them but had some near relation, frequently a parent or a brother or
sister, still among the Turks. Sometimes they knew them to be dead, more
frequently they could only hope that such was the case and there was no
further suffering to be endured. Many of these Armenians belonged to
prominent families, numbering among their members men who had held the
most important government posts in Constantinople. The secretary of the
treasury was almost invariably an Armenian, for the race outstrips the
Jews in its money touch.
With one family I dined quite often--the usual interminable Oriental feast
varying only from the Arab or Turkish dinners in a few special national
dishes. All, excepting the aged grandmother, spoke French, and the
daughters had a thorough grounding in the literature. Such English books
as they knew they had read in French translations. The house was
attractively furnished, with really beautiful rugs and old silverware. The
younger generation played bridge, and the girls were always well dressed
in European fashion. Whence the clothes came was a mystery, for nothing
could have been brought in since the war, and even in ante-bellum days
foreign clothes of that grade could never have been stocked but must have
been imported in individual orders. The evenings were thoroughly
enjoyable, for everything was in such marked contrast to our every-day
life. It must be remembered that these few Armenians were the only women
with whom we could talk and laugh in Occidental fashion.
By far the best-informed and cleverest Arab was Père Anastase. He was a
Catholic, and under the supervision of the Political Department edited the
local Arab paper. All his life he had worked building up a
library--gathering rare books throughout Syria and Mesopotamia. He was
himself an author of no small reputation. Just before the British took
Baghdad the Germans pillaged his collection, sending the more valuable
books to Constantinople and Berlin, and turning the rest over to the
populace. The soldiers made great bonfires of many--others found their way
to the bazaars, where he was later able to repurchase some of them. When
talking of the sacking of his house, Père Anastase would work himself into
a white heat of fury and his eyes would flash as he bitterly cursed the
vandals who had destroyed his treasures.
It was in Baghdad that I first ran into Major E.B. Soane, whose _Through
Mesopotamia and Kurdistan in Disguise_ is a classic. Soane was born in
southern France, his mother French and his father English. The latter
walked across the United States from ocean to ocean in the early forties,
so Soane came by his roving, adventurous spirit naturally. When still but
little more than a boy he went out to work in the Anglo-Persian Bank, and
immediately interested himself in the language and literature of the
country. Some of his holidays he spent in the British Museum translating
and cataloguing Persian manuscripts. Becoming interested in the Kurds, he
spent a number of years among them, learning their languages and customs
and joining in their raids.
As soon as we got a foothold in the Kurdish Hills, Soane was sent up to
administer the captured territory. His headquarters were at Khanikin,
twenty-five miles from Kizil Robat and but a short distance from the
Persian frontier. One morning during the time that I was stationed in that
district I motored over to see him. It was a glorious day. The cloud
effects were most beautiful, towering in billows of white above the snow
peaks, against a background of deepest blue. The road wound in and out
among the barren foot-hills until suddenly as I topped a rise I saw right
below a great clump of palm-trees, with houses showing through here and
there--the whole divided by a lovely river bestridden by an old seven-arch
bridge. I picked my way through the narrow streets, scattering ragged
Kurds right and left; past part of the covered bazaar, until I came to a
house with a large courtyard, thronged with a motley array of Kurdish
irregulars, armed with every sort of weapon. It was there that Soane
administered his stern but practical justice, for he thoroughly understood
how to handle these men.
The district had suffered fearfully, for it had been occupied in turn by
Turk and Russian, and then Turk again, before we took it over, and the
unfortunate natives had been pillaged and robbed mercilessly. Thousands
starved to death. When I was at Deli Abbas ghastly bands of ragged
skeletons would come through to us begging food and work. Soane turned a
large khan on the outskirts of the town into a poorhouse, and here he
lodged the starving women and children that drifted in from all over
Kurdistan. It was a fearful assemblage of scarecrows. As they got better
he selected women from among them to whom he turned over the
administration of the khan. They divided the unfortunates in gangs, and
supervised the issue of dates on which they were fed. Such as were
physically able were employed in cleaning the town. The Kurds are a fine,
self-respecting race and it was easy to understand Soane's enthusiasm for
them.
