File 3443/1914 Pt 5 'Persia: German agents' [‎127v] (268/395)

z
fi low tone with Mirza Hussain, as AH i\kbar will in future be referred to. A
Turkoman guide was assigned to the two Persians and they set off on horseback.
The presence of the Turkomans, the secrecy observed, and the evident pre
parations for a journey, all indicated that Niedermeyer himself was about to
separate from his companions. Mirza Hussain, in reply to a question from
Abdul Wahab, stated that Niedermeyer was going to China. Abdul Wahab
thinks that this answer was intentionally misleading ; the Germans knowing
how little reliance was to be placed on Persian discretion, and telling them as
little as possible of their movements. Mirza Hussain assumed the direction
of the journey, and tne two men with their guide reached the Persian
frontier, apparently not far from Chacha, after some 12 days. Abdul Wahab
states that his horse was sent back with the guide, and I heard of this horse
myself in October last at Karatigan when enquiring as to the passage of any
of the German party. The two men then separated, Abdul Wahab proceeding
to Meshed en route for Tabas, and Mirza Hussain to Tehran, no doubt with a
commission from Niedermeyer. Mirza Hussain appears to have been a capable
man, deep in the confidence of Niedermeyer. By race a Tabrizi Turk, he had
joined the German Party in Persia, and, from Afghanistan, had more than once
taken messages for them to Tehran. On one occasion he had returned via
Russia, Tejen, and Sarakhs, and was reputed to have been an escaped prisoner
from Siberia. Wagner has been trying to get into touch with him through
Abdul Wahab. The latter professes to know nothing of his whereabouts.
The letters and papers captured in connection with Abdul Wahab have
been placed in possession of the Consul-General who is reporting in detail on
the affair. In the present memo, I am only concerned as to the extent to
which Abdul Wabab’s statement bears on Niedermoyer’s movements with
reference to previous information.
2. Obviously Abdul Wahab had no information as to Niedermeyer after
his own departure. At the same time his statement affords valuable confirma
tion to that of my agent embodied in my Memo, of tho 22nd of September last
regarding the assistance furnished by Abdul Majid Khan, tho absconding
Governor of Shiburghan, and the arrival of the party on Persian soil. Bates
are exceedingly hard to come by, but the date of the Germans’ departure from
Kabul is known, and there is no inherent improbability in the report of another
agent. (Telegrams 18-F. and 19-F. of the 10th and 12th July last) regarding
the report of a disguised German or Germans’ passage to Russian territory,
especially in view of reports from other quarters of Niedermeyer’s reputed
movements (to Bokhara to stir up trouble).
The next link in the chain appears to be the report of two Germans
disguised as mullahs leaving Muhammadabad, a village adjoining the gates
of Meshed, for Tehran, coupled with the coincident statement from Herat that
a letter announcing Niedermeyer’s safe arrival at Meshed had come to hand,
and with the fact that Munshi A term used in the Middle East, Persia and South Asia to refer to a secretary, assistant or amanuensis. Munshis were employed in the British administration in the Gulf. Nizam the Meshed Chief of Police on the
occasion of Niedermeyer’s stay in 1918—subsequently banished for German
phile conduct—was secretly staying at this village (Telegram 38-F. of 6th
September last).
The interval of time is a natural one. The fact that although in the case
of the Chacha Germans and the disguised mullahs, I was able to give the
Russians timely warning, no arrest ensued, does not, .in view of the difference of
our friends’ methods from those of Sherlock Holmes, cause me any great
surprise.
In the former case the Military Agent had no hope of their capture when
once within the Russian border, and in the latter the erection of a barricade at
the entrance to Nishapur by the Cossacks, with the information gratis to all
and sundry that it was intended to stop two German officers in disguise, was
quite sufficient to turn a man, acute enough to perform in 1913 the complicated
rites of the Meshed pilgrimage undetected, from future possible traps on the
main route.