With the Persian Expedition

by Martin Henry Donohoe

We were also gradually losing touch with Persian as a spoken language. It was being supplanted by Turki, the dialect of Turkish-Persian spoken by the peasant classes in the province of Azarbaijan. As we rode north we were sensible of this linguistic change. First the peasants we met in the village spoke Persian and understood Turki; farther north Persian was understood, but not spoken with any fluency; until, north and north-west of Zinjan, Turki entirely ousts the native Persian, the latter as a spoken language in many cases being quite unknown to the villagers.

So far we had seen nothing of any hostile Turks. A body of their cavalry and a few infantry were reported to be at Zinjan, but the villagers told us they had not come farther south, or anywhere in the neighbourhood of our own line of march. A few robber bands occasionally quitted their mountain lairs and descended into the plain, taking us for some peaceful merchant caravan, probably unarmed, and therefore an easy prey for these wild freebooters of the hills. But, on reconnoitring closer and discovering their mistake, they did not tarry, and turning about, went off into the hills as fast as their wiry ponies could carry them.

On the afternoon of May 30th we arrived within ten miles of Zinjan, and camped on a bare and desolate sand tract close to the main road. A Persian tea-house, with its walls crumbling to ruins, stood by the wayside. Tea there was none, and the occupier had disappeared, leaving his establishment to the care of the wild dogs and prowling hill robbers that nightly infested it. It was empty now, and abominably filthy, so I sat outside under the lee of the tea-house wall which afforded a little protection from the scorching heat, holding a very tired horse, and waiting for the sun to take himself from off the hot plain in order that we might seek both rest and refreshment.

At daylight on May 31st we broke camp early and moved cautiously forward in the hope of surprising the Turkish force in Zinjan, leaving the baggage and stores behind under a guard. Our total striking force was thirty all told, half of which was under Major Wagstaff and the remainder under Captain Osborne, 2nd King Edward's Horse.

Zinjan is a town of 24,000 inhabitants, shut in by high hills on the east and west, between which lies an immense plain traversed by the Zinjaneh Rud. On both banks of this river are beautiful gardens enclosed by walls of baked brick. If the Turks meant to make a stand here, they had found an admirable defensive position, and one from which it would take a couple of battalions to dislodge them. Osborne's party worked round to the west and north in order to threaten the retreat of the enemy, while Wagstaff and his small band, including myself, halted under cover of a garden wall to the south of the town.

Some Persian Charvadars coming out of the town volunteered the information that the Turks holding Zinjan, whose numbers were variously estimated at from two to three hundred, were already in flight, and galloping away northwards as hard as they could go. The news of our approach must have reached them early. No doubt our numerical strength had been magnified tenfold by the imaginative native spy who had carried the intelligence of our advance.

This information decided Wagstaff. In a moment we had flung ourselves into the saddles and, with a wild British cheer that shook sleepy folk out of their beds, we dashed across the stone bridge spanning the river and so into Zinjan. We rode first for the bazaars, hoping to round up in that quarter some stray Turks who had overstayed their leave when the town was being evacuated. But we found none.

If our sudden arrival failed to surprise the Turks, it certainly alarmed the inhabitants of Zinjan. Panic seized them. In the bazaars the women and children fled at our approach, and the shopkeepers, trembling in every limb, made frantic efforts to bolt and bar their premises. Finding that the new-comers neither robbed nor maltreated anyone, the bazaar lost its attack of "nerves," and recovered its habitual calm. Business instincts got the better of physical fear. Shutters came down with a run, and as a slight token of local appreciation, and in honour of our coming, all bazaar prices were immediately, and by universal consent, increased one hundred per cent.