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Wilhelm Wassmuss (Ohlendorf, 1880–November 29, 1931) was a German diplomat, also known as the "German Lawrence" or the "Wassmuss of Persia". 1880 (MDCCCLXXX) was a leap year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ...
1931 (MCMXXXI) is a common year starting on Thursday. ...
This page is about negotiations; for the board game, see Diplomacy (game). ...
Thomas Edward Lawrence (August 16, 1888 – May 19, 1935), also known as Lawrence of Arabia, and (apparently, among his Arab allies) Aurens or El Aurens, became famous for his role as a British liaison officer during the Arab Revolt of 1916–1918. ...
Wassmuss was born in Ohlendorf 60 kilometer south-east of Hanover and after a university education entered the German Foreign Service. He was posted first to Madagascar, then the United States, and by 1914 was the German consul to Persia. Hanover (German: Hannover []), on the river Leine, is the capital of the federal state of Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen), Germany. ...
1914 (MCMXIV) is a common year starting on Thursday. ...
Motto: Independence, freedom, the Islamic Republic (Persian: EsteqlÄl, ÄzÄdÄ«, jomhÅ«rÄ«-ye eslÄmÄ«) Anthem: SorÅ«d-e MellÄ«-e ĪrÄn Capital Tehran Largest city Tehran Official language(s) Persian Government Supreme Leader President of Iran Islamic republic Ali Khamenei Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Revolution Declared February 11, 1979...
Based in Bushehr, Wassmuss organised the Tangsir and Qashghâi tribe to revolt against the British in the south of the country. In the same year he lost his copy of the German Diplomatic Code Book which fell into the hands of the British and enabled them to read German diplomatic communications throughout much of World War I (see Zimmermann Telegram). Bushehr or Bushire (بوشهر), pop. ...
Combatants Entente Powers Central Powers Commanders {{{commander1}}} {{{commander2}}} Strength {{{strength1}}} {{{strength2}}} Casualties > 5 million military deaths > 3 million military deaths {{{notes}}} World War I, also known as the First World War and (before 1939) the Great War, the War of the Nations, War to End All Wars was a world...
The Zimmermann Telegram was a telegram dispatched by the Foreign Secretary of the German Empire, Arthur Zimmermann, on January 16, 1917, to the German ambassador in Mexico, Heinrich von Eckardt, at the height of World War I. It instructed the ambassador to approach the Mexican government with a proposal to...
The Lawrence of Persia
The German Lawrence of Persia was a consular official named Wilhelm Wassmuss. In the first days of February 1915, Wassmuss and a few followers sailed a small boat named the Pioneer down the Tigris River to a point some 65 kilometers below Kut al Amara, a town about 160 kilometers southeast of Baghdad. From there the party moved eastward into Iran where Wassmuss began work on a grandiose mission, something the empire-builders in Germany’s Foreign Office had dreamed about for years, the ending of Anglo-Russian domination in the Middle East. [1] Wilhelm Wassmuss (Ohlendorf, 1880–November 29, 1931) was a German diplomat, also known as the German Lawrence or the Wassmuss of Persia. Wassmuss was born in Ohlendorf 60 kilometer south-east of Hanover and after a university education entered the German Foreign Service. ...
The Tigris (Old Persian: Tigr, Syriac Aramaic: Deqlath, Arabic: دجلة, Dijla, Turkish: Dicle; biblical Hiddekil) is the eastern member of the pair of great rivers that define Mesopotamia, along with the Euphrates, which flows from the mountains of Anatolia through Iraq. ...
Location of Baghdad within Iraq Baghdad (Arabic: , from Persian بغداد , meaning given by angels) is the capital of Iraq and of Baghdad Province. ...
A map showing countries commonly considered to be part of the Middle East The Middle East is a region comprising the lands around the southern and eastern parts of the Mediterranean Sea, a territory that extends from the eastern Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf. ...
