WITH THE PERSIAN EXPEDITION
[Illustration: THE ROAD TO BIRKANDI.]
WITH THE PERSIAN
EXPEDITION
BY
MAJOR M. H. DONOHOE
LATE ARMY INTELLIGENCE CORPS
ILLUSTRATED
LONDON
EDWARD ARNOLD
1919
(_All rights reserved_)
TO THE MEMORY OF
MY COMRADES OF THE IMPERIAL AND
DOMINION FORCES
WHO, IN THE CONCLUDING YEAR OF THE GREAT WAR,
GAVE THEIR LIVES FOR THE WORLD'S FREEDOM
IN PERSIA AND TRANSCAUCASIA.
{v}
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 {vi} 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.
{vii}
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.
{ix}
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
THE START OF THE "HUSH-HUSH" BRIGADE
A mystery expedition--Tower of London conference--From Flanders mud
to Eastern dust--An Imperial forlorn hope--Some fine fighting
types--The amphibious purser--In the submarine zone--Our Japanese
escort
CHAPTER II
EGYPT TO THE PERSIAN GULF
Afloat in an insect-house--Captain Kettle in command--Overcrowding
and small-pox--The s.s. _Tower of Babel_--A shark scare--Koweit
CHAPTER III
THE CITY OF SINBAD
Arrival at Basra--A city of filth--Transformation by the
British--Introducing sport to the natives--The Arabs and the cinema
CHAPTER IV
AT A PERSIAN WEDDING
Visit to the Sheikh of Mohammerah--A Persian banquet
CHAPTER V
UP THE TIGRIS TO KUT
Work of the river flotilla--Thames steamboats on the Tigris--The
waterway through the desert--The renaissance of Amarah--The river's
jazz-step course--The old Kut and the new--In Townshend's old
headquarters--Turks' monument to short-lived triumph
{x}
CHAPTER VI
BAGDAD
Arabian nights and motor-cars--The old and the new in Bagdad--"Noah's
dinghy"--Bible history illustrated--At a famous tomb-mosque
CHAPTER VII
EARLY HISTORY OF DUNSTERVILLE's FORCE
Jealousy and muddle--The dash for the Caspian--Holding on hundreds of
miles from anywhere--A 700-mile raid that failed--The cockpit of the
Middle East--Some recent politics in Persia--How our way to the
Caspian was barred
CHAPTER VIII
OFF TO PERSIA
Au revoir to Bagdad--The forts on the frontier--Customs house for the
dead--A land of desolation and death--A city of the past--An
underground mess--Methods of rifle thieves
CHAPTER IX
THROUGH MUD TO KIRIND
A city of starving cave-dwellers--An American woman's mission to the
wild--A sect of salamanders--Profiteering among the Persians--A
callous nation--Wireless orders to sit tight--Awaiting attack--The
"mountain tiger"
CHAPTER X
KIRIND TO KERMANSHAH
Pillage and famine--A land of mud--The Chikar Zabar Pass--Wandering
Dervishes--Poor hotel accommodation--A "Hunger Battalion"--A city of
the past
{xi}
CHAPTER XI
A CITY OF FAMINE
In ancient Hamadan--With Dunsterville at last--His precarious
position--"Patriots" as profiteers--Victims of famine--Driven to
cannibalism--Women kill their children for food--Trial and
execution--Famine relief schemes--Deathblow to the Democrats--"Stalky"
CHAPTER XII
DUNSTERVILLE STRIKES AFRESH
Official hindrances--A fresh blow for the Caucasus--The long road to
Tabriz--A strategic centre--A Turkish invasion--Rising of Christian
tribes--A local Joan of Arc--The British project
CHAPTER XIII
THE RACE FOR TABRIZ
A scratch pack for a great adventure--Wagstaff of Persia--Among the
Afshars--Guests of the chief--Capture of Zinjan--Peace and
profiteering
CHAPTER XIV
CAPTURE OF MIANEH
Armoured car causes consternation--Reconnoitring the road--Flying
column sets out--An easy capture at the gates of Tabriz--Tribesmen
raid the armoured car--And have a thin time--Turks get the wind up
CHAPTER XV
LIFE IN MIANEH
Training local levies--A city of parasites and rogues--A knave turns
philanthropist--Turks getting active--Osborne's comic opera
force--Jelus appeal for help--An aeroplane to the rescue--The
democrats impressed--Women worried by aviator's "shorts"--Skirmishes
on the Tabriz road--Reinforcements at last
{xii}
CHAPTER XVI
THE FIGHT AT TIKMADASH
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
{xiii}
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
INDEX
{xv}
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
THE ROAD TO BIRKANDI ... _frontispiece_
BRITISH-TRAINED PERSIAN POLICE
HÔTEL D'EUROPE AT RESHT
STONE BRIDGE AT SIAH RUD
TYPICAL PERSIAN VILLAGE
PERSIAN TRANSPORT
DARIUS INSCRIPTIONS AT BISITUN
CARAVANSERAI, BISITUN
DRILLING JEHUS AT HAMADAN
ROAD NEAR RUDBAR
NORTH GATE OF KASVIN
DRILLING ARMENIANS AT BAKU
GROUP OF STAFFORDS AT BALADADAR STATION
SIX-INCH HOWITZER IN ACTION AT BAKU
GENERAL VIEW OF SCENE FOLLOWING THE ARMENIAN RETIREMENT
HARVESTING IN PERSIA
_Map ... facing page_ 1
[Illustration: Map]
{1}
WITH THE PERSIAN EXPEDITION
CHAPTER I
THE START OF THE "HUSH-HUSH" BRIGADE
A mystery expedition--Tower of London conference--From Flanders mud
to Eastern dust--An Imperial forlorn hope--Some fine fighting
types--The amphibious purser--In the submarine zone--Our Japanese
escort.
