(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.
PREFACE
No one can be more alive than I am to the fact that of the making of war books there is no end, nor can anyone hear mentally more plainly than I do how, at each fresh appearance of a work dealing with the world tragedy of the past five years, weary reviewers and jaded public alike exclaim, "What? Yet another!" Why, then, have I added this of mine to the already so formidable list?
Well, chiefly because in the beginning of 1918 Fate and the War Office sent me into a field of operations almost unknown and unheeded of the average home-keeping Briton—viz., that of North-West Persia, in the land lying towards the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea; and my experiences there led me into bypaths of the Great War so unusual as to seem well worth describing, quite apart from the military importance of the movements of which they were but a minute part.
However, in the latter aspect, too, I hope my book will serve as a useful footnote to the history of the gigantic struggle now happily ended.
The story of the Persian campaign needed to be told, and I am glad to add my humble quota to the recital. It is the story of a little force operating far away from the limelight, unknown to the people at home, and seemingly forgotten a great part of the time even by the authorities themselves. It was to this force—commanded by General Dunsterville, and hence known to those who knew it at all as "Dunsterforce"—that I was attached, and it is about it that I have written here. I have tried to make clear what the "Dunsterforce" was, why it was sent out, and how far it succeeded in accomplishing its mission. In order to do this I have been obliged to treat rather fully both of local geography and politics. For here we had no clear-cut campaign in which all the people of one country were in arms against all the people of another country. No! It was a very mixed-up and complicated business, as anyone who troubles to read what I have written will readily see.