WWI Dunsterville DUNSTERFORCE BAKU PERSIA MESOPOTAMIA

The Adventures of Dunsterforce

Chapter I
The Gates Ajar

THE history of these adventures, which cover the whole stretch of country lying between Baghdad and Baku, deals with a problem which by a curious coincidence abounds in unavoidable alliterations, the letter B standing for Berlin, Batoum, Baku, Bokhara and Baghdad, and if one wanted to run the alliteration to death, one might add Byzantium for Constantinople. Thus the object of the mission with which I was ordered to proceed to the Caucasus at the end of 1917, as well as the enemy plans that led to the dispatch of the mission, can best be set forth briefly under this letter of the alphabet.

One of the big items in the deep-laid pre-war schemes of Germany for world-domination was the absorption of Asia Minor and the penetration into further Asia by means of the Berlin-Baghdad railway. When Baghdad was taken by the British in March 1917, and the prospect of its recapture by the Turks appeared very remote, the scheme for German penetration into Asia had to be shifted further north and took the obvious line Beblin-Baku-Bokhaea.

In this latter scheme it was evident that the Southern Caucasus, Baku and the Caspian Sea would play a large part; and the object of my mission was to prevent German and Turkish penetration in this area.

Fate ordained that, just at the time that the British thwarted the more southern German scheme by the capture of Baghdad, the Russian breakdown opened the northern route to the unopposed enterprise of the Germans. Until the summer of 1917 the Russian troops held firm, though it was obvious that the process of disintegration could not long be delayed. Their line extended from South Russia, through the Caucasus, across the Caspian, through North-West Persia until its left joined up with the British right on the frontier of Persia and Mesopotamia, east of Baghdad. By the autumn of 1917 this line was melting away, troops deserted en masse and the entire army announced its intention of withdrawing from the struggle and proceeding home.

Thus in the neighbourhood of Erzerum the Turkish Army, acting unconsciously as the Advanced Guard of German aims, found nothing between it and the long-coveted possession of the Southern Caucasus, with the exception of a few Armenian troops, disorganized, without cohesion and equally impregnated with the spirit of the revolution. But, as the line of the Turkish advance lay through their homes, they were compelled to offer resistance. Tiflis, the capital of the Southern Caucasus, was likely to fall without serious resistance into the hands of the enemy, and the capture of this town would give the Turko-German armies control of the railway line between Batoum on the Black Sea and Baku on the Caspian, the enormously valuable oilfields of Baku, the indispensable minerals of the Caucasus Mountains, and the vast supplies of grain and cotton from the shores of the Caspian Sea. The scene of conflict being too far removed from any of the main areas of the war—Baghdad to Baku is 800 miles—it was quite impossible to send sufficient troops to meet the situation.

The only possible plan, and it was a very sound one, was to send a British mission to Tiflis. This mission, on reaching its destination, would set to work to reorganize the broken units of Russian, Georgian and Armenian soldiery, and restore the battle-line against the Turkish invasion. The prospects were considerable, and success would be out of all proportion to the numbers employed or the cost involved. It was attractive and practical.

The honour of command fell to my lot, and I set forth from Baghdad with the leading party in January 1918.

Let me state at the outset that it entirely failed to achieve its original object, and never even reached Tiflis ! But the story I propose to tell is of its endeavours to reach that spot, of the other tasks that fell incidentally to its lot, and of its minor achievements, which I am convinced were of great value to the Allied cause.

It will be left to the reader to deduce from the general narrative the value of these achievements, but I may draw attention to the one immediately following the abandonment of the Tiflis scheme, to wit, that by a kind of moral camouflage, the original first party of twelve officers and forty-one men filled the gap left in North Persia by the evacuating Russians on 300 miles of road, and entirely checked all enemy enterprise on this line, though hampered by the threatening hostility of the neutral Persians.

Before beginning the narrative of the adventures of the mission, it may be interesting to survey very briefly the Tiflis scheme.

From the enemy's point of view, the Turk would undoubtedly be actuated by an intense desire to gain possession of valuable territory in the only theatre of war where victories fell like ripe plums into his lap, he could indulge bis long-standing hatred of the Armenian to its fullest extent, and the individual soldier would be tempted by the rich loot which the larger cities would afford. But on the other hand the Turkish Army as a whole was no longer the well-organized machine of 1916. The troops were tired, and their leaders were no longer inspired by the certainty of ultimate victory, but rather were depressed by the extreme probability of the contrary result. Against such an army it should be easy to reorganize the large numbers of Georgian and Armenian troops, whose fighting spirit would be multiplied a hundredfold by their determination to keep the hated invader out of their homes.

