"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الأجزاء Iأ و Iب. ج.ج. لوريمر ١٩١٥" [‎٣‎٣‎٨] (١٧٨٢/٤٨١)

338
measures at Persian ports had been committed by the Persian Govern
ment to British management, together with the short duration of a single
small epidemic of plague that occurred at Bushehr, defeated the real
purpose of these Russian deputations; and a threat made by the Russian
Legation at Tehran in 1899, that Cossacks would be sent to Buehehr as
they had been to Sistan to form a plague cordon, remained merely a
threat. When attempts were made in 1903 and 1904 to encroach upon
the powers of the British sanitary executive, they appeared to proceed
from the Persian Government and the doctor of the French Vice-Consulate
at Bushehr, nor is there any proof that they were instigated by the
representatives of Russia at Tehran or elsewhere. Russia, however, still
continued to regard the sanitary organisation of the Grulf as a field in
which the predominant influence of England might advantageously be
challenged ; and in 1905 the Russian delegate on the Board of Health at
Constantinople unsuccessfully urged the creation of a sanitary station,
under the authority of the Board, near the Straits of Hormuz, a project
of the Paris Conference of 1903 which Great Britain had accepted subject
to conditions but was known to regard with disfavour.
Projected
Freuch naval
base in the
Gulf of
French activity in the Persian Gulf, 1899-1905.
W bile Russia was striving to create for herself a naval and commercial
position in the Persian Gulf, the French Republic, though its schemes
were of a less grandiose character, was somewhat similarly employed,
A local understanding between the two powers had early been detected
by His Britannic Majesty's Minister at Tehran, who on the 7th June 1899
placed the Political Resident at Bushehr in possession, by telegram, of his
views on this subject. Co-operation bet ween Russia and France in the
Persian Gulf was recommended in an article which appeared in the St.
Petersburg "Novoe Vremya" of the 13th (26th) September 1901; ami
the amenities exchanged between French and Russian naval officers in the
Gulf itself pointed; on more than one occasion afterwards, to the existence
uf a common policy. The joint tour of the Russian cruiser " Boyarin
and the French cruiser <c Infernet" to Masqat, Bushehr, Kuwait and
Lingeh in 1903 was obviously intended as a display of united action.
At the same time it would be a mistake to suppose that France had no
separate ambitions of her own in the Persian Gulf. The facts on the con
trary indicated that she aimed at the establishment of a Freuch protectorate