An unsung player in the Great Game
(Filed: 09/03/2003)
Noel Malcolm reviews Persia in the Great Game: Sir Percy Sykes,
Explorer, Consul, Soldier, Spy by Antony Wynn
I don't know whether the original Colonel Blimp ever had a first
name, but, if he did, it was probably Percy. One has only to utter the
words "Sir Percy Sykes", rolling them a little around the
mouth, to conjure up a sense of a certain kind of life, and a special
kind of mentality - both of them now long gone.
Some of the things one might imagine do turn out, in this case, to be
true. Born in 1867, Sykes had the classic background of a young,
ambitious imperialist. His family was respectable but not rich (his
father an army chaplain, his mother an officer's daughter), and he passed
first from Rugby to Sandhurst, then from England to India, where he spent
three years as a cavalry officer devoted to pig-sticking and polo.
There followed a few adventurous trips on behalf of Army Intelligence:
one of these (successful but staggeringly amateurish) involved travelling
from Odessa to Samarkand to observe Russian troop movements, even though
neither Percy nor his companion knew any Russian, or any local
language.
Then, in 1893, he made two journeys reconnoitring the eastern part of
Persia - the most likely route for any Russian advance on India. This was
his introduction to the country in which he would spend a large part of
his life, in a succession of diplomatic and military posts.
In some ways he fitted the stereotype to perfection. Wherever he went, he
organised gymkhanas, keen to convert the natives to the joys of polo and
tent-pegging (an Indian Army sport, involving lifting a peg with the tip
of one's lance at high speed). He loved hunting and shooting,
occasionally sending the rarer specimens from his bag to the Natural
History Museum in London; and he could not see a mountain without wanting
to walk up it.
Percy was short, thick-set and larger than life, and during his one stint
of active service with the British Army (a brief episode in the Boer War)
he seems to have behaved like an overgrown schoolboy.
And yet, as Antony Wynn demonstrates in this marvellously rich biography,
Sir Percy was not such a typical Percy after all. Unlike many officials
whose careers took them to Persia via India, he brought with him no trace
of the caste mentality of the British Raj. On the contrary, he made
friends with Persians, was eager to learn about their culture, and
revelled in both the complexities (etiquette and courtly language) and
the simplicities (summary justice and brute force) of Persian life.
Persia, of course, was very different from the Raj; it was an independent
state, in which Britain and Russia had to compete for influence and
power. The underlying issue was not oil (that came later) but imperial
geopolitics: the tectonic plates of Russian and British power met in
Central Asia, and as they ground together the "Great Game" of
espionage and power-politics was played out between them.
It was a game that Percy Sykes played with considerable skill. For he
understood, unlike his Russian counterparts, the benefits that could
accrue from winning the personal trust of leading Persians. During his
time as Consul-General at Meshed (in a region that was close to the
border with Russia and therefore easily cowed by Russian threats), he not
only outshone the Russian consul, but outwitted him, regularly obtaining
copies of his correspondence.
At one other game, however, Percy Sykes was much less competent - the
internal politics of the British diplomatic machine. His position was
fraught with problems. He reported to the Government of India, not to the
Foreign Office; he was therefore resented by the regular diplomatic staff
in Tehran, who portrayed him as a bungling amateur with a passion for
self-promotion. His rambling, self-important dispatches ensured that this
impression was shared by many of his superiors in India too.
And yet, in the chaotic period leading up to the First World War, with
Persian politics in crisis and Russian officials persistently undermining
their own government's new policy of cooperation with the British,
Sykes's reports showed again and again that he had a shrewd grasp of both
local and international intrigue.
The last period of his career involved a different Great Game, that of
Buchan's Greenmantle rather than Kipling's Kim. During the First World
War, German agents were sent to set the East ablaze, in the hope of
creating such a wave of Islamic anti-British feeling that the Muslims of
India would rise up in revolt. The most successful of these agents
operated in southern Persia, where they skilfully manipulated a
combination of nationalist politicians and gold-hungry bandit
tribes.
Sir Percy (as he now was) was sent with a handful of Indian troops to
form a local army and take control of the region. This was the most
controversial part of his career: his lack of military experience was
made painfully obvious, and his obsession with putting on
prestige-raising displays of power seemed to many of his colleagues to
smack of sheer egomania. He certainly made mistakes; but his resources
were limited, and almost the only thing that was not in short supply was
his own knowledge of the popular psychology of the Persians.
In the end, it is impossible not to like this man. He was not an
intellectual; but he did write a huge two-volume history of Persia. He
enjoyed observing other people's wiles; yet he was himself a man of
considerable directness - not an intriguer but a doer. When, at a public
lecture he was giving in 1940, an Indian nationalist came up to the
platform and started shooting at the eminent retired governors of India
who were assembled there (killing one of them), it was the 73-year-old
Sir Percy who charged at the gunman, knocking him down and pinning him to
the floor.
And in Antony Wynn he has found an unusually well-suited biographer. Wynn
has spent years working in Iran, as a carpet-buyer and (of all things)
racecourse-manager: the jacket drily states that "he introduced
Jockey Club rules to the local Turkoman horsemen, who were not used to
any kind of rules". His writing is clear and vigorous; he resists
the temptations of purple prose; and he wields no ideological agenda -
unless an underlying sympathy for Persians counts as such.
He has delved deep in the archives, and his only real fault is his lack
of detailed references to his sources, which means that future historians
will have to do the same work all over again. But however well they do
it, it is unlikely that any of them will write such an enjoyable and
compelling account of this fascinating life for a very long time to
come.
Noel Malcolm's books include 'Bosnia: A Short History' and 'Kosovo: A
Short History' (Pan).
http://www.arts.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2003/03/09/bowyn09.xml&sSheet=/arts/2003/03/09/bomain.html
