the enemy showed no inclination to attack the main body of the British who, for some time, maintained a defensive attitude. In the spring, Maj.-Gen. Sir G. Gorringe was ordered to attack the Turks with the i2th division. The enemy retreated and Gorringe, after dealing with the hostile Beni Tauf, drove them back on Amara, which had meanwhile been captured by Maj.- Gen. Sir Charles Townshend. As a result of these operations, Persian soil was cleared of the enemy, the local tribes made their submission, the pipe-line was repaired, and the valuable oil again flowed along it.
German Activity in Persia. It is interesting to study the policy of Germany in the Middle East after the outbreak of the World War. Its object was to embarrass Russia and, still more, Great Britain, by forcing Persia and Afghanistan into the war on their side, and by creating disturbances on the frontiers of India and inside India. The scheme was sound, for, if Persia alone had declared for the Central Powers, the claim that Islam was on their side might have brought in Afghanistan. As it was, with comparatively small forces and at a relatively small cost, Germany certainly drew forces to Persia, which would otherwise have been available for other fronts. Had it been possible to march a Turkish brigade across Persia to Afghanistan, the Amir would probably have been obliged to join in an invasion of India or would have been killed. India at that time was weakly held, while the " Emden " had cut her sea communica- tions. In the many arguments shown for and against the advance on Bagdad, this important question is apt to be neglected.
The plan of operations in Persia was two-fold. Agents well- furnished with arms and money were sent to enlist levies and to march across central and southern Persia, murdering British and Russian officials, and plundering and driving out the small English colonies. These groups were to form supports to missions destined for Afghanistan and Baluchistan. These latter bore letters on vellum written to the address of the Amir of Afghanistan and the ruling princes of India, and signed by the German Foreign Secretary. They also had various German decorations for distribution. They carried on a propaganda which was anti-Christian, giving out that the Kaiser and his people had become converts to Islam and that the former was now known as Hajji Wilhelm. The most successful German agent and the earliest in the field was Wassmuss, who before the war was consul at Bushire. He succeeded in organizing a strong anti-British confederacy in Tangistan, Dashti and Dashtistan, although there was also a pro-British party in these districts. The attacks on Bushire forced the British to increase the small number of troops that normally sufficed to guard the important wireless installation and the cable. Its defence suffered from the fact that the cable station was at Reshire, six m. distant, while the residency and other houses occupied by the British covered a large area outside the town. The Tangistanis made several daring raids, in one of which two British officers were killed. The strongly anti-British attitude of the Persian Government, which made no effort to protect the British colony, resulted in the temporary occupation of Bushire by the British, a step that afforded German propaganda a real chance that was fully exploited. Generally speaking, the activity of Wass- muss detained troops at Bushire, which were sorely needed else- where. In Pars, too, Wassmuss was equally successful. He found Mukhbir es Sultaneh, the governor-general, strongly pro-German owing to his education at Berlin. He also found the Swedish officers of the gendarmerie equally friendly and, through their instrumental- ity, he won over that force to his side. As a result, in the autumn, the British vice-consul was murdered and, shortly afterwards, the consul and the entire colony were arrested and taken to the coast, the men being held prisoners by the Tangistanis, while the women were sent to Bushire. Qawam el Mulk, chief of the Khamseh Arabs, who was acting governor-general, was driven out and retired to Lingeh, thus leaving the German consul supreme in Fars.
The main route by which German parties entered Persia from Bagdad was through Kermanshah and Hamadan. In April 1915, the Turks advanced on Kermanshah with a force mainly composed of levies which expelled the British colony. The German consul at Kermanshah engaged levies and carried on a vigorous propaganda ; he also drove back the British and Russian consuls when they sought to return under Persian escort. At Isfahan, Pugin, dressed as a Persian, with the profession of Islam on his lips, persuaded the credulous citizens and their religious leaders that the Kaiser was indeed a hajji or pilgrim to Mecca. Assassination was deliberately employed. First the Russian vice-consul was murdered and, later, the British consul-general was wounded and his Indian orderly killed. A letter from a German official, Seiler, was subsequently intercepted, in which he gloried in having arranged this cowardly stroke. Farther E. at Yezd, enemy parties looted the treasury of the Imperial Bank of Persia, a British company, and drove out the colony; and, at Kerman, similar action was taken, together with the assassination of a prominent British subject. At the end of 1915, seven out of the seventeen branches of the Imperial Bank were in enemy hands and the British colonies had been expelled from central and southern Persia. Only the Gulf ports remained safe, thanks to British sea-power and garrisons.