Wilhelm Wassmuss would achieve this by first bringing Iran into the war on the German side by organizing revolts among the Iranians against the British occupiers. Wassmuss was a brave but short, broad and heavy man, with high forehead and blue eyes generally looking upward, and slightly melancholy mouth. Nevertheless, Wassmuss’ appearance in no way indicated his dreams. While always a fervently patriotic German, he was also a mystic, a megalomaniac and a fanatic, a European who had learned to love the Mesopotamian desert and had educated himself into an intimate knowledge of it, its people, and their customs and languages. He was both a consummate liar as well as a man of deep principles. He was an actor, a man who enjoyed wearing the flowing robes of a desert tribesman, but he was also a hero. He became known as Wassmuss of Persia, and successfully organized and led an amazing revolt against the British occupiers. [2]
Wilhelm Wassmuss was born in 1880 and joined the German Foreign Service in 1906. Sent first to Madagascar, he was promoted to Vice Consul and assigned to the German Consulate in the Persian Gulf port town of Bushehr in 1909. In 1910 he was returned to Madagascar where, rarely seen in public, he spent three years in an obsessive study of the desert and its peoples. In 1913, he was relocated back to Bushehr. While the details of what happened next are sketchy, it seems that with the start of World War I, Wassmuss appears to have recognized that now was the time—his time—to formant a revolt. He met with his superiors in Constantinople and as a result of that meeting, it was proposed that he organize and lead the Persians in a guerilla war against Britain. The plan was approved and the German Foreign Office amply supplied him with gold, this on the direct order of Kaiser Wilhelm who was enthusiastic about the plan. Although Wassmuss had absolutely no training in espionage, he became one of the world’s first covert action operatives—an agent who does not specifically try to collect information but who functions in a foreign country to obtain a definite result. Bushehr or Bushire (بوشهر), pop. ...
Combatants Entente Powers Central Powers Commanders {{{commander1}}} {{{commander2}}} Strength {{{strength1}}} {{{strength2}}} Casualties > 5 million military deaths > 3 million military deaths {{{notes}}} World War I, also known as the First World War and (before 1939) the Great War, the War of the Nations, War to End All Wars was a world...
Map of Constantinople. ...
The Persians of Iran (officially named Persia by West until 1935 while still referred to as Persia by some) are an Iranian people who speak Persian (locally named Fârsi by native speakers) and often refer to themselves as ethnic Iranians as well. ...
Wilhelm II of Prussia and Germany, Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert von Hohenzollern (January 27, 1859 - June 4, 1941) was the last German Emperor (Kaiser) and the last King (König) of Prussia from 1888 - 1918. ...
After crossing into Iran, Wassmuss first passed through the market towns of Dezful and Shushtar. He conferred with the local chieftains and distributed pamphlets urging the tribesmen into a revolt against England. Once he started, any secrecy quickly dissolved and the local police at Shushtar tried to arrest him. He was warned and managed to escape but was soon in peril again. He traveled south some 160 kilometers to the town of Behbahan. Here the apparently friendly local chieftain invited him to dinner, and then promptly placed him under armed guard. The chieftain, planning to sell Wassmuss to the British, sent a messenger rushing to them. The messenger met a British detachment on the road and excitedly told its mounted officers of the capture. They immediately galloped to Behbahan but once there, they lost valuable minutes through the politeness of Eastern protocol in the discussion of the chieftain’s price for Wassmuss. These moments were critical because when the officers went to take their prisoner he was gone. However, although Wassmuss had escaped, he left his luggage behind. It was found by the British in the chieftain’s courtyard and delivered unopened into storage in London. [3] Dezful (Dezh-pol, Dez Bridge) is a city in the Khuzestan province in southwestern Iran. ...
Shûshtar is an ancient fortress city in the Khuzestan province in southwestern Iran. ...
Behbahan is a city in the Khuzestan province in southwestern Iran. ...
Wilhelm Wassmuss’ story of his escape is almost impossible to swallow. Wassmuss claimed that he told his guards his horse was sick. Every hour, (he claimed) he was then escorted under guard, to his horse’s stable (where he looked at the horse?), but in the early morning the guards were sleepy and grown tired of escorting him across the small courtyard to the stable. They therefore didn’t bother escorting him, so he hopped onto his horse and galloped away.
