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WITH THE PERSIAN EXPEDITION




THE ROAD TO BIRKANDI.
THE ROAD TO BIRKANDI.



WITH THE PERSIAN
EXPEDITION


BY

MAJOR M. H. DONOHOE

LATE ARMY INTELLIGENCE CORPS



ILLUSTRATED



LONDON
EDWARD ARNOLD
1919

(All rights reserved)




TO THE MEMORY OF

MY COMRADES OF THE IMPERIAL AND
DOMINION FORCES

WHO, IN THE CONCLUDING YEAR OF THE GREAT WAR,
GAVE THEIR LIVES FOR THE WORLD'S FREEDOM
IN PERSIA AND TRANSCAUCASIA.




{v}

PREFACE

No one can be more alive than I am to the fact thatof the making of war books there is no end, nor cananyone hear mentally more plainly than I do how, ateach fresh appearance of a work dealing with the worldtragedy of the past five years, weary reviewers andjaded public alike exclaim, "What? Yet another!" Why,then, have I added this of mine to the alreadyso formidable list?

Well, chiefly because in the beginning of 1918 Fateand the War Office sent me into a field of operationsalmost unknown and unheeded of the averagehome-keeping Briton—viz., that of North-West Persia, inthe land lying towards the Caucasus and the CaspianSea; and my experiences there led me into bypathsof the Great War so unusual as to seem well worthdescribing, quite apart from the military importanceof the movements of which they were but a minutepart.

However, in the latter aspect, too, I hope my bookwill serve as a useful footnote to the history of thegigantic struggle now happily ended.

The story of the Persian campaign needed to betold, and I am glad to add my humble quota to therecital. It is the story of a little force operating far{vi}away from the limelight, unknown to the people athome, and seemingly forgotten a great part of thetime even by the authorities themselves. It was tothis force—commanded by General Dunsterville,and hence known to those who knew it at all as"Dunsterforce"—that I was attached, and it isabout it that I have written here. I have tried tomake clear what the "Dunsterforce" was, why itwas sent out, and how far it succeeded in accomplishingits mission. In order to do this I have beenobliged to treat rather fully both of local geographyand politics. For here we had no clear-cut campaignin which all the people of one country were in armsagainst all the people of another country. No! Itwas a very mixed-up and complicated business, asanyone who troubles to read what I have written willreadily see.

Then, again, it was a war waged distinctly off thebeaten track. During its progress we came acrosstribes to whom Great Britain was as some legendaryland in another solar sphere—tribes to whom theaeroplane and the automobile were undreamed-ofmarvels—tribes, finally, whose habitat and modes of life andthought are almost as unknown to the averageEuropean as his are to them. For this reason I havedevoted some space to descriptions of places andpeople as I saw them.

A word should perhaps be said as to how and whyI happened to be there at all.

{vii}

War has figured very largely in my life. For thepast twenty ye

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