The Persian cabinet at Teheran was panic-stricken, and for ten days
there ensued a period of confusion and terror that beggars description.
There was no Persian army except on paper. The gendarmerie and police
of the city did not number more than eighteen hundred men inadequately
armed. The Russian Turcomans on the northeast frontier were reported to
be flocking to the ex-Shah's standard, and it was commonly believed
that he would be at the gates of Teheran in a few weeks. This belief
was strengthened by the fact that his brother, Prince Salaru'd-Dawla,
had entered Persia from the direction of Bagdad and was known to have a
large gathering of Kurdish tribesmen ready to march toward Teheran.
After a time, however, reason prevailed and steps were taken to create
an army to defend the constitutional government against the invaders.
At this time, one of the old chiefs of the Bakhtiyari tribesmen, the
Samsamu's-Saltana, was the prime minister holding the portfolio of war,
and he called to arms several thousands of his fighting men, who
promptly started for the capital. Ephraim Khan, at that time chief of
police of Teheran, was another defender of the constitution who raised
a volunteer force, and twice, acting with the Bakhtiyari forces, he
signally defeated the troops of the ex-Shah. By September 5th, Muhammad
Ali himself was in full flight through northeastern Persia toward the
friendly Russian frontier. Whatever chances he may have formerly had
were admitted to be gone.
The hound that Russia had unleashed, with his hordes of Turcoman
brigands, upon the constitutional government of Persia had been whipped
back into his kennel. No one was more surprised than Russia, unless
indeed it was the Persians themselves. Russian officials everywhere in
Persia had openly predicted an easy victory for Muhammad Ali. They had
aided him in a hundred different ways, morally, financially, and by
actual armed force.
They still hoped, however, that the forces of Prince Salaru'd-Dawla,
which were marching from Hamadan toward Teheran, would take the
capital. But on September 28th, the news came that Ephraim Khan, and
the Bakhtiyaris had routed the Prince and his army, and the last hope
from this source was gone.
In the mean time, another encounter with Russia had occurred. There was
at Teheran an officer of the British-Indian army, Major Stokes, who for
four years had been military attache to the British Legation. He knew
Persia well; read, wrote, and spoke fluently the language and
thoroughly understood the habits, customs, and viewpoint of the Persian
people. He was the ideal man to assist in the formation of a
tax-collecting force under the Treasury, without which there was no
hope of collecting the internal taxes throughout the empire. Not only
was Major Stokes the ideal man for this work, but he was the _only_ man
possessing the necessary qualifications.
I accordingly tendered Major Stokes the post of chief of the future
Treasury gendarmerie, his services as military attache having come to
an end. After some correspondence with the British Legation, I was
informed late in July that the British Foreign Office held that he must
resign his commission in the British-Indian army before accepting the
post. This Major Stokes did, by cable, on July 31st, and the matter was
regarded as settled.
What was my surprise, therefore, to learn, on the evening of August
8th, that the British Minister, following instructions from his
Government, had that day presented a note to the Persian Foreign
Office, warning the Persian Government that any attempt to employ Major
Stokes in the "northern sphere" of Persia (which included Teheran, the
capital) would probably be followed by _retaliatory action_ (_sic_) by
Russia which England would not be in a position to deprecate. Between
individuals, such action would clearly be considered bad faith. Sir
Edward Grey, British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, shortly
thereafter explained that the appointment of Major Stokes would be a
violation of what he termed the "spirit" of the Anglo-Russian
Convention of 1907. Yet just two weeks before, when he consented to
Stokes resigning to accept the post, he had never dreamed of such a
thing.
The truth is that the semiofficial St. Petersburg press, like the
_Novoe Vremya_, had begun to bluster about the affair, egged on by the
Russian Foreign Office, and Sir Edward Grey was compelled to _invent
some pretext_ for his manifest dread of displeasing Britain's "good
friend Russia" about anything. Hence the birth of that wondrous and
fearsome child, that rubber child which could be stretched to cover any
and all things, the "spirit of the convention." It was a wonderful
discovery for the gentlemen of the so-called "forward party" of the
Russian Government, since they now beheld not only a new means of
evading the plain letter of their agreement, but gleefully found a
woful lack of spirit in their partner to the convention, Great Britain.
