The Persian problem; an examination of the rival positions of Russia and Great Britain in Persia

Front matter

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Chapter II

The outpost of the Gulf — History of Maskat — First treaty with England — Maskat and Zanzibar — Separation of the two kingdoms — How England saved Maskat — Our moral claims upon the Sultan — The position of the French — Slave dhows fly the French flag — Attempt of French Government to secure Jissa as a coaling-station — Necessity of supporting the Sultan against French intrigue Pp. 11-27

Chapter III

Navigation of the Gulf — Life on board a Gulf mail-boat — Caught in

< a" shamal " — Arrival at Bahrein — History of the Pearl Islands —

1 Great Britain refuses to annex Bahrein — Bahrein comes under

/I British protection — British agent appointed — Bahrein a possible

/ naval station — Description of the harbour — Trade of the islands —

Turkish control on the mainland .... Pp. 28-40 viii C0NTENT8

Chapter IV

Lack of harbours — An Arab Sheikh — Illicit trade in arms — Under lee of Sheikh Shuaib — Landing at Lingah — A miniature coup d'etat — The Resident's guard — Unpopularity of the Belgian Customs — Trade of Lingah — English station at Bassiduh — History of the station — Possibility of establishing free port at Bassiduh

Pp. 41-55 CHAPTER V

SHALL WE GIVE RUSSIA BUNDER ABBAS?

Skirting the coast of Kishm — Visit to the salt caves — The town of Kishm — The island of Ormuz — Remains of Portuguese prosperity — Situation of Bunder Abbas — Earmarked by Russia — Caravan routes — Reasons for decline in trade — Insecurity of trade-routes — Competition of Nushki road — Embargo on export of cereals — Future railway lines — Shall we leave the building of rjilwaysto Russia j' — Control of Bunder Abbas gives Russia control of Gulf — Advantages of Bunder Abbas as naval base — Need of a definite policy Pp. 57-76

Chapter VI

The promontory of Mussandim — Elphinstone's Inlet — Remains of the Indo-European telegraph station — The aborigines — British Resident visits the Pirate Coast — History of the treaties — Suppression of the slave trade — Moral influence of the British Resident — Characteristics of the Arabs Pp. 77-89

Chapter VII

Description of the harbour — Pelly's account of Koweit — Sheikh Mahomed assassinated by Mubarak — Warlike propensities of Mubarak — Supports the claims of the Wahabis — Defeated with heavy loss by the Amir of Nejd — Position of the Amir of Nejd — Turkish Government assists Nejd against Mubarak — British

CONTENTS ix

Government steps in to save Mubarak — Question of Turkish " suzerainty " over Koweit — Importance of Koweit as a possible terminus of the Bagdad Railway — The Turks occupy Ummkasa — Strategical importance of Umm-Kasa — Mubarafrclaims Umm-Kasa

Chapter VIII Persian Rule In The Delta Of The Shat-al-arab

History of the Arab tribes of the Delta — Ascendency of Mohammerah under the late Sheikh Mizal — Khazal compasses his brother's death and becomes Sheikh of Mohammerah — Strength of Khazal as a ruler — Opposition of the Arabs to theJBejgjan_Customs — Matters finally arranged at Teheran — Visit to Mohammerah — Evading the Turkish quarantine — Trade of Mohammerah — Possibilities of the future . . . .Pp. 108-124

Chapter IX

The Bar of the Shat-al-Arab — Absurdities of Turkish quarantine regulations — Steaming up the river — Arrival at Basra — Trade of the Shat-al-Arab — Insufficiency of the Tigris river service — Serious hindrance to trade — Cricket on the desert — Shooting wild boar in the marshes — Incompetency of the Turkish officials — Possibility of Turkey losing the control of the Shat-al-Arab

Chapter X

Trade of the Gulf^cam^d_jihTaost_e^ by British steamers — New Russian venture — Tot al trade of the Gulf — Preponderance of British merchandise — Future prospecisof this trade — Commerce cannot increase without improvement in internal communications — Very little increase in last decade — Opening of Karun route has only produced slight effect — Caravan routes on Arabian side always insecure — Great improvement can only be brought about by building railways Pp. 140-155

