The story of the rising itself does not concern us, though the fighting men of the Assyrians were actively engaged in it in support of the Government. Men began to ask what new form of lunacy had possessed those in authority, that they had disbanded an existing force composed of such good material, and so absolutely trustworthy. It is true that some of the fighting was pure self-defence, for the Baqubah camp was left to look after itself, in the assurance that Assyrians could do so, but in forgetfulness of the fact that they had been disarmed! For some time the place was in real peril, particularly when a train loaded with rifles and ammunition for its defence was derailed some miles from camp.
The force raised in the camp, however, though then armed with a “scratch” armament, rescued the train and its contents,[175] and from that time forward the camp was in a state of safety. Skirmishes took place near it, and after one of these the combatants boasted to their British officer[{400}] of the number of Arabs whom they had accounted for. “Oh, rubbish!” said the officer. “I know how many bullets go astray, and you need not tell me you hit as many as that.” The disgusted mountaineers said nothing; but after the next action laid out before a rather horrified Englishman a large number of human ears—right ears all of them. “Look here, sahib! You can’t say we didn’t hit those fellows, anyhow!” Those who already had been transported to Mindan, though outside the real area of the rising, were not entirely deprived of their share of the fun. A disorderly tribe of Kurds, the Surchi, thought that so good an opportunity of making trouble ought not to be missed, and undertook a raid in the Akra district. The Assyrians had the satisfaction of sweeping the raiders into the Zab, and of thus restoring order in that corner of the world.
While this was being done, steps had been taken in Baqubah camp which tended to split up an already divided nation still further. Polus Mar Shimun, the Patriarch, had died as stated, and the larger half of the nation had been removed, under the leadership of Petros Agha, to Mindan. Those who remained took that opportunity of electing and consecrating Ishai, son of David d’Mar Shimun and nephew of Polus and Benyamin, to the Patriarchate—the new prelate being a child of twelve years old! It is true that, according to the old “natar cursiya system”[176] this lad was the lawful heir of his departed uncle; but even so the election, according to that very tribal custom to which they were appealing, was an affair for the whole nation, and not of a minority in it. The electing party looked on themselves as the “faithful remnant,” who remained loyal to the old head of the tribes when the bulk of them had gone off after a new leader who was not of the Sacred House; and also urged, not too consistently, that the “Mindan seceders” had, in fact, knowledge of the proceeding, and made no objection to it. In spite of this defence, the step was a disastrous and improper one; a decision that, in the opinion of the wiser of the party responsible, would not have been taken “had Surma[{401}] Khanim been here.”[177] It divided the nation when union was the one necessity, and degraded the Patriarch into a mere party leader; while at the same time it gave a fresh lease of life to just those ancient anomalies (such as the hereditary Patriarchate and the temporal power of the holder of that office) which men of experience saw had outlived their usefulness, and for which they were seeking to provide a decent euthanasia. However, the thing was done and could not be undone, though the British Director of Repatriation marked his disapproval of a step which he did not feel entitled to forbid, by giving an order that no British officer was to attend the consecration ceremony.
The Arab rising flickered out in due course, but the summer had passed before the rising did; and when the question of the Assyrian settlement came up again, those who knew the country shook their heads over the prospect of moving masses of population at such a season of the year. October had begun—the month that sees the first snows on the hills—and there were signs of an early winter. Warnings to that effect, however, were disregarded, and the Assyrian force that was to go up and clear the ground under Petros Agha was concentrated at Akra.[178] and made ready for its march. It numbered about 5,000 men—mountaineers and Urmi men combined—and made an impressive show under a multitude of cross-bearing banners. High titles abounded, for Petros as Commander-in-Chief was at least liberal in this direction. A “Field-Marshal” served under him, sporting crossed batons on his khaki-clad shoulders, with Generals, Brigadier-Generals, and Colonels by the score. But if titles were plenty, experience was far to seek; and[{402}] considering what a tremendous risk was being run in sending up the force at all, at so late a date as the end of October, there was a marvellous casualness shown about the whole affair. Those in authority seemed to be only anxious to be rid of the people and the problem together, and to act on the assumption that if once they could be got over the boundary all would go well, or that at least the British Government would not be concerned if it did not. Good rifles were provided, with ammunition, some mountain-guns, and plenty of mules for transport. There was also a big dump of provisions, and medical stores in abundance; but when the Assyrians wanted to leave these behind, those who were there to protect these wild people from their own folly and ignorance allowed them to do so; and the force moved off with not so much as a bandage, with provisions for a short seven days, and no means of securing a regular supply after that. In fact, these people who were in theory to go up to a land, occupy and colonise it, and maintain themselves there for a winter, were allowed to go off with the equipment of a raid and nothing else!