The British Foreign Office pretended to believe that they had checked
Russia's march to the Gulf; they knew better then, and they know still
better now. There is but one thing on earth that will check that march,
and that thing England is apparently not in a geographical or a
policial position to furnish in sufficient numbers. The British public
now know this, and unfortunately the "forward party" in Russia knows
it, and that is why bearded faces at St. Petersburg crack open and emit
rumbles of genuine merriment every time Sir Edward Grey stands up in
the House of Commons and explains to his countrymen that he has most
ample and categorical assurances from Russia that her sole purpose in
sending two or three armies into Persia is to show her displeasure with
an American finance official.
For that same reason, doubtless, she has recently massacred some
hundreds of Persians in Tabriz, Enzeli, and Resht, and has hanged
numbers of Islamic priests, provincial officials, and
constitutionalists whom she classifies as the "dregs of revolution."
That is why the Russian flag was hoisted over the government buildings
at Tabriz, the capital of the richest province of the empire, while a
Russian military governor dispensed justice at the bayonet-point and
with the noose.
But to get back to events. After the crushing defeats of the ex-Shah's
two forces and his flight, Russia was still faced by a constitutional
regime in Persia--and by a somewhat solidified and more confident
government and people at that.
Tools and puppets having dismally failed, enter the real thing. Russia
now proceeded to intervene directly and to break up the constitutional
government in Persia without risk of failure or hindrance. She did not
even intend to await a pretext--she manufactured such things as she
went along.
The first instance is the Shu'a'us-Saltana affair. On October 9th, some
twelve days after the last defeat inflicted on the ex-Shah's forces, I
was ordered by the cabinet to seize and confiscate the properties of
Prince Shu'a'us-Saltana, another brother of the ex-Shah, who had
returned to Persia with him and was actively commanding some of his
troops. The same order was given as to the estates of Prince
Salaru'd-Dawla, the other brother in rebellion.
Pursuant to this entirely proper and legal order, the purport of which
had been communicated by the Persian Foreign Office to the Russian and
British ministers several days previously, no objection having been
even hinted, I sent out six small parties, each consisting of a
civilian Treasury official and five Treasury gendarmes, to seize the
different properties in and about Teheran. As a matter of courtesy, the
British and Russian legations had been informed that all rights of
foreigners in these properties would be fully safeguarded and
respected.
The principal property was the Park of Shu'a'us-Saltana, a magnificent
place in Teheran, with a palace filled with valuable furniture. When
the Treasury officials and five gendarmes arrived there, they found on
guard a number of Persian Cossacks of the Cossack Brigade. On seeing
the order of confiscation, these men retired. My men then took
possession and began making an official inventory. An hour later, two
Russian vice-consuls, in full uniform, arrived with twelve Russian
Cossacks from the Russian Consulate guard, and with imprecations,
abuse, and threats to kill, drove off my men at the point of their
rifles. Later in the day, these same vice-consuls actually arrested
other small parties of Treasury gendarmes, took them on mules through
the streets of Teheran to the Russian Consulate-General, and after
insulting and threatening them with death if they ever returned to the
confiscated property, allowed them to go.
On hearing this, I wrote and telegraphed to my friend, M.
Poklewski-Koziell, the Russian minister, calling his attention to the
outrageous actions of his Consul-General, M. Pokhitanow, and asking the
minister to give orders to prevent any further unpleasantness on the
following day, when I would again execute the government's order. The
next day I sent a force of one hundred gendarmes in charge of two
American Treasury officials, and the order was executed.
Two hours after we were in peaceable possession of the property, the
same two Russian vice-consuls drove up to the gate and began insulting
and abusing the Persian Treasury guards, endeavoring, of course, to
provoke the gendarmes into some act against them. In other words,
finding that they had lost in the matter of retaining possession of the
property, these Russian officials deliberately sought to provoke my
gendarmes into something that they could construe as an affront to
Russian consular authority. The men, however, had received such strict
and repeated instructions that they refused even to answer. They paid
no attention to the taunts and abuse of these two dignified Russian
officials, who thereupon drove off and perjured themselves to the
effect that they had been affronted--in other words, that the incident
which they had gone there to provoke actually had occurred. These false
statements were reported to St. Petersburg by M. Pokhitanow
independently of his minister, who, I have the strongest reason to
believe, entirely disavowed the Consul-General's actions. The Russian
government thereupon publicly discredited its minister and demanded
from the Persian government an immediate apology for something that had
never occurred. The apology, after some hesitation, was made on the
advice of the British government. It was hoped that this evident
self-abasement by Persia would appease even the Russian bureaucracy.
