'Military report on Tehran and adjacent Provinces of North-West Persia (including the Caspian Littoral)' [‎33r] (70/610)

British political officer, who had been arrested a few days after
them, was very harshly treated, and rigorously imprisoned in
the jungle until mid-August.
The Jangalls, however, did not interfere with the evacua
tion of General Baratoff’s army, but, as soon as it had passed
Rasht, occupied the road as far as Manjil, where they were held
up by a detachment of the volunteer force of Colonel Bicherakoff
who "was now stationed at Kazvin, in command of 1,200 men—
the-only troops at that time available to oppose their advance on
that place. The stability of the Shah’s Government might have
been seriously endangered by a Jangali occupation of Kazvin;
for their propaganda had spread through the central provinces
and in the capital, where famine and misgovernment had created
a large discontented element, ready for any social upheaval.
Meantime General Dunsterville, on his return to Kazvin*
being thwarted in his effort to reach Baku, had been entrusted
with”the task of filling the gap between the Mesopotamian and
Russian armies—by means of Bicherakoff’s volunteers, and such
bodies of Persian irregulars from the neighbouring tribes as he
could raise, and control, with the handful of British officers
and non-commissioned officers at his disposal— until arrange
ments should be completed for a military occupation, which now
sebmed to the British Government to be necessitated by the
political situation in Persia, and by the menace of Turkey in
Azarbaijan.
A small body of troops had been stationed at Qasr-i-Shirin in
early January ; the line was extended to Kirmanshah in March,
when the General Officer in Command at Baghdad issued a
proclamation announcing that the British occupation was in no
way directed against the Persian people, and was only a tem
porary measure necessary to frustrate enemy operations and
intrigues, which the Persian Government had proved itself
unable to stop. It was not till June that General Dunster
ville received enough troops to keep a watch on the Tabriz
road and at the same time provide for an extension of his line
to Enzali.
The occupation was not opposed ; only one tribe, the Sinjabi,
gave trouble and was severely handled by the neighbouring
Kalhur tribe, whose attack was helped by one or two aeroplanes.
Inde d the occupied region had been so pillaged by Turks and
Russians, and had suffered so much from the famine, that the
people welcomed the British for sake of the great help they
gave in re-settling villages, in supplying food and seed corn, and
in providing relief works.
British military
occupation of
North Persia, j
1918.