Yes, I Thought That Would Get Your Attention
Especially given current affairs, which I will coyly avoid mentioning. Perhaps, to avoid any ambiguity, I should have put "August 1941", since I was struck by artistic inspiration and remembered Alan Moorehead's account of what was officially "Operation COUNTENANCE". Guess who else took part in the invasion? No! not the Elbonians - the Sinister Union, although at every stage Ol' Al calls them 'Russians'. I found the relevant chapter - "September in Persia' in 'A Year Of Battle'. Art!
If you want the cold hard facts, then I can inform you that the Persians had 9 infantry divisions in their order of battle. The British sent in the 8th and 10th Indian infantry divisions, the 21st Indian infantry brigade, the 2nd Indian armoured brigade and the 9th Armoured brigade. The Sinisters sent their 44th, 47th and 53rd Armies. The British invaded from Iraq, which Ol' Al spells 'Irak', the Ruffians from the north.
Al's journey began with a visit in mid-August to the Persian Embassy in Giza, to get a visa, which he was instantly discouraged from using by Major Randolph Churchill - yes, son of that Churchill. Randolph knew what was going to happen in a few weeks. He later arranged an aircraft for a group of six war correspondents, to ease their journey, because we're talking about a thousand mile journey just to get to the Iraki border. Art!
Al's Bombay had no bomb bay
After a brief stopover at Habbaniyeh, site of the Iraki uprising earlier that year, they arrived in Basra, on the shores of the Shatt-el-Arab River, the border between Irak and Persia. Al does not have anything good to say about Basra, which seems to consist of mud huts and a few office buildings. Art!
Indian engineers had created a pontoon bridge over the river, using native dhows; that picture above is of a similar bridge over the Jordan, as none are present for the S-e-A.
Here Al and his party realise that their being deliberately delayed by 48 hours in Egypt means they are going to struggle to catch up with the fighting. As if, he conjectures, six war correspondents are going to stand out amongst 20,000 troops poised for invasion. Art!
Thus, they motor on along the Delta, heading east, not seeing any signs of conflict; no gunfire, no aircraft overhead, no ambulances. Persians in local villages seem apathetic and uninterested. Art!
When they reached Khormanshah, the battle was already over. The Persian Navy's sloops were all either seized or sunk (the 'Babr' is shown above in parlous condition). A dozen merchant ships, including Teuton ones, had been captured as well, which was good news for the invaders, if less so for the correspondents, who had precious little to correspond about. The Southern Persian Army had retreated east to Ahwaz rather than hang around and fight it out with the British (that is, mostly Indian) troops.
Here an aside. The British troops taking part in the invasion came from Iraq, which had been redefined to come under command of the British HQ in India, rather than the Middle East GHQ.
Art!
That's Admiral Bayendor of the Persian Navy, who had been aboard one of his sloops whilst the battle was ongoing, before seeing that it was hopeless. He went ashore to the naval radio building, taking up a machine gun and shooting it out with the British as they closed in. The British plan was to take him prisoner and use him to convey surrender terms to the Shah in Tehran, since he had influence there.
The plan came rather unstuck when the radio station was captured and the Admiral found to be rather dead, bad news for both himself and the surrender planners. Given that he was a game old bird who went down fighting, and his widow was English, he got a full burial at sea from the Royal Navy.
Al had missed all this, along with his party, and was told all about it by British Indian Army officers in the 'English Club', over several whisky and sodas. He took pains to describe the club, in part because he could see that this institution was going to vanish from the Empire post-war. It was a long, single-storey wooden building, with a library, billiard room, bar and reception room that doubled as a dancefloor. There were barefoot native servants, and a plethora of British papers and magazines. Art!
Also "The Bystander", "Sketch", "Sphere", "Illustrated London News", "The Times", "The Daily Telegraph", "New Statesman", "Punch" and stacks of engineering papers. The latter presumably for those Brits working at the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.
Two things struck Al, the first being that a conquest this quick and easy mirrored those of the Teutons in the war's earlier years. The second one was "For once we had arrived in time". The whole point of the invasion was to create regime change - O that phrase again! - because the Shah was moving closer to side with the Nazis, and given Persia's immense importance as a supplier of oil, this could not be allowed to happen. 'Iran cannot have a Nazi bond', you might say, if you were being tasteless. Art!
That's Al looking pensive. This photo is used for the cover of 'Eclipse', his coverage of war in Europe.
There's a lot more to cover, but I'm going to halt here. Too much of a good thing, and all that.
I Warned You
Allow me to put up the page, which I had to trawl for, as the original one on my MSN feed had, of course - obviously! - vanished. Art!
Conrad idly wondered which he'd already seen, and which might be worth making a note of. Art!
Yep, already seen it. It has a couple of plot holes, in that the Annoying Bottomhole is allowed to live for far too long, and one character's end is entirely avoidable - use a shoe to fill it's zombie mouth, mate! - but well worth a watch. Please note: these are the jacked-up Olympic sprinters on steroids zombies, not the old shamblers.
I'm going to ration these reviews out to make them go further.
What Goes Around Comes Around, Often At Speed
Another of those Karma Krokodile moments related on Youtube, this one concerned bullying and nepotism. Bullying Abusive Classmate was the nephew of the school's vice-principal, which afforded him protection and a Get Out Of Jail Free card for any offences he committed.
Unsympathetic Narrator suffered this bullying but moved schools. Others at the old school had to put up with it -
Until his aunt was no longer vice-principal. No explanation from UN as to why they suddenly weren't, except now BAC's protection was gone.
Surprise! All the previous victims now took revenge, and BAC was beaten black and blue on a weekly basis. What a shame said nobody.
Attack on BAC
You What?
We have mentioned Steve Rosenberg before. He's the BBC's Ruffian Correspondent, whom is fluent in spoken and written Ruffian, who doesn't need an interpreter to filter out what he asks, and who is a potential target for the FSB if he reports the truth too much. Art!
Unfortunately, Bunker Midget Grandad, you cannot bully or intimidate market forces, that's not how economics works. Be prepared for a lot of economists to become unsteady near open windows and fall out. Also, when Steve was at the Economic Forum -
At the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, a Russian MP came up to me.
"Are you going to bomb Iran?" he asked.
"I'm not planning to bomb anyone!" I replied.
"I mean you, the British…"
"Don't you mean Donald Trump?"
"He's told what to do by Britain," the man smiled. "And by the deep state."
This is your brain on vodka.
Finally -
I need to get a new edition of "African Trilogy", the one I have is from 1946 and the spine is coming apart.
Also, off to do some more Ukrainian recipes! слава українській кухні
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