[23] The diplomatic history will be found in the Belgian Grey Book (British official translation, Cd. 7627).
[24] The Belgian Government published a series of official reports detailing these atrocities (see also p. 251). They were reprinted, with those of the French and Russian Commissions of Inquiry, in an "Official Book of the German Atrocities" (London, 1914, 1s.).
[25] Details of the retreat of this force were not yet published in April, 1915.
[26] An adequate summary is impracticable here. Details will be found in the Report of the Federal Council to the Federal Assembly dated December 1, 1914.
[27] On importation, exportation, and the application of Act VII. of the Hague Convention, students may be referred to the Journal de Genève, December 10, 1914, January 10 and 12, 1915.
[28] The terms "winter-line" and "summer-line" refer to the rival proposals regarding the periods of military service, the "summer-line" period being the shorter.
CHAPTER V.
SOUTHERN ASIA.
I. PERSIA.
The Viceroy of India, in his speech closing the Imperial Legislative Council on March 24, in which he reviewed briefly foreign affairs in connexion with India, was able to speak of the work of the Swedish officers and the gendarmerie organised by them as eminently successful. The force was employed during the winter in patrolling the roads, and it dealt with the robber bands which infested them. The improvement in the returns of British and Indian trade in Southern Persia was the best evidence of the efficiency of the work of the gendarmerie. Another force dealt with the situation on the trade route between Bunder Abbas and Kerman, and, although it had some serious engagements with the Perso-Baluchi tribes, there was every reason for confidence in its ability to establish order in the near future.
The young Shah Sultan Ahmad Shah, now a youth of sixteen, was crowned with considerable ceremony at Teheran in July, and took the oath of fidelity to the Constitution before the Mejliss. He was only a child of eleven when his father, Mahomed Ali, was driven into exile, and no opinion can yet be formed of his character or abilities.