'Military report on Tehran and adjacent Provinces of North-West Persia (including the Caspian Littoral)' [‎29r] (62/610)

45
fomn R a ’ad, a paper conducted by a very able young journalist,
ient ' Saiyid Zia-ud-Din, contributed to its downfall, and it resigned
i-ul-Iui office on April 25tb.
ised, aii After some hesitation the Shah sent for Samsam-us-Sultaneh, Anti-ally
advance! who formed, in the beginning of May, a somewhat colourless g^h^-us-
inister oi Cabinet wanting in men of tried experience in either foreign Sultaneh, May
foe AIM or domestic affairs. It adopted a policy little different from ~ August ms,
[arch, 4 that of its predecessor, and alienated the sympathy and support
i Gov® which the British Government had expected that the Premier,
e Pei® a senior Khan of the Bakthxari tribes, would have deserved
ited ft® from them.
intent® The new Cabinet was venal and inept in its appointments,
save in the selection of Quvvam-us-Sultaneh as Governor
General of Khorasan, and showed the same incapacity as
1 its predecessor in the affairs of state. Indeed it was not looked
ere U on, by friends or opponents, as more than a stopgap, whilst
18 8031 . Persia, with the world at large, waited on the outcome of the
great struggle in France.
in many 4th Asad (July 27th), of a decree denouncing all 1 treaties con-
, dU A-j eluded with Russia, and all concessions granted to Russian
aC a son! subjects, within the last hundred years, on the ground that they
' 4 e { e j had been brought about by force and fraud, and moreover that
the Russian Government had abrogated all treaties with Persia.
A further decree appointed a committee to take the measures
necessary to abolish the Foreign Office Tribunal in Tehran,
|nnityo“; an d the Karguzar Courts in the provinces, in which suits
ditoi ' between foreign and Persian subjects had hitherto been tried.
The allied representatives promptly lodged notes declining
v 1 Lit; CtlllCUL \ VXJ v^v/vzxxxxxxx^
th eX ' to recognise the legality of these decrees.
It is well to take up, at this point, the trend of the many
ment, under the guidance of these feeble Cabinets, had been
little more than an unwilling spectator.
The war exposed the Armenian communities of the Van Events in Van
region, and the Assyrian, Chaldean or Nestorian, Christians of and Uriim 6 *
1 This involved also the cancellation of treaties with other foreign powers
as the basis of them is the treaty of Turkomanchal of 1828, see para. 1 above,
page 3.