It was far from the main actions of the war, but it’s a great tale, and none such tale
was actually insignificant in a war that could hinge on the smallest of events.
So for this Christmas special, we present a two part tale of wartime adventure, far
from Europe.
The Adventures of the Dunsterforce.
I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to a Great War Christmas special about the Dunsterforce.
This force, under British General L.C.
Dunsterville, was also known as the Hush-Hush Army, and he published their adventures from
Baghdad to Baku in 1920, written mostly from memory or rough diary notes.
See, when Baghdad fell to the British in March 1917, the German plans for Middle Eastern
expansion via the Berlin-Baghdad railway had to change.
They would now proceed further north, along the Berlin-Baku-Bokhara line.
The object of Dunsterville’s mission was to prevent German or Ottoman penetration in
the southern Caucasus and Caspian Sea region.
This was complicated by the Russian post revolution breakdown, leaving the area pretty open to
German enterprise.
By the latter part of 1917, Russian troops were deserting en masse from Persia and the
Caucasus to head home, and the Ottomans found nothing really in their way up the Caucasus
except some disorganized Armenian troops.
If Tiflis - Tbilisi - fell, as it likely would, the Central Powers would control the railway
between the Black and Caspian Seas, the expansive Baku oilfields, and the grain and cotton supplies
from the Caspian shores.
This would be a serious windfall for them.
But the British couldn’t really send a sizable force the nearly 1,300 km from Baghdad to
Baku, so they decided to send a mission to the area that would reorganize the Russian,
Georgian, and Armenian irregulars and shore up the lines against Ottoman invasion.
General Dunsterville, familiar with Russian, was chosen to lead the mission.
Some 200 officers would be the nucleus of the force, drawn from the other war fronts,
and mainly from the British Dominion armies.
However, time was a factor, so Dunsterville began with just a token force, and the other
men turned up over the next few months.
He arrived in Baghdad, January 18th.
The plan was to drive non-stop to Enzeli, on the Caspian coast, and then go by ship
to Baku.
It would ideally be a 12-day journey.
Ideally.
On January 27th, 12 officers, 2 clerks, and 41 drivers set off in 41 Ford cars and vans.
They had 41 riflemen and a Lewis gun, lots of British gold for greasing palms, and loads
of supplies for the terrain, the weather, and above all - lots of gasoline.
Not a whole lot of gas stations in that neck of the woods in 1918.
They averaged 5-15 km/hr, and really got a look at the devastation and famine of this
part of the world on the trip to Kermanshah, passing the bodies of people who had starved
to death and fallen by the roadside.
Once there, they met Russian Colonel Bicherakov and his Cossacks - this force had not left
with the Revolution but was still loyal to its leader.
He detailed a guide for the Dunsterforce as they travelled on.
They were snowed in for a week at 7,000 feet at Asadabad and then for another few days
at Hamadan.
At Kasvin- a seat of anti-British resistance - they found that further progress was impossible.
Mirza Kuchik Khan, leader of the people of Gilan, also called the Jangalis because of
the jungle climate beyond the mountains, had vowed not the let the British through, and
he was working with the Bolshevik committee that ran Enzeli.
Through Gilan ran the only road connecting Persia with the Caspian.
Now, although the Jangalis hated the Russians, the Russian exodus through his territory has
allowed Kuchik to buy loads of cheap rifles and ammo for his 5,000 men, and the roads
were at this point literally clogged with Russian soldiers, who were friendly enough
to the Dunsterforce, but who certainly did not think of themselves as “allies”.
Perhaps more interesting is what their general replies were when asked their political views.
“We have had a revolution because we were ill-treated and oppressed.
Now we are free, but ignorant and uneducated...
I am a Bolshevik, but I don’t know what Bolshevism means as I cannot read or write;
I just accept what the last speaker says... as the Committee in Kazian is Bolshevik, I
am too.
If it were anything else, I would be that.”
Kazian is the Russian port right beside the Persian port of Enzeli.
Dunsterville reached Kazian by the Menjil Road, unmolested by Kuchik Khan, who mistakenly
thought all the Russians would join the British if they were attacked.
Right away, the Kazian Bolshevik Committee demanded Dunsterville’s attendance to explain
the cars and the mission.
The Committee turned out to know about their mission to Baku already, there was a gunboat
prowling the sea, and enemies now surrounded them.
So Dunsterville withdrew back to Persia.
Red Guards actually arrived from Baku at Enzeli to capture them but just missed them leaving.
They reached Kasvin again February 22nd.
By now, there were rumors about that Kuchik Khan had forced them to turn back, so there
was even more hostility from the locals.
In fact, Kuchik had told his troops to attack if the Dunsterforce tried again to reach Enzeli
and Kazian.
The DF soon made it back to Hamadan, and with the passes now blocked by snow, they were
cut off from Baghdad.
The weather cleared finally in mid-March, and all the Russian troops, except for Bicherakov’s,
could get a move on.
