'Military report on Tehran and adjacent Provinces of North-West Persia (including the Caspian Littoral)' [‎12r] (28/610)

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much bitter feeling against the English concessionaries. Her
material prestige had consistently declined since 1890 owing
to her remoteness from Tehran and Northern Persia and her
inability successfully to compete in these regions with Russia,
who in addition to enjoying all the geographical advantages was
employing such aggressive methods that opposition to them
involved danger of armed conflict.
The financial hold established by Russia over the Persian
G-overnment in 1900 by her loan of £2,250,000 to the Shah
followed by a Customs convention secretly concluded with
Russia and published in 1903, 1 which imposed a new tariff scale
favourable to her and prejudicial to Great Britain, dealt it a
virtual cowp de grace.
The situation was viewed by Great Britain with apprehen
sion. *The Persians had proved only too ready to play off the
two powers against each other, to barter away concessions 2 to
each in turn and adopt a suicidal spendthrift policy of taking
loans, mostly from Russia, to which political 2 conditions of in
creasing stringency were attached, designed to increase Russian
hold over the Persian Government and to be prejudicial to
Great Britain, until the existence of Persia as an independent
State was endangered. In 1906, however, a sudden turn of Eventg of 1900
fortune greatly increased British and diminished Russian influ
ence in Tehran. Russia’s greatest successes in Persia had
been achieved while Great Britain had been handicapped by
the South African war, but it was now the turn of Russian
prestige to be shaken by the Russo-Japanese war and by the
internal condition of Russia bordering on revolution. Great
Britain on the other hand had fostered, almost guided the
“ Constitutional movement ” of 1906 in Persia, the success of
which made the English as popular as the Russians were
detested. Russia accordingly became more conciliatory and in
1907 a Convention was concluded between the two powers with 4 n „ lo _;R Usg i an
a view to checking - their menacing antagonism in Asia. Convention of
Afghanistan, Persia and Tibet were included in its scope. In 1907,
Persia, without reference, however, to the Persian Government,
Russian, British and Neutral spheres of influence were defined.
The Russian zone was bounded by a line drawn from Qasr-
i-Shirin through Yazd and Khakh to a point on the Persian
frontier, adjoining the intersection of the Russian and Afghan
frontiers. The British zone was bounded by a line from
1 For this Customs’ convention see page 260. An untoward incident which
occurred at Bushire, when Lord Curzon as Viceroy of India was making a tour
in *the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. in 1903, is generally attributed to Russian intrigue.
* See para. 3 below, pages 15-17.