* * * * *
In Baghdad you lived either in the cellars or on the housetops. The former
were called serdabs. A large chimney, cowled to face the prevailing wind,
served for ventilation, and on the hottest days one was cool and
comfortable. We slept on the roofs, and often dined there, too. Since the
town was the General Headquarters of the Expeditionary Force, one was
always sure to meet many friends. A comfortable and well-run officers'
club was installed, as well as warrant officers' and enlisted men's clubs.
Occasionally race meetings were planned and the various divisions would
send representatives. Frank Wooton, the well-known jockey, was a
despatch-rider, and usually succeeded in getting leave enough to allow him
to ride some general's horses. An Arab race formed part of the programme.
Once a wild tribesman who had secured a handsome lead almost lost the
race by taking off his cloak and waving it round his head as he gave
ear-piercing shouts of triumph. The Arab riding second was less emotional
and attended better to the business in hand, but his horse was not quite
good enough to make the difference.
The scene at the race-course was a gay one. The color was chiefly
contributed by the Jewesses who wore their hooded silk cloaks of lively
hue--green or pink or yellow. The only crowd that I saw to vie with it was
one which watched the prisoners taken at Ramadie march through the town.
Turkish propaganda, circulated in the bazaars, gave out that instead of
taking the prisoners we claimed, we had in reality suffered a defeat, and
it was decided that the sight of the captive Turks would have a salutary
effect upon the townsmen. Looking down from a housetop the red fezzes and
the gay-colored abas made the crowd look like a vast field of poppies.
When I was at Samarra an amusing incident took place in connection with a
number of officers' wives who were captured at Ramadie. The army commander
didn't wish to ship them off to India and Burma with their husbands, so he
sent them up to Samarra with instructions that they be returned across
the lines to the Turks. After many aeroplane messages were exchanged it
was agreed that we should leave them at a designated hill and that the
Turks would later come for them. Meanwhile we had arranged quarters for
them, trying to do everything in a manner that would be in harmony with
the Turkish convenances. When the wives were escorted forth to be turned
back to their countrymen, they were all weeping bitterly. Whether it was
that the Turk in his casual manner decided that one day was as good as
another, or whether he felt that he had no particular use for these
particular women, we never knew, but at all events twenty-four hours later
one of our patrols came upon the prisoners still forlornly waiting. We
shipped them back to Baghdad.
Occasionally I would go to one of the Arab theatres. The plays were
generally burlesques, for the Arab has a keen sense of humor and greatly
appreciates a joke. Most of the puns were too involved for me to follow,
but there was always a certain amount of slap-stick comedy that could be
readily understood. Then there was dancing--as a whole monotonous and
mediocre; but there was one old man who was a remarkable performer, and
would have been appreciated on any stage in the world. The topical songs
invariably amused me--they were so universal in spirit. The chorus of one
which was a great hit ran: "Haido, haido, rahweni passak!" "I say, I say,
show me your pass." There had been much trouble with spies and every one
was required to provide himself with a certificate of good conduct and to
show it on demand. It was to this that the song referred.
Captain C.G. Lloyd was my companion on many rambles among the natives. He
had been stationed in Burma and India for many years, and was a good
Persian scholar. Like every one who has knocked about to any extent among
native peoples, his career had not been lacking in incident. I remember on
one occasion asking him why it was that he never joined me in a cup of
coffee when we stopped at a coffee-house. He replied that he had always
been wary of coffee since a man with him was poisoned by a cup which was
intended for him.
I always looked forward to a trip to Baghdad, for it gave me a chance to
mingle in a totally different life from that which daily surrounded me,
and temporarily, at least, forget about the war in which the world was
plunged. Still, the morning set to leave invariably found me equally glad
to shove off once more into the great expanses of the desert.
