popularity or strengthened her position in Persia. The Sunnite
Turk was almost a greater enemy to his neighbour the Shiʽite than
the formidable Muscovite, who had curtailed him of
so large a section of his territory west of the Caspian.
Rupture with England.
Since Sir John M‘Neill’s arrival in Teherān in 1841,
formally to repair the breach with Mahommed Shah,
there had been little differences, demands and explanations, and these
symptoms had culminated in 1856, the year of the peace with
Russia. As to Afghanistan, the vizier Yar Mahommed had in
1842, when the British troops were perishing in the passes, or
otherwise in the midst of dangers, caused Kamran to be suffocated
in his prison. Since that event he had himself reigned supreme in
Herat, and, dying in 1851, was succeeded by his son Saʽid Mahommed
This chief soon entered upon a series of intrigues in the Persian
interests, and, among other acts offensive to Great Britain, suffered
one ʽAbbas Kuli, who had, under guise of friendship, betrayed the
cause of the salar at Meshed, to occupy the citadel of Herat, and
again place a detachment of the shah’s troops in Ghurian. Colonel
Sheil remonstrated, and obtained a new engagement of noninterference
with Herat from the Persian government, as well as
the recall of ʽAbbas Kuli. In September 1855 Mahommed Yusuf
Saduzai seized upon Herat, putting Saʽid Mahommed to death
with some of his followers who were supposed accomplices in the
murder of his uncle Kamran. About this time Kohan Dil Khan,
one of the chiefs of Kandahar, died, and Dost Mahommed of Kabul
annexed the city to his territory. Some relations of the deceased
chief made their escape to Teherān, and the shah, listening to their
complaint, directed the prince-governor of Meshed to march across
to the eastern frontier and occupy Herat, declaring that an invasion
of Persia was imminent. Negotiations were useless, and on the 1st
of November 1856 war against Persia was declared.
In less than three weeks after its issue by proclamation of the governor-general of India, the Sind division of the field force left Karachi. On the 13th of January following the Bombay government orders notified the formation of a second division under Lieut.-General Sir James Outram. Before the general arrived the island of Kharak and port of Bushire had both been occupied, and the fort of Rishir had been attacked and carried. After the general’s arrival the march upon Borazjan and the engagement at Khushab—two places on the road to Shiraz—and the operations at Muhamrah and the Karun River decided the campaign in favour of England. On the 5th of April, at Muhamrah, Sir James Outram received the news that the treaty of peace had been signed in Paris, where Lord Cowley and Farrukh Khan had conducted the negotiations. The stipulations regarding Herat were much as before; but there were to be apologies made to the mission for past insolence and rudeness, and the slave trade was to be suppressed in the Persian Gulf. With the exception of a small force retained at Bushire under General John Jacob for the three months assigned for execution of the ratifications and giving effect to certain stipulations of the treaty with regard to Afghanistan, the British troops returned to India, where their presence was greatly needed, owing to the outbreak of the Mutiny.
The question of constructing a telegraph in Persia as a link in the overland line to connect England with India was broached in Teherān by Colonel Patrick Stewart and Captain Champain, officers of engineers, in 1862, and an agreement on the subject concluded by Edward Eastwick, when chargé d’affaires, at the close of that year. Three Anglo-Indian Telegraph Line. years later a more formal convention, including a second wire, was signed by the British envoy Charles Alison and the Persian foreign minister; meantime the work had been actively carried on, and communication opened on the one side between Bushire and Karachi and the Makran coast by cable, and on the other between Bushire and Bagdad via Teherān. The untrustworthy character of the line through Asiatic Turkey caused a subsequent change of direction; and an alternative line—the Indo-European—from London to Teherān, through Russia and along the eastern shores of the Black Sea, was constructed, and has worked well since 1872, in conjunction with the Persian land telegraph system and the Bushire-Karachi line.