In the N. the position was very different. Owing to the danger to which the Allied legations were exposed, Russian troops had landed at Enzeli in May and had marched to Kazvin whence, as the situation grew more menacing, they had advanced to the Karaj river, some 25 m. W. of Teheran. This movement produced a crisis. The enemy ministers perforce had to leave Teheran and, as the Persian Foreign Minister was on their side, they felt sure of persuad- ing the young Shah to follow them. Indeed, the dilemma of Sultan Ahmad was painful. On the one side, the enemy ministers warned him that Teheran would be stormed by the Russians, who would seize and probably kill him; on the other side the British and Russian representatives pointed out to His Majesty that if he left the capital and broke his neutrality by joining the ministers of the Central Powers, he might lose his throne. Finally the Shah decided to remain at Teheran. The enemy ministers retired to Qum, where they employed their forces in somewhat aimless raiding. This was soon stopped by Russian columns, and, before the end of the year, Russian troops had occupied Kashan and were threatening Isfahan.
German Mission to Afghanistan. One of the dangers to be guarded against was that of German missions to Afghanistan and Baluchistan. Efforts were made to intercept such parties, but it took time to make the necessary arrangements, and it was not until 1916 that the eastern Persian cordon was in working order with the Russians patrolling the frontier as far S. as Kam, from which centre the British, with some regular troops and a number of locally raised levies, were responsible to the borders of Baluchistan. Persia being a land of vast distances, it is not surprising that a German mission was able, by means of very long marches, to reach Herat in safety. It was received with every honour, but displayed extraordinary lack of tact by openly decrying everything of Afghan manufacture, the arms manufactured at the arsenal at the capital, for instance, being criticized contemptuously. At Kabul too, the same behaviour brought the mission into trouble. The Amir, who had received it courteously, delayed matters by summoning a council representative of all the tribes and by lengthy meetings with the mission and his own advisers. The Germans gradually realized that, without a Turkish force, their efforts were wasted. They were finally dis- missed, the Amir pointing out that he could hardly break with the Government of India until a large, well-equipped army reached Kabul from the west. The mission broke up into small parties, most of which successfully evaded the cordon. Other missions travelling farther S., including one to Bahram, Khan of Bampur, had no success whatever, the greedy Baluch in the last-named case strip- ping the enemy agents who were glad to escape with their lives.
Russo-Turkish Struggle in Western Persia. In 1916 the ebb and flow of the struggle were very marked in western Persia. At first the Turks, shortly after the retreat of the British from Ctesi- phon, occupied Kermanshah and pushed forward towards Hama- dan. The Russians in their turn, justly elated at their astounding feat of arms at Erzerum, advanced and drove the enemy off the plateau, while a second force swept the hostile Bakhtiaris out of Isfahan and brought back the British and Russian communities. The capture of Kut again transformed the military situation and, in the summer, the Turks, 16,000 strong with 54 guns, gradually drove back the Russians who could only oppose them with 1 2,000 men and 19 guns. Kermanshah was evacuated and then Hama- dan, the retreat continuing as far as the Sultan Bulak range which covered Kazvin and threatened a force marching on Tehe- ran. This situation remain unchanged until the end of the year.
Raising the South Persia Rifles. In 1916, it was decided, in consultation with the Persian Government, to organize a force of Persian troops to restore order in southern Persia and take the place of the Swedish gendarmerie. This force was to be 11,000 strong and the Cossack brigade was to be raised to a similar strength. Brig.-Gen. Sir Percy Sykes, who had spent many years in S. Persia, was appointed to undertake this task and landed at Bandar 'Abbas in March, with three other British officers and a few Indian instructors. The state of affairs was most unfavour- able as, apart from the defeat of Qawam, the British agent and his escort were assassinated at Lingeh and two British officers were assassinated in Makran about the same time, both murders being due to German instigation; and finally this terrible month of April saw the grave disaster of Kut al Amara. Many experienced men expected a wave of fanaticism to sweep across Persia and there was certainly cause for deep anxiety, especially in Makran, but British coolness undoubtedly saved the situation. Recruiting operations at Bandar 'Abbas were started immediately after landing and, in spite of a strong anti-British party, men were rapidly enlisted and, before the end of a month, the Persian flag was hoisted with ceremony over a camp. The force, handled with much tact and patience by its British and Indian instruc-
