File 3852/1912 Pt 2 'Persia. Conditions in South Persia. German Documents' [‎235r] (101/280)

for their own proteges. The commander of the Russian troops
thereupon ordered the Persian National Sanctuary 1 ) to be
bombarded, whereby many innocent people and pilgrims were
killed and wounded.
The notorious chief of a band, Shuja-ed-Dowleh had with
Russian help arbitrarily appointed himself Governor of the
t^n and excercised a reign of terror for miles around for
years which stifled every movement towards freedom 2 ). It
was owing to him and Russian arbitrariness that Khorassan
and principally Azerbaijan, the richest province of Persia,
did not contribute a single penny in 1911/12 towards the re
quirements of the Central Government. When the Cabinet sent
the Sipahdar as Governor of Azerbaijan to Tabriz, Shuja-
ed-Dowleh forced prominent citizens to put their names to
declarations of sympathy for himself which he did not, as might
have been presumed, forward to his own government but to
the Russian foreign minister, to the Viceroy of the Caucasus,
to the Russian minister at Teheran and to the French consul 3 ).
Only when the Persian Government conceded the increase
of the Cossack-Brigade, which Persia had to finance and which
never had fought for Persian but for Russian interests alone,
Russia exercised pressure on Shuja-ed-Dowleh in favour
of the governor nominated by the Persian Government 4 ).
Since 1912 Persia obtained fresh funds from the only lenders
to whom it was allowed to apply only at a rate of 7 %. Owing
to the muddle to which the Teheran Government had been
forced, things came to such a pass that recourse was had every
few weeks to relatively small sums, which were subsequently
to be wiped out by a larger loan, the price of which rose, however,
1 ) Lord Curzon devotes no less than 7 pages to the description of this
shrine in his work “Persia” (II page 154 and onwards).
2 ) How many executions this obedient adept of Russia has on his
conscience it would be difficult to ascertain. His bloodthirstiness w T ent too
far even for the rather “biases” English consuls at Tabriz. When Shuja
ed-Dowleh in September 1913 again held orgies of executions of completely
innocent subjects, the English consul wrote: “A painful impression is
created among the European colony here by such executions.” English
Blue Books Persia No. 1 (1914) No. 313.
3 ) English Blue Books Persia No. 1 (1913) No. 239.
*) English Blue Books Persia No. 1 (1913) No. 236