Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/677

HISTORY.] of hyperbole and dislike of excessive ceremony, his pro tection to commerce and consideration for his soldiers, the reluctance with which he assumed the crown almost at the close of his reign, his positive refusal to wear any royal headgear but the small circular pearl-adorned diadem in which he is commonly represented by the native painter, all these would have been praiseworthy in another man ; but the fearful weight of evil on the other side of the scales made them of comparatively small con sideration, and on his death the memory of his atrocious tyranny alone survived. Those who have seen his portrait once will recognize the face wherever presented. " Beard less and shrivelled," writes Sir John Malcolm, "it re sembled that of an aged and wrinkled woman, and the expression of his countenance, at no time pleasant, was horrible when clouded, as it very often was, with indigna tion. He was sensible of this, and could not bear that any one should look at him." th Agha Muhammad had made up his mind that he should } be succeeded by his nephew Fath All Shah, son of his al> full brother, Husain Kiili Khdn, and governor of Fdrs, a young prince with whom he had always been on good terms, and to whom he had proved himself exceptionally well disposed. There was a short interval of confusion after the murder. The remains of the sovereign were exposed to insult, the army was disturbed, the recently- captured fort on the left bank of the Arras was abandoned ; but the wisdom and resolution of the minister, Hajji Ibrahim, and of Mirza Muhammad Khan Kajar, a high functionary, prevailed to secure order and acceptance of the duly-appointed heir. The first, proclaiming his own allegiance, put himself at the head of a large body of troops and marched towards the capital. The second closed the gates of Tehran to all comers until Fath Ali Shah came himself from Shiraz. Though instantly proclaimed on arrival, the new monarch was not crowned until the spring of the following year (1798). ebel- The so -called rebellions which followed were many, 3n s- but not of any magnitude. Such as belong to local history are three in number, i.e., that of Sadik Khan Shakaki, the general whose possession of the crown jewels enabled him, after the defeat of his army at Kazvin, to secure his personal safety and obtain a government ; of Husain Kiili Khan, the shah s brother, which was compromised by the mother s intervention ; and of Muhammad, son of Zaki Khan, Zend, who was defeated on more than one occasion in battle, and fled into Turkish territory. There may have been other names mixed up with these, but of aiders and abettors rather than principals. Later, Sadik Khdn, having again incurred the royal displeasure, was seized, confined, and mercilessly bricked up in his dungeon to die of starvation. Another adversary presented himself in the person of Nadir Mirza, son of Shah Rukh, who, when Agha Muhammad appeared before Mashhad, had taken refuge with the Afghans. This prince, hearing of the death of his father s destroyer, gathered around him a military force and made a show of independence. Fath All sent to warn him of the consequences of his act, but without the desired effect. Finally, he advanced into Khurasan with an army which appears to have met with no opposition save at Nishapur and Turbat, both of which places were taken, and when it reached Mashhad Nadir Mirza tendered his submission, which was accepted. Peace having been further cemented by an alliance between a Kajar general and the prince s daughter, the shah returned to Tehran. Now that the narrative of Persian kings has been brought up to the period of the consolidation of the Kajar dynasty and commence ment of the 19th century, there remains but to summarize the principal events in the reigns of Fath Ali Shah and his immediate successors, Muhammad Shah and Nasru d-I)in Shah. Fath All Shah came to the throne at about thirty-two years 647 of age, and died at sixty -eight, after a reign of thirty-six years. 1797-180 The period was an eventful one. It was that of George III., George IV., and William IV. in England, of Napoleon I. from first consul to emperor, of the restoration of the Bourbon kings and the inter position of the house of Orleans, in France. The sons of Paul, Alexander and Nicholas, were emperors of Russia ; and, except for the last few years of Salim II., the second Malimud ruled over the Turkish dominions. No other European nations had any direct concern with Persia. In Afghanistan it was the epoch of the revolution which broke up its short-lived unity as a kingdom. The struggles of Mahmud Sluih and Shuj au 1-Mulk enabled them to be quasi -sovereigns for a time; but Kabul was divided from Kandahar, and Kandahar from Herat, and- the work of Ahmad Abdali was all undone. Among the governors-general of India in those days are the distinguished names of "Wellesley, Cornwallis, Hastings, and William Bentinck. Persia s great aim was to recover in the north-west, as in the north east of her empire, the geographical limits obtained for her by the Safawi kings ; and this was no easy matter when she had to contend with a strong European power whose territorial limits touched her own. Fath Ali Shah undertook, at the outset of his reign, a con- War test with Russia on the western side of the Caspian, which became with constant and harassing warfare. Georgia was, clearly, not to revert Russia, to a Muhammadan suzerain. In 1800 its czar, George, son and successor of Heraclius, notwithstanding his former professions of allegiance to the shah, renounced his crown in favour of the Russian emperor. His brother Alexander indignantly repudiated the act and resisted its fulfilment, but he was defeated by Geneial Lazeroff on the banks of the Lora. Persia then re-entered the field. Among the more notable occurrences which followed were a three days battle, fought near Etchmiadzin near Erivan, between the crown prince, Abbas Mirza, and General Zizianoff, in which the Persians suffered much from the enemy s artillery, but would not admit they were defeated ; unsuccessful attempts on the part of the Russian commander to get possession of Erivan ; and a surprise, in camp, of the shah s forces, which caused them to disperse, and necessitated the king s own presence with reinforcements. On the latter occa sion the shah is credited with gallantly swimming his horse across the Arras, and setting an example of energy and valour. In the following year Abbas Mirza advanced upon Shishah, the chief of which place and of the Karabagh, though an old foe to Agha Muhammad, had declared for Russia ; much fighting ensued, and Erivan was formally taken possession of in the name of the shah. The Russians, moreover, made a futile attempt on Gilan by landing troops at Enzali, which returned to Baku, where Zizianoff fell a victim to the treachery of the Persian governor. Somewhat later Ibrahim Khalil of Shishah, repenting of his Russophilism, deter mined 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 Shinvan, returned to Tabriz. He had practically made no progress ; yet Russia, in securing possession of Darband, Baku, Shirwan, Sheki, Ganja, the Talish, and Moghan, 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 Zizianoff. Relations had now commenced with England and British India. Relations A certain Mahdi Ali Khan had landed at Bushahr, entrusted by with the governor of Bombay with a letter to the shah. His mission England, had reference to the politics of Afghanistan, and appears to have India, been fairly successful ; but he was followed shortly by an English and envoy from the governor-general, Captain Malcolm of the Madras France. army. He had not only to talk about the Afghans but about the French also, and the trade of the Persian Gulf. The results were a political and commercial treaty, and a return mission to India from Fath Ali Shah. To him France next sent her message. In 1801 an American merchant from Baghdad 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 Tehran 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 Gardanne 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 Bushahr, and Malcolm s return thence to India, from pressure of circumstances, enabled Sir Harford to move on and reach the capital in February 1809. A few days before his entry General Gardanne had been dismissed, as the peace of Tilsit debarred France from aiding the shah against Russia. However open to criticism may have been the after-conduct of the British diplomatist, his diplomacy was so far successful that he