Scarcely had dawn tinged the sky of a February day in 1918 when there
crept out of the inner harbour of Taranto a big transport bound for
Alexandria. It was laden with British and Dominion troops.
All were for service overseas. There were units for India and Egypt,
a contingent of Nursing Sisters for East Africa, and a detachment of
Sappers for Aden. The transport stealing noiselessly towards the
open sea was the P. and O. liner _Malwa_, and, as a precaution
against submarine attack, she had been so extensively and grotesquely
camouflaged by dockyard artists in black and white that some of her
own crew coming alongside on a dark night had difficulty in
recognizing her.
The _Malwa_, too, had on board the members of a military expedition,
surely one of the most {2} extraordinary that ever crossed the sea to
fight the battles of the Empire in distant lands. Our official
designation was the "Dunsterville" or "Bagdad Party"; but War Office
cynics, and the damsel who sold us our patent filters and Tommy
Cookers at the military equipment stores in London, knew us as the
"Hush-hush" Brigade. And the "Hush-hush" Brigade we were privileged
to remain. This nickname met us in Alexandria, followed us to Cairo
and distant Basra, and preceded us to the City of the Caliphs on the
shores of the muddy-brown Tigris.
On the eve of the departure from England of the main body for the
Italian port of embarkation, a heart-to-heart talk between General
Sir William Robertson and the members of the Bagdad Party had taken
place at the Tower of London. The veil of official secrecy was drawn
ever so little aside, and, allowed a peep behind, we beheld a field
of military activity with a distinctly Eastern setting. Men who had
been "over the top" in Flanders heard with a joyous throb of
expectation that the next time they went into the line would be
probably somewhere in Persia or the Caucasus. They were as happy as
children at the prospect, finding it a welcome relief from muddy
tramps through the low-lying lands of the Western Front, the dull
grey skies, the monotony of life in flooded trenches under incessant
bombardment, varied only by an occasional rush across No-Man's Land
to get at the Hun throat. We were going from mud to dust, but
hurrah! anyway.
{3}
On that February morning, as the _Malwa_ slipped past Taranto town
and into the roadstead where lay her Japanese destroyer escort, the
roll-call of the Bagdad Party showed a strength of 70 officers and
140 N.C.O's. This was to be the nucleus of a force which we hoped
would combat and overthrow Bolshevism, make common cause with
Armenians, Georgians, and Tartars, raise and train local levies, and
bar with a line of bayonets the further progress of Turk and German
by way of the Caspian Sea and Russian Turkestan towards the Gates of
India.
With few exceptions our party consisted of Dominion soldiers gathered
from the remote corners of the Empire. There were Anzacs and
Springboks, Canadians from the far North-West, men who had charged up
the deadly shell-swept slopes of Gallipoli, and those who had won
through at Vimy Ridge. They were, in fact, a hardened band of
adventurous soldiers, fit to go anywhere and do anything, men who had
lived on the brink of the pit for three years and had come back from
the Valley of the Shadow of Death.
The War Office needed the raw material for a desperate enterprise.
It was found by Brigadier-General Byron, himself an able and
experienced soldier with a brilliant South African fighting
reputation. He went across to Flanders and picked out the cream of
the fighting men from the South African contingent and from the
magnificent Australian and Canadian Divisions. I do not recall a
single officer {4} or N.C.O. who had not won at least one decoration
for bravery. We had with us, too, a small party of Russian officers
who, fleeing from the Red Terror when their army broke and melted
away, remained loyal to the Entente, and volunteered for the
Caucasus, where they hoped to prove to the Bolsheviks that the cause
of Russian national and military honour was not entirely lost.
