'Military report on Tehran and adjacent Provinces of North-West Persia (including the Caspian Littoral)' [‎267v] (539/610)

488
Uiza Khan.
October and promptly executed. Subsequently Persian Cossacks*
■were sent to Mesbed and Government control was re-asserted.
Tbe activities of a Russian Consul-General who arrived at
Mesbed in October with a large staff of agents and propagandists
are, however, a source of disquiet.
Tbe difficult problem of Azarbaijan remains unsolved.
Simko bas been increasingly active. On 7tb October be made
a surprise descent and captured Sauj Bulagb, and only 250
of a garrison of 700 gendarmes escaped death or capture. After
this success be withdrew. In November he inflicted a severe
defeat on a Government force near Salmas and compelled them
to retire to Khoi, though his own heavy losses in this operation
appear to have damped the ardour of his Turkish supporters.
Simko is estimated to be able to collect 4,000 to 4,500 men armed
with rifles, and is also said to have 6 guns and 12 machine guns.
Riza Khan is preparing to attack him and much may depend
on the result.
Riza Khan is certainly the outstanding figure in present
Persian politics, and his position created by the coup d’etat
of February 1921 has been much strengthened by his successes
in Mazandaran and Gilan. As War Minister since the
transfer of the gendarmerie from the ministry of the
Interior, and the disbandment of the South Persia Rifles (see
below), he has controlled all the Armed Forces in Persia; he
has recently (in December) brought about the amalgamation
of the gendarmerie into one force with the Cossacks and has
propounded a scheme for army reform involving the creation
of a uniform force of 40,000 men to be organized into 5 divisions
with Headquarters at Tehran, Tabriz, Hamadan, Meshed and
Isfahan respectively. His own Cossacks have hitherto remained
well in hand, and it is to their interest to support him and retain
the prominent position into which he has brought them, so long
as he can provide funds for their pay. The increased efficiency
of the troops under his command and administration has been
very marked. He is a native of the Savad Kuh district of
Mazandaran, a country-man of no education and very
mediocre intelligence endowed with the ordinary Persian
attributes of intrigue and cunning, but possessing great
ambition and unusual energy and firmness of character,
which may yet carry'him far. He is essentially “ Nationalist^
and opposed to foreign interference and intervention in
Persia in any form, and he lost no time in ridding himself
of the British officers in the Cossacks. The South Persia Rifles
under British officers were also obnoxious to him, and he