WITH THE PERSIAN EXPEDITION
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.
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.
CONTENTS
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
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
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
AT A PERSIAN WEDDING
Visit to the Sheikh of Mohammerah—A Persian banquet
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
BAGDAD
Arabian nights and motor-cars—The old and the new in Bagdad—"Noah's dinghy"—Bible history illustrated—At a famous tomb-mosque
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
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
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"
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
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"
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
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
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
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
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
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
CRUSHING A PLOT
Anti-British activities—Headquarters at Hamadan—Plans to seize ringleaders—Midnight arrests—How the Governor was entrapped
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
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
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
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
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]
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
[THE ROAD TO BIRKANDI] ... frontispiece
[BRITISH-TRAINED PERSIAN POLICE]
[DARIUS INSCRIPTIONS AT BISITUN]
[GROUP OF STAFFORDS AT BALADADAR STATION]
[SIX-INCH HOWITZER IN ACTION AT BAKU]
[GENERAL VIEW OF SCENE FOLLOWING THE ARMENIAN RETIREMENT]
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 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.
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 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.
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 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.
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 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. 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 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 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 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.
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.
Forty-eight hours after disembarking at Alexandria we were steaming down the Gulf of Suez on board a second transport bound for the Persian Gulf.
It would be difficult to imagine a greater contrast than that between the vessel which brought us across the Mediterranean and the one that was now carrying us towards the portals of the Middle East. The latter was a decrepit steamer, indescribably filthy, which had been running in the China trade for a quarter of a century. Though favoured by the mildest of weather, the old tub groaned in every joint as she thumped her way down the Red Sea towards the Indian Ocean. Long overdue for the scrap-heap, when the war broke out she was turned into a transport, and thenceforth carried cargoes of British troops instead of Chinese coolies. Her decks and upper works were thickly encrusted with dirt, the careful hoarding of years; and a paint-brush had not touched her for generations. Her cabins were so many entomological museums where insect life flourished. In the worm-eaten recesses of the woodwork lurked colonies of parasites gathered from every corner of the globe, fighting for the principle of self-determination of small nations. The bathroom door, held in place by a single rusty hinge, hung at a drunken angle, and the inflow pipe of the bath was choked with rust. At night, as you slept in your bunk, playful mice, by way of establishing friendly relations, would nibble at your big toe, and a whole family of cockroaches would attempt new long-distance-sprinting records up and down the bedclothes.
The Captain of the ship was a sharp-featured ferret-eyed individual who sometimes wore a collar. No one knew his exact nationality, but he bore a tolerable resemblance to Cutcliffe Hyne's immortal "Captain Kettle." Indeed, he was said to cultivate this resemblance by every means in his power. He had a pointed, unshaven chin; he wore a much-faded uniform cap tilted over one ear. On the bridge you would see him with hands thrust deep in his trouser pockets and chewing a cigar. As master of a tramp, he had nosed his way into almost every port in both hemispheres. He had traded from China to Peru, and along the Pacific Coast of America. In his wanderings he had acquired a Yankee accent and a varied and picturesque polyglot vocabulary which, when the floodgates of his wrath were opened, he turned with telling effect upon his Lascar crew or his European officers. He was a man of moods and strange oaths, a good seaman with a marked taste for poker and magazine literature of the cheap sensational kind.
Such, then, was our ship, and such its skipper! When we had arrived at Suez, where we embarked, there were several cases of smallpox amongst its Lascar firemen. The Embarkation Officer had feared infection, and had hesitated to send us on board; but he was overruled by a higher authority somewhere in Egypt or England. There was no other transport available, it was said; the units for India and for Persia were urgently needed; and, smallpox or no smallpox, sail we must—and did.
The ship was terribly overcrowded. The Indian troops "pigged it" aft; the British troops were accommodated in the hold; and those of the officers who were unable to find quarters elsewhere unstrapped their camp bed and slept on deck. Fortunately it was the cool season in the Red Sea; the days were warm, but not uncomfortably so; and the nights were sharp and bracing, the head-wind which we carried with us all the way to Aden keeping the thermometer from climbing beyond the normal.
Once clear of Suez everybody settled down to work, a very useful relief to the discomforts of life on an overcrowded transport. Youthful subalterns joining the Indian Army set themselves to study Hindustani grammars and vocabularies with the valiant intention of acquiring colloquial proficiency before they even sighted Bombay. Members of the Bagdad Party, stimulated by this exhibition of industry, tackled Persian and Russian. We had two officers who offered themselves as teachers of the language of Iran—Lieutenant Akhbar, a native-born Persian whose English home was at Manchester, and Captain Cooper of the Dorsets, who had studied Oriental tongues in England, and had been wounded at Gallipoli in a hand-to-hand fight with the Turks.
For Russian also there was no lack of teachers, the Russian officers, Captain Eve, and I taking charge of classes. In my own section, elementary Russian, I had twenty-two N.C.O.'s as eager and willing pupils. The majority were Australians, and, although dismayed at first by the bizarre appearance of the unfamiliar characters, and the seemingly unsurmountable difficulties of what one Anzac aptly described as "this upside-down language," they put their backs into it with very remarkable results, plodding away at their lessons hour after hour with unwearying zeal. Some had picked up a smattering of "Na Poo" French on the Western Front; a few spoke French fairly well; but the majority knew no foreign language at all; yet the quick alert Australian brain captured the entire Russian alphabet in forty-eight hours after beginning the preliminary assault.
I have sometimes thought since that to the Gods on High our ship must have appeared a sort of floating Tower of Babel, so intent on speaking strange tongues were each and all.
Before we reached the Indian Ocean, one of the ship's officers disappeared in a mysterious manner. He was missed from the bridge at midnight and, although diligent search was made, no trace of him was ever found, and it had to be assumed that he had jumped or fallen overboard. Our Goanese stewards who were Christians looked upon this incident with the greatest misgivings. Knowing the superstitions of the Lascar crew, they secretly felt that the missing officer had been thrown overboard by some of them to placate a huge shark that had been following the ship for days. The Lascars have a great dread of such company at sea. To their untutored minds this voracious brute following a vessel foretells death to someone on board; so better a sacrificial victim than perhaps one of themselves!
Personally, I do not think for a moment that Lascar superstition was responsible for the disappearance of the missing man, nor that these people are given to the propitiation of the Man-Eaters of the Red Sea. But when, two nights later, one of the Lascars vanished as mysteriously as had the ship's officer, and this too in calm weather, it looked as if some Evil Spirit had found a place on board. Stewards and crew now became terrified. The former would not venture alone on the deck at night, and the Lascars, sorely puzzled over the fate of their comrade, went about their work in fear and trembling.
This dread of the mysterious and the unseen became contagious and affected others outside the ship's company. Subalterns who had been sleeping on hammocks slung close to the ship's rail and whose courage had been proved on many a field, now decided that, shark worship or no shark worship, they would be safer elsewhere, and transferred themselves to the 'tween decks. Anyhow, the Sea Demon must by this time have been satisfied, for we lost no more of our personnel.
We arrived off Koweit in the Gulf of Persia on March 1st, seventeen days after leaving Suez.