This last proposition seems so obvious that it might well be taken as a foregone conclusion. Unfortunately the event proved the exact reverse ! The revolution had so taken the heart out of the men, that this primitive spirit of the defence of hearth and home, one of the strongest instincts the human being possesses, was entirely absent in the case of the South Caucasians.

The only possible line of success for the mission would have been to have worked on this feeling of patriotism and love of home. It may seem incredible, but it is certain that such a feeling did not exist, and plans based upon it would have been foredoomed to failure ; but to make the assertion is surely not to be laid to the blame of those who counted on the existence of such a feeling.

The truth of the matter is that Tiflis, long before the war, had what the Russians call a German " orientation."

In their deep preparation for this great war the German left no stone unturned, and the Caucasus, north and south, had been thoroughly exploited by them in view of possible eventualities.

The inhabitants of Tiflis read their Reuters and compared them with the glorious revelations of the German wireless : Obviously Germany was going to win the war. " Therefore why should we have the British here to prolong matters ? Let the Turks take the country : we look to a victorious and magnanimous Germany to protect us from Turkish excesses and to turn them out again when the war is over. The Turkish invasion is only a temporary inconvenience from which the Germans will later relieve us." Such was undoubtedly the Tiflis train of thought, especially among the Georgian population. At the back of the Armenian mind always lay the terror of impending massacre.

This lack of national spirit is an example of the terrible uncertainty with which those are confronted who are called on to deal with military problems. The one factor that may fairly be regarded as certain turns out exactly contrary. When this story reaches the final stage of the defence of Baku against the Turks, it will be seen that in the eleventh hour, with their beloved city, their private wealth, their wives and children, in hourly danger of falling into the hands of the enemy, and firmly believing in the certainty of a general massacre—even at such a moment as this, the spirit on which a successful defence could alone be based was never evoked. There is no doubt that this lack of heart must be attributed to the revolution. All the factors that go to make up what we call " bravery " are shivered to pieces in a revolution, and their place is taken by a dull apathy that meets all situations with the hopeless query, " What is the use of anything ? "

So much for the South Caucasus. Now as to Persia. Although Persia was declared neutral, her territory had been used from the commencement of the war, both by the Russians and the Turks, who fought each other up and down the road from Kasvin to Kermanshah, until our capture of Baghdad left the Russians in undisputed possession. In 1917, therefore, the Russians were holding the road running north-east from the Perso-Mesopotamian frontier to the Caspian Sea. The Turks, though not showing any intention of attacking on that line, still kept a sufficient number of troops on a line parallel to and north-west of the Russian line to necessitate a constant look-out in that direction.

When, with the advent of the Bolsheviks to power in November 1917, the Russian troops in North Persia began to break away, it became obvious that a gap of some 450 miles would be left open on the right flank of the British Mesopotamian army, through which Turkish and German agents and troops could flood Central Asia unopposed.

It was hoped to stop this gap by re-enlisting, under the British flag, a sufficient number of well-paid volunteers from the ranks of the retreating Russians.

The efforts made in this direction were a complete failure.

The reasons for the failure were mainly those narrated above—revolutionaries will kill, but they won't fight. The few men enlisted were quite worthless, and the revolutionary Committees proclaimed sentence of death on any one supporting the movement; bo it had to be abandoned. As a matter of fact, the gap created in this portion of the line was actually filled by the officers and N.C.O.'s of the mission, under circumstances which will be narrated farther on.

It only remains now to give a very short description of the geography of the terrain.

Leaving Baghdad in an easterly direction, the monotonous flat country of Mesopotamia continues for about 80 miles as the crow flies, until the Persian frontier, which practically coincides with the foot of the mountains, is reached. The approach to the hills is gradual, commencing with the usual Jebels, or foothills, which begin to break the level of the dead flat ground at about 20 miles before we come to the actual frontier.