K x CONTENTS

Chapter XI

Control of the seaports — Description of the harbours of the Gulf — Necessity for improving the harbours — Belgian Customs regime has done nothing to facilitate trade in this direction — Belgian officials regarded by Persians as servants of Russia— Difficulty of obtaining redress of wrongs or recovery of debts — Necessity for an

K active policy in the Gulf — If Russia builds railways to the Gulf

she must control Southern Persia — Great Britain must anticipate her railway policy — Our attitude with regard to the Bagdad Rail-

)0 way — We may still bargain for control of the BagdacTBasra

section — Our responsibility with regard to Koweit — British policy in Arabia handicapped by complete ignorance of the interior — Advantage of opening up communications with Nejd . Pp. 156-175

Chapter XII

Ruins of Mesopotamia — A week's excursion in the neighbourhood of Bagdad — Pleasures of caravaning — First view of Babylon — Welcomed by the German expedition — A lesson in cuneiform and Assyriology — Hospitality of the German savants — New light thrown upon the works of Nebuchadnezzar by the expedition — Description of the "Kasr " — The Holy Way and the temples — The shrunken glories of Babylon — Irrigation schemes of the past — The Arab as a day labourer Pp. 176-191

Chapter XIII

Jewish hospitality in Hillah — Agricultural riches of the Hillah district — Lack of transport — The methods of the Sultan as a landed proprietor — Heavy burden of taxation — An Arab feud — Coldblooded murder — The so-called Tower of Babel — The German expedition at Birs Nimrud — Brickwork of Nebuchadnezzar — Arrival at Kifl — The Jews of the Captivity — Evening service at the Tomb of Ezekiel . . . ... . .Pp. 192-203

CONTENTS xi

Chapter XIV

The remains of Kufa — First view of Nejef — Lodgings in the Market-place — An insolent Zaptieh — Mobbed in the bazaar — The Zaptieh apologises — Across the desert to Kerbela — Picturesque aspect of the sacred city — An official reception at the house of the British agent — Discuss the prospects of the Bagdad railway with Turkish officials — Return to Bagdad — Army of Persian pilgrims on the road Pp. 204-215

Chapter XV

Bagdad — Its merchants — Consulate — Climate — As a trade centre — Nejef —Railway to coast and expansion of trade — Route of railway Pp. 216-225

Chapter XVI

THE PASSAGE OF THE TAURUS Characteristics of the country through which the Bagdad railway will pass — Gheuzni — Rich resources of Cilicia — The port for the Bagdad railway — The passage of the Taurus . . Pp. 226-237

Chapter XVII The Bagdad Railway

Position of the German Syndicate — Reasons of the choice of route — Large guarantee secures interest on capital — Mining rights — Syndicate gets control of the oil-fields of Mesopotamia — Advantages to be gained by Turkey — -Regeneration of Mesopotamia — Settlement of the Arab hordes — The question of guarantee — Turkey cannot raise the guarantee unless the existing debt is converted — No other sources of revenue available — British policy with regard to the railway Pp. 238-250

K xii CONTENTS

Chapter XVIII

Choice of routes from the Gulf to Teheran — Importance of the Bagdad Kermanshah route previously overlooked — New factor introduced by effort of a British capitalist to exploit the petroleum belt of Western Persia — Collecting a caravan — Cost of travelling — Question of commissariat — Description of route from Bagdad to Kasr-i-Shirin — An Arab festival — The oil-fields of Western Persia — Difficulties of transport — Survey of the pipe-line — Political importance of the concession — Road to Kermanshah — The Tak-igirra pass Pp. 251-270

Chapter XIX Kermanshah

Estimate of inhabitants — Centre of the grain district — Trade of Kermanshah — Previous estimates misleading — Importance of this trade-route to Great Britain — Apathy of the British Government

Chapter XX Persian Carpets

Yarious routes from Kermanshah to Teheran — Hamadan the ancient Ecbatana — Sultanabad — Two European firms — Effect of European control on carpet manufacture — Originality of design no longer to be found in Persia — Aniline dyes — Persian methods — Cheapness of labour the most important factor — How to judge a Persian carpet Pp. 285-303

Chapter XXI

£*, , British interests in Western Persia — Attitude of the British Govern-

ment — Preponderance of Bj^ish_c^miiierce==Growtli of JRussiaja competition— The Ahwaz-Burujird route — Western Persia still dependent upon the Tigris steamers — Advantages to be gained by opening up the Ahwaz route — Mule-tracks better than macadamised roads — Luri chiefs must be squared . . . Pp. 304-31G

