THE PERSIAN THEATRE

[bushfighter]

Hello fellow "Other Theatres" enthusiasts.

Below is a short article that I wrote for a Museum Friends Newsletter.

I am placing it here in the hope of seeing more information posted on this interesting theatre where many British officers, Warrant Officers and NCOs served.



A Persian town


SOUTH PERSIA 1916 - 1921

On the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Tehran Memorial in Iran is an inscription recording the death of Lieutenant DONALD NEVILL CARR MC. The CWGC records state that Donald Carr served in the 4th Battalion The Border Regiment, he was attached to the South Persia Rifles, he was aged 23 when he died on 26th November 1918, and that he was the son of Donald William and Agnes Mary Carr, of the Church Missionary Society, Isfahan, Persia (now named Iran).
The First World War Roll Of Honour of Queen’s College, Cambridge states that Donald died of pneumonia contracted on active service in Persia.

Donald's Medal Card entries at the Public Record Office show that he first served in the Royal Fusiliers, becoming a Serjeant. He was commissioned into that Regiment and then transferred to the Border Regiment, where his last rank was Captain.
On page 3839 of the supplement to the London Gazette dated 22 March 1919, Temporary Captain Donald Nevill Carr, Border Regiment, attached South Persia Rifles, India Army, was awarded a Military Cross for Distinguished Service in connection with Military Operations in the Field.

So why was there a South Persia Rifles, and what did it do?

[bushfighter]

A Swedish Gendarmerie officer in Persia

As The Great War started Persia was a chaotic country. Its ruling family was not popular with the people and avaricious tribal leaders and bandits controlled large swathes of land outside the cities.

A Gendarmerie force of around 6,000 men had been created and was officered by Swedes. However the people saw the Gendarmes as being just as bad as the bandits and the British perceived the Swedes as being sympathetic towards Germany.

But Persia had oil, and the Royal Navy needed supplies of Persian oil to power the Fleet.
Germany had designs on the country and its oilfields and inserted agents into Persia to stir up anti-British feeling, often using religious reasons, with a view to one day occupying Persia with a joint German-Turkish force.

[bushfighter]

A Russian Cossack officer in Persia

In the north of Persia the Russians had come to an agreement with the Ruler, and a Cossack force of 8,000 mounted Iranian tribesmen had been raised. The force was officered by Russians and was well-trained.
Morale amongst the Persian Cossacks was high as the unit was paid on time. The Cossacks protected Russian interests in the north and were a deterrent to a Turkish invasion.

To the west of Persia in Mesopotamia, now known as Iraq, the British had become involved in a campaign that was not going well. The Turkish enemy was tough and resilient and the British were drawn northwards until they were repulsed at Ctesiphon and then defeated at Kut in April 1916, when a British Division surrendered - the greatest military disaster ever to have befallen the British Army.

The British had become seriously worried about the security of south Persia and its oilfields, especially as a German agent named Wassmuss and his team had used the Persian Gendarmes to arrest and expel all the British nationals residing in several Persian towns. A British intervention was mounted in March 1916 by the sending to Bandar Abbas of Major (later Brigadier-General) Percy Molesworth Sykes with three British officers, three Indian officers, twenty Indian NCOs and a cavalry escort of twenty-five Central India Horse.

Sykes had spent twenty years in Persia and was well-known to the tribes and their chiefs. With the permission of the Persian Ruler Sykes quickly raised a unit titled the South Persian Rifles. The unit eventually reached a strength of over 10,000 men as 5,000 Gendarmes were absorbed into the ranks.
Supporting units arrived from the Indian Army as well as many individual reinforcements of NCOs and officers such as Donald Carr. (It is probable that Donald volunteered to serve in the unit because his parents were residing as missionaries in Persia.) Britain supplied and paid for the South Persian Rifles.

Sykes and his unit confronted bandits, demolished their forts and countered the German threat, but the South Persia Rifles never managed to completely control the Bushire to Shiraz road. The Shiraz end of the road was controlled by the Qashqai tribe who are weavers of fine rugs.

Sykes used his money chest to induce the Qashqai Chief to side with the British but this caused massive resentment amongst Persian government officials and it also gave Wassmuss an opportunity to successfully stir up feelings against the British again.

