CHAPTER XII

DUNSTERVILLE STRIKES AFRESH

Official hindrances--A fresh blow for the Caucasus--The long road to Tabriz--A strategic centre--A Turkish invasion--Rising of Christian tribes--A local Joan of Arc--The British project.

By the middle of May Dunsterville began to feel his feet. Reinforcements were trickling in, officers and N.C.O's., but no fighting men, and always in the _petits paquets_ so beloved by the parsimonious-minded officials who sat at General Headquarters down in Bagdad.

Dunsterville's own position was not an enviable one. His path was beset by difficulties of every description, and, much against his wish, he found himself engaged in a kind of triangular duel with British officialdom at home and abroad. First the Minister in Teheran, and apparently also the Foreign Office, were wringing their hands in despair, asking what he was doing in Persia at all, and urging him to "move on" towards the Caucasus. Next there was Bagdad, who, deeply incensed that Dunsterville had an independent command, and was in direct communication with the War Office, never lost a chance of putting a retarding spoke in his wheel, {133} even going to the extent of telegraphing up the line that no member of "Dunsterforce" was to be furnished with supplies from the military canteens. Then, finally, there was the War Office, who had sent him to Persia in the first instance because it was the most direct route to the centre of Bolshevik activities in the Caucasus. For some time they continued to support him against the pretensions of Bagdad, but ultimately they yielded, and Dunsterville and his force became subordinate to the Bagdad command. Of course, there were, in addition, the malcontents amongst the Persians, notably the Democrats and their Turkish-German sympathizers, who had more than a passing interest in all this bickering and wrangling. They, too, were anxious that a British force should not sit down indefinitely in Persia.

At last it was determined to do something and to strike a fresh blow for the Caucasus; but the initiative no longer rested with Dunsterville. It had passed to Bagdad. New difficulties arose immediately. How were the Caucasus to be reached--by the Caspian Sea and thence by steamer to Baku? Or overland from northwards, through the province of Azarbaijan to Tabriz and railhead?

The direct route to the Caspian from Hamadan was not possible, because Kuchik Khan and his Jungalis still held the Manjil-Resht section of the road, and Dunsterville unaided was not then strong enough to turn them out. True, there were the Russian auxiliaries under Bicherakoff, but these valued allies {134} were making ready for an offensive in their own leisurely fashion, and were not to be "speeded up" by any known methods of British hustling.

From Hamadan to Tabriz by way of Zinjan is about three hundred miles. The route for the most part lies over difficult and mountainous country, where supplies are scarce or hard to procure. The wild and scattered tribesmen are not noted for extreme friendliness. Zinjan itself is 115 miles from Hamadan in a northerly direction. The next important stage on the road to Tabriz is Mianeh, eighty-five miles north-west of Zinjan. From Mianeh, Tabriz itself is distant about one hundred miles.

Tabriz, the ancient Tauris, and capital of the province of Azarbeijan, is the largest city in the Persian Empire, and the most important commercial centre in all Iran. It is the residence of the Valiahd, or heir-apparent to the Persian throne. It occupies much the same position in north-western Persia as does Meshed in the north-eastern part of the country. Marco Polo visited it during his long overland trek to far Cathay, and found it a fair city, full of busy merchants and wealthy citizens.

But for the British, seeking to arrive within fighting distance of the Turks, Germans, and Russian Bolsheviks overrunning the Caucasus, Tabriz had its own special military importance. It was a point of great strategic value. Julfa, on the Russian-Persian frontier, and ninety miles from Tabriz, is the terminus of the Trans-Caucasian Railway which runs to Tiflis, {135} the Caucasian capital and main British objective. Tiflis is 320 miles from Tabriz. The railway from the former city continues west to Poti and Batum, the shipping ports on the Black Sea, and east (also from Tiflis Junction) to Baku and its oilfields on the Caspian Sea.

From Julfa, connecting with the Trans-Caucasian Railway, a Russian company had built a branch line to Tabriz, and an extension to Sharaf Khane on the eastern shore of Lake Urumia. On the lake itself was a fleet of Russian-owned steamers, which maintained communication between the railhead at Sharaf Khane and Urumia city, famous as the legendary birthplace of Zoroaster, which is on the western shore of the lake, and about twenty-five miles from Sharaf Khane.

