WesWorld

Quoted

Originally posted by Brockpaine
"Only Persian could interpret two engineers in their bedclothes as spies." (1)

(1) Probably not true. After all, there's Iberia/Mexico... the Dutch and Indians...

Hey those are darn good disguises! Particularly if the pajamas are the type with the fuzzy feet. That's how you know the Indians are up to something, well that and their being Indian and all...

June 5
Fearing war with Persia, the Azeri Navy has issued orders to prepare to lay a defensive mine barrage to protect the Azeri coast near Astara. The decision was announced openly by the Azeri Naval spokesmen, who said alternately that the mines had already been laid, and that the mines would not be laid until early July. A reporter from Baku noted that the Azeri Navy hadn't left port much, and asked for the spokesman to clarify whether the mines had been laid, or had not yet been laid. The spokesman laughed, smiled broadly, and said "Let's see if you can figure that one out before the Persians do."

June 6
Azeri and Armenian diplomats head to Romania. The Azeri diplomats stop in Ankara to discuss "sensitive affairs" with Turkish leaders.

The Battle of Pol Dasht, the Xok Reprisal, and the Air Battle of Ararat

Excerpt from "The Modern History of Armenia", published 1982.

As diplomats arrive in Romania for discussions mediated by Germany, word of another border incident reached them in Bucharest. The so-called Battle of Pol Dasht and the resulting Xok Reprisal spurred the diplomats to quickly come to a begrudging agreement which nevertheless averted war.

Throughout most of the 1936 Caucasian Crisis, the military forces of both sides had managed to keep up the cohesion necessary to prevent outbreaks of irregular raiders. The irregulars - village tribesmen who fought in low-level feuds and desultory cattle-raids - appeared in all of the powers involved in the crisis. Tensions and old arguments were apt to explode into violence, with the regular army expected to keep the peace. In Armenia, the irregulars were called Fedayee (Freedom Fighters), or Kamavor (Volunteers). The Fedayee largely supplimented the Armenian Army, but took orders primarily from whatever leader was in the popular ascendancy at the time. In early June, the Armenian Army showed signs of losing control of the Fedayee, highlighted in the Pol Dasht Raid.

In all three countries rumor severely distorted the truth of the actual situation. In late May, the town of Zaqatala, in northern Azerbaijan, received the rumor that a great battle had been fought and ten thousand Persian horsemen were advancing on the town; the inhabitants immediately fled, many of them only returning two days later when they realized the nearest Persian forces were still several hundred miles south. In most situations the rumors did not cause long-lasting damage or injury, but the rumor which circulated in the town of Xok in early June broke that trend. It is impossible for modern historians to determine who started the rumor, but by the fifth of June it had become well entrenched, and the village elders gathered to try to calm the ugly mood of the Fedayee members of the area.

In it's substance, the rumor which reached Xok stated that a Persian Army fire-base in the border town of Pol Dasht had crossed the Armenian border and seized thirty Armenian girls, who were dragged back to the Persian base and forced to work a brothel for the Persian soldiers. This was decisively disproved, but with communications being virtually nonexistent, the village elders of Xok could not make a coherent case for waiting. Some three hundred village men, well-armed and mounted, left Xok on the afternoon of the fifth to cross the border into Persia, mount an attack on Pol Dasht, rescue the Armenian maidens, and put their defilers to the bayonet.

The Armenian Army commander in that sector had several battalions which were patrolling the border, but the Fedayee spoke with the commander of one of the patrols, who disobeyed orders and joined the raiding party. This swelled the raiders to about three hundred fifty men, with four light machine guns and an anti-tank rifle. The Fedayee crossed the border stealthily before dawn on the sixth, and secreted themselves in a copse of woods to await dusk, when they would strike as the Persians made the call to prayer.

On the fifth and sixth, following orders from Tehran to evacuate the border regions (partly to deal with Persia's own irregulars), the civilian inhabitants of Pol Dasht began loading their belongings for a morning departure. Meanwhile, the Armenian Army commander across the river, having heard the rumor which infected Xok the previous day, sent a lieutenant across the river under a flag of truce, in order to speak with the Persian commander and prove or disprove the rumor.

As the two officers were speaking, the Armenian Fedayee launched their raid. The Armenian officer, fearing he was betrayed, snatched a pistol and shot the Persian garrison commander three times in the face before fleeing. Despite his injuries the Persian commander recovered.