Koweit, or Kuwet, is an important seaport on the Arabian side at the south-west angle of the Persian Gulf, about eighty miles due south of Basra, our port of destination. Kuwet is the diminutive form of Kut, a common term in Irak for a walled village, and the port lies in the south side of a bay twenty miles long and five miles wide. Seen through our glasses it did not seem a prepossessing place, for the bare stony desert stretched away for miles behind the town. Yet only by accident had it escaped greatness. In 1850 General Chesny, who knew these parts by heart, recommended it as the terminus of his proposed Euphrates Valley Railway; and, when the extension of the Anatolian Railway to Bagdad and the Gulf was mooted, Koweit was long regarded as a possible terminus. But the War altered all that, and it is doubtful now if Koweit, which lives by its sea commerce alone, will even achieve the distinction of becoming the terminal point of a branch line of the railway which is destined to link up two continents.
The Turks and Germans have long had their eyes open to the great possibilities of Koweit. The former in 1898 attempted a military occupation, but were warned off by the British, and abandoned their efforts to obtain a foothold in this commercial outpost of the Gulf, while the ruling Sheikh was sagacious enough to be aware of the danger of Turkish absorption, and to avert it by placing his dominions under the protection of Great Britain. The German-subsidized Hamburg-Amerika Line made an eleventh hour attempt to capture the trade of the Gulf, and in the months immediately preceding the War devoted special attention to Koweit and Basra trade, carrying freight at rates which must have meant a heavy financial loss. It was all part of the German Weltpolitik to oust us from these lucrative markets of the Middle East, and to secure for German shipping a monopoly of the Gulf carrying trade. With the German-controlled Bagdad Railway approaching completion, one shudders to realize what would have been our fate economically, if the sea-borne trade of Basra and Koweit had passed under the flag and into the hands of the enterprising Hun.
Basra lies about eighty miles to the north of Koweit. It is here that the Shatt el Arab (literally the river of the Arabs, or, otherwise, the commingled Euphrates and Tigris) empties itself into the Persian Gulf. Vessels with a greater draught than nineteen feet cannot easily negotiate the bar. Our own transport was bound for Bombay, so it was with a feeling of thankfulness that we quitted her for ever and were transferred to a British India liner, the Erinrupy, which since the beginning of the War has been used as a hospital ship. She was spick and span, and the general air of cleanliness was so marked after the filthy tub that had conveyed us from Suez that we trod her decks and ventured into her cabins with an air of apologetic timidity.
It was half a day's run up river to Basra. Next morning we were speeding along with the swirling brown waters of the Shatt el Arab lapping our counter, the land of Iran on our right, and that of Irak on our left. It grew warmer, and there was a good deal of moisture in the air. The low flat shores, cut up by irrigation canals, were covered by date-palm groves. Dhows and other strange river craft, laden with merchandise, dotted the surface of the brown waters, and the glorious green of the foreshores was a welcome relief to eyes tired of the arid sterility of the Arabian shore. A few miles below Basra we steered a careful course, passing the sunken hulls of two Turkish gunboats which the enemy had submerged in the fairway in the hope of blocking the river channel and preventing the victorious British maritime and war flotillas from reaching Basra. Like most other operations undertaken by the Turks the effort was badly bungled, and the channel was left free to our ships.
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.
Basra or Busra, the Bastra of Marco Polo, and for ever linked with the adventures of Sinbad the Sailor, is one of the most important ports of Asiatic Turkey, and sits on the right bank of the Shatt el Arab a short distance below the confluence of the Tigris and the Euphrates.
It is built on low-lying marshy land where the malarial mosquito leads an energetic and healthy life. Basra proper is about a mile from the river, up a narrow and malodorous creek, and when the tide is out the mud of this creek cries out in strange tongues. The natives, however, seem to thrive upon its nauseating vapours. It is at once the source of their water supply and the receptacle for sewerage. In this delectable spot, as indeed throughout Asiatic Turkey and Persia, sanitary science is still unborn, and the streets are the dumping-ground for refuse.
The long, narrow bellem, with its pointed prow, in general appearance not unlike a gondola, is the chief means of communication between the Shatt el Arab and Basra itself. If the tide is low, the Arab in charge poles up or down stream, and when you arrive at your destination you generally pick your way through festering mud to the landing-place.
One's first feelings are of wonder and bewilderment that the entire population has not long ago been wiped out by disease. Going up and down stream at low tide I have seen Arab women rinsing the salad for the family meal side by side with others dealing with the family washing. Then the bellem boy, thirsty, would lean over the side of the craft, scoop up a handful or two of the water, and drink it. As successors to the dirty and lazy Turk the British in occupation of Basra have set themselves to remedy this state of affairs, but it is uphill work. Manners and customs of centuries are not easily laid aside, and your Asiatic sniffs suspiciously at anything labelled Sanitary Reform, while the very mention of the word Hygiene sounds to him like blasphemy against the abominations with which he loves to surround himself. The Turk never bothered his head whether the inhabitants lived in unhealthy conditions. When an epidemic broke out and carried off a certain proportion of the population, the Turkish Governor would bow his head in meek resignation before the inscrutable will of Allah.
The architecture of Basra is of a distinctly primitive type. The houses are built chiefly of sun-dried bricks, and the roofs are flat, covered with mud laid over rafters of date-wood and surrounded by a low parapet.
Basra had been used as the British base for the advance against the Turks on the Tigris. From here had been rationed the army and the guns that reconquered Kut and opened the difficult road to Bagdad. The magician's wand of the British soldier-wallah wrought wonders in the place. Malarial swamps were filled in, and hospitals and administrative buildings erected. Wharves equipped with giant cranes sprang into being on the quayside, and, as we were landed, the busy river scene, with fussy tugs towing huge laden barges, and the quayside packed with transports, irresistibly recalled some populous port in the Antipodes or Britain itself, rather than the seaside capital of a vilayet in Asiatic Turkey.
That Basra had a great future in store for it as a shipping centre was early recognized by Major-General Sir George McMunn, who for some time held the post of Inspector-General of Lines of Communications at Basra. He was one of those rare soldiers with a genius for organization and a capacity for bringing to bear upon big problems a wide range of outlook, and he was never hampered by those military trammels which often mar the professional soldier and make a good general an exceedingly bad civil administrator. So General McMunn set to work to give Basra an impetus along the path of commercial progress. He planned a model city which was to include residential and business sites, electric tramways, modern hotels, and public parks. It was a stupendous undertaking, but McMunn accomplished much in the face of great financial difficulties. He endowed Basra with a first-class hotel run by a chef and an hotel staff recruited from London, installed electric light, gave the evil-smelling town a vigorous spring-cleaning, and with stone quarried in Arabia buried beneath stout paving the slimy mud of some of the Basra streets.
Ashar which fronts the Shatt el Arab is really the business centre of Basra. Its bazaars running parallel with Basra Creek are dark, evil-smelling, and over-crowded by human bipeds who swarm about ant fashion, and are born, live, and die in these purlieus.
In the course of an hour during the busy part of the day you can count on meeting representatives of all the races and creeds of Asia in the streets and bazaars of Ashar or lower Basra. Here ebbs and flows the flotsam of the East—Jews, Arabs, Armenians, Kurds, Persians, Chaldeans (merchants or traffickers these!), and coolies from India, Burma, and China, with wanderers from the remote khanates of Russian Turkestan, the latter in quaint headdress and wearing sheepskin coats whose vicinity is rather trying to sensitive noses when the thermometer is well above eighty in the shade.
