سلام
مطلب زیر برگرفته از زبان نظامیان بریتانیا است:
از خواندن مطالب زیر ناراحت نشوید زیرا بریتانیا برای تامین منافع خودش ماجراها را طوری تعریف می کند
که همیشه حق با خود بریتانیا باشد! بریتانیا به وضوح از مردم بوشهر یا
دشتستان یا تنگستان به عنوان دشمن یاد می کند! رئیسعلی دلواری به کمک عوامل
آلمان و آقای واسموس در سال 1915 یعنی جنگ جهانی اول قیام کرد و ارتباط
زیادی با آقای صولت الدوله قشقایی نیز داشت. اگر می خواهید بدانید که چرا
مردم بوشهر و قشقایی ها علیه انگلیسی ها قیام کردند باید خلاصه تاریخ بوشهر
(ابوشهر یا Bushire) را بخوانید:
خلاصه تاریخ بوشهر
همچنین در دو سند نظامی زیر نیز می توانید جزییات بیشتر را بخوانید:
موقعیت و جبهه بندی نیروهای رئیسعلی دلواری در جنگ جهانی اول سال 1915:
این داستان برگرفته از وبسایت:
THE NAVY IN THE PERSIAN GULF
CHAPTER XIII
THE TANGISTANI RAIDS
Judged
by the standard to which the war has accustomed us, the whole thing was
a very small affair, so small that even in peace-time it would not have
occupied more than three columns in the morning newspapers. In war-time
it could not be expected to occupy more than half a dozen lines, tucked
away in a corner where no one would notice them. It happened to turn
out all right, and of course that makes a difference. If a small colony
of Englishmen, women, and children had been murdered by Arab
cut-throats, Fleet Street in peace-time would have found enough material
to fill a whole page, and even in war-time would have produced some
artistic effects in headlines. But by the grace of God, and the efforts
of British soldiers and seamen, the tragedy was averted.
In order to understand how the
affair came about one must go back a few years in the history of the
Persian Gulf. Great Britain had been policing the waters and shores of
the Gulf for 300 years before it occurred to Germany that her designs
upon the Middle East were severely inconvenienced by the British
paramountcy in Arabia and Western Persia, and with Teutonic perseverance
she set about the task of undermining that paramountcy. It is not my
purpose to relate the adventures of Herr Wonckhaus, the modest trader in
mother-of-pearl, who built most palatial edifices round the shores of
the Gulf out of mysterious funds, which certainly did not arise from the
profits of his small trade; nor the advent of the Hamburg-America liner
dispensing champagne dinners up and down the Gulf, while the stewards›
band discoursed sweet music, nor the long tale of intrigue whereby
Turkey, in her role of Germany’s vassal, made several attempts to
acquire territory round the Gulf, but was happily frustrated by British
vigilance. Suffice it to say that the attitude of our Foreign Office was
clear and precise throughout the course of all this scheming. We had
managed very nicely for 300 years to keep the Gulf open to the traders
of all races without discrimination; we had suppressed the activities of
Arab pirates, and our political residents had acted as arbitrators
between the various Arab tribes whenever they became disputatious with
one another, and had won the confidence and respect of them all. For
doing this work we sought no remuneration or quid pro quo; we made no
attempt to secure territory for ourselves, beyond a small island which
we leased to house a telegraph station; we did not even claim any
advantage in trading facilities for British merchants. But, on the other
hand, we were quite determined that we wanted no assistance with the
work, and that no other nation should step in and rob any of the Arab
chiefs of an inch of territory. In fact, we postulated the right to
establish a kind of Monroe Doctrine in the Gulf. Our object, of course,
was that we did not want any European Power to be able to use the
Persian Gulf as a base for warships, which would be able to threaten a
flank attack on our line of communication with India. Germany knew our
object, and knew the value of defeating it, and that is why she spent
many years and much money in assiduously trying to establish an
influence over the natives of Persia and Arabia.
