War and Peace in Qajar Persia: Implications Past and ... - Oguzlar.az

The Turko-Persian War 1821–1823 89Mohammad Ali Mirza was the Shah’s eldest son but was unable to inheritthe throne because his mother was a Georgian and not of Qajar blood.Nevertheless he was highly regarded by his father and had been appointedas governor of the southern provinces of Kermanshah, Luristan andKhuzestan in 1805.The Beys in the predominantly Kurdish region of Shahizor (based aroundthe town of Suleymaniyah) in Ottoman Iraq’, were usually drawn from membersof the Baban Dynasty. Unfortunately, their internecine quarrelling andintrigue led to those temporarily out of favour seeking Persian or Ottomansupport for their “cause”. On a number of occasions Mohammad Ali Mirzasent troops across the border to restore Kurdish exiles to power, whilst theauthorities in Baghdad would likewise attempt to impose their own “favourite”.Since the warring families might switch patrons at short notice the regionwas in constant state of tension. 2Furthermore, the presence of Shi’ite holy ground within the Baghdad Pashilik(province) was a constant cause of conflict. The security of Persian pilgrimsen route to the holy town of Karbala, or even Mecca, and corpses taken forburial around the Holy Tombs of Hussein or Ali, were frequently violatedby Turkish officials or Wahabbi zealots (Islamic fundamentalist dissidents).The taking of Iraq’, in particular Baghdad, would, some intemperate Persianvoices argued, remove this source of irritation. 3 Indeed the two powers werebedevilled by the growing Sunni–Shi’ite rivalry which had thwarted anyserious cooperation in the Napoleonic period. All attempts at coordinatedaction against their mutual Russian enemy were frustrated by suspicion andbetrayal.Once war had broken out between the two empires, it nevertheless becameclear that, militarily at least, the Persians had the advantage and might, tothe delight of Russia but to the horror of the British, force a redrawing ofthis porous border in favour of an emerging Iran. After the loss of muchof the Caucasus to Russia in the Napoleonic period, some Persians wouldsee this as just compensation. So why did this situation seem so favourableto Persia and why did nothing ultimately come of it?In this article I will look at why Persia failed to take full advantage of theOttoman’s vulnerability, how they might have done so and the wider implicationsto one of history’s geographical/political “fault” lines.Stirring the potIn fact the loss of territory to the Russians over this period encouraged bothparties to covet their rival’s territory as compensation. Furthermore, recentresearch has revealed that the Russian military commander in the Caucasus,General Aleksey Yermolov, was encouraging Abbas Mirza to act againstTurkish provocation, whilst the Tsar’s representative in Persia, AleksandrGriboyedov, even provided much needed funds for Abbas Mirza’s campaign.