312, 318 Kadloubovsky, Russian Consul in Qazvin 242, 274 Kahunak 154 Kajanov (Bolshevik officer) 297, 304

374

index

kalak (raft) 151, 155 Kangavar 143, 213, 217 Karagatelli 304 Karasf (village of Amir Afshar) 257. . ., 262 Karbala 7, 65, 85, 119, 246. . . karguzar 39 Karind 228 Karkha river 149, 185, 229 Karun 144 Kavanagh*, Arthur MacMurrough 202 Kayhan, see Mas’ud Khan Kayvara village 212 Kazarun 50 Kazim Khan Sayyah, Captain 265, 313, 315, 316, 317 Kennion*, Colonel R.L. (Consul in Kirmanshah) 219, 220 Khalu Qurban 304 Khamisiyya 136 Khamsa 239, 256, 279, 304 Khanaqin 240 Kharg 49. . . Khaz’al*, Shaykh 82, 104, 135, 146, 162, 177, 188; —’s son 178 Khiyabani, Shaykh Muhammad 284, 288, 300; —meets Edmonds (1 May 1920) 288; end of— 306. . . Khurramabad 192, 209, 215, 221, 223 Khuzistan 82, 87, 145; Government of— 168 Kirmanshah 213, 219, 226 . . ., 239 Kitchener, Lord 28 Knox, Lieut-Colonel S.G., British Deputy-Resident in Bushire 46, 62. . . Kuchik Khan, Mirza 236. . ., 251, 253, 283; mild rule of— 254; negociations of—with Bolsheviks 297; change of attitude of— 311 Kulul 64 Kumayt 112, 229 Kurdistan 231 Kurds 185, 213, 226, 284 kursi (brasero for heating in winter) 226 Kut 94, 97; battle of— 92, 114, 144 landscape 65, 82, 253 Lankuran 269 Lawshan (village N of Qazvin) 251, 299 Leachman, G.E. 83 . . ., 95, 97 . . ., 102, 105, 106, 108, 109,112 Leslie, Colonel 220 levies (Levy): 173, 175, 176, 177, 183, 217, 326, 329; see Sagvand

lion 149 Liravi 49 Listemann, Dr. Helmuth (German Consul) 41, 66. . . liwa of Amara 101 liwa of Muntafik, see Muntafik Llewellyn-Smith*, Sir Hubert 293 Loch, Captain 50 Loftus 202 Lorimer*, J.G. (British Resident in Bushire) 45 Lorimer, Major D.L.R. 98, 101, 114, 126, 191 Luristan; climate in— 203; vegetation in— 198 Lurs 163, 185, 189, 223, 278, 283, 319; —and Islam 188, 224; —and Riza Shah 200; see Amla, Baharvand, Bayranvand, Rumiyani, Qadam Khayr luti musicians 208 Lynch road 145, 194 Macpherson, Captain C.F. 91, 98, 102, 106, 108, 114 mahayla 89, 91 Mahmud Khan, Major (Chief of Police, Qazvin) 243 Mahmud Khan, see Puladin Malkam 40 Mallet*, V.A.L. 240, 270 Mandaeans 137 Manjil 252, 298, 299, 304, 305 Marrs, Captain R. 136 marsh, marshmen (Mesopotamia) 115. . . Marzin (French doctor) 30, 31, 41, 45 Mas’ud Khan Kayhan, Major 265, 313, 316 mash-huf, river boat 116, 120, 124, 126, 127, 136, 137, 138 mashuwa, sailing-boat 33, 42 Masjid-i Sulayman 165 Matthews, Colonel C.L. 227, 237 Maude, General 169, 221 McMurray*, J.H. (head of Imperial Bank, Hamadan) 221 Mesopotamia Expeditionary Force (Force D) 73, 81, 83, 143, 165, 185 Midhat as-Saltana*, Governor of Qazvin 243, 257 Midivani 304 Mirza Kuchik Khan see Kuchik Khan Missen, L.R. 252 Monroe, Elizabeth xix, xx

index Monson, Edmund 266, 269 Moore, Arthur 4 Morgan, J. de 191, 219 Mu’in as-Saltana (head of Chaqarvand) 209, 210 Muhammad-Ali Shah 4 Muhammad-Hasan Mirza, Crownprince 259 Muharram ceremonies 7, 244, 307 Mukhbir as-Saltana* Hidayat 305 Mungara valley 195, 198 Muntafik (liwa of—) 131, 143 Murray, Lieutenant 287 Muscat (Oman) 29 Mushir ad-Dawla (Prime Minister 1920) 301, 310 Muvaffaq ad-Dawla* 307 Muvaqqar ad-Dawla*, Ali-Muhammad 39, 40 Muzaffar ad-Din Shah 4 Na’lshikan pass 209 Najaf 85 Nakhchivan, General Muhammad 313 Nakhichevan 265, 269, 286 Nariman Narimanov 245, 274 Nashila 51 Nasirabad, Luristan 207 Nasiriyya 87, 114, 143 Nazar Ali Khan (Vali of Pish-i Kuh) 192, 223 Neale*, W.G. 46, 47, 63, 67, 70 Nestorian Christians 286 Newman, Rupert, padre, Royal Irish Fusiliers 240, 309 Nicholson, R.A. 14 Ni’matkhana, see Haydarkhana Nihavand 215, 216, 217 Nixon, Sir John, 81, 86, 92, 95, 99, 323, 324 Nizam as-Saltana* 143. . ., 147, 205 Nizam as-Sultan* (Governor of Qazvin) 243, 277, 278, 279, 281, 304, 307 Noel*, Captain E.W. 46, 63, 68, 83. . ., 132, 147, 178, 194, 230, 237, 328 Norman, Herman (British Minister in Tehran) 301, 310, 313, 314 Norperforce (North Persia Force) 231, 235. . ., 239, 257, 275, 299, 318; withdrawal of—from Persia 312, 314 Norris, Commodore D.T. 236, 268, 302 Nuri Pasha (Turkish General) 268 Nusrat as-Sultan* (Governor of Burujird) 213, 215

