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‘Memorandum respecting the frontier between Mohammerah and Turkey.’ [39v] (78/82)
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
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68
APPENDIX (H).
Sir S. Canning',
No. 82,
April 2, 1845.
(Sent to
St. Petersburg-h,
in No. 28,
May 6,1845.)
Sir S. Canning,
No. 222,
September 17,
1845. (Sent to
St. Petersburgh
in No. 67,
October 7, 1845.)
Sir S. Canning,
No. 51,
March 31, 1846,
(Sent to
St. Petersburgh
in No. 31,
May 5, 1846.)
Lord Cowley,
No. 109,
November 3,
1846. (Sent to
St. Petersburgh
in No. 20,
November 15,
1846.)
Lord Palmerston to Lord Bloornfield,
(No. 256.)
My Lord, Foreign Office, July 12, 1850.
THE commissioners appointed by the Turkish and Persian Governments to settle,
under the mediation of British and Russian commissioners, the line of boundary
between Turkey and Persia, as contemplated by the Treaty of Erzeroum have, at the
very outset of their proceedings, so decidedly differed as to the intent and effect of
that instrument and of the notes exchanged previously to its signature and ratification
with reference to the southern portion of the boundary, that there seems every
probability of its being necessary for the Governments of England and Russia to
pronounce an opinion on the matters on which the parties more immediately
interested in the settlement are at issue.
Your Lordship is aware that in the year 1845, when it became evident that the
respective plenipotentiaries at Erzeroum could not, even with the assistance of the
commissioners of the mediating Powers, come to any agreement, the represen
tatives of England and Russia at Constantinople drew up and submitted to the Porte
and to the Persian Government a scheme of arrangement in nine articles, and in the
second of these articles it was said, in regard to the matter now more immediately
under discussion, " that the Porte would consent to leave Persia in possession of the
island on which Mohammerah is situated, and of as much of the left bank of the
Shatt-el-Arab as was actually occupied at that time by tribes admitted to be
dependent on Persia, including the free enjoyment of the navigation of the river
from its mouth to the point where the respective frontiers touch each other."
The Shatt-el-Arab, or the Arab River, is the name given to the united waters of
the Tigris and Euphrates between Korna and the
Persian Gulf
The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran.
.
In the observations which I have now to make I leave out all reference to what
passed at Tehran in regard to these articles, inasmuch as the question which is now to
be dealt with is purely a Turkish one.
The Porte at first objected that Mohammerah and the neighbouring districts had
heretofore been Turkish territory, but had been wrongfully seized upon by Persia in
1841. Eventually, however, the Porte agreed to the article respecting Mohammerah,
with the understanding that the concession was not to affect the Porte's right of
property to the river, the course of which was still to belong wholly and exclusively
to the Porte, which only granted freedom of passage to Persian vessels ; and, in order
to secure the Porte's right, it was required that no fortifications should be raised on
any part of the river banks remaining in the possession of Persia.
The commissioners of the mediating Powers having, however, found it
impossible, to bring the respective plenipotentiaries to agree to the terms sent from
Constantinople, drew up a draft of treaty in which they sought, as far as possible, to
reconcile the differences between the two parties. That draft, as regards the point
now in discussion, stipulated that " the Ottoman Government formally engaged that
the town and port of Mohammerah, the island of Khizr, and the anchorage, and
likewise the lands on the east bank, that is, on the left bank of the Sliatt-el-Arab,
which are in the possession of tribes admitted to be dependent on Persia, should
remain in the possession of the Persian Government in full sovereignty. Moreover,
Persian vessels should have the right of freely navigating the Shatt-el-Arab, from its
mouth to the point where the frontiers of the two parties should touch each other."
Eurthermore, " the two contracting parties, having by the present renounced their
other territorial claims, engage immediately to appoint commissioners and engineers,
who may lay down the boundary between the two States, according to the preceding
article."
But before this draft, drawn up by the mediating commissioners, came under
discussion, the Porte alleged that it had just discovered that Mohammerah was
wholly situated on the mainland, and that the town opposite to it on the island of
Khizr bore another name ; and therefore it refused to cede that island.
s
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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- 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