Part 22

By this vote, the cabinet, according to the Persian constitution, ceased to exist as a legal entity.

Great crowds of people thronged the "Lalezar," one of the principal streets of Teheran, shouting death to the traitors and calling Allah to witness that they would give up their lives for their country.

A few days later, in a secret conference between the deputies of the Medjlis and the members of the deposed cabinet, a similar vote was given to reject the Russian demands. Meanwhile, thousands of Russian troops, with cossacks and artillery, were pouring into northern Persia, from Tiflis and Julfa by land and from Baku across the Caspian, to the Persian port of Enzeli, whence they took up their 220-mile march over the Elburz mountains toward Kasvin and Teheran.

In the government at Teheran, conference followed conference. Intrigues against the deputies gave way to threats. Through it all, with the increasing certainty of personal injury, the members of the Medjlis stood firmly by their vote.

It is impossible to describe within the limits of this article the days and nights of doubt, suspense, and anxiety that followed one another in the capital during this dark month of December. There was a lurking dread in the very air, and the snow-covered mountains themselves seemed afflicted with the mournful scenes through which the country was passing.

A boycott was proclaimed by the priests against Russian and English goods. In a day, the old-fashioned tramway of the city was deserted on the mere suspicion that it was owned in Russia, while an excited Belgian Minister rained protests and petitions on the Persian Foreign Office in an endeavor to show that the tramway was owned by his countrymen. Crowds of youths, students, and women filled the street, dragging absent-minded passengers from the cars, smashing the windows of shops that still displayed Russian goods, seeing that no one drank tea because it came from Russia, although produced in India, and going in processions before the gates of the foreign legations to demand justice of the representatives of the world powers for a people in the extremity of despair.

One day, the rumor would come that the chief "mullahs" or priests at Nadjef had proclaimed the "holy war" (_jihad_) against the Russians; on another, that the Russian troops had commenced to shoot up Kasvin on their march to Teheran.

At one time, when rumors were thick that the Medjlis would give in under the threats and attempted bribery which well-known Russian proteges were employing on many of its members, three hundred veiled and black-gowned Persian women, a large proportion with pistols concealed under their skirts or in the folds of their sleeves, marched suddenly to the Parliament grounds and demanded admission to the Chamber. The president of the Medjlis consented to receive a deputation from them. Once admitted into his presence, these honor-loving Persian mothers, wives, and daughters exhibited their weapons, and to show the grim seriousness of their words, they tore aside their veils, and threatened that they would kill their own husbands and sons, and end their own lives, if the deputies failed in their duty to uphold the dignity and the sovereignty of their beloved country.

When neither threats nor bribes availed against the Medjlis, Russia decreed its destruction by force.

In the early afternoon of December 24th, the deposed cabinet, having been themselves duly _persuaded_ to take the step, executed a _coup d'état_ against the Medjlis, and by a demonstration of gendarmes and Bakhtiyari tribesmen, succeeded in expelling all the deputies and employees who were within the Parliament grounds; after which the gates were locked and barred, and a strong detachment of the so-called Royal Regiment left in charge. The deputies were threatened with death if they attempted to return there or to meet in any other spot, and the city of Teheran immediately passed under military control. The self-constituted _directoire_ of seven who accomplished this dubious feat first ascertained that the considerable force of Bakhtiyari tribesmen, some 2,000, who had remained in the capital after the defeat of the ex-Shah's forces in September last, had been duly "fixed" by the same Russian agencies who had so early succeeded in persuading the members of the ex-cabinet that their true interests lay in siding with Russia. It is impossible to say just what proportions of fear and cupidity decided the members of the deposed cabinet to take the aliens' side against their country, but both emotions undoubtedly played a part. The premier was one of the leading chiefs or "khans" of the Bakhtiyaris, and another chief was the self-styled Minister of War. These chieftains have always been a strange and changing mixture of mountain patriot and city intriguer--of loyal soldier and mercenary looter. The mercenary instincts, possibly aided by a sense of their own comparative helplessness against Russian Cossacks and artillery, led them to accept the stranger's gold and fair promises, and they ended their checkered but theretofore relatively honorable careers by selling their country for a small pile of cash and the more alluring promise that the "grand viziership" (_i.e.,_ post of Minister of Finance) should be perpetual in their family or clan.

