Assyrians, Kurds, and Ottomans: Intercommunal Relations on the Pe ...

It is worth noting that the vast majority of the Muslim population considered Bedr Khan as their protector and as a symbol of Islam against the infidels, and expressed their support for him. Those supporters were spreading rumours that the troops coming against him had been sent by the Europeans, not the sultan.

By the end of June 1847, Bedr Khan’s affairs had reached a crisis under mounting British pressure to surrender and the Ottoman preparations to crush his power. His only way out was to take refuge in Persia. While in Dair Quli, Khawaja Anton learned that Bedr Khan had sent a messenger to the Persian shah asking for asylum.

However, Bedr Khan was defeated even before the Ottomans initiated their campaign. He had miscalculated his alliance and misjudged his supporters, including Noor Allah, who conspired against him with the Ottomans. His attempt to counter the Turkish threat by forming a united Kurdish front revealed that only Khan Mohammed had been honest with him and loyal to the common Kurdish cause to end the Turkish occupation. Faced with the bitter reality of the desertion of most of his former Kurdish allies, Bedr Khan remembered his Assyrian victims of Tiyari and Hakkari, hoping to gain their support and assistance in his upcoming conflict. Rassam learnt that he had asked Noor Allah Beg to arm the Assyrians and promised to send him the required arms if they lacked any. Bedr Khan does not seem to have realised that, just as in the days of their weakness, the Turks would impose their authority using the old weapon of enmity both between the various ethnic and religious groups and even within a single race, as they did with the Kurds. Thus the proposal to form an alliance came to nothing when all the leaders of the tribes refused Noor Allah’s request.³¹

7. The Surrender of Bedr Khan Beg

12 July 1847

As the Turks’ campaign to eliminate Bedr Khan reached its final stage and their forces surrounded him from all sides to begin the final assault, he learned that Ressoul Pasha () had gone with Stevens’ man to Baghdad, after he had lost any hope of Persian assistance.