Correspondence and Papers on Various Matters Relating to Persia [‎142r] (285/306)

London, 30th December, 1916.
PRIVATE.
IMPERIAL BANK OF PERSIA.
RESULTS CONSIDERED SATISFACTORY—COUNTRY’S SUFFERINGS AT
HANDS OF THE ENEMY.
The 27th ordinary general meeting of the Im
perial Bank of Persia was held yesterday at Cannon
Street Hotel, E.C., Sir Hugh S. Barnes, K.C.S.I.,
K.C.V.O. (chairman of the bank), presiding.
The Manager and Secretary (Mr. George Newell)
having read the notice calliing the meeting and the
auditors’ report.
r ' The Chairman said: Gentlemen, before proceed
ing to the business of the meeting you 'will expect
me to allude to the great loss wh ch the bank has
sustained since we met together last year through
the death of our late chairman, Sir Thomas Jaak-
son. Many of you will recollect his interesting
address to the shareholders in December last A
few days later he had passed away, to the grief
of all Who had the honour of his friendship, and at
a most critical period in the history of the 'bank
we suddenly found ourselves deprived of his wise
counsel and sure guidance, which I need hardly
say have never been more needed than in the
troubled year which has just elapsed. Sir Thomas
Jackson joined this board as a director in 1902, and
became chairman in 1908. lit is no exaggeration
to say that the successful progress of the hank in
recent years has been mainly due to the energy,
ability and skill with which he directed its affairs,
and to-day, which is almost the anniversary of his
death, it is fitting that in tribute to bis memory we
should take the opportunity to express our grateful
appreciation of his invaluable services to the bank
and our profound sorrow that he has been taken,
from us. (Hear, hear.) My colleagues were good
enough to elect me as chairman in Sir Thomas
Jackson’s place, and to fill the vacancy on the
board we were fortunate enough to secure the ser
vices of Mr. H. Hunter, who was for many years
the manager of the Shanghai branch of the Hong
kong and Shanghai Banking Oorparation, and is
now a director otf the British Bank of Northern
Oommerce. We are confident—’indeed, it has already
been established—dhat Mr. Hunter’s intimate know
ledge and long experience of banking in the East
v.’ill prove of great value to the bank.
GERMAN AGGRESSION.
Last year Sir Thomas Jackson gave you a vivid
account of the extent and unscrupulous character
of German propaganda and intrigue in Persian ter
ritory, of the unprovoked and systematic violations
of Persian neutrality by the Germans and Turks,
of the suborning of the Persian gendarmerie under
their Swedish officers, and of the reddess attacks, in
defiance of the Persian Government, which had been
made upon several of our branches. So universal
and well conceited were the measures taken that
it ils difficult to resist the conclusion that the Ger
man officials in Persia acted in accordance with plans
designed and prepared before the war. The position
with which we were faced a year ago was that the
British Consuls and our bank managers had been
driven successively from Kermanshah, Hamadan.
Sultanalbad and Isfahan, that our branches at these
places had been closed and some of our treasuries
plundered, while at Shiraz not only had our branch
been .seized but our Consul, Lieut.-Colonel O’Connor,
and our manager, Mr. Ferguson, with two other
bank officials and three officers of the Telegraph De
partment, had been arrested and carried off to
Bor.asjun, where they were held prisoners by the
German 'Consul, Herr Wassmuss, and the Tangistani
(tribesmen. As a result also of G erman instigation
practically^ all Die trade I’rtutes Trom the Gulf into
the interior of Persia had been closed to traffic.
Nor was this all. Very shortly after our meeting
in December we heard that Yezd and Kerman had
also been occupied and our branches seized by small
oarties of Germans and Austrians, assisted by tribal
levies. From Yezd our employees made their wav
safely, though with difficulty, to Teheran, while
from Kerman the British Consul and the other
British residents were permitted to travel under
escort to Bunder Abbas. Thus, at the close of
1915, out of our seventeen branches in Persia, no
less than seven—Kermamslrah, Hamadan. Sultana-
had, Isfahan. Shiraz, Yezd and Kerman—had fafilen
into the enemy’s hands, and, except on the coast.
