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.
It was not until the beginning of April (1918) that the intermittent
rainfall practically ceased, and allowed a contingent of the
weatherbound Dunsterville party to turn their faces towards Hamadan,
where our General and his small force were said to be in dire straits.
The advanced base near Baqubah on the Diala River, north-east of
Bagdad, where some of our unit were under canvas, was a quagmire; and
the road beyond the Persian frontier was reported to be impassable
for man, motor, or animal transport. But four consecutive days of
fine weather effected a transformation. The heat of the sun
converted the liquid mud of the plains into half-baked clay, and the
road itself showed a hard crust upon its surface.
No time was lost in setting out for Persia. The force from the
advanced base began its march at daylight on April 5. Baggage and
transport were cut down to the lowest possible limits, and General
{75} Byron and I moved ahead of the column in a Ford van.
On the first night we reached the headquarters of General Thompson,
commanding the 14th Division operating on the Diala. Next morning,
the weather still promising fair, we were off betimes, and, in spite
of road difficulties, at ten o'clock reached the Motor Transport
Depot at Khaniquin, the last town on the Turkish side. After a brief
halt to enable us to swop our somewhat war-worn car for a more
efficient one, we started again, and, within an hour of pulling up at
Khaniquin, had crossed the frontier into Persia.
As we approached the boundary of the crumbling Ottoman Empire at this
point, the road wound round a low hill. On an eminence above stood a
tumble-down martello tower which once had held a Turkish guard; and
on a corresponding height on the other side were the ruins of a
Persian fort. From these vantage points the two Asiatic Empires,
both now crumbling in decay, had for centuries jealously watched each
other, quarrelling over a mile or two of disputed territory with all
the vehemence of their Oriental blood.
Near Khaniquin, on the Turkish side, we saw what had once been the
Quarantine and Customs Stations. It was here that the corpse
caravans, coming from the interior of Persia and bound for Kerbela,
one of the holy places of the Shi'ite sect, halted and paid Customs
dues. It is the pious wish of every Persian {76} to be buried at
Kerbela, near the shrine of Hossain the Martyr. The town is in the
Vilayet of Bagdad, and in pre-war days the Turks derived a very
handsome revenue from tolls levied on dead Persians who were being
transported to their last resting-place beside the waters of the
Euphrates. It was a gruesome but lucrative traffic for the living,
whether Customs officials or muleteers. These caravans of dead, by
reason of the absence of anything approaching proper hygienic
precautions, probably also carried with them into Asiatic Turkey a
varied assortment of endemic diseases. When Persians whose
testamentary dispositions earmarked them for the last pilgrimage to
Kerbela died, they were buried for a year. At the end of this period
they were exhumed, enveloped in coarse sacking, lashed two by two on
the back of a mule, and carried to their new resting-place,
accompanied by bands of sorrowing friends and relatives.
We were now well over the frontier, and found ourselves in a land of
desolation and death. Our way lay past ruined and deserted villages,
many of the inhabitants of which had been blotted out by famine.
Beyond a few Persian road guards in British pay, or an occasional
native labour corps road-making under the protection of a detachment
of Indian Infantry, the country seemed destitute of life. On the
other side of the frontier I had heard a good deal as to the
appalling economic conditions of Persia, and of the shortage of food;
but now, {77} brought face to face with the terrible reality, I
understood for the first time its full significance.
Men and women, shrivelled and huddled heaps of stricken humanity, lay
dead in the public ways, their stiffened fingers still clutching a
bunch of grass plucked from the roadside, or a few roots torn up from
the fields with which they had sought to lessen the tortures of death
from starvation. At other times a gaunt, haggard figure, bearing
some resemblance to a human being, would crawl on all fours across
the roadway in front of the approaching car, and with signs rather
than speech plead for a crust of bread. Hard indeed would be the
heart that could refuse such an appeal! So overboard went our ration
supply of army biscuit, bit by bit, on this our first day in the
hungry land of the Shah!
At Kasr-i-Shirin, where we made a short halt, we were soon surrounded
by a starving multitude asking for food. One poor woman with a baby
in her arms begged us to save her child. We gave her half a tin of
potted meat and some biscuits, for which she called down the blessing
of Allah on our heads. Her maternal solicitude was touching, for,
although it was evident that she was suffering from extreme hunger,
no food passed her lips until her baby had been supplied.
