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‘Memorandum respecting the frontier between Mohammerah and Turkey.’ [29v] (58/82)
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.
believed, interfere, provided you had acted in accordance with our advice ; and our fleet, which
is the strongest of any in the Gnlf, would be employed to prevent any forcible measures against
you. I stated, however, that 1 would refer these questions to the Foreign Minister of the British
Government, and he has now authorised me to sny that Ave shall protect Mohammerah against
naval attack by a foreign Power, whatever pretext for such action may be alleged, and also, so
long as you remain faithful to the Shah and act in accordance with our advice, «hall continue to
give you our good offices and support.
As I have, however, said above, I do not regard the danger—at any rate, at present—as a
real one.
The Persian Government desires, I am sure, as earnestly as you do, the preservation of pence
in Arabistan, and the establishment of a custom-house at Mohammerah is, as I assured you last
year, a fiscal, not a political, measure. It has already informed me in a friendly spirit of the
conditions under which the new arrangement has been made, and the British Government has
instructed me to intimate its acquiescence in them. We reserve, of course, our right to object to
any further change which we may consider likely, as affecting peace and trade on the Karon, to
be detrimental to our interests.
1 trust that the new an-angement may work smoothly. There will be very likely some small
difficulties and friction at first, but I trust to your wisdom and judgment to deal with them
prudently and patiently.
Our consul has my orders to afford you all help and advice, and you may place every reliance
on my friendship. You can write to me freely should you wish to do so, as well as to the
Resident at Bushire.
Arthur H. Hardixge.
The assurances given in the foregoing letter A\ere confirmed in a further note
from Sir A. Hardinge to the sheikh, dated the 21rd December, 1903. The iollowing
is the text of this note :—
Sir A. Hard in ge to the Sheikh of Mohammerah.
(After compliments.)
Your Excellency, Bagdad, December 24, 1903.
I have received a telegram in reply to the one to His Majesty's Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs from Mohammerah, after my first interview with your Excellency.
Lord Lansdowne says that if, as he presumes is the case from my account of your
Excellency's statement to me, the Persian Government is really attempting to repudiate the
arrangement made with you last year, I am authorised to say that you are, in his opinion,
justified in opposing such attempt. He instructs me to remind you of the message which he
sent you last year, and to add that you may rest assured of the support of the British
Government so long as you on your side observe the conditions of the arrangement made
between the Persian Government and yourself. He has authorised me to point out to that
Government the necessity for respecting the conditions of the arrangement on their side. I
do not propose to do so until 1 hear further from you, as I think it will bo better in the
interests of good relations between the Persian authorities and yourself that our intervention
should not be invoked until all other means of adjusting matters directly between them and
you have been exhausted. Meanwhile, I should be obliged if you would send me to
Tehran, through His Majesty's resident at Bushire, a copy of the note from M. Naus,
promising not to take duty on your personal imports, and any further intormatiou on the
subject.
I have, etc.
Arthur H. Hardinge.
On the 1st December, 1908, Major Cox, consul-general at Bushire and British
resident in the
Persian Gulf
The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran.
, in pursuance of instructions received from Tehran,
addressed a note to the sheikh repeating the assurances previously given in 1902
bv Sir A. llardinsre and extending them to the sheikh's successors. This note was
v kJ <D
thus worded:—
Consul-General Cox to the Sheikh of Mohammerah.
(After compliments.) December 1, 1008.
After enquiry after your welfare and congratulations on the satisfactory conclusion of your
business with the Arab tribes, I have the honour to inform you that I duly communicated
to Government all that passed at the interview which I and our friend Mr. McDouall had with
your Excellency on the 7th January last, and also placed before them the statement of Govern
ment expenditure subsequently received from you through Mr, McDouall. The reply of His
Majesty's Government reached me through His Majesty's Legation in September last, but, in
view of the importance of the subject and the insecurity of the post, 1 thought it best to delay
addressing you until my return to head-quarters
On arrival here I learnt of your own absence in Arabistan, and have since waited for your
return to Failieh.
I am directed to repeat, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, the assurances given to
your Excellency in the letter of His Majesty's Minister, Sir Arthur Hardinge, dated the 7th
December, 1902, which is in your possession, and the terms of which I repeated to you at our
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