"بلاد فارس والشأن الفارسي من إعداد السيد المحترم جورج ناثانييل كورزون، عضو البرلمان." [‎٥‎٥‎٤] (٧١٤/٦١٧)

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PERSIA
with the Sheikh. Meanwhile, there were great trepidation and
telegraphing at Teheran. An army of 20,000 men, with some
batteries of artillery, was marched off to the theatre of war • itg
commander, the Hishmet-ed-Dowleh having died en route, the old
statesman Mohammed Husein Khan, the Sipah Salar, or Com
mander-in-Chief, was despatched to Tabriz; the Shah appealed to
Russia for help, to England for counsel, and to Turkey for amends
At the moment, however, of the most tense and ominous anxiety"
t e thundercloud dwindled, dissolved, and disappeared. The
Sheikh, who might with ease have marched upon Tabriz, and have
occupied it probably without resistance, faltered and was lost
The time was long enough to show that his following had no ideas
of cohesion, much less of conquest, but were animated only by
religious animosity and the desire to plunder. As the prospect of
hard fighting increased, their own jealousies broke loose, they fell
away from their leader, and the movement which had begun with
such sanguine omens in September, ignominously collapsed in
November. Strong pressure was brought to bear upon the Porte
by the European Governments, in deference to which Obeidullah
was at length arrested and conveyed to Constantinople in July
881. In August 1882, like most prisoners at the Turkish
capital, he escaped, but, having surrendered again a few months
ater, he was deported to Mecca, where he died in October 1883.
ie movement, although a fiasco, was, from the political point of
view, one of great importance, for it demonstrated the utter im
practicability, owing to family and clan dissensions, of a united
Kurdish organisation, which will probably not again be heard of
during our time.
J he numbei of Kurds under Ottoman rule is estimated at from
one to one and a half million. The figures of those on Persian
Number of ^6 lr ifory have been given as follows (exclusive of the
Kurds" Kurdish colonies, of wdiich I have previously spoken,
in Khorasan):—
f rontier Kurds and Kurds of Azerbaijan ..... 250,000
Kurds of Kurdistan proper, i.e. Sinna and Ardelan . . . 120,000
Kurds of Kermanshah . . non aaa
Total . 600,000
On the other hand. Colonel Stewart, in his latest report (1890)
gives the number of Kurds in Azerbaijan as 450,000, which is
nearly double the first item in the above calculation. I may here