The British had read Wassmuss’ pamphlets and realized he had to be stopped; they also knew doing this would not be easy because as the days went on, Wassmuss was rapidly was becoming famous throughout Iran. First, he organized the Bakhtiari tribes then purchased the loyalty of other tribes. However, although successful, he continually raged about his lost luggage, and in doing this, called attention to it. He went as far as insisting to see the Governor at the Persian provincial capitol of Shiraz to formally protest his lost luggage and demand its return which, of course, was impossible since it was no longer in Iran. The Bakhtiari (or Bakhtiyari) are a group of southern Iranian people. ...
Shiraz can refer to: Shiraz, Iran Shiraz grape/wine This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...
Wilhelm Wassmuss survived the war. For a time, Wassmuss had been dazzlingly successful in Iran, but tribal support for him began to fade when it became obvious to the tribal leaders that Germany was not defeating England. After the war, Wasmuss, whose network had spread through Afghanistan and as far as India, and for whom the British had offered a $500,000 reward, was imprisoned by the British. He was released in 1920 and made his way back to Berlin. Once there, the same man who had had so eloquently lied to the Persian tribesmen on Germany’s behalf struggled to persuade the German Foreign Office to honor his pledges and pay the money he had promised to the tribes; the German government refused.
As the post-war years went by, Wassmuss could not forget his promises. He returned to Bushehr in 1924 and, purchasing cheap farmland, promised to repay the tribesmen from the profits he hoped to make from farming. The farm failed. After legal squabbles over money with some of the tribal chieftains who once been his friends, Wilhelm Wassmuss returned to Berlin in April, 1931. A broken man, he died virtually forgotten and in poverty in November, 1931. To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...
See also Western imperialism in Asia traces its roots back to the late 15th century with a series of voyages that sought a sea passage to South Asia in the hope of establishing direct trade between Europe and Asia in spices. ...
The entrepreneur William Knox DArcy (October 11, 1849 - May 1, 1917) was one of the main founders of the oil and petrochemical industry in Persia (Iran). ...
Morgan Shuster and US officials at Atabak Palace, Tehran, 1911. ...
The Russo-Persian Wars were wars fought between the Russian Empire and Persia in 18-20th centuries. ...
Turko-Persian War was fought between Turkish Ottoman Empire and Persia (present-day Iran) from 1821 to 1823 After severe losses in Georgia during the Russo-Persian War of 1804-13, Crown Prince Abbas Mirza (1783-1833) of Persia vowed to modernize his armies. ...
The First Anglo-Afghan War lasted from 1839 to 1842. ...
// The Rise of Dost Mohammad It was not until 1826 that the energetic Dost Mohammad was able to exert sufficient control over his brothers to take over the throne in Kabul, where he proclaimed himself amir. ...
The Anglo-Soviet invasion of Persia was the invasion of Iran by the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, codenamed Operation Countenance, from August 25 to September 17 of 1941. ...
The Persian Corridor is the name for a supply route through Iran into Soviet Azerbaijan by which British aid and American Lend-Lease supplies were transferred to the Soviet Union during World War II. Map of Iran & Borders with former Soviet Republics of Armenia, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan // Background Note: The...
The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) was founded in 1909, as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, following the discovery of a large oil field in Masjed Soleyman, Iran . ...
The Abadan Crisis occurred from 1951 to 1954, after Iran nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, and expelled Western companies from oil refineries in the city of Abadan. ...
Sources - When we come back from first death, Cosei articles relating to Thomas MacGreevy by Susan Schreibman
- Dulles, Allen, The Craft of Intelligence, Harper and Row, New York, 1963
- Innes, Brian, The Book of Spies, Bancroft and Co., Ltd., London, 1966
- Macmillan, Margaret, Paris 1919, Random House, New York, 2001
- Owen, David, Hidden Secrets, Firefly Books, Toronto, 2002
- Sykes, Christopher, Wassmuss “The German Lawrence”, Longmans, Green and Co., New York, 1936
- Tuchman, Barbara W., The Zimmerman Telegram, Ballantine Books, New York, 1979
- Volkman, Ernest, Spies, John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1994
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