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CONTENTS xm

Chapter XXII

Drive from Kuril to the Capital — First view of Demavend — Approach to Teheran — An English hotel — Leading foreigners in Teheran — General Houtum-Schindler — The manager of the Imperial Bank of Persia — The J Belgian C ustoms — The Russi an Ban k — Foreign schemes jn^JT^eran— UniversaTllaTlure — Belgian concessionists — " "Pessimistic outlook for Great Britain . . . Pp. 317-331

Chapter XXIII

Opinion of disinterested foreigner — Is British influence departing ? — Difficulty of arriving at facts in Persia — Figures given in " Statesman's Year Book " — Figures given by Lord Curzon ten years before —Comparison shows rapid decline of British trade — But published figures most untrustworthy — A truer calculation — Russia's advance has been overestimated — No reason to despair yet of British trade Pp. 332-346

Chapter XXIV

Efforts to undermine British trade not yet entirely successful — Even in the north British manufactures hold their own — Two reasons for Russian predominance in the north — First, her position ; secondly, her system of bounties — Advantages of her position more apparent than real — Manchester almost! as near Teheran as Moscow, as far as cost of transport goes — Bounties much more important — Russian bounties paid for by profit on the Persian loan — Great Britain can only fight the bounty system by improved communications between Teheran and the Gulf , Pp. 347-362

CHAPTER XXV RUSSIA'S POLICY— (continued)

Russian railway policy — Railhead at Eri van— Great Britain must respond by similar advance — Pers'a cannot be developed without xiv CONTENTS

railways — At present the Russian railway agreement prevents all progress — Natural difficulties of construction by no means insuperable — Question of routes — Whenever Teheran is connected by railway with the Gulf, British goods will have great advantage over Russian — Russia not yet ready to build railways — Her object is therefore to postpone railway building . . . Pp. 363-377

Chapter XXVI

Persian loans — First real victory of Russian diplomacy— Extraordinary shortsightedness of British Foreign Office — Hypothecation of the Customs — Extension of the railway agreement another victory for Russia — Russia appreciates supreme importance of railway control in the East — Her object, therefore, is to obtain monopoly of railway building in Persia — This aim must be opposed to the utmost Pp. 378-392

Chapter XXVII

From Teheran to Resht — Passage of the Elburz mountains — A badly constructed road — Accidents en route — Cost of construction — What Russia has gained by it — Landing-place at Enzeli — Reach civilisation at Baku — A Tartar millionaire and patriot — A cotton factory in the Caucasus — Depression in the oil-trade — M. Witte's financial policy Pp. 393-405

Chapter XXVIII Russia's Advance On Persia Via The Caucasus

Routes from .the Caucasus to Teheran — The Tiflis-Erivan railway — Beautiful drive from Akstaf a to Erivan — Mount Ararat — Russian civilisation in the Caucasus — Her advance on Persia — What Great Britain must do to safeguard her interests . . Pp. 406-424

ILLUSTRATIONS

MAPS .

Map of Persia showing main Trade-Routes . . Frontispiece Bunder Abbas and the Islands of Ormuz and Larak Safwan, Umm-Kasa, Koweit ....

Map showing the Route of the Bagdad Railway Map showing relative positions of Russia and Persia .

Page

A Picturesque View of Maskat

The "Wells of Wadi on a Festival Day

Phoenician Mounds, Bahrein

Pearl Dealers at Bahrein

Street Scene in an Arab Town .....

Mubarak, Sheik of Koweit

Date Grove, Basra

View on the Creek at Basra

Shrine of Kasimain .......