But it now seems that a compliance with Russia's demand was exactly
what was not desired by her, since it removed all possible pretext for
taking more drastic steps against Persia's national existence. Hence,
at the very moment when the Persian Foreign Minister, in full uniform,
was at the Russian legation complying with this first ultimatum, based,
as it was, on absolutely false reports, the St. Petersburg cabinet was
formulating new and even more unjust and absurd demands, which, as some
of the public know, have resulted in the expulsion of the fifteen
American finance officials and in the destruction of the last vestiges
of constitutional government in the empire of Cyrus and Darius.
Russia called for my immediate dismissal from the post of
Treasurer-General; she required that my fourteen American assistants
already in Persia should be subject to the approval of the British and
Russian legations at Teheran; that all other foreign officials in
future employed by Persia be subjected to the approval of those two
legations; that a large indemnity should be paid to Russia for the
expense of moving her troops into Persia to hasten the acceptance of
these two ultimatums; and that all other questions between Russia and
Persia should be settled to the satisfaction of the former.
The acceptance by Persia of these demands meant, of course, a virtual
cession of her sovereignty to Russia and Great Britain. It should be
noted, also, that in this Russian ultimatum the name of the British
government was freely used, although the British minister took no part
in the presentation of the same. Sir Edward Grey was subsequently asked
in the British Parliament as to this point, and explained, in effect,
that he agreed with the Russian demands, with the possible exception of
the indemnity.
The Russian minister informed the Persian Government that this
ultimatum was based on the following two grounds: First, that I had
appointed a certain Mr. Lecoffre, a British subject, to be a tax
collector in the Russian sphere of influence; and, second, that I had
caused to be printed and circulated in Persia a translation into
Persian of my letter to the London _Times_ of October 21, 1911, thereby
greatly injuring Russian influence in northern Persia. These grounds
might be classified as "unimportant, if true." The truth is, however,
that they are both well known to have been utterly unfounded in fact. I
did not appoint Mr. Lecoffre, a British subject, to a financial post in
northern Persia. I found him in the Finance Department at Teheran (the
capital, which is in the so-called Russian sphere) when I arrived there
last May, and he had been occupying an important position there for
nearly two years, without the slightest objection ever having been
raised by the Russian Government. I proposed to transfer him to a
somewhat less important position, but one in which I thought he could
be of greater service.
As to the second ground or pretext, in effect, that I had caused to be
printed and circulated a Persian translation of my letter to the
_Times_, it was simply false. It was well known to be false--so well
known, in fact, that a newspaper in Teheran, the _Tamadun_
(_Civilization_) which did print it and circulate it, publicly admitted
the fact the minute they heard that I was charged by Russia with having
done so. So these two at best rather puerile pretexts upon which to
base an ultimatum from a powerful nation to a weaker one lacked even
the merit of truth.
This second ultimatum, despite all hypocritical attempts made to
justify it, fairly stunned the Persian people. Accustomed as they had
become in recent years to the high-handed and cynical actions of the
St. Petersburg cabinet, they had not looked for such a foul blow as
this. They had been realizing dimly that the peace of Europe was being
threatened by the open hostility of Germany and England over the
Moroccan incident, and that British foreign policy was apparently
leaving Russia absolutely free to work her will in Asia, so long, at
least, as Russia pretended to acknowledge the. Anglo-Russian _entente_
of 1907; but the Persian people had too much, far too much, confidence
in the sacredness of treaty stipulations and the solemnly pledged words
of the great Christian nations of the world to imagine that their own
whole national existence and liberty could be jeopardized overnight,
and on a pretext so shallow and farcical as to excite world-wide
ridicule. Their disillusionment came too late. The trap had been
unwittingly set by hands that made unexpected moves on the European
chessboard, and the Bear's paw had this time been skilful enough to
spring it at the proper moment.
