'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎593] (684/748)

BRITISH AND RUSSIAN POLICY IN PERSIA
693
of Meshed within three weeks of the commencement of hos
tilities.
It cannot be denied, therefore, that the military position of
Russia along the entire northern frontier of Persia from the Aras
s. iopsis r ^ e J en ^ one overwhelming superiority; she
of Russian overlaps 1,000 miles of border, at every point of which
position g | ie -g j n a con( }ition to threaten and to sustain her
threats by armed force. From her military stations at Tiflis and
Erivan she can easily overrun Azerbaijan. Her command of the
Caspian enables her to dictate to the capital. Her new railway
in Transcaspia, which, to a weaker power than herself would be a
source of danger from a stronger power than Persia, enables her
to do exactly what she pleases with Khorasan. The only Persian
troops of any value in the capital are the so-called Cossack
regiments, under Russian officers; and in the event of political
convulsion it is doubtful whether they would not prefer the
country of their uniform to the country of their birth. Whenever
Russia desires to enforce with peculiar emphasis some diplomatic
demand at Teheran, a mere enumeration of the Russian garrisons
within a few hundred miles of the Persian capital is enough to
set the Council of Ministers quaking, and to make the sovereign
himself think twice. When the Shah came to Europe in 1889
a similar policy was pursued. I asked a Persian Minister what
had struck him most in England, and what most in Europe. 4 The
number of the industrial population in the great towns of the
interior,' was his reply to the first question ; and ' the number of
soldiers in Russia/ to the second. Soldiers were displayed every
where—along the railway, at the stations, and in the streets—and
the Persians came away with the idea that along with the country
of Medea the Czar has inherited her secret of the dragon's teeth,
and can sow inexhaustible crops of armed men.
What, then, are the designs which this commanding position,
and the power of bullying that it confers, are being utilised to
Aggressive promote? There is no concealment either as to their
designs character or their scope. Russia regards Persia as a
power that may temporarily be tolerated, that may even require
sometimes to be humoured or caressed, but that in the long run
is irretrievably doomed. She regards the future partition of Persia
as a prospect scarcely less certain of fulfilment than the achieved
partition of Poland ; and she has already clearly made up her own
VOL. II. q q