Being thus committed so seriously with the Muscovite government, the Khan lost no time in rousing the people of the province to take up arms against the infidels, and at the same time he sent to ask the support of the Shah in an undertaking, the sole object of which, he declared, was to restore Taleesh to the Persian crown. A corps of ten thousand men was accordingly sent to his aid, with which body he was enabled to lay siege to the Russian station of Lankoran. That place was abandoned, and the garrison took refuge in the adjacent island of Sari, thus leaving the whole of the mainland of Taleesh in the hands of the Persians.[1] A division of the Shah's troops, commanded by one of his sons, hastened in the meantime to cross the Araxes, and the crown-prince lost no time in bringing up the reinforcements under his orders. The Russians were found to be altogether unprepared for so sudden a beginning of war, and at first the impetuous Persians carried all before them. The disputed districts of Gokcheh, Balaklu, and Guni were taken possession of in the name of the Shah, and Abbass Meerza made ready to advance on the important fortress of Sheeshah in Karabagh. He did not, however, march upon this place so rapidly as not to allow the Russian officer who commanded there to have sufficient time to call in some detachments from the neighbourhood, and to put himself in a posture of defence.
It may here be remarked as strange that the Governor-General of the Caucasus should have taken no more effectual measures to guard against being surprised by the Persians at a time when the envoy of
Russia was refusing to accede to the Shah's peremptory
- ↑ A.D.1826.