That same afternoon a large number of the "abolished" deputies came to my office. They were men whom I had grown to know well, men of European education, in whose courage, integrity, and patriotism I had the fullest confidence. To them, the unlawful action of their own countrymen was more than a political catastrophe; it was a sacrilege, a profanation, a heinous crime. They came in tears, with broken voices, with murder in their hearts, torn by the doubt as to whether they should kill the members of the _directoire_ and drive out the traitorous tribesmen who had made possible the destruction of the government, or adopt the truly Oriental idea of killing themselves. They asked my advice, and, hesitating somewhat as to whether I should interfere to save the lives of notorious betrayers of their country, I finally persuaded them to do neither the one nor the other. There seemed to be no particular good in assassinating even their treacherous countrymen, as it would only have given color to the pretensions of Russia and England that the Persians were not capable of maintaining order.

AN EXHIBITION OF SELF-RESTRAINT

When the last representative element of the constitutional government, for which so many thousands had fought, suffered, and died, was wiped out in an hour without a drop of blood being shed, the Persian people gave to the world an exhibition of temperance, of moderation, of stern self-restraint, the like of which no other civilized country could show under similar trying circumstances.

The acceptance of Russia's terms by the Cabinet removed the last pretext for keeping in Northern Persia the _15,000_ troops which by that time Russia had assembled there,--at Kasvin, Resht, Enzeli, Tabriz, Khoy, and other points in the so-called Russian sphere. Mons. Poklewski-Koziell, the Russian Minister, had in fact given an equivocal sort of a promise to the effect that "if no fresh incidents arose," the Russian troops would be withdrawn when Persia accepted the conditions of the ultimatum.

With this in mind, it is interesting to note the truly thorough precautions which were taken by Russia to prevent any such unfortunate necessity as the withdrawal of her troops from coming to pass.

December 24th, late in the evening, a message was received from the Persian Acting Governor at Tabriz in which he declared that the Russian troops, which had been stationed in that city since their entry during the siege in 1909, _had suddenly started to massacre the inhabitants_. Shortly after this the Indo-European telegraph lines stopped working, and all news from Tabriz ceased. It was subsequently stated that the wires had been cut by bullets. _Additional Russian troops_ were immediately started for Tabriz from Julfa, which is some eight miles to the north of the Russian frontier.

The exact way in which the fighting began is not yet clear. The Persian government reports show that a number of Russian soldiers, claiming to be stringing a telephone wire, climbed upon the roof of the Persian police headquarters about _ten o'clock at night_ on December 20th. When challenged by native guards, they replied with shots. Reenforcements were called up by both sides, and serious street fighting broke out early the following morning and continued for several days. The Acting Governor stated in his official reports that the Russian troops indulged in their usual atrocities, killing women and children and hundreds of other noncombatants on the streets and in their homes. There were at the time about 4,000 Russian soldiers, with two batteries of artillery, in and around the city. Nearly I,000 of the _fidais_ ("self-devoted") of Tabriz took refuge in an old citadel of stone and mud, called the "Ark." They were without artillery or adequate provisions, and were poorly armed, but it was certain death for one of them to be seen on the streets.

The Russians bombarded the "Ark" for a day or more, killing a large proportion of its defenders. The superior numbers and the artillery of the Russians finally conquered, and there followed a reign of terror during which no Persian's life or honor was safe. At one time during this period the Russian Minister at Teheran, at the request of the members of the Persian cabinet, who were horror-stricken and in fear of their lives for having made terms with such a barbaric nation, telegraphed to the Russian general in command of the troops at Tabriz, telling him to cease fighting, and that the _fidais_ would receive orders to do likewise, as matters were being arranged at the capital. The gallant general replied that he took his orders from the Viceroy of the Caucasus at Tiflis, and not from any one at Teheran. The massacre went on.

On New Year's day, which was the 10th of _Muharram_, a day of great mourning which is held sacred in the Persian religious calendar, the Russian military governor, who had hoisted Russian flags over the government buildings at Tabriz, hung the Sikutu'l-Islam, who was the chief priest of Tabriz, two other priests, and five others, among them several high officials of the Provincial Government. As one British journalist put it, the effect of this outrage on the Persians was that which would be produced on the English people by the hanging of the Archbishop of Canterbury on Good Friday. From this time on, the Russians at Tabriz continued to hang or shoot any Persian whom they chose to consider guilty of the crime of being a "Constitutionalist." When the fighting there was first reported, a high official of the Foreign Office at St. Petersburg, in an interview to the press, made the statement that Russia would take vengeance into her own hands until the "revolutionary dregs" had been exterminated.

One more significant fact: At the same time that the fighting broke out at Tabriz, the Russian troops at Resht and Enzeli, hundreds of miles away, shot down the Persian police and many inhabitants without warning or provocation of any kind. And the date also happened to be just after the Persian cabinet had definitely informed the Russian Legation that all the demands of Russia's ultimatum were accepted--a condition which the British Government had publicly assured the Persians would be followed by the withdrawal of the Russian invading forces, and which the Russian Government had officially confirmed, "_unless fresh incidents should arise_ in the mean time to make the retention of the troops advisable."