The western slopes of Kasr-i-Shirin are covered with the remains of a
great city. The outline of extensive walls can be traced amidst the
debris of masonry. Masses of roughly hewn sandstone strew {78} the
ground. Within the ancient enclosure are heaps of tumble-down
masonry, all that exists of the houses that formerly stood there.
Some little distance away are traceable the ruined outlines of a
splendid palace with spacious underground apartments and beautiful
archways, once the residence of some Acharmenian or Sasanian monarch.
The remains of a rock-hewn aqueduct, with reservoir, troughs, and
stone pipes, which brought water to this city of antiquity from a
distance of twelve miles, are still to be seen.
From Kasr-i-Shirin onwards there was a gradual descent to the bottom
of the Pai Tak Pass. It is three miles to the top of the Pass, and
there is a difference in altitude of about fifteen hundred feet.
Whatever else they may be, Persians are not roadmakers. Formerly the
only way to scale Pai Tak was by following a mule track which wound
round the sparsely wooded slopes of the hill. But now British
military engineers had done some useful spade work there; an
excellent road had been built with easy gradients, and Pai Tak was
negotiable for Ford cars, and even for heavily laden Peerless lorries.
The view from the top was superb. On either side of the plateau
towered snow-capped mountains. We found in possession, under Colonel
Mathews, a British force consisting of the 14th Hants. The Colonel
himself was absent; but the officers of the battalion gave us a
hearty welcome, and fixed us up with quarters for the night.
The Senjabi tribesmen round about were troublesome, {79} and their
leader, Ali Akhbar Khan, incited by German propagandists, seemed bent
upon coming into collision with the British. It was bitterly cold at
Surkhidizeh on the top of the Pai Tak Pass, and we enjoyed the warmth
and comfort of the Hants' mess quarters.
This was an underground circular apartment, cut out of the earth,
into which you descended by a flight of wooden steps. The top was
roofed with canvas, tent fashion.
Rifle thieves were active in the camp at Surkhidizeh. Wandering
Kurdish tribesmen showed special daring in this form of enterprise.
Scarcely a night passed without the Hants' Camp being raided for
arms. British rifles brought enormous prices when sold to the
Senjabi and other of the lawless nomads whose happy hunting-ground is
the "No Man's Land" in the neighbourhood of the Turko-Persian
frontier. Here a man was socially valued solely by the arms he
carried. He might be in rags as far as raiment was concerned, but
the possession of a .303 Lee Enfield, or a German Mauser, marked him
as a man of some distinction and importance in the country, one who
might be expected to do big things, and with whom it was well to be
on friendly terms.
The average nomad whom I came across is not renowned for physical
courage, and in daylight he will think twice before attacking even a
single British soldier; yet these selfsame tribesmen would {80}
unhesitatingly raid a British bivouac nightly, and face the
possibility of death, in order to pilfer a couple of rifles. Rifle
raiding possessed for them a kind of fascination. The raiders often
failed and paid the penalty with their lives, but the attempts were
never abandoned for long. One method was for a brace of snipers to
fire on the sentry and on the guard, so creating a diversion. A
couple of their fellows, with their bodies well oiled, naked save for
a loin-cloth, and carrying each a long knife, would meanwhile crawl
into the camp at a place remote from the point of disturbance, and
snatch a rifle or two from beside the sleeping soldiers. If caught,
they used their knives, and invariably with fatal effect. Even if
detected the raiders usually got away, for in the darkness and
confusion it was difficult to fire upon them without incurring the
risk of hitting one of your own people.
I was aroused from a sound sleep the first night at Surkhidizeh by
the noise of rifle firing, followed by an infernal hullabaloo.
Unbuttoning the tent flap, and rushing into the open, I found that
the rifle snatchers had been busy again. A native had wriggled
through the barbed-wire enclosure and, with the silence of a Red
Indian, had entered a tent occupied by men of the Hants battalion.
The soldiers slept with the sling of the rifle attached to the
waistbelt. Cutting through this without disturbing the owner, the
thief had bolted with the weapon.
On leaving, he fell over some of the sleeping {81} occupants, who
were aroused and sought to grab him, but in the darkness and confined
space of the bell-tent, they missed the thief and grasped each
other's throats. The sentry fired, but failed of his mark. The
remainder of the guard and some Indian units also loosed off a few
rounds, but without success.
The night favoured the enterprise. It was pitch dark. The raider's
friends, from the cover of some dead ground in the neighbourhood,
sniped the camp intermittently for the next hour or two, until
everybody grew exasperated, and wished that Persia with its marauding
bands, and the whole Middle East Question were sunk in the deep sea.
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