Would that all these nationless peoples of the Caucasus, who with so much vehemence are always pleading their own inalienable right to self-determination, possessed military gifts commensurate with their brilliant, perfervid, never failing oratory! If they could fight only half as well as they can talk, what unrivalled soldiers they would be! The Bolsheviks and their German masters and paymasters, coming down the railway line from Tiflis, speedily possessed themselves of Baku and its oil wells. Immediately opposite Baku, and on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea, is Krasnovodsk, the terminus of the Transcaspian Railway, that important strategic line which links up the khanates of Russian Turkestan, connects, on the one hand, Samarkand with Orenburg and the main _reseau_ of {68} Russian railways, and, on the other, bifurcates and comes to a dead stop--resembling the extended jaws of a pincers--within hailing distance of the Afghan frontier. Once masters of the Caspian littoral and of the Russian gunboats which patrolled its waters, the Bolsheviks and their German allies were free to use the Transcaspian Railway, and to menace India seriously by way of Afghanistan. At all events, they lost no time in invading Persia from the sea by way of Enzeli. Here they found eager sympathisers and willing auxiliaries in the Persian Democrats, a political party with considerable influence and following in Resht itself and throughout the Persian provinces of Gilan and Mazandaran. The Democrats laid claim to represent the intelligentza of North-Eastern Persia. Their profession of political faith was, broadly, "Persia for the Persians," the abolition of all foreign meddling in Persian affairs, and the ending of the Russian and British spheres of influence. But it was against the British that their virulent hatred and political conspiracies were chiefly directed. While they feared the British, they despised the Russians. As one of the leaders of this "Young Persia Movement" said to me when we had a heart-to-heart talk in Kasvin, "To our sorrow we find that the British are honest and incorruptible, therefore they are dangerous. Should they decide to stay here, we could never hope to turn them out. On the other hand, to our joy we recognize that neither the Russians nor the {69} Turks possess these high moral attributes, consequently there was always the hope that some day we might be able to escort the last of them to the frontier."