I would suggest that the Powers--England and Russia--may _think_ that they thus escape all responsibility for what goes on in Persia, but the world has long since grown familiar with such methods. Mere cant, however seriously put forth in official statements, no longer blinds educated public opinion as to the facts in these acts of international brigandage. The truth is that England and Russia are still playing a hand in the game of medieval diplomacy.

The puerility of talking of Persia having affronted Russian consular officers or of Persia's Treasurer-General having appointed a British subject to be a tax collector at Tabriz, as the reasons for Russia's aggressive and brutal policy in Persia, is only too apparent. Volumes would not contain the bare record of the acts of aggression, deceit, and cruelty which Russian agents have committed against Persian sovereignty and the constitutional government since the deposition of Muhammad Ali in 1909.

DISCOVERY OF THE SOUTH POLE A.D. 1911

ROALD AMUNDSEN

On December 16, 1911, a Norwegian exploring party headed by Captain Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole. The discovery thus followed with surprising closeness after Peary's triumph in reaching the North Pole in 1909.

Antarctic exploration had never attracted so much attention as that of the far north; partly because an almost impossible ice barrier a hundred feet high was known to extend across the southern ocean at about the parallel of the Antarctic Circle. In 1908, however, an English expedition under Lieutenant Shackleton managed to penetrate beyond this barrier in the region south of New Zealand and reached to within less than two hundred miles of the pole. They established the fact that in contrast to the deep waters which flow above the northern Pole, the southern Pole is raised upon an Antarctic mountain continent many thousand feet in height. Shackleton's success led to several other expeditions, and in 1910 three separate parties made almost simultaneous efforts to reach the Pole, one from Japan and one from England, as well as the Norwegian one.

We give here Captain Amundsen's own account of his expedition as first explained by him before the Berlin Geographical Society and published by the New York Geographical Society in their bulletin.

The glowing success of Amundsen's expedition throws into sharpest relief the tragedy of the parallel English expedition. Captain Scott, the leader of this party, also reached the Pole after a far more desperate struggle. But he reached it on January 18, 1912, only to find that his Norwegian rival had preceded him, and he and his entire party died of starvation and exhaustion on their return journey toward their camp.

The first aim of my expedition was the attainment of the South Pole. I have the honor to report the accomplishment of the plan.

I can only mention briefly here the expeditions which have worked in the region which we had selected for our starting-point. As we wished to reach the South Pole our first problem was to go south as far as possible with our ship and there establish our station. Even so, the sled journeys would be long enough. I knew that the English expedition would again choose their old winter quarters in McMurdo Sound, South Victoria Land, as their starting-point. From newspaper report it was known that the Japanese had selected King Edward VII. Land. In order to avoid these two expeditions we had to establish our station on the Great Ice Barrier as far as possible from the starting-points of the two other expeditions.

The Great Ice Barrier, also called the Ross Barrier, lies between South Victoria Land and King Edward VII. Land and has an extent of about 515 miles. The first to reach this mighty ice formation was Sir James Clark Ross in 1841. He did not dare approach the great ice wall, 100 feet high, with his two sailing ships, the _Erebus_ and the _Terror_, whose progress southward was impeded by this mighty obstacle. He examined the ice wall from a distance, however, as far as possible. His observations showed that the Barrier is not a continuous, abrupt ice wall, but is interrupted by bays and small channels. On Ross's map a bay of considerable magnitude may be seen.

The next expedition was that of the _Southern Cross_ in 1900. It is interesting to note that this party found the bay mentioned above at the same place where Ross had seen it in 1841, nearly sixty years before; that this expedition also was able to land a few miles to the east of the large bay in a small bay, named Balloon Bight, and from there to ascend the Ice Barrier, which heretofore had been considered an insurmountable obstacle to further advance toward the south.

In 1901 the _Discovery_ steamed along the Barrier and confirmed in every respect what the _Southern Cross_ had observed. Land was also discovered in the direction indicated by Ross, namely, King Edward VII. Land. Scott, too, landed in Balloon Bight, and, like his predecessors, saw the large bay to the west.

In 1908 Shackleton arrived there on the _Nimrod_. He, too, followed along the edge of the Ice Barrier. He came to the conclusion that disturbances had taken place in the Ice Barrier. The shore line of Balloon Bight, he thought, had changed and merged with the large bay to the west. This large bay, which he thought to be of recent origin, he named Bay of Whales. He gave up his original plan of landing there, as the Ice Barrier appeared to him too dangerous for the establishment of winter quarters.