The Fedayee took the Persian garrison completely by surprise, and the wounding of their commanding officer nearly panicked the Persian regulars. However, they fell back on a hasty defensive barrier of stone houses, and repelled an ill-advised assault by the Fedayee. Though the Persians, numbering five hundred, substantially outnumbered the raiders, their momentary disorganization and the growing darkness confused them, preventing them from leaving their row of stone houses. Meanwhile, the Fedayee burned several dozen carts of goods and carried out some minor plundering - mainly theft of horses and jewelry.

The mayor of Pol Dasht was surrounded in his home, and his door broken down, despite the screams of his wife and children: a dozen Fedayee entered and demanded to know where the prostitutes were. The astonished mayor quickly disabused the Armenian raiders of the rumor, but was dragged out of the house to inform the rest of the Fedayee.

At about this time the Fedayee decided they had enough: the Persian garrison had made a stout defense of the village center, and was showing more signs of organization as the shock wore off. Most of the Fedayee surprisingly believed the mayor's protestations that no Armenian girls were held as prostitutes for the Persian Army. Furthermore, the raiders had taken casualties in their attack, and the news made them dispirited. Returning the mayor to his house, the Fedayee took their able-bodied wounded and their stolen horses and rode back to the border.

Behind them the Fedayee left (if Persian accounts are to be trusted) eighteen dead and twenty-one wounded raiders, a substantial number - most killed in the ill-advised charge on the stone houses. Six Persian soldiers had been killed and nine wounded. Surprisingly, no Persian civilians were killed, though several were beaten with rifles when they tried to prevent the burning of their carts. The entire battle lasted less than forty-five minutes.

Once the Fedayee had abandoned their attack, the Persian garrison rounded up several of the injured Armenians, and discovered the raiders' hometown. By the wee hours of the seventh, the Persian military had been appraised of the situation and had decided to make an immediate reprisal to strengthen their hand at the negotiating table. The word was sent to Tabriz to level the village of Xok.

The task would fall not to the army, but to the Persian Air Force, which so far had made only minor showings in the crisis. Just before dawn the pilots were roused and given their mission briefings, then a hearty breakfast. They then staged to an airfield at Khvoy, some ninety kilometers south of Xok and the border. By 0930 hours, the planes had refueled and launched in waves of four.

Participating Persian forces would number thirty-six planes, mainly drawn from the 3rd Scout-Bomber Wing. The 9th Scout-Bomber Squadron was equipped with twelve Kawasaki Ki-3 light bombers, while the 10th Scout-Bomber Squadron had the same equipage. Flying cover against expected Armenian opposition would be the 13th Fighter Squadron, with twelve modern Gothia GW-107 fighters.

The pilots set out quickly but cloudy weather scattered the formation, and the 9th Squadron headed out for Xok without waiting for the other two squadrons to gather. The 10th and 13th Squadrons, not finding the 9th, returned to Khvoy for a quick fuel-up, then launched again to complete the mission alone.

The 9th Squadron attacked Xok unexpectedly, and dropped their 500kg bombs on the village, starting several conspicuous fires. The Kawasakis then dove repeatedly on the town, strafing it with their .30-cal machine guns.

The smoke was seen from nearby villages and the planes spotted; the inefficient Armenian air-warning system somehow managed to get a hold of the air base at Yerevan, and sounded the alarm for an air raid. The Armenian pilots, most of them still asleep when the call came in, scrambled their Polikarpov fighters with only a cursory idea of what was happening, and they lacked any idea of what their rules of engagement were.

Remaining on the ground were Armenia's brand-new IAR-80 fighters, the first four planes just delivered the previous evening. However, no Armenian pilots had yet been assigned the fighters, although they were fully gassed and armed for action, leaving the foreign ferry pilots the only people capable of flying them. What happened next was one of the greatest hushed-up secrets of the entire crisis, as the foreign pilots, from Bulgaria and Romania, scrambled the IAR-80s and flew a patrol southward.

Meanwhile, the majority of the Persian planes, from the 10th Scout-Bomber Squadron and 13th Fighter Squadron, gave up their hope of finding the 9th and, with dwindling fuel, turned to make their attack on Xok. The weather became more overcast as they crossed the border over Armenia.