375

Oil Company 162, 166, 179 oil fields 81, 87, 143, 165, 313 opium 158, 163, 178, 193, 223, 224, 258, 281 Ottoman (Turkish) policies 61, 67, 72, 143, 213, 217, 226, 235, 236, 289, 290 Pan-Islamic propaganda 235, 236, 268 Peel, Captain E.G.P. 230 Percoms (section of British forces) 239, 313 Perry, Captain 219 Persian elites 242. . . Persian Gulf 27, 30 Philby*, H.St.J. 98 Pietro della Valle 50 Pish-i Kuh 185, 186, 189. . ., 192, 224 Political Officer’s duties 61, 73, 81, 94, 97, 230, 265, 292 protocol 244 Puladin*, Mahmud Khan 244 Puna pass 212 Pusht-i Kuh 103, 143, 149, 185, 188, 192; see Vali of Pusht-i Kuh Qadam Khayr; huz— 198. . .; song— 200, 205, 326 Qadiri order of dervishes 256 qahwachi 109 Qasr-i Shirin 213, 227, 228 Qavam as-Saltana*, Ahmad 278 Qaziyan, plaee near Anzali 295 Qazvin 143, 147, 231, 239, 241, 265, 304, 315; British officers socializing in— 277. . . Qizil Uzun river 251 quarantine formalities 42 quffa 108 Qulhak 242 Qurna 61, 81, 89, 114, 128, 131 R.A.F. 239 rahdari 49 Rajput (2nd) 34, 45, 49 Rasht 237, 241, 253, 295; fights in—between Jangalis and British troops 328; —occupied by Bolshevik troops 298, 302, 304, 305, 309, 310; exodus from— 305, 311 Raskolnikov (Bolshevik officer) 296 rawzakhvani 56, 58, 65 Renwick, Lieut. 219 Reshire 33, 70 Resident (British Political—) 34

376

index

Riza Khan (Pahlavi) 313, 314, 315, 316, 319 road security 167, 194, 215, 221, 237, 257, 279, 284, 303 Robinson, Major (pilot) 257, 264, 287, 312 Rowan, Major G. Connal (military intelligence, Baku) 267 Rowlandson, Colonel 219, 221 Royal Irish Fusiliers 239, 240 Rudhilla river 49, 53, 55, 59, 64 Rumiyani (small Lur tribe) 163. . . Russian policies 4. . ., 61. . ., 64, 213, 226; Russian soldiers 218, 219, 220; anti-Russian feeling 214, 217, 228 Sa’dabad 64. . . Sa’id ad-Dawla*, Ali-Asghar (son of Sipahsalar) 245, 257, 316 Safar an-Nizam, see Amir Nusrat Safid Rud river 251, 253 Sagvand 147, 172, 193, 195; — Levy: 152, 175, 199, 210, 229 Salar Mansur, Mirza Abd al-Ghaffar Khan 317 Salar ud-Dawla*, prince 207 Salihabad (Andimishk) 195 Samsam an-Nizam (notable in Nihavand) 216 Sangi (village near Bushire) 33 Sardar Intisar* (Muzaffar A‘lam) 284, 289 Sardar Mu’azzam* (Taymurtash) 254, 255 Sardar Mu’tazid 263, 284 Sardar Muhi* (revolutionary leader in Rasht, 1920) 305, 311, 312 Sardar-i Muhtasham*, Bakhtiyari khan 178 Sarim as-Sultan Ardalan 241, 318 Sasanian bridge 157, 179, 181, 225 Sauj Bulaq (Sanandaj) 226 Sayyah, see Kazim Khan Sayyid Jalal (Jangali) 311 Sayyid Ziya, see Ziya ad-Din Tabataba’i Shabankara 49, 55, 64 Shah Rud 298 Shahseven 279, 284, 303, 319 Shaikhis 36 Shapur (Rud-i Shirin) 55, 56, 63 Sharifabad (aerodrome of Qazvin) 242 Shatt al-Arab 82 Shia Islam 6. . ., 245. . ., 256

