The Silk Roads: A New History of the World

by Frankopan, Peter

  Complications arose when those who had seized power in Russia found their dreams of international revolution thwarted in Europe and so turned their attention to Asia. Trotsky, fizzing with enthusiasm as usual, took up with gusto the theme of cultivating the revolutionary project in the east. ‘The path to India might well be much easier to travel in the current circumstances and what is more, quicker than the one leading to a Soviet in Hungary,’ he wrote in a memorandum that was circulated to his peers in 1919. ‘The route to Paris and London is through the cities of Afghanistan, the Punjab and Bengal.’15

  Delegates from ‘the enslaved popular masses of Persia, Armenia and Turkey’, as well as from those of Mesopotamia, Syria, Arabia and beyond, were summoned to a conference in Baku in 1920, where one of the principal Bolshevik demagogues did not mince his words. ‘We are now faced with the task of kindling a real holy war’ against the west, he told listeners. The time had come, he said, to ‘educate the masses of the East to hate and to want to fight against the rich’. That meant fighting against the wealthy ‘Russian, Jewish, German, French . . . and organizing a true people’s holy war, in the first place against British imperialism’.16 The hour had arrived, that is, for a showdown between east and west.

  The message went down well. Apart from the cheering delegates, there were those who took action – intellectuals, such as Muammad Barakatullāh who wrote on the elision of ‘Bolshevism and the Islamic Nations’, urged the advance of socialism throughout Muslim Asia. Newspapers, universities and military schools were set up across Central Asia to cater for and further radicalise the local populations.17

  Showing a surprising degree of flexibility, the Soviets were prepared to compromise with any who might help their cause. For example, the Bolshevik leadership had few qualms about making overtures to the ruler of Afghanistan, King Amanullah, after he sought to distance himself from British influence and launched an attack on the British in India to the west of the Khyber. Although the military confrontation was a fiasco, the Bolshevik regime delighted in finding an ally in the east and sent an offer of assistance, along with assurances that the liberation of the east from imperialism was a fundamental part of the revolutionary programme – assurances that were unlikely to be entirely comforting to a ruling monarch.

  Russian audacity and opportunism provoked shrill calls of alarm in Britain, with The Times reporting on the ‘Bolshevist menace to India: Afghan stepping stone’. British troops were moved north into Afghanistan, among them a young corporal named Charles Kavanagh whose recently discovered diary paints a vivid picture of what he saw – and finds many echoes in the more recent experiences of western servicemen in the same region. Ambushes and attacks by insurgents were a daily hazard, he wrote. Afghan men were not afraid to dress as women in gowns that hid their faces as well as their rifles. Avoid offering your hand to shake that of a local you do not know, he wrote: ‘they will seize it with their left hand, and stab you with their right’.18

  Different visions of the future were being offered in the aftermath of the Great War. On the one hand, there was the impulse towards self-determination, championed at least to start with by the Bolsheviks. ‘Organise your lives as you choose, and without any obstacles,’ Lenin declared. ‘You have the right to do so. Know that your rights, like those of all the peoples of Russia, are protected by the full power of the revolution and its agencies.’19 This extended to progressive views about gender equality: women were given the vote in the Kyrgyz, Turkmen, Ukrainian and Azerbaijani Soviet republics – before they were given the vote in the United Kingdom. Posters put up in Tashkent in 1920, written in Uzbek, displayed a figure in front of four ghostly veiled figures urging the emancipation of Muslim women: ‘Women! Take part in elections to the Soviet!’20

  This early post-Revolutionary progressivism contrasted sharply with the imperialist attitudes of western powers and their resolve to retain control of assets and resources deemed vital to national interests. None were as active or as aggressive as the British, who were above all determined to hang on to control of oil supplies. In so far as it had troops in the field, Britain had a head start, enabling the landscape to be shaped in a way that suited its needs. In the case of Mesopotamia, this was done by forging a new country that was given the name of Iraq. It was a hotch-potch made up of three former Ottoman provinces that were profoundly different in history, religion and geography: Basra looked southwards towards India and the Gulf; Baghdad was closely linked with Persia; Mosul naturally connected to Turkey and Syria.21 The amalgam satisfied no one except London.