General Byron, with Major Newcombe of the Canadian Contingent, Captain Eve, some other members of our party, and myself were quartered in the old Turkish cavalry barracks, while the remainder went into camp at Makina, two miles out. The Turks, it is true, were gone never to return, but in the honeycombed recesses of the crumbling dust-covered walls of Ashar barracks their troopers had left behind many old friends who, from the very first, displayed an envenomed animosity towards us, and attacked British officers and men with a vigour which the Turkish Army itself had never excelled. Every night raiding parties, defying alike our protective mosquito nets and the poison-gas effect of Keating's, found their way into our beds; and every morning we would crawl from between the sheets bearing visible marks of these night forays.
It is always said, and generally believed, that the British signalize their occupation of a country by laying down a cricket pitch and building a church. They did all these things and more at Basra. There was a garrison church, a simple building with a special care for the temperature of a Gulf Sunday. There were several sports clubs, and one at Makina, which might be called the suburb of Ashar, had good tennis courts. Beyond, in the desert, was a racecourse where the local Derby and Grand National were run off.
The ordinary native of Iran and of the "Land of the Two Rivers" has not hitherto shown any marked taste for either mild or violent physical exercise. But Basra, I found, was a noted exception to this, and youth of the place were badly bitten by the sports mania. As the doctors would say, "the disease spread with alarming rapidity, and spared neither young nor old." After a few weeks devoted to picking up points as spectators at "soccer" matches, a native team would secure possession of a rather battered football and start work, "Basra Mixed" trying conclusions with "Ashar Bazaar," for example. The rules were neither Rugby nor Association, but a local extemporization of both; and the dress was not the classic costume of the British football field, but a medley of all the garbs of Asia. Stately Arabs in long flowing robes, suffering from the prevailing sports fever, would forget their dignity to the extent of running after a football and trying to kick it. Chaldean Christian would mingle in the scrum with Jew and Mussulman. Individual players sometimes received the kick intended for the ball. Off the field this would have led to racial trouble and perhaps bloodshed, but as a rule these slight departures from the strict football code were accepted in the best possible spirit, being regarded no doubt as part of the game itself.
Of course things did not always run so smoothly. Sometimes the ball was entirely lost sight of, and lay lonely and isolated in some corner of the field, while the players would resolve themselves into a sort of Pan-Asian congress on the ethics of games in general. Everyone spoke at once and in his own tongue. On such occasions a passing British soldier would be summoned to assist at the deliberations, and in "Na Poo" Arabic would straighten out the tangle. Then play would be resumed, everybody bowing to the superior wisdom of the soldier sahib, and accepting his decision unquestioningly.
The youth of Basra, more precocious than their elders, converted the streets of Ashar into a playing-ground where tip-cat, bat and ball, marbles, diabolo, and sundry other forms of juvenile recreation found eager devotees at all hours of the day in narrow streets generally crowded with army transport.
The cinema also exercised a great influence on the native mind. Never quite understanding its working, he accepted it all philosophically as part of the travelling outfit of that strange race of infidels from far away who had chased the Turks from the shores of the Arabian Sea, who seemed to be able to make themselves into birds at will, and who rushed over the roadless desert in snorting horseless carriages. Men such as these were capable of anything, and when the first cinema film arrived, the Arabs filled to overflowing the ramshackle building which served as a theatre. In Basra I often went to the cinema, not so much for the show itself as to watch the joy with which that primitive child of nature, the Arab, followed the mishaps and triumphs of the hero through three reels. How they were moved to tears by his sufferings! And how they shouted with joy when the villain of the piece was hoist by his own petard and his career of rascality abruptly and fittingly terminated!
One thing, I found on talking to some of these native onlookers, puzzled their minds exceedingly, and that was the morals and manners of European women as shown on the screen. The Arab is a fervent stickler for the conventionalities, and it was a great shock to his religious scruples to see women promenading in low-necked dresses with uncovered faces, frequenting restaurants with strange men not their husbands, and imbibing strong drink. "The devil must be kept busy in Faringistan raking all these shameless creatures into the bottomless pit!" said one Arab to me, when I asked him what he thought of the cinema. It was useless to seek to explain that cinema scenes did not represent the real life of the Englishman or the American, and that all our women do not earn their living as cinema artists.
In Basra I never saw a Mohammedan woman frequenting a cinema performance. Even had she won over her husband's consent to such an innovation, public opinion would veto her presence there, and she would not be permitted to look upon this devil's machine illustrating foreign "wickedness."
CHAPTER IV
AT A PERSIAN WEDDING
Visit to the Sheikh of Mohammerah—A Persian banquet.
A few miles below Basra, on the Persian shore, at the point where the Karun River joins the Shatt el Arab, are the semi-independent dominions of the Sheikh of Mohammerah. His territory is part and parcel of the moribund Persian Empire, but the Sheikh has long held independent sway, and has ruled his little kingdom with Oriental grandeur and benevolent despotism. He is a firm and convinced friend of the British, and even at the darkest hour of our military fortunes in the Gulf, when it seemed as if we might be driven from the lower Tigris itself, the Sheikh was proof against Turkish intrigue and the corrupting influence of Hun gold.
His Excellency the Khazal Khan, K.C.S.I., K.C.I.E., to give him his full title, like most Persian potentates in the tottering, crumbling Empire of Iran, where the writ of the present "King of Kings" does not run beyond the walls of Teheran, held undisputed sway over his little state, and his authority was enforced by a nondescript army of retainers. But he was a generous host, a firm friend, and an unforgiving enemy.
One week-end while at Basra I was one of a few British officers invited to assist at the elaborate festivities which precede a Persian marriage. The contemplated matrimonial alliance was intended to unite the family of the Sheikh and that of Haji Reis, his Grand Vizier or Prime Minister. In the small party that dropped down the river on one of His Majesty's gunboats, were the Admiral of the Station, one or two generals, the Political Officer, the liaison officer between the Indian Government and the ruler of Mohammerah, and my friend Akhbar, a Persian from Manchester who had joined up early in the War. As we dropped down stream past the Palace, a salute was fired in our honour by the Sheikh's artillery-men with a couple of old six-pounders. An antediluvian Persian gunboat dipped her ensign as we steamed past. It was the first time I had seen a warship or indeed any other vessel flying the Persian flag, and I regarded her with interest. Akhbar, who despite his British uniform and his long residence amongst us, remained always an ardent Persian, professed to be very much hurt by some chance observations of mine directed at the river gunboat and the Persian navy in general.
The Palace was a rectangular building, with stuccoed front, standing back from the water and approached by a winding stone staircase. On landing we were received by the chief dignitaries of the place with the Grand Vizier at their head. There was much bowing and salaaming, and it was here that I first made acquaintance with that elaborate code of official and social ceremony which surrounds every act of one's life in Persia. A guard of honour from the Sheikh's household troops made a creditable attempt to present arms as we stepped ashore. More soldiers lined the stairway leading to the reception room. They wore a variety of uniforms, and were armed with everything in the way of rifles, from antiquated Sniders to modern Mausers and Lee-Enfields. Like most of the irregulars that we encountered in Persia afterwards, they fairly bristled with bandoliers stuffed full of cartridges. A Persian on the war-path, be he tribal chief or simple armed follower, is generally a walking arsenal. He is full of lethal weapons which nearly always include a rifle of some kind and a short stabbing sword with an inlaid hilt. He often displays a Mauser pistol as well, and usually carries enough ammunition hung round him to equip a decent-sized small-arms factory.