In the weather, the day became a massive game of blind-man's bluff. The two Persian squadrons overflew Xok by nearly thirty miles, setting off all the air-raid warnings for Yerevan. Most of the Azeri fighters, lacking R/T capability and precise orders, held formation over the capital or the city of Naxcivan. Half of the 10th realized their navigation error and turned south again, finding Xok by the smoke, and bombing it successfully in a second wave. The remainder of the formation, with six bombers and twelve fighters, turned northwest and nearly reached Yerevan before they realized the mistake. Now realizing fuel was a concern, the planes turned around, only to run into five Armenian Polikarpov fighters.

The four lead Persian fighters at once attacked, and the inexpert Armenian airmen scattered, losing all cohesion and the protection of their wingmen. Two Polikarpovs were hit by fire from the Persian Gothias, and fell burning; the remaining three Armenian planes dove and escaped, two of them trailing smoke.

Though brief, the small dogfight caused the four lead Persian GW-107 fighters to become separated from the main group. Several minutes later, they were spotted by one of the foreign "mercenaries", flying the IAR-80s. By this point the aircraft had strayed towards the borders of Armenian airspace and over the slopes of Mount Ararat.

Two of the Armenian IAR.80s at once pounced. One of the Persian planes was downed immediately by an expert burst from the lead IAR.80. The remaining three engaged the two IAR.80s in a short but fanatical dogfight. The lead mercenary pilot pumped more ammo into another Gothia, but all three Persian fighters disengaged. One of the planes was damaged and ran out of fuel, ditching five miles north of Khvoy.

Both Persian pilots thus downed survived, although flying officer Fereydoon Zandi, the first pilot downed, was found on the slopes of Mount Ararat by Turkish soldiers: he was marched back to civilization trussed up in the cords from his own parachute. The wreckage from his plane, however, was found across the border in Armenia, leading to questions of precisely where the air battle had taken place.

Xok burned for several days, and the death toll was eventually calculated to be twenty-one civilians killed or wounded. One Armenian pilot was killed in the air battle, and though no Persians were killed, one pilot was arrested and held by the Turkish Army.

The result of the Xok Reprisal was instant and immediate. The Armenian government learned simultaneously about Fedayee actions in the Battle of Pol Dasht and about the Xok Reprisal; and the Armenian government correctly deduced that the Army was losing control of the Fedayee. Should this control be lost, Pol Dasht would be the rule and not the exception, and war must then become a certainty. Despite many Persian claims to the contrary, Armenia was not desirous of a war in the region, nor ready for such an occurrence. Should war occur, Armenia would have to rely largely upon allied Russian troops and the irregular Fedayee. The Armenian government issued orders to its diplomats in Romania to secure an immediate peace before war became reality.

For several days, neither the Armenians nor the Persians realized their only real air battle had actually taken place over what might have been Turkey, at least until Flying Officer Zandi was captured by the Turks. By that time the Romanian conference was well underway.

The Azeris, meanwhile, realized their own problems with irregular raiders were coming to a head, and realized the need to either release them with a declaration of war, or turn their official attention to keeping them under better scrutiny. Nevertheless, they planned to use the Xok Reprisal to attempt to leverage a favorable agreement to secure the peace. After frantic discussions with Turkey and Russia, the Azeris opened the conference hoping to achieve a fair and honorable settlement.

Although much of the Persian side of these affairs remains shrouded in secrecy, the events in early June apparently presented a sobering realization that the Caucasian Crisis would lead to war unless all sides made an effort at the conference in Romania. This realization apparently helped prepare the way for the eventual agreement which calmed the crisis.

The Armenian government expresses it's sorrow that Armenian irregulars have attacked Persian forces at Pol Dasht, but calls upon the international community to condemn the wanton destruction of the town of Xok.

Armenia offers to pay recompense for the actions of the Fedayee who attacked Pol Dasht, but only if the Persians pay recompense for the wanton destruction of civilian targets at Xok.

"What the hell is this nonsense? Is discipline in your Army so bad, that Armenian officers accompany bandits on a raid? There had better be some stiff prison sentences for all leaders involved, and heads better roll up chain of command!"

The Armenian ambassador gives his best assurances to Foreign Minister Litvinov that all responsible have already been arrested and are being held pending trial on charges which could possibly lead to execution of several offenders.

