Papers of the War Cabinet's Eastern Committee [‎23v] (46/544)

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the Secretary, with the least possible delay, all important papers
as soon as they arrived, and especially those which were received
the day before the meeting or on the morning of the day the
meeting was held.
Situation in South 2 . The Chairman gave the following resume of the situation :—
Persia.
Early in May, Sir Percy Sykes, who had under his command
over 5,000 men of the South Persia Rifles, many of them of doubtful
loyalty, was engaged in minor operations against certain troublesome
tribes. Desertions were reported among the members of this force,
and attempts had been made to tamper with their allegiance. Next,
the Kashgai, who were a formidable tribal aggregation, had attacked
Khaneh Zinian, a walled enclosure recently strengthened, some
30 miles west of Shiraz on the Bushire-Sliiraz road. Sir Percy
Sykes had also under his command over 1,200 Indian regular troops.
He had sent a force of about 1,000 men, with guns, to deal with the
tribes who started the disturbance and his operations had been
successful. A new phenomenon had then appeared in the person of
Soulet, the head of the Kashgai tribe, who had proclaimed a Jihad
and invested Khaneh Zinian. Firman A Persian word meaning a royal order or decree issued by a sovereign, used notably in the Ottoman Empire (sometimes written ‘phirmaund’). Firmah was standing by us,
and so, for the present, was the Kawam, who was the head of a
powerful family in the Shiraz district, but the latter could not be
implicitly relied on. The situation required prompt and effective
handling, and last Saturday His Majesty’s Government had been
asked whether Sir Percy Sykes should he given a free hand to d< j al
with it. There had been no time to refer the matter to the Eastern
Committee, and Lord Robert Cecil, who was acting as Foreign
Secretary, had telegraphed giving the required authority to Sykes,
This, the Chairman thought, was a wise decision. Then, late on
Sunday evening, news had been received that the garrison of Khaneh
Zinian had murdered Captain Will and Sergeant Coomber and had
deserted, with their rifles and ammunition, to the Kashgais.
Telegraph lines had been cut and the whole country was up. Sir
Charles Marling had pointed out that this situation had arisen at a
most inopportune time. We were faced with a conflagration in
South Persia just when -we were concentrating in the North.
Marling himself would have liked to negotiate, but this was impos
sible.
Mr. Montagu pointed out that the moral of the South Persia
Rifles was suspect; that as a disciplinary measure Sir Percy Sykes
took many of them out against the tribes in the neighbourhood of
Shiraz ; that as a consequence the Kashgais had given warning that
they would not stand the action of foreign troops in this neighbour
hood, and that therefore Sir Percy Sykes’ action was the direct
cause of this war.
General Macdonogh thought there was some misapprehension.
Sir Percy Sykes, in undertaking this minor operation, was not
unconscious of the opportunity which it might afford of improving
the moral of the South Persia Rifles, but he w'as fully justified in his
action on other grounds.
The Chairman, proceeding, stated that certain of the deserters had
returned to Shiraz, some of whom Sir Percy Sykes would be bound to
execute. The latter had naturally appealed for reinforcements and
had especially asked for aeroplanes. A telegram dated the 27th May,
from the G O.C., Mesopotamia, stated that General Marshall was
averse from any dissipation of the forces under his command in view
of the fact that lie had to extend his right flank to the Caspian.
General Marshall also stated that it would take two infantry
brigades, with such pack transport as might be available, three
w r eeks to reach Basra. As regards the pack transport, 10,900 mules
would be required for the two brigades, carrying fourteen days’ supplies.