1. 'Despatch by Lieutenant-General R. Wapshare, C.B., C.S.I. on the Organization and Working of the East Persian Line of Communications. From 1st April 1918 to 15th January 1919'

Description:

Abstract: The file consists of a despatch from Lieutenant-General Richard Wapshare, General Officer Commanding, 4th (Quetta) Division to the Chief of General Staff, Army Headquarters, Delhi, dated 8 March 1919, concerning the organization and working of the East Persian line of communications, covering the period from 1 April 1918 to 15 January 1919.It includes topics such as topography; the East Persian Cordon Field Force; administration; troop movements; railway defence troops; work on the railway; financial problems; road and rail lines of communications; supply areas; transport; trade; the capacity of the railway; supplies; medical and veterinary arrangements; and ordnance services.Appendices 1 and 2 consist of maps and sketches not reproduced in this file.Appendix 3 – Report on the working of the Nushki Extension Railway from 1st April 1918 to 15th January 1919, by Colonel Frederick Warner Allum, Engineer-in-Chief, Nushki Extension Railway, dated 6 February 1919.Appendix 4 – Note on the Field Work of the Nushki Extension (Railway) Reconnaissance, June 1918 to January 1919, by Major Lewis Egerton Hopkins, Engineer-in-Chief, N. E. Reconnaissance, dated 6 February 1919. Covering the object and length of the survey; wells, tanks and water supply; transport; illness; list of officers and subordinates, etc., who served in Persia; and caravan routes.Appendix 5 – Report on the working of the line of communications East Persia from September 1918 to January 15th 1919, by Brigadier-General William Edmund Ritchie Dickson, Inspector General of Communications, East Persia, dated 5 February 1919. It is broken down into the following topics: general; supply and transport; medical; ordnance; veterinary; works; surveys; finance; ecclesiastical; and posts and telegraphs.It also includes a series of seventeen annexures with various tables covering: administrative standing orders; the transport situation and forecast of transport requirements; instructions for moving stores along the line of communications; the chain of supply and transport responsibility; transport units; distribution of supply units; supplies carried on lines of communication; medical requirements; clothing and ordnance stores; progress of building works; and finances.Physical description: Foliation: the foliation sequence commences at the front cover with 1, and terminates at the inside back cover with 67; these numbers are written in pencil, are circled, and are located in the top right corner of the recto side of each folio. Pagination: the file also contains an original printed pagination sequence.

2. File 1484/1916 ‘Persia; Quetta-Nushki Railway Extension’

Description:

Abstract: The volume contains correspondence, reports, memoranda and minute papers, relating to military and commercial assessments of an extension to the railway from Quetta to Nushki, British Baluchistan [present-day Pakistan], and from Nushki to Seistan [Sīstān], Persia [Iran]. The volume includes: a letter from Hugh Shakespear Barnes, Chairman of the Imperial Bank of Persia and a former government administrator in India, dated 29 January 1916 and enclosing an extract of a letter from the Political Agent at Chagai, Frank Cooke Webb Ware, on the prospects of a railway line from Nushki to the Persian frontier (ff 250-256); a memorandum on the improvement of communications between Baluchistan and the Persian frontier, prepared by Webb Ware, dated 19 February 1916 (ff 184-189); a memorandum on the Quetta to Nushki railway extension, prepared by Webb Ware, dated 6 February 1917 (ff 154-161); the Government of India’s recommendations on the route of the extension, based on their objection to it passing too close to the Afghan frontier (f 116); a note on the Nushki extension railway, prepared by the Political Agent at Chagai, Major William Gorden Hutchinson, dated September 1918, with details of the distances between stations, and watering and grazing facilities along the route (ff 70-80); copies of a note entitled ‘Trade Routes to Khurasan’ [Khorasan], prepared by Lieutenant B Temple, Vice-Consul at Meshed [Mashhad] and dated 14 June 1919 (ff 12-15, ff 41-57).The volume’s principal correspondents are: the Foreign and Political Department of the Government of India; the Agent to the Governor-General and Chief Commissioner in Baluchistan, Sir John Ramsay; and the Political Agent at Chagai.The volume includes a divider which gives the subject number, the year the subject file was opened, the subject heading, and a list of correspondence references by year. This is placed at the back of the correspondence.Physical description: Foliation: the foliation sequence (used for referencing) commences at the first folio with 1 and terminates at the last folio with 258; these numbers are written in pencil, are circled, and are located in the top right corner of the recto side of each folio.The foliation sequence does not include the front and back covers, nor does it include the leading and ending flyleaves. A previous foliation sequence, which is also circled, has been superseded and therefore crossed out.