File 619/1907 Pt 1 'Arms Traffic :- Muscat Warehouse. Negotiations with France 1907-1911.' [‎205r] (418/980)

by 1901 there was clear proof that arms and ammunition from the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. were
amvmg m large quantities in Waziristan, so much so, that the British political officer
2 ° U |> azl J* 1 stan reported that he could huy locally the cartridges of a notorious
Jirm of Gulf arms dealers at the rate of 5,000 a-week. The Indo-Afghan frontier
6 ?, rew £I aduall y» since the intervening markets absorbed a large number of the
nttes, &c., oneied for sale, but as those markets became glutted it increased pro
portionately, and a new trade route was developed. Until 1903, arms for Afghanistan
and the Indian frontier had been mainly purchased at Bunder Abbas and conveyed
thence by the annual autumn camel caravans of Afghan merchauts, forming as it
were an adjunct to the regular traffic which was the main object of the Afghan
trader. But in 1903-4 a direct trade for the purpose of carrying arms and ammunition
Only was organised by the Afghans, the arms being landed on the Persian-Mekran
coast, where they were met by Afghans with camels. The Persian local authorities
were powerless to stop the traffic, for their troops were very few and inefficient, the
area of country to be dealt with was wide and communications difficult, and the
Afghans moved in large well-armed bodies. Prom time to time seizures were effected
by His Majesty’s ships, and in 1907 a caravan that attempted a short cut across the
north-west of British Baluchistan lost 70 camels, 795 rifles, and 67,000 rounds of
ammunition, but the situation at the time when the arms conference met at Brussels
in April 1908 may be summed up by saying that arms and ammunition were being
distributed without intermission from Muscat over the length and breadth of the
Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. territories, and that a brisk and important trade in arms existed between
Muscat and Afghanistan and the north-western frontier provinces of India; as an
instance, it may be mentioned that in this year, 1908, one caravan alone, which reached
Afghanistan on the 8th June, consisted of some 1,500 camels and 1,200 men, and
carried about 30,000 rifles with about 2,000,000 rounds of ammunition, all of which
came from Muscat and were landed on the Mekran coast.
His Majesty’s Government had hoped that the result of the arms conference
would have been to enable them to deal effectively with this evil, and in order not
to prejudice the prospects of a satisfactory conclusion, they instructed their local
officials in the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. to refrain from exercising any activity at Muscat while
the question was still under discussion either at Brussels or between the French
and British Governments, though His Majesty’s ships continued to harass, so far as
they could, the Afghan traffic on the Mekran coast.
However, by the end of last year it was apparent that the result of the conference
would be merely negative as regards Muscat, and His Majesty s Government were
left to face a situation of the most serious nature. Both Great Britain and Russia
found their difficulties in Persia greatly increased by the condition of the lawless
tribes in the south, who, provided with ample supplies of modern arms and
ammunition, were beyond the control of any central Persian authority, icndeied t le
roads and the existence of travellers and foreign residents unsafe, and constituted a
focus of disorder which made the task of restoring tranquillity m the Persian
dominions almost impossible without armed intervention. But added to this was the
still greater danger arising from the wholesale arming of the Afghan frontier tribes,
which constituted a most serious menace to Russia on the north and the Indian
Empire on the south. A semi-civilised State on the borders o acmise uropean
protectorate or colony, such as Morocco on the Algerian frontier or Afghanistan on
the Indian border, must always be a source of disquiet and pre-occupation to t
European administration, but the latent peril bursts into the s P her ®.^ 1 aC ^ U h ^
the native State is enabled to arm with modern weapons its fanatical subjects who
desire nothing more than to attack their “ unbelieving neighbours ac ™^
Nor was this all—rifles and ammunition were pouring through Afghanistan into
British territory itself, and the wild border tribes might at any moment feel t e -
^Ives stron^enou^hto rise, and force His Majesty’s Government into a serious and
costly cE^paign^lnvolving, in all prob.bility, disorder and ^
area No Government can tolerate, or be expected to tolerate, a situation sucn as
60 old, drawn „ at a tta. wl*„ t .
it would have been expressly excluded.