ملف ٣٥١٦\١٩١٤ الجزء ١٨ "الحرب الألمانية: بلاد فارس؛ الوضع العام - ١٩١٦" [و‎‎٩] (٣٦٨/٢٦)

having slept, as he toll us, for four nights. We described to him the arrangement come
and W de Etter said that he was sure that it would be approved by his Government.
The Shah was very anxious to know how long it would be before the troops would
be removed, and we had great difficulty in persuading him that it was not in our
^power to give the order ourselves; curiously enough, he seemed to think that the
power rested with me ! ATcei a quarter of an hour’s talk the Shah became quite cheerful.
He said that he quite understood that it was quite vital for Persia to be on good terms
with her two great neighbours, and hinted at the desirability of an understanding with
them for something more than benevolent neutrality on the part of Persia. His
Majesty then fell to abusing Germany and everything German in the roundest terms,
and when we left him he said he was quite reassured and would he able to sleep.
One precaution we took to prevent a hasty departure by His Majesty was to remove
an essential part of the engine of his motor-car.
We have since learnt that practically only four of his many councillors really
exerted themselves to dissuade the Shah from quitting his capital, namely, Kamram
Mirza, Farman Farma, Mustaufi-el-Mamelek, and Sahib Baktiar, and that among the
most active to urge him to go were Mohtashem-us-Sultaneh, Serdar Bahadur,
Bakhtiari, Moin-el-Vizareh, and Mustasha-cd-1)owleh, the Minister of Posts and
Telegraphs; while Colonel Ed wall, the chief of the gendarmerie, outbid all others in
his efforts to induce the Shah to take the fateful step.
Meantime a great exodus of Germans, Austrians, Turks, gendarmerie, and
Democrat deputies was in full progress. All public carriages and many private ones,
with horses, mules, and camels, were ruthlessly commandeered by the gendarmerie ; the
Government archives were ready packed, as also the Crown jewels, a small number of
the most valuable of which, in a small leather case, never left His Majesty’s sight.
The German Minister, who for tbe past two days had not occupied his own legation,
left about 2 o’clock with his Austro-Hungarian colleague, but the Turkish Ambassador
remained in the town two or three hours longer, Prince Reuss and Assim Bay having
handed over the protection of German and lurkish interests to the United States
Minister; while M. Logotheti obtained similar services from the Spanish representative.
Till long after dark the road to Shah Abdul Azim was crowded by the procession of
Germanophiles, and an eye-witness has stated that Count Kanitz, military attache of
the German Legation, and Major Poussette, of the gendarmerie, dressed in full uniform,
were waiting for six hours at the city gate to receive and escort with due honour a
Shah who never appeared. The exodus continued on the 16th, and by the 17th a very
perceptible percentage of the inhabitants of Tehran had disappeared, while not a single
carriage plving for hire was to be seen in the streets. Moreover, all down the Kum
road the gendarmerie commandeered grain and forage of all kinds to such an extent
that it is said that there is scarcely sufficient grain left for sowing purposes, and that
Tehran may be threatened with famine next summer. These high-handed proceedings
have, at all events locally, destroyed much of the popularity of the Swedes.
For a day or two the failure of the plot to get the Shah away seems to have left the
enemy without any pre-arranged plan ; but eventually a committee, styling itself the
Committee of National Defence, was formed at Kum, where Prince Reuss had arrested
his flight, while Assim Bey and M. Logotheti remained at Shah Abdul Azim in touch
with the capital, and those of their friends such as Mustesham-ed-Dowleh, Motesham-es-
Sultaneb, Hakim-ul-Mulk in the Cabinet, and Moin-ul-Vizareh out of it, who were fairly
sure that the official positions they occupied guaranteed them from molestation. 1 he
committee endeavoured to invest itself with something of the authority of a national
assembly, as some fifty deputies were at Kum ; and Mirza Suleiman Khan, the secretary*
general of the Minister of the Interior, flooded the country with official-looking
telegrams announcing that a revolution had broken out in iehran, and that the British
and~Russian Ministers were in flight, i did what was possible to counteract these
lying reports by informing His Majesty’s consuls and all the offices of the Indo-European
Telegraph Department of the true state of affairs, but for some days the gendarmerie
at Kum interrupted the wires, and it was only owing to the invaluable support and
resource of Mr. King Wood that our messages were sent through. Practically all the
Government messages were held up at this time by the orders of the Minister of Posts
and Telegraphs himself, and even now it is only too evident that he is still abetting the
enemy cause in this manner; but so precarious is the position of the Cabinet that
M. de Etter and I have not thought it wise to insist on his removal, for fear of provoking a
Ministerial crisis. This command of the telegraph service —borrowed, of course, from
the Committee of Union and Progress in Turkey—has been of the utmost value to the
enemy, and the disability under which the Cabinet has suffered in this matter must be
[2546 a—l] D