"تقرير الإدارة عن المقيمية السياسية في الخليج الفارسي للأعوام ١٩١٥-١٩١٩" [و‎‎١‎٦] (٣٩٦/٣٨)

FOE THE TEAR 1915.
21
in danger. Famkh Shah was a British subject and was only on a visit to
Persia, but his family formerly belonged to Kerman, and the garden in which
the British Consulate was first established and which is now its next door
neighbour originally belonged to the then Agha Khan. Some of the Shaikhi
Mullahs were connected with the family and it was because Earukh Shah
in his intercourse with them urged them to use their influence to detach
the people from the Germans and Democrats that he had incurred the
enmity of the latter. Hussainoff had, from the commencement of the
democratic movement, been an anti-Democrat and was an avowed pro-ally.
Farukh Shah was inveigled into a trap and two shots fired into him at close
quarters from which he only survived about one hour. Hussainoff was more
fortunate, the men placed on the roof of the bazaar to shoot him as he went
to his office, only managing to break his arm. On the urgent representations
of both Consuls the Governor-General telegraphed to Tehran repeating his
previous requests for definite orders to take action against the Germans and
Democrats and for the removal of the Karguzar and the Gendarmerie.
The Central Government at last began to realise that things were serious
and sent orders of recall to the Gendarmerie and the Karguzar. It was,
however, too late now for either the Government or the Governor-General to
make any pretence to authority, they neither had any left. The Karguzar,
having already laughed at two orders of dismissal, was not the least perturbed.
The Gendarmes pretended obedience to the order and made a show of prepara
tion for departure, but they never really intended to go at all. The Democrats
knew that they could dictate their own terms to the Governor-General with the
sole reservation of the safety of the European community and they proceeded
to do so. They closed all the bazaars and ordered a general rally in the
Gendarmerie barracks. From there they sent the following demands to the
Governor-General. Firstly, the retention of the Gendarmes; secondly, the
immediate departure of the British and Russian subjects from Kerman ; thirdly,
the handing over to them of the Bank, British Telegraph Office, the Mission
Hospital and Mission School. The Governor-General capitulated completely.
He informed the British and Russian Consuls that he had ceded to the above
demands of the Democrats and that they must be carried out. In fulfilment
of his promise to His Majesty's Consul he undertook to provide an escort of his
Bakhtiaris to conduct the Earopeans in safety to wherever they wanted to go
but insisted they must go without delay. There was therefore nothing to be
done except to comply. The Bank, Telegraph and Mission institutions were
taken over by the Democrats and the Europeans proceeded to save such of their
belongings as they had time to pack, or any reasonable hope of being able to
carry away. With this they all collected in the British Consulate, except the
Russian Consul and his Cossacks, who remained in their own Consulate. The
local authorities collected all the camels, mu^s and donkeys which were to be
had locally and with this miscellaneous transport and an escort of over two
hundred Bakhtiari sowars the joint British and Russian communities made the
first march on the road to Bandar Abbas on the 17th December. Next day
the greater part of the escort returned leaving only 100 sowars under whose
protection the caravan continued its march to the coast. Erom reports received
on the road, the depirture of the Europeans did not immediately restore peace
and quiet to the City and the Democrats appear to have kept the shops closed
for some days while they settled up accounts with others who had shown
anti-democratic sympathies, but nothing of any importance happened before
the end of the year.
As reported last year, the main body of the Gendarmerie was ordered to
The Gendarmerie, ShiraZ ea;1 y in the y ear and 0nl y a Persian
officer and 60 men left in Kerman. This
Persian officer was a rabid Nationalist and pro-German and took such an
active part in politics that His Majesty's Consul had to ask for his transfer.
He was ordered to Shiraz but his successor, though abstaining from any open
part in politics, was equally pro-German and, from the time that they first
arrived, the Germans were able to make use of the Gendarmerie as if they
belonged to them. German caravans went to Yazd and returned to Kerman
under Gendarmerie escorts; at the time that it looked as if the Germans had
gone too far and that the Bakhtiaris would attack them, the Gendarmerie went