Shif 53, 60 Shuja an-Nizam (Bakhtiyari khan) 154, 160, 162 Shush (Susa) 144, 147, 149, 150, 185, 229 Shushtar 146, 147, 154, 157, 241; Shushtar climate 158; Shushtar mills 157, 183 Shuster*, Morgan 5 Simko (Isma’il Agha, Kurdish chieftain) 284, 286 289 Simoon (dangerous wind) 181 Sipahdar-i A’zam* Rashti (Prime Minister, 1920–21) 310, 312, 316 Sipahsalar*, Muhammad-Vali Tunkabuni 244, 259, 279; sons of— 298, 299 sishan 117 Siyahdihan (village) 257 Slavitsky 254, 255 Smyth*, Colonel Henry 313, 314 snow 228; deep—and severe winter (1920–21) 312, 315, 317; skiing in Qazvin 242, 312 Soane*, E.B. 83, 147, 148, 151. . ., 172, 174, 178 South Persia Rifles 238 Starosselsky*, Colonel Vsevolod Dimitrievitch 255, 270, 310 Stead, Dr F.M. (American missionary) 228 Stevens, Chrales, acting Consul in Tabriz 291 Stokes*, Colonel C.B. 4, 5, 14, 265, 266, 267, 268 . . ., 272 storks 182 Straubenzee, Major W.A. van 312 Sudan (Mesopotamian tribe) 119. . . Sultaniyya 257 Suq al Shuyukh 131. . ., 135 Surkhadiza 228. . . Susa see Shush Swedish officers see Gendarmerie Sykes* Sir Percy 238 Sykes*, Mark 93. . . ta’ziya (Passion play) 246 Tabriz 143, 157, 263, 284, 287. . ., 291 Tajaddud, party of Khiyabani 284, 287, 300 Tajrish 242 Tangistanis 49, 64 Tanqidiyyun, democrat faction in Tabriz 284

index Tat 256 Taymurtash, see Sardar Mu’azzam Tehran; summer in— 242; seasonal festivities in— 269 . . . telephone 40 Templer, Lieut. Gerald 318 Thompson, Major-General W.M. 329 Tiflis 230, 265 Townshend*, Major-Gen. C.V.F. 45, 84, 86, 87, 92, 95, 97, 99, 324 Townshend, Captain F.H.E. 36 trade 39, 171, 192 Transcaspia 269 Transcaucasia 235, 266, 275, 327 Treaty of Sèvres (1920) 272 tribes near Bushire 49 tribes, see Angali, Afshar, Bakhtiyari, Bala Gariva, Burazjan, Chahkutah, Dashtistan, Hayat Daud, Liravi, Rudhilla, Pusht-i Kuh, Shabankara, Shahseven Tunukabun 245, 298, 299 Turko-Persian Boundary Commission of 1849 202 Turks, see Ottoman ulama 169, 173 United States of America Urmiya 257, 286 Uzair (Ezra’s tomb) 91

238, 272

Vali of Pusht-i Kuh* 99, 188, 209 vegetation, see Luristan Viyun pass 225

Vusuq ad-Dawla, Hasan 284, 290, 301

377 238, 245, 265,

Wal’at Salih 91 Wardrop, Oliver (British High Commissioner at Tiflis) 266, 272 Warren, W.J. 175, 183, 229, 251 Wassmuss*, W. (German Consul) 41, 43, 44, 67, 75. . ., 237 water in Bushire 41, 52 White, Lieut. 219 Wickham*, Major E.T.R. 231, 240, 292 Wilson*, A.T. 34, 83, 89, 131, 149, 151, 204, 272 Wintle, Colonel E.S. 240, 243 women; a lady of Mungara 201; seclusion of— 38; temporary marriage 223; travelling in kajava 218; see clothing Wönckhaus 34, 66 Wustrow*, Kurt (German Consul) 300 Young*, M.Y. 166, 230 Younghusband, Brig.-General L.N. 148 Yusufbegov, Nasir (leader of Musavat party, Baku) 267, 268 Zagev, General 219 Zanjan 256, 257, 262 . . ., 279, 299 Zimmermann Telegram 73. . . Ziya ad-Dawla (Governor of Zanjan) 263, 304 Ziya ad-Din Tabataba’i, Seyyed 265, 268 . . ., 274 . . ., 313, 314, 316, 317, 319

Iran Studies Editorial Board : Ali Gheissari, Roy Mottahedeh Yann Richard and Christoph Werner 1. David Thurfjell. Living Shi’ism. Instances of Ritualisation Among Islamist Men in Contemporary Iran. 2006. ISBN 978 9004 15345 5 2. Mahdi Tourage. Rūmī and the Hermeneutics of Eroticism. 2007. ISBN 978 9004 16353 9 3. Dennis MacEoin. The Messiah of Shiraz. Studies in Early and Middle Babism. 2008. ISBN 978 9004 17035 3 4. C.J. Edmonds. Edited by Yann Richard. East and West of Zagros. Travel, War and Politics in Persia and Iraq 1913-1921. 2010. ISBN 978 9004 17344 6

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