Birs Nimrud, commonly called the Tower of Babel . Nejef , with Mosque of Ali

To face page 11

Mosque of Imam Abbas, Kerbela 212 xvi ILLUSTRATIONS

To face page

Mosque of Hussein . . . 214

Inmost Shrine of Kasimain 222

The Cilician Gates — Eoad through the Taurus .... 228

Canon of the Chakit Su, through which railway will pass —

Road Scene in the Taurus 234

Bridge at Mosul, over the Tigris 241

Canon of the Chakit Su 248

Making the Russian Road from Resht to Teheran through the

Elburz Mountains . . . . . . . .337

View of the Russian Road from Teheran to Resht . . . 368

Delijan on the Akstafa-Erivan Road . . . . . . 412

Introduction

The critical moment is fast approaching when the question of supremacy in Persia and the Persian Gulf must be decided. It is a question involving not only our trade with that part of the world, and the prosperity of thousands of British Indian subjects, but also the peace and security of our great Indian dependency, the safety of that splendid highway from Gibraltar to Shanghai, which has been developed and defended for so many years by the power of Great Britain, and finally, the destiny of the British Empire itself. Our danger lies not so much in our failure to recognise the importance of the Shah's kingdom as a piece on the check-board of Asia, as in the apparent inability of our rulers in Downing Street to grasp the fact that the game is already in progress, and that without an immediate move on our part, the denoilment cannot long be delayed. And it is imperative that the move should be in the right direction. We are playing against an opponent who thought out his plan of campaign long ago, and has never lost an opportunity of carrying that plan into effect. His game is masterly and consistent because he knows all the time what is his final aim. We, on our part, have hardly even

A studied the openings ; not only are our own moves made at random, without rhyme or reason, but we so little appreciate our opponent's game that our countermoves are made entirely in the dark, and may or may not prove temporarily successful, but can hardly affect the ultimate result. In a word, we are without a policy in the Middle East, and unless we find one very quickly, the game will be finished, and we shall be left lamenting.

It has been my object throughout the following chapters to delineate the present situation of affairs in Persia and the Gulf from a political and commercial point of view, and to indicate the policy which that situation requires. From the time that Lord Curzon produced his great work on Persia, there has been a considerable literature dealing with the subject, in which the general reader will find many references to the growing influence of Russia at the Court of the Shah, to the expansion of Russian trade, to the general decline of British commerce and prestige, and to the necessity for strong action upon our part. But I have nowhere seen any consistent attempt to arrive at the real facts of the case, or to suggest any definite line of action. A general statement that Russia is driving us out of the Persian market is of little value, unless it is accompanied by at least a few statistics in order to show, in the first place, how far the statement is true, in the second place, by what means Russia is attaining her ends, and in the third place, in what manner we can advance to meet the tide of Russian invasion.

For my own part, I came to Persia with no prejudices whatsoever as regards the Persian question beyond the general notion, acquired through some personal experience of Russian policy in China, that we should be very foolish to repeat in Persia the fatuous inconsistencies of our attitude towards the Russian occupation of Manchuria. To permit Russia, or any other Power, to acquire rights and concessions in a half-civilised country which can only end in the occupation of that country, and thereafter to spend three years in nagging and making protests against an occupation which the youngest clerk in the Foreign Office must have seen to be inevitable from the first, is a course of action most lowering to our national honour, and detrimental to our chances of success. We do not prevent Russia from attaining her ends, but we do as far as possible irritate her and arouse her hostility.

In visiting Persia, therefore, I was determined to find out whether it was possible to avoid a similarly humiliating policy with regard to Russia's descent upon the territory of the Shah. And in order to arrive at any conclusion it was necessary to find out first of all what our interests were in Persia, and what they were capable of becoming ; secondly, how far Russia was encroaching upon our domain, and thirdly, whether it was possible to stay that encroachment. For I am convinced that if Russia must have Persia, and with it, a naval base upon the Gulf or the Indian Ocean, then the sooner we make up our minds to it, and concede the point with a good grace, the better for all parties concerned.

The results of my inquiries led me' to the conclusion that we cannot possibly make the concession without a great loss to our prestige and our commercial prosperity in the Middle East ; they further proved to my own satisfaction that the expansion of Russian influence even in Northern Persia is far from being the natural process which most writers take it to be. Captain Mahan, for example, the most strenuous opponent of Russian designs upon the Gulf, thinks it quite reasonable that Northern Persia should in time fall entirely under the domination of Russia owing to the proximity of the two countries ; while our influence cannot be expected to extend very far beyond the shores of the Gulf. An examination of the facts of the case on the spot would have shown him that distance is not always a question of mileage. At the present moment Teheran is only a very little nearer to the commercial centres of Russia, as far as cost and facility of transport go, than it is to Manchester ; and whenever railways are built in Persia, and are kept open on equal terms to all nations of the world, the markets of Northern Persia will actually be more accessible to British merchandise than to Russian. It must always be cheaper to carry goods by sea to the Gulf, and to transport them over the 500 or 600 miles between the Gulf and Teheran, than to bring them all the way from Moscow to Teheran by rail. This is a most important, if rather obvious, fact which has been entirely overlooked by most writers upon Persian questions.