VII
THE ATTACK ON THE PERSIAN FRONT
When I reached headquarters after the attack on the Euphrates front, I was
expecting to hear that my transfer to France had gone through and receive
orders to proceed thither immediately. It had always been my intention to
try to join the American army once it began to take a real part in the
war, and for some time past I had been casting about in my mind for the
best method to carry out my plans. When affairs looked so very black for
the Allied forces in March and April, 1918, I decided that France was the
place where every one, who could by any possibility manage it, should be.
General Gillman, the chief of staff, had on more than one occasion shown
himself a good friend, and I determined to once more task his kindness. He
said that he thought he could arrange for my transfer to France, and that
once there I could work out the best way of getting into the American
army.
Everything went well, and I was daily expecting my orders, when Major
Thompson, who commanded the brigade of armored cars, sent for me and told
me that an advance was being planned on the Kurdish front. Only two
batteries were to be taken--the Eighth and the Thirteenth--but he said
that he would like to have me go along in command of the supply-train. Of
course I jumped at the chance, as the attack promised to be most
interesting.
We were told to be ready to move on an hour's notice. For several days the
weather held us back. The rain, helped out by the melting snow from the
mountains, caused the rivers to rise in flood. The Tigris rose sixteen
feet in a night. The lower bridge was broken and washed away. Everything
possible was done to reinforce the upper bridge, but it was hourly
expected to give way under the strain of the whirling yellow waters. The
old Arab rivermen said that they could tell by the color just which of the
tributaries were in spate. When they saw or thought they saw a new
admixture, they would shake their heads and say: "Such and such a river
is now also in flood--the Tigris will rise still further."
On the night of April 24 we at length got our orders and at six o'clock
the following morning we set out, prepared to run through to Ain Leilah.
The country was indeed changed since I passed through six weeks before.
The desert had blossomed. We ran through miles and miles of clover; the
sweet smell seemed so wholesomely American, recalling home and family, and
the meadows of Long Island. The brilliant red poppies were more in keeping
with the country; and we passed by Indian cavalry reinforcements with the
scarlet flowers stuck in their black hair and twined in the head-stalls of
the horses.
As we approached the hills they looked less bleak--a soft green clothed
the hollows, and the little oasis of Ain Leilah no longer stood out in the
same marked contrast as when last I visited it. The roads were in good
shape, and we reached camp at four in the afternoon. I took one of the
tenders and set off to look up some old friends in the regiments near by.
As I passed a group of Arabs that had just finished work on the roads, I
noticed that they were playing a game that was new to me. A stake was
driven into the ground, with a horsehair rope ten or twelve feet in length
attached to it. An old man had hold of the end of the rope. About the
stake were piled some clothes, and the Arabs were standing around in a
circle just out of reach of the man with the rope. The object was to dart
in and snatch up something from the heap without the old man who was on
guard catching you. They were enjoying themselves hugely--the oldest
graybeards behaving as if they were children--a very pleasant side of the
Arab.
Our instructions were to be ready to pull out before daybreak. The mission
was, as usual, a flanking one. The direct attack was to be delivered on
Kara Tepe, and, if that were successful, upon Kifri. We were to intercept
the arrival of reinforcements, or cut off the retreat of the garrisons, as
the case might be.
In the early morning hours the country was lovely--rolling grass land
"with a hint of hills behind"--miles of daisies with clusters of blood-red
poppies scattered through them--and occasional hollows carpeted with a
brilliant blue flower. In the river courses there were numbers of
brilliantly hued birds--the gayest colors I saw in Mesopotamia with the
exception of the vivid arsenic-green birds around Ana on the Euphrates.
In one place I thought that the ground was covered with red flowers, but a
close inspection proved it to be myriads of tiny red insects swarming on
the grass stems.
