You do not have permission to edit this page, for the following reasons:

This IP address has been blocked from editing Wikipedia.
This does not affect your ability to read Wikipedia pages.
Most people who see this message have done nothing wrong. Some kinds of blocks restrict editing from specific service providers or telecom companies in response to recent abuse or vandalism, and can sometimes affect other users who are unrelated to that abuse. Review the information below for assistance if you do not believe that you have done anything wrong.

The IP address or range 44.199.0.0/16 has been blocked (disabled) by ‪Blablubbs‬ for the following reason(s):

The IP address that you are currently using has been blocked because it is believed to be a web host provider or colocation provider. To prevent abuse, web hosts and colocation providers may be blocked from editing Wikipedia.
You will not be able to edit Wikipedia using a web host or colocation provider because it hides your IP address, much like a proxy or VPN.
We recommend that you attempt to use another connection to edit. For example, if you use a proxy or VPN to connect to the internet, turn it off when editing Wikipedia. If you edit using a mobile connection, try using a Wi-Fi connection, and vice versa. If you are using a corporate internet connection, switch to a different Wi-Fi network. If you have a Wikipedia account, please log in.
If you do not have any other way to edit Wikipedia, you will need to request an IP block exemption.

How to appeal if you are confident that your connection does not use a colocation provider's IP address:
If you are confident that you are not using a web host, you may appeal this block by adding the following text on your talk page: ((unblock|reason=Caught by a colocation web host block but this host or IP is not a web host. My IP address is _______. Place any further information here. ~~~~)). You must fill in the blank with your IP address for this block to be investigated. Your IP address can be determined here. Alternatively, if you wish to keep your IP address private you can use the unblock ticket request system. There are several reasons you might be editing using the IP address of a web host or colocation provider (such as if you are using VPN software or a business network); please use this method of appeal only if you think your IP address is in fact not a web host or colocation provider.

Administrators: The IP block exemption user right should only be applied to allow users to edit using web host in exceptional circumstances, and requests should usually be directed to the functionaries team via email. If you intend to give the IPBE user right, a CheckUser needs to take a look at the account. This can be requested most easily at SPI Quick Checkuser Requests. Unblocking an IP or IP range with this template is highly discouraged without at least contacting the blocking administrator.

This block will expire on 12:56, 12 May 2024.

Even when blocked, you will usually still be able to edit your user talk page, as well as email administrators and other editors.

For information on how to proceed, please read the FAQ for blocked users and the guideline on block appeals. The guide to appealing blocks may also be helpful.

Other useful links: Blocking policy · Help:I have been blocked
Your IP address is in a range that has been blocked on all Wikimedia Foundation wikis. The block was made by ‪AntiCompositeNumber‬. The reason given is Open proxy/Webhost: Visit the FAQ if you are affected .
- Start of block: 13:55, 18 August 2022
- Expiry of block: 13:55, 18 May 2025
Your current IP address is 44.199.189.47. The blocked range is 44.199.0.0/16. Please include all above details in any queries you make. If you believe you were blocked by mistake, you can find additional information and instructions in the No open proxies global policy. Otherwise, to discuss the block please post a request for review on Meta-Wiki. You could also send an email to the stewards VRT queue at stewards@wikimedia.org including all above details.

You can view and copy the source of this page:

((more citations needed|date=April 2014))
'''Wilhelm Wassmuss''' (1880 &ndash; November 29, 1931; German spelling: Waßmuß) was a German diplomat and [[Espionage|spy]] and part of [[Niedermayer–Hentig Expedition]], known as  "Wassmuss of Persia". According to British versions of history, he "attempted to foment trouble for the British" in the [[Persian Gulf]] in the First World War.

==Birth and schooling==
Wilhelm Wassmuss was born in 1880 in [[Ohlendorf]], 60 kilometers south-east of [[Hanover]], Germany, and after a university education he entered the [[German Foreign Office]] in 1906. Sent first to [[Madagascar]], he was promoted to [[vice consul]] and assigned to the German Consulate in the Persian port town of [[Bushehr]] by the [[Persian Gulf]] 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 to foment a revolt.<ref>Unknown</ref> During his stay in [[Bushehr]], [[Mohammad ali Shabankareh]] (the governor of [[Shabankareh]] and the suburbs) also invited him in the [[castle of Rostam Khani]] to give him support for the opposition in faith and financial assistance.<ref>Motemakken, Seyed alireza (2018), History of Shabankareh, Wikipedia</ref>
As part of the [[Anglo-Russian Entente]] within [[The Great Game]], Persia was divided in a Russian Northern Zone, a British Southern zone and a neutral central zone.
He met with his superiors in [[Constantinople]] and as a result of that meeting, it was proposed that he organize and lead the [[Persian people|Persians]] in a guerrilla war against Britain.
The plan was approved and the German Foreign Office amply supplied him with gold, on the direct order of [[Kaiser Wilhelm II]] who was enthusiastic about the plan. Although Wassmuss had no training in espionage, he became one of the 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.
[[File:Wilhelm Wassmuss.jpg|thumb|upright|Wilhelm Wassmuss]]

