RUSSIA AND PERSIA. 195
Peter was, it is said, brought about by the French Ambassador at Constantinople, the Marquis Bannac; but its sweeping character may be best appreciated when it is said that Ghilan and Mazanderan, Azerbijan and Astrabad, were to pass away from Persia to the Russian State. Fortunately for England the genius of Nadir Shah averted that catastrophe. But the speculative observer may for a moment ponder over the changes that that treaty, if its terms had been carried out, would have wrought in the later history of Europe and Asia. One hundred and fifty years ago Russia was almost in possession of those fertile provinces on the shores of the Caspian which are the practical base of an army advancing on Herat and the Indus. Astrabad and its invaluable bay were on the point of falling into her hands. These, too, at a moment when India was defenseless, lying exposed to the audacious demands of every military adventurer. The vigour of the Afghans had also been sapped by the greatness of the effort they had made in Persia. Once the garrisoning army of the Afghan ruler was overthrown, there remained nothing capable of checking a Russian army of fifty thousand men between Astrabad and Delhi. The question of the possession of India was nearly being solved in a manner wholly favourable to Russia a generation before Robert Clive contested with Dupleix for supremacy in Southern India. The genius of Nadir Shah fortunately prevented these audacious schemes having any practical result. He, after expelling the Afghans, defeated the Turks, 13 *
