File 3516/1914 Pt 18 'German War: Persia; general situation - 1916' [‎6v] (21/368)

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request were usually drafted by Suleiman Khan, and so drafted ;\s to convey to the fg]
recipient the impression that they were not to be taken seriously. Thus Kavam-ul- | ]y[ (
Mulk, who was, in accordance with my demands, appointed temporary Governor of
Fars on the 16th September, and Soulet-ed-Dowleh were constantly left in doubt ns tg_ ^^im
the Government’s real wishes, while the gendarmerie, on the other hand, werT 1 ^hoi
encouraged by Suleiman to continue their attitude of defiance towards the Governor,
and crave Wassmuss and his cut-throats every assistance and protection. wi
In Ispahan, where the Bakhtiaris might very well have taken effective measures, rei
the khans were invited to assemble a force, but again the vacillating conduct of p 0
Mustawfi prevented any real measures being taken. Similar weakness on the part of ]y[j
the Prime Minister was exhibited when our consuls attempted to return to Kirmanshah, p r(
and a very dangerous situation was allowed to develop at Sultanabad, Yezd, and £ n
Hamadan. All this time the Germans were straining every nerve to import arms,
ammunition, bombs, machine guns, &c., into the country before the fall of Bagdad c ] e
should close the road via Kirmanshah, and were also augmenting the number of their f th
agents, Turkish and German, while with the help of the Persian foreign Office and the etr
Karguzar at Meshed, Austrian prisoners of war were being smuggled across tbe frontier ]rK
from Transcaspia and on to Tehran and other centres of German activity. in
On our side it was difficult to take effective action. We had, it is true, our on
newspaper organs, and one of them, the “ Asr-i-Jadid,” most ably and loyally conducted f th
by Matin-us-Sultaneh, has done a great deal to open the eyes of the public, not in
Tehran only, but all over the provinces, to the perilous position to which “ neutrality ” de
was leading the country. But this sort of influence, valuable as it was, could not alone w f
prevail against German methods. G<
Neither the Bussian Minister nor I had sufficient money at our command to work
on the same lines as the enemy, nor had we the agents to carry out such a scheme, and hif
even if attempted we should have found it frustrated by the gendarmerie. Our only Fc
course was to endeavour to retain the loyalty of our old friends in the provinces, or Sr
rather to prevent them from going over to the enemy, who were working very actively M
to seduce them from us, and who it seemed certain were achieving a certain measure of ul
success among the more ignorant and venal of the minor khans and sub-tribes. To pr
prevent the great tribal chieftains from coming under German influence so long as war an
was not declared, and thereby to delay that eventually was as much as I could hope to ul
do ; for-it was perfectly clear that whatever engagements their chieftains might have th
entered into with us, and whatever promises we might have made to secure their of
loyalty, they would not, in the event of war, throw in their lot with us, uidess we were w?
prepared to give them effective military assistance and protection. Considering the en
means they have of judging of the great struggle going on in Europe and the knowledge G<
of what they stood to lose if, without active assistance from us, they espoused our G<
cause against their own sovereign, I can well sympathise with their attitude. Even br
the Bakhtiari khans, with whom we have had closer relations than with any other in
chieftains except Sirdar Leader of a tribe or a polity; also refers to a military rank or title given to a commander of an army or division. Arfa, said quite openly that they would place their loyalty to w<
the Shah before their friendship with us. We might prevent them from attaching
themselves to the Germans, but we could not bind them detinitely and in all circum- L(
stances to ourselves. The Bakhtiaris were of course my first pre-occupation. The attitude cr
of the khans here, though not always quite satisfactory, was friendly enough, but at ju
Ispahan the passive attitude of the Governor and other khans in the face of the active pr
German propaganda had allowed a dangerous situation to develop, culminating on the wi
2nd September in the attempt on the life of His Majesty’s consul-general. Mr. Bristow’s b}
mission to the Bakhtiari khans must, I suppose, be considered a failure ; but in the w
circumstances, as we afterwards know them to exist, I think success was scarcely possible. w
A reign of terror had practically been created. Akbar Mirza, on whose co-operation I o\
had largely counted in sending Mr. Bristow, was plainly warned that he would pay for -h
it with his life if he used his influence against the Germans, and had escape from the town be
secretly at night, while the Bakhtiaris—in the absence of direct orders from the
Government—had no stomach for a conflict with the formidable force that the Germans d
had collected. It is beyond qestion that some of the khans, possibly all of them, had
made acquaintance with the colour of German gold.
So bad was the position, that Captain Killander informed Mr. Grahame and ^
Mr. Hildebrand that their lives were in imminent danger, and as you are aware, the two 1U
consuls with their colonies and the French residents left- the town on the 14th September. \ sc
This unprecedented step had, on tbe whole, good results, for if, on the one hand, it gave w
practical proof of the strength the Germans had acquired, it also taught more sensible as
people of the danger of allowing it to increase still further, while the mercantile classes 111