The Persian statesmen and chieftains who formed the cabinet at this
time, whether because they perceived the gleaming, naked steel behind
Russia's threats more clearly than their legislative compatriots of the
Parliament or Medjlis, or whether they suffered from that abandon and
tired feeling which comes from playing an unequal and always losing
game, quickly decided that they would accept this second ultimatum with
all its future oppression and cruelty for their people.
On December 1st, therefore, shortly before the time limit of
forty-eight hours fixed by Russia for the acceptance of the terms had
expired, the cabinet filed into the chamber of deputies to secure
legislative approval of their intended course.
It was an hour before noon, and the Parliament grounds and buildings
were filled with eager, excited throngs, while the galleries of the
Medjlis chamber were packed with Persian notables of all ranks and with
the representatives of many of the foreign legations. At noon the fate
of Persia as a nation was to be known.
The cabinet, having made up its mind to yield, overlooked no point that
would increase their chances of securing the approval of the Medjlis.
Believing, evidently, that the ridiculously short time to elapse before
the stroke of noon announced the expiration of the forty-eight-hour
period would effectually prevent any mature consideration or discussion
of their proposals, the premier, Samsamu's-Saltana, caused to be
presented to the deputies a resolution authorizing the cabinet to
accept Russia's demands.
The proposal was read amid a deep silence. At its conclusion, a hush
fell upon the gathering. Seventy-six deputies, old men and young,
priests, lawyers, doctors, merchants, and princes, sat tense in their
seats.
A venerable priest of Islam arose. Time was slipping away and at noon
the question would be beyond their vote to decide. This servant of God
spoke briefly and to the point: "It may be the will of Allah that our
liberty and our sovereignty shall be taken from us by force, but let us
not sign them away with our own hands!" One gesture of appeal with his
trembling hands, and he resumed his seat.
Simple words, these, yet winged ones. Easy to utter in academic
discussions; hard, bitterly hard, to say under the eye of a cruel and
overpowering tyrant whose emissaries watched the speaker from the
galleries and mentally marked him down for future imprisonment,
torture, exile, or worse.
Other deputies followed. In dignified appeals, brief because the time
was short, they upheld their country's honor and proclaimed their
hard-earned right to live and govern themselves.
A few minutes before noon the public vote was taken; one or two
faint-hearted members sought a craven's refuge and slunk quietly from
the chamber. As each name was called, the deputy rose in his place and
gave his vote, there was no secret ballot here.
And when the roll-call was ended, every man, priest or layman, youth or
octogenarian, had cast his own die of fate, had staked the safety of
himself and family, and hurled back into the teeth of the great Bear
from the north the unanimous answer of a desperate and downtrodden
people who preferred a future of unknown terror to the voluntary
sacrifice of their national dignity and of their recently earned right
to work out their own salvation.
Amid tears and applause from the spectators, the crestfallen and
frightened cabinet withdrew, while the deputies dispersed to ponder on
the course which lay darkly before their people.
By this vote, the cabinet, according to the Persian constitution,
ceased to exist as a legal entity.
Great crowds of people thronged the "Lalezar," one of the principal
streets of Teheran, shouting death to the traitors and calling Allah to
witness that they would give up their lives for their country.
A few days later, in a secret conference between the deputies of the
Medjlis and the members of the deposed cabinet, a similar vote was
given to reject the Russian demands. Meanwhile, thousands of Russian
troops, with cossacks and artillery, were pouring into northern Persia,
from Tiflis and Julfa by land and from Baku across the Caspian, to the
Persian port of Enzeli, whence they took up their 220-mile march over
the Elburz mountains toward Kasvin and Teheran.
In the government at Teheran, conference followed conference. Intrigues
against the deputies gave way to threats. Through it all, with the
increasing certainty of personal injury, the members of the Medjlis
stood firmly by their vote.
It is impossible to describe within the limits of this article the days
and nights of doubt, suspense, and anxiety that followed one another in
the capital during this dark month of December. There was a lurking
dread in the very air, and the snow-covered mountains themselves seemed
afflicted with the mournful scenes through which the country was
passing.
