As it happened Government was anything but pleased; the whole expedition had failed, the money spent on it was wasted, the problem that they had hoped solved was still on their hands, and the Kurds, whom it was most important just then to keep quiet and contented, were all in a state of entirely justifiable suspicion and wrath. How could they be expected to believe that this was not what Government had intended? Those responsible for the arrangements that had broken down so utterly were, of course, furious, and planned condign punishment for the guilty hillmen; but these were vetoed by the Political authorities, who perhaps felt that, whatever the guilt of the men of Tyari, the blame[{406}] did not lie entirely with them! The camp at Mindan was reorganised and set going once more, and harassed authority set itself to consider what could be done with a problem difficult enough before, and now tangled worse than ever. One thing only was clear, that in any case it was hopeless to attempt anything till spring; and so refugees and British, each extremely cross with the other, settled down for the winter in camp at Mindan, with nothing settled but the extreme difficulty of a settlement!
Government fell back on a scheme of “settlement by infiltration,” or putting the people on the sites of villages that had “gone vacant” in time past, either through the war, or by virtue of the general decline of population during the later years of the Ottoman Empire. It was, of course, not the “enclave” that had once been planned for them and which they had been given the opportunity of securing, nor was it “their own country” for most of them, and they did not at all like the notion of being put where they could go, with Moslem neighbours and sometimes Moslem landlords.
Their behaviour towards these was not, it must be owned, altogether conciliatory. There were cases of villagers put under a particularly good landlord (and a good Moslem gentleman is a gentleman), who accepted large advances from him on condition of promising to reap his crops at a certain wage-rate in harvest, and then (with true up-to-date spirit) struck for a large advance at the last moment! Even then the landlord was not anxious to take steps. It was, he said, a point of honour with him: he had never put any tenant, of any religion, in the law courts yet.
“Neither shall you now, Agha,” said the local Political officer; “but the Government has its honour, too, and these fellows shall carry out a contract to which the Government was a party.”
In another case, too, one had to admit that the Christians were asking for trouble. It is not neighbourly to kill a pig, cut him up, and put the disjecta membra of him in and about the only spring from which your Mussulman neighbours have to draw their water![{407}]
Delay followed delay, it seeming to be the policy of the Government to keep those who were getting on one another’s nerves tied together in idleness. Home authority said that it would give a “block grant” of £500,000 to settle the whole Assyrian problem, but would not allow those on the spot to get to work at the plan they had prepared, being apparently under the impression that when you are settling people “on the land” they can begin farming operations on it at any season. “I am willing to tackle Joshua’s job,” said a harassed official, “and try to settle these tribes in a promised land of sorts. Still, unlike Joshua, I cannot stop the sun, and the summer is advancing now!”
At last permission was received, and preparations commenced for the movement of the people, tribe by tribe, to villages on and about the northern border of Irak. The fact that the border was still undefined, and the only thing clear to everyone on the spot was that the line suggested by the unratified Treaty of Sèvres was unworkable, added yet another element of confusion to the problem. One person who was doing his efficient best to “queer the whole show” was Petros Agha. When inquiry was made into the fiasco of November, 1920, that worthy had got off at least as cheaply as he deserved, being acquitted of anything worse than incompetence and gross mismanagement. There was nothing to show that he intended Tyari and Tkhuma to go off and raid as they did, when he assigned to them just that part of his line from which it was easiest to do so! Thus, he had not been put into prison with others, and was using his freedom to intrigue against any plan of settling his people which was not under his control.
His dream now (and how far the man believes in his own dreams is a problem beyond our solving) was of an “independent Assyria,” a thin strip that should stretch between Turkish and Irak territory, from Urmi in Persia to Alexandretta on the Mediterranean, the whole to be under French protection! This he put forward at the moment when the French were deciding that even Cilicia was beyond their power to hold; and he perpetually urged all of his nation to have nothing to do with any British schemes for their[{408}] disposal, for was not he, Petros Agha, just coming back with boundless supplies of French rifles and French napoleons, to lead them back in triumph to their own land once more? That at least was the song sung by his agents in Mindan camp in his name, and no suggestion as to the desirability of shepherding the man out of the country met with any response. In particular, his influence was thrown against the most hopeful element in the Government scheme—viz., the reconstitution of the Assyrian contingent. The attempt to raise an Arab force in Mesopotamia was not looking too promising just then, and military men were proposing to collect afresh the force that they had so unfortunately thrown away before, and to use the best fighting element in Irak in the defence of the land. It was to be as numerous a force as the nation could raise, and to be officered by British officers.[181] Petros passed the word round (or his agents in camp did it for him), that no man who regarded Petros as his leader must enlist, and Government would not allow those charged with recruiting for the force to stop this counter-Government propaganda! It says something for the possibilities of using this nationality in the one way it can be really of use, that under these circumstances some 600 men were enrolled. On the final removal of Petros (see below) this number went up at once to over 2,000. It was only British advice, given for the sake of the people, that fixed that limit.
However, the wheels continued to revolve, if slowly, and with a vast amount of creaking and of worry to political officers who had the work of settling some 10,000 recalcitrant people. This trifling job was thrown in as a sort of additional[{409}] faggot on the top of an already heavy load! Arrangements were come to with the Kurds of Berwar for the return of the Christians to that district, and to that of Ashitha beyond it, it being held that if that country was perhaps not strictly in Irak, at least it had never been efficiently in Turkey! The local Kurds, indeed, behaved quite unexpectedly well, seeming to regard the presence of their old Christian neighbours as a part of the established disorder of things, which had a sort of vested right to be restored. One was reminded of certain married couples who lead a “cat and dog life” in one another’s society, but who yet both crave for the accustomed irritation if ever it is withdrawn! They recognised the right of the returning Christians to their old lands and villages, and even to a half of the crops that were in the ground, in places where the land was being cultivated by Kurds after the Christians had left it. Sometimes there were difficulties to settle, but surprisingly seldom.
In one case, some nomad Kurds who owed no allegiance to anybody had developed ambitions to try a more settled life, and had sat them down in a little group of villages known as the Halamun district, far away from anywhere. These fellows showed no eagerness to clear out and let the lawful owners return. It took a visit from the assistant Political Officer and a long argument to put matters straight here, and matters at one time got so strained that the Kurds began debating whether it would not be better to kill the English intruder there and then. This matter was solved by the A.P.O. (who quite understood the matter under debate) coolly going to bed, and to sleep, in the midst of them, and so leaving them to talk the interesting problem over. When he woke up in the morning the Kurds were ready with a compromise. They would turn out of three of the four villages under debate, but wanted to retain one. This was agreed to. So matters went on. A pass through a seemingly impassable range is always found as you approach it. Caravan after caravan of tribesmen (each caravan perhaps 1,000 strong) was moved in turn from Mindan camp and up to the distributing centre at Dohuk, whence they could be forwarded, after considerable grumbling,[{410}] to the destination which was marked out for them. Every man, woman, and child received the Government grant of 120 rupees at Dohuk, and sometimes there were unforeseen claimants. One lady walked in triumphant with a baby that had not been there when she left Mindan two days before. She had simply gone aside from the caravan as it travelled, produced this infant, and then put it on the top of the bundle she was carrying, and so finished the day’s journey! She wanted the Government to make the usual “capitation grant” to this new arrival. Strictly, he (or she) was not entitled to it, as not having been on the roll at the time of the departure from Mindan! Still, a point was stretched in this case.