==Consul to Iran in the First World War==
Wassmuss was a consular official, and in the first days of February 1915 Wassmuss and a few followers sailed a river steamer named [[SS Pioneer|SS ''Pioneer'']] down the [[Tigris]] river to a point some 65 kilometers below [[Kut al Amara]] in Mesopotamia (a town about 160 kilometers southeast of [[Baghdad]]). The ''Pioneer'' had served both the Turks and Royal Navy in the war. From there Wassmuss' party moved eastward into [[Iran]] where he 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]].<ref>[http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/worldwari19141918/a/wassmuss.htm <!-- bot-generated title -->] ((Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070315214425/http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/worldwari19141918/a/wassmuss.htm |date=2007-03-15 )) at militaryhistory.about.com</ref>   Britain had outposts in Persia and [[Kuwait]] to protect its interests in India. Also, oil from the Persian Gulf began to flow to Britain from a new refinery and port at [[Abadan]]. Kut was later the site of a strategic [[Siege of Kut|battle]], where the British general [[Charles Vere Ferrers Townshend|Townsend]] and his British and Indian army were besieged and defeated by the Ottoman Turks with German Army assistance.

==The Lawrence of Persia against British–Russian–Persian coalition before WWI==

Wilhelm Wassmuss would achieve further victory if he succeeded in bringing Iran into the war on the German side and, failing that, 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. 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 a revolt against the British occupiers.<ref>((cite web |url=http://www.iranica.com/articles/ot_grp5/ot_khamsa_20040319.html |title=KòAMSA |access-date=March 18, 2023 |website=www.iranica.com |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060519042026/http://www.iranica.com/articles/ot_grp5/ot_khamsa_20040319.html |archive-date=May 19, 2006))</ref>

Based in Bushehr, Wassmuss organised the [[Tangestan County|Tangestani]] and [[Qashqai people|Qashqai]] tribes to revolt against the British in the south of the country. In March 1915, him and his entourage were captured by the [[Hayat-Dawudi (Lur tribe)|Hayat-Dawudi]], allies of the British. Although he managed to escape, his companions and his copy of the German diplomatic code book fell into enemy hands.<ref name=":0">((Cite web |last=Oberling |first=Pierre |title=ḤAYĀT-DĀWUDI |url=https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/hayat-dawudi |access-date=2024-03-15 |website=[[Encyclopaedia Iranica]] |language=en-US))</ref> This enabled [[William Reginald Hall|Admiral Hall]] of the famed [[Room 40]] to read German diplomatic communications through much of World War I (see [[Zimmermann Telegram]]).((Citation needed|date=March 2024))

In 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 Britain. 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 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.<ref>((cite web | url=http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/qasqai-tribal-confederacy-i | title=Welcome to Encyclopaedia Iranica ))</ref>

Wassmuss’ story of his escape is beyond credibility. 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 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 becoming famous throughout Iran. First, he organized the [[Bakhtiari people]], then he 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 capital of [[Shiraz, Iran|Shiraz]] to formally protest his lost luggage and demand its return. This, of course, was impossible since it was held by the [[India Office]] in London. A German code book was later found in his luggage and sent to Room 40.

==Post-war promises==

Wassmuss survived the war. For a time, he 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 Britain. After the war, Wassmuss, 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 man who had 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.