The Armenian government is very mindful of the fact that Armenian Fedayee have seriously undermined the nation's security at a critical time; and the government is thus considering the harshest penalties (including execution) for any future Fedayee attacks. Further, the Armenian government informs their Persian counterparts that due to the circumstances involved, Armenia is not considering the Fedayee captured at Pol Dasht as lawful combatants.

Quoted

Originally posted by AdmKuznetsov
"What the hell is this nonsense? Is discipline in your Army so bad, that Armenian officers accompany bandits on a raid? There had better be some stiff prison sentences for all leaders involved, and heads better roll up chain of command!"

awww Litvinov's a softy

The situation with the flag of truce and all.. makes Armenia sound 'bad'. I guess they went off half-Xok'd

The Flag of Truce bit made me curious, so looking at the Hague Convention of 1899, the laws of War section has its delegate list missing, but the maritime portion has it. The Shah of Persia, The Ottomans and The Russians were all signatories- so any states descended from those could be considered bound as well.


The Armenian denial of their combatant status is curious.


Article 1
The laws, rights, and duties of war apply not only to armies, but also to militia and volunteer corps, fulfilling the following conditions:
To be commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
To have a fixed distinctive emblem recognizable at a distance;
To carry arms openly; and
To conduct their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.

In countries where militia or volunteer corps constitute the army, or form part of it, they are included under the denomination "army."


The Fedayee seemed to take orders, I don't know about the ensignia, but it would seem likely if they tended to work with the Army, they carry arms, they just failed the last.

The Armenian Fedayee militia would appear to count as 'Army' and thus is in violation of Article 28 -looting after an assault.

Curiously, the only penalty for the flag of truce bit was he immediately forfits his right of passage and safety.

The Persian retaliation against Xok would appear to violate articles 23, 25, 26 regarding bombardments and sieges.

Quoted

Originally posted by Kaiser Kirk

Quoted

Originally posted by AdmKuznetsov
"What the hell is this nonsense? Is discipline in your Army so bad, that Armenian officers accompany bandits on a raid? There had better be some stiff prison sentences for all leaders involved, and heads better roll up chain of command!"

awww Litvinov's a softy

The situation with the flag of truce and all.. makes Armenia sound 'bad'. I guess they went off half-Xok'd

My purpose in writing this was to show some of the internal problems that Armenia (and Azerbaijan) face due to the crisis with the Persians, and why both countries continue to seek a diplomatic solution. In regions like these, poor communications are going to result in a lot of very nasty and unprovable rumors.

Theoretically, Armenia is willing to write off the captured Fedayee as a the price to be paid for avoiding a war they are disinclined to fight. The attack on Xok they view as only transitorily related.

I'm going have to post my section on the identity of the mercenary IAR.80 pilots tomorrow. Spoiler: one of the Bulgarian lady pilots now has a combat kill, though it will be seriously hushed up...

Quoted

Originally posted by Brockpaine
[
My purpose in writing this was to show some of the internal problems that Armenia (and Azerbaijan) face due to the crisis with the Persians, and why both countries continue to seek a diplomatic solution. In regions like these, poor communications are going to result in a lot of very nasty and unprovable rumors.

Which you nicely succeeded at !

Turkish foreign minister Oghuz Osman Suleiman would like to schedual a meeting with his Aremenian/Azeri counterparts to discuss ways of reducing the level of disorganization along the Turkish and Persian borders. Meetings with Persian officials would also be benificial in this reguard.

Initial meetings with the Azeri's have provided usefull in implementing some measures to prevent irregular units from sucumbing to comunication and doctrinal errors resulting in border clashes. Events in Zaqatala show that some problems still exist however.

Turkey has had some success in training the armed forces of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with the intent of minimising raids by undisiplined irregular forces, success that even the government of India has publically acknowledged. We therefore offer our servises to the Armenian and Azeri governments in an effort to increase the level of professionalism in the Armenian/Azeri forces.

The Air Battle of Ararat is a prime example of how potentially other nations could be drawn into the conflict as a result of the confusing border clashs between irregular units and government forces. It is therefore imperitive that steps be taken to reduces these incidents.

In addition, flying officer Fereydoon Zandi will most likely be released following an investigation into the events which resulted in his unfortunate landing in Turkish territory.

