Page 375 - PERSIAN 8 1912_1920_Neat

FOR THE YEAR 1916. 21
in danger. Farukh 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 tho then Agha Khan. Some of the Shaikh!
Mullahs were connected with tho family and it was because Farukh Shah
in his intercourse with them, urged them to use their influence to detach
the people from tho Germans and Democrats that lie had incurred the
enmity of the latter. Hussainoff had, from the commencement of the
democratic movement, bcon an anti-Domocrat and was an avowed pro-ally.
Farukh Shah was inveigled into a trap and two shots fired into him at close
quarters from which ho only survived about one hour. Hussainoff was more
fortunate, tho men placed on tho roof of tho bazaar to shoot him as he went
to bis office, only managing to break his arm. On the urgent representations
of both Consuls the Governor-General telegraphed to Tehrau repeating his
previous requests for defiuito orders to take action against tho Germans and
Democrats and for tho 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, tho Mission
IEos pital 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 premise to His Majesty’s Consul he undertook to provide an escort of his
Bakhtiaris to conduct the Europeans 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 tho 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, mules 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 17 th December. Noxt day
the greater part of the escort returned leaving only 100 sowars under whose
protection the caravan continued its march to the ooast. From reports received
on the road, the departure of the Europeans did not immediately restore peace
and quiet to the City and the Democrats appear to have kept the shops closed
for somo 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, tho main body of the Gendarmerie was ordered to
Th* Gendarmerie. Shiraz early 5n tlie a*d only 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 tho time that they first
arrived, the Gormans wore able to make use of tho Gendarmorie as if they
belonged to thorn. German caravans wont to Yazd and returned to Kerman
under Gendarmerie escorts; at the time that it looked as if the Germans had
gone too far aud that the Bakhtiaris. would attack them, the Gendarmerie went