!['Seistan' [‎386r] (773/782)](https://iiif.qdl.qa/iiif/images/81055/vdc_100000001452.0x0003bc/Mss Eur F111_352_0797.jp2/full/!1200,1200/0/default.jpg "'Seistan' [‎386r] (773/782)")
The record is made up of 1 file (388 folios). It was created in 17 Jan 1899-4 Apr 1904. It was written in English. 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.
MINUTE BY HIS EXCELLENCY THE VICEROY ON RUSSIAN
AMBITIONS IN EASTERN PERSIA.
It may be safely assumed that the great activity now being shown by the
Russian Government and by Russian agents in the direction of Khorasan,
Seistan, Sarhad, and Eastern Persia in general, arises, partly from alarm at the
success that is attending the Indian Trade-route to Seistan and the marked
revival of British interest in that part of the Indian frontier, still more from a
desire, while Great Britain is otherwise engaged, to accelerate that solution of
the Central Asian question to which, ever since the apocryphal will of Peter
the Great, Russian ambitions have been fondly turned, viz., the absorption of
Persia, the connection of Russian territories by railway with the Indian Ocean,
and the acquisition of a fortified naval base in the
Persian Gulf
The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran.
. I propose
to examine how far the realisation of these ambitions would be injurious to
British interests; a conclusion upon which point is a necessary preliminary to
the decision how far they should either be tacitly acquiesced in or openly opposed.
2. The argument that Russia can safely be permitted to secure a
maritime outlet for herself in the
Persian Gulf
The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran.
, and that it is desirable that
Great Britain should assist, or at least not withstand, her in that consummation
rests upon a fundamental confusion of ideas. Those who employ it fail
altogether to discriminate between commercial pleas and political ambitions.
It may be urged that, whereas Russian manufactures, in their attempt to
gain access to Eastern markets, are at present compelled to make the long
and circuitous journey by the Black Sea, the Mediterranean, the Suez Canal,
and the Red Sea, before they can reach the Indian Ocean, it would be an
advantage could they be transported by rail-roads either from the Caucasus,
or from the Caspian, to the
Persian Gulf
The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran.
; although the apparent value of such
a gain would probably be a good deal discounted in practice by the com
paratively limited trade of Russia (which, however, may admit of a considerable
development in the future), still more by the superior cost of land carriage over
sea carriage. In so far as these are the ambitions of Russia, it is not probable
that any one would seriously resist their satisfaction. They can be accomplished—
provided the money be forthcoming—by amicable arrangements with Persia and
with Great Britain. I am not myself a believer in the paying capacities of a trans-
Persian line for many years to come. The country itself is poor, and cannot furnish
either the capital or the traffic. Were the line, however, an open line, it might
conceivably attract the Russian trade from one end, and the Indian trade
from the other, which would enable it to subsist. It is also conceivable that
capitalists might be willing to come forward and construct it—though were I
a capitalist I should not be found among their number—and arrangements
might be made by which, while the line remained Persian property, the con
struction and maintenance of the northern portion might be entrusted to
Russia, and those of the southern portion to Great Britain, a joint guarantee
of the three Governments being applied to the whole. This railway might
terminate on the Gulf in a Persian Port, open to the commerce of all nations, but
subject to the Import and Export dues prescribed by the Persian tariff. I
should myself regard such a venture as premature and as speculative in the
highest degree; but I do not see anything in it that need necessarily arouse
political jealousy or international complications.
3. This however, though the sentimental advocates of handing over
Persia to Russian influence do not as a rule see it, is not in the least what Russia
wants. What she desires is a railway built exclusively by Russian capital,
managed and officered entirely by Russian agents, constructed not for com
mercial but for political and strategical objects, and terminating in a Russian,
About this item
- Content
The file contains papers relating to Seistan [Sistan] and Persia [Iran].