Column marching is slow and wearisome, and after the sun rose the heat
became intense. The dust smothered us; there was not a breath of air to
rid us of it for even a moment. The miles seemed interminable. At noon we
halted beside a narrow stream known as Oil River--a common name in this
part of the country where oil abounds and the water is heavily impregnated
with it. For drinking it was abominable--and almost spoiled the tea upon
which we relied for a staple. A few miles beyond, the engineers found a
suitable location to throw a bridge across the creek. The main body was
halted at a place known as Umr Maidan and we were sent over the bridge to
form across the main road leading from Kara Tepe back into the Turkish
territory.
It was nightfall before we had effected a crossing, and we groped our way
along until we came upon the road. It was impossible to do very much in
the way of selecting a position, but we arranged the cars as best we
could. When you were off at large in the desert you were what the army
called "Out in the blue," and that was certainly our situation on the
night of April 26. We all expected that we would intercept traffic going
one way or the other, but the night passed without incident or excitement.
[Illustration: Indian cavalry bringing in prisoners after the charge]
By four in the morning we were once more feeling our way along through the
darkness. As it lightened we came under observation by the Turks, who
started in to shell us. We learned from our aeroplanes that Kifri had been
evacuated; the garrison was falling back along a road running parallel to
the one on which we were, separated by eight or ten miles of broken
country. By this time our cavalry had caught up with us. They pushed off
across country to intercept the Turks. We attempted to do likewise but it
was more difficult, and what with dodging in and out to avoid a ravine
here or a hill there, we made little headway. At length we struck a road
that led in approximately the direction whither we wished to go. It was
already early afternoon before, upon topping a rise, we caught sight of a
good-sized body of Turks marching on a road which ran along the base of
a range of steep, stony hills. We put on as much speed as was possible,
and headed north to try to intercept them. The cavalry were coming from
the south, and while we were circling around they charged in upon the
Turks. It was a stirring scene. The powerful Indians sat their horses with
the utmost grace. Their drawn sabres flashed in the sun. As they came to
close quarters the turbaned heads bent forward and we could hear the
shouts and high-pitched cries of triumph as the riders slashed at the foe.
The wounded and dead testified to their skill as swordsmen. The whole
sight reminded me more of the battle books I read as a boy than anything I
saw in the war. About six hundred prisoners were taken, but many of the
Turks escaped to the mountains and lay among the rocks, whence they could
snipe at us with impunity. They were a tenacious lot, for all next day
when we were using the road below the hills they continued to shoot at us
from the places whence it was impossible to dislodge them.
While the prisoners were being brought in we caught sight of one of our
aeroplanes crashing. Making our way over to it we found that neither the
pilot nor the observer was seriously hurt. Flying in Mesopotamia was made
unusually difficult by the climatic conditions. The planes were designed
for work in France and during the summer months the heat and dryness
warped the propeller blades and indeed all the wooden parts. Then, too,
the fine dust would get into the machinery when the aviator was taxiing
for a start. Many pilots coming out from France with brilliant records met
an early and untimely end because they could not realize how very
different the conditions were. I remember one poor young fellow who set
off on a reconnaissance without the food and water he was required by
regulations to carry. He got lost and ran out of gasolene--being forced to
land out in the desert. The armored cars went off in search of him, and on
the second morning after he had come down they found his body near their
bivouac. He had evidently got that far during the night and died of
exhaustion and exposure practically within hearing. He was stripped of his
clothes; whether this had been done by himself or by the tribesmen was
never determined. A death of this sort always seems so much sadder than
being legitimately killed in combat. The L.A.M. batteries were in close
touch with the Royal Flying Corps, for when news came in that a plane was
down in the desert or some part of the debatable land, we would be
detailed to go out in search of the occupants. A notice printed in Arabic,
Persian, Turkish, and Kurdish was fastened into each aeroplane informing
the reader of the reward that would be paid him if the pilot were brought
in safety to the British lines. This was done in case a plane got lost and
was driven down out of its course among the tribesmen.
The night of the 27th we bivouacked once more "out in the blue." Dawn
found me on my way back to Umr Maidan to lay in a new supply of gasolene.