It was not difficult to determine that the bay shown on Ross's map and the so-called Bay of Whales are identical; it was only necessary to compare the two maps. Except for a few pieces that had broken off from the Barrier, the bay had remained the same for the last seventy years. It was therefore possible to assume that the bay did not owe its origin to chance and that it must be underlaid by land, either in the form of sand banks or otherwise.

This bay we decided upon as our base of operations. It lies 400 miles from the English station in McMurdo Sound and 115 miles from King Edward VII. Land. We could therefore assume that we should be far enough from the English sphere of interest and need not fear crossing the route of the English expedition. The reports concerning the Japanese station on King Edward VII. Land were indefinite: we took it for granted, however, that a distance of 115 miles would suffice.

On August 9, 1910, we left Norway on the _Fram_, the ship that had originally been built for Nansen. We had ninety-seven superb Eskimo dogs and provisions for two years. The first harbor we reached was Madeira. There the last preparations were made for our voyage on the Ross Barrier--truly not an insignificant distance which we had to cover, namely, 16,000 nautical miles from Norway to the Bay of Whales. We had estimated that this trip would require five months. The _Fram_, which has justly been called the stanchest polar ship in the world, on this voyage across practically all of the oceans, proved herself to be extremely seaworthy. Thus we traversed without a single mishap the regions of the northeast and of the southeast trades, the stormy seas of the "roaring forties," the fogs of the fifties, the ice-filled sixties, and reached our field of work at the Ice Barrier on January 14, 1911. Everything had gone splendidly.

The ice in the Bay of Whales had just broken up, and we were able to advance considerably farther south than any of our predecessors had done. We found a quiet little nook behind a projecting ice cape; from here we could transfer our equipment to the Barrier with comparative safety. Another great advantage was that the Barrier at this place descended very gradually to the sea ice, so that we had the best possible surface for our sleds. Our first undertaking was to ascend the Barrier in order to get a general survey and to determine a suitable place for the erection of the house which we had brought with us. The supposition that this part of the Barrier rests on land seemed to be confirmed immediately by our surroundings. Instead of the smooth, flat surface which the outer wall of the Barrier presents, we here found the surface to be very uneven. We everywhere saw sharp hills, and points between which there were pressure-cracks and depressions filled with large masses of drift. These features were not of recent date. On the contrary, it was easy to see that they were very old and that they must have had their origin at a time which long preceded the period of Ross's visit.

Originally we had planned to establish our station several miles from the edge of the Barrier, in order not to subject ourselves to the danger of an unwelcome and involuntary sea trip, which might have occurred had the part of the Barrier on which we erected our house broken off. This precaution, however, was not necessary, as the features which we observed on our first examination of the area offered a sufficient guaranty for the stability of the Barrier at this point.

In a small valley, hardly two and a half miles from the ship's anchorage, we therefore selected a place for our winter quarters. It was protected from the wind on all sides. On the next day we began unloading the ship. We had brought with us material for house-building as well as equipment and provisions for nine men for several years. We divided into two groups, the ship's group and the land group. The first was composed of the commander of the ship, Captain Nilsen, and the nine men who were to stay on board to take the _Fram_ out of the ice and to Buenos Aires. The other group consisted of the men who were to occupy the winter quarters and march on to the south. The ship's group had to unload everything from the ship upon the ice. There the land group took charge of the cargo and brought it to the building site. At first we were rather unaccustomed to work, as we had had little exercise on the long sea voyage. But before long we were all "broken in," and then the transfer to the site of our home "Framheim" went on rapidly; the house grew daily.

When all the material had been landed our skilled carpenters, Olav Bjaaland and Jorgen Stubberud, began building the house. It was a ready-made house, which we had brought with us; nothing had to be done but to put together the various numbered parts. In order that the house might brave all storms, its bottom rested in an excavation four feet beneath the surface. On January 28th, fourteen days after our arrival, the house was completed, and all provisions had been landed. A gigantic task had been performed; everything seemed to point toward a propitious future. But no time was to be lost; we had to make use of every minute.

The land group had in the mean time been divided into two parties, one of which saw to it that the provisions and equipment still lacking were taken out of the ship. The other party was to prepare for an excursion toward the south which had in view the exploration of the immediate environs and the establishment of a depot.

On February 10th the latter group marched south. There were four of us with eighteen dogs and three sleds packed with provisions. That morning of our start is still vividly in my memory. The weather was calm, the sky hardly overcast. Before us lay the large, unlimited snow plain, behind us the Bay of Whales with its projecting ice capes and at its entrance our dear ship, the _Fram_. On board the flag was hoisted; it was the last greeting from our comrades of the ship. No one knew whether and when we should see each other again. In all probability our comrades would no longer be there when we returned; a year would probably elapse before we could meet again. One more glance backward, one more parting greeting and then--forward.