The Sheikh himself received us in the main reception hall, which was covered with rare Persian carpets, any single one of which would be worth a small fortune in London. The Prime Minister and his son, we found, spoke excellent English, and the former, who was wearing the conventional frock coat of the Occident, but no shirt collar, presented each visitor in turn to our Arab host, a man just past middle life with all the stately grace and dignity of his Bedouin forebears. He was dressed in native costume; his manners were easy and full of charm. He had a dark, olive-tinted face, black beard and wonderful lustrous black eyes. A strict adherent of the Shi'ite sect, and an abstainer from strong drink himself, he was, nevertheless, not averse to supplying it to his Western guests. The Grand Vizier during his sojourn in Europe had evidently studied our customs and civilization au fond. Apart from a knowledge of the English language and literature, he had brought back with him a fine and discriminating taste in the matter of aperitifs, knew to a nicety the component parts of a Martini cocktail, and was a profound connoisseur of Scotch whisky. Our party had few dull moments with the Grand Vizier as cicerone, and our admiration for his versatility rose by leaps and bounds.
The dinner was à la fourchette. It is not always so in hospitable Persia where, as a rule, host and guests sit in a circle on the floor and help themselves with the aid of their fingers. Here everything had been arranged in European fashion, and the long table was topped by a rampart of specially prepared dishes with a lavishness that was truly Oriental. It is a Persian custom to supply five times more food than one's guests can possibly consume. What remains becomes the perquisite of the servants of the household.
According to Persian etiquette a son may not sit down in the presence of his father, so the bridegroom-elect had no place at the board, and his active participation in the banquet was limited to carrying out the duties of chief butler and waiting upon the guests. It was hot and exhausting work, in the intervals of which he liberally helped himself from a black bottle which stood on a table behind the Grand Vizier's chair. Barefooted servitors passed nimbly along the table, and saw to it that their master's guests wanted for nothing. A plate was emptied only to be speedily replenished.
We saw nothing of the bride-to-be. She played but a minor part in the evening's entertainment. Nor were any other women of the household to be seen. At one end of the banqueting hall was a heavily curtained aperture. Occasionally this was furtively drawn aside an inch or two, and a woman's veiled face would appear for an instant, and as quickly disappear. It was the private view allowed to the bride and her girl friends.
The menu was inordinately long. Dish succeeded dish, and eat we must unless we wished to cause dire offence to our host. He himself, seated at the middle of the table, ate sparingly and drank but water, his air of quiet impassivity giving place to a smile from time to time as he listened to some Persian bon mot or other from one of his neighbours.
The Sheikh excelled as a host. No sooner was the banquet at an end than he told us that a display of fireworks had been arranged in our honour. Seats had been placed for the visitors on the long veranda at the back of the palace and facing the extensive grounds. No Persian feast is held to be complete without a pyrotechnic display of some kind, and that organized for our pleasure would have done credit to the best efforts of Brock or Pain.
There were Catherine-wheels, rockets, and welcoming mottoes in Persian and English which flared up merrily, until the whole grounds were one blaze of light.
The retainers entered fully into the spirit of the affair. Clad in fireproof suits, they were hung round with squibs which were set alight, and then the human Catherine-wheels carried out an astonishing series of somersaults, to the intense delight of the native portion of the audience. An English gunnery instructor, aided by native workmen with material from the Sheikh's arsenal, had been responsible for the pyrotechnic part of the entertainment.
In the meantime the banqueting hall had been cleared, and presently we were conducted thither, where, to the strains of a Persian orchestra, native dancing boys showed their skill in a series of emotional and highly sensuous gyrations. These youths were of a distinctly effeminate appearance in their long flowing Persian robes, and there was a look of brazen abandon in their more than suggestive evolutions as they whirled round and round on the floor.
To these succeeded a quartette of Armenian girls in bright-hued raiment and low-necked dresses, their bare bosoms covered with cheap jewellery, their hair and costumes studded with glittering sequins, and their ankles encircled by gilt metal bracelets giving them an air of tawdriness and unspeakable vulgarity. Their movements were graceful, with a certain artistic crudeness. To the clash of cymbals, and with a jingling of their sequins and anklets, two would whirl round the dancing hall, until sheer physical exhaustion compelled them to seek a temporary respite on a divan; whereupon they would be succeeded on the floor by the other pair who had been awaiting their turn. This dancing by relays went on until the early hours of the morning, and we began to be alarmed lest it should continue for the duration of the War. Etiquette forbade us to leave, so we did our best and stuck it out to the end. In the tobacco-laden atmosphere, with the temperature distinctly sultry, and the windows hermetically sealed I made a desperate but ineffectual attempt to fight off drowsiness. At last I succumbed and dreamt that I was in the Paradise of Mahomet listening to the music of the houris entertaining some of the newly arrived Faithful.
I woke with a start, for someone had prodded me in the ribs and told me it was time to go, and by a swift transition I found myself back at Mohammerah and our party bidding adieu to our kindly host and his Grand Vizier.
It was too dark to attempt the passage of the river back to Basra, so we crossed over to the house of Mr. Lincoln of the British Consulate on the right bank of the Karun river and spent the remainder of the night under his hospitable roof.
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.
Our stay at Ashar barracks was of brief duration. A week after landing in Basra we received orders from General Headquarters to proceed to Bagdad immediately, but steamer accommodation was limited, and it was found impossible to embark the whole of our party at once. However, a compromise was effected with the Local Embarkation Officer, and place was found on an up-river steamer for our first contingent, consisting of General Byron, twenty-four other officers (of whom I was one), and forty N.C.O's.
Our transport was an antiquated paddle steamer, broad of beam, and the whole of her one deck was packed with troops bound for up-river like ourselves. In addition, she towed, moored on either side, two squat barges filled with troops and supplies.
The navigation of the Tigris, even in peace time, when the river is unencumbered, is a hazardous undertaking. Its lower reaches are flat and winding, and when it is in flood the banks are submerged. The stream follows an erratic course, occasionally striking out on an entirely fresh one, and the search for the new channel is often attended with disaster for the daring river mariner. Yet up and down the stream between Kut and Basra British seamen have zigzagged their way by sheer pluck and perseverance, dumping down men and supplies at the advanced base with unfailing regularity. The admirable part played by these river skippers of the Tigris has never been told, and so has never been properly appreciated by their countrymen at home. Day and night they toiled to hurry up the needed reinforcements to the hard-pressed battle line in Mesopotamia, and to feed the army that was driving the Turk from the "Land of the Two Rivers." Drawn from all parts of the Empire, they worthily represented the pluck, courage, and unyielding tenacity of the British race. Had it not been for the river skippers of the Tigris, shy, unostentatious men, sparing of speech and indifferent to praise, the Mesopotamian Campaign must have ended abortively; Kut could never have been retaken, and the Turks would still have been in Bagdad.
The despatches of victorious generals in Mesopotamia have been full of references to valuable aid and service rendered by units and individuals, but, it seems to me, they have entirely overlooked the great contribution of the men of the Tigris River Flotilla, who have apparently been left without reward or recognition.
In the waterway of the Shatt el Arab itself, and before we entered the Tigris proper, we passed scores of river craft. There were dhows laden to the gunwale with river produce being carried swiftly down by the current towards Basra market. Here was an antiquated sternwheeler with her lashed barges alongside, like an old woman with parcels tucked under her arms, going to the base to load up supplies. And, most wonderful of all, here was a London County Council steamer, the Christopher Wren, which had abandoned the Thames for the Tigris and the carrying of happy trippers from Blackfriars to Kew for the transporting of Mr. Thomas Atkins and his kit part of the long river journey towards Bagdad. Some of the Tommies on our steamer eyed her enviously. Here was a touch of the far-distant homeland under Eastern skies! There was a suspicion of a tear in some sentimental eyes, but the wag of the party scored a laugh when he megaphoned with his hands to the skipper of the Wren, "I'm for Battersea, I am!"
