Papers of the War Cabinet's Eastern Committee [‎144v] (288/544)

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Transcaspia:
Military Situation.
Caspian Situation.
should be accompanied by draft terms of reference. He asked that
the discussion of the question should be deferred until these had been
circulated.
The Committee decided—
To defer the discussion until members were in possession of the
draft of the Secret art/ of State for India.
6. The Chairman said that since the last Meeting a number of
rather confused telegrams in regard to the military situation in
Transcaspia had been circulated to the Committee, and he invited
the Director of Military Intelligence to inform the Committee what
was the exact position at the present, moment.
General Thwaites described the position with the aid of a map.
He said that some 500 men of General Malleson’s force were now at
Tejend. Reinforcements to the extent of one battalion with two
guns were at Krasnovodsk available to reinforce General Malleson.
Opposed to our troops in Transcaspia were some 7,000 Bolsheviks,
who had recently attacked and had been driven back with con
siderable loss by Malleson’s force. Further east there were about
*40,000 prisoners of war, whose headquarters were at Tashkend.
Lord Robert Cecil enquired what was the object of maintaining
a force under General Malleson. He understood that it had been
sent forward when there was a danger of German and 1 urkish troops
crossing the Caspian. *
General Th waites said that the primary object of General
Malleson was to protect the Transcaspian Railway. He pointed out
that the 5th Caucasian Turkish division, numbering about 6,000 men,
were still at Baku, and that there were about 7 German battalions
and a proportion of other arms about Tiflis.
The Chairman said that the object of maintaining Malleson’s
force was threefold, (a) as pointed out by General i'hwaites, to
secure the Transcaspian Railway, {b) to protect the frontier of Persia
from a Bolshevist invasion, wdiich might have very serious effects, and
(c) to prevent enemy movements eastwards reacting upon Afghanistan.
The Chairman said that he had been rather alarmed at a proposal
which had been put forward by General Malleson in one of his recent
telegrams, that his force should push up to the Oxus. He thought
that this proposal should not be countenanced, as it was most
desirable to restrict our offensive operations in that theatre.
Mr. Montagu pointed out that an additional object of Malleson s
force was to intercept German and Turkish troops and agents who
might be attempting to penetrate to Afghanistan.
The Committee thought that the operations of General Malleson s
force should be confined to as restricted an area as the
circumstances allowed. *
7. With reference to the thirty-third Meeting, Minute 3, the
Chairman referred to a telegram which the Admiralty had sent to
the Commander-in-Chief, East Indies fE.C.-1664, Appendix 2, to
Minutes of thirty-third Meeting), in which instructions had been
given to Commodore Norris, in the event of his not being able to
obtain possession of the armed Caspian fleet by other methods, to
embark on a campaign of capturing or sinking all Caspian ships,
both armed and unarmed, which might refuse to work under our
orders. Recent telegrams indicated that we had secured, and were
proceeding to arm, a certain amount of Caspian shipping, and, in the
circumstances, he thought that the rather drastic _ instructions to
Commodore Norris to destroy the Russian vessels which were said to