the shah. The Russians, moreover, made a futile attempt on Gilan
by landing troops at Enzeli, which returned to Baku, where Zizianov
fell a victim to the treachery of the Persian governor. Somewhat
later Ibrahim Khalil of Shusha, repenting of his Russophilism,
determined to deliver up the Muscovite garrison at that place, but
his plans were betrayed, and he and his relatives put to death.
Reprisals and engagements followed with varied success; and the
crown prince of Persia, after a demonstration in Shirvan, returned
to Tabriz. He had practically made no progress; yet Russia, in
securing possession of Derbent, Baku, Shirvan, Sheki, Ganja, the
Talysh and Mugan, was probably indebted to gold as well as to
the force of arms. At the same time Persia would not listen to
the overtures of peace made to her by the governor-general who
had succeeded Zizianov.
Relations had now commenced with England and British India.
A certain Mahdi ʽAli Khan had landed at Bushire, entrusted by
the governor of Bombay with a letter to the shah, and
he was followed shortly by an English envoy from the
governor-general, Captain Malcolm of the Madras
army. He had not only to talk about the Afghans
Relations with England, India
and France.
but about the French, and the trade of the Persian
Gulf. The results were a political and commercial treaty,
and a return mission to India from Fath ʽAli Shah. To him
France next sent her message. In 1801 an Armenian merchant
from Bagdad had appeared as the bearer of credentials from
Napoleon, but his mission was mistrusted and came to nothing.
Some five years afterwards Jaubert, after detention and imprisonment
on the road, arrived at Teheran and went back to Europe
with a duly accredited Persian ambassador, who concluded a treaty
with the French emperor at Finkenstein. On the return of the
Persian diplomatist, a mission of many officers under General
Gardane to instruct and drill the local army was sent from France
to Persia. Hence arose the counter-mission of Sir Harford Jones
from the British government, which, on arrival at Bombay in
April 1808, found that it had been anticipated by a previously
sent mission from the governor-general of India, under Malcolm
again, then holding the rank of brigadier-general.
The home mission, however, proceeded to Bushire, and Malcolm’s return thence to India enabled Sir Harford to move on and reach the capital in February 1809. A few days before his entry General Gardane had been dismissed, as the peace of Tilsit debarred France from aiding the shah against Russia. Sir Harford concluded a treaty with Persia the month after his arrival at the capital; but the government of India were not content to leave matters in his hands: notwithstanding the anomaly of a double mission, Malcolm was in 1810 again dispatched as their own particular envoy. He brought with him Captains Lindsay and Christie to assist the Persians in the war, and presented the shah with some serviceable field pieces, but there was little occasion for the exercise of his diplomatic ability save in his non-official intercourse with the people, and here he availed himself of it to the great advantage of himself and his country.[1] He was welcomed by the shah in camp at Ujani, and took leave a month afterwards to return via Bagdad and Basra to India. The next year Sir Harford Jones was relieved as envoy by Sir Gore Ouseley.
Meanwhile hostilities had been resumed with Russia, and in
1812 the British envoy used his good offices for the restoration of
peace, but the endeavour failed. To add to the Persian
difficulty, in July of this year a treaty was concluded
between England and Russia, and this circumstance
caused the envoy to direct that British officers should
Renewal of
Russian War.
take no further part in Russo-Persian military operations. Christie
and Lindsay, however, resolved to remain at their own risk, and
advanced with the Persian army to the Aras. On the 31st of
October the force was surprised by an attack of the enemy, and
retreated, the next night they were again attacked and routed at
Aslanduz. Christie fell bravely fighting at the head of his brigade;
Lindsay saved two of his nine guns; but neither of the two Englishmen
was responsible for the disaster. Lenkoran was taken by
Persia, but retaken by Russia during the next three months; and
on the 13th of October 1813, through Sir Gore Ouseley’s intervention,
the Treaty of Gulistan put an end to the war. Persia formally
ceded Georgia and the seven provinces before named, with Karabakh.
On the death of the emperor Alexander in December 1825 Prince Menshikov was sent to Teherān to settle a dispute which had arisen between the two governments regarding the prescribed frontier. But, as the claim of Persia to a particular district then occupied by Russia could not be admitted, the special envoy was given his congé, and war was recommenced. The chief of Talysh struck the first blow, and drove the enemy from Lenkoran. The Persians then carried all before them; and the hereditary chiefs of Shirvan, Sheki and Baku returned from exile to co-operate with the shah’s general in the south. In the course of three weeks the only advanced post held by the governor-general of the Caucasus was the obstinate little fortress of Shusha. But before long all was again changed. Hearing that a Russian force of some 9000 men was concentrated at Tiflis, Mahommed Mirza, son of the crown prince, advanced to meet them on the banks of the Zezam. He was defeated; and his father was routed more seriously still at Ganja. The shah made great efforts to renew the war; but divisions took place in his son’s camp, not conducive to successful operations, and new proposals of peace were made. But Russia demanded Erivan and Nakhichevan as well as the cost of the war; and in 1827 the campaign was reopened Briefly, after successive gains and losses, not only Erivan was taken from Persia but Tabriz also, and finally, through the intervention of Sir John Macdonald, the English envoy, a new treaty was concluded at Turkmanchai, laying down the boundary between Russia and Persia. Among the hard conditions for the latter country were the cession in perpetuity of the khanates of Erivan and Nakhichevan, the inability to have an armed vessel in the Caspian, and the payment of a war indemnity of some £3,000,000.