It may well be asked, then, why it is that Russia, with so little advantage in point of distance, is so rapidly absorbing the trade of Northern Persia. In the following pages I have gone as far into this question as the chaotic conditions of Persian statistics will allow, and I have reached the conclusion that to begin with, the commercial predominance of Russia has been greatly exaggerated owing to the publication of erroneous figures, and furthermore, what progress she has made at our expense, has been achieved not through greater proximity or enhanced facility of transport, but through a deliberate system of premiums and State encouragement of trade which has for its end the commercial conquest of the whole country. The Russian Government has the wisdom to see that, once our commercial interest in Persia is gone, the British public will never raise a finger to prevent Russia following up her economic victory by a political conquest. And so it suits M. Witte to make us believe that we are in fact losing ground very rapidly in the trade of Northern Persia, knowing perfectly well that if that belief becomes a settled point of view, the whole campaign is practically finished. Those writers, therefore, who complain dolefully of our vanishing trade and prestige without taking the trouble to get at the real facts of the case, are doing the British cause a poor service indeed. My visit to Persia led me to take a different course. I found that British trade had not declined to anything like the extent that has generally been supposed, that the Russian progress had been effected ouly by lavish expenditure on the part of the Russian Government, that even the northern markets of Persia would be at our mercy if we were fighting on equal terms, and that we can still adopt measures which will at least to some extent counteract the Russian system of direct State assistance to trade which we could never bring ourselves to adopt.

It will be found that the remedy lies first and last in the improvement of communications and the gradual extending of British influence over Southern Persia. And there is only one way of improving communications to any marked extent, and that is by building railways. This is a matter of such paramount importance that I make no apology for dwelling upon it again and again in the following chapters. I was so thoroughly convinced of the necessity of railways connecting the markets of Persia and Mesopotamia with the Gulf that I was surprised to find very few advocates of railway building among British merchants or British officials in Persia ; so much was this the case that one was almost driven to the conclusion that there must be some inherent obstacle in the way of railway building in the kingdom of the Shah, which was not apparent to the ordinary traveller. What that obstacle is I have never been able to discover. It is quite true that Lord Curzon took in his book a very pessimistic view of this particular form of enterprise and regarded railways as things of a dim and distant future. But the crisis in the affairs of Persia has been drawing visibly nearer at a rapid rate since Lord Curzon's book was written, and nothing short of heroic measures on our part will avert a catastrophe. Moreover is not the extension of the Quetta Railwayto the borders of Seistan the handiwork of Lord Curzon himself? In Teheran all great enterprises are regarded with a jaundiced eye especially by the British, owing to the frequent failures of such undertakings in the past. But here is a case where the past offers no analogy. For it may broadly be stated that until railways are built, no great industrial venture, and no effort to exploit the mineral wealth of Persia can possibly succeed. Railways, therefore, stand in a different category from all other enterprises.

Nor is it true that the money would never be forthcoming to build railways in Persia. I know for a fact that ^10,000,000 of capital would be found to-morrow for the purpose if the British Government were to offer substantial assistance either in the shape of forcing the matter on the Shah's notice or of guaranteeing a small interest for a certain number of years. But why should the British Government bear the expense ? Simply because we must either bear the expense or abandon Persia to Russia. Russia is already spending .£100,000 a year at a modest computation, in pushing her trade in Persia ; she actually sank £300,000 in the Teheran Resht road which she can never get back except in the shape of prestige, and she would not flinch at further sacrifice of a like nature. How can we possibly expect to stem the tide of her advance if we are not prepared to make similar sacrifices ? And how can our statesmen reconcile with their consciences a policy of a blind adherence to the status quo which they must know perfectly well Russia only respects in outer appearances ?

