Tabriz, the ancient Tauris, and capital of the province of Azarbeijan, is the largest city in the Persian Empire, and the most important commercial centre in all Iran. It is the residence of the Valiahd, or heir-apparent to the Persian throne. It occupies much the same position in north-western Persia as does Meshed in the north-eastern part of the country. Marco Polo visited it during his long overland trek to far Cathay, and found it a fair city, full of busy merchants and wealthy citizens. But for the British, seeking to arrive within fighting distance of the Turks, Germans, and Russian Bolsheviks overrunning the Caucasus, Tabriz had its own special military importance. It was a point of great strategic value. Julfa, on the Russian-Persian frontier, and ninety miles from Tabriz, is the terminus of the Trans-Caucasian Railway which runs to Tiflis, {135} the Caucasian capital and main British objective. Tiflis is 320 miles from Tabriz. The railway from the former city continues west to Poti and Batum, the shipping ports on the Black Sea, and east (also from Tiflis Junction) to Baku and its oilfields on the Caspian Sea. From Julfa, connecting with the Trans-Caucasian Railway, a Russian company had built a branch line to Tabriz, and an extension to Sharaf Khane on the eastern shore of Lake Urumia. On the lake itself was a fleet of Russian-owned steamers, which maintained communication between the railhead at Sharaf Khane and Urumia city, famous as the legendary birthplace of Zoroaster, which is on the western shore of the lake, and about twenty-five miles from Sharaf Khane. When the Russian Army, stricken by the deadly plague of Bolshevism, retreated northwards towards Tiflis, they accommodatingly left behind at Sharaf Khane, for the use of the first comer, their fleet of lake steamers, hundreds of guns of heavy and medium calibre, dumps of shells and small-arms ammunition, thousands of serviceable rifles, and quantities of other military stores. The Turkish frontier line, passing about forty-five miles west of Urumia, continues due north to its junction with the territorial boundaries of Russia and Persia on the perpetual snow-clad summit of the Greater Mount Ararat. The region round Lake Van having been cleared of potential enemies--the {136} Russians had retired, and the Armenians were put to the sword--the Turks, swinging eastward, lost no time in crossing the frontier and violating Persian territory. They pleaded military exigencies for the step they had taken, and turned a very deaf and unsympathetic ear to the mere paper remonstrances of the Persian Government. But in the invaded territory they met with severe and unexpected opposition, not from their own Islamic kindred, but from hated and despised Infidels of the Christian sect.