We must now cast a brief glance over North ern Persia. The Turks entered Tabriz on 16 June 191& During June, also, about the time Dunsterville was leading his detachment into Persia, small bodies of troops were dispatched to Bijar and Miana to safeguard the long line of communication and to establish friendly relations with the local tribes in the northeast ern corner of the coimtry. A road runs through Bijar to the Urmiah district, where it was known that the Assyrians, Nestorians ;and Jelus had been successfully resisting the Turlcs during the early summer. In July it was de cided to get into communication with these tribes by aeroplane, and to send them by convoy assistance in the shape of ammunition, ma chine guns and money. This convoy reached Sain Kala on 23 July, but the Assyrians were 10 days late in meeting it, and their eventual arrival coincided with the occupation of Ur miah by the Turks, who drove all the Assyrians out, massacring many and pursuing them along the road to Sain Kala until checked by the British advanced troops. The whole of the Assyrians who survived— men, women and children— then streamed along the Sain Kala Bijar road from 3 August onwards, and finally over 50,000 arrived at Bijar, whence they were evacuated unmolested to Hamadan. Large numbers fell by the way from privation and cholera. The British military authorities fed the refugees and sent them on in batches of 3,000 at a time down the Persian line of com munication to Bakuba, where a great refugee camp had been formed. Men capable of bear ing arms were organized into a fighting force, and others were employed on the roads and elsewhere. A small British detachment had also been kept at Miana, on the Kasvin-Tabriz road. and on 1 August news was received that the Turks in Tabriz were collecting transport, apparently with the aim of raiding the Bntish communications, then held by weak parties of troops. The Turks eventually attacked an ad vanced post of irregulars on the road about 45 miles northwest of Miana, and for several days the posts had to fall back fighting against superior forces of Turks, who occupied Miana on 9 September, taking up a strong position south of that place. Meanwhile General Mar shall had sent such reinforcements as he could spare, and the Turkish advance was brought to a halt.
Mention has been made of the situation of the Turkish Armenians in the war. We have seen how the two branches of that race were willing to pledge loyalty to their respective governments, Turicish and Russian. They fought in both armies, and were betrayed by both governments; for, under the Turks, they were rarely entrusted with weapons, but were made to perform all the menial tasks of the camp and battlefield. After the downfall of the Romanoffs, the Russian Armenians sup ported first the Provisional and then the Ker ensky government, in the despairing hope that some measure of benefit might accrue to their unhappy country. When Kerenslcv went down before the Bolshevilc avalanche, the Russian Armenians made common cause with their brethren under Turkish rule. For a month the Armenians at Van held a Turkish army at bay during April 1915, keeping a division of the enemy and thousands of Kurds employed; two months later, some 10,000 Armenians of Sassun, armed with obsolete weapons, fought 50,000 Turks and Kurds. On neither occasion did the Russians, who were within easy distance, come to the rescue. Armenian men and women oc cupied the trenches and fought with the cour age of despair at Urfa for 40 days against a Turkish division. Later, in Cilicia, a few thou sand Armenians near Zeitun fled into the moun tains and struggled against an army of Turks for over 40 days. They managed to reach the
Mediterranean Coast, whence they were picked ta a French cruiser, which conveyed them to t, where they enlisted in the British and French armies. In the Caucasus the Arme nians contributed in no small measure to the defeat of the Turks in the early stage of the war and still raore in the later part of the campaign. After the Turks had surrendered, General Liman von Sanders expressed the opin ion that their collapse was due to the fact that the Turks, aagainst my orders and advice, sent all their available forces to the Caucasus and Persia, where they fought the Armenians.* Kerensky said on 20 Aug. 1918 that, aof all the races of the Caucasus., the Armenians alone stuck to their posts, organized volunteer forces and by the side of their Russian comrades faced the formidable assaults of the enemy and turned his victorious march into a disas trous rout.* During the war the Turks launched five separate offensives in the Cau casus; four of these were defeated mainly by the Armenians, and in the other case the Rus sians who were chiefly responsible for vic tory were commanded by an Armenian general, Nazarbekoff. On 3 Oct. 1918 Lord Robert Cecil wrote that 4the service rendered by the Armenians to the common cause can never be forgotten.* After the Russian Caucasus Army of over 200,000 men abandoned the country they left 30,000 Annenians facing nearly 70,000 Turks. An arrangement betiveen the Caucasian Armenians, Georgians and Tatars lasted only a few weeks, for in May 1918 all the three races declared. their respeotive territories as in dependent republics. The Armenians, however, were soon called to fight for their independence, for the Turks sent large armies against then. In two fierce encounters the latter were routed with enormous losses and were glad to nego tiate for peace, the preliminaries of which.were sigmed on 4 June 191& This treaty. was not ratified by the new republic, born out of blood shed, tome and centuries of oppression.
The inultifarious fighting, skirmishing and manceuvring for positions that took place dur ing the summer of 1918 have been touched upon; they form the overture to the sensa tional drama that was shortly to be enacted. Three years before there had been a subsidiary operation on the banlcs of the Suez Canal and an unheralded landing at the head of the Per sian Gulf. Against innumerable difficulties and in the face of numerous setbacks, the Allies had slowly crept across the Sinai Peninsula and up along the Syrian Coast on the one part, and up along the banlcs of the Tigris and the Euphrates on the other. Lllce an insidious fatal disease whidi begins from the feet and relent lessly works its course up to the heart, so the British and Allied detachments had gradually worked upwards from the lower extremities of a diseased and decrepit polity, laming its mem bers to the trunk. The coup de grace was now to be dealt swiftly and mercilessly. aThe Last Crusade,* as Mr. John Buchan terms it, awas now approaching its climax, and the Crusaders would have startled the souls of Saint Louis arid Raymond and Richard the Lionhearted could they have beheld that amazing army.* Only a modest portion of it was drawn from the West ern peotleessi.22 Algerian and Indian Moslems, Arab tri en, men of the thousand creeds of Hindustan, African negroes, Frenchmen, Ital ians, Armenians, Americans and Jewish bat talions all united for a comrnon purpose, were among the liberators of the Holy Land of Christendom. .