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‘Memorandum respecting the frontier between Mohammerah and Turkey.’ [24v] (48/82)
The record is made up of 1 file (41 folios, 5 maps). It was created in 3 Apr 1912. It was written in English and French. The original is part of the British Library: India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. Records and Private Papers Documents collected in a private capacity. .
Transcription
This transcription is created automatically. It may contain errors.
38
it is more advantageous to lier than the one she
now holds by usage, we can furnish Persia with
an argument Avhieh would carry weight with the
Hague Tribunal: w T e can point to the protocols
of the conferences held at Mohammerah in 1850
and, without going too precisely into distances,
we can represent that the decision of the
Mediating Commissioners was influenced by a
very laudable consideration—the security of
navigation to Bussorah—but one which was not
enjoined expi*essis verbis in either the treaty or
the "Explanatory Note"; that therefore the
line of the Mediating Commissioners cannot
wholly and in its entire length be regarded
as the precise interpretation of the treaty;
that the failure of Turkey to accept the
line proposed by the Mediating Commissioners,
and the consequent control by the Sheikh of
Mohammerah of land which was to be allotted
to Turkey, has served to demonstrate, during a
period of sixty years, that the apprehensions of
the Mediating Commissioners as to a possible
danger to shipping for Bussorah were unfounded;
and, finally, that the Persian Court as early
as 1850 protested against the ruling of the
Mediating Commissioners on the ground that the
Chaabees, its subjects, not only resided on,
but were in actual territorial possession of, the
land almost up to what is now (1912) locally
recognised as the frontier (though, on the
impartial evidence of Major Ilawlinson, it can
hardly be said that their claim to it all was very
strong!); and that, in view of all this, the only
frontier which, in strict accordance with treaty
stipulation, can be regarded as the correct one is
that locally recognised, which leaves the river
six miles or so to the westward of the line of
the Mediating Commissioners.
These are the difficulties involved in the
" zone " argument of the
India Office
The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors.
letter ; the
other argument advanced, that of the status quo,
w r iil also appear, on closer scrutiny, to be hedged
round with perplexing and exceptional limita
tions.
Nothing seems simpler at first sight and more The
equitable than the argument that 60 years or ,Uc>l
more of continued occupation and unchallenged
administration should confer a right to territory;
and the argument appears still more convincing
when it is shown that the frontier enclosing such
territory has been de facto tacitly accepted by the
About this item
- Content
The memorandum concerns the border between Mohammerah [Khorramshahr] and Turkey, and was prepared by Alwyn Parker of the Foreign Office. There are a number of labels at the top of the first page: ‘Persia’, ‘Confidential’ and ‘Section 10’. The memorandum sections are as follows:
- Part I. A preface (folios 1-5), introducing the points at issue, with two maps, the first being a sketch map of the Mohammerah district, with the proposed Turkish, Persian and mediating commissioner’s lines indicated (folio 2), and a map compiled from plane table surveys by Lieutenant Arnold Talbot Wilson in 1909, with the frontier as defined by the mediating commissioners in 1850 (folio 4);
- Part II. An historical summary (folios 6-19) of British Government correspondence relating to the border dispute, with the chief focus being on correspondence exchanged during the period 1843-52, around the time of the Treaty of Erzeroum (c.1848). This part contains two copies of a map, a facsimile of a diagram of the disputed area, the original of which was enclosed by Colonel Williams in his despatch of 4 February 1850, indicating Turkish and Persian claims and the mediating commissioner’s proposal (folios 15, 19);
- Part III. Conclusion (folios 20-28), with a further map (folio 23), an exact copy of that found on folio 4.
The appendices that follow are:
- A: British assurances given to the Shaikh of Mohammerah, 1899 and 1902-10;
- B. Protocol of December 1911 (in French) for the proposal settlement of the Turco-Persian frontier question;
- C. An extract from Sir Austen Henry Layard’s Early Adventures in Persia, Susiana, and Babylonia , published in 1887. The extract is from volume 2, pp 431-439;
- D. Rough notes made by General William Monteith when in Persia, on the frontier of Turkey and Persia, as communicated to the Foreign Office in 1843;
- E. Observations by Sir Henry Rawlinson on a Persian memorandum relative to the situation of the cities of Mohammerah and Fellahiah [Fallāḥīyah], 1844;
- F. Text of the Treaty of Erzeroum, 31 May 1847, in English and French translation;
- G. Copy of a despatch from Sir Stratford Canning, the British Ambassador to Istanbul, to Lord Palmerston, Foreign Secretary, dated 30 May 1850;
- H. Copy of a despatch from Lord Palmerston to Lord Broomfield, dated 12 July 1850.
- Extent and format
- 1 file (41 folios, 5 maps)
- Arrangement
The memorandum is arranged into three parts, labelled I, II and III, which are followed by eight lettered appendices, A-H. Historic correspondence referred to in the memorandum is referenced in the inside page margin.
- Physical characteristics
Foliation: The foliation sequence commences at the first folio and terminates at the last folio; these numbers are written in pencil, are circled, and are located in the top right corner of the recto The front of a sheet of paper or leaf, often abbreviated to 'r'. side of each folio.
Pagination: The booklet contains an original typed pagination sequence.
- Written in
- English and French in Latin script View the complete information for this record
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‘Memorandum respecting the frontier between Mohammerah and Turkey.’ [24v] (48/82), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/PS/18/B380, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100024051501.0x000031> [accessed 21 November 2024]
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Copyright: How to use this content
- Reference
- IOR/L/PS/18/B380
- Title
- ‘Memorandum respecting the frontier between Mohammerah and Turkey.’
- Pages
- 1r:1v, 3r:14v, 16r:18v, 20r:30v, 33r:41v
- Author
- East India Company, the Board of Control, the India Office, or other British Government Department
- Usage terms
- Open Government Licence