"تاريخ الحرب الكبرى استنادًا إلى وثائق رسمية: العمليات في بلاد فارس ١٩١٤-١٩١٩" [ظ‎‎١‎٤‎٧] (٥٦٦/٢٩٩)

OPERATIONS IN PERSIA
256
information from enemy sources that the Turco-German often-
would begin within a month and that the Turks, occupying
Azerbaijan and invading Persia, would then move towards
Turkestan in the north, and Afghanistan in the south. Also
that they were sending 300,000 rifles to arm Persians.
To the Chief of the Imperial General Staff it appeared
improbable that the enemy meant to attempt more than the
recapture of Northern Mesopotamia and the despatch of small
parties to stir up trouble in Persia, Afghanistan and Turkestan.
But the Government of India were not convinced that he was
right. News had just been received of the Turkish intention
to send back to Persia the gendarmerie and levies—who had
accompanied the Turkish XIII Corps in its retirement in
March—evidently with a view to furthering enemy aims ; and
it was also suspected that the unrest in Russian Turkestan was
a manifestation of the pan-Turkish movement, which aimed
at linking up the Turks of Anatolia, through the Caucasus and
Turkestan, with the Turks of Bokhara.
On the 19th September the Government of India addressed
the India Office on the subject. Russia, they assumed, would
be unable to hinder effectively the enemy plan, which seemed
to imply a movement on a broad front via Azerbaijan, Urmia
and Qasr-i-Shirin into the Tehran-Hamadan area, followed by
an advance into Afghanistan by two or three lines, either in
small parties or in force. To counter this plan they suggested
political action as follows. The only prospect of obtaining the
co-operation of the Persian Government appeared, they said,
to lie in our ability to demonstrate that we harboured no designs
on Persian independence and desired sincerely, in our own
interests, to see that country strong and self-sufficient. They,
therefore, again advocated, though they admitted that the idea
might seem Utopian, that we should conciliate the Democrats
as a possible means of influencing, through subsidies and other
inducements, the tribal chiefs and other Persian leaders to
support us. The military precautions they advocated were
A development of our intelligence system throughout Western
Persia, in which the support of local notables suggested above
would assist greatly; the effective recognition by the Persian
Government of the South Persia Rifles, whose command we
might agree to hand over to a Persian general advised by a
British staff ; and the improvement of communications as
recommended separately, i.e., the extension of the railway froin
Dalbandin to the Persian frontier and the improvement of t e
Bandar Abbas-Saidabad-Kerman road.