The file includes printed copies of despatches from the Agent to the Governor-General of India and HM Consul-General for Khorasan and Seistan (Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Martindale Temple), to the Secretary to the Government of India Foreign Department, with enclosed despatches from Captain Percy Molesworth Sykes to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (the Marquis of Salisbury). Skyes’s despatches regard matters including: Seistan; trade routes into South-East Persia; the boundary between Persia and Afghanistan, in relation to the River Helmund [Helmand] changing its course (in despatch No. 5, which includes four sketch maps, folios 12, 13, 14 and 15); Sykes’s journey to Birjand (in despatch No. 7, which includes a sketch map on folio 20); the ruling family of Kain, which also governed Seistan, Tabbas and Tun; Sykes’s journey from Seistan to Kerman [Kirman] (in despatch No. 11, which includes a sketch map); and the direct Kerman-Quetta caravan trade that Sykes was trying to establish.
The file also includes copies of the following papers:
- A despatch from Temple to the Secretary to the Government of India Foreign Department, enclosing a letter from Temple to Sir Henry Mortimer Durand (HM Minister, Tehran), with copies of enclosures, regarding the establishment of a Seistan and Kain consulate
- A letter from Charles Edward Pitman, Director General of Telegraphs, to the Secretary to the Government of India Public Works Department, enclosing a copy of a ‘Report on the Preliminary Survey of the Route for a Telegraph Line from Quetta to the Persian Frontier’ by H A Armstrong, Assistant Superintendent, Indian Telegraph Department, which includes six photographs of views along the route [Mss Eur F111/352, f 52; Mss Eur F111/352, f 53; Mss Eur F111/352, f 54; Mss Eur F111/352, f 55; Mss Eur F111/352, f 56; and Mss Eur F111/352, f 57], and a map showing the proposed route of the telegraph line [Mss Eur F111/352, f 59]
- Letters from Hugh Shakespear Barnes, Agent to the Governor-General in Baluchistan, to the Secretary to the Government of India Foreign Department, enclosing copies of the diary of the Political Assistant, Chagai, for the weeks ending 16 February, 28 February, and 8 March 1900
- Diary No. 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11 and 12 of Major-General George Frederick Chenevix-Trench, HM Consul for Seistan (Diary No. 6 includes a sketch map, folio 86)
- A copy of a ‘Report on Reconnaissances Made while Attached to the Seistan Arbitration Commission’ by W A Johns, Deputy Consulting Engineer for Railways, Bombay
- A copy of the report ‘Notes on Persian Seistan’, compiled by Captain Edward Abadie Plunkett, and issued by the Government of India Intelligence Branch, Quarter-Master General’s Department
- Two copies of map signed by Plunkett titled ‘Persian Seistan-Cultivated Area’ [Mss Eur F111/352, f 270]
- A booklet entitled ‘Notes on the Leading Notables, Officials, Merchants, and Clergy of Khorasan, Seistan, Kain, and Kerman.’
- Printed copies of letters from the Government of India Foreign Department to the Secretary of State for India (Lord George Francis Hamilton), relating to the maintenance of British interests in Persia, dated 4 September 1899 and 7 November 1901 (the former with an enclosure of a minute by the Viceroy on Seistan).
- Extent and format
- 1 file (388 folios)
- Arrangement
The papers are arranged in approximate chronological order from the front to the rear of the file.
- Physical characteristics
Foliation: the foliation sequence (used for referencing) commences at the front cover with 1, and terminates at the inside back cover with 390; 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. The file contains one foliation anomaly, f 301A
- Written in
- English in Latin script View the complete information for this record
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'Seistan' [386r] (773/782), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F111/352, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100069721606.0x0000b0> [accessed 27 June 2026]
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Copyright: How to use this content
- Reference
- Mss Eur F111/352
- Title
- 'Seistan'
- Pages
- front, front-i, 2r:51v, 58r:58v, 60r:112r, 113r:125v, 147r:218r, 218r, 219r:269v, 271r:301v, 301Ar, 301Av, 302r:388v, 389v:390r, 389r, back
- Author
- East India Company, the Board of Control, the India Office, or other British Government Department
- Usage terms
- Open Government Licence