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‘Memorandum respecting the frontier between Mohammerah and Turkey.’ [20v] (40/82)
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.
32
basis of all subsequent discussions, and Lord Crewe
sees no reason for going behind it, or for permitting
the Turks to go behind it, to an earlier map, which their
own ill-judged action had caused to be superseded. It
might further be pointed out to the Turkish Govern
ment, if necessary, that by their rejection of the line
proposed in 1850 they have allowed a situation to grow
for sixty years in which mid-channel has, without
challenge, been accepted by local usage as the
boundary, and that this is consequently the status quo
on the observance of which His Majesty's Government
must insist.
As regards the approaches to the Shatt-el-Arab, as
distinct from the channel, there may be presumed to
be no question but that Turkish and Persian rights
are regulated by general considerations of international
law, instead of exceptional treaty stipulations. {Subject,
therefore, to any observations of Secretary Sir E. Grey,
Lord Crewe does not consider that, as between Turkey
and Persia, the case presents any special difficulty. . . .*
With the last paragraph of the above extract
this memorandum is not primarily concerned.
I propose to deal firstly with the question of
the point where the boundary should leave the
river, and secondly with the question of whether,
while following the course of the river, it should
be traced in mid-channel or on the Persian
hank.
It will be noticed that 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.
admits,
in the above letter, that it is somewhat incon
venient that Turkey is in possession of a copy of
the map of 1850, and also that Great Britain and
Prussia urged her to accept the Mediating Com
missioners' line. But the arguments advanced
are, first, that the Mediating Commissioners' line
of 1850 was cancelled and superseded by thecom-
municaiion made some twenty years or so later
that the boundary would be found somewhere
within the limits of a certain zone about
40 miles in width ; and, second, that His Majesty's
Government might, if necessary, point out to
Turkey that a different boundary to that pro
posed in 1850 had, as a matter of fact, been
locally observed without challenge for sixty years-,
and that this consequently is the status quo on
the observance of which His Majesty's Govern
ment must now insist.
* 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 was written before the proposal
for a i eference of the Turco-Persian frontier dispute to The
Hague Tribunal had been finally adopted. My memorandum
refers to the questions involved not so much from the point of
diplomatic negotiation as from what seems likely to be the
purely legal standpoint.—A. P
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.’ [20v] (40/82), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/PS/18/B380, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100024051501.0x000029> [accessed 18 December 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