The most important character in
this little drama first appears on the scene in 1910 in the shape of
the German consul at Bushire, Herr Wassmus. Bushire lies on the east
side of the Gulf, near the northern end of it, and is important mainly
because it is the only place on that side which can boast a harbour, or
anything like a harbour. Vessels of small draught can make their way
into the port, but any ship drawing twenty feet or more must lie
outside, a prey to the strong shamals which blow from the west across
the Arabian desert. Here is the end of the caravan trade route, which
leads from central Persia through Shiraz, bringing dates, raw cotton,
oriental carpets, silks, and other merchandise for export to Europe,
India, and China, as well as goods for the Persian Gulf trade which are
transported in native sailing vessels, called dhows. Here the great
Wassmuss arrived in 1910, ostensibly to safeguard the interests of
German traders. At that time he was a portly gentleman with grey hair,
but I am told that he has grown thinner since then, and that his hair
has turned white, which is not altogether surprising, for Bushire is no
health resort. He left it for a while, but was back again in 1913, and
upon his return he found it necessary to spend the worst of the hot
weather at Shiraz, which again is not surprising, for Shiraz, standing
5,000 feet above the sea-level, is a good deal more habitable than
Bushire in the summer.
There were, however, other
points about Shiraz which recommended it to Herr Wasmuss, and these must
be mentioned in order to explain the part he plays in the story. This
ancient centre of Persia’s civilisation happens to be the headquarters
of the Gendarmerie of the province of Fars. The force consists of about
1,700 officers and men, the officers being partly Persian and partly
Swedish, Their duties are to patrol the caravan routes, restrict the
activities of Arab brigands, and collect the revenue of the country. How
much of the money collected finds its way into the Exchequer I do not
know, for the Gendarmerie always had a substantial claim against the
Persian Government for arrears of pay. This circumstance proved useful
to Herr Wassmuss, who was always well supplied with funds, and found
that a judicious distribution of them went a long way towards securing
the good-will both of officers and men. Travitz, the Swedish Commandant
at Shiraz, became a confirmed Wassmussian, and through him the
subordinate officers were influenced in the same direction.
Another influential friend of
Wassmuss was the Governor-General of Fars, Mukhbir-us-Sultaneh. He had
spent some years in Germany, where he had imbibed the national belief
that the Germans are the chosen people of the earth. He gave himself
body and soul to the new propaganda, and wrote letters to all the local
khans (Arab chiefs) expatiating on the virtues of the Teuton and the
vices of the British. It must be understood that all this was happening
in peace time, in the days when we innocently believed that we could
make friends with the Germans, when Herr Wassmuss himself was a member
of the English clubs at Shiraz and Bushire, and was treated with all
that spirit of camaraderie, of which the Englishman abroad is capable.
The intrigues of Herr Wassmuss
extended beyond the borders of Persia to the Trucial Coast and right
round to Muscat but for the moment we are concerned only with his
activities so far as they affected Bushire. In July 1913 an incident
occurred, which had an important bearing on subsequent events, and threw
another valuable friend into the arms of the German consul. This was
Rais Ali, the chief of the Tangistani tribe, who lived at Dilwar, a
coastal village about twenty miles south-east of the town of Bushire.
The trade, profession, or occupation of Rais Ali is not easy to define.
He was not a pirate himself – nothing so vulgar – but he was a kind of
officer commanding piracy, and he derived his income, I suppose, partly
by trading in pirated goods, and partly by blackmailing the pirates. He
made Dilwar a pirates› nest, and organised pirates› expeditions to the
pearl fisheries. In July 1913 we happened to be looking for a notorious
pirate, and at last traced him to his lair at Dilwar. There a British
man-of-war demanded that he should be handed over, but Rais Ali, who, it
must be said, showed commendable loyalty to his friends, refused point
blank to do anything of the kind. Whereat the man-of-war proceeded to
argue the point with the aid of naval guns, and in a few hours Dilwar
was looking very sorry for itself, while the assortment of pirate dhows
anchored there was soon floating about in the form of match-wood. Then
Rais Ali gnashed his teeth, and swore eternal enmity against the
British. Herr Wassmuss heard of the incident, and said to himself that
really Rais Ali must be a very nice man, whom it would be a pleasure to
know. So he opened his arms wide to the Arab chief, hugged him to his
breast, and poured words of consolation into his ear.
