"تاريخ الحرب الكبرى استنادًا إلى وثائق رسمية. الحملة في بلاد الرافدين ١٩١٤-١٩١٨. مجلد I" [ظ‎‎١‎٤‎٩] (٤٥٤/٣٠٣)

274 HISTORY OF THE WAR : MESOPOTAMIA
the 28th the Government of India made General Nixon
responsible for the defence of Bushire, and informed him that
the British attitude there should be strictly defensive. He
accordingly reinforced the British garrison* at Bushire with two
captured 13-pounder Turkish guns with four artillery gunlayers
and instructors. At the same time he lodged an objection
to this extension of his responsibilities to a place two hundred
miles in his rear. But the Government of India were very
anxious to avoid anything like a diversion of force to Bushire;
and as General Nixon was much nearer to the scene of action
than they were, and could, therefore, act more rapidly than
they, the Government of India thought it better to place him
in control than to appoint an independent commander who
might develop ambitious tendencies.
Owing to a Russian force having landed recently at Enzeli
on the Caspian, the German activities were now largely trans
ferred from Tehran to Isfahan and South Persia. The German
Consul at Isfahan was said to have raised a body of two hundred
armed retainers, and Wassmuss was intriguing to raise South
Persia against the British, being aided to some extent by some
of the Swedish officers of the Persian Gendarmerie. With
regard to the action of these officers, Mr. (now Sir Charles)
Marling, H.M. Minister at Tehran, reported that most of them
had been led unwittingly by their anti-Russian sentiments,
their ignorance of Persian ways and by German propaganda,
into unneutral action, whose dangers had now been explained
to them ; and he believed that their attitude for the future
would be better.f
In other directions also, there was extended anti-British
action. Parties of Germans—accompanied by locally recruited
and armed men, and strengthened by Austrian prisoners of
war who had escaped in some numbers from Transcaspia—
were moving towards Afghanistan via Meshed, Birjand and
Kerman. To try and prevent these entering Afghanistan,
the Russians moved Cossacks to Meshed and the Indian
authorities moved troops to Robat on the Baluchistan frontier,
thus beginning what was subsequently known as the “ East
Persia Cordon.”
Immediately after the capture of Amara, General Nixon
commenced his arrangements for an advance on Nasiriya;
and, on his arrival at Basra from Ahwaz on the 16th June,
* Consisting of the 96th Infantry.
i In order to keep any order in Persia it was necessary to retain these
Swedish officers, who were not under the Swedish, but under the Persian
Government.