==See also==
((Div col|small=yes))
* [[Abadan Crisis]]
* [[Anglo-Iranian Oil Company]]
* [[Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran]]
* [[European influence in Afghanistan]]
* [[First Anglo-Afghan War]]
* [[Morgan Shuster]]
* [[Persian Corridor]]
* [[Rais Ali Delvari]]
* [[Russo-Persian Wars]]
* [[T. E. Lawrence]]
* [[Turko-Persian War]]
* [[Western imperialism in Asia]]
* [[William Knox D'Arcy]]
((Div col end))

==External links==
((Commons category|Wilhelm Wassmuss))

==Notes==
((Reflist))

===Sources===
* [http://www.ucd.ie/cosei/articles/wwi.htm When we come back from first death], Cosei articles relating to Thomas MacGreevy by Susan Schreibman
* [[Allen Dulles|Dulles, Allen]], The Craft of Intelligence, Harper and Row, New York, 1963
* [[Hopkirk, Peter]], Like Hidden Fire:  The Plot to Bring Down the British Empire (1994).
* 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
* [[Christopher Sykes (author)|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

((Authority control))

((DEFAULTSORT:Wassmuss, Wilhelm))
[[Category:1880 births]]
[[Category:1931 deaths]]
[[Category:World War I spies for Germany]]
[[Category:German people of World War I]]
[[Category:Spymasters]]

Pages transcluded onto the current version of this page (help):

Wilhelm Wassmuss (edit)
Template:Ambox (view source) (template editor protected)
Template:Authority control (view source) (template editor protected)
Template:Category handler (view source) (protected)
Template:Citation needed (view source) (protected)
Template:Cite web (view source) (protected)
Template:Commons category (view source) (template editor protected)
Template:Delink (view source) (protected)
Template:Div col (view source) (template editor protected)
Template:Div col/styles.css (view source) (template editor protected)
Template:Div col end (view source) (template editor protected)
Template:Find sources mainspace (view source) (template editor protected)
Template:Fix (view source) (protected)
Template:Fix/category (view source) (protected)
Template:Hlist/styles.css (view source) (protected)
Template:Main other (view source) (protected)
Template:More citations needed (view source) (template editor protected)
Template:Plainlist/styles.css (view source) (protected)
Template:Reflist (view source) (protected)
Template:Reflist/styles.css (view source) (protected)
Template:Replace (view source) (protected)
Template:Side box (view source) (template editor protected)
Template:Sister project (view source) (template editor protected)
Template:Webarchive (view source) (template editor protected)
Module:Arguments (view source) (protected)
Module:Authority control (view source) (template editor protected)
Module:Authority control/auxiliary (view source) (template editor protected)
Module:Authority control/config (view source) (template editor protected)
Module:Category handler (view source) (protected)
Module:Category handler/blacklist (view source) (protected)
Module:Category handler/config (view source) (protected)
Module:Category handler/data (view source) (protected)
Module:Category handler/shared (view source) (protected)
Module:Check for unknown parameters (view source) (protected)
Module:Citation/CS1 (view source) (protected)
Module:Citation/CS1/COinS (view source) (protected)
Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration (view source) (protected)
Module:Citation/CS1/Date validation (view source) (protected)
Module:Citation/CS1/Identifiers (view source) (protected)
Module:Citation/CS1/Utilities (view source) (protected)
Module:Citation/CS1/Whitelist (view source) (protected)
Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css (view source) (protected)
Module:Delink (view source) (protected)
Module:EditAtWikidata (view source) (protected)
Module:Find sources (view source) (template editor protected)
Module:Find sources/config (view source) (template editor protected)
Module:Find sources/links (view source) (template editor protected)
Module:Find sources/templates/Find sources mainspace (view source) (template editor protected)
Module:Message box (view source) (protected)
Module:Message box/ambox.css (view source) (protected)
Module:Message box/configuration (view source) (protected)
Module:Namespace detect/config (view source) (protected)
Module:Namespace detect/data (view source) (protected)
Module:Navbar (view source) (protected)
Module:Navbar/configuration (view source) (protected)
Module:Navbox (view source) (template editor protected)
Module:Navbox/configuration (view source) (template editor protected)
Module:Navbox/styles.css (view source) (template editor protected)
Module:Side box (view source) (template editor protected)
Module:Side box/styles.css (view source) (template editor protected)
Module:String (view source) (protected)
Module:Unsubst (view source) (protected)
Module:Webarchive (view source) (template editor protected)
Module:Webarchive/data (view source) (template editor protected)
Module:WikidataIB (view source) (template editor protected)
Module:WikidataIB/nolinks (view source) (template editor protected)
Module:WikidataIB/titleformats (view source) (template editor protected)
Module:Yesno (view source) (protected)

Return to Wilhelm Wassmuss.

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Wassmuss"