The King

28. The Invasion

Herat was once called Aria. It was the first city of the Aryans, the founders of the Persian Empire. The ancient Greeks called the city Artacoana.

Alexander the Great once invaded the city on his way to India. He built a fortress there as a base of operations so he could rob India of its gold. He called the city Alexandria Ariana. A few centuries later the Arabs forced the population to accept the Quran, after which Genghis Khan arrived and razed the city to the ground. Many came and went in the years that followed. Now the shah of Persia was next in line to lay claim to this jewel of a city.

One month after receiving the good news from Sheikh Aqasi the shah travelled to the border town of Mashad, in the east of the country, where he was to meet with the Russian officers. These officers had painstakingly gone over the battle plans with the Persian warlords, and their strategy earned the shah’s immediate admiration and approval. It was well thought out, which pleased the shah since he personally wanted to be present at the front. He saw himself riding through the gate of Herat and into the city with a great display of power, exactly as Sheikh Aqasi had envisioned in the cave.

The chosen moment was exceedingly favourable. The British had their hands full with protests in the cities of India and in the countryside. They saw their conflict with the Persians as a matter for the negotiating table. The Persian army, they thought, would never be capable of occupying Herat by force of arms.

The Russians made sure that all suspicious movements in the eastern border region escaped British observation. At the same time the Russians sent an army unit by ship via the Caspian Sea to the steppe beyond the Afghan border to come to the aid of the Persians as soon as Herat had fallen into their hands.

The shah brought his storyteller with him to the border region. On the evening of the invasion he had him recount an old war story.

The shah slept in the barracks at the border, in his own tent. He was sitting on a sofa, leaning on great, soft cushions, and smoking his hookah, a vast assortment of delicacies within reach. He sent the servant away and summoned the storyteller.

The storyteller had dressed like a man of Herat with a milk-coloured turban wrapped round his head, the loose end of which rested on his shoulder. He bowed and waited for the shah to give him permission to begin.

‘What does the storyteller have for us today?’ asked the shah as the smoke from his hookah escaped from his mouth.

‘With Your Majesty’s permission I will talk about the journey of Xerxes to Athens, a true story based on the writings of Herodotus.’

‘Begin!’ said the shah.

The storyteller blew out a few candles and began his tale.

Xerxes, the king of kings, lived in a palace in Apadana, where he was watched over by seven thousand bodyguards. This was the glorious order of guards known as ‘the Fadaian’. They carried long spears that had been specially designed for them, spears that were worked with gold and silver. Besides the guards there were seventy thousand cavalrymen who were called ‘the Immortals’. And then there were elite troops from the various states of Persia and other subject nations such as Media, Bactria, India and the steppes of the Saks.

An army of a million and a half soldiers was on its way to Athens.

The king of kings rode in an open coach that was pulled by a royal horse, while a servant with a parasol stood behind him.

Xerxes had his coach rolled onto a majestic ship, where warlords in special uniforms awaited him. A deafening thunder of drums and trumpet blasts was sounded. A camel was slaughtered as a sacrifice so the coach could ride over the blood. The royal anthem was sung with great enthusiasm. The priest of Zarathustra gently tapped the coach a few times with his golden staff to bless the king’s journey, and with his free hand he directed the smoke from the holy herbs towards Xerxes to protect him from the evil eye.

It was a display of power unlike any that had ever been seen before on earth. The Greeks understood that soon they would be striking the image of this great king onto their gold coins.

Xerxes, son of Darius, had remembered but one lesson from his father: ‘Conquer the world.’ Only when he had Athens at his feet could he proudly claim the throne of the Achaemenids. It was four hundred and eighty years before the birth of Isa, son of Mary.

After seven days the ships reached the harbour of Greece. As they approached the mainland Xerxes stood on the deck of the ship to admire his army. Wherever he looked ships appeared on the horizon. He was hardly a man any longer; he was a god who was revealing himself to the world. When he turned round he saw the coastline of Europe for the first time.

The king’s ship dropped anchor. Xerxes remained standing on the deck and watched his soldiers go ashore. The local populace looked on, powerless.

‘The King of Kings,’ they whispered, as they held the hands of their children and shook with fear.

