'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎416] (471/714)

416
PERSIA
I now turn to the best-known Ron of the Shah, Sultan Masud
Mirza (Prince Felicitous), more commonly known bv the title of
The Zil-es- the Zil-es-Sultan, or Shadow of the King—a misnomer
Sultan • n this case, seeing that he is very nearly double his
father's size. Three years older than the Crown Prince, having
been born in 1850, he is yet disqualified from the succession to
the throne by reason of his plebeian origin on the maternal side,
of which I have previously spoken. Though not destined to rule
as sovereign, this prince has, from youth upwards, been allowed to
ape the part, and to wield the functions, of sovereignty with a
freedom that could not fail to encourage extravagant pretensions,
and that ultimately led to his downfall. At a very early age he
was made Governor of Isfahan, and afterwards of Shiraz. As the
years passed by. he grew in favour and authority. His stem and
savage rule, which effectually repressed disorder and brigandage
in the provinces under his control, and the punctuality of his
remittances of revenue to Teheran, caused him to be regarded
with peculiar gratification at Court. Province after province was
added to his dominions, until Fars. Isfahan, Kurdistan, Luristan,
Arabistan, and Yezd were all subject to his sway. 1 It was calcu
lated that, prior to his fall, 250.000 square miles, or two-fifths of
the whole of Persia, were beneath his rule. Simultaneously, he
collected and controlled a great army at Isfahan, for which he
adopted Prussian uniforms and piclcelhaube helmets—a dress in
which he was very fond of being photographed himself, in full
general's uniform. In 1886 the troops under his command
amounted (I give the actual, not the nominal, figures) to twenty-
four regiments of infantry, containing 15,800 men, with 6,000
breech-loading rifles, 10 batteries of artillery, and 8 regiments of
irregular cavalry, or a total of nearly 21,000 men and 7,000
horses. Residing, as Governor, at Isfahan, he was constantly in
terviewed by English travellers, to whom he invariably professed
the most liberal and Anglophile sentiments. The severity of his
administration, by which the turbulent tribesmen of the western
provinces were kept in fair order, and his manly bearing, created
1 The provinces or districts of which he was actually the governor in 1886 were
Gulpaigan and Khonsar, Joshagan, Irak, Isfahan, Fars, Yezd, Arabistan, Luristan,
Kurdistan, Kangavar, Nihavend, Kamareh, Burujird, Kermanshah, Asadabad,
Kezzaz. Their revenue amounted in the same year (reckoning three tomans 10,000 Persian dinars, or a gold coin of that value. as
\l., according to the then rate of exchange) to 599,400Z. in cash, and 73,800/. in
grain, or a total of 673,200/.