[bushfighter]

A Persian fort

The Official History “Operations in Persia 1914-1919” mentions an exploit by Donald Carr that may well have gained him his MC.
In late August 1917 local brigands attacked and captured a South Persia Rifles camel convoy near the town of Anar. Donald Carr and a squadron of South Persia Rifles cavalry, plus one mountain gun, left their base at Kerman and rode the 128 miles to Anar, ariving 60 hours later.
Donald immediately took his cavalry out on patrol, encountered the brigands and killed or captured ten of them. He also recovered 400 camels plundered from the captured convoy.
The following day a second squadron of cavalry moving to join Donald from Kerman met and killed more brigands.
During these two days of fighting the South Persia Rifles only lost two men and seven horses.

In May 1918 Sykes and some of his troops were besieged in Shiraz by the Qashqai for several weeks before the British managed to defeat the tribe which was suffering badly from an influenza epidemic.
Donald Carr died later that year, a gallant Border Regiment officer who had won a Military Cross in a foreign and distant field.

The Russian Revolution led to the departure of the Russians from the Cossack force and Britain became the dominant foreign power in Persia.
Negotiations took place openly and secretly, and in 1921 a Persian who had risen through the ranks of the Cossacks to become their leader took power in the country. He became His Imperial Majesty Reza Shah Pahlavi.
Britain honoured its side of the negotiations by disbanding the South Persia Rifles.

Further reading:
“Persia in the Great Game” (paperback) by Antony Wynn. Published by John Murray. ISBN: 0-7195-6415-8

[bob lembke]

Interesting.

One thing that was not mentioned was that, supposedly, Persia/Iran became a democracy in 1906, adopting a variant of the American constitution. From the narrative above, it seems like the west (including Russia as "relatively" western) overthrew Persia/Iran four times in the 20th Century to grab its oil, the Russians in 1911, now as above the Brits (and others) in 1916, the Brits (again) in WW II, and the Americans in 1955 (?), overthrowing a democratic but (horrors) nationalistic government and installing the Shah. He supposedly finally modified the US/Iranian constitution, as the American Constitution, last time that I looked at it, does not have an "Emperor Clause".

I do not have a firm grasp of the above; the posted material is interesting and fits right in to the bigger picture. "Bushfighter", did your sources mention the Persian democracy, or the lack of same? We in the west seem to have a (convenient) collective amnesia as to the fact that Iran had an imperfect (like all) but complex and functioning democratic political system, with some people suggesting attacking it to affect "regieme change" and installing a democracy.

Don't want too veer to much into the present, but, returning to WW I, was there mention of a democrat ic process in Persia in WW I?

Bob Lembke

[bushfighter]

Bob

I think that you were very right to use "supposedly" - how many western ideals survive transplanting into foreign soils and climes, and vice versa?

As far as I can tell the people had a local "Majlis" (Assembly) and a national one also, the latter appointing the cabinet.

The Official History comments: "The political party styling itself Democrat - really formed of extremists with strong anti-foreign views - obtained and maintained ascendancy over the Moderates mainly by methods of intimidation and assassination . . .". (Now that has some resonance today, as I glance around the globe.)

On 3rd August 1914 the British Minister at Tehran wrote: "Half the country is directly under Russian influence, a portion is undecided, and the insignificant remainder from the point of view of Tehran politics owns British allegiance."

As the Russians appointed their own Governors and collected and kept their own taxes, and as banditry reigned in many parts, and whilst most isolated communities hardly heard much from Tehran, democracy was struggling to breathe.

I recommend the Official History "Operations in Persia 1914 to 1919". It details the various allied interventions and by doing so exposes the activities of the wily German agents there, not only in Persia but across the Indian Baluch border in Mekran and across the Gulf in Muscat. However, like all Official Histories written in colonial times you have to make allowances for the official attitudes then prevailing.

(Your historical summary didn't go far enough back in time - don't forget the Anglo-Persian War 1856-57.)

Harry

[James A Pratt III]

See also "Like Hidden Fire " by Peter Hopkirk for more info and a exciting read.