'Military report on Tehran and adjacent Provinces of North-West Persia (including the Caspian Littoral)' [‎29v] (63/610)

46
Turkish Kurdistan, to great peril. From 1916 onward, some
of the Armenians and many of the Assyrians sought the
comparative safety of the Urumieh and Salmas districts where
the Christian communities were protected by the Persian Gov
ernment.
Earlier in the war the Russians had made use of some of
these Assyrian mountaineers in irregular formations, called
Jelus battalions, the Jelus being one of the four main clans of
the race. After the Russians debacle, the Caucasian authorities,
amongst other expedients for stemming the Turkish advance,
raised in the Urumieh region, in the end of 1917 and beginning
of 1918, from amongst these exiles, four or five thousand men,
of whom about one fourth were Armenians and formed them
into battalions under Russian and native officers. ’The move
ment was watched and encouraged by Colonel Chardignes
of the French military Mission in the Caucasus, and by Captain
Gracey, a British political officer.
These brave but undisciplined troops were undoubtedly the
only visible protection of the Christian population from spolia
tion and massacre, but their presence was offensive to the
Muhammadans of the province, and the Persian Government
was induced to take steps to disarm them in the spring of 1918.
They fiercely resisted this ill-timed measure, which must be
held responsible, in some degree, for the excesses committed by
them at that time. During these troubles the Nestorian Patri
arch, Marshimum, was murdered in the house, near Salmas,
of Simko, a prominent Kurdish chief.
Exodnsof These Jelus irregulars successfully defended the Urumieh
triamieE July region against the Turks, till the end of the month of July.
1918. ’ gut their resources were failing, and their ammunition was
nearly spent, and there seemed no prospect that help from the
British army in Mesopotamia, for which they had long hoped,
could reach them in time • to enable them to withstand the
attack of the Turkish forces gathering to overwhelm them. At
last, in response to a message delivered by British aeroplane
the main body of their forces marched to Sain Kaleh,where
arms and British officers were to be supplied to them. Their
departure caused a panic amongst the now defenceless masses,
who decided to seek the help that could not come to them;
and the exodus of the Christian community took place on July
30th. The majority, no doubt, were already exiles who had
abandoned in despair the Kurdistan villages which their
ancestors had guarded down the centuries, but the Urumieh
plain dwellers had now to make their decision between the