When the Russian Army, stricken by the deadly plague of Bolshevism, retreated northwards towards Tiflis, they accommodatingly left behind at Sharaf Khane, for the use of the first comer, their fleet of lake steamers, hundreds of guns of heavy and medium calibre, dumps of shells and small-arms ammunition, thousands of serviceable rifles, and quantities of other military stores.

The Turkish frontier line, passing about forty-five miles west of Urumia, continues due north to its junction with the territorial boundaries of Russia and Persia on the perpetual snow-clad summit of the Greater Mount Ararat. The region round Lake Van having been cleared of potential enemies--the {136} Russians had retired, and the Armenians were put to the sword--the Turks, swinging eastward, lost no time in crossing the frontier and violating Persian territory. They pleaded military exigencies for the step they had taken, and turned a very deaf and unsympathetic ear to the mere paper remonstrances of the Persian Government. But in the invaded territory they met with severe and unexpected opposition, not from their own Islamic kindred, but from hated and despised Infidels of the Christian sect.

Urumia is the centre of a thickly populated Christian district, and the headquarters of French, Armenian, American, Russian, and British religious missions to the Nestorian Christians. These latter, with few exceptions, inhabit the plains and lowlands; but in the bleak, almost inaccessible mountain regions, live and thrive some brave and warlike tribes who are also Nestorian Christians, and who are generically known as Jelus. They had suffered much from religious persecution at the hands of Kurd, Persian, and Turk, and over and over again in their mountain eyries, with rifles in their hands, they had put up a brave fight against the Moslem oppressor in defence of hearth and home and the temples of their faith.

Nestorians and Jelus once more made common cause against the common Turkish enemy. Already warned by the fate of the hapless Armenians, they were under no delusion as to what would befall them should the Osmanli triumph--it meant extermination, root and branch.

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Badly equipped and badly armed, but heroically led, the combined Jelu Army took the field under Agre Petros, generalissimo, and Mar Shimon, the Nestorian Patriarch. With the latter went his sister, Surma Khanin, who fought in the ranks of the Christian army, and whose lion-like bravery and devotion under enemy fire speedily led to her being known as the Nestorian Jeanne d'Arc.

A force of Turkish regulars belonging to the 6th Division, plundering and burning as it went, on May 17th was surprised by the Jelus on the River Barandoz, south of Urumia, and cut to pieces, the victors capturing the guns and greater part of the supplies. Thus came to naught the Turkish plan for the taking of Urumia by means of a combined attack from the south and from Salmas in the north! The captured artillery and supplies gave the Jelus a new lease of military life, and they were able for some time afterwards to keep the Turk at bay. Everyone realized that, without military help from the British, the Urumia Christians must be overwhelmed by the Turks sooner or later.

This, then, was briefly the situation towards the middle of May. The Turk, battered and bruised after his encounter with the Jelus, was pulling himself together for another and more carefully prepared spring. He hung around Khoi, whence he threatened Urumia on the western shore of the lake, and Sharaf Khane and its rich booty of Russian guns and military stores on the eastern shore.

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While the Turk was probably inwardly debating whether he should not bring matters to a climax by descending on Tabriz to possess himself of the Persian end of the Trans-Caucasian Railway and the Russian military stores at Sharaf Khane all at one swoop, some official folk in remote Bagdad and remoter London were discussing between themselves with great earnestness and energy whether it would not be possible and practicable to forestall him by marching a column from Hamadan to occupy Tabriz, seize the railhead, establish a base for operations against Tiflis and the Caucasus generally, and stretch out a helping hand to the sorely pressed Nestorian-Jelu Army on the other side of Lake Urumia.

The British Minister in Teheran got wind of the project and jumped upon it heavily. The Persians would not like it; it would offend their susceptibilities; they were almost certain to be annoyed, and diplomatic complications, etc., etc., were sure to follow. It is a little way British Ministers sometimes have. They become over-zealous and over-cautious, ever dreading a hair-breadth departure from the narrow limits of the conventional protocol. There followed a good deal of official wobbling and indecision. First the "Ayes" had it, then the "Noes," and meanwhile much precious time was wasted. Ultimately, some strong man somewhere--it is rumoured that he lives down Whitehall way--got a firm grip of the problem, and flung his weight into the scale on the side of the "Ayes"; and the {139} "Noes," including the far-seeing Minister, were routed.

The word "go" was given in Hamadan, and then began the great Olympian race--the goal Tabriz, with Turk and Briton pitted one against the other.

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