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CHAPTER 38
Fighting had not yet come to an end in the capital when the first shooting broke
out in Tabriz. I had gone to collect Howard as he came out of class and we were
to meet Fazel at the 
anjuman
to go and have dinner with one of his relatives. We
had not yet stepped into the labyrinth of the bazaar when we heard shots which
sounded as if they came from near by.
With a curiosity marked by recklessness, we headed down toward the source
of the noise only to see, at about a hundred metres distance, a vociferous crowd
marching forward. There was dust, smoke, a forest of clubs, rifles and glowing
torches as well as shouts which I could not understand as they were in Azeri, the
Turkish language of the people of Tabriz. Baskerville did his best to translate:
‘Death to the constitution’, ‘Death to parliament’, ‘Death to atheists’, ‘Long live
the Shah’. Dozens of townspeople were running about in all directions. An old
man was dragging a stupefied goat at the end of a rope. A woman stumbled and
her son, hardly six years old, helped her to get up and supported her as she fled
limping with him.
We ourselves hurried towards our meeting place. On the way a group of
young men were erecting a barricade made of two tree trunks upon which they
were piling up in completely random fashion tables, bricks, chairs, boxes and
barrels. We were recognized and allowed to pass, but we were advised to go
quickly with the words ‘they are coming here’, ‘they want to burn down the
quarter’, ‘they have sworn to massacre the sons of Adam.’
In the 
anjuman
building Fazel was surrounded by forty or fifty men and he
was the only one not carrying a rifle. He only had an Austrian Mannlicher pistol
whose sole use was to point out to all around him the positions they should take

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up. He was calm, less anxious than the evening before, in the state of calm which
a man of action feels when the unbearable waiting is over.
‘You see!’ he told us with an imperceptibly triumphant tone of voice.
‘Everything which Panoff stated was true. Colonel Liakhov has carried out his
coup d’état. He has declared himself military governor of Teheran and has
imposed a curfew there. Since this morning supporters of the constitution have
become fair game in the capital and all other cities, starting with Tabriz.’
‘It has all happened so quickly!’ Howard marvelled.
‘It was the Russian consul who was notified of the launch of the coup by
telegram and he then informed the religious chiefs of Tabriz this morning. They
in turn summoned their supporters to assemble at mid-day in the Deveshi, the
Quarter of the Camel-drivers, whence they spread out through the city, first
heading for the home of one of my journalist friends, Ali Meshedi. They dragged
him out of his house accompanied by the screams of his wife and mother, cut his
throat and severed his right hand and then left him in a pool of blood. But have
no fear – Ali will be avenged before nightfall.’
His voice betrayed him. He managed a respite of a second and drew a deep
breath before continuing:
‘If I have come to Tabriz, it is because I know this city will resist. The
ground we are standing on is still ruled by the constitution. This is now the seat
of parliament, the seat of the legitimate government. It will be a fine battle but
we will end up winning. Follow me!’
We followed him, along with half a dozen of his supporters. He led us toward
the garden, and walked around the house to a wooden staircase whose
extremities disappeared in thick foliage. We went up to the roof, through a
passageway, up a few more steps and then came to a room with thick walls and
small yet potentially deadly windows. Fazel invited us to take a look: we were
overhanging the most vulnerable entrance to the quarter which at present was
blocked by a barricade. Behind it there were about twenty men, kneeling to the
ground with their rifles aimed.
‘There are others,’ Fazel explained. Just as determined. They are blocking all
the entrances to the quarter. If the pack comes, they will be given the welcome
they deserve.’
The pack, as he called them, was not far off. They must have stopped on the
way to set fire to two or three houses belonging to sons of Adam, but they were
relentless and the noise and shots grew closer.
Suddenly we were seized by a kind of shudder. However much we expected

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them and were sheltered by a wall, the spectacle of a wild crowd calling out
death and coming straight at one is probably the most frightening experience one
can have.
Instinctively I whispered:
‘How many are they?’
‘A thousand, a thousand five hundred at the most,’ Fazel replied in a loud
voice which was clear and reassuring.
Then he added, like an order:
‘Now it is up to us to frighten them.’
He asked his aides to give us rifles. Howard and I exchanged a quasi-amused
glance. We felt the weight of those cold objects with both fascination and
distaste.
‘Position yourselves at the windows,’ Fazel yelled. ‘And shoot at anyone
who approaches. I have to leave you. I have a surprise up my sleeve for these
barbarians.’
He had hardly gone out before the battle started although to speak of it as
such is most probably an exaggeration. The rioters arrived. They were a
vociferous and bird-brained mob and their forward ranks threw themselves
against the barricade as if it were an obstacle course. The sons of Adam fired one
salvo and then another. A dozen of the assailants were downed and the rest fell
back. Only one managed to scale the barricade, but that was only to be run
through by a bayonet. He gave out a horrible cry of agony and I turned my eyes
away.
Most of the demonstrators wisely stayed back, making do with shouting out
hoarsely the same slogan: ‘Death!’. Then a squad was thrown anew into an
assault on the barricade – this time with a little more method, that is to say that
they were firing on the defenders and the windows from which the shots had
come. A son of Adam hit on the forehead was the only loss in his camp. His
companion’s salvoes were already starting to mow down the first lines of the
assailants.
The offensive tailed off, they fell back and discussed a new strategy noisily.
They were regrouping for a new attempt when a rumbling sound shook the
quarter. A shell had just landed in the middle of the rioters, causing carnage
followed by headlong flight. The defenders then raised their rifles and shouted:
‘Mashrouteh! Mashrouthe!’ –
Constitution! From the other side of the barricade
we could make out dozens of corpses stretched out on the ground. Howard
whispered:

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‘My weapon is still cold. I have not fired a single cartridge. What about you?’
‘Nor have I.’
‘To have someone’s head in my sights, and to press the trigger to kill him …’
Fazel arrived a few moments later in jovial mood.
‘What did you think of my surprise? It was an old French cannon, a de
Bange, which was sold to us by an officer in the imperial army. It is on the roof,
come and take a look at it! One day soon we shall place it in the middle of the
largest square in Tabriz and write underneath it: “This cannon saved the
constitution!”’
I found his words too optimistic even though I could not contest the fact that
he had won a significant victory in a few minutes. His objective was clear – to
maintain a zone where the last Constitutionalists could assemble and find
protection, but above all where they could all plan out the steps they were to
take.
If someone had told us on that troubled June day that from just a few tangled
alleys in the Tabriz bazaar and with our two loads of Lebel rifles and our single
de Bange cannon we were going to win back for Persia its stolen freedom, who
would have believed it?
Yet that is what happened, but not without the purest of us paying for it with
his life.

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