A boycott was proclaimed by the priests against Russian and English
goods. In a day, the old-fashioned tramway of the city was deserted on
the mere suspicion that it was owned in Russia, while an excited
Belgian Minister rained protests and petitions on the Persian Foreign
Office in an endeavor to show that the tramway was owned by his
countrymen. Crowds of youths, students, and women filled the street,
dragging absent-minded passengers from the cars, smashing the windows
of shops that still displayed Russian goods, seeing that no one drank
tea because it came from Russia, although produced in India, and going
in processions before the gates of the foreign legations to demand
justice of the representatives of the world powers for a people in the
extremity of despair.
One day, the rumor would come that the chief "mullahs" or priests at
Nadjef had proclaimed the "holy war" (_jihad_) against the Russians; on
another, that the Russian troops had commenced to shoot up Kasvin on
their march to Teheran.
At one time, when rumors were thick that the Medjlis would give in
under the threats and attempted bribery which well-known Russian
proteges were employing on many of its members, three hundred veiled
and black-gowned Persian women, a large proportion with pistols
concealed under their skirts or in the folds of their sleeves, marched
suddenly to the Parliament grounds and demanded admission to the
Chamber. The president of the Medjlis consented to receive a deputation
from them. Once admitted into his presence, these honor-loving Persian
mothers, wives, and daughters exhibited their weapons, and to show the
grim seriousness of their words, they tore aside their veils, and
threatened that they would kill their own husbands and sons, and end
their own lives, if the deputies failed in their duty to uphold the
dignity and the sovereignty of their beloved country.
When neither threats nor bribes availed against the Medjlis, Russia
decreed its destruction by force.
In the early afternoon of December 24th, the deposed cabinet, having
been themselves duly _persuaded_ to take the step, executed a _coup
d'état_ against the Medjlis, and by a demonstration of gendarmes and
Bakhtiyari tribesmen, succeeded in expelling all the deputies and
employees who were within the Parliament grounds; after which the gates
were locked and barred, and a strong detachment of the so-called Royal
Regiment left in charge. The deputies were threatened with death if
they attempted to return there or to meet in any other spot, and the
city of Teheran immediately passed under military control. The
self-constituted _directoire_ of seven who accomplished this dubious
feat first ascertained that the considerable force of Bakhtiyari
tribesmen, some 2,000, who had remained in the capital after the defeat
of the ex-Shah's forces in September last, had been duly "fixed" by the
same Russian agencies who had so early succeeded in persuading the
members of the ex-cabinet that their true interests lay in siding with
Russia. It is impossible to say just what proportions of fear and
cupidity decided the members of the deposed cabinet to take the aliens'
side against their country, but both emotions undoubtedly played a
part. The premier was one of the leading chiefs or "khans" of the
Bakhtiyaris, and another chief was the self-styled Minister of War.
These chieftains have always been a strange and changing mixture of
mountain patriot and city intriguer--of loyal soldier and mercenary
looter. The mercenary instincts, possibly aided by a sense of their own
comparative helplessness against Russian Cossacks and artillery, led
them to accept the stranger's gold and fair promises, and they ended
their checkered but theretofore relatively honorable careers by selling
their country for a small pile of cash and the more alluring promise
that the "grand viziership" (_i.e.,_ post of Minister of Finance)
should be perpetual in their family or clan.
That same afternoon a large number of the "abolished" deputies came to
my office. They were men whom I had grown to know well, men of European
education, in whose courage, integrity, and patriotism I had the
fullest confidence. To them, the unlawful action of their own
countrymen was more than a political catastrophe; it was a sacrilege, a
profanation, a heinous crime. They came in tears, with broken voices,
with murder in their hearts, torn by the doubt as to whether they
should kill the members of the _directoire_ and drive out the
traitorous tribesmen who had made possible the destruction of the
government, or adopt the truly Oriental idea of killing themselves.
They asked my advice, and, hesitating somewhat as to whether I should
interfere to save the lives of notorious betrayers of their country, I
finally persuaded them to do neither the one nor the other. There
seemed to be no particular good in assassinating even their treacherous
countrymen, as it would only have given color to the pretensions of
Russia and England that the Persians were not capable of maintaining
order.