The Seistan mission, under Major-General (afterwards Sir Frederic) Goldsmid, left England in August 1870, and reached Teherān on the 3rd of October. Thence it proceeded to Isfahan, from which city it moved to Baluchistan, instead of seeking its original destination. Difficulties had arisen both in arranging the preliminaries to arbitration and owing to the disordered state of Afghanistan, and it was therefore deemed advisable to commence operations by settling a frontier dispute between Persia and the Kalat state. Unfortunately, the obstructions thrown in the way of this settlement by the Persian commissioner, the untoward appearance at Bampur of an unexpected body of Kalatis, and the absence of definite instructions marred the fulfilment of the programme sketched out; but a line of boundary was proposed, which was afterwards accepted by the litigants. In the following year the same mission, accompanied by the same Persian commissioner, proceeded to Seistan, where it remained for more than five weeks, prosecuting its inquiries, until joined by another mission from India, under Major-General (afterwards Sir Richard) Pollock, accompanying the Afghan commissioner. Complications then ensued by the determined refusal of the two native officials to meet in conference; and the arbitrator had no course available but to take advantage of the notes already obtained on the spot, and return with them to Teherān, there to deliver his decision. This was done on the 19th of August 1872. The contending parties appealed to the British secretary of state for foreign affairs, as provided by previous understanding; but the decision held good, and was eventually accepted on both sides.
Nasru ’d-Din Shah, unlike his predecessors, visited Europe—in 1873 and in 1879. On the first occasion only he extended his journey to England, and was then attended by his “sadr ʽazim,” or prime minister, Mirza Husain Khan, an able and enlightened adviser, and a Grand Cross of the Star of India. His second visit was to Russia, Germany, France and Austria, but he did not cross the Channel. (F. J. G.; X.)
E.—Persia from 1884 to 1901.
In 1865 the shah had mooted the idea of a Persian naval flotilla in the Persian Gulf, to consist of two or three steamers manned by Arabs and commanded by English naval officers; but the idea was discountenanced by the British government, to whom it was known that the project really concealed aggressive designs upon The Control of the Persian Gulf. the independence of the islands and pearl fisheries of Bahrein (Curzon, Persia, ii. 294). Fifteen or sixteen years later it was repeatedly pointed out to the authorities that the revenues from the customs of the Persian Gulf would be much increased if control were exercised at all the ports, particularly the small ones where smuggling was being carried on on a large scale, and in 1883 the shah decided upon the acquisition of four or five steamers, one to be purchased yearly, and instructed the late ʽAli Kuli Khan, Mukhber ad-daulah, minister of telegraphs, to obtain designs and estimates from British and German firms. The tender of a well-known German firm at Bremerhaven was finally accepted, and one of the minister’s sons then residing in Berlin made the necessary contracts for the first steamer. Sir Ronald Thomson, the British representative in Persia, having at the same time induced the shah to consider the advantages to Persia of opening the Karun River and connecting it with Teherān by a carriageable road, a small river steamer for controlling the shipping on the Karun was ordered as well, and the construction of the road was decided upon. Two steamers, the “Susa” and the “Persepolis,” were completed in January 1885 at a cost of £32,000, and dispatched with German officers and crew to the Persian Gulf. When the steamers were ready to do the work they had been intended for, the farmer, or farmers, of the Gulf customs raised difficulties and objected to pay the cost of maintaining the “Persepolis”; the governor of Muhamrah would not allow any interference with what he considered his hereditary rights of the shipping monopoly on the Karun, and the objects for which the steamers had been brought were not attained. The “Persepolis” remained idle at Bushire, and the “Susa” was tied up in the Failieh creek, near Muhamrah. The scheme of opening the Karun and of constructing a carriageable road from Ahvaz to Teherān was also abandoned.
Frequent interruptions occurred on the telegraph line between Teherān and Meshed in 1885, at the time of the “Panjdeh incident,” when the Russians were advancing towards Afghanistan and Sir Peter Lumsden was on the Afghan frontier; and Sir Ronald Thomson concluded an agreement with the Persian government for the line to be kept in working order by an English inspector, the Indian government paying a share not exceeding 20,000 rupees per annum of the cost of maintenance, and an English signaller being stationed at Meshed. Shortly afterwards Sir Ronald Thomson left Persia (he died on the 15th of November 1888), and Arthur (afterwards Sir Arthur) Nicolson was appointed chargé d’affaires. During the latter’s tenure of office an agreement was concluded between the Persian and British governments regarding the British telegraph settlement at Jask, and the telegraph conventions of 1868 and 1872 relative to telegraphic communication between Europe and India through Persia, in force until the 1st of January 1895, were prolonged until the 31st of January 1905 by two conventions dated the 3rd of July 1887. Since then these conventions have been prolonged to 1925.
Ayub Khan, son of Shir ʽAli (Shere Ali) of Afghanistan, who had taken refuge in Persia in October 1881, and was kept interned in Teherān under an agreement, concluded on the 17th of April 1884, between Great Britain and Persia, with a pension of £8000 per annum from the British government escaped on the 14th of August 1887. After a futile attempt to enter Afghan territory and raise a revolt