I made a rapid trip and caught up with the armored cars in action in a
large swampy plain. The grass was very high and the ground so soft that it
was difficult to accomplish anything. Two or three small hills offered
vantage-points, but they were not neglected by the Turk, and among those
that fell was the colonel of the Twenty-First cavalry--the regiment that
had acquitted itself so well in the charge of the day before.
We were ten miles from Tuz Khurmartli, the next important town held by
the enemy now that Kifri had been taken. It was thither that the Turks had
been retreating when we cut them off. Finding that we were unable to
operate effectively where we were, it was decided that we should make our
way across to the Kifri-Kirkuk road and advance along it to make a frontal
attack upon Tuz. Our orders were to proceed to a deserted village known as
Kulawand, and wait there for the command to advance. When we got to the
road we found the hills still occupied by camel-guns and machine-guns. We
replied ineffectively, for we had no means of dislodging them, nor did the
cavalry when they came up. Kulawand we found to be a fair-sized native
village unoccupied save for a single hut full of old women and children.
Here we waited until nightfall for the orders that never came. I sat under
a ruined wall reading alternatively Camoens' _Lusiad_ and _David Harum_
until darkness fell.
During the night some infantry came up, both native and British. They had
had stiff marching during the last few days, and were done up, but very
cheerful at the prospect of an attack on the morrow. They had some hard
fighting ahead of them. The King's Own in particular distinguished itself
in taking a stubbornly contested and strongly held hill.
At dawn we were under way. We had heard reports during the night that the
Turks had evacuated Tuz--but it was not long before we found that such was
not the case. They were still there and showed every evidence of staying.
A small village five or six miles to the southwest was also bitterly
contested. Our cavalry did some excellent work, capturing small hills held
with machine-guns.
We advanced down the road beside the hills. A mile before reaching Tuz we
ran into the Aq Su, a large stream flowing through a narrow cleft in the
hills. Fortunately the river was very low, and there were several places
where it was spread out over such a wide bed that it seemed as if it might
be possible to get the cars across. I emptied a Ford van and set out to do
some prospecting. First I went up-stream, which was toward the mountains,
but I could not go far, for there was an ancient fort situated at the
mouth of the gorge, and it had not been evacuated. Finding a likely
looking place a little below, I made a cast and just succeeded in getting
through. It was easy to see that it would not be possible for the
low-swung Rolls to cross under their own power, for the fly-wheel would
throw the water up into the motor. There was nothing to do but send back
for artillery horses to pull the armored cars across.
Meanwhile, as our artillery had practically ceased firing on the town and
the Turks seemed to have entirely evacuated it, I thought that I would go
up and take over and see whether there had not been some valuable
documents left behind. I drove along past some abandoned artillery into
the main street. A number of Turkish soldiers came up to surrender and I
told them to have the Reis Beledia--the town mayor--report to me. When he
came I directed him to take me to the quarters of the Turkish commanding
general. As we drove through the covered bazaar everything was closed.
Scarcely anybody was in the streets--but I could see the inhabitants
peeping out from behind lattices. It was a good thing to have the old
mayor along, for he served as an excellent hostage, and I kept close watch
upon him. He brought me to a prosperous, neat-looking house with heavy
wooden doors. In response to his summons an old woman came and ushered us
into a large, cool room, well furnished and with beautiful Kurdish rugs.
There we found four young girls, who, it was explained to me, formed the
Turkish general's "field harem." He had left in too much of a hurry to
take them with him. They were Kurds and Circassians, or Georgians--and the
general had shown no lack of taste in his selection! True to the tradition
of the Garden of Eden, this harem proved disastrous to a brother officer
who, having heard of my capture, sent me "priority" over the field service
lines a ribald message as to its disposition. "Priority" wires are sent
only on affairs of the greatest importance, and when I left the country my
friend was slated to explain matters before a court martial. There were no
papers of any great value to be found, and I told the mayor to take me to
the more important ammunition and supply dumps. By the time I had located
these some cavalry had come in, and I went back to the river to help get
the fighting cars across.