A year later, in July 1914,
Herr Wassmuss had news from Germany which caused him to leave Bushire in
a hurry. He had not reached home when war was declared, and
consequently he was delayed en route, but eventually he found his way to
Berlin. He did not stay there long, however, for the German Government
knew where he was likely to make himself most useful to them, and packed
him off again back to Persia via Constantinople. His mission, as
revealed by papers in his possession, was definite enough. He was to
raise Persia and Afghanistan against the British, and to tamper with the
loyalty of the troops in our Indian Army. They sent with him another
German, called Linders, but his career was soon cut short. He was
captured by Haidar Khan, one of the friends of the British, was handed
over to us, and sent to India to be interned.
One of the first persons that
Herr Wassmuss approached on his return to Persia was Rais Ali, the
pirates› friend. In December 1916 (Note: 1915?) the two were busy
formulating plans for a general anti-British rising in Persia. In his
house at Shiraz the great Wassmuss, clad in the garb of a Persian
gentleman, received the Arab chief in state. With Teutonic thoroughness
he had not only discarded his European clothes, but he had thrown off
his European religion at the same time, and declared himself a convert
to the faith of Islam. He greeted Rais Ali with Eastern salutations,
refreshed him with Eastern sweetmeats, and got to business. The outcome
of the negotiations was an agreement that Rais Ali would lead his
Tangistani tribesmen against Bushire, and massacre every English man,
woman, and child in the place. If Herr Wassmuss was at any time troubled
with scruples about the ethics of conspiring with an Arab cut-throat to
murder defenceless civilians, his new religion would be invoked to
quiet them, for did not the great Prophet himself engage in wholesale
massacres whenever he found them necessary to prove the triumphant
progress of the faith?
So Rais Ali’s share in the
proceedings was definitely settled. Of the tasks allotted to
Mukhbir-us-Sultaneh, the Governor-General, to Pravitz, the Commandant of
Gendarmerie, and to the various other friends of Wassmuss, I have no
definite knowledge. Suffice it to say that a blood feud between two of
the local Khans was turned to account, that one of the disputants, the
Khan of Borasjan on the road between Bushire and Shiraz, was joined by
two other Khans, to form an anti-British alliance, while the other
disputant, Ismail Khan, was joined by our friend Haidar Khan, to form an
anti-German alliance. But where the anti-British Khans secured an
advantage was in the reinforcements they received from deserters of the
Gendarmerie, who had good German money rattling in their purses, and had
been promised that there was more to come. They were also presented
with good German rifles, so that they had every reason to feel pleased
with their prospects.
There followed a delay of six
months, possibly caused by the necessity of waiting for further
consignments of rifles, and it was not until July 1915 that word was
passed to Rais Ali that the time had come for him to fullil his compact.
On the 12th of that month the first Tangistani raid was made on
Bushire, and, though the attack was repulsed, two British officers and
one sepoy lost their lives, and two sepoys were wounded. It seems fairly
evident that this attack was made prematurely and without adequate
preparation, for the defending force at that time was very small.
Finding that we could obtain no
reparation from the Persian Government, we immediately took steps to
secure the safety of the inhabitants of Bushire. We sent a naval and
military force to take possession of the port and town, and set to work
upon a system of defences. We also took steps to punish the Tangistanis,
by sending a naval squadron commanded by Captain (now Rear-Admiral)
Wake, to Dilwar, where we landed a small detachment of Indian troops and
a party of seamen. The naval guns drove the Tangistanis inland, but
during the next two days (14th and 15th August) they returned several
times to the attack, only to be driven off by rifles, machine-guns, and
the shell-fire from the ships. The fort and village of Dilwar were
destroyed, and the casualties to the enemy were heavy. Our own
casualties were slight, but unfortunately included the commander and one
of the lieutenants of the Juno. On the night of the 15th the force was
re-embarked, partly because the heat was too intense to allow of the
operations being protracted, and partly because there was a danger that
Rais Ali might adopt the offensive defensive scheme, and make another
attack on Bushire during the absence of our ships and troops.
