'Military report on Tehran and adjacent Provinces of North-West Persia (including the Caspian Littoral)' [‎24r] (52/610)

PARA 4.—Persian History from 1914 to 1920 with relation to
the Central Government and this area of North-Western
Persia.
(The biographies of political leaders on pages 351-7, and to
a less extent 360, 363, 365, 370, 372, also refer to political
^^Such was the helpless state of Persia in 1914. Soon after Turko-GermaB
the outbreak of the European war she proclaimed her neutrality actmties.
and repeated her request 1 for the withdrawal of Russian troops
from her territory, with as little success as on previousoccasions.
The Turks lost no time in entering Persian Azarbaijan and on
6th January 1915 the Russian Consul and troops retired from
Tabriz, which was occupied by 1,200 Turks and Kurds. Ardabil
was also evacuated by the Russians, but soon_ after reoccupied.
Active Turko-German intrigue and pan-Islamic propaganda
began to fan the flame of hatred of the Russians to draw Persia
into the war against the Allies, and culminated in the period
April to November 1915. In Tehran a run on the Imperial Rim organized
Bank was started by the drawing of 60,000 tumans in cash by Persi*
the German Minister. Consignments of specie were delayed April 1915.
owing to difficulties of transport and the Bank was unable to
meet the demands made on it. On 27th April a bill was hurried
through the Majlis for the suspension of cash payments of more
than 10,000 tumans daily for 60 days, and a guarantee was
given by the British Government that it would make good any
cash deficit. Speculators sought to depreciate _ the Bank’s
paper currency and buy it up at a discount, knowing that they
would be able to obtain cash after 60 days, but the rate of dis
count soon fell from 15% to 5% and the danger 2 of a Bank
crash was averted. _
Tehran was in a very nervous condition. The Grendarmene
were undermined by German intrigue and the police were the
only force that could be relied on in the event of an anti-Ally
outbreak. In the provinces there was an influx of enemy
agents; the Turks had become aggressive on the frontier and
at the beginning of April advanced to Qasr-i-Shlrln and Karind ;
Prince Reuss, a German M inister with an Austrian co lleague.
1 Persians often blame the presence of the Russian troops as the provoca
tion for the subsequent operations of the belligerents in Persia. Technically the
Russians we re in the wrong, but had they withdrawn there is not the least justi
fication for supposing that the Turks would have refrained from entering the
country, at any rate the province of Azarbaijan.
2 during this crisis the Russian Bank adopted a sympathetic attitude
towards the officers had been recalled to Sweden in 1914._ Their
successors were of an inferior type, soon threw off all semblance of neutrality and
worked for the Germans.