Dedication
TO THE MEMORY OF
Preface
No one can be more alive than I am to the fact that of the making of war books there is no end, nor can anyone hear mentally more plainly than I do how, at each fresh appearance of a work dealing with the world tragedy of the past five years, weary reviewers and jaded public alike exclaim, “What? Yet another!” Why, then, have I added this of mine to the already so formidable list?
Well, chiefly because in the beginning of 1918 Fate and the War Office sent me into a field of operations almost unknown and unheeded of the average home-keeping Briton—viz., that of North-West Persia, in the land lying towards the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea; and my experiences there led me into bypaths of the Great War so unusual as to seem well worth describing, quite apart from the military importance of the movements of which they were but a minute part.
However, in the latter aspect, too, I hope my book will serve as a useful footnote to the history of the gigantic struggle now happily ended.
The story of the Persian campaign needed to be told, and I am glad to add my humble quota to the recital. It is the story of a little force operating far away from the limelight, unknown to the people at home, and seemingly forgotten a great part of the time even by the authorities themselves. It was to this force—commanded by General Dunsterville, and hence known to those who knew it at all as “Dunsterforce”—that I was attached, and it is about it that I have written here. I have tried to make clear what the “Dunsterforce” was, why it was sent out, and how far it succeeded in accomplishing its mission. In order to do this I have been obliged to treat rather fully both of local geography and politics. For here we had no clear-cut campaign in which all the people of one country were in arms against all the people of another country. No! It was a very mixed-up and complicated business, as anyone who troubles to read what I have written will readily see.
Then, again, it was a war waged distinctly off the beaten track. During its progress we came across tribes to whom Great Britain was as some legendary land in another solar sphere—tribes to whom the aeroplane and the automobile were undreamed-of marvels—tribes, finally, whose habitat and modes of life and thought are almost as unknown to the average European as his are to them. For this reason I have devoted some space to descriptions of places and people as I saw them.
A word should perhaps be said as to how and why I happened to be there at all.
War has figured very largely in my life. For the past twenty years, as Special Correspondent of the Daily Chronicle, I have been privileged to be present at most of the world’s great upheavals, both military and political.
From July, 1914, on, for some eighteen months, I followed the fortunes of the Entente armies in the field as a war chronicler, first in Serbia, next in Belgium, and afterwards in Italy and Greece—a poor journalistic Lazarus picking up such crumbs of news as fell from the overladen table of Dives, the Censor. But I was not happy, because I felt I was not doing my “bit” as effectively as I might; so I followed the example of millions of other citizens of the Empire and joined the army. Detailed to the Intelligence Corps, I was sent first to Roumania, then to Russia. Escaping from the “Red Terror” in Petrograd, I finally found myself one day embarking for the remote land of Iran as Special Service Officer with “Dunsterforce”—at which point this chronicle begins.
THE AUTHOR.
PARIS,
October, 1919.
Treachery of our irregulars—Turkish machine gun in the village—Headquarters under fire—Native levies break and bolt—British force withdrawn—Turks proclaim a Holy War—Cochrane’s demonstration—In search of the missing force—Natives mutiny—A quick cure for “cholera”—A Turkish patrol captured—Meeting with Cochrane—A forced retreat—Our natives desert—A difficult night march—Arrival at Turkmanchai—Turks encircling us—A fresh retirement
CHAPTER XVII
EVACUATION OF MIANEH
We have a chilly reception—Our popularity wanes—Preparation for further retirement—Back to the Kuflan Kuh Pass—Our defensive position—Turks make a frontal attack—Our line overrun—Gallantry of Hants and Worcesters—Pursuit by Turks—Armoured cars save the situation—Prisoners escape from Turks—Persians as fighters
CHAPTER XVIII
CRUSHING A PLOT
Anti-British activities—Headquarters at Hamadan—Plans to seize ringleaders—Midnight arrests—How the Governor was entrapped
CHAPTER XIX
THE FIRST EXPEDITION TO BAKU
Kuchik Khan bars the road—Turk and Russian movements—Kuchik Khan’s force broken up—Bicherakoff reaches Baku—British armoured car crews in Russian uniforms—Fighting around Baku—Baku abandoned—Captain Crossing charges six-inch guns
CHAPTER XX
THE NEW DASH TO BAKU
Treachery in the town—Jungalis attack Resht—Armoured cars in street-fighting—Baku tires of Bolshevism—British summoned to the rescue—Dunsterville sets out—Position at Baku on arrival—British officers’ advice ignored—Turkish attacks—Pressing through the defences—Baku again evacuated
CHAPTER XXI
THE TURKS AND THE CHRISTIAN TRIBES
Guerrilla warfare—Who the Nestorian and other Christian tribes are—Turkish massacres—Russian withdrawal and its effect—British intervention
CHAPTER XXII
IN KURDISTAN
The last phase—Dunsterforce ceases to exist—The end of Turkish opposition—Off to Bijar—The Kurdish tribes—Raids on Bijar—Moved on by a policeman—Governor and poet
CHAPTER XXIII
THE END OF HOSTILITIES
Types of Empire defenders—Local feeling—Dealing with Kurdish raiders—An embarrassing offer of marriage—Prestige by aeroplane—Anniversary of Hossain the Martyr—News of the Armistice—Local waverers come down on our side of the fence—Releasing civil prisoners—Farewell of Bajar—Down country to the sea and home
APPENDIX
THE WORK OF THE DUNSTERFORCE ARMOURED CAR BRIGADE