A number of these L.C.C. boats had come out from London under their own steam, making the long voyage to the Gulf and Basra through the Bay of Biscay and across the Mediterranean and Red Seas, buffeted by wind and wave, but without losing any of their personnel or suffering any material damage. It was a triumph of seamanship and British pluck.
The banks of the Tigris, and indeed of the Euphrates, at certain seasons of the year are surely the most desolate places on the habitable earth. The date-palm plantations of the Shatt el Arab are succeeded by a monotonous landscape of dull brown desert stretching away as far as the eye can see. To our right, as we wound and twisted our way up river, we occasionally caught a glimpse of the snow-clad mountains of Persia. Dotted here and there along the banks are Arab villages, which seemed to be a conglomeration of goats, sheep, and dusky-brown naked children, all thrown confusedly into the picture. By way of variation, now and then we swept past a desert oasis, where stood a few stunted palm-trees near which a tribe of nomads had set up their black tents of goat's-hair and were spending a week-end on the river bank before trekking afresh into the heart of the desert.
Your real Arab nomad is essentially a child of nature. He spends his life in the wilderness and has a rooted objection—nay, it is, in truth, a positive terror—to visiting any town, big or little. He has an undefinable dread of venturing within a walled city, apparently regarding it in much the same way as a wild bird would regard an iron-barred cage. Any restriction of movement is irksome to him. He loves the free life of the desert, with its limitless possibilities, its far-stretching horizon, and its absence of streets and houses. He is of the tribe of Ishmael, destined to wander on and on, ever remote from the haunts of his fellow-man.
The semi-nomad, on the other hand, is less intractable, and does not chafe so much under the yoke of Western civilization. He is frugal, sober, and thrifty. We passed hundreds of his tribe who live on the banks of the Tigris, cultivating a patch of arable land, and using a wooden plough which must have been old-fashioned even in the days of that earliest recorded agriculturist, Cain.
We groped a tedious way along the sinuous Tigris, missing by a foot or two a down-river steamer and its lashed barges, making fair headway against the swirling waters which swept past us with the speed of a millstream. The current carried us from side to side, first bumping one bank, and then cannoning against the opposite one, until it seemed as if the stout lashings of our captive barges must be torn away. Where the river was especially narrow, we would tie up to the bank and give right-of-way to a convoy going down stream. At night, too, we would either tie up or anchor inshore, and at daylight would be off again.
In the bright clear atmosphere it was possible to see objects many miles distant. Ofttimes we would catch sight of a steamer away to our right or left, looking for all the world as if she were making an overland trip and was stuck fast in the middle of the waterless desert. But the seeming mystery was explained by the winding course of the river, which can only be likened to a series of figures of eight.
It took us about thirty hours to reach Amarah, which lies on both banks of the Tigris and, by reason of its position, had become an important coaling-centre on the lower part of the stream. There was an air of bustle and activity about the place, for British organization had descended upon it and rudely awakened it from the sleep of centuries. British military and native police controlled the town, and kept the more mischievous of the unruly Arab elements in order. A swing-bridge had been thrown across the river to carry vehicular traffic. River steamers were moored at the quays, taking in or discharging cargo, and Indian and Arab coolies sweated in the sun as they hurried along with great burdens on their backs.
Our way to camp led through the Bazaar, which may, I think, lay claim to be one of the filthiest and most malodorous in all the "Land of the Two Rivers." It had rained heavily the previous night, and now the unpaved roadway through the main bazaar was a foot deep in liquid mud. The average native was wholly unconcerned and, while we picked our steps carefully, mentally consigning Amarah and its abominable streets to perdition, barefooted Arab women, wearing anklets of silver, with a pendant through one nostril, and in their finest raiment, would plod contentedly through this mire as if it were a rose-bestrewn path. Tiny mites with no more clothing than a string of beads gave each other mud baths with the joy and enthusiasm of children sporting in the sea at some European watering-place.
Still, if Amarah disgusted us with its muddy streets and evil-smelling bazaars, it had some compensating advantages, amongst them its British Officers' Club. In a desert of dirt and discomfort this was a veritable oasis, with its excellent cuisine, and smoking and reading rooms provided with the latest three-months-old newspapers and magazines. It stands on the river front, and from its roof-garden a fine panorama opens at one's feet. In the foreground are the busy river and the crowded quayside, and on the opposite bank the white tents of the British camps blend with the dark green of the date-palms. Still farther beyond, as a background to the picture, is the dun-brown of the desert wastes.
A wet camp is at all times an abomination, and our first night at Amarah was not a pleasant experience. The transit camp is on a sort of peninsula, and a few hours' rain converted it into a lake of mud. We were housed in huts whose shape recalled a miniature Crystal Palace, and whose semi-circular sides and roof were thatched with palm netting. In the hut which I shared with Major Newcombe and Captain Eve, during the early hours of the morning a heavy shower poured through the roof as if it were a sieve. In the darkness there was a scramble over the muddy floor in quest of waterproof sheets and raincoats with which to set up a second line of defence for our leaky roof. Afterwards we all laughed heartily at the experience, but at the time we were inclined to be wrathful, for an unexpected and unlooked-for shower-bath in bed at 2 a.m., even on active service, may ruffle the mildest of tempers.
From Amarah to Kut we went by river, the journey occupying three days. The military-constructed railway which has since been opened does the journey in ten or twelve hours. Our steamer, No. 95, was a comfortable one of her class for Tigris river travelling. Indeed in this part of the world she would be listed as de luxe, inasmuch as she possessed cabin accommodation and actually had a bathroom. The trip itself was but a slight variation of the monotonous river journey to Amarah. There were the same flat stretches of country now and again relieved by a few palm-trees; the white tents of a British river guard, a link in this long-drawn-out line of communications; or some Arab village with its grouping of dilapidated palm-roofed huts, its barking curs, and its mud-brown naked children. Occasionally down by the banks there was a fringe of green where some native cultivator, aided by the water from an irrigation canal, was rearing a hardy spring crop.
As on its lower reaches, the river pursued a devious path across the face of the country until one grew giddy with attempting to follow its windings. The Tigris is a most impulsive stream; it obeys no will but its own, and is as erratic as any river of its size in the world. However, as Kut is approached on the up journey, it broadens out into noble proportions, swift and deep, and for a few miles behaves rationally, abandoning its geographical jazz-step over the Mesopotamian plains.
Kut—the scene of Townshend's immortal stand, with his handful of troops diminished daily by famine and disease, holding off to the last a powerful enemy—is situated at the end of a tongue of land at a point where the Tigris, taking a mighty sweep, mingles its waters with those of the Shatt el Hai.
But a new Kut, a British Kut, a town of tents and wooden huts and galvanized iron buildings, has sprung into being three miles below the tottering walls of Turkish Kut, and about two miles from Townshend's advanced trench line. In British Kut there are rough wooden piers, hastily built, it is true, where the river steamers moor, few attempting the difficult passage from Kut to Bagdad. Kut is also an important railway junction, for the troops bound up river were disembarked here, and stepped from the steamer deck into the waiting troop-trains.