The British officers who were to accompany the force “in a purely advisory capacity” (three British Lieutenants, to wit) made some representations, urging in particular the provision of proper pack-saddles for the mountain-guns sent with the force. They were told the guns could go on their own carriages, as it would be a stiff pull over Akra Dagh, but plain sailing after that! A man who can stand at Akra, and think that the rugged ridge behind that town is the only obstacle between him and Gawar Plain, has the strangest ideas of the land he is sending his subordinates into!
No doubt Petros was to blame. An Assyrian who wants to get to a place will tell you that the road is easy, with the gayest defiance of facts; and men who will go off with a small raiding party, with no equipment save rifles and the clothes they wear, have not the least notion that “an army cannot charge in and out again like a troop of hussars.” Those who directed this “Repatriation” were supposed to know something of that most difficult of problems, land transport[{403}] in country where no mechanical means are available; but they did not force the Assyrians to benefit by their knowledge.
The frontier was crossed; the Zab, swollen by recent rain, was crossed also, though with some difficulty in the face of opposition from the local Kurds, of the Barzan and Zibar tribes. These were swept aside, however, though in the action Petros rather amused the British officers by the fact that he would persist in firing his few guns at the mountain landscape at large. “Hadn’t you better wait till you have a target of some sort to fire at?” they urged. “You won’t hurt the rocks, even if that is your object.” “The noise will impress the Kurds,” said Petros, and went on wasting his small supply of artillery cartridges. Barzan village was stormed and burned, the only remarkable piece of loot secured therein being a copy of the Book of Common Prayer. It bore the stamp of a Canadian parish—“St. Luke, North Battleford, Saskatchewan. Not to be taken away.” Had the little book been able to speak, it might have told of strange adventures.
All this took time, however, and provisions began to fail. While the rations lasted, there had been little looting, if any; but when men are hungry it takes better discipline than that of such a force as this to keep them to their ranks and duty. Also, day after day of pitiless cold rain (such as is common in late autumn in this land) began to tell on the health and spirits of the Urmi plainsmen, who were quite unused to such conditions of travel as these. Many broke down altogether, more than 100 died on the way—the mortality among the animals being also very heavy—while hundreds abandoned rifles and gear, and turned back to the refuge of the British once more. The subsequent comment of the British officers on this proceeding was terse and forcible. Stripped of some rather unquotable verbiage, it amounts to the statement that a Tyari man may be as big a thief as heaven ever made, but at least he will leave his head before his rifle! In fact, one of the two wings into which the force was divided, that composed of Urmi men, had lost all spirit and “go” before they were half-way[{404}] through the mountains. Had they had to face an enemy of any enterprise, they would have been like sheep before the butcher.
At this moment news came from the mountaineers of Tyari and Tkhuma which, though different enough in character from that current among the plainsmen, was at least equally fatal as far as the success of the expedition was concerned. These clansmen formed the left, or western, of the two columns of advance, and when the defeated Zibari Kurds retired in the westerly direction, they had pursued them till they had lost touch with their Urmi companions. Now they were in their own mountains, free from all control, and well armed; their faces were toward their own homes, and also toward the homes of their hereditary enemies.
What did they care for Urmi men and the settlement of Persia, when balanced against such a chance of loot and vengeance? Off they went on the raid, seeing in every Kurd a foe, in every village lawful prize. Nerwa and Rikan were turned out and burned, Tyari men being quite reckless of the fact that in all Kurdistan none had been so orderly and so loyal to the British as the men of these two districts! Word had gone to the Agha of Chal that he was to cut off the retreat of the fleeing Zibaris, and he had come out, more or less as an ally of the Assyrians, to do so. Either from deliberate treachery, or merely from the indiscipline natural in such a force, troops of the Tyari and Tkhuma men got round his flank and into his villages, and Chal also went up in flame and smoke. A glance at the map will show that their wild career had now brought them again to the Zab, and to the district of Berwar. Mira Reshid,[179] the biggest brigand in the district, now held this land as representing British Authority (having undergone, we hope, a change of soul like Petros Agha); and he now gathered his forces and held the bridges over the Zab in the name of King George, while a most naturally indignant British Political[{405}] officer was hurrying up from Dohuk with such police as he could gather. The mountaineers’ wild career was now stayed, and like schoolboys who have broken bounds, anticipatory of dire consequences, but yet feeling that the “rag” had been worth it, they obeyed the angry master’s orders, and returned to the plains and British authority. The Urmi men, feeling that they could do nothing by themselves, had also drifted back; and Petros Agha himself, having entirely lost his army, found that he and his “personal staff” could do nothing but follow their example. He reported on arrival that he had not been able to do what he intended, but he was sure that the Government would be pleased, “because the moral effect upon the Kurds was so extremely good!”[180]