'Kurdistan and the Kurds' [‎46r] (91/122)

completely stopped, while the population had been reduced by about 75%
of its original numbers. In some parts the people were subsisting entirely
on herbs and acorns and had been constrained to eat not only cats and
dogs but even human flesh. Steps were at once taken to import grain
from Erbil, poor-relief was started, and agriculture encouraged. It was,
however, very difficult to bring law and order into the almost inaccessible
mountains and valleys to the north of Rowanduz, owing to the absence of
an adequate force of police; but a number of tribes submitted to the
prestige of the British army from fear of future punishment. The diffi
culty was enhanced by the fact that the district on one side bordered on the
di ea of Turkish occupation and on the other on the Persian province of
Azerbaijan, which was in a complete state of chaos. The causes of this
were, it seems, firstly an intense feeling of repugnance to the return of
the Assyrians and Armenians, fostered probably by some form of Pan-
Islamic movement centred in Tabriz and perhaps stirred up by Persian
officials for their own ends, and in the second place the extreme dislike
felt by the Kurds for the emasculated Persian rule. So weak was this
that m February, 1919, a meeting was held by the more important chiefs
on the Persian side of the border to discuss the question of a revolt
against Persian authority. It is believed that the majority voted in
favour of a rising, with the reservation that it would be advisable to
wait and see what the attitude of the powders would lie towards the
Persian Kurds and the repatriation of the Armenians,
In the meantime, in the north-western corner of the vildyah of Mosul
pro-Turkish and anti-Christian propaganda was meeting with considerable
success; the position of the inhabitants of the Christian villages between
Zakho and Jezirat-ibn-‘Omar became one of considerable danger and in
some cases anti-Christian disturbances actually occurred. On the 17th of
March letters from ‘Abd-ur-Rahman Agha, chief of the Shernakhli Kurds,
were intercepted; in them he urged the expulsion of the foreigners!
stating that the movement had the support and favour of the Turkish
Government, whose efforts were being seconded by individuals and by
committees in Constantinople, Cairo, and apparently in Paris, who were
working for an independent Kurdish State. Turkish officers at the same
time visited Shemsdinan with Turkish propaganda but were coldly
received, while one entered the vildyah of Mosul with the same object.
The local centres of activity were Jezirat-ibn-'Omar and Shernakh, while
the Goyan Kurds were the chief instruments in the hands of the agitators.
The murder of Captain Pearson followed close on these events.
Everything then seemed ripe for Sheikh Mahmud to extend his sway
by diplomacy or, failing that, by an appeal to arms. Realising the danger
of giving him too much power or of allowing him to aim at a wider rule
than he already enjoyed, the British representatives decided to restrict
his authority ; in particular, the powerful tribe of the Jaff Kurds were
taken from his jurisdiction and an assistant Political Officer was stationed