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

136 Lawrence G. Potterthe sultan to consider blockading the Persian coast. He was deterred fromthis by the British resident at Bushehr and the crisis passed with the deathof Mohammad Shah of Persia. 74 In 1854, however, while the sultan was inZanzibar, the Persians expelled the Omani governor from Bandar Abbas andtook over the city. 75Under Nasser-edin Shah, Persia resumed efforts to retake Bandar Abbas.In 1856 Persia renewed Oman’s lease, but on much more stringent terms. 76According to Lorimer, this “marked a decided strengthening of the positionof Persia with reference to Bandar ‘Abbas, for it demolished the basis of anyclaim to independent sovereignty which the Sayed of Oman may have beeninclined to cherish.” 77 The treaty raised the rental rate and specified that BandarAbbas and its dependencies, including Qeshm and Hormuz, were to be consideredsubject to the Persian province of Fars. The Persian flag was to beflown at Bandar Abbas. These terms were further strengthened, with ahigher rental and a shorter duration, when the agreement was renewed, underBritish pressure, in 1868. Two months later it was cancelled outright by Persiaupon the overthrow of the ruler in Oman, as provided for by a clause in thetreaty. 78 Thus ended Oman’s control of the enclave around Bandar Abbasthat it had maintained for the better part of a century.Expansion to the south-east: Gwadar and Chahbahar 79Until late in the nineteenth century the limits of Persian sovereignty in thesouth-east were vague. The last major stretch of littoral on the Gulf of Omanthat the Persian government aimed to reclaim was in the province of Makran,stretching eastward from Jask. This area was far from the power centres inTehran, Karachi or Bombay, and, aside from the enclaves controlled by thesultan of Oman, was mainly subject to the Khans of Kalat (in British India,south of Quetta) and Bampur (in Iranian Baluchistan, south of Dozdab (laterrenamed Zahidan)). Kalat was a close ally of Britain, which treated it as anindependent state and regarded it as an important buffer to its Indian possessions.80 By the 1850s the Iranian government was already contemplatingexpansion eastwards: one clause in the 1856 lease of Bandar Abbas requiredits chief to provide provisions and guides for any troops sent by theGovernor General of Fars or the Governor of Kerman to Cutch, Makranor Baluchistan. 81The main impetus to delimit the boundaries came as a byproduct of theadvance of the telegraph line which connected India to England. 82 In orderto extend the line beyond the Ottoman Empire and through Iranian territory,Britain needed the cooperation of both Persia and Oman, as well asassorted semi-independent Baluchi tribal chiefs. The problem was that in orderto satisfy one power Britain would inevitably alienate the other. Under theterms of the Bandar Abbas lease, Oman could not grant permission for anyactivity on the part of foreigners in its zone, and this would include the British.