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Memoir of the Career of Thomas Edward Rogers [‎18r] (35/118)

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The record is made up of 1 file (59 folios). It was created in Mid 20th century. It was written in English. The original is part of the British Library: India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. Records and Private Papers Documents collected in a private capacity. .

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thought resignedly, of otherwise law-abiding Englishmen caught taking serious
liberties with the public highway. But our unauthorised roadmending was not at
fault: we had strayed into a military zone and anyway unreadable passports
bearing Mr Anthony Eden's exhortation commending us to the good offices of foreign
powers did not at first avail us. We imagined cables reaching the elders of
the India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. who had perhaps nodded more doubtfully over our unusual adventure
than we knew. But in the end we were simply told to return to where we had
entered the prohibited zone and take another road. We still had to mend that
road too as we went along, and on the third day we broke a record for the trip:
working hard all day with several detours through fields, and more than one bridge
weakened by swollen streams to strengthen, we covered just twenty miles.
In central Turkey we did not see a single signpost, only living ones in the
shape of peasants who misled us by their natural inability to reckon distance
except in terms of hours by bullock-cart, and by directing us to what they called
roads but which were rough tracks with ruts and fords too deep for us. After a
week's difficult tortoise passage across Anatolia Peninsula that forms most of modern-day Turkey. lightened only by the sight of
Ataturk's imposing new Ankara,we reached with relief the great east-west passage
of the Cilician Gates across the Taurus mountains. It was a thrill to recall that
at about the age of twenty-four Alexander the Great led his great army through
this pass bound for north-west India and Bukhara. We were also to pass Tarsus
and the ancient cave dwellings of Urkup with their finely carved lintels and windows.
When we reached Syria unusually heavy floods kept us to the coast road leading us
through Lebanon to Beyrouth before we could turn east towards Damascus.
We were overweight with extra petrol and water on the six hundred mile run
across the roadless desert from Damascus to Baghdad. The car had fourteen punctures
on the hot rough flints. It was also besieged by a busload of desperate Arabs
without water since their bus had broken down two days before. I had to parley in

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Content

The file consists of a memoir written by Thomas Edward Rogers. The memoir covers his background, education and career. He also records his reasons for joining the Indian Political Service The branch of the British Government of India with responsibility for managing political relations between British-ruled India and its surrounding states, and by extension the Gulf, during the period 1937-47. . The memoir relates his career in India and in the Foreign Service in Bengal, Persia [Iran] and the Gulf, Quetta (including experiences of post-Independence unrest), and as Deputy Secretary in the Pakistan Cabinet Secretariat. It also relates his career with the Foreign Office in Spain, Yugoslavia, Argentina, Canada, and Colombia.

Extent and format
1 file (59 folios)
Physical characteristics

Foliation: the foliation sequence (used for referencing) commences at the first folio with 1, and terminates at the last folio with 59; these numbers are written in pencil, are circled, and are located in the top right corner of the recto The front of a sheet of paper or leaf, often abbreviated to 'r'. side of each folio. The file also contains an original foliation sequence.

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English in Latin script
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Memoir of the Career of Thomas Edward Rogers [‎18r] (35/118), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F226/26, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100096717818.0x000024> [accessed 13 January 2025]

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