'Military report on Tehran and adjacent Provinces of North-West Persia (including the Caspian Littoral)' [‎46v] (97/610)

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In February 1918 General Dunsterville’s party of officers
and non-commissioned officers arrived from Baghdad with a
convoy of some 40 Ford vans at Enzali in the hope of being able
to embark for Baku. They met with a hostile reception from
the Bolshevik Committee, who opposed any project calculated
to prolong the European-war and were piqued by the British
refusal to acknowledge the Bolshevik Government. The
Mission were refused permission to proceed and were fortunate
to obtain petrol and be permitted to return unmolested to
Kazvin. Kuchik Khan’s emissaries and German agents urged
the arrest of the whole party, and Kuchik is believed to have
been deterred from ambushing them in the forest only by
apprehension that parties of Russian soldiers on the way down
the road might come to their assistance. After his return to
Kazvin General Dunsterville was warned by Kuchik Khan
that any further British attempt to enter Gilan would, be
resisted. In the beginning of March Mr. Oakshott, the Manager
of the branch of the Imperial Bank of Persia, and Mr. Maclaren,
the British Vice-Consul, were forcibly removed from 1 Rasht
to the Jangal, and the Belgian Customs officials at Enzali
were arrested but escaped to Mashad-i-Sar. The power of
the Jangalis had now reached its zenith. They mustered more
than 2,000 men and controlled the whole of Gilan, the Tarum
district of Khamseh, and had penetrated East into the Mahal-i-
Salas whither, subsequent to the raid of the Kujuris into Tuna-
kabun in February, they sent 100 men to support a Jangali
Governor in Tunakabun with deputies in Kalaristaq and Kujur,
whence they were communicating with the chiefs of Mazanda-
ran. Amir Ashayir and the Khalkhalis were their allies and
they were in close touch with the revolutionary party in Azar-
baijan. They were actively intriguing in Zinjan, Kazvin and
Tehran and even so far afield as Hamadan and Luristan, and
the discontent created by famine and misgovernment and the
consequent readiness for any social upheaval contributed to the
success of their propaganda. Originally an anti-Russian society
opposed to the injustice of the landlords and oppression and
misgovernment in the province of Gilan, the aims of the Ittihad-
i-Islam had now expanded under Turko-German influence to the
i ^ le ^" '^? 1 re 80011 allowed to return to their houses, and were fairly well treated,
;!f n utn“ V i el « anCe ’ untl * they secured freedom, in June, on the entry into Rasht
o ucherakoff s men. Captain Noel however, who on his return from Tiflis was
kidnapped at Enzah a few days after the deportation of Messrs. Oakshott and Mac-
+ m ir a u ’ was ri g° rolls ly.in i Prisoned and very severely handled until mid-
vrnfivJ ’ ■ xf w T as rc ’J? a8e d in accordance with the treaty made by Colonel
Matthews with the Jangahs (see below). Kuchik Khan defended his arrest of
these Englishmen on the ground that the noted ultra democrat and Turkish
partisan Sulaiman Mirza (No. 32) had been arrested by the British : and he
demanded the release of this man before giving up his prisoners.