Some such idea must have been
in his mind, for he soon began a series of night raids, which suggested
the prelude to a more serious attack. Our line of outposts was provided
with acetylene searchlights, but at first these proved very
unsatisfactory because they had a mysterious way of refusing to work as
soon as the first rifle-shot was fired. The probable explanation is that
they were manned by Eurasians, who had no great liking for the sound of
rifle-fire. The Senior Naval Officer was requested to provide seamen to
man these lights, and thenceforward they gave entire satisfaction. It
was during one of these night raids that Wassmuss suffered a heavy blow
in the loss of his cherished friend Rais Ali. The Tangistani chief had
boasted that it was his own rifle which killed the two British officers
on 12th July, and it is probable that all the crack shots defending
Bushire were longing for the chance of revenge. When one of the
searchlights illumined the features of Rais Ali, his doom was scaled.
His faithful followers removed him from the battle-field, but he is said
to have died of his wounds very shortly afterwards.
The town of Bushirc stands on
what would be an island, were it not for a low-lying tract of sand which
joins it to the mainland. This causeway is known as the “Mashilah,” and
is from five to seven miles across. During high tides it is
occasionally inundated, and at all times the area of firm dry sand is
narrow. The presence of British warships made it impossible for the
Tangistanis to approach Bushire by sea, and so the Mashilah offered the
only possible line of advance. Its main drawback from the invader’s
point of view is that not an inch of cover can be found anywhere until
the island of Bushire is reached. Round the edge of the island on the
Mashilah side is a line of low cliffs, which form a kind of natural
rampart. These cliffs, however, are intersected by numerous nullahs, or
gullies, sloping down from the island to the Mashilah. At the top of
them are loose rocks and boulders, and at the foot of them a belt of
palm-trees extends for some distance. It the Tangistanis could contrive
to cross the Mashilah under cover of darkness, they would be able to
take up a strong position on the edge of the island, and to find shelter
from our fire by dodging behind the rocks and palm-trees. And this is
exactly what they did.
The ships lying off Reshire
Point were the Juno, Pyramus, and Lawrence. It would be idle to pretend
that they were enjoying life, for no one does that at Bushire during the
hot weather. The shade temperature was always hovering in the vicinity
of 100° Fahrenheit, and the atmosphere was always damp and sticky. Their
routine was largely made up of rehearsals for the Tangistani
performance, which they knew to be imminent. Parties were landed on the
beach, and in the comparatively cool hours of the early morning they
went through their field exercises, practised the art of bringing a
machine-gun into action rapidly, and received instructions about the
handling of it under fire. The rehearsals were conducted by Captain
George Carpenter, R.M.L.I., of H.M.S. Juno, in conjunction with the
gunnery lieutenant of that ship. By tapping the resources of the three
ships the Navy managed to provide a field force of seven officers, 153
men, and four maxims, as well as supplying to the Russian Consulate a
guard of twenty men and a maxim, and a further six men to work the
searchlights.
On the night of 8th September
Captain Carpenter landed with three officers and sixty men of H.M.S.
Pyramus, spent the night at the base camp near the Telegraph Station,
and at six o’clock next morning was busily engaged in putting them
through their exercises. When they returned to the camp for breakfast
they found that a message had just come in from Brigadier-General
Brooking, who was in command of the troops at Bushire, ordering them to
proceed to the reserves› camp at Imam Zada. This suggested that
something must be happening, so they sent for their transport carts,
swallowed their breakfast, and got under way. In that region the sun
begins to get hot at six in the morning, by seven it has become
unpleasant, and by eight it is beyond the pale of printable language.
The glare of it strikes against the white dust on the track, so that the
most capacious sun-helmet does not avail to shield the eyes. Here and
there relief is found in a cluster of green palms, such as shade the
British Residency and a few other European dwellings, but the general
aspect at this season is of a parched and dreary land, unredeemed by God
or man. I remember the first time I landed at Bushire I had just been
re-reading Omar Khayyam’s ecstasies about his Persian garden, and my
hopes ran high at the prospect of setting foot in Persia. But I landed
at the wrong place. If I had gone to Shiraz, there, perhaps, I might
have seen the real thing, and might even have feasted my eyes upon a
“moon of my delight who knows no wane.” That is one of our misfortunes
in the Navy – we seldom have the chance of seeing the best of the
countries we visit.
