Martin Henry Donohoe

“ 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! ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the bazaar they buzzed about like so many poisonous gadflies, and in order to curry favour with their new masters-to-be they incited the people to anti-British demonstrations, and beat and imprisoned humble folk whose friendship for our nation was disinterested and had not been offered on the local commercial basis of so many krans per pound. With one exception, all the district notables—who had always been reiterating their professions of friendship, and to whom we had paid large sums as subsidies for faithless, turn-tail levies, or as purchase price for grain—went over to the enemy. ”

“ Men and women, shrivelled and huddled heaps of stricken humanity, lay dead in the public ways, their stiffened fingers still clutching a bunch of grass plucked from the roadside, or a few roots torn up from the fields with which they had sought to lessen the tortures of death from starvation. At other times a gaunt, haggard figure, bearing some resemblance to a human being, would crawl on all fours across the roadway in front of the approaching car, and with signs rather than speech plead for a crust of bread. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I always did, and always shall, admire the wonderful patience and clemency exercised by Dunsterville when faced with the Democratic organization, which aimed at nothing short of wiping out both himself and his force in Hamadan, if not by a tour de force, then by starvation. They were always inciting the populace to rise and finish us. But hungry men have little stomach for blood-letting, and although those in Hamadan found it difficult enough to exist owing to the food shortage, they were in no hurry to abridge their unhappy days by flinging themselves on British bayonets. ”

“ We got clear of the Pass shortly after daylight. Fortunately the Turks were not there to intercept our march. With the passing of the long night vigil, and the coming of the dawn, gloom was dispelled; life assumed a rosier tint, and the levies recovered some of their lost spirits and waning courage. Once free of the imprisoning hills, and out on the broad plateau that dipped southwards to intersect the Tabriz road, we headed straight for Turkmanchai. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Shutters would go up and shopkeepers would vanish as if by magic, while the small force of Persian police in the place, who were usually suffering from the combined effects of malnutrition and arrears of pay, would discreetly go to cover, and not be seen again until the visitors had departed. Usually a British military policeman, armed with a stout stick, would be sent to handle the delicate situation, to see that there was no looting, and that the King's peace was preserved inviolate by these quarrel-seeking, pilfering rascals from beyond the hills. ”

“ Each carried a small silver-headed axe at the "slope," as a cavalry trooper does a sabre.
As they approached, my first feeling was one of alarm, and my hand instinctively sought my revolver holster. Seeing this, the foremost raised his hand in friendly salutation, and greeted me with, "Peace be upon thee, O stranger!" They proved to be wandering dervishes who begged their way from end to end of Persia, and to judge by their raiment and their general well-to-do appearance, it must be a profitable occupation. ”

“ It lost its grip on the people. There is nothing a Persian, or indeed any Oriental, hates so much as being made to look ridiculous; and the Democrats became the target for quip and jest in the bazaars of Hamadan, until in rage they plucked their beards and tore their garments, exclaiming, in accents of sorrow and humiliation, "Alas, what ashes have fallen on our heads to-day!" ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ We were now well over the frontier, and found ourselves in a land of desolation and death. Our way lay past ruined and deserted villages, many of the inhabitants of which had been blotted out by famine. Beyond a few Persian road guards in British pay, or an occasional native labour corps road-making under the protection of a detachment of Indian Infantry, the country seemed destitute of life. ”

“ Armed robbers roamed from hill to plain and back again, holding up and looting passing caravans, preying upon the miserable inhabitants in the remote villages, and relieving them of anything in the nature of food and live-stock that the greedy maw of Turk and Russian had inadvertently overlooked. ”

“ The inhabitants, or at least those of them who were too poor to take flight, turned out en masse to speed the parting troops. They had got to know and to admire the splendid British soldier who is always a gentleman, who had fought the battle of the Persian people against Kurdish brigand and Turkish regular, and whose ofttimes scanty ration he was always ready to share with any roadside starveling who crossed his path. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In that corner of upper Azerbaijan, from the Tabriz road east to Ardabil and the Caspian Sea, and north towards the Russian frontier, there roam free and unhampered a score or so of sub-tribes of the Shahsavan Clan, wild and lawless rascals for the most part, but not wanting in courage or in that rude chivalry common to the Asiatic hillmen. The Shahsavani handle a rifle skilfully. Pillaging is for them both a livelihood and a distraction. ”

