Major Tudor Pole served during the war in the Royal Marine Light Infantry, and then in the Directorate of Military Intelligence in the Middle East

Prophecies also swirled around the conflict in the Near East. In November 1914, the spiritualist Wellesley Tudor Pole (1884-1968), who served during the war as a Major in the Royal Marine Light Infantry, and then in the Directorate of Military Intelligence in the Middle East, surveyed what he knew of relevant prophecies circulating in relation to the Ottoman Empire. One was that when a European king called Constantine married a Sophie, then a new dawn of Christianity would begin in Constantinople. Constantine I ascended to the throne of Greece in 1913, and his wife was called Sophie. The Persian prophet Baha’u’llah (1817-1892), the founder of the Baha’i movement who believed he was chosen as the ‘promised one’ of a universal Faith, was reported to have predicted the rise of German hegemony and the downfall of the French and Ottoman Empires. The Rhine would ultimately run red with German blood, he apparently foretold, and then there would come ‘The Most Great Peace’. Tudor Pole was a promoter of the Baha’i movement in Britain, and believed the war would run as Baha’u’llah prophesied. When, in September 1918, the Ottoman army was defeated at the ancient city of Megiddo, the leader of the Baha’i movement at the time, Abdu'l-Bahá, declared that this was the Armageddon of the New Testament and welcomed the beginning of the end times. Such biblical prophecies will be discussed in more detail later, but for the moment let us survey the gallery of First World War prophets, ancient and recent, real and legendary, beginning with the most famous non-biblical prophet of them all, Nostradamus.

(A Supernatural War: Magic, Divination, and Faith during the First World War. By Owen Davies. Oxford University Press, 2018.)

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/a-supernatural-war-9780198794554

What attracted him to the Baha'i faith?

Mr. Wellesley Tudor Pole, who has just returned from the East, where he has been studying the movement at first hand.

“How did you come to be interested in the Bahá’í movement?” he said.

“I first heard of the movement when on a visit to Constantinople prior to the Turkish revolution in 1908, and I was very much impressed by the fact that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá could exert such an influence from within prison walls. When I returned to London I found that very little was known of the movement, and I determined to visit ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, known to the outside world by the name of ‘Abbás Effendi, on the first available opportunity and discover for myself the secret of his power.”

“And it is most extraordinary,” Mr. Pole continued, “that so little should be known of this movement in England. There are said to be between two and three million Bahá’ís at least in Persia alone, and many more in India, the Middle East, America, France, Russia, and elsewhere. There is no religious freedom in Persia; if there were it would be found that very great numbers of men would declare themselves disciples. No less than thirty thousand men and women in Persia alone are reported to have sacrificed everything for the movement.

(‘Abdul-Baha in Egypt, A Compilation of Eyewitnesses, Compiled and Edited by Ahang Rabbani, 2008)

https://bahai-library.com/pdf/r/rabbani_abdul-baha_egypt_eyewitnesses.pdf

Tudor-Pole was a point of contact between Abdul Baha and the Baha'is of Russia

The First World War undoubtedly disrupted communication between ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and the Bahá’ís in Russia, as it did with his correspondence elsewhere. When British forces were entering Palestine in 1917, Wellesley Tudor-Pole, the British Major and admirer of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, received inquiries from Russia concerning ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s safety (Momen, Bábí and Bahá’í Religions 333). In late 1921, ‘Ishqábád remained so isolated by geographical and political circumstances that news of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s death was only telegraphed to the Bahá’ís with the assistance of the American Red Cross and the British Trade Mission at Moscow (Balyuzi, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá 454).

(Notes on the Bábí and Bahá'í Religions in Russia and its Territories, G Hassall - The Journal of Bahá'í Studies, 1993)

https://journal.bahaistudies.ca/online/article/download/74/67

Tudor-Pole informing about Jamal Pasha's plan and saving 'Abdul-Baha

That the war years, during which Shoghi Effendi was studying in Beirut to obtain his Bachelor of Arts degree at the American University, cast a deep shadow of anxiety upon him, in spite of his naturally buoyant and joyous nature, is evinced in a passage of one of his letters written in April 1919, in which he refers to the “long and dismal years of war, bloodshed, famine, and pestilence, when the Holy Land was isolated from the different regions of the world and was undergoing the utmost and severest degree of repression, tyranny and devastation . . .” They were years of ever-increasing danger for his beloved grandfather, years of dire starvation for much of the population, of privations shared by all, including his own family. As the world struggle approached its end the threat of a bombardment of Haifa by the Allies reached such proportions that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá removed His family to a village at the foot of the hills on the other side of the Bay of Akka where they lived for some months and where He, too, spent some of His time. But the greatest threat to the Master’s life and to His family came at the moment when the Turkish Commander-in-Chief, “the brutal, the all-powerful and unscrupulous Jamal Pasha, an inveterate enemy of the Faith”, as Shoghi Effendi described him, contemplated crucifying the Master and His whole family, according to Major Tudor Pole, who was an officer in General Allenby’s victorious army which entered Haifa in August 1918, and who states this hideous act was due to take place two days before their entry, but was frustrated by the rapidity of the British advance and the consequent hasty retreat of the Turkish forces.

(The Priceless Pearl by Ruhiyyih Rabbani)

https://bahai-library.com/khanum_priceless_pearl

He (Shoghi Effendi) was received there (England) by the many devoted friends of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá with genuine warmth and affection. Some of them he already knew personally, such as Dr J. E. Esslemont, who had recently been in Haifa and collaborated with him and other friends in the translation of an important Tablet of the Master; Major W. Tudor Pole, who had met ‘Abdu’l-Bahá during His stay in London and had been in Palestine with the British Army of Occupation, rendering the believers every assistance within his power; and Lord Lamington.

(The Priceless Pearl by Ruhiyyih Rabbani)

https://bahai-library.com/khanum_priceless_pearl

The address of Major Tudor Pole, in London, was often used as the distributing point for cables and letters to the Bahá’ís. Shoghi Effendi himself, whenever he went up to London, usually called there.

(The Priceless Pearl by Ruhiyyih Rabbani)

https://bahai-library.com/khanum_priceless_pearl

After the completion of his mission (helping the Baha'is) Tudor-Pole distanced himself from Baha'i activities.

Prominent early British Bahá'í. He first heard of Bahá'í in 1908, and visited 'Abdu'l-Bahá in Egypt in 1910. 'Abdu'l-Bahá stayed at his guest house in Clifton during his visits to Bristol in 1911 and 1913. During World War I Tudor-Pole joined British military intelligence in Egypt, and was responsible for initiating British moves to secure 'Abdu'l-Bahá's safety during the invasion of Palestine. He was one of those called to meet Shoghi Effendi to discuss the future of the Faith early in 1922, but subsequently distanced himself from Bahá'í activities, evidently retaining a view of Bahá'í as an inclusive spiritual movement which was incompatible with the more organized form then emerging.

(A Concise Encyclopedia of the Bahá'í Faith by Peter Smith, Oneworld Publications, Oxford, 2000)

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/A-Concise-Encyclopedia-of-the-Bahai-Faith/Peter-Smith/Concise-Encyclopedias/9781851681846