German influence for the time being was paramount
in Southern Persia. This, however, proved to be
the high-water mark of the Germain effort, and
early in 1916 the tide began to turn. In the West
a small Russian force advanced from Kazvin, drove
the Turks and their German allies from Hamadan
and Kermanshah, and occupied Sultanabad and
Isfahan. Our branch at Hamadan was reopened on
January 10th, Sultanabad in February, Kermanshah
in March and Isfahan in June. Meanwhile the
Government of India also began to take action on
their side. Early in March they dispatched Briga
dier-General Sir Percy Sykes via Bunder Abbas to
Kerman, supported by a small force which was, I
believe, largely .supplemented by local levies which
his influence enabled him to raise. Sir Percy Sykes,
as many of you know, is not only a soldier,
but also a distinguished officer of the Indian Politi
cal Department. For many years he held the post
of Resident and Consul-General at Meshed, and he
possesses an intimate knowledge of Eastern Persia
and unrivalled influence with the people. Though
we have no details of (his proceedings, we know
that he successfully restored Persian authority in
Kerman and Yezd. and our branches at those places
were reopened respectively in June and July. At a
later date there was a set-back in the West. The
Turks, after the fall of Kut-el-Amara, were able to
reinforce their troops on the Persian border, and
the Russians-, being considerably outnumbered, were
obliged to retire from (both Kermanshah and Hama
dan. Consequently our branches at these places were
closed for the second time and have not yet been
re-opened. Also, as a precautionary measure, we
closed once more our branch at Sultanabad, which
lies, as you know, between Hamadan and Isfahan.
As a set-off, however, to thk reverse it is satisfactory
to record that the prisoners in the hands of the
Tangistanis were released in August and that Persian
authority in Shiraz was restored and our branch
there re-opened at the end of Ootober. Our latest
information is that Sir Percy Sykes has also reached
Shiraz and that the trade route thence to Bushire
may shortly be re-opened. The present position,
therefore, is that we have recovered five of the seven
branches which were in the enemy’s hands at this
time last year, that German influence and control in
Eastern and Southern Persia has been destroyed and
their agents scattered, while from the latest news
there is reason to hope that the Russians will soon
be able to resume the offensive and once more win
hack for Persia both Hamadan and Kermanshah.
ANXIETY, RISK AND DANGER.
That, gentlemen, is a bare outline of the chief
occurrences of the past year. From it you will
easily realise the anxieties of your board as the
news of these events filtered through from time to
time. Yau_wdll also be able to form some idea of
the risk and danger, the discomforts, losses and
privations which many of our staff and their families
were ’compelled to undergo. For example, Mr. and
Mrs. Ferguson lost all their property in Shiraz, their
house having been looted by the mob after they
had left. The wives of the prisoners taken in Shiraz
were separated from their husbands at Borasjun and
sent into Bushire, where they remained for months
in acute anxiety os to the fate of those they had
left behind. The British residents in Isfahau, in
cluding ladies and ohildiren, were compelled with
scanty outfit and inadequate transport to march
over 200 miles through the Bakht'ari hills before
they found refuge in Ahwaz, and the experiences
of those in Yezd and Kerman were hardly less
arduous. In the midst of ’the great struggle dm
Europe affairs in Persia have naturally attracted
little attention, but when the whole story of these
events is made known, as I hope it will be after
the war, it will be found, according to our infor
mation, that our fellow countrymen and country
women in Persia faced all ’their misfortunes with a
cheerful courage and fortitude which is beyond all
praise. As instances of the versatility and spirit
of our staff, I may mention that Mr. Darie. our
manager art Kermaushah, in the intervals when his
branch was closed has been able from his know-