'Military report on Tehran and adjacent Provinces of North-West Persia (including the Caspian Littoral)' [‎36v] (77/610)

60
In Azarbaljan.
Passing mention may be made here of the latest of the many
Escapades of Salar-ud-Dauleh, uncle of the Shah, who, towards
the end of the war, had formed a project to enter Persia through
Transcaspia, and raise a revolt in the Astarabad district. He
tried to put this belated plan into execution late in December
1918, but was caught by a British detachment^ before crossing
the Persian frontier, and was sent via Kazvin to Baghdad
where he was interned till the following autumn, when he was
allowed to retire to Switzerland.
Lastly, the affairs of Azarbaijan required the careful atten
tion of the Government. Military evacuation of that province
by the Turks was completed by the end of November 1918, and
the Acting Governor worked hard to restore order with the
slender means at his disposal; but it was felt that an official of
high rank was needed to cope with the difficult situation. Sipah
Salar-i-A’zam was selected for the post of Governor Genera.-,
toward the end of the year, but he accepted with reluctance, and
so delayed his journey that he did not reach Tabriz until the end
of April 1919. He resigned in September, and was succeeded,
after another long delay, by 2 ’Ain-ud-Dauleh, who was equally
unsuccessful and retired from the province.
The situation was, indeed, very difficult. The alternate
Russian and Turkish occupations during the war had . thoroughly
disorganized the civil administration of the province, which
had suffered severely, moreover, from the famine in the previous
spring. There were still many Turkish emissaries in the dis
trict, working amongst a population—although mostly of the
3 Shi’ite sect—more nearly related, by race and tongue, to the
Turk than to the Persian; and Tabriz had long been a centre
of agitation for reform, And the security of the frontiers
was endangered by the quarrels of undisciplined races striving
to carve independent states out of the wreck of the Turkish
Empire.
It is nor surprising, therefore, that there was a strong
separatist party in Tabriz, at the end of the war, inclined to pan-
Islamism, but uncertain whether it wanted autonomy oi union
with the new Republican Government of Azarbaijan at Baku.
The majority, however, remained loyal to Persia, and 4 resistance
1 See para. 3 above, pages 29-33. ,
2 Recollections of the siege of their city by the Royalist army under Aumm
H iuleh in 1908-9 were not likely to render him a persona grata vnm the iaprizis.
Opposed to the orthodox Sunn! sect, to which the Turks belong. See pages
^It was terminated after the arrival of Mukhblr-us-Sultaneh, who followed
Ain-ud-Dauleh as Governor General in 1920, when Shaikh Muhammad Khw^u
and other democrat leaders were killed in an encounter with the Persian Cossacks.