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

The Turko-Persian War 1821–1823 99the Pasha of Erzerum’s protection of recalcitrant Kurdish tribesmen. HenryWillock suggested that the underlying reason was a chance to profit from asupposed war breaking out between Turk and Russian. 25 It is now knownthat Russia, through its agents in the Caucasus and representatives in Tabriz,encouraged Abbas Mirza with blandishments, hints of a new Turko-Russianconflict and even money. 26What exactly did he hope to gain from the war? Abbas Mirza stated thathis main reason for going to war was a point of honour but this was expressedafter its conclusion. I suspect that there was no master plan or goal, just awish to ensure that Persia was at the head of any queue when the spoils werehanded out. That it would turn out the way it did can be attributed to severalfactors: the failure of Russia to become involved, a failure by Persia toconsolidate gains obtained in the early part of the war and the general lackof enthusiasm from members of Abbas Mirza’s own and the Shah’s courts.Initially, the Shah refused to fund any conflict and only offered supportonce war had broken out. Indeed the raising of an army under his son-inlaw(husband to his second daughter) Allah Yar Khan, was a poisoned chaliceas the feeding and clothing of such forces fell upon Abbas Mirza. Onecommentator says that the abstinence of the Shah in pursuing an aggressiveposture on the Ottoman frontier is best explained by “his receipt of heavymoney-bags from Baghdad, for avarice was his passion”. 27 One should alsonote that whisperings for peace by, for example, the British, rang in the Shah’sears as regularly as Russian ones for war did in his son’s.Southern successesThe Shah’s eldest son and southern governor, Mohammad Ali Mirza, wascertainly more interested than his father in interfering in Iraqi politics, as hehad already done many times in the preceding decade and violently so ontwo occasions. The pretext for intervention was mainly however over the successionto the leadership of Shahrizor, the predominantly Kurdish provincein Ottoman Iraq’, rather than annexation.Once again, 1821 saw the usual congregation of exiled Baban princes (thepredominant Kurdish family) in Persia plotting a return to usurp the latestTurkish favourite. Attempting to overthrow the Ottoman’s favourite localruler was nothing new; this time, however, the last in a long line of Mamelukrulers, Davoud Pasha, reacted with greater vigour than his predecessors andresolved to obtain approval for war from Constantinople. Already under attackfrom Abbas Mirza, the Sultan was in no mood to pacify and declared warin October 1821, thus giving Davoud a green light to invade Persia. In realityit was the Persians who were able to launch a more successful counterattackand push deep into southern Iraq’ to threaten Baghdad. The conflictwas thus widened from the appointment of a favoured tribal vassal to a generalfrontier war. It was this unintended escalation of a regular conflict rather