Our Russian allies for the Caucasus were mostly young men,
enthusiastic and keen soldiers, endowed with the splendid fighting
spirit of the old Russian Army such as I knew it in the early spring
campaign of 1915 in Bukovina, when it fought with empty rifles and
stood up to the encircling Austrians in those terrible February days
that preceded and followed the evacuation of Czernowitch.
On the _Malwa_, I remember, we had with us Captain Bray, an
Anglo-Russian who had been a liaison officer in London, and spoke
English like an Englishman. Then there was a Colonel who had been
earmarked for death when his regiment mutinied and went "Red" at
Viborg in Finland. Scantily clad, he had escaped his would-be
assassins, fleeing bare-footed into the darkness of the Finnish
winter night. After many hairbreadth escapes he had gained Swedish
territory and safety.
[Illustration: BRITISH TRAINED PERSIAN POLICE.]
There was also Captain George Eve, an Anglo-Russian mining engineer,
who came from South America to enlist, and who, because of his accent
and foreign appearance, had been arrested more than {5} once in the
front line in Flanders on suspicion of being a German spy dressed in
British uniform.
Colonel Smiles of the Armoured Car Section was another interesting
figure. A descendant of Smiles of "Self-Help" fame, he had won the
D.S.O. and the Cross of St. George while fighting with the
Locker-Lampson unit in Russia.
Where practically every second man had a record of thrilling deeds
behind him it is difficult to individualize, but a word must be given
to Colonel Warden, D.S.O., of the Canadian Contingent. "Honest John"
was the affectionate nickname bestowed upon him by the ship's
company, who found a special fascination in his childlike simplicity
of character combined with exceptional soldierly qualities.
Another refreshingly original type was Colonel Donnan, the C.O. of
the party. Apart from other things, his physical qualities seemed to
mark him out for the important post he occupied. They were
calculated to strike terror into any Hun or other heart. A veritable
Sandow, his burly thick-set figure, black bristling moustache, and
dark piercing eyes were valuable assets for the man whose task was to
discipline such a mixed company as ours, and the nurses affected an
exaggerated terror of them, well knowing (the minxes!) that they were
but the outworks of the fortress behind which was entrenched the
Colonel's kind heart--outworks apt to go down like ninepins when
assailed by a woman's tearful pleadings.
{6}
Colonel Donnan is one of the strong, silent Englishmen who have done
so much in an unostentatious way to push the interests of the British
Empire in the far-off places of the earth. A great Orientalist, he
has passed through many Eastern lands in disguise, bringing back
precious fruits of his labours in a store of information, both
military and political, gathered in his journeyings.
The _Malwa_ boasted an amphibious purser named Milman. For three and
a half years, ever since the war began, he had been sailing up and
down the seas from London to Rio, and from Bombay to Liverpool, and
he knew from personal contact the summer and winter temperature of
the Mediterranean Sea better than did any meteorologist from
collected data. In fact, he had been torpedoed so many times that he
had begun to look upon it as part of the routine of his daily life.
He possessed a life-saving suit, his own improved design, which was
at once the wonder and admiration of all who inspected it. It was of
rubber, in form not unlike a diving dress, with a hood which came
over the head of the wearer and was made fast under the chin. In
front were two pockets, which always remained ready rationed with a
spirit-flask, some sandwiches, and a pack of patience cards. It was
the purser's travelling outfit when he was overboard in the
Mediterranean or elsewhere and waiting to be hauled on board a rescue
boat.
Occasionally when, in harbour, time hung heavily on his hands, this
amphibious purser would clothe {7} himself in his rubber suit, slip
over the ship's side, and go off for an outing. Once in Port Said,
while gently floating off on one of these aquatic excursions, he was
sighted by the port guardship, and a picket-boat was sent to fish him
out under the impression that he was dead. "This bloke is a gonner
all right!" said one of the crew, as he reached for him with a
boathook. Then the "corpse" sat up and said things. So did the
spokesman of the astonished crew when, having recovered from the
shock, he found his voice again.
Milman was a cheery optimist. Nothing ever perturbed him. He was a
recognized authority on "silver fish" (_i.e._, torpedoes) and
cocktails, was an excellent raconteur, and possessed all the suavity
and tact of a finished diplomat. When nervous ladies worried the
doctor and cross-examined him as to the habits and hunting methods of
Hun submarines, he invariably passed them on to the purser, and
always with the happiest results; for, under the spell of Milman's
racy talk, they soon forgot their fears.