From this point on to the Caspian Sea, 400 miles in a straight line, the country consists of a succession of barren hills and fertile valleys, the line of the parallel ranges running N.W. to S.E., while the road runs N.E., thus taking each range at right angles. The passes run to between 5,000 and 8,000 feet above sea-level, and the general level of the country lies between 3,000 and 7,000 feet.

On the Taq-i-Giri Pass, by which travellers from Mesopotamia enter the Persian uplands, there are a few stunted oaks on the hillsides; these are practically the only wild trees seen until we come to the Elburz mountains, which skirt the southern shores of the Caspian Sea. Passing through this mountain range at Menjil, the last 70 miles down to the sea display an example of the vivid contrasts that only Asia affords. After more than 300 miles of hills as barren as the rocks of Aden, a country is suddenly entered which is clothed in the very thickest of forest, producing an effect as striking as a sudden transition from one planet to another. The last 20 miles of this road down to the Russian Concession Port of Kazian (or Enzeli) lies on the flat among low dunes, and represents the portion of the sea that has gradually been silted up in the course of centuries by the mud brought down from the Elburz range and the sand blown in from the sea by the northerly gales.

The Caspian basin encloses every sort of climate and temperature, the shores display every variety of country, inhabited by numberless races, the fragments of submerged great races of the past. As regards climate, the port of Astrakhan at the mouth of the Volga in the extreme North is icebound in winter, while the country round. Enzeli is rice-growing ; plantains and palms flourish in the open, and the winter is chiefly characterized by warm drizzling rain.

 

Chapter III
The Sea! The Sea!

AS our convoy passed out of the Resht gate of Kasvin at daybreak on February 16th, the hearts of all were elated at the thought that by to-morrow night the last obstacles would have been surmounted and the party embarked on the Caspian, heading for Baku. There were not really any serious grounds for believing that we should get through. On the contrary, the hindrances loomed larger than ever. But our party contained no pessimists, and we felt confident that whatever difficulties arose would be overcome.

Since leaving Hamadan the whole road had been blocked with Russian troops evacuating in disorder; Kasvin was filled with them, and though mostly friendly in a general sort of way they were obviously going to be a nuisance on the road.

The weather at any rate was in our favour ; no snow fell, and we crossed the last high pass near Buinak, 30 miles from Kasvin, without difficulty. Here, as on the Sultan Bulaq Pass, the retiring Russians had cut a first-rate road through the snowdrifts.

From Buinak to Menjil, 40 miles, the road winds down a rather desolate valley, crossing the streams occasionally by well-built bridges, and finally emerging on to the small open plain of Menjil, on which some fine clumps of very old olive-trees help to vary the monotony of the landscape. Our halt for the night was arranged for in the little post-house belonging to the Russian Road Company, where large advertisement boards of the " Grand Hotel " in Teheran with " Cuisine Frangaise " made our " bully stew " taste less luscious than usual.

The only impediment on the road had been the Russian troops, whose transport consisted chiefly of the enormous Persian country carts with four horses harnessed abreast, not an easy vehicle to get by on a narrow mountain road. The troops themselves were cheerful, and showed no signs of making themselves unpleasant to us. Life for the time being was very pleasant for them, and as all men are brothers they wished it to be pleasant for others as well. The principles of freedom and fraternity were applied with great zeal to poultry and other unconsidered trifles that lay not too far from the roadside, and the tedium of the march was relieved by shooting the insulators off the telegraph poles, or testing marksmanship for a small bet on heedless crows. No formation was kept, except occasionally among the mounted troops. Parties pottered along in twos and threes or larger bunches, and now and then a tired soldier would beg for a lift, or try to get one without begging by jumping on to the back of one of the vans, an athletic feat that was generally beyond his powers.

At the serai, where we went with a special permit to draw petrol for to-morrow's journey, we were surrounded by a crowd of soldiers, and enjoyed some rather amusing and instructive conversation. The soldiers wanted to know where we were going. I replied, " To Enzeli." " And then ? " " That depends on circumstances, we want to help you who are our allies." The invariable reply to this was " We are not your allies ; we have made peace with Germany, and you only want to prolong the war." This was the parrot-like refrain that never varied and had evidently been carefully taught to the men by some ardent propagandist.

Asked as to their political ideas, the general replies may be reproduced somewhat as follows : " We have had a revolution because we were ill-treated and oppressed. Now we are free, but ignorant and uneducated. We don't know how to rule ourselves. Everything is in disorder. I am a Bolshevik, but I don't know what Bolshevism means, as I cannot read or write ; I just accept what the last speaker says. I want to be left alone and helped home, and as the Committee in Kazian is Bolshevik, I am too. If it were anything else I would be that."