We went up river in a motor launch, General Byron, Major Newcombe, Captain Eve, and myself, to visit Townshend's famous stronghold. It was with a feeling of emotion that we disembarked at the old stone pier of Kut, and made our way along its broken unpaved streets, past its crumbling wall, to the centre of the town. The route led through the main business centre—it could hardly be called a bazaar—where merchants and money-changers plied their trades, and a blind beggar in rags sat under the lee of a wall, with the sun shining full on his sightless eye-sockets, droning a supplication for alms. The wave of red war had passed and repassed over Kut, leaving it scorched and maimed. Turk and Briton had fought for supremacy round and about it, but that was more than a year ago, and Kut now dozed sleepily in the hot afternoon sun, beginning already to forget the past and, with the calm philosophic indifference of the East, accepting as a predestined part of its daily life the Standard of Britain which had replaced the Crescent of the Turk.
The Arab policemen who guarded its unkempt streets were serving their new masters faithfully, and those we passed, spick and span in spotless khaki and tarbooshes, by their alert and soldierly bearing gave unmistakable evidence of having graduated from the school of that efficient, exacting, and most conscientious of mortals, the British drill instructor.
Presently, guided by a Staff Officer from the base headquarters, we came to the house of the Hero of Kut. It was an unpretentious dwelling, flat-roofed, and built of sun-dried bricks, with nothing much to distinguish it from its hundreds of neighbours. Descending a steep flight of steps, we came to the Serdab or underground apartment common to most Mesopotamian houses, where the occupants hide for shelter during the hottest hours of the blistering summer day. The room was bare of adornment—a few chairs, a divan, and a table covered with official papers—that was all. It was now the home of the local Political Officer, but it had changed little, if any, since its former illustrious occupant walked out of it and up those stone steps—his proud spirit unbroken, his heart heavy, but his courage undimmed—to pass a captive into the hands of the Turks.
None of our party could lay any special claim to be sentimental but, standing there in the narrow underground room with its hallowed associations, where a very gallant British General, the foe without and disease and hunger within—he, too, alas! another victim of high-placed incompetency—planned and schemed during those dark days of the siege to break the throttling grip of the Turk, we felt we were upon holy ground, and every one of us, moved by a common emotion, raised our hands to our caps in salute. It was our tribute of admiration and respect for Townshend and his heroes—for the men who perished so nobly, no less than for their comrades maimed and broken who survived the fall of Kut, many of them, unhappily, only to pass anew through the gate of suffering and to end their lives as prisoners in the hands of a brutal, ungenerous enemy to whom honour and compassion are meaningless terms.
It was not every day that the Turks could boast such a victory as Kut, or that they found themselves with a British General and a starving British force surrendering to their arms. Short-lived as was their triumph, they lost no time in celebrating it by setting up a commemorative monument. This stands on the Tigris' bank close to British Kut and the landing pier, and is in the form of an obelisk of unhewn stone on a plinth of corresponding material fenced in by an iron railing. A few obsolete cannon, the muzzles facing outwards, are grouped round the base of the monument. An inscription in Turkish records the fall of Kut and the capture of Townshend and his men which, it recounts, was accomplished by the grace of Allah and the prowess of the besieging Turkish Army.
The next stage of our journey from Kut to Bagdad was a short one. A night in a troop-train, and sunrise the following morning saw us being dumped down at Hinaida Camp on the outskirts of the City of the Caliphs.
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.
Who has not heard and read of Bagdad, of its former glory and its greatness? I set foot in it for the first time on March 20th, 1918, the day after the arrival of our little party at Hinaida Transit Camp on the left bank of the Tigris.
As I tramped across the dusty Hinaida plain towards the belt of palm groves which veils the city on the east, I had visions of Haroun al Raschid, and fancied myself coming face to face with the wonders of the "Arabian Nights." It was with something of a shock, then, that on entering the city I encountered khaki-clad figures, and saw Ford vans and motor lorries tearing wildly along the streets. In the main thoroughfare, hard by British Headquarters, a steam roller was travelling backwards and forwards over the freshly metalled roadway, completing the work of an Indian Labour Corps; farther on, a watering cart labelled "Bagdad Municipality" was busily drowning the fine-spun desert dust that had settled thickly on the newly born macadamized street. Here was an Arab café, with low benches on the inclined plane principle like seats in a theatre, where the occupants sipped their Mocha from tiny cups, or inhaled tobacco-smoke through the amber stem of a hubble-bubble, watching the passing show, and betimes discussing the idiosyncrasies of the strange race of unbelievers that has settled itself down in the fair city which once had been the pride of Islam.
Truly a city of contrasts! Cheek by jowl with the Arab café was an eating-house full of British soldiers. The principal street runs parallel with the river and, as one proceeded, it was possible to catch glimpses of pleasant gardens running down to the water's edge and embowering handsome villas—gardens where pomegranates, figs, oranges, and lemons grew in abundance. The Oriental readily adapts himself to changing circumstances, and unhesitatingly abandons the master of yesterday to follow the new one of to-day. Already traces of the Ottoman dominion were being obliterated. The Turkish language was disappearing from shop signs to be replaced by English or French, with, in some cases, a total disregard of etymology, such choice gems as "Englisch talking lessons," "Stanley Maude wash company" (this over a laundry), "British tommy shave room," showing at all events a praiseworthy attempt to wrestle with the niceties of the English language.
Bagdad as I saw it in the first days following my arrival struck me as a place whose remains of faded greatness still clung about it. No one could deny its claim to a certain wild beauty which age, dirt, and decay have not been able wholly to eliminate. The glory of the river scene is unsurpassable.
To see Bagdad at its best one must view it from the balcony of the British Residency (now General Headquarters). Here, as you look down upon the river, the old bridge of boats connecting with the western bank is on your right, and handsome villas where flowers grow in profusion, the residences of former Turkish officials or wealthy citizens, adorn the foreshore.
The river is broad and majestic, and strange craft dot its surface. Here is a Kufa, in itself a link with antiquity, a circular boat of basketware covered with bitumen, sometimes big enough to hold ten men and two or three laden donkeys. Its cross-river course is decidedly eccentric. Propelled by crudely fashioned paddles wielded by sturdy oarsmen, its progress from shore to shore is leisurely and cumbersome as, caught into the eddying current, it twirls slowly, with a rotatory movement, like the dying motion of some giant spinning-top.
The cheerful Thomas Atkins promptly christened the kufa "Noah's Dinghy," and lost no time in getting afloat therein. Some of the Australians at Hinaida Camp organized a kufa regatta, the course being across river and back, a distance of about two miles. A waterproof sheet was attached as a sail by one enterprising Anzac, but even that did not help to accelerate very appreciably the snail-like progress of his aquatic tub. Local tradition avers that Sinbad the Sailor came spinning down from Bagdad to Basra in a kufa, when he signed on at the Gulf port for his first ocean voyage. Who knows? Kufas are depicted on some of the old Assyrian monuments.
A close relative surely to the Kufa is the Kellik or Mussik raft of the upper Tigris. Constructed of a square framework of wood buoyed by inflated goat-skins, it is widely utilized as a cargo carrier on these inland waterways. Piled high with hay and a miscellaneous collection of live-stock, it will waddle off down river with a crew of three or four, and half a dozen or so passengers. Sometimes the cargo shifts, or the goat-skin bladders become deflated, and the kellik, down by the nose or stern, grows more unwieldy than ever. A little mishap of this kind never bothers the crew. They steer for some convenient point on the river-bank where the water is shallow, unhitch the defective skins, and inflate them afresh with the unaided power of their own lungs. The cargo righted, and the trim of their cumbersome raft restored, they will push off into midstream and continue their venturesome journey, logging a steady two knots.
