Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/676

646 PERSIA [MODERN . what Forster means when he writes that Agha Muhammad is " the only Persian chief bordering on the Caspian Sea whom the empire of Russia has yet made tributary, or rendered subservient to its policy." As Agha Muhammad s power increased, his dislike and jealousy of the Muscovite assumed a more practical shape. His victory over Lutf All was immediately followed by an expedition into Georgia. After the death of Nadir the wall or prime ruler of that country had looked around him for the safest and surest means of shaking off the offensive yoke of Persia ; and in course of time an opportunity had offered of a promising kind. In 1783, when the strength of the Persian monarchy was concentrated upon Ispahan and Shiraz, the Georgian czar Heraclius entered into an agreement with the empress Catherine by which all con nexion with the shah was disavowed, and a quasi-vassal- age to Russia substituted, the said empire extending her aegis of protection over her new ally. Agha Muhammad now demanded that Heraclius should return to his position of tributary and vassal to Persia, and, as his demand was rejected, prepared for war. Dividing an army of 60,000 men into three corps, he sent one of these into Daghistan, another was to attack Erivan, and with the third he him self laid siege to Shishah in the province of Karabagh. The stubborn resistance offered at the last-named place caused him to leave there a small investing force only, and to move on with the remainder of his soldiers to join the corps d armee at Erivan. Here, again, the difficulties presented caused him to repeat the same process and to effect a junc tion with his first corps at Ganja, the modern Elisabethpol. At this place he encountered the Georgian army under Heraclius, defeated it, and marched upon Tiflis, which he pillaged, massacring and enslaving x the inhabitants. Then he returned triumphant to Tehran, where (or at Ardabil on the way) he was publicly crowned shah of Persia. Erivan surrendered, but Shishah continued to hold out. These proceedings caused Russia to enter the field. Darband was taken possession of by Imhoff, Baku and Shumakhi were occupied, and Gilan was threatened. The death of the empress, however, caused the issue of an order to retire, and Darband and Baku remained the only trophies of the campaign. In the meantime Agha Muhammad s attention had been called away to the east. Khurasan could hardly be called an integral part of the shah s kingdom so long as it was under even the nominal rule of the blind grand son of Nadir. But the eastern division of the province and its outlying parts were actually in the hands of the Afghans, and Mashhad was not Persian in 1796 in the sense that Dehli was British at the outbreak of the Indian mutiny. Shah Rukh held his position, such as it was, rather under Ahmad Shah and his successors in Afghanistan than under any other sovereign power. Agha Muhammad determined to restore the whole province to Persia, and, after a brief residence in Tehran on his return from the. Georgian expedition, he set out for Mashhad. It is im portant to note that on the occasion of his coronation he had girded on the sabre consecrated at the tomb of the founder of the Safawis, thus openly pledging himself to support the Shi ah faith. But there had been continual dissatisfaction in the capital of Khurasan, and there had been constant inroads upon it from without, which the powerless royal puppet was unable to prevent. His popularity was real, but wholly wanting in political vigour. It never seemed to have effect outside the limited sphere of personal sympathy and regard. Owing to the frequent revolutions in the 1 Lady Shell says (1849) : "I saw a few of these unhappy captives, who all had to embrace Mahoinmedanism, and many of whom had risen to the highest stations, just as the Circassian slaves in Constantinople." holy city the generals of Timur Shah, king of the Afghans, had made three expeditions on Shah Rukh s behalf. Mash had had been taken and retaken as though he were not a resident in it, much less its de jure king. Moreover, his two sons Nadir Mirza and Wall Ni amat had been long waging, one with the other, a predatory war, and the former was practically in 1796 the actual ruler "of the place. Three years before Timur had died, and his third son, Zaman Shah, by the intrigues of an influential sardar, Paiyanda Khan, had been proclaimed his successor at Kabul. Agha Muhammad s entry into Mashhad was effected without a struggle on the part of those in possession. The Kajar shah walked on foot to the tomb of Imam Riza, before which he knelt and kissed the ground in token of devotion, and was recognized as a Shfah of Shi ahs. Shah Rukh submissively followed in his train. Then began the last act of the local tragedy. The blind king s gradual revelation, under horrible torture, of the place of conceal ment of his several jewels and treasures, and his deporta tion and death (of the injuries thus received, at Damaghan, en route to Mazandaran), must be classed among the darkest records of Oriental history. From Mashhad Agha Muhammad sent an envoy to Zaman Shah, asking for the cession of Balkh, and explain ing his invasion of Khurasan ; but the Afghan monarch was too perplexed with the troubles in his own country and his own insecure position to do more than send an unmeaning reply. It is not shown what was the under stood boundary between the two countries at this particular period ; but Watson states that on the shah s departure he had received the submission of the whole of Khurasan, and left in Mashhad a garrison of 12,000 men. Agha Muhammad had now fairly established his capital Death at Tehran. On his return thither in September 1796 he nil(l cliar - dismissed his troops for the winter, directing their re- " c * er of assembly in the following spring. The reinvasion by ;/iiham- Russia of the provinces and districts he had recently mad. wrested from her west of the Caspian had made great progress, but the circumstance does not seem to have changed his plans for the army. Olivier, who had in those days come to the Persian court on a commercial and political mission from the French republic, and whose book is quoted by Watson, expressed his surprise to the prime minister that, while his majesty thought it necessary to strangle some twenty-seven Russian sailors sent in as prisoners, he took no immediate measures to check the Muscovite forces in the field. The reply was that there was no hurry in the matter. Although, when the spring arrived and the shah led his forces to the Arras, the Russians had, it is true, retreated, yet territory had been regained by them as far south as the Talish. Agha Muhammad had now arrived at the close of his career. He was enabled, with some difficulty, to get his troops across the river, and take possession of Shishah, which had given them so much trouble a year or two before. There, in cam}), he was murdered (1797) by his own personal attendants, men who, singularly enough, were under sentence of death, but allowed to be at large. He was then fifty-seven years of age, and had ruled over part of Persia for more than eighteen years, over the kingdom generally for about three years, and from his coronation for about one year only. The brutal treatment he had experienced in boyhood under the orders of Adil Shah, Nadir s wretched nephew, and the opprobrious name of " eunuch " which attached to him, and with which he was taunted by his enemies, no doubt contributed to embitter his nature. His vindic- tiveness and inhumanity were notorious, and exemplified at almost every period of his life. On the other hand, his contempt of luxury and frugality of diet, his avoidance