The shah knew the rest of the story: the humiliating defeat of Xerxes at the hands of the Greeks. It was not clear why the storyteller had chosen this particular tale, an event over which the Persians had remained silent for centuries out of shame. The storyteller was not yet finished when the shah threw a coin against the door. The storyteller stopped immediately, picked up the coin and disappeared.

‘Idiot,’ muttered the shah and put his hookah aside. He turned round, pulled the blankets over his head and tried to sleep. He would have to be up early the next morning to impart some words of encouragement to the first troops going to the front.

A dream wrenched him from his sleep. He had seen his father. He had embraced him in his sleep with tears of joy. It was extraordinary that the old king should appear in his dream now, but it was also to be expected.

All through the centuries the Persians had cherished Herat like an old gem. It was a very special city, where the Indian and Persian cultures met. The people spoke proper Persian, the customs were Persian, even the Indian rulers spoke Persian, but the British occupiers had done everything they could to make it an Indian city. It was no accident, then, that the dead king should have visited the shah in his sleep on that night of all nights. It was necessary, and it was a good sign. Later that morning, when the cavalrymen marched before the eyes of the shah on their way to the front, he felt in his heart that victory was inevitable.

As soon as the shah heard that the attack on Herat had begun, he pressed his forehead to the earth and begged God with tears for a successful outcome. He was not yet finished with his prayers when the Russian colonel ordered the Persian army to fire the cannons.

Thousands of Persian sharpshooters moved towards the city on horseback. This was the Russians’ idea, since the Persians were unsurpassed in their ability to shoot from galloping horses. It seemed like a very disorderly way of fighting, but it was intended to throw the disciplined Anglo-Indian army into confusion.

The British, who had counted on every possible kind of attack, had not expected this strategic variant. The officers didn’t know how to defend themselves against such a swarm of armed Persians. The Afghan and Indian soldiers who were standing on the city wall could not hold out for long. The cavalrymen dispersed to avoid the British cannon shots and reached the gate of Herat. This obstacle was soon demolished, and hand-to-hand combat began within the city walls. The British had never stood face-to-face with Persian soldiers before.

The fighting was painful for the Afghan soldiers. Deep in their hearts they did not want to fight their Persian brothers. The Indian soldiers too were short on motivation, for Persia was a nearby country and they were reluctant to take sides with the English against their own neighbours. The Persians believed that victory was within reach, and that gave them courage. They instinctively avoided the Afghan and Indian soldiers and pursued the British officers and sergeants, chasing them beyond the city walls.

A sharpshooter took aim at a British officer standing on the balcony of the army post and brought him down. One of the Persian warlords ordered that his body be placed in a cart, to be thrown at the shah’s feet later on. As soon as the Indian soldiers saw this, they fled through the other city gate towards the Indian border.

The Afghan soldiers no longer knew whether they should be fighting against the Persians or with them. Herat was a city in which tribes of both Afghan and Persian origin had always dwelt, and many mixed marriages had taken place over the centuries. So the population awaited the outcome of the invasion with considerable tension.

Once the Anglo-Indian troops were driven out of the city, the Afghan soldiers were ordered by their own leaders to withdraw into the hills until further notice. And thus the Persian sharpshooters captured the city. Beyond the walls, however, the battle raged. There the British inflicted great damage on the Persian army, destroying their French and Russian cannons. The Persian army was shattered, with countless dead and wounded.

The British got ready to drive the sharpshooters from Herat. They had asked the Afghan tribal leaders to attack the city from all sides. But suddenly, to everyone’s astonishment, the British colonel was told to pull his army out of Herat and retreat to Indian territory without delay. The British officers were furious. They could make neither head nor tail of the order, but apparently London had something else in mind.

One of the British officers had noticed that there were Russians fighting with the Persians. He sent his soldiers to look for Russians among the dead. The soldiers returned with three Russian bodies. These were placed on a cart, and with this booty the British army withdrew from Herat.

The report of the victory soon reached the shah. Surrounded by Persian officers he entered the city like Xerxes. The Persian inhabitants of Herat came out of their houses to admire their king. The shah, perched high on his horse, waved at his subjects, and he thought of Xerxes and how happy he must have felt to first set foot on European soil.