Herat problem in the reign of Mohammad Shah Qajar

Asghari, Taghi (2017) Herat problem in the reign of Mohammad Shah Qajar. Masters thesis, University of Mohaghegh Ardabili.

Preview

Text (مسئلۀ هرات در دوره محمد شاه قاجار) Taghi Asghari.pdf Download (519kB) | Preview

Abstract

The reign of Mohammad Shah Qajar began in conditions during which the inheritance of his father, Fath-ali Shah Qajar, was faced with a lot of economic and political problems. The early years of Mohammad Shah's reign were spent in his confrontation with the internal uprisings and his suppression of the princes who were claimants to the throne. Although he managed to overcome all his claimant rivals with the ability of his sage vizier, Mirza Abul-Qasem Farahani, and the help of English and Russian ambassadors and, to some extent, consolidated the shaky foundations of his kingship, the murder of Qaem-maqam Farahani made the political atmosphere of the country, once again, the battlefield of Russia and England and this prepared the necessary grounds to intensify the turmoil in the central and frontier provinces. This was the time that the tribal chiefs of Khorasan rose in revolt, and Kamran Mirza, the governor of Herat, sought political independence and adding Sistan to his own territory. The outbreak of the turmoil made Mohammad Shah lead a military expedition to Khorasan and conquered Herat in order to restore security to Khorasan, to put an end to Kamran Mirza's greed for power, and to restrain England from organizing conspiracies in other provinces such as Kabul and Kandahar. Following these actions, the governments of Russia and England, for some reasons such as protecting their own interests in the region, acted contradictory. Russia performed a supporting and encouraging role in Iran's attack to Herat while England played an opposing and prohibiting role.Eventually, because of many reasons such as England's ambassador's obstruction in Iran, the occurrence of some tribal disagreements in Iran's troops, England's financial and military support for the defenders of Herat, lack of a single and decisive command as the head of the troops, ignoring Iran's economic and financial problems on the verge of the military expedition to Herat, the presence of England's spies in the troops and informing the defenders of Herat of Iran's battle plans and the amount of Iran's military equipment, ignoring England's warnings and having excessive trust to the treaties signed between the two countries, etc., the siege of Herat took so much time, and finally, the attack of English naval to the south of Iran and the invasion of Khark island resulted in the withdrawal of Mohammad Shah Qajar from Herat and his yielding to all the demands of England. Then, to prevent Iran's renewed attacks to Herat, England took some preventive actions, which resulted in the final years of Mohammad Shah being spent on suppressing the riots like Fetneh-Salar in Khorasan, the insurrection of Lutian in Isfahan, the insurrection of Aqa Khan Mahallati in Kerman, Babiyeh's sedition in Shiraz, and the settlement of the boundary disputes with the Ottoman Empire. Therefore, a secondary chance to restore the sovereignty of Herat did not occur for Iran, and finally this region completely separated from Iran in the age of Naseeruddin Shah.

Actions (login required)

View Item