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

The dream of empire 15to ensure the safety of its possessions in India. Fath-Ali Shah’s sumptuousself-confidence was by 1813 overshadowed by increasing contacts with theWest, and by the increasing cost for Persia which these contacts entailed.Furthermore, Fath-Ali Shah still had to continue the subjection of internalrebellion. In 1833, he sent his eldest son, the ‘Abbas Mirza, mentioned above,to suppress rebellion in the great Eastern province of Khorasan, a commissionwhich absented ‘Abbas Mirza from his governorship of the Province sovulnerable to Russia, Azerbaijan. At first ‘Abbas Mirza was successful, butalas, death deprived Iran of a man who might have become its real saviour.His Father, on his way to claim revenue withheld by another of his sons,the Farman Farma, Hossein-Ali Mirza, Governor-General of Fars, himselfdied at Isfahan in October 1834 4 . It is noteworthy that his successor,Mohammad Shah, who reigned from 1834 to 1848, had an unjustifiably vilifiedminister, Mirza Aghasi, who was sensitive enough to the Anglo-Russian threatto be the first Iranian statesman to seek counterweights in alliances with othercountries, such as Spain and Belgium.It was during Mohammad Shah’s reign that the first nineteenth-centuryattempt to regain Herat for Iran was not entirely unsuccessful, but only fora short while. It was an attempt really sponsored by the Russians, interestedin gaining a staging post on the road to India. Hence any attack on it causedthe British rulers of India considerable anxiety.In 1848, Mohammad Shah with his dervish-habits died, to be succeededby his son Nasser-edin Shah. He began a long reign lasting until his assassinationin 1896. He is praised by the British historian of Persia, Sir PercySykes, as a man of enlightenment, which indeed he was. Poetry and musicfigured among his pleasures and after his first visit to Europe in 1873, hedeveloped a taste for travel.Nasser-edin Shah’s European journeys were no doubt prompted by thewish to seek the roots of that “Western secret”, by which late nineteenthcenturyIranians sometimes tried to explain the West’s apparently evergrowingpower and influence. Some older Iranians go so far as to regret thatWestern influence over Iran never included the outright conquest the Britishhad made in India. Some have thought that the inclusion of Iran in theBritish Empire might have brought benefits similar to those which Indiaenjoyed. But the Anglo-Russian aim was to keep Iran a compliant bufferstate between Russia’s expanding empire in Central Asia and Britain’s Indiandominion. This Iranian status as a buffer state was eventually exposed whenRussia and Britain divided the country into spheres of influence in 1907. Russiagot the lion’s share while Britain showed its concern for the protection ofIndia by consolidating its position in the south.Regrettably Nasser-edin Shah’s reign became increasingly overshadowedby financial problems, attributable not least to this monarch’s attempts to makeIran like the advanced countries of Europe. Although he was a conspicuouslypacific monarch, Nasser-edin Shah was persuaded to make a further bid forHerat. This uncharacteristic campaign was immediately answered by GeneralOutram’s arrival from India to invade southern Persia. He took Khuzestan,