A HISTORY OF PERSIL*
SIR Penos Suss has not only revised his valuable history of Persia from the earliest times, but has also added to the second edition a new and lengthy section dealing with Persia since 1914. His narrative of events in which he played a leading part, as head of the British military mission to Southern Persia, is most opportune and helps to explain the present situation in that hapless country. At the outset of the war, he says, Russia was hated because she was occupying Tabriz, and we were disliked because we were Russia's allies. The Turks and Kurds invaded Western Russia, and Persia's only disciplined force, the gendarmerie under Swedish officers, was soon found to be in German pay. The author says that General Nixon rapidly advanced up the Tigris from Basra in order to prevent the Turks from marching across Persia to Afghanistan and stirring up the Ameer to invade India. Sir Charles Townshend's gallant stand at Kut, in the author's view, delayed the Turkish plan until it was too late. The capture of Erzerum by the Russians in the winter of 1915-16 gave the Turks plenty to do nearer home. Meanwhile, through the year 1915 German agents were busy throughout Persia, under the lead of a certain Wassmuss, in stirring up sedition and plotting the assassination of the British consuls and officers. At Shiraz in November, 13}15, the Germans and some hired bandits from the hills captured the British consul, Colonel O'Connor, and the few British residents, and held them as prisoners. In the other principal towns, the Germans, by, craft and violence, gained control and expelled the British and Russian colonies. In Teheran itself the young Sultan was almost persuaded to join the enemy and declare war on the Allies. A small Russian force appeared at the critical moment and scattered the German and Persian mercenaries. A German mission contrived to reach Kabul, before a British cordon was History of Persia. By Brigadier-Gemini 131rEetcy Sykes. 2 vols. Second Edition. Lon Macmillan. lf.3 10s. nct.1
established along the Afghan frontier, but ft failed to impress the Ameer because it was not supported by a Turkish army. Another party tried to penetrate into Baluchistan, but it was headed off, and some of its members were captured. The Persian Government looked on helplessly at these German and Turkish outrages ; the Ministers at Teheran could do nothing to defend the theoretical neutrality of Persia.
Early in 1916, when Kut was still holding out, Sir Percy Sykes was sent to South Persia to raise a Persian police force for the restoration of law and order. He was given three British and three Indian officers, twenty Indian non-commissioned officers, and twenty-five Indian troopers as an escort, and was sent to Bandar Abbas. At the same time General Dyer was entrusted with the task of patrolling the Perso-Afghan frontier, and did his work admirably. The German agents at Kerman, after trying to murder the local Persian commandant and quarrelling with the tribesmen, left the town and were caught by a friendly chief who put them in gaol. Sir Percy Sykes was then authorized to go to Kerman, at the head of a small force, composed of a squadron of the 15th Lancers, part of a Baluchi battalion, and a section of a mountain battery. With this little body of disci- plined men as a nucleus, he was able to recruit and train some thousands of Persian police, and to take over the half-starved and mutinous Swedish gendarmerie. He then proceeded to put down brigandage and to construct roads on which motor- cars could travel. For the first time in the memory of man Southern Persia enjoyed the blessings of order, and traders could pass from lawn to town without being robbed or murdered. In 1917 -the British force was reinforced by a Rajput battalion and three squadrons, and was able to deal with some of the worst robber tribes. Unluckily, the collapse of Russia gave fresh encouragement to the forces of disorder, with whom the Bolsheviks and Turks intrigued. General Dunsterville's expedi- tion to the Caspian of 1918 checked but could not defeat. the enemy, because the Caucasian peoples were cowardly and dis- united. In the spring of that year the powerful Kashgai tribe, encouraged by anti-British politicians at Teheran and by news of the Allied reverses in France, decided to attack Sir Percy Sykes's troops at Shiraz. Some of the Persian levies mutinied and caused the death of Captain Will and Sergeant Comber. But in four sharp actions during the summer the Kashgais were defeated with heavy loss, and Shiraz was saved. The author, however, makes it clear that neither the people of Shiraz nor the Ministers at Teheran were grateful to him and his men. He thinks, indeed, that the Ministry would have welcomed news of his defeat, although he had re-established their authority in provinces which had long repudiated the central government. He finds consolation in " a memory of peasants ploughing the land in a village deserted a generation ago owing to nomad oppression and of hearing from a fine old greybeard the words,
This is your work.' "
It is the nature of the Persian, the author says, to denounce a good Minister when he is in office and to lament him when he has gone. Similarly, Great Britain has earned little but dislike as the result of her unselfish efforts to galvanize Persia into new life. Even Lord Curzon has now abandoned the ungrateful task, and Persia, having dismissed all British officers and officials and having disbanded the South Persia Rifles for want of money to pay them, is nominally free and actually impotent in face of the Bolsheviks and Turks Lenin has taken over the old aggressive policy of the Tsars in Persia and will doubtless absorb the northern provinces, if his despotism survives a winter of famine Sir Percy Sykes evidently wishes to believe that Persia may escape her fate ; " she may burn her fingers in the hot seething cauldron of Russian Bolshevism and will then bitterly repent." Whatever be the outcome of the intrigues in Teheran, it is clear that the regeneration of Persia, if it be possible, will be a long and weary business. Insecurity is, of course, the root of all evil. As in the later Byzantine Empire, so in modern Russia, the nomad tribes attack travellers on the roads and harry the peasants. The result is that trade generally declines, the industries of the towns languish, and the land, except near the towns, goes out of cultivation. Much of Persia is naturally desert, but much of the land now lying waste formerly supported a large and thriving population. Some geographers like Mr. Huntington presume that Central .Asia is drying up ; it is safer to attribute the changes that have come about since the days of the early Caliphs to the folly and neglect of man. Repeated Mongol invasions broke up the civilized society of "Persia, as of Irak
and Syria, and what the Mongols began the nomads have continued to this day. Much has been written about railway- building in Persia. Sir Percy Sykes, who knows the country well, admits that, though railways are desirable from a political standpoint, "it is difficult to see how an investor could expect to receive a fair return for his money in such an enterprise under ordinary conditions." Little can be done, he thinks, by large irrigation schemes on the Indian model. Yet it is conceivable that if the peasantry were freed from the continual menace of the robber tribes, and from the exactions of landlords and corrupt officials, they might once again practise the methods of irrigation by wells and underground channels which are traditional in Persia and Baluchistan. No one, however, who knows anything of Persia can seriously believe that a Persian administration will give the peasants security and justice. The cultivated area will therefore continue to diminish, and still more of Persia will revert to the desert.
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