  The country was a rickety construction at best. The British helped install the erstwhile ally Faisal – the heir of the Sharīf of Mecca – as sovereign, in part as a reward for his co-operation during the war, in part in sympathy for his having been drummed out of Syria where he had originally been promised the throne, and in part because of the lack of any other obvious candidate. The fact that he was a Sunnī Muslim where the local population was predominantly Shīa was thought to be something that could be smoothed over with the introduction of the new trappings of a nation, such as guard-changing ceremonials, a new flag (designed by Gertrude Bell) and a treaty that recognized Iraqi ‘national sovereignty’, but obliged the king and his government to be directed by Britain ‘on all important matters’, including foreign relations and defence. Subsequent annexes gave Britain the right to make appointments to the judiciary and to impose financial advisers to administer the country’s economy.22 This devolved imperial rule was cheaper from a financial point of view than full colonial occupation at a time when Britain itself was facing up to huge national debts built up during the war – but it was cheaper politically too. More than 2,000 British soldiers had been killed in rioting and civil unrest in Mesopotamia in 1920.23

  Concerted efforts were made to impose a similar grip on Persia. In 1919, an agreement was signed that would install British advisers to run both the treasury and the armed forces, as well as overseeing infrastructure projects. This went down badly in Persia and elsewhere. With Britain holding a controlling interest in the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, the Russians and the French were already concerned that Britain’s hold over Persia was too strong. The bribes (or ‘commissions’) paid to get the agreement signed meanwhile produced howls of protest in Persia – not least against the Shah himself. ‘God condemn to everlasting shame / He who betrayed the land of Sassan,’ wrote one well-known poet at the time, citing Persia’s deep and glorious past; ‘tell the zealous Artaxerxes The Long-armed / The enemy annexed your kingdom to England’.24 Such critics ended up in prison.25

  The Foreign Commissar of the fledgling Soviet Union also reacted furiously: Britain ‘is trying to lasso the Persian people into total slavery’. It was shameful, he declared in a statement, that the country’s rulers had ‘sold you to the English robbers’.26 The reaction in Paris was little different. Caught unprepared by the battle for oil, and having surrendered Mosul seemingly for nothing, the French had been pressing to have their own advisers take up positions in Teheran to further their own national interests. This was given short shrift by Lord Curzon, who could barely hide his outrage at being asked if he would sanction such an appointment. Persia, he told Paul Cambon, the French ambassador to London, was ‘only saved from complete insolvency by the aid of Great Britain’. France should mind its own business.27

  The reaction in France was furious and bitter. Funding was given to place anti-British propaganda in the press in Persia, while excoriating articles at home took aim at the Anglo-Persian agreement – and at the Shah. This half-centimetre-tall midget, said Le Figaro in a piece that was widely cited in Teheran, ‘had sold his country for one centime’.28 The French had been on the winning side in the war, but they had been outmanoeuvred by their ally.

  In fact, the British were nonplussed by the Shah’s demands for money, which were as constant as they had been before the war began. This had been a problem too with Prince Farman-Farma, whose spell as Prime Minister had not prove
d as successful as the British had hoped. Reports back to London talked of his ‘disinclination to work honestly’ and his ‘rapacity’; this was ‘fast making his continuance of office impossible’.29 A more reliable figure was needed.

  Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Reza Khan was ‘a powerfully built, well set up, big boned man, well above average height’, Sir Percy Loraine, Britain’s representative to Teheran, reported approvingly in 1922. Khan gets straight to the point, the report went on, ‘and does not waste time in exchanging the delicately phrased but perfectly futile compliments so dear to the Persian heart’. Although he was clearly both ‘ignorant and uneducated’, Loraine was impressed: ‘in speaking with him, I had rather the impression of an unemployed brain than of an empty one’. This was music to the ears of the Foreign Office. ‘Sir P. Loraine’s estimate of Reza Khan is decidedly encouraging,’ one official back in London noted on the report. ‘While he is [not] free from the vices of his compatriots, his heart seems to be in the right place.’ His racial origins were also positively received: ‘that he is half Caucasian [through his mother] is in his favour’, read another minute. In short, he was exactly the sort of man the British thought they could do business with.30

  He seemed to be ‘a strong and fearless man who had his country’s good at heart’, according to Sir Edmund Ironside, commander of a British force sent to secure northern Persia amid growing concerns about Russian designs around the Caspian Sea. Just how much support the British gave Reza Khan and what role they played in allowing him to become the power behind the throne – and eventually, in 1925, to install himself as shah – has been hotly debated. At the time, however, many following events closely had little doubt about Britain’s role as king-maker.31 The American representative in Teheran, John Caldwell, remarked that Reza was so close to the British that he was ‘practically a spy’.32

  It was not surprising that the Americans were also paying close attention to this part of the world. A report circulated by the Planning Section of the US Naval Forces in Europe in 1918 spoke of the need for the United States to prepare for commercial rivalry with Britain. ‘Four great powers have arisen in the world to compete with Great Britain for commercial supremacy,’ it opined. Spain, Holland, France and Germany had all been seen off by Britain. The United States was the ‘fifth commercial power, the greatest one yet . . . Historical precedent warns us to watch closely’ what Britain was up to.33 The importance of the oilfields meant that careful attention had to be paid to this part of this world.

  This was especially true given the growing concerns in the United States about its own oil supplies. Just as Britain had worried about lack of resources before the war, there was mounting anxiety in America about possible shortages immediately after it. Rising consumption patterns were a cause for alarm, as were estimates about proven oil reserves. These would run out in nine years and three months, according to the director of the US Geological Survey. The lack of ‘necessary supply at home and abroad’ represented a major problem, admitted President Wilson.34

  For this reason, the State Department encouraged Standard Oil, one of the biggest American producers, to look into what it referred to as ‘the possibility of entering into an agreement with the Persian Government for development of oil resources in north Persia’, in the region not covered by Anglo-Persian’s concession.35 US interest prompted an ecstatic response in Teheran: Britain and Russia had interfered in Persia long enough, said reports in the local press, constantly compromising the country’s independence. The United States, the emerging new empire, was the perfect white knight. ‘If the Americans, with their flourishing wealth, establish economic relations with our country,’ one Persian newspaper article declared hopefully, ‘we are sure our resources will not remain sterile and we will no longer be so much afflicted by poverty.’36 Such great expectations were widely shared across the country: telegrams flooded into the capital welcoming the prospect of US investment. The startled American mission in Teheran observed that these were signed by ‘the foremost mullahs, notables, some government officials and merchants’.37

  The British reacted angrily, telling the State Department in no uncertain terms that American interest in Persia’s oil was not just unwelcome but illegal. Although the region in question had not been conceded to Anglo-Persian, the British declared that it was subject to a separate agreement previously reached between Persia and Russia that had not been correctly terminated. As such, exploration rights could not be sold to the Americans – or to anyone else. These were weasel words, and ultimately proved fruitless as the Persians went ahead regardless, granting Standard Oil a fifty-year concession.38

  Not for the first time, the American experience proved to be a false dawn. It had been hoped in Persia that US involvement and investment would offer a real alternative to British clout in the region. However, practicalities dictated that any operator needed to cut a deal with Anglo-Persian to gain access to its pipeline infrastructure. What is more, once discussions got going, hope gave way to more disappointment for the Persians. The Americans were ‘more British than the British’, noted the Persian representative in Washington – which he did not mean as a compliment. It turns out, fumed one editorial in a Teheran newspaper, that the United States and Britain were one and the same: both were ‘worshippers of gold and stranglers of the weak’, obsessed with furthering their own interests and ‘trying to divide [the] precious jewel’ of national oil resources and take them from ‘the hands of the childish politicians of Persia’.39

