Page:Historyofpersiaf00watsrich.djvu/232

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212
A HISTORY OF PERSIA.

demand for the evacuation of the territory of Gokcheh. The language used by the representative of Russia should have been based upon a firmer state of preparation to resist the force of Persia. Taken as they were by surprise, the Russian officers, with the exception of the colonel commanding at Sheeshah,[1] had no choice but to quit their posts and fall back upon places of safety. A Persian division marching into Karabagh under the command of the Shah's son, Ismail Meerza, encountered at Khunzerukh a Russian detachment which was making its way towards Sheeshah. The weather was extremely hot, and the Russians were parched with thirst, and to these circumstances their colonel afterwards attributed the fact of his regiment surrendering to the Persians. Four hundred soldiers were killed or wounded, and the rest of the battalion, as well as two guns, fell into the power of the prince, who sent his prisoners to the Shah's camp. There half of the private soldiers thus taken soon enlisted themselves in the Persian service. After this, the Russian general who commanded the district bordering on Erivan, retired to Lori, a strong position on the Tabeda river, from which Hassan Khan, the brother of the hereditary Sirdar of Erivan, found it impossible to dislodge him. The Persian troops, however, were for the present unopposed in the open field, and they carried terror and destruction up to the Russian outposts the Sirdar penetrating in one raid to the immediate vicinity of Tiflis. The Russian officer in command at Genja, having marched across country to the assistance of the general commanding at Lori, the Mahomedans of Genja rose upon,


  1. Colonel Réut.