Azerbaijan gladly accepts.

Excerpt from Ace of Hearts - The Tale of Bulgaria's Greatest Female Ace

Upon the squadron's return from Hendon with the final delivery of Spitfires, the 503rd Squadron was put on a one month leave. During this time, the women were approached by a Bulgarian Army official and were given the chance to volunteer for a special assignment.

Although Armenia had purchased twelve IAR.80 fighters, it was unable to provide personnel to serve as transfer pilots. The Armenians had separately approached first the Romanians and then the Bulgarians to hire temporary transfer pilots for the IAR.80s. Two pilots from the 503rd - Lidiya Ivanova and Kalina Dimitrova - volunteered to take the job, and they arrived in Romania for a six-hour familiarization course with the IAR.80. On May 30th they left Bulgaria in company with two other aircraft. The four-ship formation traveled along the Black Sea coast as far as Hopa, and then flew inland first to the Turkish town of Kars, and then on to the aerodrome at Yerevan, arriving on the fourth. Here, the four ferry pilots discovered the Armenians had failed to secure return transportation, but the two Bulgarian girls were put up by a cheerful Armenian matron who owned a house right off the runway. They stayed here in idle luxury until the morning of the seventh.

Lidiya and Kalina had barely woken when the air-raid siren at the aerodrome began it's piercing wail. As the rest of the Armenian planes scrambled, two two Bulgarian pilots realized the IAR.80s had been ignored in the rush to the planes. None of the Armenian pilots had ever flown such a powerful monoplane before, and had, in the critical hour, chosen to take their trusty and well-known Polikarpov I-5s rather than the cutting-edge IAR.80s.

The two Romanian civilian pilots arrived at the airfield several minutes later, and the four foreign pilots agreed that they stood just as good a chance in the air as on the ground. Scrambling the planes - fully armed and fueled - would prevent a Persian raid from destroying them on the runway. The four quickly convinced the Armenian ground crews to let them take the planes, and they took off some ten minutes after the rest of the Armenian planes, and coordinated over radiotelephone, heading south towards Mount Ararat, not realizing the mountain was in Turkey.

Within six minutes of takeoff, the four fighters were passing four thousand meters altitude when Kalina spotted a smoke trail to the south. Moments later she identified it as a burning Armenian biplane, being pursued by a Persian Gothia GW-107, and she spotted several other planes involved in a one-sided dogfight. Kalina informed her three comrades of the development, but the two Romanian pilots were uncertain of their status. Lidiya and Kalina, however, determined to go on the attack, and hopefully force the Persian planes to break off their dogfight with the outclassed Armenian Polikarpovs.

Lidiya, being the senior pilot, took the lead, and Kalina covered her tail. They dove together out of the sun just as the two sides disengaged, but Lidiya continued pursuing her target, a single Gothia which had become separated from the other three Persian fighters. Lidiya seized her opportunity and put a concentrated burst of thirty-caliber rounds into the plane.

"The enemy kite at once began smoking, and rolled over," Lidiya later said. "I ceased firing, and saw the pilot bale out. Kalina saw it as well - a confirmed kill!"

The other Persian fighters noted the loss of their comrade and moved swiftly to engage. For the next minute both sides maneuvered frantically to make a shot, until Lidiya spotted a difficult deflection shot, and took it. "The guns fired until they jammed, and the Persian kite began smoking. At that, the Persians apparently decided to go home, and they all made a reversed Immelman and headed south."

Upon returning to the Yerevan aerodrome, Lidiya reported her kill to the base commander. To her surprise, she was immediately sworn to secrecy, and both pilots were asked not to reveal details of the fight to anyone. The Armenians were concerned that having "mercenary" pilots involved in the pseudo-war would harm their own negotiations set to begin in Bucharest. The Bulgarian and Turkish governments concurred, and although Lidiya's kill was formally recognized by the VNVV, it was a state secret until 1938. Lidiya thus became one of the first European women to fly a plane in combat and make an air-to-air kill, and one of only two active pilots in the VNVV to have a confirmed kill (the other was a Great War veteran who had turned to flying transports).

Moreover, it became a mark of the unusual nature of the situation that the only non-Persian air-to-air score of the Caucasian Crisis was made by a Bulgarian woman flying a Romanian-built plane in Armenian colors over Turkey.