GEOGRAPHY.] PERSIA 617 an exact boundary, while the cession of Kotur to Persia, though part of the general question, must, if carried out at all, be looked upon as a separate result, due only to later diplomacy. The territorial claims of Turkey and Persia bear chiefly upon Kurdistan and the respective tribes which inhabit the plains and valleys of that exten sive mountain region. They are founded upon the treaty of Sultan Murad IV. with Shah Sufi in 1639, a later one of Nadir Shah with Sultan Mahmud I. in 1736, and one more recent still between Fath All Shah and Mahmud II. in 1823, the last two maintaining the status quo established by the first. But, when the Anglo-Russian commission first met, the boundary of possession fell far short of Turkish pretensions. These would have extended the pashalik of Baiyazid (Bayazid) in the province of Arzrum (Erzeroum) to a line including Maku, chief place in the district, and situated on the bank of the river of that name. 1 Farther south, again, the sultan insisted on increasing the area of the province of Van by the forcible annexation of Kotur. Such an act, after the assembly of a commission for the demarcation of the disputed frontier, was neither justified by precedent nor could it enhance the merits of the Turkish claim, and the reason alleged, that Kotur was essential to the Ottoman Government for stra tegical reasons in other words, that it gave the Turk free access into his neighbour s territory could scarcely be taken to account in the estimation of their opponents. The question was submitted on behalf of Persia to the Berlin Conference in 1878, and a special Anglo-Russian commission appointed to consider it in July 1880. The proposed cession, if accepted, would substitute for the present curve eastwards a line more direct but with a westerly inclination, whereby the fort and station of Kotur become embodied in Persian territory. This section of frontier is overlooked on the north by the mountains Bebi Kourgui, Guerdi Beranan, and Khidlir Baba, passes through Tepe Avristan on the west to the Turkish road to Kotur, follows this road to the west for half a mile, and then turns due south between Mount Kevlik and the river Shiva Resh to the sources of the latter, whence it zigzags to the eastward to re join the general boundary -line overlooked by the Kara Hisar, Mir Omar, Guere - Sourava, and Guere - Berian Mountains. Sir Henry Rawlinson saw difficulty in de fining a line of frontier from Ararat to Kotur ; for the country was not only intersected by ranges running in every possible direction, but it wanted a fixed population, and was, moreover, liable to the incursions of wild Kurdish tribes, who would have no respect for boundary-marks. Below Kotur, and south-west of the important Persian town of Khoi, the old line of possession inclined consider ably to the westward, but Turkey claimed a more advan tageous line running nearly north and south to the passes between Siik Bulak and Rowandiz, one of which was crossed in 1875 by Thielmann, who gives an interesting account of the surrounding country. The plain of Lahijan on the Persian side some 20 miles long and 20 miles broad he describes to be at an elevation of 5650 feet, " watered by the two sources of the Little Zab, which, several miles after their junction, traverses the mountain range through a deep rent . . . and then flows towards the Tigris." On the west of this district is the "gigantic wall of the Zagros Mountains, the frontier-line between Turkey and Persia." Hence, to the latitude of Sulimaniya, or for more than 100 miles, the Turks claimed farther than the ancient limits assigned to them, and sought to include 1 Under the treaty of San Stefano (3d March 1878) the old Perso- Turkish became the Perso-Russian frontier as far south as to include the post -road below Baiyazid ; but the territory so taken from the Turks was restored under the later treaty of Berlin. within the Ottoman territory the border-fort of Sardasht, on the left bank of the Aksu. Continuing the line of disputed frontier to the southward, the same difficult country still presents itself to perplex the decisions of commissioners or arbitrators, but from the" warmly-contested district of ZohAb in the province of Karmanshah up to Dizful on the Diz river the mountains may be said generally to indicate Persian and the plains Turkish territory. Luristan and Khuzistan (with Arabistan) are the frontier provinces of the shah, and the Hamrin Hills, with Hawizah, Muhamrah, and the east bank of the Shattu l- Arab, show the Persian possessions to the head of the gulf. The want of a determined line of demarcation between the two countries for the 700 miles from Ararat to the Shatt, or outlet into the sea of the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates, may have political advantages, but is inconvenient to the geographer and most unfavourable to the cause of order and good government. Even without the evidence of open conflict, it may be assumed that there are few inhabited sections of the strip of disputed frontier (from 20 to 40 miles in breadth) where mutual ill feeling is not the rule, and where the Turkish Sunni does not abstain from friendly association with the Persian Shi ah. More recently attempts have been made, and apparently with success, to reconcile differences by British and Russian mediation, and a renewal of the days need not be antici pated when telegraph-posts were torn up or destroyed, lands laid waste, and villages plundered, owing to the prevalence of the old spirit of hostility. A fixed boundary would, however, in a great measure facilitate settlements of dispute, because it would more clearly make known the actual transgressors. From the already-adverted-to point on the Arras east of Russo- the Greater Ararat the river itself supplies a northern P ersian boundary to Persia up to the fortress of Abbasabad, where , a cession of strategical works to Russia is noted by a loop on the southern bank. Thence the line is generally marked by the bed of the Arras for a distance of about 1 80 miles, descending as low as 38 50 N. lat., and rising again to 39 30 north-east of the steppe of Moghan. An oblique line running south-east to the Bulgaru Chai makes that stream the southern boundary for 13 miles to the conflu ence of the Adina Bazar and Sairkamish, the former of which then limits the Persian territory on the east. From the source of the Adina Bazar the crest of the mountains towering over the more distant Russian ports on the western shores of the Caspian, and separating the Talish from the Arsha, marks the division of the two territories up to the river of Astara, the port of which name completes the demarcation on the sea-coast. Thus far the result of the treaty of Turkmanchai, dated 10 [22] February 1828, which involved Persia in a serious loss. To the southward all is Persian, and the two large maritime provinces of Gilan and Mazandaran, both laved by the waters of the Caspian, represent the northernmost parts of the shah s dominions be tween the 49th and 54th meridians of E. long. In the south eastern corner of the Caspian the island of Ashurada in the Bay of Astrabdd was appropriated by Russia in 1842 as a convenient post for overawing the Turkmans (Turkomans). Eastward of the Caspian, from the Hasan Kuli Gulf, North- the line of Persian territory cannot be indicated with east absolute certainty, because the Russian maps do not frc correspond with those prepared by the war department in England ; and it need hardly be added that the former give to Russia far more land than do the others. Accord ing to Colonel Stewart, an officer for some time resident in the vicinity of the Atak, or skirt of the mountains fronting the Black Sand Desert, the line follows the Atrak (Atrek) from its mouth to Shatt, where it leaves the river XVIII. 78 line.
Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/647
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