File 1341/1921 Pt 1 'Khorassan Intelligence Summaries 1921-1922' [‎321r] (289/1080)

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INTELLIGENCE SUMMARY FOR THE WEEK ENDING JANUARY-|4th, 1922
EHORASAN.
1. Meshed .—Conditions in the Province and in Meshed are normal.
2. Military .—Keference was made in last week’s Summary to a want of
cordiality between the Governor-General and the Cossack Commandant.
The impasse resulted in a threat of resignation on the part of the Governor-
General which provoked the Tehran Government to send a telegram investing
His Highness with plenary powers in all departments, including the military,
and enjoining on Hussein Aqa, Mir Panj, obedience to the orders of the
former.
3. Hussein Aqa, Mir Panj, has lost his ally, the Aqazada, who has
betaken himself to his estate at Nishapur.
4. A force of 310 infantry and 80 mounted troops (the term Cossacks
will henceforward be discontinued) left for Quchan and the northern frontier
during the week. A detachment has been warned to proceed to Sarakhs,
another to Qalat-i-Nadiri. And a party of 100 to Bujnurd, probably in
connection with the refractory tribesmen in the Persian Turkmen area.
5. Detachments for the collection of revenue may be sent into the Birjand
and Sistan areas, but the policy of such a procedure is causing the Amir Panj
some reflection owing to the possible effect upon the ruler of those parts,
Shaukat-ul-Mulk, Amir-i-Kain.
6. The Amir Panj appears to be swayed in his dispositions and policy
by a consideration for British opinion. In this he is guided, he says, by a
knowledge of the wishes of the Minister of War, who, he believes, is now an
Anglophil.
A rumour of the return of British troops to Persia has lately prevailed
and denials have met with scepticism. The new-smongers say that the former
British hutted encampment is being repaired for the reception of these troops.
A Bussian resident of Meshed received a letter from a brother in Tehran in
which the latter wrote that it may be taken as certain that within two months
British troops would be back in Persia. It is this that possibly has started the
rumour, aided, no doubt, by a recent attempt to bring off a corner in wheat.
7. The pay of the troops is in arrears. There is a great want of public
money, hence the collection of revenue by the officials of that department
accompanied by armed parties. Citizens in arrears of taxation have been
threatened with the quartering on their houses of a squad or so of troops by
way of forcible persuasion to pay—for the maintenance of the persuasive
element devolves upon the debtor to the extent of three krans per man per
diem.
8. Bolsheviks .—Meshed Chief of Police, Major de Bronekovski, states
that the Russian Consul-General has engaged about thirty local men as spies
and agents. It is believed he intends to equip some of them as hawkers and
petty traders and to send them into rural areas as propagandists. It is
hard to see what value he expects for the money to be expended on such an
organization for employes engaged hap-hazard can be of but little use for work
which requires special training.
9. It is related that when the Russian Consul-General had occasion recently
to call upon the Governor-General he was accompanied by two armed Kuban
Cossacks as an escort. The latter were deprived of their arms at the gate of
the Governor-General’s palace but which were restored to them on their
departure. *
10. The Bolshevik Consul-General is much in the eociety of leading Turks
and has been entertained to dinner by them on successive occasions. He has