Persia

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVIV, Issue 71, 29 February 1916, Page 5

Persia

DRIVEN OUT. THE COUNTRY FROM WITHIN. A STORY OF INTRIGUE. GERMANS SOW DISSENSION. A BRIGADE OF SPIES IN INDIA. THE JOURNEY TO THE COAST. [United Press Association.! (Received 9.30 a.in.) Sydney, February 29. Miss Stuart, daughter of the late Bishop Stuart, formerly of Waipu, and latterly head of the Church Missionary Society at Ispahan, has arrived after 21 years’ residence in Persia. She tells a remarkable story of the German intrigue and machinations, which caused them to leave. The Persians, said Miss Stuart, aie absolutely friendly, bin the German propaganda, including democratic revolutionaries, is taking effect, and unless the Russians are able to send a strong force to restore order, the country might be found in the throes of internecine strife. Germany’s advantage lies in the irruption of Germans to Persia. It was so rapid ;nd well planned that, undoubtedly, it was part of a pre-arranged programme. Before the war scarcely a German was in the country; but since then it has been overrun. They have been sowing dissention everywhere. Tlie first German who arrived was supposedly interested in carpenters’ saws and his pockets were bulging with English gold, which he spent lavishly. He was the pioneer of a brigade of spies, India being the real objective of the German activity in Persia. The native press was controlled by Germans, and the Shah was a more boy-puppet in the hands of the Government, although he is friendly to the Allies. Ispahan was evacuated by the British and Russian subjects in Seotember owing to the trouble fomented by the Germans, who were responsible for the assassination of the head of the Russian bank and the attempt on the British Consul. ■ Most of the Double was fomented in Southern Persia. The Allied residents at Yezo were having an uncomfortable time, and tidings were anxiously awaited f v om Teheran. Every thing wa s quiet, although the Swedish officers and the gendarmerie were suspected of proGermanism. “We. at Kerman,” concluded Miss Stuart, “received word at the end of December to seek a safer abode, and twenty-three British subjects, Die Russian Consul, six Cossacks, and twenty Armenians journeyed 1 o t'ie coast on mules, camels, and donkeys, being escorted by seventy-live troops. We took twenty-five days to reach Bandar Abbas, where we caught*-- a transport to Bombay.”