“ But I am tilting rather at the theory prevalent in certain quarters at the inception of the Tabriz Expedition that one had only to send British officers into the highways and byways of Azerbaijan and that they would find there "ready-made" soldiers endowed with a fine fighting spirit, hardly inferior in quality to our own superb infantry, men who would stand up to trained and efficient soldiers like the Turks. ”

“ If a Turkish emissary, backing up his persuasive pleadings with a bag of gold, besought him to put an end to neutrality and to place his resources and his small army of irregulars at the service of his blood relatives, the Amir always accepted the gold cheerfully, and fervently wished success to the Turkish arms. Then the British, not to be outdone by the Turk, would ask, as a guarantee of his good faith, for fifty or a hundred armed levies from amongst his tribesmen. ”

“ Armenians, Georgians, and Tartars, all victims of Turkish misrule, but hating each other more cordially than they collectively hated the Osmanli oppressor, wrangling over their respective claims to independent nationhood, varied by the absorbing passion of slitting each other's throats, were all too busy to seek to make common cause against the Bolshevik wolf when it appeared before their fold in the guise of a German lamb. ”

“ Despite the stiffening of British troops in the front line, the moral encouragement of British officers, and the active material support of British artillery and British armoured cars, it was found impossible to infuse any real or lasting enthusiasm into the Baku army. It had its own ethics of fighting and stuck to them. War, it was felt, was a job not to be taken too seriously, and must never be allowed to interfere with one's customary distractions, nor with one's business or social engagements. ”

“ 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. ”

“ So it was that on our further progress ragged and cringing peasants, all semblance of manhood driven out of them by hunger and oppression, would crawl forth into the light of day from some dark hovel to beg, firstly for their lives, and secondly for a morsel of bread. ”

“ So the merry game goes on, and up amongst the snows of Kurdistan Persian and Kurd and Turk kill each other on the slightest pretext, and often for no ascertainable cause.
The Kurd is always well armed, and usually well mounted—often at the expense of some lowland Persian villager. He invariably affects the national costume, which is an abbreviated coat and enormous baggy trousers, with a capacious Kamarband of coloured silk in which he carries pipe, knife, and odds and ends.
Ten armed Kurds riding into Bijar, a town of 10,000 inhabitants, would start a panic in the Bazaar. ”

“ What I liked about the Kurds was their habit—the common inheritance of most free men—of looking their interlocutor straight in the face. Their women, many possessing great physical beauty, and glorious creatures all, would crowd round to do the honours to those visiting their village. ”

“ The Persian Democrats therefore linked up with the Bolsheviks. But it would be erroneous to assume that their ranks were recruited entirely from disinterested patriots, inspired by the highest altruistic ideals, burning to rid their country of the foreigner—be he Briton, Turk, or Russian—in order that Persia might be free to work out her own political salvation in her own way and without interference from anybody. ”

“ Should the victorious enemy storm the town the British would serve as a useful chopping-block upon which the Turks might expend their fury; and, if the worst came to the worst, and there was no other way out of a disagreeable dilemma, grace and favour might be won from the Osmanli by uniting with him in administering the coup de grâce to the trapped and betrayed remnant of Dunsterville's Army of Occupation. ”

“ These dervishes, amongst the Persians of all classes, have a great reputation for sanctity. The rich help them liberally, and even the very poor will not turn a deaf ear to their request for aid. One of them chattered away like a magpie, recounting adventures which were not always of the kind one is prone to associate with the austerity of a Religious Order. They had come on foot from Meshed in Eastern Persia to Teheran, Hamadan, and Kermanshah, and were now bound for Kerbela and the Shi'ite holy places in the vicinity of Bagdad. ”

“ They are admittedly fierce and intractable, of noted predatory habits, and ready to prey with equal impartiality upon Persian or Christian neighbour. On the other hand, I found that they were neither cruel nor treacherous; they are never lacking in courage, and possess a rude, but well-defined sense of hospitality and chivalry.
Unarmed, save for a riding-crop, and accompanied only by a few Sowars, I have gone into their villages in search of raiders—not always a pleasant task amongst Asiatic hill tribes—and the inhabitants would be amiability itself. ”