The second day out from Taranto brought us well within the submarine
danger zone. We changed course repeatedly, for wireless had warned
us of the proximity of the dreaded sea pirate. The _Tagus_, our
fellow transport, proved herself a laggard; she was falling behind
and keeping station badly, and the Commodore of our Japanese escort
was busy hurling remonstrances at her in the Morse code. {8} Our
three Japanese destroyers made diligent and efficient scouts. They
gambolled over the blue waters of the Mediterranean like so many
sheepdogs protecting a moorland flock. Now one or another raced away
to starboard, then to port, then circled round and round us, took
station amidships, or dropped astern.
Their tactics, perhaps one should say their antics, must have been
extremely baffling, even exasperating, to any enemy submarine
commander lying low in the hope of bagging the _Malwa_ or the
_Tagus_. Nothing seemed to escape the keen-eyed sailors of the
Mikado's navy. Experience had taught them the value of seagulls as
submarine spotters. Endowed with extraordinary instinct and eyes
that see far below the surface of the sea, the resting gulls detect a
submarine coming up anywhere in their vicinity, take fright, and
hurriedly fly away. Whenever the gulls gave the signal--and there
were many false alarms--a Japanese destroyer would race to the spot
in readiness for Herr Pirate; but he never appeared.
However, the Hun was not always so cautious. There was great
rejoicing on board the _Malwa_ when the wireless told us that west of
us, in the Malta Channel, Japanese vigilance had been rewarded,
transports saved from destruction, and two enemy submarines sent to
the bottom. It was all the work of a few minutes. Whether the enemy
failed to sight the destroyers, or whether they intended to chance
their luck and fight them, is not quite clear. At all {9} events,
Submarine No. 1 popped up dead ahead of one destroyer and was
promptly rammed and sunk. Submarine No. 2 met with an equally
unmistakable end. It had already singled out a transport for attack,
when a second Japanese destroyer engaged it at seven hundred yards'
range and blew its hull to pieces.
Nevertheless it was an anxious time for us on the _Malwa_ living in
hourly dread of being torpedoed. The Nursing Sisters professed to
treat the danger with scorn; they were courageous and cheery souls,
and would unhesitatingly have faced death with the equanimity of the
bravest man.
Ten in the forenoon and five in the afternoon were the hours of
greatest peril, when submarine attacks might be specially expected.
Everyone "stood to" at these hours, wearing the regulation lifebelt,
and ready to take to the boats if the ship were hit and in danger of
sinking. Colonel Donnan, C.O. ship, was a strict disciplinarian. He
enhanced the somewhat piratical ferocity of mien with which nature
had gifted him by always carrying his service revolver buckled on and
ready for any emergency, and the Nursing Sisters professed to be in
great trepidation each time at inspection parade when he ran his
critical eye over their life-saving equipment. Of course knots
sometimes went wrong, and the strings of the life-belt were tied the
incorrect way; but volunteers were never lacking to adjust the erring
straps and to see that they sat on a pretty pair of {10} shoulders in
the manner laid down in Regulations, while the ferociously
tender-hearted C.O. smiled approval.
On the fourth day after leaving Taranto the _Malwa_ steamed into
Alexandria Harbour. Everyone was in the highest spirits. We had
escaped the submarine peril, and the period of nervous tension while
waiting in expectancy of a bolt from the deep was happily over. It
was a glorious spring day; the warm, radiant sun of Egypt gave us a
fitting welcome.
The stay in Alexandria of the Bagdad Party was short. Orders came
through from headquarters that we were to proceed to Suez by rail as
soon as possible to join a waiting troopship there. That night there
were many tender leave-takings in quiet secluded nooks on the upper
deck of the _Malwa_. During our four days' journey from Taranto the
Australians on board had proved themselves to be as deadly effective
in love as they are in war. But now had come the parting of the
ways, with the pain and bitterness of separation. Perhaps a kindly
Fate may reunite some of these sundered ones, but for many that can
never be. At least three of those bright, cheery Australian lads
sleep in soldiers' graves beneath the soil of Persia, far from their
own South Land and from the girls to whom they plighted their troth
that last night in the harbour of Alexandria beneath the starry
Egyptian sky.
General Byron, his orderly officer, and myself left the same evening
for Cairo en route for Suez. Next {11} day we had time to obtain a
fleeting glimpse of the Pyramids, take tea at Shepheards', and be
held to ransom by an energetic British matron who ordered us to
"stand and deliver" in the name of some philanthropic institution
which had not the remotest connection with the War or any suffering
arising out of the War. The General furnished the soft answer that
turneth away wrath, and with that, plus a small contribution for
supplying wholly unnecessary blankets to the aboriginal inhabitants
of some tropical country, we were allowed to retain the remainder of
our spare cash and to continue our journey in the Land of Egypt.
{12}