Great curiosity was evinced as to the real reason for our presence in their midst, and the general consensus of opinion was that we were up to no good. The peasant mind is naturally suspicious, that of the Russian peasant especially so, and the guileless Englishman has an unfortunate reputation in Russia of being very cunning ; so our party was regarded with mixed feelings of suspicion and dislike tempered with good-natured tolerance.

Menjil lies at the head of the fifty- mile valley that runs down to the Caspian Sea through Resht, and the narrow gap in the hills, through which the Sefid Rud, or White River generally red, by the way flows down to the sea, acts as a funnel for the north wind that blows in a perpetual hurricane throughout the summer and has made Menjil infamous as an intolerable place of residence. Luckily this wind does not blow during the winter months,
or we should have had a miserable time. We had scant leisure for exploring the neighbourhood: darkness soon came on, and we were only too glad of an excuse for turning in early and getting a good night's rest before embarking on to-morrow's adventures.

The next day, Sunday, February 17th, we were off at dawn in fine weather for the last and most critical stage of our journey, with the pleasant prospect of crossing the Caspian Sea on the following morning if the fates were good to us. But we were beginning to realize that the fates would have to be extraordinarily good to bring it off.

The beautiful 70 miles of road from Menjil to the sea have been described by every traveller, and I am obliged to add my modest contribution. Leaving the post-house, the road winds downwards with a gentle slope for about 1½ miles to the Menjil Bridge, where the Sefid Rud is crossed and the final descent to the sea begins. The bridge is well built of stone and iron, and lies in a sharp V-shaped gap in the hills where the road turns due north. After crossing the river the road winds along the left bank for the next 40 miles, when the flat country is reached. From here it diverges slightly to the left, reaching Besht at about the fifty-second mile and Enzeli at the seventieth.

On entering the gorge immediately beyond the Menjil bridge, the thoughts of the soldier are inevitably drawn to the terrible natural difficulties confronting any army that might endeavour to force this defile against a determined enemy. The road is cut out of the rock in many places ; the cliffs tower above on the left, while on the right there is a sheer drop to the roaring torrent of the Sefid Rud, impassable at all times of the year. The rocky spurs and sharp ravines on the right bank of the river give excellent cover to an enemy for sniping the troops on the road, and any attempt to advance would obviously entail a parallel movement on both sides of the river.

So far, although the traveller feels most distinctly that he has left Persia behind and has entered an entirely new country, the real forest has not begun. The lower hills are still barren but not entirely devoid of trees; large groves of olives line the road and fill all the hollows on the mountain side, while higher up a glimpse can be caught of the upper forests of pine and oak.

The real forest is not entered till the twentieth mile from Menjil, where the Russian toll-gate of Nagober is passed and the road plunges into thick woods with dense undergrowth. Here we feel that we have not only left Persia but Asia behind, when we stop for repairs beside a mossy bank on which primroses and cyclamen are just coming out, and farther down the road we find banks of violets and snowdrops. The trees are not in leaf, with the exception of a few evergreens, and it is hard to identify (hem in a rapid glance from a motor-car, but chestnut and a tree resembling a beech are the most noticeable, while the undergrowth is chiefly composed of box.

At Imamzadeh Hashim, about 40 miles from Menjil, the hills abruptly cease, and from here on to Enzeli the road runs on the level, at first through alternate forests and rice-fields and later, as Enzeli is approached, through pasture land and sand dunes.

It was hardly to be hoped for that we should be allowed by the fierce Kuchik Khan, after all his threats, to pass through the Menjil defile unopposed, and it was necessary to arrange the convoy so that at the first sign of opposition all possible fire should be brought to bear on the enemy. Our only chance would lie in acting with determination and rapidity. But at the same time we were handicapped by having to leave the firing of the first shot to the Jangalis, as until that shot was fired it might be possible to bluff our way through. And bluffing is far better than fighting when you have very little to fight with.

The armoured car under Lieutenant Singer led the way, Captain Hooper with the Lewis-gun was well up in front, and each driver had his rifle and a hundred rounds ready to his hand. Frequent halts were made to ensure the cars being all kept together.