The British would give Bicherakov financial assistance for military operations, and the
first of those would be to attack Kuchik Khan and clear the road from Kasvin to the Caspian
Sea.
Actually, the Jangalis were just now themselves preparing to march on Kasvin.
The DF sent some of Bicherakov’s Cossacks there and thwarted them for the moment.
The DF itself would remain in Hamadan for two more months, and would begin famine relief
work.
Within weeks, 20 more officers, 20 NCOs, thirty infantry, and an airplane had arrived.
The whole area was crippled by famine, but it turned out there was grain enough for everyone,
it was just being held up by grain dealers and landowners to fetch higher prices.
The bodies of those who starved to death remained in the streets where they fell; hunger having
driven the rest to apathy.
A third of Hamadan’s 50,000 inhabitants were on the verge of starvation, and cannibalism
was not uncommon.
So the Dunsterforce started hiring the hungry to repair roads.
This caused them to become more popular, which caused the politicians to turn on them.
Dunsterville says, “they infinitely preferred the death of their neighbors to such an undesired
contingency.
It was the same unuttered thought of all revolutionaries: Life must be sacrificed in this good cause,
so let any life but mine be freely offered up.”
Those deaths soon ceased as the workers managed to get basic food supplies and the relief
work progressed.
Now, Bicherakov had prevented Kasvin from falling to Kuchik Khan, which it turns out
prevented Teheran from falling, but getting to Baku would still mean going through Kuchik.
At this point, Dunsterville heard from the British Consul still in Baku.
The Bolshevik government was in power there, but there was a growing anti-Bolshevik sentiment.
There was also religious strife between the Tartars and Armenians.
Well, that was just one of many situations.
“There is the local situation, the all-Persia situation, the Jangali situation, the Persian-Russian
situation, the Turkish-advance-on-Tabriz situation, the question of liquidating Russian debts,
the Baku situation, the South Caucasus situation, the North Caucasus situation, the Bolshevik
situation, and the Russian situation as a whole.
And each of these subdivides into smaller and acuter situations.”
The Armenians and the Bolsheviks are for the moment holding out against the Caucasus-Islam
army, and though a decent sized force of troops could resolve the situation, the DF has no
troops, just some officers, a few armored cars by now, and some money.
That’s it, but on May 25th, 50 more officers and 150 more NCOs arrived, and Dunsterville
decided to relocate to Kasvin.
They left Hamadan June 1st, four months after departure from Baghdad.
They had actually accomplished a lot in four months, but their original mission was still
a failure; they had not reached the Caucasus, and who knew when they would?
And every day’s delay brought the Ottomans one step nearer the oil city of Baku.
They finally fought and soundly defeated Kuchik Khan’s main force of Jangalis on the Menjil
Road at the Battle of Menjil Bridge, and the Dunsterforce and Bicherakov’s Cossacks reached
Enzeli June 27th.
The next two days were spent meeting with the local Bolshevik leader, Comrade Cheliapin,
and his three man Soviet - one of those being 19 year old Comrade Babookh.
But Bicherakov suddenly turned Bolshevik, since he thought that was the only way he
could get his men through the Caucasus, which was mostly under Bolshevik control.
He was of course worried that going there would put him in Bolshevik hands, and they
might turn on him, so he decided to land at Alyat, about 50 miles south of Baku where
the railway turns toward Tiflis.
This way he could cooperate with the local Red Army in the field and still be separate
from the Bolshevik city leadership.
The Red Army there numbered around 10,000, but these were not trained soldiers.
The Turkish Caucasian-Islam army was around 12,000 strong, half of that being regular
Ottoman troops, and was advancing from Tiflis on the railway toward Baku.
Bicherakov hoped to make a dash and capture the vital single bridge over the Kura River
before the Turks reached it.
He left Enzeli July 1st.
Back at Enzeli, Dunsterville arranged a swap of cars for gasoline.
The committee could have cut off the supply of gas and instantly paralyzed the Hush-Hush
army, but they liked the prospect of owning cars.
Just want to say here, the Dunsterforce’s presence in the region had been really important.
Had they not been there the spring, Kuchik Khan would not have objected to Bicherakov
going through his territory, and the Jangali army would have faced no opposition in heading
for Tehran, and Bolshevism, which Kuchikism would’ve degenerated into, would’ve taken
northern Persia.
“...with North Persia in a state of Bolshevism, the remainder of Persia following suit and
linking up with Turkestan, the whole of Central Asia and Afghanistan would be thrown into
chaos.”
And here i will end part one of this tale.
Quite a confusing tale, but it only gets worse.
Next time we’ll see battle and intrigue, a revolution and the Centro-caspian dictatorship,
and… no, no spoilers, you’ll just have to check it out for yourself.
Happy holidays from all of us and see you for part two!
My main source for this episode was the book “The Adventure of Dunsterforce”, a great
and thrilling book that I highly recommend.
You can find a link to that in the description below.
If you want to learn more about the Trans-Caucasian region which will be more important in 1918,
you can click right here for that.
Don’t forget to subscribe.
See you next time.