‘A collection of treaties, engagements and sanads relating to India and neighbouring countries’ [‎36] (53/578)

3ti
PEES1A—PERSIAN BALUCHISTAN AND KERMAN.
In 1902 Lt.-Colonel Showers with a small mixed force joined the
Governor-General of Kerman who was accompanied by Persian troops,
in order to inflict punishment upon certain Nusherwanis who had raided
Kuntdar and other places in British territory, and to recover
compensation for the damage inflicted in these raids. The expedition
w'as entirely successful; but no arrangements were made for the per
manent pacification of the country.
In 1903 a Commercial Mission composed of private persons, but
organized with the Government of India’s support, visited South
Eastern Persia, travelling via Bandar Abbas, Kerman, Yezd, Shiraz
and Bushire, with the object of studying openings for British trade;
and in 1913 a Geological Survey was made of some of the most promising
geological areas. Neither of these parties discovered anything likely to
increase the prosperity of the Province.
In 1912-13 Railway survey parties surveyed railway routes between
Karachi and Kerman. Nothing came of the project.
During 1914 the Great War had no effect upon Kerman. In
1915 however German agents, taking advantage of disorder in the out
lying districts and the political ferment in the town, succeeded in inti
midating the Governor-General: and the whole British community,
including the Consul, had to leave Kerman in December. In 1916 order
was restored by the South Persia Rifles, under the command of Brigadier-
General Sir Percy Sykes. The South Persia Rifles were disbanded in
October 1921.
In the spring of 1908 Mir Bahram Khan, Baranzai, of Dizak, an
upstait \\ azn of the Buzurgzada Dakim of Jalk and Dizak, succeeded
m ejecting the Persian Governor from Bampur, where he soon estab
lished himself. In September 1915 he raided British territory to
within 8 miles of Gwattur, but was ultimately driven out by the Nazim
of Makran. Early in 1916 German agents extended their activities to
the Sarhad and endeavoured to raise the tribes there against the British.
General Dyer was despatched with a small force, and Major Keyes was
sent from the South to pacify the tribes on the borders of Makran, where
the recent murder of Hughes, Commandant of the Makran Levy Corps,
and his Adjutant, Horst, had shewn the gravity of the situation. These
measures, and the formation of the Sarhad Levy Corps, led to the
restoration of order. The Corps was disbanded in 1924.
Mil Bahram Khan of Bampur died in 1921 and was succeeded by
Mir Dost Mohamed Khan who, though ready formally to acknowledge
the suzerainty ol the Shah in order to avoid being interfered with, was in
effect the independent ruler of Persian Baluchistan (there having been
no Persian Governor of Bampur since 1908) till the autumn of 1928.
In September of that year a proclamation was issued depriving Dost