File 3852/1912 Pt 2 'Persia. Conditions in South Persia. German Documents' [‎242r] (115/280)

requires money. Already on December 25 th , 1915, Sir Walter
Townley, confident of victory, telegraphed to Sir E. Grey:
“Want of money may compel the Persian Government to
sign the railway concessions any day.“ When no cabinet could
be found to take upon itself this new squandering of Persian
rights, Saad-ed-Dowleh, whom the hatred of the people had
'Jriven out of the country together with the Ex-Shah, was
recalled from exile to Teheran on the suggestion of Grey as a
most pliable tool. But the Regent Nasr-ul-Mulk, — he was
a friend of Grey’s although not as unscrupulous as he, — refused
to recognise a cabinet formed by Saad-ed-Dowleh. Russia
by an advance of funds precipitately granted, obtained the
Julfa-Tabriz railway concession; English appetite was only
half appeased by the option on the Mohammerah-Khoremabad
railway line which had been extorted with difficulty.
The circular runs as fallows:
Very Confidential.
Circular Nr. 2. Gulhek, June 26. 1914.
Ref. my Confdl. Circular of March 23.
’’With the approach of the date of the Coronation the
situation in the capital is very obscure. The Govt: is in sore
financial difficulty and it is not apparent from what source money
can be found. H. M. G. appears indisposed to give any assistance
and the P. G. will not seek the help of Russia, because it is
feared that assistance rendered from that quarter would be
accompanied by demands for certain concessions, notably
those of the navigation of Lake Urumia, the rectification of the
Russo—Persian frontier in the neighbourhood of the Moghan
Steppes, together with certain irrigation works and a land
concession, and the Karkunan irrigation scheme for diverting
the waters of the Karun from a source near the Kuh-i-Rang
into the Isfahan Plain.
The Cabinet is very disunited on the various questions,
but more especially upon the method that should be adopted
to protest against Russian action in the Province of Azerbaijan,
where the G. G. !) under Russian protection, has made himself 9
9 Governor General.