We have reached the parting of the ways when we must make up our minds either to act quickly and to spend our money freely on a given line of action, or to retire gracefully from the field and allow Russia to reap the rewards which, to be quite impartial, a country with a real and definite policy deserves. In describing my journey through the Gulf and Mesopotamia and Western Persia I have endeavoured on the thin thread of personal experience to string together a series of essays of which the double aim is to show what our position actually is to-day in the Middle East, and how imminent is the danger of our losing that position which has been built up in a hundred years of not inglorious history.

It would be impossible at this time to visit the Gulf and Western Persia without taking a keen interest in the outcome of the Bagdad Railway Concession which is of supreme importance in the politics of the Gulf. I have, therefore devoted several chapters to a study of the German railway scheme as it affects the future development of Mesopotamia. Here as in the case of Persia, our Government seems to have acted in the most hand to mouth manner and to have possessed at no time a definite policy of its own. The mistake was long ago made of regarding a Mesopotamian Railway simply and solely as a means of communication between the Mediterranean and India, and never as an engine for the resuscitation and development of Mesopotamia. The Germans having no direct interest in India, looked at the enterprise from a different and far more practical point of view, and have now made it apparent that a railway from the Bosphorus to the Gulf is not at all outside the sphere of practical politics, and is, indeed, the one thing needful above all others for the regeneration of Asiatic Turkey. Slowly we are coming to see the value of this point of view. But it would puzzle the greatest of the prophets to know what are the real sentiments of the British Government with regard to the Bagdad Railway, and it may be doubted if the members of the Cabinet have any definite idea on the subject whatsoever. And yet there is no more important matter before the eyes of Europe at this moment than this very matter of the Bagdad Bailway ; and if I can assist any reader who is not familiar with the country or the conditions of the people through which the railway will pass, to form any definite notion of what our policy should be, I shall have attained the object with which the chapters on the Bagdad Bailway were written.

In conclusion I have to state that the following chapters, which contain the substance of a series of articles written for the Morning Post, would not have been printed at all but for the opinion expressed by a serious student of Persian politics, that they might add a little badly needed light to the discussion of the affairs of Persia and the Gulf.

If they contain information of any value whatsoever, they owe it in the first place to the kindness of the present Viceroy of India, who not only advised me to p'o to the Gulf but instructed his subordinate officials in that part of the world to give me all assistance in their power ; and in the second place to these officials themselves who showed to me, as indeed they do to all travellers, the most unfailing courtesy and hospitality. I am especially indebted to Colonel Kemball, the British Resident in the Gulf, who not only allowed me to accompany him round the Gulf on his winter tour of inspection, but was kind enough to read most of my letters on the Gulf before they appeared in print. I have elsewhere acknowledged the generous assistance given me by General Houtum-Schindler and by Mr. Rabino, the manager of the Imperial Bank of Persia in Teheran.

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Chapter II

Maskat, which is reached from Karachi in some forty-eight hours by the mail steamers of the British India Company, lies about three hundred miles down the Arabian coast from Cape Musandim, and is, therefore, outside the Persian Gulf proper ; but its natural strength and historical prestige combine to make it inseparable from the politics of the narrower waters which in the past it has always influenced and at times dominated.

On a clear morning you may bring up the jagged mountainous coast of Oman at a distance of thirty or forty miles, and an hour or so later the mud-coloured houses of Muttra, clustered together under the rocks, become visible over the steamer's bow ; but the presence of Maskat, save for a glimpse of a yellow Portuguese fort, is quite unsuspected until the coast is almost reached, and a deep cove suddenly discovers itself on the port bow, land-locked on every side save the north, with a white flat-roofed Arab town occupying the shelving southern beach straight opposite. On the east and west sides of the cove are precipitous rocks, those on the eastern side composing an island three hundred feet high, barely separated from the town by a shallow passage, in the middle of which stands a Portuguese fort with a double row of embrasures exactly balanced by a similar erection overhanging the town on the west. The harbour, though only a little over a mile long by half a mile in width, is more capacious than it seems, and save against a north-east wind is admirably secure. One is struck immediately, not merely by the picturesqueness of the town, with its gleaming houses lying like a white bar between the black rocks and the turquoise sea, flanked by the aged yellow masonry of the forts, but also by the wonderful strength of the place, which with very little assistance from human art can be made impregnable both from land and sea, while the tiny cove with its precipitous sides can give protection to six or seven men-of-war riding at anchor under the. eastern bluff.