'Administration Report of the Persian Gulf Political Residency for the Years 1915-1919' [‎87v] (181/396)

ANNUAL EEPORT OF THE PEESIAN GULF POLITICAL RESIDENCY An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, established in the provinces and regions considered part of, or under the influence of, British India.
In February tti© l-ith Sikhs left lor Mesopotamia, and the remainder of the
garrison continued unaltered till the end oi the year. military operations
took place.
There have been few events of permanent importance ; the history of the
year is a miserable record of crossmtrieneg
, Conditions in Bueliire HinterlaLd and on an( j f u til e fighting, due in the main tn
Shnaz road. the clash of interests between rival
blackmailers on the trade route. The effect of the agreement under which the
release of the Shiraz colony has been elfected has been to give the rebel Khans
a direct interest in avoiding direct conflict with the British authorities, while
it has on the other hand tied the hands of the Residency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, established in the provinces and regions considered part of, or under the influence of, British India. in dealing with abuses
on the road, it is scarcely worth while to trace in detail the petty squabbles
which from time to time attained a temporary prominence, and the broad
features of the situation may be briefly sketched as under ;—
The year opened with Naeir-i-Diwan of Kazerun in open rebellion, and
flushed with his success against the South Persia R-ifl.es on the Pir-i-Zan Pass.
The spring and early summer were occupied in attempts to induce Soulet-ed*
Dowleh to come off the fence and co-operate whole-heartedly in the maintenance
of order. As the result of an interview between the Soulet, Colonel Gough and
General Sykes, which took place at Khaneh Zinian on i^Sth May 1917, Soulet
entered into a formal agreement, binding himself as follows :—
(а) to guard the Shahi road from Tang-i-Turkan (one stage below
Kazerun) to Dashtarjin with his own men ;
(б) to guard the Shahi road from Dashtarjin to Chenar Rahdar jointly
with the South Persia Rifles ;
{c) to provide 450 men for the above two purposes, these men to be
paid from Shiraz at the rate of Tomans 10,000 Persian dinars, or a gold coin of that value. 5,050 per mensem; these
arrangements to last for three months at least;
{d) to keep Nasir-i-Diwan out of Kazerun for six months and put in his
own Deputy Governor;
(e) to capture or expel Muhammad Reza Dirisi, the notorious anti-
British pamphleteer, from Kazerun;
(/) to be responsible for the good behaviour of his tribe and pay
revenue, in return for which he would be supported in his
position as Ilkhani The paramount chief of certain tribes in south west Iran. .
Soulet succeeded without fighting in inducing Nasir-i-Diwan to absent
himself from Kazerun for a few weeks only; he failed to molest Muhammad
Reza in any way; and the only other two results of the agreement worth
noting are (a) that the Persian Government thought it necessary to notify its
disapproval thereof, and (6) that Soulet's guards on the stretch shared by him
with the South Persia Rifles immediately began to take rakdari, and Soulet
replied to an expostulation on this point by demanding an additional sum of
Ks, 300 per mensem as compensation if rahdari were abandoned. In short
the agieement was not a succees. In August the Governor-General himself
saw Soulet at Dashtarjin and as a result expressed his desire to pardon Nasir-i-
Ihwan and wrote letters to Zair Khidar and Wassmuss, with the apparent
object of conciliating the former and inducing the latter to leave, by the
promise of a safe-conduct to Germany. Another thread running through the
tangled skein of Kazerun affairs is the feud between Muhammad Ali Khan,
Kalantar of the Kashkuli section of the Kashgai, and Nasir -i-Diwan. One
result of the continued disorders on the Shahi road has been to awaken the
€upi ity or the Kashgai chiefs in respect of the settled villages near the road.
Muhammad Ali Khan (leader of the attack on the Central India Horse in
iyii), who owns (while he can hold it) the village of Shahpur near Kazerun,
( L onc ® 1Y€ ; ^ ie ^ ea of extending his influence across the Kazerun plain from
t 0r i- 0 kouth and seized the Rahdar caravanserai A roadside inn providing accommodation for caravans (groups of travellers). , and the pass of Tang-i"
ui an, commanding the entry of the main road into the Kazerun plain-
s t iva m the Kashguli section, Muhammad Khan, also prosecuted similar
^l 0T \\ a8 r ^ ards se 7eral villages in Kamarij and Khisht, and attempted to
o py e village of Diris near Kazerun. In these quarrels Nasir"i-Pi^ aI1