After Russia, the neighbouring state next in importance to the well-being of Persia was Turkey, with whom she was united on the west by a common line of frontier. Selim had not scrupled, in 1804 and 1805, to allow the Russians to make free use of the south-eastern coasts of the Black Sea, to facilitate operations against the shah’s troops; and there War with Turkey. had been a passage of arms between the king’s eldest son, Mahommed ʽAli Mirza, and Suleiman Pasha, son-in-law of the governor-general of Bagdad, which is locally credited as a battle won by the former. But there was no open rupture between the two sovereigns until 1821, when the frontier disputes and complaints of Persian travellers, merchants and pilgrims culminated in a declaration of war. This made ʽAbbas Mirza at once seize upon the fortified places of Toprak Kalʽah and Ak Sarai within the limits of the Ottoman Empire, and, overcoming the insufficient force sent against him, he was further enabled to extend his inroads to Mush, Bitlis, and other known localities. The Turkish government retaliated by a counter invasion of the Persian frontier on the south. At that time the Pasha of Bagdad was in command of the troops. He was defeated by Mahommed ʽAli Mirza, then prince-governor of Kermanshah, who drove his adversary back towards his capital and advanced to its immediate environs. Being attacked with cholera, however, the Persian commander recrossed the frontier, but only to succumb to the disease in the pass of Kirind. In the sequel a kind of desultory warfare appears to have been prosecuted on the Persian side of Kurdistan, and the shah himself came down with an army to Hamadan. Cholera broke out in the royal camp and caused the troops to disperse.
In the north the progress of ʽAbbas Mirza was stopped at Bayazid by a like deadly visitation; and a suspension of hostilities was agreed upon for the winter season. At the expiration of four months the sirdar of Erivan took possession of a Turkish military station on the road to Erzerum, and the crown prince marched upon that city at the head of 30,000 men. The Ottoman army which met him is said to have numbered some 52,000; but victory was on the side of their opponents. Whether the result was owing to the defection of 15,000 Kurds or not the evidence adduced is insufficient to decide. In the English records of the period it is stated that the defeat of the Turks was complete.
Profiting from this victory, ʽAbbas Mirza repeated an offer of peace before made without avail to the pasha of Erzerum; and, in order to conciliate him more effectually, he retired within the old limits of the dominions of the shah, his father. But more troubles arose at Bagdad, and other reasons intervened to protract negotiations for a year and a half. At length, in July 1823, the Treaty of Erzerum closed the war between Turkey and Persia. It provided especially against a recurrence of the proved causes of war, such as extorting taxes from Persian travellers or pilgrims, disrespect to the ladies of the royal harem and other ladies of rank proceeding to Mecca or Karbala (Kerbela), irregular levies of custom-duties, non-punishment of Kurdish depredators transgressing the boundary, and the like.
With respect to the eastern boundaries of his kingdom, Fath ʽAli Shah was fortunate in having to deal with a less dangerous neighbour than the Muscovite of persistent policy and the Turk of precarious friendship. The Afghan, though equal to the Persian in physical force and prowess, was his inferior in worldly knowledge and experience. Moreover, the The Afghan Question. family divisions among the ruling houses of Afghanistan grew from day to day more destructive to that patriotism and sense of nationality which Ahmad Shah had held out to his countrymen as the sole specifics for becoming a strong people.
The revolt of Nadir Mirza had, as before explained, drawn the shah’s attention to Khorasan in the early part of his reign; but, although quiet had for the moment been restored at Meshed by the presence of the royal camp, fresh grounds of complaint were urged against the rash but powerless prince, and recourse was had to extreme measures. Charged with the murder of a holy saiyid, his hands were cut off and his tongue was plucked out, as part of the horrible punishment inflicted on him. It does not appear that Nadir Mirza’s cause was ever seriously espoused by the Afghans,
- ↑ The “wakilu ’l-mulk,” governor of Kerman, told Colonel Goldsmid, when his guest in 1866, that “his father had been Sir John Malcolm’s Mihmandar. There never was such a man as ʽMalcolm Sahib.’ Not only was he generous on the part of his government, but with his own money also.”—(Telegraph and Travel, p. 585.)