But on an upstream trip it is another story. Then the laden or empty kellik has to be towed, and hard work it is to make headway when the river is in flood and racing down to meet its brother, the Euphrates, on their joint way to the Gulf.
Going upstream the kellik keeps as close in shore as possible. Two men in the boat keep her from going aground, while a couple of others yoke themselves to a towline and move along the margin of the stream much like the canal bargees in Holland. But on the Tigris there is no well-defined towing path, and the course resolves itself into a kind of zigzag cross-country obstacle race, and the agility and dexterity with which these muscular native rivermen harnessed to the towline of a heavily laden raft will negotiate sunken ground, canal ditches, tumble-down village walls, and a few other natural hazards on a stretch of Tigris' river-bank, is extraordinary to behold. The life of a galley slave in Carthage must have been a soft snap indeed compared with that of the dark-skinned toilers who tug at an up-river kellik under the full force of a Mesopotamian sun.
Bagdad as a city takes us back to the horizon rim of the world's history. There still clings to it an air of musty antiquity and prehistoric dirt which the efforts of its new masters, the British, with pick-and-shovel sanitary science, and other new-fangled inventions of Western civilization, have not entirely eradicated. The beardless invaders from over the seas have sought to scrape clean its ancient bones, to straighten out the kink in its narrow, tortuous, and evil-smelling streets, and to let the light of day and a little wholesome fresh air penetrate into the gloom and dampness of its rabbit-warren of a bazaar. Staid, solemn-looking citizens, with the green turban of Mecca enveloping their venerable heads, whose ancestors probably drifted in here when overland travel was resumed after the Flood, have looked on in pious horror while festering slum areas have been laid low by British pickaxes. These Hadjis, fervent believers in tradition, and uncompromising opponents of innovation, have caressed their beards thoughtfully when confronted with the new order of things, and come to the philosophic conclusion that, as Kipling has it, "Allah created the English mad, the maddest of all mankind."
Biblical history is no longer vague and shadowy, but takes on a new meaning and an added significance to anyone who explores old Bagdad with eyes to see. As I wandered through its bazaars in quest of antiquities and bargains in bric-à-brac and rare damascened weapons, I often forgot the primary object of my visit while strolling silently about contentedly studying the hastening crowds who elbowed and fought their way along the narrow streets, or watching the complacent shopkeepers who sat cross-legged in their narrow, cell-like shops, haggling over prices with some prospective buyer. It was like throwing Biblical romance and Biblical tragedy on a cinema screen, only that now it lived and was real flesh and blood. Here were the descendants of the Jews of the Captivity—shrewd-looking, sharp-featured merchants, traffickers in gold and silver, dealers in antiquities, a living link between that very remote yesterday and the modern to-day, amassing much wealth in the land of their perpetual exile, carrying on unbrokenly the religion and traditions of Judaism—in dress, manners, customs, and speech as unchanged and unchanging as on the day when the heavy hand of the Babylonian oppressor smote their forbears and they were led away into slavery.
And here, too, now competing in commercial rivalry with the sons of Abraham, are lineal descendants of Assyrians, Chaldeans, Medes, Persians, and of those other warring races who between them made history in the long ago.
The descendants of the Jews of the Captivity have never wandered far afield, and it would even seem that they have preferred exile to repatriation. Bagdad formed part of Babylonia, and a three hours' train journey to Hilleh on the Euphrates will land the Bagdad Jew of an archæological turn of mind amidst the ruins of ancient Babylon.
The Jew venerates Bagdad as a sort of lesser Zion. It was long the seat of the Exilarch, and is still the rallying centre of Eastern Judaism. Monuments and tombs of the mighty ones of the Chosen Race are scattered over Lower Mesopotamia. There is the reputed tomb of Ezra on the Shatt el Arab near Korna, that of Ezekiel in the village called Kefil, while the prophet Daniel has a holy well bearing his name at Hilleh near the ruins of Babylon. But the chief place of pious pilgrimage for Bagdad Jews lies in a palm grove an hour's journey from the city on the Euphrates road. Here is said to be buried Joshua, son of Josedech, a high priest towards the end of the captivity period.
Western Bagdad, on the right bank of the Tigris, always recognizing and rendering a somewhat sullen obedience to the sway of the Turkish Sultan, is separated from Eastern Bagdad by much more than the deep waters of the river. Its inhabitants for the most part are Mohammedans of the Shi'ite sect, as opposed to the orthodox or Sunni creed of the Turks. The Shias may be described as Islamic dissenters, and their cult is the state religion of Persia. Ethnologically and politically they are closer akin to Iran than to Turkey, and their eyes are more frequently turned to Teheran than to Istambul. In Western Bagdad they have their own mosques, their own bazaars, and their own shrines, and lead lives more or less isolated from their Asiatic brethren on the opposite side of the river.
During a visit to the famous Shi'ite mosque and shrine at Kazemain, a suburb of the Western City, I found that the people, while outwardly friendly and polite, were much more fanatical than the average Sunni Mussulman, and were inclined to resent any attempt on the part of a Giaour like myself to see the interior of their mosques and shrines. I had for companions General Byron and Lieutenant Akhbar, the latter a professing Shi'ite. We crossed by the new pontoon swing bridge which now connects the two shores, superseding the old bridge of boats of Turkish days.
The houses are huddled together, and are squat and meanly built, with the low encircling walls and roofed parapets of sun-dried mud so common to Persian villages. The streets are barely wide enough for two pedestrians to pass abreast, and are full of holes or covered with garbage. As for the inhabitants, they were miserably clad, and the few women whom we chanced to encounter in our path hastily stepped aside and, turning from us, made a furtive effort to veil themselves by covering the upper part of their faces with a dirty piece of rag produced from the voluminous folds of a sleeve-pocket.
We did not tarry here very long. Quitting this waterside hamlet we drove three miles to Kazemain itself, passing en route the terminus of the Bagdad-Anatolian Railway, that great link of steel in the chain of German world-expansion the completion of which, under the existing concession, would have been commercially and economically fatal to us in Western Asia.
The tomb-mosque of Kazemain is one of the architectural landmarks of Bagdad. Its twin domes and its four lofty minarets, all overlaid with gold, are visible for miles as the traveller approaches Bagdad from the west. When the rays of the noonday sun strike on these gilded cupolas and graceful tapering columns it enhances their beauty a hundredfold, and throws into bold relief all their harmony and symmetry. It recalled to me vividly, but in a minor degree, some of the wonder and the glory of that other great monument of an Eastern land—the Taj Mahal at Agra. But while the one is secular and commemorative of earthly love, the other has a deeply religious significance, for in the imposing mosque of Kazemain are buried Musa Ibn Ja'far el Kazim and his grandson, Ibn Ali el Jawad, the seventh and ninth of the successors of Ali, the son-in-law of Mahomet, and recognized by the Shias as the rightful Caliphs of Islam. As a centre of pilgrimage for Shi'ite Moslems, Kazemain ranks second after Kerbela, the tomb of Hosain the Martyr; and from the point of view of sanctity, Kazemain is considered to take even higher place than either Samarra or Nejef, the other two Shi'ite shrines in the Vilayet of Bagdad.