The men of H.M.S. Pyramus
trudged on steadily, while the perspiration dripped from their faces and
soaked through their cotton clothes, until they reached the camp at
Imam Zada. Here they found another message from the G.O.C. ordering them
to advance farther east to a tower near the village of Zangena, and
there take up the best position they could find, in order to command the
two gullies leading down to the Mashilah at that point. The British
outposts were situated at intervals along the edge of the Mashilah as
far as a point south of Zangena, and then stretched across the island to
the sea on the west side. The village of Halilah was suspected of
harbouring enemy agents, and was therefore shut out beyond our line of
defences. To man these outposts and to provide supports and reserves, we
had only two small detachments of Indian troops – Rajputs and Ghurkhas.
The latter had been on duty all night, and consequently the general did
not want to use them if it could be avoided. We had, however, a big
pull over the enemy in the possession of artillery, consisting of field
and mountain guns, and we had also a small body of cavalry ready to move
out on the Mashilah as soon as the Tangistanis showed signs of
retreating.
The general had seen at once
that the troops holding the outposts were insufficient to drive off the
enemy, who were over 600 strong, and that he must call up his reserves
from Reshire, including the naval party. It took an hour or so to bring
them up, and in the meantime the Rajputs at the outposts clung on
grimly, for they knew well enough that they were not likely to receive
quarter if the Tangistanis once got in among them. The batteries were
also busily engaged, though there was always a danger that an
enterprising rush on the part of the enemy would sweep right over them,
or that a flank attack might get in behind them.
The men of the Pyramus, now
painfully conscious that each one of them was carrying his rifle and
equipment, while some of them had the additional burden of machine-guns
and ammunition-boxes, had reached within 800 yards of the objective when
they came under heavy rifle-fire from Tangistanis hidden behind rocks
300 yards away. They were ordered to lie down and take breath, and then
the advance was continued by means of short rushes in the orthodox
style. It is an exhilarating exercise when carried out on the fields of
good old England, but the effect is very different when a tropical sun
is beating down on one’s head, and a choking dust is filling the mouth
and nostrils. It is no disparagement of Tangistani marksmanship to
record that our casualties from heat stroke exceeded those caused by
bullets.
They got to the tower at last,
and mounted a maxim there. Another maxim was got into position at the
left end of the line, but the gun on the right could not find cover of
any kind, and was subjected to a tornado of bullets from the enemy.
The gun’s crew had to fall back
from it, but Captain Carpenter called for volunteers to bring it into
action, and Lieutenant-Commander Dorman and Yeoman of Signals Wood
immediately went forward to it. Wood was mortally wounded as soon as he
reached it, and fell right across the gun. Carpenter then saw that the
enemy’s fire was too accurate, and that he could not afford to risk
further casualties in his small force, so he called to Dorman to come
back. There was no danger of the enemy capturing the gun, for the two
other maxims completely covered their line of advance. So there the
little force remained, taking what cover they could find, and seizing
every chance to pot a Tangistani when he was rash enough to show
himself. Carpenter sent a message to the G.O.C. informing him of the
position of affairs, and asking for a stretcher-party to remove the
wounded and heat-stroke cases. The G.O.C. sent back word telling him to
hang on until the reserve infantry arrived to clear up the situation,
and that medical assistance would be sent as soon as possible.
Soon after ten o’clock
Lieutenant-Colonel Lane came up with the reserve infantry, and charged
right into the enemy, who promptly broke and fled, and that was
virtually the end of the business. The naval party moved forward with
their machine-guns to hold the gullies, and proceeded to deal with any
stray Tangistanis found lurking among the palm-trees. The cavalry moved
on to the Mashilah and got right into the fleeing tribesmen, while the
artillery lengthened their range and played havoc with them all the way
across. The Arabs brought up donkeys to remove most of their dead and
wounded, but we collected between fifty and sixty of them near the edge
of the Mashilah.
So ended the great coup which
Wassmuss had been planning for months beforehand. Its failure must have
been a serious blow to his prestige, for, although there were plenty of
alarums and excursions during the succeeding months, and various
tribesmen showed a good deal of unrest, there was no other concerted
effort against Bushire. The little colony of British subjects went about
their vocations with untroubled minds, and slept peacefully in their
beds. Captain Carpenter was awarded the D.S.C. for his services at
Dilwar and Bushire, and was shortly afterwards promoted.
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