  The story had familiar echoes of the discovery of the Americas 400 years earlier. While local populations had not been decimated in the same way as those encountered by the Spanish, the process was effectively the same: the expropriation of treasures by the nations of the west meant that riches flowed out of one continent to another, with minimal benefit to the inhabitants of those lands. There were other parallels with what had happened following Columbus’ sailing across the Atlantic. Just as Spain and Portugal had divided the world between them with the treaties of Tordesillas in 1494 and Zaragoza three decades later, so too did the western powers now split the resources of the world lying between the Mediterranean and Central Asia.

  Territories ringed on maps in coloured pencil formed the basis of an accord between the British and the French known as the ‘Red Line Agreement’, which divided the oil assets of the region between Anglo-Persian on the one hand and the Turkish Petroleum Company (of which Anglo-Persian – and thus the British government – were major shareholders) on the other, with a formal agreement not to compete in each other’s territories. This was important for France, which had its eye on securing a strong position in the Levant because of the long history of trading ties and substantial French commercial investments going back many decades. Just as the Iberian powers had done, France and Britain shared out control of valuable assets like spoils which had been claimed as of right. It felt like a new age of empire.

  The problem was that this new era of empire was almost immediately beset with the traumatic realisation that the world was changing – and changing fast. It was all very well having elaborate plans and trying to assert Britain’s control over the oil and the pipeline networks, but this came at a price. With Britain’s national debt soaring, painful and difficult discussions took place about the cost of maintaining troops in the numbers needed to run an empire effectively. The overwhelming cost, wrote Lord Curzon, ‘is one that can no longer be sustained’. It was a conclusion duly taken on board by Winston Churchill, by now Colonial Secretary, who recognised that ‘everything that happens in the Middle East is secondary to the reduction of expense’.40

  This mismatch between ambition and ability was a recipe for disaster – a predicament made worse by the obduracy of senior diplomats. The British minister in Teheran, for example, lorded it over the Persians, whom he described contemptuously as ‘smelly’ and ‘shifty brutes’. In Baghdad, meanwhile, London’s representative had houses knocked down in order ‘to extend the g
ardens of Britain’s embassy’ – something one observer remarked wryly which ‘undoubtedly improved what was already a beautiful residence’ but which was ‘less than universally popular with the Iraqis’.41 There was a lofty sense of entitlement in all this, the sense that the present and future of these countries lay unassailably in the hands of the British. Rulership was in the gift of policymakers in London, who had little concern for the interests of local populations and focused instead on Britain’s strategic and economic priorities. In the 1920s alone, the British were either directly responsible for or played a supporting role in installing or deposing rulers in Iraq, Persia and Afghanistan, while also becoming involved in the question of the title used by the King of Egypt following independence in 1922.42

  Inevitably, this bred festering problems that over time became poisonous. Gertrude Bell had been right to predict, as early as 1919, that ‘a horrible muddle’ was being made of the Near East, and that the scenario was like ‘a nightmare in which you foresee all the horrible things which are going to happen and can’t stretch out your hand to prevent them’.43 Britain was playing a dangerous game in choosing who to support and when – and where – to intervene.

  Broken promises and disappointed peoples lay scattered across the region from the Levant eastwards. Commitments to support, help and protect the interests of local populations gave way to the promotion and protection of Britain’s commercial and strategic interests – even if that meant splitting up territories along new and artificial boundaries, or abandoning communities like the Christian Assyrians of Iraq who found themselves in a uniquely vulnerable position following the carve-up of the Middle East at the end of the First World War.44