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Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Question by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [98r] (202/1814)
The record is made up of 2 volumes with inserts (898 folios). It was created in 1892-1924. It was written in English, Urdu and German. 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.
FROM LONDON TO ASHKABAD
63
at Batum. They are being advanced with a strenuousness and a
purpose that sufficiently indicate the value set by Russia upon this
maritime key to her Caucasian base. Five large forts—some of
Russian them not yet completed—command the shore line, and
military are already mounted with over twenty guns of heavy
sitions calibre. The principal battery, in the centre of the town,
immediately overlooking the harbour, contains twelve guns of, it
is said, from eighteen to twenty-two tons each. All strangers, and
even Russian civilians, are strictly excluded from its precincts.
Practice was proceeding, on the day that I left, at canvas targets
moored out at sea. Higher up on the side or summits of the first
range of hills behind the harbour, four other batteries are being,
or have been constructed, armed, for the most part, with mortars.
The permanent garrison-of Batum is three battalions, kept at their
mobilized strength of 1,000 men each. At the time of my visit
four other infantry battalions were in the immediate neighbourhood,
engaged in constructing a military road into the interior up a
valley where it will be masked from marine attack by the inter
vening hills. These details will show that Russia is keenly alive
to the importance of her new accpiisition 5 and that, should a naval
armament ever steam up from the Bosphorus with hostile intent,
she is not likely to be caught napping at Batum. An interesting
commentarv is thus afforded upon the complacent puerilities about
Batum that were the commonplaces of a certain class of English
politicians at the time of the Berlin Congress in 1878.
Nothing can exceed the beauty of the line of railroad from
Batum to Tiflis. Leaving Batum on the south, it describes a
Railway semicircle round the town on the outside, and follows the
from coast on the north for a distance of thirty miles in the
Batum to . • i t ^ n
Tiflis direction of Poti before it plunges inland into the valley
of the Rion, that ancient waterway of the Phasis, up which sped the
adventurous keel of the : Argo. The vegetation is almost tropical
- in its luxuriance ; maize is planted everywhere in the low lands ;
and the hills are wrapped from foot to crown in a sumptuous forest
mantle. At every station, where are sidings, long lines of tank-
cars stored with oil crawl by like an army of gigantic armour-
plated caterpillars, and disappear down the stretch of rails just
vacated. Each portentous insect is laden with a wealth to which
that of the Golden Fleece was nothing, and which attracts to the
Phasis many a modern ‘ Argo’ that would have stiuck Jason with
About this item
- Content
These two volumes are George Curzon's own personal annotated copies of both volumes of his book Persia and the Persian Question , which was published in 1892. Alongside the volumes are various loose papers relating to Persia [Iran], consisting of the following: received correspondence; newspaper cuttings; publishers' press releases; cuttings from various booksellers' catalogues; various journal and magazine articles; two items of printed official British correspondence; several prints of photographs and sketches; and a few handwritten notes by Curzon.
In most cases these papers, which range in date from 1892 to 1924, relate to the chapters in the book where they were originally inserted, suggesting that they were kept by Curzon with the intention of using them to inform a revised edition of the book.
Of particular note among the small amount of correspondence are two letters received by Curzon in 1914 and 1915 from retired schoolmaster and Islamic scholar Sayyid Mazhar Hasan Musawi of Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India (ff 5-9 and ff 44-53). These letters, which are written in Urdu and are accompanied by English translations, discuss in detail several inaccuracies found in the Urdu version of Persia and the Persian Question .
The various prints of photographs and sketches, which were originally inserted into volume two, are of different locations in the Gulf region. Several of these appear to have been produced in preparation for the publication of the second volume of John Gordon Lorimer's Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. , Oman and Central Arabia (i.e. the 'Geographical and Statistical' section) in 1908, as they are identical to the versions found in that volume.
Also of note among the loose papers are an illustrated article from Country Life dated 5 June 1920, entitled 'The People of Persia' (ff 36-37), and a printed family tree of the Shah of Persia [Aḥmad Shah Qājār], produced in preparation of his visit to Britain in 1919 (f 233).
Volume one of Persia and the Persian Question contains a map of Persia, Afghanistan and Beluchistan [Balochistan], which is folded inside the front cover (f 1).
The German language material consists of a publisher's press release for two books authored by German archaeologist Ernst Emil Herzfeld (ff 29-30).
- Extent and format
- 2 volumes with inserts (898 folios)
- Physical characteristics
Foliation: this shelfmark consists of two physical volumes. The foliation sequence commences at the first folio of volume one (1-463), and terminates at the last folio of volume two (ff 464-898); 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. Each volume contains a large number of loose leaves, which have been foliated in the order that they were inserted into the volume; for conservation reasons, these loose folios have been removed from the volume and stored separately. The foliation sequence does not include the front and back covers of the two volumes.
Pagination: the file also contains an original printed pagination sequence.
- Written in
- English, Urdu and German in Latin and Arabic script View the complete information for this record
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Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Question by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [98r] (202/1814), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F111/33, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100157213843.0x000009> [accessed 5 April 2025]
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- Reference
- Mss Eur F111/33
- Title
- Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Questionby George Curzon, with Inserted Papers
- Pages
- 54r:135v, 147r:149v, 158r:180v, 183r:221v, 224r:224v, 227r:246v, 248r:257v, 259r:260v, 268r:362v, 364r:364v, 367r:388v, 390r:400v, 402r:416v, 419r:432v, 434r:444v, 448r:462v, 464r:471v, 475r:481v, 483r:513v, 516r:525v, 527r:544v, 546r:563v, 566r:598v, 600r:622v, 624r:656v, 658r:665v, 667r:675v, 678r:684v, 687r:688v, 691r:691v, 693r:693v, 695r:708v, 711r:721v, 724r:726v, 728r:729v, 731r:736v, 742r:742v, 746r:757v, 759r:761v, 763r:763v, 765r:765v, 772r:777v, 780r:789v, 793r:794v, 797r:809v, 811r:821v, 825r:840v, 843r:898v
- Author
- Curzon, George Nathaniel, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston
- Usage terms
- Public Domain