Page 162 - PERSIAN 8 1912_1920
P. 162

23              PERSIAN GULP ADMINISTRATION BEPORT
                     Very oarly in the year it was announce! that His Majesty’s Govc*nv
                                                had decided to make an advan^*
                         Swod'uli G-jndftrrrorio.  £100,000 for the Pars Gendarmerie^
                     The Ala-us-Sultanch, then Minister for Foreign Affairs, ia .
                 His Majesty’s Minister of the desire of the Persian Government to rc-cstah??
                 order iu the S.mth, gun ran tee the security of the trade routes and eventual
                 punish tliose guilty of the attack on Mr. Consul Smart, in December   If
                 the murder of Captain Fckford, on the 11th December 1912, and of ’ °‘
                                                                             vano^
                 other outrages, confess* d that the Persian Government had unfortunatol
                                                                              y no
                 means to carryout a programme drawn up by Colonel Hjalmarson, a
                 Swedish Colonel commanding the gendarmerie, which it was hoped wou](Tcfj ®
                 the objects of the Persian Government’s desires, and therefore expressed a hone
                 that if is Majesty’s Government might soo fit to advance the money rcquirL
                 for the purpose, namely, £35(1000 under such guarantees as might ho considered
                 desi'ahlo that the money would be devoted to that and to no other purpose,
                 would not be necessary, he said, for the whole sum to be advanced at once, but
                 it was essential, for the satisfactory execution of the scheme, that the Persian
                 Government could rest assured that the money would ho forthcoming -when
                 wanted.
                     Colonel Hjalinarson’s scheme provided for a corps of 1,800 men to cover
                 the route from Bushiro to Yazd-i-Khost, of which 1,000 men should bo at
                headquartois which were fixed at Shiraz.
                    On tbs 13th February, thcSwelish Colonel submitted to the Minister of
                the Inferior an amended programme whi jh involved for the two years a total
                 expenditure of £261.000 for the guarding of the section of the southern road
                which extends from Yazu-i-Khast to Bushire.
                    Major Brandel arrived, it will be rememberod, at Bushire at the close of
                1912 and, at the time of the Constant murder, had some 200 men enlisted from
                the districts around Bushire. Very shortly after the Constant murder he was
                left with 30 or L0 men who originaUy came down with him from the north.
                168 gen larmcs, mostly Tangistanis, had resigned in a body, because two
                recruits ha l been stripped naked and flogged for some offence.
                    For the force, the arms and ammunition, made in Germany, wore lying at
                Bushire awaiting despatch to Shiraz very early in the year. They arrived
                there on the 5th May in safety. The safe arrival of these arms was tue result
                of a fine piece of work, watched with much anxiety by all concerned and
                would have been more creditable if some rather dubious negotiations with the
                powerful Khans on the road, by which the latter were led to believe that the
                gendarmerie would connive at the levy of their illegal exactions, called
                JRahdari, on trade, had not proved a powerful lever to secure the quiet passage
                of the arms in question.
                    On February 27th, the first detachment of the gendarmerie, "450 strong,
                left Tehran for Shiraz ; Colonel Iljalmarson followed with the French Minister
                on the 11th March. They arrived without incident on the 31st March.
                    A further detachment, GOO strong, left Tehran on. tho 23rd April.
                    On the 17th April, Major Brandol sent somo letters to the Khan of
                Ahmedi, proposing that he should co-operate in a raid on the Khan of Borasjun
                with whom Ahmedi was not on friendly terms. Ho planned all this, just at
                the time that the arms caravan was about to proceed up the road, presumably
                by way of smoothing the way for the venture, as if the gendarmerie had no
                already enough on their hands. No one in authority at Bushire was consulte •
                The head tufangebi of the Customs wrote the letters without the knowledge °
                his own Customs Director and, if the letters had not secretly como to
                knowledge of Sir Percy Cox, who discussed the situation frankly with MaJ
                Brandel, a difficult task might well have been rondcrcd impossible W
                irresponsible side show of this kind.
                    Somo mention has been made of the Muhammad Kuli Khan episode
                ■we were tracing the career of tho Kawam-ul-Mulk throughout the year u ^
                report. It was mentioned that Muhammad Kuli Khan successfully evade*„ ^
                gendarmerie. This was perhaps rather a euphemistic way of putting xfoiofl
                BxccBcncy the Governor-General of Pars, after consultation witn *
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