The customary crowd of beggars, maimed, halt, and blind, whined to us as we alighted before the great gate of Kazemain Mosque. Three or four small boys, who had stolen a free ride by clinging to the back of the automobile while it crawled dead slow through the gloomy, winding streets of the bazaar, now demanded a pishkash (the Persian equivalent of backsheesh). Mollahs, Sayyeds, and other reputed holy men, springing apparently from nowhere, formed a ring around us, deeply interested in our dress, our speech, the colour of our hair, and our beardless faces. More especially was the wondering attention of the crowd concentrated on Akhbar, himself a native Persian, holding the King's commission and wearing the King's khaki. "What manner of man is this?" asked the puzzled onlookers. "Is he Infidel or True Believer? for, by the Beard of the Prophet, he speaks our holy tongue as well as we do ourselves!"
Now there intervened an elderly personage in the Abba or flowing robes affected by the better class of Persian, with a green kamarband indicating his claim to lineal descent from the Prophet. The new-comer, whose hair and beard were plentifully dyed with henna—a never-failing sign, I was assured, of virtue and virility—offered to go in search of the Mujtahid or Chief Priest.
He returned presently with that important functionary, who salaamed, but looked at us coldly and suspiciously, I thought. A whispered colloquy now took place between himself and Akhbar. He had no doubt as to the heterodoxy of the General and myself, but, on the other hand, at first he was not convinced of the orthodoxy of Akhbar, this professed Believer clad in Infidel garb. All Akhbar's impassioned pleading failed to move him. Akhbar himself might enter freely, but as for the two Unbelievers, they must not set foot within the jealously guarded portals of the holy place.
Up to this point the negotiations had been singularly free from anything even remotely connected with coin of the realm. I think it was the Mujtahid himself who, in his most winning manner, hinted that "Blessed is he that giveth," and that even the dole of an Unbeliever might win merit in the sight of Allah. We gave accordingly, whereupon the Mujtahid, out of the kindness of his heart, and by way of requiting our generosity, said he would enable us to see something of the Shi'ite "holy of holies." With himself as guide we were led by a circular route to a caravanserai for pilgrims which stood close to the high wall of the mosque. The place was untenanted, but, mounting by a flight of rickety stairs to the flat and somewhat unstable roof, we were able to overlook the interior courtyard of the mosque, to note its gilt façade, and to watch the worshippers performing their ablutions at the fountain in the centre of the courtyard. With this we had to be content.
The Shrine down to recent days had been a sanctuary for criminals fleeing from justice, but the Turkish overlords, it is said, when a fugitive happened to be of sufficient importance, were able by cajolery and bribery to override Sanctuary and secure the man they wanted. In consequence, Kazemain lost its popularity with fugitive law-breakers.
The populace at the termination of our visit gave us a hearty send-off, and the beggars, whose persistence and persuasiveness it was difficult to resist, having relieved us of sundry krans and rupees, called down the blessing of Allah on our heads.
The Sunni Moslems have many imposing places of worship in Bagdad. The Mosque of Marjanieh is noted for its very fine Arabesque work, bearing considerable resemblance to the ornamentations on the Mosque at Cordova, in Spain. There is also the Mosque of Khaseki, which is believed to have been once a Christian Church. Its Roman arch, with square pedestals and its spirally-fluted columns, reveal an architectural school that is not Oriental.
Outside the walls of the Western City is the reputed site of the tomb of Zobeide, the wife of Haroun al Raschid. The eroding hand of Time has dealt heavily with this once splendid mausoleum, but its curiously-shaped pineapple dome is still intact, and survives proudly amongst the ruin and decay of a dead-and-gone civilization. Niebuhr, the German traveller who visited this tomb in the middle of the eighteenth century, says he discovered an inscription setting forth that it was the site of the ancient burying-place of Zobeide, but that about 1488, Ayesha Khanum, wife of a Governor of Bagdad, was also given sepulture there. Doubt is thrown upon the historical accuracy of Niebuhr by many scholars, and there is a legend that Zobeide was buried at Kazemain.
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.
Bagdad is not a pleasant place of residence when the Sherki, or south wind, blows, and when at noonday the shade temperature is often 122 degrees Fahr. For Europeans, work is then out of the question, and it is impossible to venture abroad in the scorching air. There is nothing for it but a suit of the thinnest pyjamas and a siesta in the Serdab or underground room which forms part of most Bagdad houses. The local equivalent of a punkah is usually to be found here, and this helps to make life just bearable during the hot season.
At Headquarters and administrative branches there was a welcome cessation of labour from tiffin time until after the great heat of the day. But the late Sir Stanley Maude, when in chief command at Bagdad, demanded a very full day's work from his staff, and suffered no afternoon siesta. He set the example himself, and on even the hottest days was absent from his desk only during meal hours. Maude, splendid soldier and genial gentleman that he was, boasted of an iron constitution which was impervious alike to Mesopotamian heat and Mesopotamian malaria.
The cool weather had already set in when the Bagdad party took up its abode under canvas at Hinaida. We found already there an earlier contingent which had been gathered together from units serving in Mesopotamia and Salonika. No one knew quite what to do with us, and General Headquarters was seemingly divided in mind as to whether we should be treated as interlopers, and interned for the duration of the War, or left severely alone to work out our own salvation, or damnation, as we might see fit. The latter view carried the day, and our welcome in official quarters was therefore distinctly chilling. The difficulty chiefly arose, it appears, because General Dunsterville, the leader of our expedition, had been given a separate command, and was independent of the General commanding-in-chief in Mesopotamia. Jealousy was created in high quarters. There was a spirited exchange of telegrams with the War Office, in which such phrases as "Quite impossible of realization," "Opposed to all military precedent," are said to have figured prominently.
In February, in the middle of the rainy season, and while the snow still lay thick upon the Persian mountain passes, General Dunsterville had collected some motor transports and, taking with him a handful of officers, had made a dash for the Caspian Sea. His intention was to seize and hold Enzeli, the Persian port on the Caspian, in order either to bluff or to beat the Russian Bolsheviks there into submission, and to use it as a base for operations against Baku, which had become a stronghold of German-Turkish-Bolshevik activity.
After untold difficulties, one party crossed the rain-sodden Persian uplands, hewed a road over the snow-covered Assadabad Pass for their Ford cars, and, although severely tried by cold and hunger, succeeded in reaching Hamadan. Leaving a small band of men there to keep the unfriendly Persian population in check, Dunsterville pushed on for Kasvin, and thence to Resht, a few miles from Enzeli, brushing aside the stray bands of armed marauders that sought to bar his progress.
The goal was in sight, but, unsupported, and without supplies, and hundreds of miles from his small party at Hamadan, he found himself unable to hold on. His enemies were numerous and well-armed. Awed at first by the appearance of this handful of British officers who had unconcernedly motored into their midst after a seven-hundred-mile raid across Mesopotamia and Persia, the Bolsheviks and their German-subsidized Persian auxiliaries were for temporizing—nay, they even invited the British General to a conference to discuss the situation; and, in the hope of arriving at the basis of an understanding, Dunsterville accepted the invitation to confer with them.
In the meantime his enemies had not been idle. Their spies were quick to report that no British reinforcements were arriving. Dunsterville's numerical weakness was apparent, and the drooping spirits of the Bolshevik Council revived. It had been cowed into inaction, but now it grew bold, and its attitude became menacing. The British General was presented with an ultimatum demanding his immediate withdrawal on pain of capture and death.
There was no help for it. Withdraw Dunsterville must, and did. The Ford cars carrying the daring raiders sped away from the Bazaar of Resht and back to Hamadan, and through streets crowded with armed and hostile ruffians ripe for any crime.