"تاريخ الحرب الكبرى استنادًا إلى وثائق رسمية: العمليات في بلاد فارس ١٩١٤-١٩١٩" [ظ‎‎٢‎٥‎٨] (٥٦٦/٥٢٣)

460
OPERATIONS IN PERSIA
our interests in Ears and to the larger question of future British
interests in Persia, he did not think that a complete evacuation
was immediately possible. It was most important, he con
tinued, that Saulat should be kept out of Ears for at least
six months and, as there was no guarantee that Farman Farma
would remain in Fars, it was inadvisable to give him a free hand
to make his own terms with Saulat. These terms should be
settled in consultation with us and the Persian Government.
On the 21st March the India Office informed the Government
of India that, pending the final decision of H.M. Government,
the withdrawal of troops, within the limits proposed by General
Douglas, might be proceeded with at once. Instructions to
that effect were accordingly issued from India to General
Douglas on the 28th March and were carried into effect during
the next six weeks.
After the occupation of Kazerun, orders had been issued for
General Douglas to take command, as opportunity offered, of
all the Indian troops in Fars and to assume responsibility for
the maintenance and protection of the whole of the Bushire-
Shiraz road. The South Persia Rifles would remain as a separate
command under Colonel Orton. For administrative reasons,
General Douglas did not assume entire control till the 10th
March, and in April most of the Indian troops which had been
with Sir Percy Sykes in Fars were withdrawn to India.
By the end of March, thanks to the work carried out entirely
by the troops of the Bushire force, the former difficult mule
track between Bushire and the summit of the Pir Zan pass had
been replaced by a good road, nowhere less than ten feet wide;
the motor road from Shiraz to Dasht-i-Arjan, made by the
South Persia Rifles in 1917, had been recently extended by
them to the top of the same pass; and at the beginning
of April a Ford van was able to go from Kazerun to Shiraz in a
little over seven hours. By this time camel caravans were
moving regularly between Bushire and Shiraz.
Bushire The situation in the middle of April was summed up by Mr.
situation ; Bill in the conc i u ding paragraph of his report on the political
pn 1919 . as p ec £ 0 f q ie operations as follows :—
“ Thus, with the close of the active phase of the opera
tions, the situation resolves itself politically into a matter
of securing the road from raids by insisting on vl ^§ e
responsibility for giving warning of, and resisting, robber
gangs ; of securing the present state of things by holding
the principal centres, Shiraz, Kazerun and Bushire, wi
regular troops and gradually, in close communication wi