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‘Memorandum respecting the frontier between Mohammerah and Turkey.’ [21v] (42/82)
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.
3A
of the mission entrusted to him by liis Govern
ment," and that the British and Russian
Representatives should embody tbem in an
" Explanatory Note."
One of these assurances was to the effect that,
beyond the places specifically named in the
treaty, Turkey did not cede in the Mohammerah
district any lands or ports.
Another of the assurances was to the elfect
that Persia could not in any case put forward a
valid claim to lands situated on the right bank of
the Shatt-el-xirab, nor to lands belonging to
Turkey on the left bank of the Shatt-el-Arab,
even if those lands were occupied in whole or in
part by Persian tribes.
The upshot of all this seems to be that the
treaty allotted to Persia such lands on the left
bank of the Shatt-el-Arab as were in possession
of Persian tribes : the Explanatory Note," or
assurances, provided explicitly that the mere fact
of occupation by Persian tribes did not, per ac
propter se, and in the absence of some territorial
right of ownership, confer upon Persia a valid
claim.
There were certain lands, above Mohammerah
and on the left side of the Shatt-el-Arab, which
were cultivated and dwelt upon by Persian tribes;
but Turkey maintained that rent for such lands
was paid to the Government of Bussorah ; and
that they were accordingly Turkish territory.
The British Ptepresentative at Constantinople, Mr. Wellesley
(afterwards Lord
in commenting on the assurances subsequently Cowley), No. 115,
embodied in the "Explanatory Note," asserted, April 2,184/.
in a despatch to Lord Palmerston, that they
were nothing more than a repetition of what was
already in the treaty. "We have" he wrote,
" not specified which is Turkish territory : we
have merely declared that what is Turkish
territory is to remain so; but it will be the
business of the Commission to be appointed
hereafter to settle the exact spot where Turkish
property ends and Persian begins."
(It may be thought that Lord Cowley was
rash in stating that the " Explanatory Note " was
a mere repetition of what was in the treaty:
indeed Sir S. Canning, who had been absent at
the time it was drawn up, was compelled to
admit that the terms of it, taken literally, did
imply a limitation of the treaty which it was
equally difficult to reject on clear grounds of
right, or to admit with any degree of satisfaction ;
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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‘Memorandum respecting the frontier between Mohammerah and Turkey.’ [21v] (42/82), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/PS/18/B380, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100024051501.0x00002b> [accessed 23 April 2024]
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Copyright: How to use this content
- 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